Sunday, June 1, 2008

All that shines…



What makes the world go round?

One obvious answer comes up in verse. Love (or sex) makes the world go round.

Cynics would not agree. For them the power of money is the cause, the motive and the ultimate reason for everything that happens.

In my youth, real money meant gold. Currency, whether in coins or in bank notes, meant nothing. It was subject to fluctuations, devaluations and loss. Only gold was a steady and safe value. During wars and in dark periods, gold was the main factor of survival.

The gold standard does not exist any more – but the yellow metal remains a secure investment and is constantly gaining in price. Not to speak of its mystical and symbolic value.

This is the photograph of a gold bar I had bought in dark times as a back up – if worse came to worst. I sold it a few days ago. But before, I took a parting shot.

14 comments:

Dion.M. said...

Yes...money makes world go round, but... I am looking for a rosebud at the moment...

Anonymous said...

What makes the world go round?

Gravity comes first to mind, so I would bet all I've got on violence, in every aspect and form of its existence. Besides, money and sex are both ways for people to acquire a position on the social hierarchy where everything is to be taken and "gift" is just another word of well disguised meaning. Love! Isn't love a balanced form of violence too, a fact that becomes crystal clear when it's disturbed?..

Oh yes, I'll choose violence! After all, it was already on the table...

Anonymous said...

Tsonta has left the blog...

The smartest nation of the world understands the importance of portable wealth...

Never get emotionally tied up to real estate,land,buildings,property.

Cash is king & gold is the Emperor...

When I will be able to afford it,I will seek gold bars with the hammer & sickle & the svastika,collector's items from nazi Germany & Soviet Union,if there is any such item on the market anymore...

The British gold pound is the best standard for measuring true wealth in GR. Today u need 1400 g.p for a 100sq.m. new appartment in Ath.

Does anybody remember the prices in the '50s,'60s.'70s,etc...?

Anonymous said...

I live at the" golden state"!

I don't give a rats ass about gold and all the fake security that goes with it.

But when I walk at the beach I enjoy the gold in the sand!
It is true gold, too expensive to process, so -thank god/ITA- for leaving it there...
...right between my toes!
Rich or not?

Dormammu said...

Why did you have to sell it?

doodler said...

@dormammu

I needed the money...

:))

takis vasilopoulos said...

Maybe the desire is behind the movement of the world...

The desire for another person..

or the desire for money,or the desire for authority...

or simply the desire for a sandwich....

Ι don't know which desire is stronger but it's true that the world sometimes seem like a golden dervish

doodler said...

Takis if instead of desire you would use the word "libido" (which practically means the same) you would have strong support from Freud and the psychoanalysts.

candide said...

Doodler makes the world go round...

Well, humans are a big part of it, and I think we move it to the right direction. After all, it's not an easy task!

Steven Pinker can explain better than me the progress that has been done, and why we sometimes don't see it.

candide said...

...and this blog is another evidence.

Anonymous said...

My idea of success...

A person who by midlife ( age 40) has acquired property of market value equal to his weight in gold.

E.g,a businessman & a ..." writer "
( " u r whatever u claim to be... ) ",
height 1.73,
average weight 75kg,
should have a market value of...

75kg X E 18,516 = E 1,388,700.

( Market value = total value of all assets at market price minus all debts ) .

By age 73 he should have 1,388,700 + ( 33/40 X 1,388,700 ) = 2,534,377.

I bet the writer will be surpised to see how close these estimates r to his real fortune, meaning that. ..he did it,he is so succesful by gold standard classification...

Nice game to play with Leo & Daisy...But I wanna join your company too,for mutual benefit...

doodler said...

@harrylogue

I knew that Aga Khan was weighted on his birthday and given his weight in gold as a present by his followers (and was he overweight!).

It never dawned upon me to measure my financial success with the gold-weight standard.

Maybe if I was weighted with books?

Anonymous said...

Nevertheless,our weight in gold is an impressive & symbolic measure of wealth...

And my guestimate of 2.5m & change for u should be darn close...

As for writing,to paraphrase the Beatles,

" with a record like that
u know u should be glad "...

But u suffer from chronic insatisfaction...

Rosebuds,
goldbars,
0.5m copies,
all Porsche models...

Still
" u can get no satisfaction "...

U won every battle.
Time to acknowledge that... & smell the roses...

heinz said...

There's nothing in particular that makes to world going around....
It's the world itself, disintegrating and rising again, in a non stopping procedure - the spinning is the world.
Circularity, that is....

The world spins, and we try to grab it - we grab instances, inventing stability where the flows reign...

Why do we depend so much on the notion of stability? I don't know...