The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'a person's head with money inside of it. urban landscape.'
This has been a hard week. Physically, I'm in a high risk moment for cluster headaches. Spring's dramatic shifts in temperature and pressure make headache attacks more likely. Last year at this time, I was experiencing attacks on a daily basis. I've been doing everything in my power to keep the condition at bay, but find that my stress level keeps ratcheting up.
Finishing my taxes today completely stressed me out. My income in 2021 was $15k after expenses, and my tax bill was $1k. This year was a different story. I ended up making much less and owing much more. My income in 2022 was under $12k after expenses, and my tax bill is over $1.7k. The $1.2k I'd set aside for this year's taxes proved woefully inadequate due to an IRS rule change, forcing me to sell a bunch of Solana at a steep loss to make up the difference.
In the broadest of terms, money is a social resource that allows people to solve their problems and meet their needs. And because of the mind-body connection, our financial situations are literally programmed into our biology. Financial losses activate the part of the brain that processes fear and pain. Here's a quote from a Science Daily piece on this:
The researchers found surprising similarities between the response to financial losses and a system that they had previously identified for responding to pain, which they believe allows the brain to predict imminent harm and allow immediate defensive action to be taken. "Clearly, none of us want to lose money in the same way that none of us want to experience pain," says Dr Seymour. "It would make sense that the way that we learn to predict and hence avoid both of them should be linked." The reward and defensive systems relating to financial loss were very similar to motivational systems previously identified in rats, which suggests they have hijacked an evolutionarily old system connected to avoiding fear and pain.
Some of the ways this plays out are described in 'The symbolic power of money.' From the abstract:
Six studies tested relationships among reminders of money, social exclusion, and physical pain. Interpersonal rejection and physical pain caused desire for money to increase. Handling money (compared with handling paper) reduced distress over social exclusion and diminished the physical pain of immersion in hot water. Being reminded of having spent money, however, intensified both social distress and physical pain.
There's also evidence that lacking power impairs executive function and that poverty impedes cognitive function. So the science suggests that financial standing is programmed into our bodies, and that low financial standing gets in the way of thinking clearly.
2021 was the only year in recent memory where I didn't live in poverty. By 2022, with an income of just $12k, I was back below the line. For reference, the federal poverty line for 2022 was $13,590. Why the IRS thinks it's okay to steal money from poor people like me while billionaires only pay about 8.2 percent is a subject for another post.
If, as the research suggests, financial standing is a proxy for social standing in our unconscious minds, then my standing is low. Low enough to interfere with cognition and decision making ability. The Cognitive Burden of Poverty is well-documented. I experience this acutely in a sense of feeling raw when reminded of my lowly state, and find that it comes up in more subtle ways as well. But in an everyday sense, these consequences of poverty are my baseline. I usually only notice them on days like today, with the tax surprise.
One curious thing I've found over the years is that people tend to shut down around conversations about financial inequality. I wonder if the response has to do money as social standing. Another implication of the research involves the study that showed play money to be as effective as real money in producing psychological benefits. Are these similar to the benefits of likes on social media?
Taking a step back, the whole idea of finances being mapped to our bodies is fascinating. It makes intuitive sense and has practical implications. It implies that economic control is physical control, mediated by psychology. It also suggests that economic freedom may in part be a state of mind.
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