Let's Talk About Wealth Baby, Let's Talk about You and Me

This post will traverse pleasantly as a butterfly will skip from one leaf to another in unforseeable directions at fluctuating speeds.

Just had an intense three weeks of lessons on Maui. I am not through them, but I have progressed in my residency here, both fixing and maintaining my Subaru into running smoothly, working three to five par-time jobs, and moved into my cabin on the water in Haiku (my view is of the north coast's expansive powerful ocean, a castle, and air so fresh you can see the world as it was intended to be seen). I discovered you need to be in tune when in transition to help sift through the new debris which approaches like a meteor shower without end until you calm your mind.

Best to calm your mind when you're feeling too hectic and to take a step back and consider the world outside yourself and not only your current circumstance. You can do it through rationality (everything physical in this world has an end), positivity (good things come to those who wait with honest patience), proactively (trusting yourself to make the change) or instinctively (living through practice, evolving with the environment and letting it show you the answer). Meditation can achieve all this too, but that's a discipline and art one can not penetrate unless fully commited to it.

During my three week absentee from the blog the theme or topic of what I have chosen to write about today, Wealth, has been on my mind. A relevant subject given the deterioriation of the American Dollar since the turn of the century, plus the state of the world at large today in terms of Japan and what is might emerge as a universally recognized new currency. With peak energy crisises where natural resources are shifting towards depletion, we might consider more thoroughly examing what wealth is, what makes a man wealthy and how we might choose to redefine it.

Some people theorize that the debt is going to continue to grow and the excessive spending is actually an attempt to crash the economy back to zero credit (not too far off Mr. Pahulniuk) where everyone will be registered into a computer electronically (and how about that Mr. Paranoia K. Dick). This leads many to exchanging there money for various objects (the ones that some ironically call priceless). Gold and Silver have gone up tremendeously in the past 11 years and those who invested then are surely wealthy now, right? Well in a dog-eat-dog Pirate world where we bleed for our flag treasure is both precious and concurrently very dangerous to own. Then there is land, which if you own, you're safe, just like the Native Americans. All our possessions we will soon value far greater than paper. I imagine the bartering system reemerging in full and market places to trade your extra squash harvest for a kidney are in order. And then there is ohana, family. And sharing food and beauty from the aina, land, with all of its dwellers. A less vindictive, agenda-oriented wealth that I'm going to zone in on.

Goodness Through Chaos

living-now-echoes of a self-sufficient-future
highways silent underground grinners grin
politics are hula hooping for the big black hat
workers grinding hands into Ms. Stubborn Earth
spoiled by the sand sprouting Israelites
she deserted her trees for some goddamn quiet
neglecting sweetness from the vine-ripened fruit
her inside out umbrella beckons the horny bee
who ages and circles hummin' time aint a crime

 So what is wealth? For me it is not measured in possessions and size, but rather internally. Is it knowledge, experience, intelligence? Good health, happy family, a trophy collection? Is it a roof, a newborn, a garden? Passion, love, balance? A series of happy memories to reflect on. I believe each culture and land perceive this differently and create separate truths, though I also think universally we share an idea or two, though often reluctant to admit it when you are at war.

Wealth isn't measured in volume, but in the quality of the sound.  Creating and adding your own imprint on this world through interaction, action, or reaction is another measure.  It is helping your neighbors in the midst of a storm remove their fences so their animals won't drown from a flash flood, it is seeing a monk seal give birth, teaching the next generation how to do more good than harm to this world, and wearing a genuine smile and laughing away a shitty day. Wealth is planting a seed and nurturing it until it starts to produce its own new seeds.

So right now, I may not be rich, and I can say that during the course of the last three years I've had to work hard to live the lifestyle that I desired to live and there were many times where I'd have preferred to have waken up in a different time zone, but I don't wish I spent a single day different, since it brought me here.


What am I doing to acquire wealth now? On the surface I'm living in Hawai'i and now rent/do work trade for my own place that for the first time in a while isn't communal living. I do my work trade by planting food and am going to help build/design a woodfire oven and clay cabin in the shape of a dome (all with attempts to make the property fully sustainable). In Kipahulu I work on sacred Hawaiian land with Kai to turn 7.7 acres into an off-grid sustainable farm with an arts and crafts Hale, a training gym, and a place where a community can gather to eat and enjoy their time with family in the heart of the jungle. It is also an effort to restore many Hawaiian plants and remove introduced invasive species, which have quickly escalated and greatly disturbed the natural eco-system here over the last 15 years. I'm spending time in Hana with friends on red sand beaches, clearing the jungle back and doing landscaping for others, and most recently, I was hired at Flatbread Company in Paia as a prep cook (a big step for me in my culinary pursuit). They sell delicious woodfire pizza and salads with all ingredients harvested from organic farms on Maui. I'm starting to write more (journalistic stories, poetry, and short stories), and played my first open mic a week ago. Right now, my bank account is nearly empty, but I've got jobs for the future, I'm high spirited, I've got friends and aloha and I'm on a beautiful island. But most importantly, I'm alive. And so are you.

My conclusion on wealth is this: You are as wealthy as the world you leave for the future generations. You can measure it by the smiles around you, the blossoming spring flowers, a crying child. I'm trying to do my part by building and planting and nurturing (maybe a little too literally), but why not join me in your own way?

Aloha and Mahalo for reading,

Matthew