The High Cost of Free

Free. How perverted that term has become. Is this pillow and chair actually free? Not really. Sure, you can take them without exchanging any money, which is its most common definition, but a ridiculously incomplete one.

Air and water are examples of things that are actually free. Through photosynthesis, green plants create oxygen, freely, which allows us to live on this planet. And precipitation falls from the sky, freely, which fills our rivers, lakes and streams enabling life as we know it. These freely occurring, natural processes under-gird our entire human existence.

Material goods are never free—there is a cost for and an impact from everything. We’ve reduced free to a monetary value and elevated it as the ultimate approach of acquisition. We’ve been trained to only care about how much something costs. The less the better and if it’s free, well then, take two and run for the hills. You’re a winner!

So here we are, overflowing with material goods, and no clean air, and not enough water. Congratulations us. We’ve compromised the systems that sustain human life in exchange for tons and tons of free things nobody wants. Was it worth it?