Letter to the Bank #45

Dear BM,

It is a funny thing but when I think back on why I began writing these letters to you I realize I was looking for therapy. There was a lacking that needed filling (caused by numeric dyslexia), a big dark hole in my universe that I was in danger of stumbling into (my own financial ineptitude). Basically I was going to fall into myself if I didn’t do something soon. I was at a crisis point. So I turned to my bank manager. Who better was there to provide me with the answers I needed and who better to get me grounded once more? Who better to answer the deepest question of all? Just as life’s more mundane questions—its meaning, is there a god etc etc—might best be addressed by a therapist (or an artist!), the deepest questions, those of a more existentialist nature, for example: how to make more money without creating more of that suffering that usually goes along with the territory, are best addressed, best gorged upon, by someone like you, someone with a level head on their shoulders, someone who faces life’s practicalities with pragmatism, someone who fully understands that without money nothing gets done, but also someone who manages people’s money! These questions are best served up by a muddle headed being such as my self, someone with slightly exhibitionist tendencies and an, shall we say, artistic* temperament. So I turn to you, someone who knows how to make money, for advice. You are my perfect compliment. I’m pretty sure most of my angst can be soothed by the acquisition of said supplement—money, and responsible management thereof. Other questions I have concerning life’s inequities—the ruthlessness of the rich, the cruel indifference of those who have towards those who don’t—I’m sure these questions would evaporate upon resolving the biggest question of all—how to pay for life! Once I also have, I won’t be needy anymore. Imagine a world without my griping, my whining, my complaining! Imagine, and this is hard, a world without the griping and whining and complaining of all those who do not have! Then we could all rest easy. I guess what I am saying is this: if you do your job well by protecting the assets you hold for me without asking me for yet another fee to do so, if you help me to manage my finances, others to manage theirs, bingo! A better world! That crippling distrust, meanness between classes that has been with theoretically classless America since the revolution might evaporate.

"There is a mean low dirty envy which creeps thro all ranks and cannot suffer a man a superiority of fortune, of merit, or of understanding in fellow citizens—either of these are sure to entail a general ill will and dislike upon the owners." (Charles Carroll, wealthy Maryland landowner, around 1776)

I'm putting the weight of the world on the shoulders of you, my very own local bank manager.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

*Applied to myself this might mean: head in clouds, eyes in belly button, interest in money so low on the scale that he is taking a crash course now before he crashes into a wall, which he will probably do next time Wall Street crashes. etc. etc. etc..

Myself might also be clumsily defined as middle class, liberal, godless, possibly socialist. (He reads Howard Zinn for goodness sake!) So if I crash into that wall bangs goes your buffer between rich and poor. Of course I could ramble on about what I do have and don’t have. I could go on and on about how I am both rich and poor, lovely family, great books, never get to go on island holidays, and cannot afford snowboard lessons for the eldest, and how the rich are poor because they are rich, and the poor are rich because they are poor....

Like I said I am the perfect muddle headed recepticle into which the philosophizing around matters of money can be stirred. Between the artist and the bank manager an alchemy of sorts could occur. Together we might make gold!