Value Is Not About Money

Value Is Not About Money
　　　　　　　　　　　Masayuki Hachimoto

　I have to admit, I am not very good with money.
　For example, when I buy a book, I pay for it. I can calculate how much I have in my wallet and how much will be left after the purchase. However, if a friend asks me later, "How much was that book?" I cannot answer well. The memory of the price just slips away. I have to take off the book cover and check the printed price. Well, for books that were particularly expensive, I might remember that they were expensive, but...
　In short, for me, a book is about the richness of its content, or the beauty of its binding, illustrations, and layout, or the texture, the smell of the ink, and my personal reading experience; the concept of price is not included in that.
　This is not limited to books; it is the same for ramen, electronics, clothing, and daily necessities. I think about money until I pay, but once I have paid, it is out of my mind.
　Of course, I have made more than a few mistakes in shopping, and the regret of that stays in my memory, but even then, the exact amount becomes vague.
　I wonder how I have managed to live like this, but in short, it must mean that I have not struggled with money.
　That does not mean I am wealthy by any means. I grew up in a rather poor family. When I was in elementary school, my father was hospitalized due to illness, and my mother worked to raise me. I received an allowance, but it was a small amount compared to my friends of the same age. I managed that allowance to buy plastic models or manga books. I wished I had more allowance, but I never envied my friends. For things I could not buy, I would draw them or make them out of clay, and though it might be a bit different from Anne of Green Gables, I would spread the wings of my imagination and play.
　Of course, money is needed for almost everything in the world.
　There are times when I need medical care due to illness or injury, and medicine is not free either. Although I have quit now, when I used to smoke, I was literally turning money into ash. I deeply feel that just living is an expensive thing.
　Therefore, I am by no means careless with money.
　I do not have a credit card because I think that if I treat money as a mere abstract concept of numbers, I will lose touch with reality. I might be losing out because of that, but that cannot be helped.
　I often watch a TV program called "Kaiun! Nandemo Kanteidan" (Fortune! Anything Appraisal Team), but sometimes I feel empty. This is because I can clearly see that the sellers and their families are only interested in the appraised monetary value.
　The price is just one of the yardsticks for visualizing the value of an artwork or a memento. Even if it is worthless in terms of money, I believe that the time spent with it and the emotions experienced cannot be erased.
　No one wants someone else to put a price on their precious memories, right?
　So, this is also about a TV program, but when a young "Hakase-chan" (expert kid) who reveres Katsushika Hokusai was moved while being shown a precious Hokusai work owned by an overseas researcher on the program "Sandwichman & Ashida Mana no Hakase-chan," the program staff asked how much it would be worth if it were put up for auction. Seeing both of them flatly declare, "It's not about the money!" at the same time, I felt a sense of relief.
　Well, some people might frown at me for saying such carefree things, but I might enter a full-scale old age and end up living in poverty, struggling for every penny, or I might be hit by an unexpected large-scale natural disaster and lose even the house I live in, ending up wandering the streets. When I see homeless people on the roadside, I sometimes imagine myself potentially ending up like that someday.
　However, I cannot just be pessimistic. Including the pain and sadness, I am actually looking forward to how I will die lately. Just as you cannot choose how you are born, you cannot choose how you die. Even in the case of suicide, one was driven into a situation where there was no other choice, right?
　No matter how I die, I do not want the time I have lived to be converted into a monetary value; that is what I think.
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