Poemander

A concept of money sprung from private ownership. Privacy means distinguishing whatever is mine, his, hers, theirs. Money itself is a token for quantifying and distinguishing what is mine, yours or theirs. Prior to private ownership there was public ownership which isn't at all an ownership but rather a public custody requiring no money as there was nothing to distinguish.

Let's see if this makes any sense:

In the proverbial golden age everything was one. Earth and sky were intimately connected with all humankind who would see themselves as an integral whole (not part) of everything in existence. Appropriating anything for oneself would have been unthinkable as there was no individuality in the sense of 'I', 'You'. 'He and She' would have not been even vaguely conceived as a possibility, even God or Cosmos could not have been thought of in terms of concept the same way a child in the womb would 'know' her/ his mother better than anyone else without even being able to think of 'mother' as a separate person.

In the silver age humans and other conscious kinds would begin recognizing themselves collectively, but not yet individually. It is as if the newborn would start noticing and paying attention to others approaching and leaning over the cradle. He/ she would possibly distinguish, intuitively, that those are in fact 'they' and here are 'we' (me and mother without yet knowing the two separately). Any discomfort or pain could not be attributed to internal or external factors. No need for anything could be felt except for the most immediate needs and unless in the immediate spot of attention. So this would continue gradually improving self-consciousness while also loosing that earlier intimate interconnectivity until becoming that of a toddler.

At this level, metaphorically, the bronze age would start and last until the adolescent years, except that the timescale would perhaps have been the opposite to our example with the golden age being the longest and shortening span for each of the subsequent ages until reaching the shortest, iron age. This could still be very true if considering a non- linear scale of child development with the earlier period experiencing the most profound changes and thus bearing greater significance. I have no intention on being time-exact here and hardly anyone could, but lets return and see that something notable has happened in the adolescent years, be it bronze age, third root-race or simply the time when humans found themselves completely individualized, matured, no longer provided for by their parents. This could as well be the time of so called 'original sin' which we commonly connect with eviction from Eden (parents' house?). One can also argue that the 'expulsion from Eden' best coincides with the moment of birth, i.e. the expulsion from mother's womb and the end of the golden age.

Nevertheless, please remember that the actuality of such an allegorical event here is far less important than the reality of the emotional and physical toll it embeds. This 'extradition' may have as well happened at the end of each era signifying the dimensional fall and greater concern with the materialism vs spiritualism. But the main takeaway here is the feeling of guilt that such fall implies. Was it not the time when people first experienced indebtedness to their patron, be it God, Cosmos or the progenitors? This feeling of guilt is truly the root of our present worldview, it is woven into every interaction, every motif occurring between people. It is indeed the origin of all such concepts as 'debt', 'obligation', 'right', 'duty', 'money'. Interestingly enough, the word 'debt' etymologically is rooted in word 'sin', whereas the word 'money' can be traced back to the word 'guilt'. So money and values in general have always been connected to perceived indebtedness.

From the accomplished individualization, or materialization if you would, now people could experience the separateness which was never felt so acutely. Now they are separate not only from the rest of nature, but also from their own selves. Every move now involves a dealing, crossing the line 'self' and 'others', a transaction involving debts and favours. Privacy has emerged as a very basic concept. Immediately came the money as a quantifier of these transactions. No, I don't imply that this happened at once as a breakneck fall from the sky, and the arrangement has gradually moved from the public to private ownership, but It took only one word consisting of a single letter “I” to turn things upside-down.

What is this public ownership, someone may legitimately ask since it is completely forgotten and not even vaguely imagined? The best word to describe it is 'custody'.

Not completely individualized, not completely 'materialized' humans acted as custodians to everything around them including themselves. They still knew their connection to nature and cosmos, they themselves felt pain if they were to hurt someone, yet they would still take whatever they needed regarding it as custodian fees (in our sense) and the means of continuity. They needed not to say 'thank you' or seek 'favour' since they were taking from themselves and giving back to themselves. Indeed, certain aboriginal languages do not have the words for 'please' or 'thank you' for the very same reason. Neither there would be a deliberate crime, at least none of those acts would be considered 'criminal', be it a theft or even a murder, no matter how harsh and 'barbaric' it resonates with our current understanding.

I intentionally avoided the use of word 'communism' which must have sprang in your mind while reading earlier lines. The reason to it is very high possibility of misunderstanding, while also a fundamental difference of a 'custodian' aspect in the provided example with the communism in a broader philosophical sense. The custody here mentioned may well underpins the idea of communism yet invalidates it as a misguided interpretation of the very same basic concept of universal interconnectivity and cosmological order. It is a mistake trying to explain communism from the position of socio-economic relations as if suggesting that the density of trees in the natural forest is explained by supply and demand for timber of the same country: of such proposition even the reverse correlation is only half true. One cannot measure his foot and assume that the same was applied to the building of pyramids. Instead, one must disconnect as far as possible from all sorts of present measurements and assumptions. Under these conditions only there may be a possibility of 'seeing through' the veil of time and concepts.

Let us revise our basic assumptions: do we think that the main guiding principle of humans existence is self-interest? Could be the same said about the animals, insects, plants? How about the cells, molecules, atoms or, say planetary bodies? Does the Earth rotates around the Sun because this way it receives the most and provides the least, or the Sun shines because it is under an obligation to do it? Could it perhaps be because the Sun simply likes to shine, something it 'enjoys' doing? Maybe the Earth too rotates because it 'enjoys' it? This is now quite fundamental. What do we think is the guiding principle of existence; the profit seeking and self-interest or the love and enjoyment (doing something with love has to be an enjoyment)? This question is and has been the greatest conundrum of morality, religion, politics you name it. However it if far simpler than you may think and before you jump to conclusions, I must say that I think it is both, but really, it doesn't matter which one. The only thing matters is how big is the self. If the self is only as big as a person's brain, then everything outside of it is profit seeking. Even a dealing with the own body becomes a matter of commerce. If the self is as big as the universe, then everything is enjoyment and love (self love seems perfectly fine in this context). So, how big are we? Can we expand ourselves out of our brain and perhaps include our entire biological body or even stretch it to the size of a family? Maybe to the the size of community group we feel attached to or even a nation? How about humanity, nature, or perhaps the world?

So the custody we are talking about here is nearly as big as Cosmos. It is not concerned with a particular type of asset or resource, be it land, labour or even the humankind. It is only concerned with the linkage, the linkage that protohumans clearly realized existed between them and the land, the sky and everything else past, present or future, all in the same moment. Their living and dying, dancing under the stars, every step is the tribute to this linkage. They do not owe anything to anyone and do not expect anything in exchange, whatever transpires between them and surroundings is only in tribute to this cosmological interconnectivity. The beneficiaries to their custody are not even the future generations, the only beneficiary is this cosmological continuity existing eternally outside of time and in the present moment.

Taking this macro view, can we now at least hypothesize that the described worldview has taken place in some distant past and the 'evolution' is in fact a process of individualization occurring on a grand scale throughout the entire Cosmos?

Can we also see ourselves from that perspective as fragmentations of a far larger undivided global consciousness? Now, just imagine that this whole process is merely a perceptional bias and the 'thing in itself' has never changed. What we are dealing instead is the 'shrinkage' of perception. This perceptional bias is here to be altered at will at any time as you please, yet for the humanity and world as a whole it seems to be developing on a particular trajectory. The question thus, what is this trajectory and where it leads? It seems to me that there is no better answer than a circle.

The straight lines are often the product of our current perception, whereas nature has a specific favour of cyclicality. Continuity too is best described by the circle. Be it in fact a spiral, figure 8 or an ellipsis is a next consideration, but let's assume that an expansion will follow the contraction. Will our perception has further to shrink? Quite possibly, yet the expansion is coming and it is going to be evident from the changes in openness to new ideas