By all means, ignore money stuff for as long as possible. Last I checked, the point of life is to live life. To experience things deeply, like the angel-headed hipsters from Columbia and Paterson and Denver and the like. Thank god they opened their senses to the brilliance of Blues and Black Jazz and Whitman's meter and libido.

And then one morning you awaken and you've gone too far, and the gods and the world are standing over your rumpled bed, smiling, and they serve you papers: time to deal with money, Dude.

You know, it all started out so innocently. You followed Jack's advice and took to the road and marvelled in the sense pleasures and felt free as seed in spring. And then you landed on something wonderful and sticky, something they call love...romantic love...the sticky kind. It was all cool...easy, as they say...and then that love took hold and with it came the Unexpected Return of the Super-Ego:

Time to meet her/his parents, need to look respectable, need to actually rally and wear nice duds and occasionally pay for dinner. If you're the guy--Sorry, Dude--the old rules of DNA still apply: you had better look like you can hunt. Hunt means bring it home...as in, dinero. (Note: her parents won't see your "words as weapons", nor "metaphors as feast", unless your poems have been published in the New Yorker and you have a trust fund.)

Or perhaps I have underestimated you, and in fact you are world-class sly and, somehow, stave off the inevitable. Then it'd be best if you don't have kids, because here a whole new terrifying kind of love grips you, and you're screwed. I might argue that it is the best possible kind of "you're screwed"; nonetheless, you're screwed. Babies that were once pudgy and forgettable now look cute as buttons--particularly your own--and you won't be dressing the kids in funny looking hand-me-downs. This might sound materialistic; it ain't; it's just a matter of having kids and letting them be players (or poets) in the world, in their own right. And this is just the beginning.

Surrender is a loathsome word and a loathesome verb. Notice that no one...repeat, no one...anymore says, I'm sorry. Much less, say it and mean it. Okay, that's a bit of a jag, but surrender is a word I'd like you to consider, Young Beat Poet, when the time comes to relate with this money thread.

Note: I'm trying to speak your language. Money need not be a universe. It should only occupy 12.5% of your conscious mind anyway. Occupy it, just the way an essential thread is part of a rich and lively life.

However, should you choose to...

Ignore the Call of the Civilized (a.k.a. money), it won't work. The world and the gods know where you live. They will find you and confront you at embarrassing times and places. And, cleaning up money messes...well, it sucks.

Obsessing about money makes its own misery. Perhaps it is an oversight on my part, but I don't worry about this ailing you.

So, please, listen closely, Young Beat Poet: we of this world need your eye, your view, your spirit, your words, your risk taking, your marriage to culture, your midwifing medicine... My interest in your success is merely selfish. You may marry my son or daughter, or my grandsons or daughters, and they should relish life like you do. I can think of nothing better. Young people should love each other, and love each other madly, for, assuredly, there will be tests.

Money represents just one such test. Parenting children will be another. Fidelity will be no small shakes. Not to mention refreshing...affection, friendship, dreamworld. Giving duration to your love is daunting in view, if not seemingly impossible.

But money need not be the wedge and the lame excuse that pandemically destroys love and affection. No doubt that we live in a time when the Lords of Materialism prevail, but "personal money" nonetheless is not hard. Money is not that powerful. We've made it hard. We've made it powerful. It just takes a little time and self reflection. In the right way. Most of it depends on us. Just a little bit of it is"out there".

So this is what we will look at, in this contemplation called: Notes to a Young Beat Poet. Regarding personal money, we don't need to be rich: we need to be masterful. This means rummaging through the old and the new. Some of the old must needs be destoyed; some of it simply needs a shine. The new is us, is you, is this time, this place; hence, it calls on the Creative, calls on a different kind of journey, calls on different kinds of skillful means. Young Beat Poet, we're counting on you.

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