Two Dreams, One Reality

Money, value, and the fear of death

I postponed this article for several days, and I’m still not sure why I’m even writing it. Anyway, here I go.

During the last week I had two strange dreams. In one, I was at a pub with a bunch of acquaintances. We were having a great time, and after a while we got hungry. So, I tried to order something to eat. The only thing available were some chips, so I went with it. After a while the whole of our party decided to leave and we asked for the bills.

The waitress asked me if she can put all those chips on my bill even if everyone was eating them. I wondered why she is asking that, but the waitress very soon explained herself — she said that she forgot to mention that the chips were of some luxurious kind, costing two and half grands in total. I started to laugh in disbelief.

The annoyed waitress mocked me that I better stop laughing and tell her where is this kingdom of God, I so often talk about, and that I should rather quickly get the money and stop talking about idealistic bullshit. I was surprised that she knows about my articles, but from her unpleasant demeanor it was clear that it was all just a sort of revenge on her part, because she felt threatened by my words — she was afraid that she would loose her underpaid job.

The reaction of my acquaintances was quite predictable — none dared to question the waitress, all of them acted as if nothing has happened, they turned away their eyes because everyone wanted to frequent that pub in the future and didn’t want to get on the bad side of the waitress.

The dream ended with me taking out my phone and googling out that the retailer was selling those chips for a few bucks, and she, indeed, tried to scam me and I was right that it was a revenge. I stuck the proof into her face and woke up.

The second dream was a sort of continuation of the first one.

I was walking home along a highway from that pub in the first dream. As I was approaching a bridge before me, a huge crowd of people was crossing the road. All of them dressed in boiler suits, they moved in pairs like soldiers marching in parade. Pissed off by my experience in the pub, I was thinking out loud, bitching about capitalism and what it has brought to us, when and old man, well into his sixties, approached me.

I noticed his white hair as he slightly reprimanded me with a wide meek smile. He said something along the lines that I should be patient, that there is a battle between good and evil going on, but we should accept what is and humbly wait for the good to prevail. I felt stupid for my angry attitude, admitted that the old man has a point, and joined the folks on their way to the factory.

Soon enough we came to the factory entrance. It was a stairway made of raw concrete, without rails and pretty steep. One bad step and one could fall few hundred feet straight to one’s death. My head was spinning as I was looking into the abyss below me, and the factory people laughed at my hesitation to go down. They were all too accustomed to it. I grabbed all my courage and started to descent.

I made few uncertain steps when suddenly my foot got stuck between two stairs. I realized that this is something beyond my capacity. I was not willing to join these people who went, like cattle to slaughter, toward their everyday slavish toil. And it became obvious that these folks, each of them enormously powerful in their own way, were too weak and scared to change their habits. I returned alone to the surface and woke up.

So, there it was — the situation of humanity in a nutshell. From people convinced that the system is on their side like that waitress, through everyone who just wants to have an easy time indulging in pleasures the system provides, to the silent meek majority that feels the injustice every day but is too scared to loose even the little they were rationed to do anything about it.

Yet, I ask.

Who grows your wheat? Who is grinding it? Who bakes your bread? Who keeps power plants going? Who takes care of water pipes? Who drives your trains, buses, tracks, or ships? Who keeps them in working condition? Who builds your appliances? Who invents them? Who educates your kids? Who takes care of your health? Or who creates your entertainment? Certainly not all those profiteering middle men and women, neither advertisers, nor the kings and CEOs.

If everyone gave everything they make without asking anything in return, everyone would have everything they need.

Like trees that don’t knock on anyone’s door to ask refund for oxygen produced. No part is more important than others. This is basically what communism had to look like. Alas, what you know as communism was only a form of dictatorial capitalism for selected few. One that now wins and enslaves all across the globe. That’s also why it looks like fascism. Because it is precisely that. Rome and Babylon combined.

It’s time to take your true power back.