You know how there are some crystal clear moments from your past that don’t seem to be particularly important, but nevertheless they come to mind at odd times and seemingly from nowhere?

I remember hearing that at some point in our lives each of us will breathe an atom of oxygen that was breathed by Leonardo da Vinci. It wasn’t that da Vinci breathed more oxygen than others, it was that there is a finite number of molecules of oxygen, we breathe in so many during our lifetimes, and air movements over time (as well as the life cycles of oxygen) that the odds are we have breathed at least one molecule of oxygen that was breathed by almost everyone before us.

Whoa! Pretty amazing. To think that each if us has shared atoms with virtually everone who has lived before us. And with the plants, too, because of course they are part of the cycles of life and death.

A simplification, of course, but later in my life it led me to think about the implications of finite amounts, and of limits, and it led me to a perspective I was never taught in school.

There are limits to the Earth’s resources. It does not take a great mind to understand that. And yet we act as if there were no limits.

We pollute the air. We poison the land. We contaminate the water. We destroy the forests. We have developed a species that lusts for more, more, more.

We have lost our understanding of enough.

A very smart sales manager once told me that in the course of my work in estate planning I would meet two kinds of people: those who worked for a living, and those who already had all the money they would ever spend. Most of us are in the first group. For the second group, money is not about paying the bills, or even about being extravagant – it is about power and control.

As I have written many times before in this space, money is not wealth. It is a tool to manipulate wealth. Wealth is access to clean air, pure water, and nutritious food. Wealth is having adequate clothing, safe shelter, reasonable health, satisfying companionship and meaningful occupation.

So long as money aids in the transfer of wealth between those who have access to wealth or who produce wealth, money is an effective tool, and worthwhile.

But when those who make bread no longer accept money for the bread, money becomes valueless in relationship to bread. Money only works as a tool to manipulate wealth when money can be traded for wealth.

And yet we live in a culture that worships money, and the possession of money.

And it is killing us.

Polluted air is killing us. Poisoned land is killing us. Contaminated water is killing us. Deforestation is killing us. Our lust for more, more, more is killing us.

The United States has the most overfed and undernourished population in the world, with the most expensive health care and the worst health of any “developed” nation.

We are a dying culture, and we are rushing into our death with open arms and cries of “More! More!” on our lips. Our vaunted knowledge and technology cannot “save” us. They not only do not offer us solutions, in pursuit of ever more stuff they are the core of the problem.

Isn’t it time to re-learn the lessons of history, and live within our means? Isn’t it time to learn to live in balance with the rest of the Earth: the air, the water, the land, the flora and fauna?

Isn’t it time we regained our perspective? Isn’t it time to look at the reality of our self-destruction and say, “Enough!”

What do you think?

Our economy is in tatters, in the United States in general, and in Oregon specificlly.

What is an economy? The word economy comes from the Greek oikos – house, and nemein – to manage. At its most basic, economy means managing the house. “Keeping your house in order”, if you will – making sure that the needs and obligations of you and your household are met: clean air, pure water, nutritious food, adequate clothing, reasonable health, safe shelter, rewarding companionship and meaningful occupation.

These are true wealth – not money. Money is only worthwhile to the extent that it can provide true wealth – a handy tool to make barter easier, but not wealth in and of itself.

But except for some aspects of food costs, home sales and unemployment numbers, “economic reports” rarely deal with these matters. Economic reports focus on “the financial markets” i.e. investments in stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc., import and export numbers, and foreign affairs to the extent that they impact investors.

Economists focus on investments, not people: on earning money without producing anything, without actually producing wealth. In fact, protecting or producing real wealth, in particular clean air, pure water, nutritious food, and reasonable health, are considered drags on the economy.

Rewarding companionship and meaningful occupation aren’t even on the radar.

Even a casual observer can see that “The Economy” as we measure it, discuss it, theorize about and manage it, has little relationship to most people’s households.

Hence, it is possible to have “a jobless recovery.” We have an economic “recovery” despite about a fifth of the population’s inability to earn a living. We have an economic “recovery” where we do not produce goods, but must continue to consume them, and our ability to do even that is shrinking.

Our economic gurus declare an economic recovery based not on how well we “keep our house in order”, but on how securities prices reflect the wealthy’s ability to run up the prices of investment instruments. The reality of most people’s lives is just clutter to the experts, and so it is left out of the equation.

These same experts are the ones who say we are experiencing a “jobless recovery.” An economic recovery without jobs is a concept only those so wealthy they do not produce any wealth could even imagine. This explains why the only people who think things are fine are the very wealthy, for whom things actually are fine, for the moment, because the citizenry has been stuck with the bill for the wealthy’s failed gamble on the imaginary.

How’s that jobless recovery working for you?

What do you think?