So I did something yesterday for the first time in my life. I bought stocks on the stock market! I was quite excited by it, it made me feel grown-up and important and a getting my life together feeling. I am now an investor, I told myself, I own stocks. Two phrases which when I heard them when I was younger had a mysterious magical feeling to them, they belonged to a far away grown up world of money and business and running around talking on phones and mysteriously making money doing nothing really. The stock market is a bit like that, it’s pure abstract energy, money in its most purest form, nothing, a concept of trade and exchange and by buying stocks and selling them I am playing with this energy.
I am coming to see the more sinister side of it also though, because it is so abstract we forget we are playing with people’s lives and businesses and some of the stuff I have read while I was researching how to do all this and what stocks to buy and all that reflect this attitude. Make money from the recession!!! While everyone else is in dire poverty you can make $$$$$$$ I can actually see how maybe a group of people with lots and lots of money could play with the market and push it this way and that. Of course I can also see how the reason they could do that is because the market place as a whole lives in fear and will respond with panic at the sign of imminent losses, get out quick before everyone else does.
Also made me think about my own ethics; what companies did I want to give my money (and support) to? How did I want to make my money? I have never thought about this before except in the most vaguest and idealistic form. If I could make ten thousand dollars tomorrow but it meant endorsing a company I didn’t like and didn’t agree with would I do it?
Its like the eternal dilemma every hero faces in his/her quest for the golden grail/ princess/kingdom. Or the old fairy stories where there is three sons head out to fulfill a quest. The mother always asks them before they leave “Do you want the whole loaf and no blessing or half the loaf and my blessing?”
The first and second sons say the whole loaf of course, it’s a long journey, we will need the food but then they come to a test of character and fail. The third son says half the loaf and your blessing and then he meets a hungry person along the way and gives the bread to him and receives valuable advice as how to pass the test.
The first two sons do not trust the journey, they don’t realize they will be looked after and they guard their possessions from fear. The third son is the fool, the eternal hopeful, the trusting one who lives from an open heart and is taken care of, who ends up getting the princess, the kingdom and rescuing his two older brothers along the way.
I thought there for a second as to which I would say or do and it just occurred to me that none of the three ask their mother could they have both. The whole loaf and the blessing, we can have it all if we ask for it. So I ask for the whole loaf please and the blessing that I deserve it and I would like to make some money so I can create my space in life. I will stay away from the companies I don’t like and trust the journey.
How do I want my space? Tune in next chapter in this ongoing saga of life!! X
