Dear Mother Nature,
You gave us everything first.
Food grew before it was priced.
Shelter existed before it was mortgaged.
Water flowed long before it was bottled.
Community came before currency.
Nothing essential to life required money to exist.
Money showed up later. Very late. A recent invention in the long story of humanity. And at first, it helped us coordinate. It helped us exchange. It helped us keep track. But somewhere along the way, it stopped being a tool and became a gatekeeper. A mediator we had to satisfy before we were allowed access to what you had already provided.
We don’t work to live anymore.
We live to earn permission.
And maybe that’s why so many people feel exhausted, anxious, and quietly trapped. It’s not that life is inherently unbearable. It’s that we’ve built a system that puts distance between people and the things that actually nourish them.
So this week isn’t about burning money to the ground. It’s about remembering that money is not the source. You are. And when a system blocks access to the very things it claims to distribute, it’s not sacred. It’s flawed.
Dear reader, consider this your permission slip.
Permission to be unhappy with the system.
Permission to question why working harder doesn’t feel like living better.
Permission to imagine alternatives without being told you’re naïve or unrealistic.
Because here’s the quiet truth: this version of money isn’t stable. The warning lights have been flashing for decades. Recessions, bailouts, bubbles, crashes—they’re not accidents. They’re symptoms. And the math says the train doesn’t slow down. It eventually derails.
This week wasn’t about forcing anyone off that train.
It was about letting you know there are exits.
Other ways of organizing life.
Other ways of valuing contribution.
Other ways of being human together.
So will you miss the penny?
Or will you remember it as the moment you realized money was never the point?
Still listening to the ground beneath our feet,
~ The Radical Left