I grew up in the so-called third world where corruption was rampant. One time we got pulled over. It was Christmas time, and we were driving around to see the lights. The policeman asked my father to step out of the car. They talked, then walked a little ways into the shadow of a building so we could see only hand and body gestures in silhouette. A good ten minutes passed. My father returned to the car, bent down so as to put his face level with the window. “Don’t stare,” he said. “You are embarrassing him.”

When Father returned the second time, and we were safely driving away, everybody asked: “What happened?” Father’s answer was short. “Money talks.”

“What does it say?” I asked. Everybody laughed. I was serious, but everybody’s laughter was so mirthful that I joined them into thinking that I was just being a clown. I laughed along. I was eight.

Now I live in the so-called first world, where corruption is not rampant but confined to high places. People still say “Money talks.” And now I want to stay serious with my question. “What does it say?” Back then I had pictured printed bills with talking mouths. What would they say as they changed hands between two distant silhouettes? Now I wonder about the set up and the actual words used, when industry lobbyists meet with elected officials. Is it a yacht club or a sports bar? Is it martini, or is it more of a beer and tequila thing?

Money talks everywhere, of course, not just in yacht clubs, which I have never been to, but from boardrooms to back alleys and everywhere in between. We don’t know what it says not because it is hidden. We don’t know what it says because it is not hidden. There is a story about an old fish who went looking for this mysterious, life-giving substance called water. That poor fish looked everywhere, but he couldn’t find it because he was in it. That’s a true story, I am sure.

I was a quiet child. When I was sad I sought comfort in silence. As I grow older silence becomes a second home, one that I need to spend time in even when I am not sad – a mental summer cottage of sorts. I discover that silence is not bare; it has its own furniture and decor, its land, water, and air scape of living things. Raindrops are not silent, but they belong to it. They fit into its contour perfectly. A deafening storm is a thing of silence. You can fall asleep cozily under that blanket of loudness as if you were inside your mother’s womb.

And of all the species of silence, none can match a tree. Even around the commonest of houseplants, there is a silence that thickens the air like a held voice.

To hear what money says, first I have to listen to trees. If money is to us what water is to fish, then trees are my islands of dry land. So I go for a walk or a stand still in the woods. I don’t go to many places. I don’t explore. I keep returning to the same trees until I know their silence. This is how I explore.

Some silence says nothing, some says much. The silence of a turned-off leaf blower is not the silence of a working ant; the silence of the now packing-up groundskeeper is not the silence of the now unblown, resting leaves. And the silence of the trees, the old growth trees here in the Pacific Northwest, is a thing that is unlike anything else. It is a silence that is outright bodily. You can almost lean your weight against it and feel yourself supported. It’s a silence that stands up, like the twin of the tree, or rather it is the real tree of which the visible one is but its translation. It is the tree you take home. The visible one doesn’t stay long. Sometimes it’s gone on the drive home, when it gets pasted over by the things that fall in through the open hole of your eyes. But the one made of silence, that’s the one you take to sleep. It’s your gift from a day well lived, your proof.

I got into big trees casually, through books, botanical gardens, hiking trails. And then one day, after many years of books, gardens, and trails, it stunned me that the trees were not screaming. It stunned me that for all these centuries they have quietly taken our blows, our saws, our cities, the pavements, the parking lots. The ancient ones that have been around for so long and have witnessed so much, silently they keep giving even as they give way. And their silence, it finally strikes me, is parental. When I am in their midst, walking or standing still, sometimes it happens that I know what it’s like to be believed in. And I shudder at the responsibility that that entails.

The thought of quitting my job so I could spend more time in the woods did cross my mind. When I brought this up with people, they said it wasn’t realistic. What they meant, of course, is not that it wasn’t in line with reality. What they meant was that it’s not in line with what money says.

When I told people that I have gone carless, that I now ride my bicycle to work, which means that I walk into meetings sweaty or dripping with rain – and that I don’t care what the boss says – they said that that’s not practical. What they meant, of course, is not that riding a bicycle was not a species of practice. What they meant was that riding a bicycle is not in line with what money says.

Money says what is down-to-earth and what is airy-fairy. If you were to ask money, it would say that walking bodily on bodily earth and mud is not down-to-earth, but typing mere notations at a computer screen is. And it would definitely say that walking into a meeting dripping with rain is airy-fairy.

Like a fish that is beginning to know the taste of water, I was beginning to make out what money says. Except I didn’t find it life-giving.

I have set up an investment account with my bank. I can go online to watch numbers go up and down. And I don’t just watch; I cheer. Some numbers I cheer up, some I cheer down. It quickly happened that I got it into my head that my cheering made a difference, the same way it happens with sports fans when they sit in front of the TV. Sometimes I stayed up all night clicking the refresh button. I told myself it was a kind of exploration.

But money is not like trees. You can’t look at it and hear a rich silence. Money is noisy. The numbers you cheer up, at first they talk of things you can buy: a bigger computer, a bigger vacation, a bigger life generally. It’s all very practical. (I know how to use the word now.) Being practical means accepting that survival precedes life, necessity comes before luxury, having a job before listening to trees, etc. But then the message changes. The numbers start talking not of a bigger life you can buy, but of a bigger number you can buy an even bigger number with.

I once heard a gambler explain what he would do if he won big. When he started out he thought he would use the money to help out his poor parents, his friends who couldn’t pay their bills. Maybe he would buy himself a new car. But now that he’s been a gambler for much of his life, the only thing he would do if he won big would be to use the money to place bigger bets. “Because you can’t take care of everybody,” he said. That could have been a direct quote from money.

I did consider giving to charity. The more I considered the more I cheered my numbers, and the more I clicked the refresh button. I considered so I might cheer. I considered giving every day, but I never gave. “First I need to have enough for myself, and then I can give to others.” (That’s also a direct quote from money.) But my number grows and shrinks like a snowball, with every point on it symmetrical to any other. Nothing protrudes. There is no corner for that “and then” to grab a hold of. A time line has no zero of its own. It needs a someone to put his finger on the line and say, “now.” It needs a will.

One time when I had been cheering all night and all day too, it occurred to me that I was miserable. I started looking for a vacation to buy. And because I had sacrificed my time with friends for the sake of my stupid numbers, and I felt like a loser for it, I had to make up for it, not by inviting my friends along, but by making sure that the vacation I would buy was one that my friends couldn’t afford. That’s how I would make myself feel better. That’s what money said. I heard it clearly, and turned away.

I went to my woods instead. But I never quit my job. I still ride my bicycle in the rain and walk into meetings dripping. Money still talks noisily. One time it happened that I ran into it. I asked it to join me for a drink. He’s tall. (I was right to suspect that he was a he.) He had on a pair of skinny jeans and pointy shoes. His hair was coiffed and smelling of gel. He had small dark eyes that never stopped moving even when there was no movement to follow.

We sat down and did not say hi. I wanted a throwdown right away. I looked him in the eye and proclaimed: (1) Survival does not precede life. Not only that “man does not live by bread alone,” but that bread must not come first, and when it comes it must be kept meagre lest too much survival crowds out life. (2) I must give to others before I have had enough for myself. Because only by giving to others can I know that I have had enough for myself. (3) “I cannot take care of everybody” is a limitation I must concede reluctantly, not an excuse for when I don’t want to take care of anybody, or a truism to declare proudly as proof of my fitness to thrive in the rough-and-tumble of the real world. And (4) a corollary: although I cannot take care of everybody, I must certainly care for everybody. Because to care for some and not for others is impossible. The don’t care I have for those I don’t care about will distort – and in time render as fraud – the care I have for those I care about.

Money thanked me. No one had ever sat down with him for a drink before. He was polite, but I was not disarmed. I maintained that he was a liar, and his motives evil. He reminded me I had not closed my investment account. Which was true, although I didn’t stay up all night anymore. I was ready to concede he had a point. But then he smirked. The air was hostile when we parted. And yet, mere days afterward I sought him out again. The feeling was mutual. In time our meeting became regular. When I don’t seek him out, he would seek me out. Once, Money even paid for the drinks.

Maybe he finds me amusing, a mere mortal who wants to know what he says. Or maybe he is just lonely. Money never mentioned having anyone else to talk to. For my part, I want to know my enemy, the ruler I am fighting to disobey. I want to explore, even as I struggle with my own greed.

That’s how things are between us. We have gotten used to each other. The other day Money showed up in my apartment, unannounced and uninvited. He plopped himself on my couch, clasped his hands behind his head and put his feet up. The sight of his pointy shoes enraged me. And yet I didn’t ask him to leave.