Spring

Yes. So. That bucket… overflowing just a short while ago… 

It’s running dry.

The ‘rest’ that was supposed to come naturally needs to start coming now—or better said, the money needs to start coming now.

Money

Never did I want to live for it, but always in my adult life, have I wanted to have it. At least enough to live an excellent life. But now that I’m ‘free’, now that I’ve resolutely decided to do what I’m here on Earth to do…

how do I do this thing called money?

I call Pieter. Not to ask him for money but to ask him for advice.

‘Mundo,’ he says, after hearing me out, ‘I hear you talking about “enough”. What if you think about what you need and make that your goal?’

Pieter asks more questions, but this one sticks. Knowing when enough is enough and making that my goal… what a solid idea!

Okay, so here’s the thing with money and goals: I’ve set plenty of money goals. I just never felt truth in setting money goals, so I always did exactly what I felt about money goals: not achieve them. Pieter’s question, however, sparks something. I feel motivated—stoked even—about setting a money goal.

As the sun heralds a new summer, the birds are coming out to play, and I spot the first long legs with short skirts on the streets of Amsterdam, I lock myself indoors to build a spreadsheet full of enough.

For two days filled with blue skies, I fluff out what ‘enough’ means to me, taking everything into account, right down to the most minor self-employment tax deduction schemes. Bit by bit, my screen fills up with months, gross amounts, net amounts, fixed costs, tax deductions and required income. Then, at the end of day two, I see

Honestly? Is this what I’m about to commit to? A series of expenses, balanced by earnings, with a neat plus at the bottom?

I don’t need an answer—it’s already here. My chest and belly feel dull and dead.

I close my laptop, go outside to play, and in the weeks that follow, something peculiar happens. Instead of going down the road I know, ‘asking’ myself questions like, Why don’t I deserve it? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I relate to money ‘normally’?, a curiosity rises.

What is it with money?

What does money mean to me?

Really?

Allowing curiosity to get the better of me, I find work in a café around the corner and do a filming job here and there, earning just enough to pay my bills. Then, in the middle of the summer, his name pops up.

Years ago and of all people, my Wovox-partner Steven sent me an article written by a guy named Charles Eisenstein. The article was called ‘Money and the Turning of the Ages’. I read a few lines and then decided I hadno time for itbecause, of course, I need to make money, and this is taking me away from focusing on making money.

I relegated Charles and his article to one of my many to-do lists, because I’d recently learned to put things on lists so they wouldn’t keep flying around in my head. It was a pretty good skill to acquire, yet I’d also taught myself I was always too busy for anything on those lists. So the lists got longer and longer, until I wanted to look at them no more.

When Wovox and I said goodbye earlier this year, I also said goodbye to most of my to-do lists, but apparently, this didn’t faze Charles, because up he pops, just like that.

I open my laptop and type his name.

I click the video. A minute later, I feel a lump in my throat. Two minutes later, my eyes start watering. Nine minutes later, the screen turns black, and my cheeks are wet.¹You can watch Sacrec Economics with Charles Eisenstein – A Short Film on MiracleProject.earth/sacred-economics

I’ve just heard someone give words to something I’ve been feeling all my life yet never managed to get my head around.

I understand what money is.

I understand our collective obsession with economic growth, jobs, purchasing power and everything else I bluffed through in economics class.

I understand—not just with my mind but in every cell of my being—why so many things feel so profoundly wrong.

More than during that sleepless night at the start of this year, I feel myself falling into something essential and universal. A deep knowing that if something feels so wrong, it cannot be the truth.

And.

Charles also talks about ‘usury’, ‘social dividend’, ‘internalisation of costs’ and so on—and those things elude me.

I want to know more.

I order his book.

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  You can watch Sacrec Economics with Charles Eisenstein – A Short Film on MiracleProject.earth/sacred-economics ↩︎