Reaction for "The Poetics of Money" from John Bloom's THE GENIUS OF MONEY

Walking the Labyrinth in Hogsback, South Africa
(From "Walk the World's Meditative Labyrinths," Smithsonian.com)

A Zen Koan

If you asked a fish, "How's the water?" most fish would respond, "What's water?" I think in "The Poetics of Money," John Bloom may be asking us to contemplate the "water" of our current economic reality. 

What's the difference between handing a couple of dollars to a strawberry farmer at a Farmer's Market and programming your computer to electronically move millions from one currency or equity (Wells Fargo, for instance) to another in the blink of an eye?

You look the strawberry farmer in the eye, compliment her on the sweetness of the berries, ask how the recent torrential rain affected the current crop, inquire after her son, who just enlisted in the Navy, etc. 

On the other hand, your computer dutifully adds virtual "value" on paper at the end of one day, only to subtract that "value" on another, completely unaware that one of the digital blips indicates Wells Fargo stock. And what you prefer to remain in the dark about is that Wells Fargo is a major source of funding for the Dakota Access Pipeline, which violates the sovereignty of the Sioux people across whose land the pipeline is scheduled to cross, threatening the safety and health of people who not only have been living on the land it passes through for thousands of years, not only have experienced aggression and violation from non-native interests for hundreds of years, but who have not given their permission for it to be built.

Is it "just money"? How is a willfully unconscious digital blip from the magnetic strip on the back of a piece of plastic in my wallet—or from the processor on my laptop or smart phone—moving to another digital receiver 10,000 miles away in a nanosecond different from a lump of rock with the chemical symbol "Au," which much be consciously verified for authenticity by another lump of rock, a touchstone —with the chemical signature SiO2—to determine its relative value....

What have we gained? What have we lost? What is the cost—financially, spiritually, culturally, personally?