Pecunatations

I'd like to christen this blog with a maxim, something like: "Feed a man a fish..." in which I bestow upon you unparalleled and well aged wisdom, but I can't seem to commit to anything and when you are looking to initiate something I figure you best not trip over yourself right out the gate declaring yourself "espouser of concepts and all around dialogue wonderchild". I'll try to never forget that the only reason things like this exist are to give people the monologues they feel they deserve, bearing that in mind lets all strive to keep this less conceited. My mission is simple: fill us with the oddities, encounters, musings, and impulses that pass through my day like a subtle wind I'd rather notice for a second. The thing is if I trace down those expressions, if I pen down everything that occurs and incurs damage upon me than I might just be a bit merrier, not just in the "Christmas merry-time jamboree" but a general state of candid merriment with which I can at least attempt negate the hectic world we all reside in. That being said here is the first of many iotas...

I recently encountered the word pecuniary, that all so fancy man Theodor Adorno elected to use it in his work Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life. So like any good bibliophile I had my trusty dictionary ready to begin my reeducation. Pecuniary is an adjective defined as "of or pertaining to money or a money penalty; dealing with finance" the root for the word is pecunia a Latin word meaning money which comes form the word pecus meaning cattle. This entertained me to no end as it really shows the etymological pleasure laced into the verbal world around us, money is interchangeable with a tangible possession, in this case a living animal-livestock. This effectively represents the quality of exchange those unbearable Marxist writers seem to keep themselves so entertained with, cattle extend beyond themselves to provide the livelihood of those who own them- ala a farmer whose family wouldn't make it through the winter if Bessie and her friends didn't make a permanent visit to the abattoir. Money in its paper form deep within your wallets and purses seems almost innocuous, dare I say naturalized? But take a living animal and stand it next to you and you might be a bit more reluctant to exchange it for new clothes. Those old guys may have known what they were doing when they were searching for a way to represent C.R.E.A.M, the point in which commodities become indistinct from the money that provides them-really the point in which living things become indistinct from money may very well be the point in which conceptions of human identity may have to be reconsidered. I just dread the day they can clone Benjamin Franklin, it will certainly be awkward having to store a sixty something year old man in a register in order to give a gangsta' fellow change for his new Starter wide brim.