Welcome to Help the Helpers. And Lip is nodding his head, ready to go. This is our fourth about discussing the undiscussible with the help of focusing. And it's quite a brave enterprise, I think, talking about what is so difficult to talk about. So, we've had religion, politics, sex, and now money. Who thinks that money is the hardest one so far? Just raise your hands. Who thinks that sex was the hardest one? We're going to do another one about sex. Who thinks politics is the hardest one? Oh, a lot for politics. I think politics is winning. And did we vote for all of them? I think so. Robert, you had your hand up. Was that... Oh, you were voting. Okay, good.
So I just want to say that the broader intention for this project is that we're testing out the power of focusing. Focusing enables many, many, many things to happen that can't happen without it. And when I'm talking about focusing now, I'm not talking about a technique that Eugene Gendlin gave us with six steps. I'm talking about the broader embodied introspection of being close to one's own experience and open to how that experience is an interaction with the world. So what can focusing do? Can it help us to talk about things that we can't usually talk about? One of the things that we need to do to set our intention this morning is to remember that safety in a group isn't a guarantee that people aren't going to say things that offend us. Because if you're trying to talk about the unsayables, of course they're unsayable because they can easily offend people and you can easily be hurt. So we're not talking about not being offended, but we're talking about when you are offended. Let's say somebody says something that really hurts you. The group is a holding environment for that and we can go to ourselves and say, breathe. Can I let that in? Eugene Gendlin has this saying about his clients that he has the client is mad at him. He goes, and then the client is getting stronger. So we need to have that sensibility in our Help the Helpers that if somebody says something offensive, that it's... but then there could be a expressing something... what is it? A curiosity. So money is connected with so many other things. And what I'd like us to do to begin, before we even begin, is just take a minute and come inside and outside and stretch and come into this community more fully. And ask yourself what comes to mind, to body, when we think of money. Money. Such a big subject. You might even want to write down something. There might be an image. There might be a problem. There might be a joy. There might be a feeling for what do you feel about money? Right? We're used to talking about how do I make more money or how do I pretend that I have more money than I have or how do I pretend that I have less money than I have or how do I spend my money? How do I pay the bills? How do I justify buying something that's off my budget or something? All of these kinds of things. But just see how do you feel about the whole area of money in your life?
Okay, I'm going to ring my little bell from Jerusalem and Katarina is going to introduce Esther, our reflector this morning. So we welcome Esther Dyson who was here before. She talked with us about AI and she's written a book about AI. Esther Dyson has also a wide range of projects and she's in New York City today. Esther, would you like to say a bit more about yourself?
Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm Katarina's sister, and that's the most important, honestly, it is. And I haven't yet finished the book about AI. This is the last month. So, it's like the last month of pregnancy or something, that you're just waiting for it to be over. But unlike pregnancy, it's not a question of waiting. It's a question of scrambling to finish the book, which has a chapter called Power and Money.
So, you put that in the chat for us. I can't wait to read this book.
I will stick it in later during the break.
Good. Good. Good. And before Lynn, you start things off, I just want to give one quote from Oscar Wilde, who wrote a whole bunch of plays and poetry and so forth. And it's in one of his plays, Lady Windermere's Fan, he one character describes another. He knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. And in a sense, my book is about the difference between humans who have finite lives and time is the most precious thing they have and the whole world of AI and the Silicon Valley dudes who know the price of everything but the value of nothing, who want to live forever and want more and more of everything. And it's sort of time versus infinite scale and value versus quantification of everything. How much are you worth? How many houses do you have? You know, just... and my thesis is that the finiteness of your life helps you to make choices because you can't do everything. And if you allow it to, that lets you relax and say, 'Okay, I'll do what I can do. I'll do what's most important to me. I don't need to count things. I do sort of need to rank them. What are the tradeoffs?' And for some people, there's also the money helps them make choices, but they're still free to make choices. And understanding that you can't have everything, but you can pick from what's available is in some sense the greatest personal power if you can feel that way. So that's what we're all hoping to do, I know, is do much more Q&A and so forth. So Lynn, I will let you start us off.
Well, I kind of said my beginning piece, but I would love before we have our discussion, Esther, if you could tell us a little bit about the power and money chapter.
Okay. So the epigraph for that chapter is... and I don't know how many of you are Americans versus Canadians who are on the continent of North America... but the emperor has no clothes, but he's carrying bags of... And that is... so the basic... money is totally quantifiable and power in the end isn't. It's not fungible. It works in certain situations over certain people. The first thing about power is there's power to versus power over. There's power to get things done, power to move around, power to... and then there's power over which is to make other people do things. And to some extent money gives you power. There's another wonderful quote, Norman Mailer in his book, he has this guy who marries into the mob and at one point, I'm not quoting exactly, but he says, you know, there's a million dollars that will buy you a million dollars of groceries. And then there's the million dollars that the mob has. It has power over people as well as the power just to get a million dollars of groceries. So you can kind of swing it around and force people to do things. And a final thought or whatever... the whole... everyone talks about what does money do to you? People think they earn it, they deserve it, they don't think they got lucky. And that corrupts them partly. But the other thing that happens if you have a lot of money is what it does to the people around you because they keep being nice to you because they want things from you and you stop hearing the truth. If you look at some of the most famous people right now in the US famous for being rich, they are surrounded by people who tell them what they want to hear. And there's also some counter examples. And I hope I don't trigger anybody here, but you take Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates who had wives who I think helped keep them steady because these clearly were women who told them the truth and said, 'Hey, you know, calm down, guy.' And then both of them unfortunately got divorced and they became... you can see it in their behavior change. They just became surrounded by people who told them they were great and that they no longer had any limits on their behavior. And the only person they sucked up to was the president. And then there's another interesting example. Did you know that there were two Elon Musks? So there's the Elon Musk at Twitter now X and Doge and he's just... I mean this is formally recognized. He takes drugs. He's crazy. He's off his rocker. But then there's the Elon Musk at SpaceX where Gwynne Shotwell actually runs the company and I kind of imagine them going to see NASA and Gwynne kind of pokes him in the side and says, 'Okay, Elon, you keep quiet. We're going to go in and talk to NASA. They're the government. So, no drugs, no funny remarks. Just I'll do the talking. If I need you, I'll nudge you.' And SpaceX is a far better run, more organized company. It doesn't necessarily always deliver on time, but spaceships work. And it's just fascinating to see all those dynamics. So that's sort of the basis of the chapter and how fungible money turns into power over people because of people's reaction to the money. It's not the money itself, but it's how the money influences their thinking, how it changes power dynamics. And you know this is nothing new but we have some current day examples.
Thank you very, very much. That gives us a kind of background platform or something to think about. And maybe we could start our discussion with our beginnings and our own family culture about money and how we grew up thinking about money. What comes to me when I think about it is that my parents were young and very inexperienced about the world, definitely about the world of money. And we never had basic money. My father was paid every two weeks. He was a fireman. And we would spend all the money. The minute he was paid, we would go and buy all our groceries and everything. And then the rest of the two weeks, we would have to go to this little corner convenience store that gave us things on time and we would eat canned stuff and whatever they had. And then when my father was paid again, we'd have to pay them back. We would have no money again. But a memory that I have that very much brings... I think my whole attitude about money was we wanted... my mother, father and I desperately wanted ice cream on a hot sunny day and we went searching through the house for pennies. You could get an 8-cent ice cream cone. And we looked in all the cushions of the couch and different drawers and all three of us scampering about finding eight cents so we could share an 8-cent ice cream cone. And I think it gave me the feeling that money was very mysterious but sort of not a big deal. There were occasions when our electricity would be turned off because we didn't have the money to pay the bill. And my father wrote this song that he sang to me. The electric man knocks on the door. Parlez-vous. The electric man knocks on the door. Parlez-vous. The electric man knocks on the door, but we don't answer it anymore. Hinky dinky parlez-vous. So that was something that has given me the feeling of money being very sort of amorphous and expandable and nothing terrible happens when you don't have it. I think I got that feeling as a child. So, I'm very curious about other people and how you feel about money, how you were brought up about money. Oh, I should say that although money wasn't a big deal in my family, my mother was horrified that anybody would think we were poor, being poor was this terrible shame. So that said a lot. I think Susan has her hand up.
I do. Esther, I'm very happy to see you. I have a lot of joy and I'm very sad what you're saying. So I just want to say that I just feel very moved by this. And I have a healing background and also a finance background. I have an MBA and also a coding background. And I was planning to spend the morning actually opening up a Vanderbilt course on Coursera and giving Anthropic some money and writing an AI application to see exactly where we are today with the paid stuff and what it feels like to run a team of bots and all this kind of stuff. So I could start to get a handle on this. And I want to say also that I'm open to helping you in any way that I can and volunteering or whatever you need.
Thank you. I'd love to talk later, but you have some interesting experience. If there's a way like if there's an email that you want me to use or anything like that, I'm happy to reach out or phone number. I'm happy to give you my phone number in the chat.
Well, during the break, I'll put it in the chat.
Okay, great. Yeah, whatever's in the break. I'm not seeing it right now, but I will check it before the end.
Okay. Thank you. And I look forward to hearing more even though I'm so sad about reality.
Maybe we're going to have breakout rooms, but Esther will stay in the main room if people have particular questions and thoughts to share with Esther. Who else has some childhood memories?
Hi everybody, it's BJ. Before we go on, I just want to say thank you so much, Susan, for the presence that you brought us, who you are and how that just cuts through to that place before words. I was not going to say what came to me, but I will because of you. What came in the inside was a line from more to less and then immediately this grief, just this grief at it. So, thank you. That's it for me.
Thank you BJ for saying that. You named the emotion which I wasn't able to name. It just was grief. So my father was a doctor and we were upper middle class and at the same time he was always threatening to throw us out if we didn't shut the lights off and I took that really seriously. I'm going to cry, you know, years of therapy. I'm still... So I've saved money as a Peace Corps volunteer. Who does that? And I'm still saving as much as I possibly can save and I can't spend because of this fear of being thrown out. My brother died homeless. There were other things involved and he was ill. It was a long time ago. So it's nothing... money is just not to do with the numbers and so much to do with the attitude. And my parents would go off on vacations with their respective lovers and we never had a family vacation so I didn't really learn... anyway still a lot of sadness and what was me kind of around that so it's a great topic and I'm sorry I wasn't here right at the beginning but thanks for the topic.
Thank you Ruth. That's so... sharing is so rich. Li would like to go.
Well yes I like to share. I have a very healthy respect for money I think partly because during my childhood my father's fortune go up and down like the roller coaster. So I can remember being living in a detached house then moving to rented apartment then having to move to my uncle's house. So it goes up and down and so it gives me a very healthy respect and also when I came to England for university so I have to work every vacation to earn to pay the university fee and my accommodation so I virtually paid myself to university and that gives me a very rich experience because I have so many different kinds of jobs staying with so many different kinds of families gives me a rich life experience. And I think I don't want to have all the money I need to buy whatever I want because that gives me no choice. So I like art objects. So when I want to a gallery I have to weigh very precisely is this really worth it? And so that gives an added value to the object that I decide to buy. So it gives me an opportunity to discern what is really of value and obviously I also like to support artists but then I have to consider my circumstances. So I think one can adopt a very, very useful approach to money. So that's all I want to share.
The other Susan, I think, has your hand.
I grew up feeling I was special and that my parents had a lot of money because my father had a store, a department store in a small... grew up in a small city and was a store in the family. So I grew up feeling different from other kids I went to school with. We had more money and I felt the kids were jealous and really didn't like me underneath. And this is painful. I remember buying them ice cream cones. We had a charge account at the ice cream store, you know, like buying friendship, but it wasn't real friendship. So, I felt very guilty. I mean, we were not as rich as my child mind made out at all, but I felt guilty and I felt greedy, not wanting to give any of that up. And I also, I think, had a very sort of what is it? Money attitude towards friendship, you know, well, buying friendship. I felt... I mean I think this gave me a very false notion about many things and about myself a lot of shame and greed. So I don't have money now and I'm a lot happier. That's my little tale. Thank you.
I just wanted to say thank you for that because we almost never hear that side of it. Susan, my Susan heart to your Susan heart. Thank you.
Yeah. Well, thank you for saying that. Even to tell that there's feelings of shame that come. So I really appreciate what you just said to me.
Money and shame seem to be intertwined in the same way or maybe different ways than money and sex and money and politics... shame and politics. Shame and sex.
Yeah. It's sort of ironic in a sense. I mean, we know about the shame of being poor and the shame of being rich. Not everybody feels it, but it's almost more unspeakable in some way because it's like, well, you're so unhappy, you're rich. And I'm going to take this in a slightly different direction for a moment, just maybe to cheer you up. And this is not a... how should I say... I could show you my room. It's kind of messy, but I'm not a hoarder. Yet, at the same time, I do... if something's being offered for free, a t-shirt at a conference or, you know, whatever it is, I'll take it. And then my task is to find the rightful owner. And yeah, I grew up certainly not poor, but you know, when I was seven or eight, I love the ice cream cone stories. You could get an... we had 35 cents for lunch money. You could get an ice cream sandwich for 15 cents. And so I would buy two ice cream sandwiches and have a nickel left over. And that was really the first money I ever counted. And I did that a lot. But I'm still kind of tight with my money, but I love taking things and giving them to people who want them more than I do. Because it's a way of... you know, I have all these things and I have too many of them and this now is something somebody will love in a way that for me it's just waiting for somebody to give it to. And just last week I was at a conference where the speaker was... whatever he was... he was blowing bubbles and it was a wonderful talk and it was all about attention and some of the things we're talking about here today. And I ran into him later and I said, 'Do you have an extra bubble blower?' Because I know this kid with autism who would just go crazy for it. And I took that back and I'm going to give it to him in two weeks. And it's, you know, I mean, I could go buy it for him for $8, I'm sure. But just that sense of taking something and letting it do its job in the world is... yeah, it's more interesting and it's more valuable than just handing out money which is only quantifiable but has no meaning. Anybody feel I hope positively triggered by that or if some way it could go wrong? I don't know. Lynn, take it away.
It's BJ again. Thank you, Esther. I don't feel more cheerful. But it's just another one of these little meaningful things, you know, if money helps us make meaning as well as power that there's something so lovely there about generosity and that you go out of your way to find things that you might find somebody to give to is just really a beautiful characteristic. I hadn't put it in that way. Thank you.
Thank you. I mean, writing this book has, I think, made me a better person by thinking about these things more deeply and sort of, you know, leaning in. You know, I love using things up. I love giving them away. And what am I? I'm 74. So, I want to have a pretty empty apartment by the time my time is up.
I just spent half the week on an online video game. My team had already won the trophy, so I used my time and digital energy and everything to help other teams get their trophies. So, I understand that. And that was even better than winning. I bet it was so cool like rooting for these little kids. Come on. Come on. You know, like checking back in on them and coming back in and dropping resources and it was just a lot of fun. Yeah, it was cool.
It brings in, Esther, it brings in the whole creativity in money that when instead of thinking about it in terms of scarcity or guilt about having too much, thinking about, you know, the creative ways that we can make money, that we can give money, give things, give money, give opportunities to people. And I just wanted to go back a step to what Susan was saying and say that I feel guilty about having too much money and I feel like I have not enough money. I wondered if other people have that also. But I don't want to lose this creative aspect of how we can be creative about money.
Maybe spending it wisely as a way to... and wisely means creatively. Wisely means creating value. You know, things that are in the world if you put them in the right hands or I don't know, put them somewhere where they can be used rather than just, you know, it's like why keep a beautiful piece of art in the basement? And if you can use money to do that to sort of release the value, it makes you feel less guilty about it. Arlene, you've been waiting to speak. Let's hear you.
Good morning. Hi, Katarina. I kind of really just want to value all that has sort of been put into the melting pot. Yeah, really just hearing different stories, Susan, Lynn, and you know, up to now. And it's what I want to put in is my new relationship with value and creativity and well the source of abundance, you know, and really kind of identifying with how I attract abundance into my life and love. And I think Susan, when you were talking about buying... we too had business and I don't know that I felt guilty. I just felt I probably was innocent in that I was a pushover getting things from the shop and giving, you know, but it was really not having a value on myself and that would have contributed to a self-image of like just being pleasing by giving, you know. So in later years or through therapy or self-reflection it's coming to the sense of myself as a spiritual being rather than as a physical being or examining my beliefs around power, you know, so it's co-creation, the power of all of that, you know, my thoughts around who I am in the present and kind of really going with my preference. I prefer to have an idea of a God source, you know, that there is no scarcity, you know, so that's what I'm challenging myself in this section of my life. So it's... and something about love as well, you know, separating the power of love. So that's my two cents worth.
Was it worth two cents or four cents?
I think there's something in that, Esther, you know, it's like it's only my opinion and yet if I don't actually, you know, value my opinion and then I'm sort of just giving it away and it's not self-respect. So something like that, you know. Is it worth it? It is to me because it's like identifying my new intent, you know. So thank you.
Pauline, you're putting something into the pot. We're sort of brewing this very rich stew of all of our feelings and thoughts. And that idea of abundance and the feeling of the source being vast is an important part of our stew. And you all know I'm sure the story of the stone soup.
Oh yes. With the magic stone.
Tell that story again, Esther, to have it in.
The version I know is there's this grifter who has, you know, a boring old stone, but he calls it a magic stone. And he goes into a village and he says, 'This is a magic stone.' when he's hungry. 'This is a magic stone and it will, you know, turn your soup into something that will cure cancer and let you live longer. And I'll put the stone in, you know, if you could bring me a cauldron and some water, I'll put the stone in.' And then, you know, 'I have a few potatoes here and some carrots I'll put in. And you know if you happen to have any leftover meat.' And what really happens is of course the villagers bring all the healthy expensive food and he puts in some carrots and potatoes and cooks up the soup and it's the magic soup and everybody believes it and you know he's made the vegetables and the meat and everything. The villagers have actually made their own soup for themselves, but his magic stone sort of makes that all happen. And because they came together, they actually do get healthier. Whatever. There are many versions of this story, but I love it.
Wonderful. We have two hands up. Robert, I think, came first. Robert and then Charles. And Charles, I think Robert might have stepped away. Charles, would you go first?
Oh, sure. Sure. Just thinking about enough not to worry. You're going to have a place to live. You're going to have food. You're going to have clothing and so forth. Once... I've had a few times where I worried I was going to have enough or something. That was a real anxiety. An anxiety about not having basic needs met. Once the basic needs are met, that is pretty much all I need in a way. I think more than that it might enable me to buy something or get... I'm finding myself curious about the concern about money because real concern for me is just having enough to live on. Once I have that it kind of just... more than that is fine. It can be but real concern doesn't really enter very much into... a word. No, I'm curious listening to people they put meaning that you money... sharing because I'm a little puzzled actually once I have enough. I wonder if you do another such session. Another unsayable could be, you know, loss of capacity, whether it's illness or having a stroke and going blind or losing your hearing because to some extent, just having the money to pay for treatment or solutions or a hearing aid can change those dynamics dramatically. And there's a wonderful book by Frank Bruni called The Beauty of Dusk about what happened to him when he began to lose his eyesight and fearing it would get worse. But I don't want to get us off track totally, but I think that's one thing where money plays such a huge part in human welfare. You know, you can lose your house, but you can also lose the use of your legs or whatever.
Yeah. But does money give you your... yeah, there is aging and money doesn't reverse that. And you can try to eat well and exercise and do things to maintain your well-being. But I also have the fortunate... in America Medicare which will cover the bigger... just don't worry too much about that. Suppose I would if it didn't have the little semblance that we have in America of this medicine.
Yeah. I mean... there was another person in the queue. But I do think this is a whole different topic, but I just wanted to point at it.
Well, I bring... Does money buy health? It might take medical care, right? I want to just bring that in as part of this in saying that worries about the future are often around worries about money and so many people are really terrified of being homeless and in old age not having basic care. So that worry about the future and worry about money seems to go together. But we have two hands up. Victor and Liz.
Victor and then Liz. Yes. Maybe Liz, would you like to unmute and speak? And then... Victor was first. Well, his microphone is not working yet. Oh, okay. Yeah.
I was interested. People are talking...
About how much money they had or didn't have growing up. My family had enough growing up, but then I had to figure money out. How do we figure out money? Is anybody taught? Because I know it took me years and years as an adult to figure out how to pay bills, balance a checkbook. I used to bounce checks. I had credit card debt. I didn't understand about interest rates. I just didn't understand money. It seems like it's simple. You know, I could do advanced mathematics, but I couldn't really figure out how to live with money in any rational way. And as I say this right now, I feel ridiculous. Even just saying it now. It's just addition and subtraction, but it's so much more than that. It has so much to do with being independent and figuring out. And so, you know, we know there are people who have a lot of money and they go bankrupt. Or people who didn't have money, people in the entertainment business and other businesses, and they get a lot of money all of a sudden and they don't know what to do with it and they hire the wrong managers who scam them. So it's not just a question of what you have. I don't even know how to talk about it. It just feels huge. And something to do with being a grown-up.
Yeah. So, I'm thinking of so many women whose husbands die and then they have no idea how to balance a checkbook. Of course, we don't balance our checkbooks in the same way anymore, but that helpless feeling of I don't know what to do with, how do you manage money? There is something so mysterious and important about it.
Dorothy. And Ora also is raising her hand. But first, Dorothy.
I wanted to relate to what Liz said. I had that same experience of not understanding money. And I think I just had a lot of shame about not being able to balance a checkbook or how long it took me and how anxious I got if I couldn't balance a checkbook. It's like, what's wrong with me? This is just simple math. Or if I made a mistake, just a lot hanging over me around it. And I find it so interesting because my sister had none of that and was very good at all of that. I think money in a family is so tied to the psychology of it all, or the inner, there's a whole who you are as a person and where you are in the birth family order. She being the older sister, she aligned with my father who was very astute with money, and I aligned with my mother who was all over the place. And that's why I think there's such a complexity to this subject on who you are and your relationship to money. And the one other thing I want to say is something I want to explore that has come up as we've been talking and sharing is I don't understand my urge to be generous and my inhibition to be generous. They both exist in a very strong way and it's always been mysterious to me why I can't be more generous. The voices that say you can't let go of your money. I just find that ambivalence striking at times. Sometimes in the simplest way, going to a restaurant with a group of people and somebody saying, oh, we might be $5 short. We're not sure, but we'll wait till we get the bill and then, well, do I just go and give the $5 right away, or do I hold on to it? There's such a simplicity and yet such a complexity to the wanting to give and wanting to hold on. Thank you.
Yeah. Can I talk? Yes or no? Yes.
I'd like to continue what Yao wrote or to say something about the politics behind it. I grew up in a family that money is not a topic to discuss, not sex and not money. And my feeling is that it has to do with generational attitude towards money, and the belief that money is either very dirty or sinful or something of that nature. And from a very young age, I wanted to disconnect myself from money. And my father used to call me a spiritual person even before I knew what's the meaning. For him, spiritual is just the opposite of material. It still exists in me even though parenting changed my attitude to money because I needed to be more practical and to take care of my daughter's future and my daughter's upbringing. And I think that for me, value and money are so different. They have nothing in common. Nothing whatsoever. And I don't know if it's good to drop this idea, but I can connect in a way to what Charles said about money and health. Can money buy health or even life? You know, in the Holocaust, people sometimes bought their life, and that's the case of my family. So it's a very heavy topic. And I don't know if my parents feel the same about it, but they still don't talk about it. They're reaching their 90s now. They still don't talk about it. They talk about many other things but not this. So it's a heavy subject.
Could I just ask how they bought their lives?
Yeah. Many people know the story of Kastner's train. Do you know it? The train that saved more than a thousand Jews during the Holocaust. And these Jews' lives were saved in exchange for tracks of gold, as far as I understand. And it was a very big debate in Israel about the right to negotiate life with the Nazis. And Kastner himself was murdered in the middle of his trial about his negotiations. So it's very crazy, I think, very crazy times. It's before I was born. And I still feel that it's not even guilt. It's beyond guilt. It's generational load.
Thank you so much for bringing that whole dimension in. Thank you.
I have a question. What would help you let go of that guilt?
Let go of the guilt. Yes. Wow. Help you let go of it. Amazing question. I don't know.
