by Aisling Fei
From the time we enter school, we begin our journey toward becoming Midas—the ancient, Greek King who turned everything he touched into gold. We are told to strive for good grades. Why? What do good grades do except make one kid feel smart, and the next one feel stupid? Adults turn grades into a child’s first currency. They teach children that success is what matters. Because down the road, good grades turn into a good college. And a good college turns into a good degree. And a good degree? That turns into gold.
The story of King Midas is a cautionary tale of greed corrupting a person to the point of choking the life from everything around him. When he touches his daughter and turns her to gold, he learns the heartbreaking flaw of his gift. But I don’t believe the Ancient Greeks intended for this cautionary tale to be a parable for an entire nation. And yet, that is what it has become.
At twenty-seven years old, with a college degree and working as a grocery store cashier, I have received the message that I am (and my generation as a whole is) unmotivated. This message comes from my relatives, teachers—even peers, sometimes. It comes from the affluent customers who check out at my register at work, who think it’s their place to pass judgement on my life. It comes from people who took the Midas route, turning everything in their path to gold without thinking of the life going silent inside the gilded world they’re creating. It comes from people who believe that a person’s life is only worth the amount of money they own.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am unmotivated. Unmotivated by money. By gold. By greed.
So what, then, motivates me? Growth. Change. Stories. Laughter. Connection. Bird songs. Ancient trees. Crystal clear rivers. Bees. Lawns of native grasses. Art. Music. Life.
In school we are taught to focus on our academics. Extracurriculars help to round out a
student, but who cares if you got an A+ in chorus when you got a C+ in math? Who cares if your art teacher loves you when your English teacher can’t get you to turn in your homework? But those students who put their effort and passion into their extracurriculars are not stupid. They’re not unmotivated. They’re not trying any less than the students putting their effort into science and math and English. It’s just that their focus is not on gold.
Our world is going silent. Still. As it shines brighter with all the golden lights we’ve created in our greed (greed for more time in a day, more daylight, more hours to keep touching things and turning them to gold), the rest of the world is frozen. Gold. Bird cannot sing in the golden world we’re building. Plants cannot grow from gold. When everything is gold, there is no room for life. When will we realize? Will it take until our own children have turned to gold, too? They already are.
For gold, Midas farmers are forced to prioritize reliability and production over health. Most of our food is genetically modified and covered in pesticides—poisons to deter and kill bugs, but which also, in the long run, poison us. Our children. Is this the price we’re willing to pay for gold?
When will we shift our focus? As we try to mold our sons and daughters into little Midases, do we realize that they’ll be golden statues before they can even start using this “gift” we’re giving them?
I am unmotivated by gold because I am motivated by life. I want everything I touch to turn into life and joy. Where are those lessons in school? Where is the class that teaches children how to garden? When do children learn how to plant trees to replace those cut down for the stacks of homework they lug home every night? When do we get to learn how to care for others—other people, animals, plants? Where is the class that teaches you to bring spiders outside instead of
squishing them because they’re making someone scream?
What if success looked like a gardener with her hands covered in warm, rich, brown earth? What if success looked like an emergency room nurse who just saved someone’s life? What if success looked like my high school classmate who loved catching the school’s bees in water bottles so he could take them outside and release them? He wasn’t a good student (he was too busy chasing bees around the classroom to pay attention to the teacher). He was a very bad Midas-in-training. But he was a good person.
One of my most vivid memories from childhood was the day my parents found a hummingbird lying in our garden. My father thought it might have hit a window, or perhaps the day was just too hot, and it couldn’t find nectar in time. My mother went inside and mixed up some sugar water, and together my parents slid this cup of nectar carefully under the hummingbird’s delicate beak. I remember seeing its little tongue thrust in and out of that water, over and over. I watched and held my breath. Then the hummingbird got up, fluttered its wings, and flew off.
That is what success looks like to me. That is why gold does not motivate me.
Our world is dying because of all the Midases turning it to gold. Perhaps it’s time to shift our focus. Perhaps, instead of telling our children to get good grades and a successful (A.K.A. lucrative) job, we should be showing them how to turn their touch into life.
Perhaps it would not be so painful to mourn our dead if we knew we’d spent every moment with them in joy and laughter. There’s a saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” But what if we did? What if we knew and acknowledged the beauty of life, here and now, in this very moment? What if we stopped and appreciated the people, sights, sounds, and life surrounding us? What if we took each moment for the gift that it is, instead of looking for our next
target to turn into gold?
I don’t write these rambling thoughts to change Midas’s mind. I know I can’t, and I won’t.
I write these musings in solidarity with the other life-bringers out there, who are tired of hearing that they should follow Midas on his path toward wealth and greed. I write this in the hopes that the rest of my unmotivated generation will hear and feel validated, heard, and answered. Motivated.
Keep going.
Maybe someday our children will turn all this gold back to life.
Aisling Fei is a biracial writer of essays, short stories, and allegorical fantasy novels inspired by mythology from across the globe. Her writing blends folklore and culture to validate biracial and queer experiences. She hopes her stories will help guide readers through racial awakening and questions of self-identity. Aisling is a figment of the physical world and does not use social media accounts. She can be contacted via email at aisling.fei@gmail.com.
