The Love of Money...

Money is the root of all evil, right? Well, you can believe that, but if you say it, don't think you are accurately quoting the original phrase. It varies depending on the Bible translation, of course (what? the Bible isn't just one version???) but it pretty much goes like this: "for the love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Timothy 6:10 if you don't believe me). Kind of different. In a great, big, way. Money isn't good or evil. Heck money doesn't even exist. Don't believe me? How much is a dollar bill worth? One dollar? Sez who? You? Your neighbor? The gummint? What if tomorrow they all say something different? Fact is, a dollar is worth a dollar because - and ONLY because - everybody agrees that it's worth a dollar. Money doesn't exist, at least not physically. It isn't a "thing." It surely isn't little pieces of metal or crinkly pieces of paper or electronic notations you see on your computer screen when you check your bank account. Money is all in your mind. It's all in eveyone's minds. But I digress...

The love of money, however, can be a real problem, as Tim pointed out 2000 years ago. If you scramble and dig and scrape for the old do-re-mi, and you get lots of it just because you wanted it, odds are the only thing you'll want to do is get more. Blah, who needs that? Not that having enough money to pay the bills is a bad thing, it most emphatically is not! There's nothing noble about being poor, just as there's nothing ignoble about being wealthy (right, John Edwards? Al Gore? Hillary? Teddy?). "I've been rich and I've been poor, and believe me, rich is better." Quick, who said that - Sophie Tucker, Mae West or Gertrude Stein? Well, according to various quote sources, all of them...

Simple statements sometimes contain complex truths, as I think this quote, properly rendered, does. Simple statements can also be stupid and pointless. You pays your many and you takes your chance.