Money (yum)

Money. Money is the cornerstone of this chaotic existence we call social order. At the base of nearly everything lies our joyous sheets of green paper, and little discs of pressure-formed slag. In order to eat, you need to pay for your sustenance. In order to get to the store to buy food, you need a car (or bike, or bus pass), and that costs money. In order to drive car, you have to pass through an education system. And that costs money.

So all this money, how do we get it? By working. This concept of work is much less concrete for our world than the concept of money. For some, it's sitting and talking. For others, it's bending down for hours to pick tiny hunks of fruit for the enjoyment of someone they'll never meet. So why do we work? Because our system is based around these tow concepts: Work and Money.

If you work, you get money. If you don't work, you don't (Welfare doesn't count). For me, working was sitting around and fitting the correct piece of athletic apparel to people who would never use them. I was a running shoe salesman, one of the best in my store. We didn't actually do much, except when a customer came in. It was all joking, idle banter, and current sports discussion, until a sales prospect came in the door. Any talking ceased, and we were all professional. We went from throwing a crumpled ball of paper around to dusting shelves, checking inventory, and being helpful to the customers.

If you were interested, from three steps I could tell you more about your own foot and legs than you could find from walking on them for years. That nagging pain in your arch? I could make it go away when you ran. That soreness you got on the back of your ankle after any hill runs? A few suggestions and workouts from me, and you'd be cured.

I spent a whole summer doing this cycle, rapidly switching between a shoe specialist and a friend to my co-workers. So what did I get out of it? Money. Money to buy food, longboards, and shiny things that gathered my fancy. But most of it got put into a bank account.

From a functionalist perspective, I worked just to hide my cornerstone, and not build my life on it according to what the world prescribes. But hey, I made it. Money, that is.