What is money? More importantly what isn't money? In order to know what something is you must first have a solid understanding of it, within that understanding and that knowledge something else is revealed. Once you know what something is you become aware of what it is not. That revelation, for me, when it comes to the subject of money has been even more profound.

Carl Jung defined an archetype as follows

Jungian archetypes are a concept from psychology that refers to a universal, inherited idea, pattern of thought, or image that is present in the collective unconscious of all human beings.

-wikipedia

Sometimes trying to identify and recognize the “patterns of thought” that we use on a moment-to-moment basis is similar to a fish trying to discover and define water. Money has many definitions, money is certainly a thought pattern, an archetype that we as humans use to think. We use it to process decisions and inform actions. The manner in which those thoughts are processed and decisions informed is dependent upon the individual and personal relationship we each have with money. This relationship is such a fundamental part of how we think that it is all encompassing. Meaning, the knowledge that I had of money and what money is did not permit me to have a perspective which allowed me to “see” and understand my relationship with money. I was a fish in water.

So I put in the work to change my perspective. Books, podcasts, articles, repeat, repeat, repeat. The subject of money, more specifically the function of money, the spirituality of money is what I was really interested in. Because I was so interested in it I was driven to consume as much as I could. It was fun, it still is fun. I would much rather read an article about Austrian Economics than watch a NetFlix series but that is not the point. It takes time and awareness to develop an understanding of anything. It takes even more time when that something is as complex as Money and Bitcoin. It takes even more time when that something is an archetypical thought process that we inherit from society and are indoctrinated into. In the words of Tim Corcran “Its hard work, but its the only work worth doing”.

So what is money? (In my opinion)

Money has layers.

First and foremost money is an imaginary representation of wealth.

As Humans we have the ability to produce more wealth than can be immediately utilized in the present moment. For example hunter gatherers pretty much applied their work and sold it to the present moment at a rate of nearly 100%. As we evolved we learned how to apply our work to the present moment so that resulted in a surplus yield. i.e. we would grow crops and keep livestock to provide future meals. Meaning the work we applied to the present moment resulted in more wealth than the present moment could store. This phenomenon is recognized by Man and his peers and, coupled with the recognition that self interest lies within collaboration, leads to the emergence of a good or object to facilitate that collaboration. This good or object is used to imaginally store and represent in the marketplace the wealth any individual has been able to accrue. This good or object can then be traded for other goods, products, or services and it can also be held in storage for the purpose of defending or protecting yourself from the uncertainty of future events. On the base layer or first principle, money is an imaginal, three dimensional, representation of humanWork()[time, energy, focus] applied to the present moment. As the dimension of Time is a fundamental law of nature which no human has the ability to manipulate, the amount of work a human can apply is universally regulated by Time. Time is unchanging. Time is incapable of bias. Time is impervious to manipulation. Human Time is finite. Any good money must have these same characteristics because ultimately money is a representation of human time.

On a secondary layer, money is communication.

Once a money has been established within a society or culture, especially large ones, it becomes communication. If you live in a tribe of even 50-100 people chances are you will be able to adequately coordinate and divide labor amongst the tribe by communicating using ONLY language. If you live in a much larger economy as we do today it would be absurd to attempt to coordinate and divide labor using only language.

I often think of Bees when trying to visualize this. Bees do not speak to one another, instead they communicate with pheromones, which are packets of chemical signals. These pheromones and the communication they provide allow a colony of hundreds or thousands of bees to coordinate and divide labor in such a way that allows a perfect expression of nature. Syntropic, harmonic, balanced, perfection.

The pheromones are the money. Tiny packets of data that allow individuals to communicate their wants, needs, and preferences in a cooperative and collaborative manner. This allows individuals to make decisions and act on what is best for themselves personally while not only remaining a part of the collective but doing so in a way that naturally aligns the collective interest with self interest. It results in a positive sum game. Syntropic, harmonic, balanced, perfection. Something we have not witnessed as a species because, throughout history, money has always been tampered with.

If money represents wealth, then what is wealth? I think wealth, in this context, is equivalent to time. As a human we are given the gift of time, the gift of a linear experience of time. Our lives have a beginning, a middle and an end. The amount of time we have is finite. It was, until recently, the only thing in the world that could be said to have absolute scarcity. How we choose to focus and invest our time is the manner in which we choose to live our lives. Time is divine and the ability to spend our time how we choose is freedom and that freedom is my greatest desire.