All That Glitters...

I've been reflecting of late upon the resent upset (well if you are Canadian anyway) about the recent NHL lockout. Now of course there are two sides to every story, there is the players point of view for example, that they should be making more money for their efforts. After all, hockey is not an easy sport, it's a commitment first and foremost. Players are on the road all of the time, constantly suffering from jet lag and having to adjust to different altitudes. They usually have to work over holidays, if their team makes it into the playoffs they have to put in more time, and even on their days off, they have to train. A hockey players' body and mind must be in top physical shape, otherwise they will not be able to perform. I haven't even mentioned injuries yet, but don't get me started. The stereotypical hockey player is depicted without any teeth, but do you know how many of them really look like that? Teeth don't grow back for these guys, I mean they should at least get a good dental plan out of all of this right?

But then again the owners have a valid argument too. After all adding, a salary cap wouldn't be that bad, these players are making millions anyway. Successful leagues such as the national football league, do have salary caps and the players (from leagues such as the NFL) themselves have said that this is actually helpful for the structure for the sport. One NFL player stated that the problem in hockey is that there is no limit, a player can have their legal people barter for higher and higher salaries, and there is no limit to what players can be paid. Don Cherry, a hockey legend in his own right, mentioned on a radio broadcast, that some players were getting salaries that were estimated at 1.3 million dollars a season, and that same player had only scored ten goals during that season. That’s over one hundred million dollars per goal! Also, one must look at the impact that the high player salaries have on the different teams. Smaller teams such as the Ottawa Senators will actually be making money due to the lack of the NHL season. In the regular season, The Ottawa team was running at a loss because of the high salaries it had to pay it's players. Now that it doesn't have to pay player salaries (actually, a lot of people involved with hockey aren't going to be paid this year) it will make money.

Statistics like these make it truly obvious that the high player salaries, do in fact, affect the league. While each side does have it's valid points, there is another sometimes overlooked side: both parties are too darned greedy! You can talk around it and make the situation dainty by carefully wording your sentences at press conferences and so on, but lets face it, the whole controversy is all about money, and wanting more of it. There are those who want more and those who don't want to pay more and ultimately will make more by not giving more away. But in a nut shell the lockout is all about money, (not unlike how the war in Iraq was all about oil…) But this article is not about hockey, or who is right or who is wrong (cough-theplayers!) it's about where our values as a society lie. Is money really all that important? Can it really buy happiness? Does it really matter? Of course we all know the answer to these questions but sometimes we have to have things thoroughly explained to us before it really sinks in.

When I think of the owners and the players arguing over this issue, I think it is safe to bet that not one of them stepped up and said "Hey, what are we really arguing about here anyway?" But then again would you have said this? Would I? Probably not, it is human nature to be concerned with things that ultimately are not important. Better still, do you think one of the people on either side would have said, "Now wait just a minute. If there is a lockout what will happen to all of those people who sell stuff at the games? And who drive the zambonies and clean up after everyone has gone home? Why, they'll be out of a job." Yeah right! Since when do people become concerned about anyone other than themselves. About fifty thousand people are temporarily unemployed because of this lock out, (actually, I think the numbers are higher than that) and how much do you think those people make? Millions of dollars? No, try mere hundreds and thousands. It is times like this that makes my jaw just drop, when I compare this situation to one in which Wayne Gretzki was once offered a two million dollar contract and responded to this by saying something to the effect of "Two million? No that's way too much, just give me one million." Wayne...you are my hero! And bear in mind that this was said by a man who was debatably the greatest hockey player of all time. If anyone should have been paid a multi-million dollar fortune, he should have.

I think that the trouble with people is that we don't realize how important things are until we are jeopardized. People would realize the real value of money when they were faced with a burning building and inside there was one million dollars in a safe, and a little child. In this situation, I think about 99.9 percent of people (although maybe I’m giving us as people too much credit) wouldn't even think of the money, but would desperately turn their attention towards the child. But this said there still is the possibility that after rescuing the child, some people would jeopardize their own life to get the million dollars. Go figure! The thing is money itself doesn't have any power. Basically what you are dealing with is coloured pieces of paper with drawings and numbers on it, and people kill for this. I can just imagine what any aliens right now are thinking as they survey us. "What is it with these silly creatures? Why do they kill each other and destroy things for these little bits of paper? It doesn’t make any sense! These vouchers contain no special power, no significance. So why do they do it? Why do they fight like mad over this stuff? This makes for a puzzling study that hurts the cranium. Ahh forget about these crazy humans, beam me up another cow!"

The whole lockout situation cannot be looked at in hindsight and in light of all that has just been said objectively, and we cannot clearly look at the thing and say "Why those greedy idiots!" This would not be fair, for it would be a hypocrisy. For how many of us can say that at one point or another (maybe for some of you even right now) there wasn't a time when we didn't truly idolize money? I can't, I used to hold money in high regard. Now I generally see it to be a tool that can be helpful to us, but I do not hold it in high regard. But of course as is the case with the players and the owners and even our own personal situations, we cannot be blamed for our love of money, and yet we can be blamed entirely for it. You see we are brought up in a culture where there is a high emphasis placed on capital. We live in a society (and not just in North America) that seams to be structured around the legal tender. It seems every aspect of life is about money, so how can we expect not to place it upon a mantle above those things that actually are important? For example there is a Chinese saying that states that knowledge is power, meaning that if you get a good education you will get a good job and ergo, be rolling in it.

I have met many people in school who's primary focus in school is to take the courses they need to become lawyers or doctors or some such position. I ask them why and their response is not that they like the position so much, but that it pays well. This is a sentiment I will never fathom. If I am stuck in a job from nine to five for five days a week, and this is the kind of job which I will be doing for my whole life, I don't care how much money I am paid. Considering the percentage of my life that will be spent at that job, if I don't enjoy it, what's the point? I don't look to have a high paying job, all I want is to have a job, that doesn’t necessarily pay that well, but is one that I enjoy. Of course if you are an artist in any capacity this is not the case, as you never go into the arts to make money. To me, there is no greater measure of a person's success in the working world than if they like their job.

It is not just kings and billionaires that have a fancy to cash, most people who you may encounter on the street are of the opinion that money does buy happiness. I remember once with a friend I was talking about this, and one person listening in to our conversation candidly stated how against my opinion he was. "Can money buy family?" I asked him. "Aww I can buy a new family, my family isn’t that good anyway." Of course this half-hearted answer doesn't hold water. You can't buy family! That is one thing that is too precious. Most of us even though we argue with them from time to time, probably wouldn't trade their family for anything in the world, and for this we should be truly grateful. Not every one has been brought up in a loving environment and it is these people who tell you how much they would give to have had one.

When the person I was originally talking to responded to my statement he said, "Well, I like video games right? So if I can just buy video games I'll be happy." Theoretically this works out, but then again, so does communism! But the point he was trying to make is that if we have everything we need, then we will be happy. This makes sense, the only problem is first, what we need is always changing. Obviously we all need food to survive, and then of course we need a stove to cook the food on, and then cook books to figure out what to cook, and then ingredients to prepare the food with, and then a new refrigerator that is more modern and has more features. And a microwave oven for instant food, and a machine that can preserve the food so we can eat it later, and we need to remodel the kitchen so that it matched the living room and then we have to get new carpeting in the living room so it matches the look of the kitchen, and then of course the bedroom has to be remodeled....

The point is, what we need is often confused with what we want. Technically, all you really need to survive, food-wise is food. Technically a man stranded on an island with coconuts and fresh water and shelter from the elements has all he needs to survive. Now I'm not asking you to give up everything but coconuts to and live a simpler life or anything like that, I just want you to know that in terms of getting everything that we need to be ‘happy’, there is no limit. And do you know why? Because things will never make you happy, nor will money. There are things that money can’t and will never buy. Things like love and friendship and respect. The most it will do will get you superficial forms of these things that will not last. Also, if money really does buy happiness, how come the rich are always the ones who tell us otherwise? Shouldn't they know? After all, they do have an ample supply of money, so they must have experience in this field. There are countless stories of how the rich and famous were not satisfied with money. Marilyn Monroe committed suicide because she felt her life was empty. Well, she was rich, shouldn’t all of her money have made her happy? The Children of Lucille Ball and Dezi Arnaz have been quoted saying that although they were very rich, they were very unhappy a great deal of the time. Why is the celebrity marriage always shaky, and why do celebrities go through so many relationships? Should all of there money be satisfying them where they are and who they are with? Probably the most interesting statistic on this point was one, which was conducted last year. It was discovered that the average Newfoundlander makes the least amount of money out of all of the other working people in Canada, yet is the happiest! On the other end of the spectrum, the average Ontario citizen makes the most amount of money, yet is the unhappiest in the entire country. Popular belief would say that this would be the other way around, because of course those who have more money are happier. I will leave you with this thought for now.

At the risk of using a cliche I must be blunt when touching on this next aspect: people will do absolutely anything for money. And yet, society encourages this. How many reality shows have we seen where with one million dollars at stake, people will go on television and make absolute fools of themselves just to have a chance at winning it? Yet we praise them, we cheer them on as they rush down the rainbow for that pot of gold. Hey, we'd probably be up there doing the same thing if we had a shot at it. Society in general seams to have a very skewed sense of propriety. The things we value are sometimes the things that are least important. For example, in the recent events involving Martha Stewart, Miss Stewart at one point faced getting a sentence of over twenty or forty years in jail (although she merely had to serve a sentence of five months at the end of all things) for insider trading. Someone may murder or brutally assault someone else and get away with less (especially young offenders.) Isn’t that sick? Someone nearly gets over twenty years for a couple thousand dollars and after brutally beating someone up, people are allowed to walk away free. And this happens all the time. Doesn't this reflect a slightly distorted perspective of what is more important? If it doesn't, I don’t know what does. My father once said that if he had it his way, water, which is most essential, would be worth more than diamonds. Thank goodness it isn't, for life giving water, is priceless. But he makes a valid point.

Many of you have probably read up to this point and are probably thinking "this guy is such a hippie, " or radical, or any other term describing and anti-society kind of person. Yet I do not wish to put the blame on society. Basically we can get out of any situation by saying, "it's all society's fault!" and then doing nothing about it. Yet the blame does not rest on the shoulders of society, it rests on the people in the society, which make it up. We’re all a part of our society. Let’s face it, we as people are not the greatest species on earth (I don’t mean in terms of knowledge or dominance). I mean if you compare us to animals, animals have a more peaceful hierarchy. They will only kill to eat or to keep from being eaten. Humans? We kill for any darned thing under the sun. Politics, religion, culture, territory and especially money. Yet in the end, does any of this really matter? I mean, when comparing any tangible thing next to a human being, can anything measure up to a humans worth? Not at all. It reminds me of the end of Schindler’s List (good movie! Spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen it ) World War two has just come to a close, and Oscar Schindler has, over the course of the war, saved over 200,000 Jews from concentration camps, and possibly annihilation. He will now be hunted down and probably killed for his actions so he now has to flee for his life, but as he looks at all of the faces of people around him he has but one thought on his mind. "I could have saved more," he says and then he begins looking at all of the objects around him, which he could have traded for people. "This car, why did I keep it? I could have gotten ten people for it," and various comparisons are made of different objects for the lives of people. I'm not sure if this really happened this way, but the point is to Schindler the exchange rate is incomparable. Ten people are worth so much more to him than that car, as they should be to anyone and everyone.

The problem with human beings and our association with money is completely human nature. You see what the aliens in the spaceships in the latter part of this article couldn't understand is that money itself is not powerful, it merely represents power. With money you have the exchange of different things in return for it. Weather it is that new C.D. player you have always wanted or greater military might, it is because money is the universal measure for the value of possessions and comforts, that is why it is so powerful. If you were to find one million dollars in a suitcase while out walking you wouldn't think, "Wow, I have a million dollars, which I can fondle for my very own." You would think, "Imagine all of the stuff I can get with this," as would I. It's not the money that is important, it is what we can do with it that is important. That, is power.

Money itself isn't bad, in fact I'm glad we have legal tender now days because I'm horrible at bartering, and it just makes exchanges so much easier. Money does many good things like as a recent example, help all of the victims of the tsunami. What's bad is the idolization and the emphasis put on money by people in general. But just because we love money, just because it is in our nature to love something which gives us power, doesn't mean that we should. There are many bad human tendencies, and materialism is one of them and selfish desire is one of them. I love things too, unfortunately, but at the end of the day, things aren't important: people are. Once when my mother was in the hospital, my priorities changed. The things, which I did didn't seem to matter. School, chores, hobbies none of them mattered, because none of them were important as my mother and the fact that she had to get well. Like I said, in a time of a of crisis the things that truly are important will present themselves, but it shouldn't take a crisis to realize what is important. So people I urge you, put people first in your life. After all, people will give you comfort in a time of crisis, but you won't get any sympathy from a dollar bill.
Quizically yours,-Undisputed King!

(Disclaimer: This was actually the very first blog I wrote, many months ago when the hockey lockout just began. I had it saved as a draft for a long time but I have recently edited it and tried to update some of the contents. The situation thus far has not changed much. Talks and negotiations are taking place between the players and the owners but as you can see not much has been accomplished and news reports show Canadians are beginning to loose interest (Yikes! I guess that means we’re not far off from you know where freezing over too!). The points mentioned more remain the same however. Maybe if the owners and players had more love of the game and less love of the money, I wouldn’t have to be stuck watching "Movie Night in Canada on CBC." (sigh) is this what it has come to?)