Out of nowhere, I find myself irritated by an invoice.
It is something that could easily be paid by next month, yet I decide to pay it immediately.
This too feels strange.
Why is it that something as simple as numbers written in ink on paper can trouble the mind or create such a strong sense of lack?
Where does this feeling actually exist?
In my twenties, I failed at several ventures, trusted someone too easily, and perhaps most of all, believed in myself too blindly. All of this led me to experience bankruptcy.
Looking back now, it was largely my own doing, and I can say that I did not need to carry guilt along with it. At the time, however, it did not feel that way.
It was as if I had been branded as unfit for society, and I even felt apologetic just for being alive.
Was that experience something large for me?
Or was it small?
Perhaps it can be seen as either.
In the end, it may be that if this very moment is fulfilled, then the way I see things changes, the way I interpret them changes, and even the events themselves seem to change.
It is not that there is a small self within a large society.
Rather, there is a small society within a larger self, and it can be expanded or reduced, perceived freely.
Even so, what was it that I was truly irritated by when I saw that invoice?
Was it the paper?
The ink?
The numbers?
Or the imagined use of the money?
Perhaps it is nothing more than habit.
Money comes in and I feel pleased. Money goes out and I feel something else. Perhaps that pattern has simply settled into me.
Or perhaps I have mistaken it for something fixed.
There are times when paying brings a kind of satisfaction. Yet when it takes the form of an invoice, something impersonal and rigid, it is easily perceived as a strong sense of lack.
And so I begin to wonder about the nature of money itself.
Listening to the sound of rain hitting my umbrella, I leave the bank behind.