Dollars Ain't Electrons

Money is energy, yes, but the felt metaphor is incomplete

I hear this idea a lot, money is energy.

The way people say it, they seem to think of energy as neutral, like electricity. Every electron is the same, it doesn’t matter if your electrons come from over here or over there, your phone is still going to stay on all day for a stream of texts and searches and clips, it’s fine.

When it comes to spiritual ideas of energy — which this image of money is very much tapping into — it’s important to remember that energy is not neutral. It matters how and where and why energy comes in and goes out.

And the more time I spend with it, the more I am inconveniently forced to recognize that money is the same way.

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I won’t dip into the whole tangled weave here, but money is made to carry a lot of baggage in our world. All our issues about security, emotional bonds, attachment, safety, anxiety, depression, family relationships, intimate relationships, god, values — everything, really — all of it gets woven into our relationship to money. How we make it, how we spend it, how we think about it, how we perceive people who have it, how we perceive people who don’t, all of it.

And all of that doesn’t just disappear when money changes hands.

Everyone’s familiar with money that comes with strings attached. Or money that you have to tie yourself up to get. I’m coming to think that living on money like that is kind of like living with low-grade mold exposure all the time, or a very slight allergy to a pet in your house. It’s just a constant little drag on your system.

I also think money carries some dynamics longer than we think, and more subtly than we think. E.g.: Money is spent at a corporation that has no real Values or Mission. The company invests it in another company that actively causes harm and damage in the world. Then they cash out that investment, pay an employee with the money. The employee hates the company and also has a lot of insecurity/hoarding issues around money. He spends it at a coffee shop, tipping a barista. —I think by the time the barista gets the money, that entire chain is still energetically present in it, to one degree or another. Money-energy carries history and quality in a way electrons don’t.

This too, I think creates a constant little drag on the system. I’m pretty sure that in addition to most of our society living with literal low-grade mold exposure, we’re also all running a slight fever with this more energetic form of subclinical toxicity.

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Versions of this idea have been part of our discussions at the Renga fund. There’s one attitude we could take that’s the usual “doesn’t matter where the money comes from, it all spends the same.” But that doesn’t actually feel true.

It feels like if money comes from an aligned place, from people who really believe in the Mission and goals, it’s cleaner fuel in some way. Each dollar is working at a higher capacity, somehow. More streamlined, like the wind isn’t against it. Like $20,000 from aligned sources can do things that $50,000 from other sources couldn’t.

I can’t quite explain this. But it feels like something in me is nodding along firmly while I type it.

(It seems to also apply to spending money as well as receiving — $1,000 spent in the right way seems to bring deeper enrichment for everyone involved. E.g.- I give a scary sum of money to a friend who needs it more than I do, and the next day I get free access to something I’ve wanted for awhile but couldn’t afford. I’ve lived and heard many stories like this every time the topic comes up.)

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I don’t really have practical takeaways here.

I mean, I have some takeaways for me, but I don’t think any of you would really describe them as practical.

I seem, for example, to be developing a habit of turning down money when I’m not sure if it’s aligned for me to receive — whether due to its source, or because of what I’d need to do to receive it, or just because I get an intuitive ping in the middle of a meeting.

This feels, in some ways, like an extremely irresponsible and annoying habit to be developing. But honestly, the more I lean into it the more it seems like an entirely different physics around money is settling in, and everything just works out from that physics instead of the one I’m used to. It’s a physics where integrity seems to be stronger than quantity.

Oh, I do have one takeaway for more extreme cases. I think if you actively despise the source of your money, you should put significant effort into finding a new source of income. I know, there’s not always much you can do about having mixed feelings on your job, it’s just a reality of the situation. But I’ve known a handful of people who actively hate, insult, belittle, and/or bemoan the source of their income, and I have felt uncomfortable at most of those people’s homes — even before I heard them talk about their clients or company. I think it’s pretty hard to make a life that feels welcoming while using money that is, frankly, unwelcome in your life.

I think this exploration is going to go a number of other places, but this is about what I’ve got for now: Money can be of greater or lesser quality, and it’s probably worth orienting towards both spending and receiving it in ways that improve its energetic quality.

Which, now that I’m writing it, I’m noticing a strangely heretical flavor to talking about money in terms of quality, rather than just submitting to the doctrine of quantity. That feels worth sitting with.

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