DOES money = qi?
Posted August 19th, 2007 by Nora
Ok, first off I'm posting a little ahead of schedule, partly because the WCA gang is coming to the Bay Area next weekend, when I am supposed to post (woo hoo), and partly because what I wanted to write about ties in kind of nicely (I think) with Korben and Jordan's recent posts, and some of the comments to Korben's post.
I was going to wait until I had less "shenpa" around this subject to write about it, but turns out I'm still pretty mad (if you don't know what shenpa is, allow me to recommend "Getting Unstuck," a series of talks by Pema Chodron - I got them on CD from the local public library).
Now, if you haven't read it already, please go read the following:
http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/article.php?id=31577
I knew right away I was going to disagree from reading the title. I actually don't have enough time to post a really eloquent reply, but here are some of my reactions:
*I really, really hate it when people claim that money is just a form of qi.
*This woman's business sounds like HELL to me. I just do NOT want to take care of (only) rich people for a living. I don't want to have to get enormously rich - and drive a ridiculous car - just so I don't feel like the hired help.
*If you have to pay for lots of therapy after you raise your rates, doesn't you wonder why there's a part of you that has to be convinced that it's a good idea (convinced, that is, by someone you're paying a lot of money to)? And that maybe it's not pathological to have different values around money?
*Making a lot of money so that you can choose where to donate your money seems like a control issue to me. Why not let people keep their own money and make their own decisions what to do with it? Or why don't we tax millionaires more and decide as a community what to do with that money? Do you hear me, Bill and Melinda Gates?!?!?
*"Money makes money" is the Capitalist mindset. Start with money, use it to buy things, and turn around and sell to make more money (making the profit by exploiting other peoples' labor - according to Marx). Whether Karl's basic analysis is right or not, the need to constantly make more money (instead of having enough money to get what you need to survive and enjoy a decent standard of living) is in my opinion the more truly pathological state of mind (for a lighthearted look at this pathology, read Calvin Trillin talking about the "Alice Tax".)
Moreover, Capitalism is a pretty cancerous economic system, given that it depends on constant expansion and growth. I don't necessarily think that market economies are bad; markets existed before big Capital. Heck, I like markets - I love the Farmer's market, for example. And oddly, I like being in business.
Now, my opinions are to be taken with a grain of salt, because I have a lot of student loan debt and relatively simple needs, (give me a cute pair of comfy shoes, maybe an old three-speed bike, some decent public transportation, and maybe a friend with an old truck, and who the hell needs a Porsche?!?!?) Also, I'm not making enough money in my CA business, YET, but I'm busier and happier than I've ever been: I sincerely care about my patients, I care about my business, AND my patients sincerely care about my business. I don't feel bad about the rates we charge, and I don't have to charge a lot of money so I can afford pay some psychologist to convince me that my rates are okay.
But this idea that money is pure qi, as opposed to something that actually represents human labor and complex economic relationships has, in my humble opinion, got to go. Again, I'm not arguing that money has got to go - bartering is cool, but until my student loan guarantor accepts lumpy handknit toques, money is here to stay. I don't even agree that money is the root of all evil. But the idea that it's neutral is ridiculous. What say you all?
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Oops. I misquoted the verse. It is "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil."
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Therilingpoopsmith:
Am I summing up your perspective correctly as "the person who dies with the most toys (and the biggest name/fame/reputation) wins?"
If so, that sounds like the message of the dominant (terminally ill) culture. If acupuncturists aspire to true healing and not mere charlatanry, how could we model our business thinking on that?
Of course, we need to play the game of the dominant culture to some extent. Yes, it costs money to be in business. Some acupuncturists have children's education to think of, mortgages to pay. Meanwhile, the rich are growing richer. The poor are growing more numerous, and those in the middle are disapearing: (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/23/3362/)
But this trend doesn't imply an either-or choice for those who might consciously pursue a middle way. We can play the game without getting sucked up into its distorted thinking.
Take what you really need and share the rest. Learn to do with less. Voluntary simplicity. Seven billion people can't drive cars and send their kids to an Ivy league school. But maybe if we learn to mutually respect all living beings on the planet....
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Just get over it. Rich, pretty people win every time and will use everything at their disposal to prove themselves right or make excuses(therapy).
Not everyone can write a cheeky Oprah sex novella for the richies & wannabes and I have a feeling market saturation is wrought more quickly as 'they' all know the scam game and only go with well tested, recommended books/methods/personalities. We're all locked out of that market and that article was just her way of gloating to the world that she escaped the mediocrity that befalls her more idealistic colleagues of lesser means.
And if "people aren't the problem, ideas are"....how do you account for ideas if they have no vessel? And to what do you say to those who teach nothing but bad ideas to people who don't have the time to learn how to know better?
I like how someone said they don't want to be considered "the hired help". Is that any different than having someone hire you for a diagnosis and session? Oh, but you're in your own comfy office that you decorated yourself so you're free as a bird and own yourself.
You can either have some loyal clients that can pay well and often or you can have a variegated slew of uncommitted taste-testers: THAT'S Dumas' message.
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That's the thing, Lisa, that she's not the only person that thinks this way; and that's partly why I got so mad, because I was sick of hearing people say this sort of thing. If it were the first time I'd heard it, I might just think she were a freak. But it's something I'd heard people say since I was in school, and it always rang false to me.
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I second Nora.
People aren't the problem: thoughts are. I don't know anything about Felice Dunas; odds are good, like other people in this field, she's a nice person. The article is awful. The thinking behind the article is worse. That's what needs to be vigorously addressed.
Blaming her as a person misses the point. She's not the only person who thinks this way.
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Hey everybody, thanks for all of the great responses (and sorry for the typos - I haven't figured out how to edit posts yet). I wanted to say that I think Jordan brings up an important point, about not getting all lynchmobby. Saying "she IS the problem" doesn't feel very helpful; I've gotten some things out of previous articles of hers, and was disappointed by the position she took in this article and intrigued by her obvious conflictedness (why the tone of self-justification? why the repetition of the need for therapy?)
I hate her argument in this article, but I don't hate her (how well we'd get along, considering our different priorities, is another question). I think it's important to reserve the right to get angry with people, and to be able to criticize their words and deeds, without demonizing them (cause we all know what hell that leads to). I know there are plenty of things I do with my time and money - ignorantly or in spite of my self - that go against my own values. So I know many times MY behavior is "the problem" - but that doesn't mean I want to give up on myself any more than I want to give up on Ms. Dunas, etc.
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I smell an opportunity for public education...or would that just be selling out the magician's tricks? We all need our marks, 'spose.
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But she is the problem...making the rich feel that TCM is meant for only those that can afford it.
From her article the Jing/Chi/Shen cycle looks like this:
Money = Chi; if so, more spending of Chi allows more Shen-development and Jing-conservancy which = luster of longevity and the diamond body-mind.
Right there it explains a number of things that in the system it is the basis of allows exactly all things that have happened in history.
The only concepts that will save us all from the Baby Hueys of the world running amok with yet another "belief system" as justification are that of Quality and Infinite Returns(aka sustainability). Is there any way to wedge these into that most basic trinity to divert their eyes from all the pretty things and copious playtime?
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Re: AWB. Felice is no longer a Board member. AWB has a big vision, but sometimes volunteer energy for things like web maintenance ebbs and flows. Any webbies out there want to volunteer?
She is actually a very likable person. Its interesting how its always easier not to like someone you don't know - the driver of the car who cuts me off while riding a bicycle for example. Or the faceless terrorist.
I'm not disagreeing with the forceful response to inappropriate attitudes, just feeling a little sadness at times over hints of some sort of primal response to lynch the person.
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Thank you, David for the nicely written response!
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I just realized that Felice Dunas is a board member of Acupuncturists Without Borders.
http://www.acuwithoutborders.org/board_of_directors_and_advisory_board.p...
Is that really true? They need to ask her to step down after that article.
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Here's the message I sent earlier today to editorial@acupuncturetoday.com
(I know it's preaching to the choir on this forum but someone may find it interesting.)
"While reading this article by Felice Dunas, "Money is Qi...", I first thought it was satire. I then realized she's serious. It's outrageous, insulting, embarrassing, irresponsible, misleading, out of touch with reality.
F. Dunas does not clarify that the business strategy she advocates of charging as much as one can, works only if the acupuncturist is established, well-known, and in-demand. The practitioner also has to love and live for money, which leads people astray.
She does not acknowledge the existence and needs of the majority of Americans (the lower-income and middle-class) who want and need, but cannot afford acupuncture at the already out-of-reach prevailing fees of $60 to $250+ a session.
She seems oblivious to the high attrition rates of acupuncturists. Surveys show 50%, or higher, leave the profession within their first 5 years. This is because marketing to a small and already (well-served) market-- the upper middle-class and wealthy, is not a smart business strategy for most.
Also, as Ken Rose expressed it so eloquently in his radio interview yesterday on KZYX & Z --FM, the pricing of acupuncture in the U.S. has "distorted treatment strategies." The prevailing high fees for acupuncture prevent many patients from experiencing the full healing benefits from acup. because they do not complete a full treatment course."
I cancelled my unsolicited print subscription. I don't have any illusions that this message to AT will change anything but had to let them know how I feel.
(Off the topic a bit: the frequently misquoted Bible verse about money is actually--"the love of money is the root of all evil.")
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Consideryourself: Are you waggling your blade or throwing it around?
Seems like some of your post is in response to mine which may have been somewhat off topic to begin with (if there is a succinct focus to this topic.)
Going back to the original post, and the concerns raised by Nora over the article in AT, it sounds like you both agree and disagree with Ms. Dunas's perspective, though your point gets a little lost with me in your last paragraph.
Sounds like you want economic security and I don't think you'll find many people on this forum who are rejecting that.
The cost of an acupuncture education is a big problem, and I'm not sure what the answer to that is right now. Change takes time. Meanwhile, this is the world we get to live in. Nobody alone is going to solve the problem. We need to do it together.
By the way, to answer your question, she consults with corporate CEOs on how to have sex using the principles of Chinese medicine, which I am told is the topic of her best selling book. And my guess is that the picture on her website, and the one shown with her AT column is at least 10 years old. Everybody gets old, wrinkled, and saggy in the end.
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She seems like the kind of person that is riding on her perfect face ("She looks great! She must really know her stuff! I'll pay her whatever it takes to learn what she knows so one day I can be as perfect a specimen as she! And as an academic she's a spotless thoroughbred with doctor blood in her so at least we can trust her to enter our estate without sullying the air with hippyish impertinence!) One question here: what exactly could be conveyed across the phone to a corporate, I assume medical, advisor? Is she telling them which points to use for the boss's high blood pressure? Someone please tell me what it is she's doing on the phone that costs so much yet doesn't need to be diagnosed or enacted in person.
I'm confused as to how to take her article. First, I'm looking into entering the field of TCM practice and reading "$20,000/year...for years" repeatedly scares the crap out of me so it's a minor panacea to know there are other options if only for "modelesque, incongruously self-pitying, brown-nosing shysters cloaked in the illusion of legitimacy and competency based on her parents livelihood/rolodex". Second, I find it hard for people to really think they're a-o-k with living at an income level only a car accident away from the poverty line in their Target dollar-bin socks and 400 sq-ft apartment on the wrong side of town lacking decent schools for children they'll never be able to afford to have let alone send to even just acupuncture school at the tides end of puberty(that's my personal fear, not a skewering of any of you); so at least she has pluck and good business sense. Thing is, it scares me to think all this unrelated consulting miscellany she has going is the only way to break out of the poverty game. I'm not huge on getting plastered on the weekends, driving cars that get there 5 minutes faster, or houses with enough deadspace to speak for the superficial family living in it, but I'd like to be able to offer my kids a competitive and modern education, a house outside of a floodplain and high-crime area, and perhaps some new clothes every year and a vacation every other. Is that really too much to ask? Is that the new American dream?
Wow, I'm spiteful. Guess I didn't grow up in DR. Daddy's household so I have no idea what I'm missing....frumpadump...I'll just scuttle off to my hovel where I'm ever so content, not happy because that's akin to excess, just content....
Shit, I think both sides of this "argument" are garbage. Just as "the afterlife of Heaven" was sold to the guttersquibs of Christian Europe as a sedating consolation, so too are the 'meme gifts of knowledge' on the internet concerning things like "the green movement" and "peak oil". Those are already solved as far as I care. They've got the products all lined up for when the big energy source shift happens and they'll be raking it in then too and "You" will be stuck near the bottom in an even more densely striated social hierarchy little different from those devised 10 centuries ago in our beloved land of Tao, China. "Green", "eco-friendly", "recycled goods", "grow it yourself"...? Doesn't this all sound like a big bad "They" are leading us back to self-farming and serfdom?
Sorry. People started in on "economic factors" and I just had to waggle my blade about.
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I didn't renew my subscription to AT. Maybe I should let them know why...the words insipid drivel come to mind. I think "Lost" would be a good title for Felice's piece. Unreal.
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Oh my.
I've been thinking of this all day, as I took my just arrived issue of AT with me to work.
Does anyone remember Bush boy's instructions post 9/11? Go forth and purchase? Anyone else reading the echos here?
And this evening I was listening to both Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow (I love me some Air America) with a lot of discussion on the collapse of the mortgage market and the fact that the number people who can afford what most of us were charging is greatly shrinking. We're regressing into an economic third world nation, a country where jobs are created to service the hedge fund managers who have made my hometown impossible to afford to live in.
I choose to opt out. I choose to not be a servant to the few who could afford to support me.
If I did have the money to get a new car tho, I'd go biodeisel. Still not terribly flashy tho. And I like my skin too much to want to sunbathe while on the phone.
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Its true there is a lot left out of this article.
So often when things like this are written, "corporate world" is mentioned, and when we focus on corporations, its easy to forget what makes up those corporations: people. In some places, those who clean toilets are valued as much as those who sit at the presidents desk. Like Ben and Jerry's when they were a young business! Too bad it didn't last.
I have got to say that I wonder if there is a way to take away the status of "best acup of the year."
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It's all right there in the line about trading veggetables for treatment as some quaint relic of the hippy era. Times haven't changed, the author has changed. It is important to secure one's own financial future, but becoming some kind of personal soothsayer to the wealthy is only one way, and it's not for everybody. This kind of practice IS possible, for a certain kind of person. If you watch a lot of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" type shows, and are interested in modelling yourself, not into one of the rich, but into one of their high priced SERVANTS, than it is possible. This kind of fabulous lifestyle is not something a lot of us are interested in. I think the majority of large businesses succeed by providing a quality product or service at a price many people can afford. This is fundamental economics and it isn't going to change. (By the way, how much therapy does it take to say "Yes, I give people great service at a price they can pay, I'm so ashamed!") This article is not serious; it may cause some starry eyed first year students to think passing the NCCAOM test will pave the streets with gold, but anybody who's been in practice awhile will probably just laugh. Actually, I think she is gloating, but there is also something more insidious going on here, not just with this article but with AT as well. What the author is asking you to do is subsidize her. Although she is not in practice anymore, by keeping our acupuncture prices high, we justify other practitioners keeping their prices high. Does Mercedes ask Hyudnai to raise their prices?? Some people are feeling very threatened by what's going on with this model (a certain "coach" seems very threatened). As sort of a parallel, the political establishment is becoming very threatned by the blogs, as the great unwashed are daring to form and voice opinions without the help of media and political institutions. I think the internet is finally delivering on the promise of empowering people to enact positive change rapidly.
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Okay. I don't think being disgusted about this is enough. I think action is required. Please see my post under "State of the Acupuncture Profession" -- it's titled "Coordinated Response."
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Oh my... Please, someone, tell me that this is satire.
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And since when does "retail therapy" support Heart yin? Yikes.
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Wow, what a horrid article... I never thought that author had anything interesting to say, but now my opinion is that she has somehow lost her soul (or maybe she sold it off to pay for her fancy car)
"Getting a decent wage from an almost dead person was tricky."??? what the hell is that!!!
"Your inferiority complex about your value as a practitioner is not your patients' business. They are more likely to comply if your recommendations cost them an arm and a leg." ??? i ask - what planet does this person live on? oh yes, the one where she hasn't actually practiced acupuncture on any real live person regularly in years and years.
I agree with Jordan that money is weird, subjective and very abstract. When I was growing up in the Soviet Union and the grocery store was empty, it didn't matter if you had some money to buy food or not (unless of course you had a ton of it to spend on the black market, but then it was not just about the money anymore but about knowing the right people - yep, the relationships).
Money has nothing to do with Qi, abundance does, but that in my book is related to love, not money or things you can buy with it.
-tatyana
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Oooh. There's something terribly wrong about that article. The editor should not have printed it, as full of contradictions as it is. This was one of our earliest practitioners, and perhaps she was very clear at one time. After all, she did author "Passion Play". But today she writes like a confused and conflicted drunkard. When I read it, I was at first aghast at those statements, and then finally feeling compassion for her suffering. Think about it. How can she be advocating price gouging and conspicuous consumption and call this happiness and virtue? She knows better. She used to write better. I wouldn't take it seriously. But it's nice that we got a discussion going on money.
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What's interesting to me is how muddy this article is. It seems to be deliberately written to both gloss over and blur a bunch of very different issues.
The obvious one for us, of course, is the equation of charging high fees with making lots of money. How many acupuncturists do you know for whom that strategy works? Yup.
But there's also that nifty sleight-of-hand transition between talking about charging patients for treatment and charging corporations for consulting, as if they were the same thing. What gets lost there is the reality that acupuncture is a genuine form of medicine that relieves genuine suffering for real individuals; it's not some sort of amorphous corporate perk. There's a very big difference (morally speaking ) between making pain relief unaffordable and making corporate consulting expensive.
And if you weren't reading closely, you might miss the point that the author has not been running an office for the last 15 years. Too much international teaching sounds like a great excuse for closing up shop, but I can think of other reasons. What I'm getting at is that there is no evidence here that the author knows anything about the kind of business that most acupuncturists are currently attempting to run. Money is a small part of business. Relationships, structure, consistency are all much more important, when you are talking about what really creates prosperity. And yet that all gets lost in a discussion of how it's money that makes money. For somebody who really loves business, this article is superficial and boring. "Business is qi" -- now that would be a much better article.
Money is a consequence, not a cause. It's a consequence of relationships and decisions and structures, all of which can be just or unjust. I agree with you, Nora, that you can't separate it out.
And I love that you're mad about it.
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Money - on one level - is just a concept. Most people just use it to buy the basics of life - food, clothing, shelter, maybe a little health care at the local community acupuncture clinic.
Those with more of it use it to feed their indulgences, or to save time, or even to give to various noble causes.
(A little side story here...yesterday I realized we need some more brochure cases, but instead of impulsively going to Office Depot and buying a few hunks of plastic made in China, I decided instead to start making a few out of scraps of wood laying around. A little sawing here, chiseling there...probably will take me an hour to make a few, but I will round and sand the edges and it will be beautiful...)
Consumption is quick and we are conditioned to scurry like rats through the maze of modern life...quick down to Office Depot and buy the random stuff holder, the plastic organizer, or whatever, instead of improvising, treading lighter on the planet...but perhaps I digress....
Those with lots of money, well, I can't really say what they do because I've never been in that position, but there's a story about a beggar who found a bag of gold coins. Previously he was the most peaceful, happy individual to be found, living simply in his grass hut by the river. But after finding the gold, he dug a hole and buried it under his hut. He constantly thought about it. Worried that robbers would take it. (Today some people worry about the stock market crash which may be coming with Peak Oil.) So finally, the beggar wizened up, got rid of the gold, and all his anxiety.
Of course, money isn't evil....the only things that one could logically label as evil are phenomena connected to consciousnesses - the wish to harm others for example.
Is an arm evil because it hacks the Darfur refugee woman to death with a machete. No, an arm can't be evil, it's just bones, blood, and sinew. What's evil is anger, hatred, oppression, discrimination, vengeance, etc.
Same with money. It's like the arm holding the machete. But, like the machete, depending upon how it is used...it could be used to harvest a crop, to blaze a trail through a thicket, or to commit violence.
Big picture from where I sit: When the oil is gone, when we've depleted all the soil, irreversibly fouled the air, poisoned the water, cut down all the forests, eliminated every last vestige of wilderness due to our insatiable push for further industrialization and higher Gross (Yuck) national product...the little green paper we worship will be used to light fires to keep us warm and to wipe our behinds.
(Years ago while traveling in Peru, I found myself in a desperate situation in a public bathroom without toilet paper. Fortunately, I had a 50,000 "Inti" note in my pocket).
...and build a community acupuncture clinic because it feeds the heart. If I make a lot of money....and I expect that I'll make enough to go the local market and indulge in a lumpy handknit toque in addition to my fresh veggies....great.
But lose sleep over the stock market, or pay a therapist (no offense against psychotherapy here), so that I can rationalize the American consumer lifestyle? No thanks.
"Since men still make war
Let me lie down and sing
with the grasses."
(Issa)
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I tried to respond but there was so much profanity and disgust for that stupid "bleeping" article, it was unprintable. Nora, I'm glad you are part of the world I live in.
Linda