The Malaysian Magician's Money

So I woke up at 5AM this morning because my brother kicked me in his sleep. Being the hard-working (*coughs* net-holic) person I am, I turned on my computer and began to submit expense reports from the last WS deployment, check on JIRA issues, check my job email, check my other emails, send some pics to a friend, wonder about about one of the picures, image-google it to try to find it on the net, become distracted with the picture of a hot girl, click on it, find a Malaysian's magician blog on Friendster (http://davidlaimag.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/2007/07/some_of_the_bet.html), read one of his entries from last year talking about courtship, like it, wonder what his latest entries were, read them, and decide to comment on one entry about money.

My comment turned out longer than expected, but I liked it because it turned out almost as a blog entry. So then I decided to post my comment on my own blog, just for kicks.

So here is David's (the Malaysian magician's) blog entry:

http://davidlai.tv/2008/08/27/money-is-almost-everything/

MONEY is almost EVERYTHING

I believe at my age , money is `almost’ everything . Those who say it isn’t are living in a world of denial . If you had’t notice I said ` I believe ‘ , you don’t have to agree .

The old saying goes , ` Love is all you need ‘ . I say it’s bullshit . Without money , do you realise how many arguments takes place in a relatiosnhip due to the lack of monetery funds ? A LOT ! I also resent the statement of ` GOD IS ALL YOU NEED ‘ . I’ve been to the Phillipines a couple of times . In the Phillipines , 95 % of the population are Roman Catholics ….unfortunately , the poverty & crime rate there is one of the highest in the world …What happened ? Same goes for Brazil . They all pray , I have no doubt on that , yet …… I never said I din’t believe there was a GOD . Don’t quote me .

Earning money does have it’s price . Yes , what a way to put it . Earning money has it’s `price’ .

I haven’t been updating this poor old blog for quite some time now . Not because I’m lazy . I promise I’m not and I don’t plan to be . It’s not because I don ‘t have anything exiting to write on .. because I do ! Lots and lots of things to write and rant about ! It’s just that I’m so busy finding new ways to earn money . Hopefully , lots and lots of it . I guess it all depends on how much you want it .

I said money is `almost’ everything , so whats your drive ?

Make sure it’s the right one …

And my comment was:

Hey David! Nice blog!! Nice profession, too! I like the way you write: clear, direct, and honest.

Anyway, I thought I'd add my own from-the-other-side-of-the-world (I'm originally from Guatemala, now live in Texas) opinion to the money discussion going on here.

Stating the obvious... Of course money matters! We use it all the time! We use it to eat, we use it to drink, we use it to dress, we use it to get shelter, we use it... A LOT! People spend 40 hours a week, many times much more than that, working, serving, spending their time for someone else, losing the majority of their daylight hours, losing a big portion of their LIFETIME to get MONEY. Many people stress over it, plan around it, live and die around it, revolve their whole lives and priorities around the "irreplaceable" chore of "getting money". So yes, it matters.

And by the current society's system, it figures. It's the way we've changed into. Did we always need money? No. People did survive without it for quite a while. So why do we need it now? Because for us, it's the only way we KNOW how to live.

Would you be willing to grow/hunt your own food? Find your own drink? Build your own house? Make your own clothes? Manufacture your own car? Dig up and refine your own fuel? You would? Oh well then, you could probably live without money.

I bet you 10 bucks + RM50 (what the heck is that currency? Oh, Ringgit Malaysia, thank you Google) you would answer no to most of these questions. I would too. We're useless for most of the above tasks, so getting people to DO all that stuff for us is the only way we know how to live. And the way we MEASURE how much are we helping out one another to live is money. Hence the need for money.

So what about the "Love is all you need", "God is all you need" sayings? Depends. Like you say... what's your drive? What do you "need"? Do you "need" to eat? Do you "need" to survive? Do you "need" to not-live-in-crime-and-poverty? Oh well then, you probably also need money too.

So now suppose you have TONS of money. I mean TONS. I mean riding-a-different-private-jet-for-every-day-of-the-week rich. Do you "need" something else? Love? God? That's not really for me or anyone else to tell you. As the question says: Do YOU need something else?

This is where discussion and arguing always end up inconclusive - we can't TELL people what they need! As you said: "what's your drive?". I think yours is pretty good.

Cheers!

Ugh... my comment is longer than his entry! Symptom of a blogger #27...
I like when I can just copy-paste stuff to put on my blog. OK, I'm done. So again...

Cheers!