Making Money is My Religion
Saturday, May 16th, 2009Maybe “religion” is too strong of a word, but it is my philosophy of life. Why? I’ll tell you:
I have asked myself “What is the purpose of life?” And since I do not yet know, I believe that my current purpose of life is to find out the purpose of life. How do we do that?
I think technological progress helps us to understand our universe. The more we know, the closer we are to understanding our purpose. So, for now, the purpose of life is to understand more - to bring us closer to understanding our universe. Once we understand our universe, we can know our purpose. And technological progress helps us to understand more, so technological progress is a noble pursuit.
The free market fosters technological progress. Any time you are paid money in exchange for something of value - any time that you work to earn money - you are helping humanity to progress. It is helping us all to understand more about our place in the universe.
I believe in the invisible hand of the free market. When we all work separately, but together, we can do things that are impossible for an individual (just like Milton Friedman explains in the video I posted before).
Money, to me, is not what you can buy with it. Okay, from a practical point of view that is exactly what money is. It is whatever you can get in exchange for it. And that is important. It can mean the difference between life and death. But if you are looking for meaning in your life, it isn’t found in the things you can buy with the money you have. The importance and real value of money is how you make it.


