Money is one of the most obscure concepts in the world. Essentially the paper and metal used to make money are without significant value. Money itself is only valuable by proxy - a one-hundred dollar bill is useless, but all the potential things that can be exchanged for that slip of paper are theoretically valuable. In fact I can look at a five-figure monetary number and realize that it represents my student loans or my housing contract, both of which for me are valuable. Yet the idea that I have to exchange hundreds of little pieces of paper or electonic 0's and 1's that represent hundreds of little pieces of paper for my house and my intellect is completely absurd.

Despite the inherent absurdity of it all, I can still feel the pain of seeing those big numbers and realize that those belong to someone else and I have to buy those numbers back. Even worse I gave those numbers away and received nothing tangible in return when it comes to my education. Someone should write a contemporary existentialist work on the pain of owing something as ridiculous as hundreds of little slips of paper to someone else or the exchange of imaginary slips of paper. It's ridiculous yet it's real. The nausea I feel is actually there. Whether money 'exists' or not, the fact that I don't have any and the fact that if I get any I have to give it away is painful. I don't like it. I don't want to participate in it, but the bastards got to me before I knew it. Now I'm trapped and there is no escape.

The real tragedy of the modern age is that the intangibility of money reflects the intangibility of our souls. There's no substance to either one. My soul and my money are worthless place-holders. Solidity and the ability to grasp hold of my soul might return if only I could build a desk and trade that desk for some books or some food. But I can't build a desk and even if I could I don't think I could trade it for anything in this time and place. Modern crusaders should set out to find everyone's tangible soul, even it it's in the form of a desk or some produce. Just so long as we get away from the imaginary lives we are currently leading. A plank of wood would be far more substantial.