People Chasin Paper

Dead presidents, a U.S. treasurer and an obese inventor are defining what are livelihood is, they dictate how marriages pan out, how long we work and where we work, where we reside, who lives and who dies, and our overall quality of life. These individuals are not specters that are tangibly haunting us but the paper they are printed on is very tangible and a perpetual reminder of whom we are beholden to. These figures sit faces are prominently displayed near the center appearing stoic, printed on cotton fiber paper measuring approximately 6-1/8" by 2-5/8" and weighing 1 gram. We are enslaved to these sheets of paper and the historical figures that preside on them. Let’s get introduced to these figures… We have George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Benjamin Franklin. The most ironic of these is Abraham Lincoln the man that was the intrepid crusader to abolish slavery and now we are economically enslaved to his printed presence.

Alone these rectangles of paper provide no necessity, they are not food, we do not drink them when parched, we do not wear them as attire, and we do not use them physically as the framework for where we live. It is the FAITH we have in them that we have invested within them that we can exchange them for these items and other extraneous materials that bring joy to our lives. Without this faith these rectangles of paper are seemingly just that… pieces of paper. There is another faith that is embroidered onto the fabric of these pieces of paper and that is a sponsorship of God. With phrases such as “In God We Trust” and “Annuit Coeptis” meaning “God has favored our undertaking” attempting to make this connection is a subliminal way of broadcasting to patrons if we make a plethora of money we have stronger ties to god and more trust within him. It’s a demented way of invoking the name of God as leverage to enable an even more capitalistic system. I associate myself more with the secular world more so than I do the sacred world to which I feel far displaced from, but if I were to extrapolate I would say that God has not favored those who have invested a strong investment in these rectangles of faith.

These rectangles of faith are a way of keeping tally in life and for many a barometer of success. Those who have garnered many of these historical figures on these sheets of paper live in the lap of luxury and may even be listed in a magazine entitled Forbes as a way of keeping track and extolling their capitalistic efforts. For those that have procured few of these gentlemen they may appear slovenly without a place to reside and the only thought that reverberates through their head is “where is my next meal going to come from”. Money is obviously important but it shouldn’t be venerated the way it is today by the masses and define who we are as human beings. We must break the shackles on our incessant ties to money and not let it dictate our every life decision; we must be perspicacious and look beyond that to understand what’s truly wonderful in life.