Money is bullshit.

Money is this thing we created a long time ago, and have since begun using as a way of reassuring ourselves that we have a right to live.

This problem should have been (and possibly was) foreseen by its creators. Because, in reality, it is just the logical conclusion of its existence. When you have a community so full of people that the vast majority simply have nothing meaningful to do available to them, and when those same people have found a way of pushing all their real cost so far away that the no-one even remembers it's there anymore - what else do you expect to happen?

It's hard to remember that money is actually just a thing that we can trade for what we need. It is just a simplified way of saying: I have this much of A and you have that much of B. I need B, while you need A. So we'll trade evenly A for B so that we both simultaneously get rid of what we didn't need while procuring what we did.

Problems arose when I needed B but you didn't need A, you needed C. But I didn't have C - the person over there did. And they needed D. So, money was created as an even trading field. You come up with a fair amount of money to trade for what you have and everyone else does the same. Then, you can get A, B, C, or D - regardless of what you had in the beginning. So then, anyone who has a surplus of anything has a means of getting whatever it is they need, regardless of what the seller needs.

It was a great idea, a great way of making a real growing community function better. But now, here we are. Stuck in a system driven by the gathering and hording of money as a thing to need itself. And because of our immense affluence - money has replaced our need of A, B, C, or D. Now, we need to find ways of procuring money.

Money that could buy money - that would be the best!

But why? Because in our quickly degrading system, things easily acquire too high a "pricetag". We won't talk about cost in this case because that has so little do with the price of something now, that it's absolutely irrelevant to bring into the discussion of price. So, if we don't have large stores of money - we can't afford the things we do need because the balance is wrong.

So, what can we try to do to reconcile the system with reality?

Thing is: we just have to remember the truth of the situation to see through it: A human only needs 1) water, 2) food, and 3) shelter in order to survive at a basal minimum. Community is an extension of means only. And everything else is just fluff. Some of it is good fluff, some shitty fluff. But, in reality, our survival is not even half as complicated as it seems.

Could I possibly be a story-teller without computer or conventional pens/pencils and paper? Could I still be a musician without electricity and conventionally-made instruments?

Of course. The form and style of creation would have to change, naturally. But those forms and styles are just evolutions of older and different forms and styles from when there were other means and other conventions. The creation remained throughout those evolutions, and would again. Naturally.

So then, what is there to fear - but fear itself? Fear for its own sake.

I'm tired of being afraid. And yet it is so easy to keep going back to it. Too "what if we get screwed over?" and "what if it all falls apart?" and "what if we can't do it?" and "what if we just hate each other?"

But. This is community. A real, scary - depending on the people involved kind of one. One where the people involved actually need what the others have and they all need to actually rely on one another. Of course, everyone needs to feel like everyone else will catch them if they slip. And, so long as they will, there is no reason to fear. And so, fear can eventually disappear.

But, most importantly is the commitment to the community - to actually do everything to catch each other, to help each other not to slip at all. It can't be that one person is "outside the loop". It can't be that one person is "less saveable". It's got to be even all around. Or else, the community is unbalanced and won't function any better than an uneven wheel.

If it ever becomes the case that one person is excluded, then that person naturally begins to be more concerned for themself than for the community. And, as a result either that person breaks the community or the community bans that person or - in a small enough case - the community crumbles and becomes irrelevant.

And, if that is the case from the onset, then the situation has to be addressed differently. Then, instead of a singular community, what you actually have is a smaller community and an outsider.

Compassion and care are still given to the outside, but never outside the community's means because at no point is the outsider expected to give back to the community - unlike the community's members. This means that the community has to be careful to know exactly what its means are. That way the community can continue to offer to the outsider without fear of not having enough for the community. So, the community can be compassionate and open, while still fully sustaining itself and being honest about its means to the outsider.

This only changes when or if said outsider decides to fully join the community, which should be allowed to happen with full acceptance. So long as the outsider commits to the needs of the community and the community commits to the needs of the outsider, and both can be mutually existent.