The fur flyeth

Gracious. It would seem that the incendiary controversy of declaring that 'Love is All There Is' has been soundly trumped by the vastly more incendiary controversy of Begging for Bucks. It would also seem that, wide-ranging as Pretty Lady's worldly experience seems to be, she still remains infinitely shockable.

First, let us get one thing straight. The definition of 'begging' is 'pleading for an unearned handout out of desperation, genuine or feigned.' You will never, never, never catch Pretty Lady begging for anything, nor will you catch anyone in her elite and hand-selected social circle doing so. We may all have Cash Flow problems, at times; we may suffer from recessions, natural disasters, or overly optimistic business projections. But we never beg. We state the truth of our financial circumstances without self-pity or shame, and then let the matter drop.

Secondly--when did Money become so tangled up with Morality? Is it our Puritan heritage? Is it Capitalism? Is it Anti-Communism? Is it a Ruling Class Plot? Or does it merely stem from buried playground experiences, regarding seeming trivialities like designer jeans, which so scarred our youthful psyches that the mere hint of a Financial Issue causes the vast majority of us to go all squirrelly and defensive?

The fact is, people, that money is not moral. It just is. It is energy, if you would like a useful metaphor. The only proof of its existence is its movement; it is not a physical thing at all. It is merely an idea.

Like all ideas, it can only be increased by being shared. A library under lock and key does nobody any good; neither does a physical lump of metal sitting in a physical vault. The idea of the lump of metal, however, causes real estate to be developed, research to be undertaken, and bombs to be detonated, depending upon how this idea is channelled.

Thus, as individuals and as societies, we channel our financial ideas according to our personal and cultural priorities. The 'morality' tag is simply a covert justification of a set of priorities which, if we were directly confronted with such, we might repudiate in shame and loathing.

For example. Although Pretty Lady has several occupations, her most financially remunerative one happens to be in the healing arts. In early 2002, she was making plans to move to New York City. At a party in rural Texas, she happened to mention these plans, with the addendum, "I think New York can use some healing, right about now."

An airline pilot retorted, "You would profit from that?"

As Pretty Lady's sister pointed out, the sane and appropriate response to this question is a calm and even-tempered 'yes.' It is not seemly to go into a diatribe about airline pilots who would never consider undertaking to steer a plane to Australia for free; it is gauche to paint a graphic picture of a healer who camps out in Central Park and goes through garbage cans to feed herself, all because it is unseemly and wrong to accept payment for helping people. Acerbic comments such as 'Evidently, it's only okay to profit from activities that harm people, or at the very least have an ethically debatable result,' would be out of line, particularly at her college friend's uncle's 60th birthday party. So Pretty Lady did not say any of these things. She merely replied, "It's about survival," and the gentleman thoughtfully conceded her point.

Pretty Lady points this out because she has often observed that, both as individuals and as a society, we think we are prioritizing certain things, whereas if you look at our collective checkbooks, they tell quite a different story. There have been many times in her life when she was far more confident of her ability to raise $40K of venture capital for a fundamentally foolish but glamorous-sounding enterprise, than of her ability to raise $2K for next month's living expenses. This is because, in our culture, we all carry a mental distinction between the notions of 'handout' and 'investment,' without seeing that this distinction is illusory and meaningless.

The fact is, when one channels one's money in a certain direction, one is investing energy in widening that channel; in increasing this particular idea in the world at large. The return flows back accordingly. Investment in real-estate development produces suburban sprawl. Investment in fear, rage and aggression produces bomb detonations. Investment in four hours of television-watching per capita, per evening, produces--well, Pretty Lady doesn't know what it produces, because she hasn't made that particular investment, but from hearsay she notes that it's a sorry state of affairs.

One can get a notion of the things that are low on our collective priority lists merely by observing whom we choose to humiliate, by terming our investment in their survival a 'handout,' and subjecting these unfortunates to the Desperation Quotient in their applications for funding. Pretty Lady can attest, through grim personal experience, that one of the primary qualification requirements for obtaining one of the very few fine arts grants available in this country is a taxable income of at least $10K below the poverty line, and no access to healthcare. It greatly improves an artist's chances of obtaining a grant if he or she is desperately ill as well; even so, the odds against receiving one are stiff.

And don't even get Pretty Lady started on how we treat our children.

Equally damaging, in Pretty Lady's view, is our knee-jerk contempt for, and suspicion of, arts patrons. There is some pervasive cultural feeling that these people are 'taking advantage' by happening to recognize and support a creative genius while this genius is still alive, instead of waiting until the person is safely famous and dead, and unfairly cashing in accordingly. Pretty Lady once had the inestimable good fortune to know a lovely lady artist who died, tragically, quite young. People still occasionally email her, wanting to know if she has any Margaret K.s for sale. Another friend of Margaret's groused, after the funeral, "It's all the collectors who are making money, now."

In Pretty Lady's view, the individuals with the sense and perspicacity to fund Margaret K.'s work while she was still alive to use the money are the good guys in this scenario. They may profit all they like; however, most of them are hanging on to the art because they actually like it.

Similarly, Pretty Lady has noted a pervasive social unwillingness to invest in even such a small thing as a musical disc, until the musician in question has been co-opted by an enormous industry, marketed exhaustively, molded and sucked dry by constant radio play. It as if most people are physically unable to hear a thing until it has undergone this process. They turn off their minds and their souls, and allow themselves to be spoon-fed by the very media complex that they purport to despise.

So. All this is a long-winded explanation of why Pretty Lady attempts to put her money where her soul is, and why she offers each and every one of you the opportunity to do the same. When Pretty Lady attends the live concert of an obscure musician and loves the music, she buys a CD with the last ten dollars in her bag. When she finds a piece of stellar artwork in her price range, she buys it; if she can't afford it, she toots it online and in conversation. And occasionally she even tips a blogger, or more frequently (due to cash flow issues) provides a free healing session, or some moral support. At her end of the financial scale, these things mean a lot.

Because art doesn't happen for free. Talent is one thing; discipline is quite another. The opportunity cost of artistic discipline is frequently a full-time paycheck. By shaming an artist for declaring that his or her work is worth something, we are starving our own creative selves.