Money is our madness, our vast collective madness. — David Whyte

Money is our madness, our vast collective madness.

Author: David Whyte

Insight: We don't usually talk about money this way—as a shared delusion we've all tacitly agreed to participate in. But think about the absurdity we live inside: people work jobs they'd never choose if money weren't involved. Families stay fractured because moving closer would mean a pay cut. We accumulate things we don't need, worry about numbers in an app, and measure our worth partly against our net worth. None of it is rational when you step back. Yet we're all trapped in the same logic together, which somehow makes it feel normal. The tricky part is that the madness isn't just individual greed or stupidity—it's structural. We can't simply opt out of caring about money without real consequences. That's what makes it collective. But recognizing it as madness, even partially, creates a tiny bit of freedom. It lets you notice when you're making decisions purely because "that's what money people do" rather than what you actually want. It doesn't solve anything overnight, but naming the spell is the first step to not being entirely under it. You can participate in the system without letting it be your only reality.