The Value Trade - Part 2: There's No Difference Between £30,000 and £200,000

As time goes by, one begins to notice that a lot of so-called unpopular opinions are really micro emotional entertainments in disguise:

• Social media has made life worse, not better

• Religion is a control mechanism

• Popular thing (Breaking Bad) is actually bad

• Thing considered second best is actually first best

• Having kids isn’t for everyone

• Bacon and pizza are overrated

..and other asinine fillers people like to cockily force out of their gobs as if they’ve announced a new Gospel, often bandied around the office like contrarian hot potatoes—Oh, what was that? You thought Good Will Hunting was a pile of…sorry, I didn’t quite…piping hot, sentimental poop. Dear me. The kind of open-ended, no-stakes statements that are so void of quality they amount to little more than stating “Hey! Look at me!” Little, acerbic, in-the-know quips that allow one to be simultaneously contrarian, smart, normal, and safe.

Not like authentic unpopular opinions, the kind that halt friendships, unsettle bosses, and result in your mum giving you ‘that’ look. Equally, authentic unpopular opinions aren’t forced, and rarely have a connection to things. They are related to quality, not quantity; form, not content; life, not lifestyle; worldview, not world; soul, not self. They’re rare, exceedingly rare. Or, at least, it’s rare to—both literally and figuratively—hear them. Most of the time, they will be ignored, brushed off with an eye roll or loud tut, cast away with a swift “Oh, give over!”, or, on rare occasions of them hitting at just-that-right-time, there might be Real anger and/or tears in response. I’m speaking of statements—for can we call them opinions if they have a ring of Truth to them—such as:

• Pain is the only teacher

• There’s no such thing as apologies

• You have no right to be unhappy

• Middle-class people are barred from true growth

• Therapy is useless and mostly an entertainment

• Travel is for anxious bores

• If you don’t have a problem, you will create one

• There are no problems

• You don’t want to be free, you just want not to have fear

There are a few; some don’t seem so ‘unpopular’ or controversial until they’re truly lived. For instance, if you’ve had a rather insular life, then the notion of pain being the only teacher will likely refer to schooling, exams, tests, or friendship debacles, and then bang! out of nowhere some love appears in your life that doesn’t love you enough back, and you’re flat on your ass in crippling agony—If I just reread our old messages one more time, then, just maybe…Or perhaps one is practicing Stoicism in relation to being unhappy, shoving everything down and Stoically (Grr!) keeping everything at bay, until one day, there’s some anger you justify to yourself as right, and the whole system goes out of the window. Or maybe you tell yourself everything is great and fine and dandy, and yet, rippling under the surface, is that felt sense of Why isn’t everything fine?, that therein becomes a problem in itself. These are all great; some deserve their own posts, some already have them, as you can see. Yet, there is one that, over the past year or so, I’ve happened to mention a few times to various people in passing, only for them to shut down, get verbally aggressive, or just flat out tell me to “Fuck off”, though, that might just be because I’m a pretentious ass. The idea in question:

There is no difference between £30,000 and £200,000 (as an annual salary)

Oof! Now, wait, before you start yelling about food or shelter, about me not being poor and not knowing what it’s like, etc. notice that the first figure is (roughly) the average yearly salary in the UK, with the latter being a relatively arbitrary amount wherein one could—if they so wished—begin investing in property, but I’ll get to that. So, the first point is: I’m not saying there’s no difference between being homeless and having 200k, nor between living on the dole in some flat-share and 200k. I’ve been poor. I’ve signed on (a few times, in fact). I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck. I’ve worked crummy jobs. And, material reality aside, I know, and can still vividly remember, the feeling of that life—the nag, the worry, the disappointment, the time flying by with nothing to show for it, the misery. Yet, it’s that feeling that allows me to state what I have. So, again:

There is no difference between £30,000 and £200,000

The first line of Well, but, and maybe, buts will all be related to things, items, and trips. Well, there is a difference, if, say, well, if one wanted to, say…buy a better car! Or, say, well, if one wanted to buy a bigger TV! Or, well, like, if one wanted to buy a…bigger…faster…etc. The first line of defense, then, is that the difference is one of acquisition. One who earns more can buy more. This is true, but only in part. A nicer car is indeed nicer, as a bigger TV is bigger, and a fancier kitchen fancier. Each, however, is of the realm of things, quantity, and material, and, as such, really of the same.

The primary line of thinking when addressed with this difference (between two seemingly disparate yearly incomes) is of acquisition and aggrandizement. One figure could get more stuff than the other. In fact, not only could one income get more stuff than the other, in time it would aggrandize itself and become a stuff-getter that gets even more stuff. A line of thinking that, when looked at closely, is reminiscent of the tale of the Businessman and the Fisherman:

One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf. He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the prospect of catching a fish.

About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach, trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family. “You aren’t going to catch many fish that way,” said the businessman to the fisherman.

“You should be working rather than lying on the beach!”

The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled and replied, “And what will my reward be?”

“Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!” was the businessman’s answer. “And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman, still smiling. The businessman replied, “You will make money and you’ll be able to buy a boat, which will then result in larger catches of fish!”

“And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman again.

The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman’s questions. “You can buy a bigger boat, and hire some people to work for you!” he said.

“And then what will my reward be?” repeated the fisherman.

The businessman was getting angry. “Don’t you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let all your employees catch fish for you!”

Once again the fisherman asked, “And then what will my reward be?”

The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, “Don’t you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach, looking at the sunset. You won’t have a care in the world!”

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”

In short, the only actual difference between the two figures is more stuff; perhaps this is because both figures—being monetary—can only ever understand and ‘speak of/for’ things. Then I’ll be able to [nicer car], then I’ll be able to [nicer house], then I’ll be able to [more clothes], then I’ll be able to [nicer holiday], ad finitum, until death.

Perhaps you have drunk this thing Kool-Aid, and entered into meta-thingness. No longer content with just buying and identifying with many self-owned things, you now look at things as means to get more things. Your first thought on starting a new hobby is how you might make money from it; during the purchase of any distinct item, you wonder about its resale value; or maybe you’re almost giddy at the thought of your dear old Nan dying so you can just, finally, finally see how much those Diana memorial plates are worth. Either way, that juicy, bigger number opens to your mind a great world of virtual thingness, and the purpose is just to acquire, acquire, acquire. Look at all my shit! As such, upon reading the title of this piece, maybe you thought, Well, hang on, James, wouldn’t 200k allow you to invest in property? And eventually, then you’d be able to not work?

Sure, I get it. For so many people, the entire aim of their life is to get to a point where they can just do nothing. Not literally, no, that would be too uncouth. They mean, do nothing, as in, do kinda nothing somewhere nice with lots of nice stuff and be very comfy. The point of anything, of life, to them, then, is to make enough money as to eventually be able to do nothing. I guess buy enough properties to let out so they can sit around or whatever, cool. When we turn back to the tale from above, we can see that this investor mindset is like the businessman, one who desires to bleed the world dry as to securely live simply, all whilst the fisherman managed to do this all along without any of the materialist hoohar. However, I feel the reader might find themselves pragmatically critiquing the fisherman’s way of life, well, if we all…we can’t all live like…it’s not realistic…etc. Various squirts of low-level, uncomfortable bitterness targeted at the free (He doesn’t exist, you know? It’s just a tale.)

Sure, I get it, we can’t all just sit at the river all day and fish, and declaring that people ‘should just’ is reason enough to puncture my tires. Yet, it’s in these two modes of living that the real difference begins to reveal itself. What the initial question of the illusory difference (between the two monetary sums) reveals, when looked at acutely, is the distinction between quantity and quality, self and soul, which, in this context, within the life of the individual, reveals itself as the difference between events and states.

Events are external: Getting a new job, getting a pay rise, going on a holiday, going shopping, meeting a friend for a drink, eating a nice meal, and watching a TV series are all events. States are internal: Love, joy, passion, fire, intrigue, courage, and love. We, near constantly, mistakenly believe and understand that events in themselves will somehow deliver a state or feeling. We believe a new job will bring us security, a pay rise, a sense of stability, a holiday will imbue us with enjoyment, purchases will fulfil us, friendship will bring us closeness, a nice meal a state of pleasure, a TV series will make us curious, or a bouquet of flowers will bring deeper love. And yet, time and again—though it is in our nature to ignore this—the state is not brought about by the event. In fact, if we are to look at our past with a keen, honest eye, we shall find there is little-to-no correlation between state and event.

For those, then, that believe there to be some stark difference between 30k and 200k, life is understood, unexperienced, and unlived as a mere chronological sequence of events, the likes of which are meant—as per the myths of the day—to comport the necessary emotions, feelings, and states at the moment of acquisition. And yet, the new homeowners are as miserable as anyone else, the man who just got his second pay rise this year is more anxious than ever, and the travellers appear to be almost hyperactively unfulfilled. Events does not a state make.

There is, however, a further aspect to this difference. One that meant it became the second part of my Value Trade series. When it comes to the modern world, as I made clear in part 1, we have a single value - money. It will come as no surprise that money and events go hand in hand. More money, more (or ‘better’) events. Conversely, money—if it has any at all—has a negative correlation with states. Have you ever seen a happy, rich person?

To return to the titular question then, an admittance or belief in a difference between 30k and 200k is to worship at the crummy altar of the external, to hand over everything to events and money, to consider life a mere progression wherein one aggrandizes as much as they can until they die, with each successive stage of events acting as an orgasm of maturation. How are all these materialist, initiatory purchases seen other than as little, pornographic level-up announcements that you have made it into adult life, and guess what? You’re normal!

At risk of grossly repeating myself, seriously, what would the difference be? Forget the annual salary, let’s ramp it up to the max - what would you do right now if you won a trillion dollars? Yes, yes, quit your job and party hard and holiday loads and sit about. Yes, yes, you’d buy a load of crap and buy a load of other crap and buy some parks or whatever. Oh yes, yes, and your friends and family would all be housed, and yay, we’d all have a good time. Oh yes, yes, charities and this and that would be momentarily solved and and and, you have the world at your feet here…and then…and then…and then…and…who’s at the end of all this? Who’s there? Have you changed? You still feel all uncomfortable inside, like there’s some pestering knot in your gut?

If you agree with me that money and events are one of a kind, and that there is no correlation between events and states, then no amount of cash is going to truly change anything. All scenarios of thingness are the same. Really, think it through, it doesn’t go anywhere. The difference does not exist. The difference is a world unto its own, and it will drag you to hell over and over again, only to convince you, over and over again, that the next hell is heaven. For how long will you be deceived? Another year, another decade? Until the day you die? You are chasing things, with the only expense being your life. Goodness gracious, man and woman! What’s your plan? Collect and catalogue, record and index, purchase and place, acquire and attend, yet when, exactly, are you going to live? Later?

A life unlived on the treadmill of events, ever-reaching, ever-yearning for that next orgasmic thing top-up. But the next one will, I just know it, the next thing will get me through, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next—you’re a teenager—and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next—you’re an adult, is that your wife? Do you know her?—and the next, and the next—your Mum and Dad have died—and the next—you’re starting to ache, remember the good times? No? Oh.—and the next, and the next—you feel unwell—and the next, and the next—I wish I’d stopped a bit, looked at the flowers, I remember there used to be these beautiful wood spurges down the lane near me, and bindweed, there always used to be so much bindweed, I can’t believe someone ever called it a weed, it’s so delicate, so pretty, I wish I’d stopped for a bit.

Imagine calling this a weed.