Money

I was on this training course there the past few days. It was hard to keep my mouth shut really, because I sometimes teach courses like the one I was on, and I just had so much to contradict and when I wasn't contradicting I was shouting up the answers before everyone else, because after all, I've heard all of this at least 100 times before. Well actually, I didn't keep my mouth shut, so I suppose I can't say that it was difficult as it didn't actually happen.
Well the old question came up on motivation: does money motivate people?
You had to write your answer on a post-it note and stick it on the wall, when it would later be revisited. I knew that the clever answer would be no, because the next part of the exercise would be writing down all the things that motivate and/or de-motivate you, and of course nobody was writing down money (except me of course, just to annoy the trainer as I knew that the next part of the exercise was going to be him pointing out that none of us had listed money as a motivator).
Well actually, I do think that money is a motivator. Even if you are loaded, what you get paid to do your job is symbolic of how you are valued. And even though it's the root of all evil and all that, it still is the axis upon which our world turns.
Money - the reason that people, countries, continents, can starve to death. The reason that a small bunch of arseholes can rule the world, the reason that I haven't gotten to see as much of the world as I'd like to, and the reason that we eat pancakes shortly before pay day.
I'd like to go into more detail, but because of money I'm doing a day job these days and am too tired to write much or do or say anything creative. Because of money I can't work full time as a writer, not even as a bad writer. But that said, working for the man is good writing material. Well it will be, eventually, when I get the gold watch and the pension, probably at age 75.
So what does motivate people? What makes you get out of bed in the morning? In my case its my bad hip. I need to stretch it. After that, I need to get out of the house before I have to speak to the bunch of teens who live here.
And the other things - recognition, thanks, success, teamwork and all the usual crap. Well they all end in money I suppose, somehow.
Even this blog, c'mon, I want your donations, want it to make money. And when it does, then I can sit back smoking a lady pipe and throwing wildly extravagant parties telling people how money don't mean nothing...