Swede’s Photographs on Nostr: Good morning. 🥬🥬🥬 11 February 2026 Money is a strange invention when you ...

Good morning. 🥬🥬🥬

11 February 2026

Money is a strange invention when you stop and think about it. We trade real things—our time, our labor, our needs—for little pieces of paper that we can then trade for something else. And these days, we don’t even touch the paper. Instead, we’re given digital credits in accounts held by financial institutions that promise to hand over the paper if we ever ask for it. Most of the time, though, we just swipe a little plastic card and the value moves from one place to another.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, except to say that most transactions now happen electronically. Maybe I’ve wandered into a subject that’s a bit bigger than I intended.

I can still remember the first ATM I ever used. Early ’80s, Las Cruces, New Mexico. Before that, if I wanted cash, I had to walk into the bank and write a check, or buy something with a check and write it for twenty dollars over—back when that was common. I think it still happens, but you don’t see many people writing checks in the supermarket anymore.

What really amazed me came around the turn of the century. My wife and I had just returned to the States after three years in Germany, and suddenly people were paying for gas right at the pump with credit cards. I thought that was wonderful. No more going inside, no more prepaying—which always annoyed me. You just slip in your card, pump your gas, and drive away.

I’m out of room now, but I was starting to think about the full‑service stations of years past. Another time, maybe.

“Money is a strange business. People who haven’t got it, worry about it. And people who have, are full of worries too.” — Alec Guinness

“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” — Marshall McLuhan

“You never step in the same river twice.” — Heraclitus

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