Greed, Or Why Do We Worship Things?

"Why are people greedy?"

I almost jumped when my grandson dropped that bomb on me after tucking him in. I couldn't have been more thrown off if I was still in Vietnam stuck in the middle of a napalm strike.

"What brought that up?" I asked, sitting down next to him.

"I saw on the news people saying they weren't making enough to live on while their bosses had mansions. The bosses didn't care."

I had to sigh. "It's human nature, kid. People always want more, even when they already have too much."

"But, why?" he pressed. "Why is it human nature? It never seems to do any good."

While I loved that he was asking these kinds of questions at his age, he did put me on the spot. I had to come up with something fast.

"Well..."

About 10,000 years ago, people were very different. Towns were only starting to build up. Small communities were the height of progress then. People had to depend on each other to survive. Sharing was par for the course, then, especially since the idea of money didn't exist yet.

There was a fishing community on the banks of the Euphrates River that was thriving. Everybody helped everybody. Men who fished well shared their abundance with the ones who didn't have luck with their rods that day. Women shared excess supplies with those who needed them. Children were taught that the village either thrives together or dies together. It was the picture of harmony.

Then, one day, a man named Hanno was fishing. He was having a lot of luck that day. It seemed that every cast of his rod was guaranteed to catch something. Well, that day, one of the fish he caught didn't look anything like the rest. It was the color of pure gold. Hanno had never seen anything like it before, and it practically hypnotized him. When the day ended, he spread his catches around like always but made sure he kept the golden fish, despite the glances it was getting from others in the village.

The fish was cooked that night, and it tasted even better than it looked. Hanno and his family had never tasted a fish as sweet as that one. While dinner was often a pleasant experience, that one felt like heaven. Having tasted such a magnificent catch, Hanno wanted more, a lot more.

The next day, Hanno was eager to return to the river to see if fortune would smile again. It did... and it didn't. While he didn't catch as much overall as he did the previous day, more of his catch was made up of those golden fish. His eyes lit up as more of those shiny delights made it ashore. He even started separating those prized catches from the typical fare everyone else was reeling in, throwing the golden ones into a separate basket. When the day ended and the successful fishermen went to share their excesses, Hanno found himself only sharing the basket that had the normal fish. He just couldn't bear to hand out those shiny prizes. However, since he had enough normal fish in the other basket, no one complained.

While Hanno was thrilled to have more of the golden fish to bring home, his family was ecstatic to see his haul. They couldn't get enough of those unbelievably delicious fish. The more they ate, the more they wanted.

It didn't take long before Hanno found himself almost exclusively catching the golden fish. He hardly caught any of the normal ones that were satisfying enough not long prior. Meanwhile, Hanno's fellow fishermen were noticing what he was catching and not sharing. When the day came that Hanno was only tossing a couple of normal fish to the others while keeping an overflowing basket of the golden fish for himself, his comrades confronted him about it. Hanno tried to point out that the rest of them had a few fish a piece; so, what did it matter that he was keeping his haul? They demanded that Hanno start sharing the golden fish. He refused and tried to run back to his home. The angry fishermen threw down their rods and pathetic normal fish to chase Hanno. Since Hanno refused to drop his basket to make it easier to run, his comrades were able to catch him and shove him down. The others tried to reach for his basket, but Hanno clutched it like he was protecting a newborn child. Those fishermen dogpiled on Hanno to get at his basket, crushing him to death.

The rest of the village hardly cared that Hanno was killed; they indulged on those golden fish that evening. However, the next day, everything changed. Hanno was the luckiest fisherman in the village and was the only one that was catching the golden fish. The fishermen started throwing away perfectly good normal fish, hoping to get one of the golden ones. When one of them would catch a golden one, he would either hide it or have to fight off the others for it. It didn't take long before the village started regularly fighting each other. Women who were regularly sharing things started actively hording. Children were being openly hostile to the one who got to enjoy a golden fish that day. Before long, the once harmonious fishing community collapsed from starvation and fighting.

"Ever since then, people have just reacted to the color gold in similar ways, especially when gold started being used for money," I concluded.

My grandson was stunned. "All the trouble we have now is because one fisherman 10,000 years ago didn't want to share a great catch?"

I shrugged. "I was told a long time ago by my grandfather that a butterfly beating its wings on one side of the world could create a tornado on the other side. You never know how one small thing can lead to catastrophe."