an untitled paper
Paris is an expensive city, that cannot be contested. New York, however, is no more economical, yet, here in Paris I find myself writing and thinking constantly about money. I had previously seen it as disposable, until I lived without it, and immediately I realized how essential it truly is. Especially in a city like Paris, where nothing is free, and very few things are cheap, it is crucial to save, yet somehow, inexplicably, money is always spent. It is often said that time is money, though I would argue that time is the inverse of money: the more you have of one, the less you have of the other. You cannot buy time, yet you can buy efficiency, or quality, both of which save time. If money is in surplus, the subject of one’s worrying can ascend from that of consuming for survival, to the survival for consumption. With no money, what does the poor man do with his time but work? He produces: art and artisan. The artist’s hard work is then, ironically, sold posthumously for sums of money that would have provided financial security for him, for the rest of his life, were he not dead; the artisan’s work is sold for revenue that is collected by people who have an excess of money.
We are obliged to spend money, to admire money, to desire money, and cultivate money, and at the end of our lives, we are buried in the ground, in a multi-hundred dollar box, with a multi-hundred dollar rock six feet above us, or we have the option to be incinerated via a multi-hundred dollar procedure and kept in a multi-hundred dollar urn, or scattered by family while on a multi-hundred dollar vacation. Money is omnipotent, money is omniscient, money is omnibenevolent.
Here in Paris, you can survive easily with only a few dollars a day. The Marché Bastille which is open jeudi et dimanche has a few vendors who sell produce for 1 euro a kilo, and dried beans for 3 euros a kilo. Eggs at Carrefour are 0,10 centièmes each (2,40 for a crate of 24 eggs), milk is 1,10 a litre, and coffee is 1,04 or so for a brick of vacuum packed espresso-ground beans. For about 30 euros a week, I can eat well, for 60 euros a week, I can eat like a king. I’ve managed to cut down my spending down incrementally each week, cutting more and more things out of my life that I do not need. I have been a bit stingy, but rightfully so, and it is making me feel more in control of my life. Eventually I will have a surplus of savings which will keep growing until I need it, or decide to spend it on something valuable.
In discussing finances with Amine, I realized that what he was saying about loans does not just apply to corporate investment, but also personal investment. He said that what is screwing up the economy is not the loan itself, but those which are given to buy consumable goods, rather than business investments, because the value of that good depreciates, but with interest the price of that good increases. I asked him why banks couldn’t just stop giving loans like that, he said if they did, the whole system would collapse. It is smart to invest, both time and money, into something that will produce more other things, whatever those things may be.
A large part of my abstractions with money is my relationship with my mother, who is supporting me while I’m here in Paris. Having to deal her pestering texts like, “the thing is I know you're spending money on fun as well and you are entitled to fun and I haven't been a student or in Paris for many years so I do t [sic] know but it just feels like you are burnig [sic] through cash and I didn't think that would be happening,” but with my weekly budget, I would qualify for the SNAP program in NYC, not to mention she is judging based on dollars and I am spending euros, a minor yet important difference. Once again, I am not complaining about the amount of money she is giving me, I am happy with what I have, but her behavior; her favoritism towards her greedy tendencies than to her generous ones, assuming that every time I initiate a conversation, it is because I need money, or threatening to pull the rug from under my feet, and suggesting that I don’t deserve the money that I am getting now. Several times now has she said that she would like to visit me while I am in Paris, “I'm thinking being in Paris with you would be something that I may never get to do again. File under ‘life's too short,’” yet if she can afford to buy a international flight in the height of travel season, why does she say I am reckless with money? Her supporting me has forced me to interact with her, more than I had been before, and now, I think of her involuntarily, I see my money as her money, which it is, but is also not. This change is difficult for me, and she as also given herself permission to text me about whatever, whenever, which is distracting and stressful for me because her whims are often driven by anger and paranoia, and I live my life in peaceful happiness when I am not forced into her world, which recently has been 5 or 6 times a week.
Additionally, I am getting needled for more money by my roommates with this 10 euro a month apartment fund, the government now with their OFII visa fee, my flatmate whose $25 lighter was stolen by a guy I invited over and now asks that I buy her a new one, on top of the already existing expenses of Navigo, books, groceries, etc., and the fact that it is very difficult to find work here, and that my mother is in constant communication with me is stressful. Plus with the school work that I have, and friends, and sleep, I feel like I am being quartered by the horses of money’s long-reaching fingers, with my limbs then to be sold for profit on the black market.
Perhaps I am over simplifying and thus romanticizing the idea of having a money free world, but I imagine that, were we to remove completely the trade of money and instead be returned to a bartering system based on good will and hard work, then the stratification of society would be evened and suffering would be eliminated. The cyclical and self correcting nature of Prana will provide for those who need when they need. Of course this does not happen and humans are natural hoarders, therefore they will collect and desire and gather everything in their vicinity, under the pretense of “I deserve.” Money is used as a means of dehumanizing and codifying many social interactions, and is a political pawn which is used to cultivate more money. I remember as a child my mother would pretend to scan me at the super market, and ask me how much I thought I was worth, as a person. Of course, being a child, I said, “nothing,” because, as I believed then, and I believe now, a human life cannot be quantified, especially not monetarily.
We are obliged to spend money, to admire money, to desire money, and cultivate money, and at the end of our lives, we are buried in the ground, in a multi-hundred dollar box, with a multi-hundred dollar rock six feet above us, or we have the option to be incinerated via a multi-hundred dollar procedure and kept in a multi-hundred dollar urn, or scattered by family while on a multi-hundred dollar vacation. Money is omnipotent, money is omniscient, money is omnibenevolent.
Here in Paris, you can survive easily with only a few dollars a day. The Marché Bastille which is open jeudi et dimanche has a few vendors who sell produce for 1 euro a kilo, and dried beans for 3 euros a kilo. Eggs at Carrefour are 0,10 centièmes each (2,40 for a crate of 24 eggs), milk is 1,10 a litre, and coffee is 1,04 or so for a brick of vacuum packed espresso-ground beans. For about 30 euros a week, I can eat well, for 60 euros a week, I can eat like a king. I’ve managed to cut down my spending down incrementally each week, cutting more and more things out of my life that I do not need. I have been a bit stingy, but rightfully so, and it is making me feel more in control of my life. Eventually I will have a surplus of savings which will keep growing until I need it, or decide to spend it on something valuable.
In discussing finances with Amine, I realized that what he was saying about loans does not just apply to corporate investment, but also personal investment. He said that what is screwing up the economy is not the loan itself, but those which are given to buy consumable goods, rather than business investments, because the value of that good depreciates, but with interest the price of that good increases. I asked him why banks couldn’t just stop giving loans like that, he said if they did, the whole system would collapse. It is smart to invest, both time and money, into something that will produce more other things, whatever those things may be.
A large part of my abstractions with money is my relationship with my mother, who is supporting me while I’m here in Paris. Having to deal her pestering texts like, “the thing is I know you're spending money on fun as well and you are entitled to fun and I haven't been a student or in Paris for many years so I do t [sic] know but it just feels like you are burnig [sic] through cash and I didn't think that would be happening,” but with my weekly budget, I would qualify for the SNAP program in NYC, not to mention she is judging based on dollars and I am spending euros, a minor yet important difference. Once again, I am not complaining about the amount of money she is giving me, I am happy with what I have, but her behavior; her favoritism towards her greedy tendencies than to her generous ones, assuming that every time I initiate a conversation, it is because I need money, or threatening to pull the rug from under my feet, and suggesting that I don’t deserve the money that I am getting now. Several times now has she said that she would like to visit me while I am in Paris, “I'm thinking being in Paris with you would be something that I may never get to do again. File under ‘life's too short,’” yet if she can afford to buy a international flight in the height of travel season, why does she say I am reckless with money? Her supporting me has forced me to interact with her, more than I had been before, and now, I think of her involuntarily, I see my money as her money, which it is, but is also not. This change is difficult for me, and she as also given herself permission to text me about whatever, whenever, which is distracting and stressful for me because her whims are often driven by anger and paranoia, and I live my life in peaceful happiness when I am not forced into her world, which recently has been 5 or 6 times a week.
Additionally, I am getting needled for more money by my roommates with this 10 euro a month apartment fund, the government now with their OFII visa fee, my flatmate whose $25 lighter was stolen by a guy I invited over and now asks that I buy her a new one, on top of the already existing expenses of Navigo, books, groceries, etc., and the fact that it is very difficult to find work here, and that my mother is in constant communication with me is stressful. Plus with the school work that I have, and friends, and sleep, I feel like I am being quartered by the horses of money’s long-reaching fingers, with my limbs then to be sold for profit on the black market.
Perhaps I am over simplifying and thus romanticizing the idea of having a money free world, but I imagine that, were we to remove completely the trade of money and instead be returned to a bartering system based on good will and hard work, then the stratification of society would be evened and suffering would be eliminated. The cyclical and self correcting nature of Prana will provide for those who need when they need. Of course this does not happen and humans are natural hoarders, therefore they will collect and desire and gather everything in their vicinity, under the pretense of “I deserve.” Money is used as a means of dehumanizing and codifying many social interactions, and is a political pawn which is used to cultivate more money. I remember as a child my mother would pretend to scan me at the super market, and ask me how much I thought I was worth, as a person. Of course, being a child, I said, “nothing,” because, as I believed then, and I believe now, a human life cannot be quantified, especially not monetarily.
Sintra: Revision notes: This is not a narrative essay but an expository one (or hortatory) on the subject of money. However, it has a familiar narrative component - the extended part about the speaker's mother and roommates. The rant-style beginning is really effective. You use rhetorical techniques like the repeated phrase - multi-hundred dollar - and lists. (I don't know if "artisan" can be used as a noun to denote the products produced by a craftsperson. Also, "abstractions" in the beginning of the part about your mother is probably the wrong word.) The comments about time and money and the artist/artisan's relationship to money are both good, but these sections probably need a little reworking. Money and time are in an inverse relationship; time is money because it literally costs money. While the rhetoric of inversion is well-used here, it reads in a somewhat jumbled way.
ReplyDeleteThe overall revision issue is framing the essay so that the comments about the inescapability of money as an element in human affairs and the personal issue with the mother & roommates, which is also interesting, can fit under the umbrella of a single narrative frame or concern. You begin with Paris, but without explaining to the reader, who presumably doesn't know you (you must presume so), why you bring up a European capital. So, by beginning with an "I" story - I came to Paris seeking culture and art and freedom from the financial concerns of banking-oriented New York City. But what did I find? Those same concerns in a different form dominate my life. It might be possible to use Hemingway here for two reasons: his concern with money in A Moveable Feast - which is an overriding concern, and the fact that he and the expatriates lived in Paris because it was cheap. And it is partly due to them that it is expensive / fashionable now (this fits into your idea about the artist whose works are worth more after his death. To add to the element of story, your coming to Paris could be compared to his from the start. And his insistence on the virtue of poverty is ironic if poverty isn't really working for you. The personal elements could be worked into the rant about money in the abstract, and made a little more detailed and... slower. I like the detail about the cigarette lighter. The part about your mother seems rushed and could be told in more of a blow-by-blow fashion: first she said this, I replied this, and she said this... it's a bit of a spew. The story should have some sort of resolution, which could perhaps be provided by an experience (perhaps walking) during which you felt temporarily liberated from these concerns. Perhaps it was looking at art or reading - what you came here to do. So, to sum up: some terrific writing here; build the story element; integrate the general and personal; and include a resolution. Also, some THINGS - such as literary references, specific Parisian references... to give the essay a public element. R.
Sintra: Revision notes: This is not a narrative essay but an expository one (or hortatory) on the subject of money. However, it has a familiar narrative component - the extended part about the speaker's mother and roommates. The rant-style beginning is really effective. You use rhetorical techniques like the repeated phrase - multi-hundred dollar - and lists. (I don't know if "artisan" can be used as a noun to denote the products produced by a craftsperson. Also, "abstractions" in the beginning of the part about your mother is probably the wrong word.) The comments about time and money and the artist/artisan's relationship to money are both good, but these sections probably need a little reworking. Money and time are in an inverse relationship; time is money because it literally costs money. While the rhetoric of inversion is well-used here, it reads in a somewhat jumbled way.
ReplyDeleteThe overall revision issue is framing the essay so that the comments about the inescapability of money as an element in human affairs and the personal issue with the mother & roommates, which is also interesting, can fit under the umbrella of a single narrative frame or concern. You begin with Paris, but without explaining to the reader, who presumably doesn't know you (you must presume so), why you bring up a European capital. So, by beginning with an "I" story - I came to Paris seeking culture and art and freedom from the financial concerns of banking-oriented New York City. But what did I find? Those same concerns in a different form dominate my life. It might be possible to use Hemingway here for two reasons: his concern with money in A Moveable Feast - which is an overriding concern, and the fact that he and the expatriates lived in Paris because it was cheap. And it is partly due to them that it is expensive / fashionable now (this fits into your idea about the artist whose works are worth more after his death. To add to the element of story, your coming to Paris could be compared to his from the start. And his insistence on the virtue of poverty is ironic if poverty isn't really working for you. The personal elements could be worked into the rant about money in the abstract, and made a little more detailed and... slower. I like the detail about the cigarette lighter. The part about your mother seems rushed and could be told in more of a blow-by-blow fashion: first she said this, I replied this, and she said this... it's a bit of a spew. The story should have some sort of resolution, which could perhaps be provided by an experience (perhaps walking) during which you felt temporarily liberated from these concerns. Perhaps it was looking at art or reading - what you came here to do. So, to sum up: some terrific writing here; build the story element; integrate the general and personal; and include a resolution. Also, some THINGS - such as literary references, specific Parisian references... to give the essay a public element. R.