Multiple Transactions
This short-essay is dedicated to by late Dad — he taught me that the transactions of love are always multifarious.
Get Satvik Wani, PhD’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
We grow up thinking that buying a chocolate or a candy requires paying some money and then we are happy because we eat that purchased item. The shop-keeper is happy because s/he has received that money and will use it for their utility. These simple transactions rule a young-mind’s world — Daddy, buy me a new dress; Mommy, I want a pizza for dinner today — and then the parent’s say that no new things today because we are on a budget, we have to be disciplined, we have to be healthy-eating etc. — and these are their conclusions. Essentially, we all grow-up thinking that one thing leads to other — but that’s it. As we further mature, we start seeing more to these two-faced transactions. Like that boy who figured out that too much ice-cream leads to gain of weight and that cute girl finding out that too much chocolate led her to having bad-teeth. So, as one grows-up they see that a two-faced transaction is actually a multi-faced transaction in it’s follow-through if not in any other format — chocolate leading to bad teeth leading to visiting dentist leading to expenditure on dentist leading to a budget on her next dress because she is growing up too fast and the dresses are becoming tight and aren’t fitting her leading to her being sad that leads her to distract herself with feeding her pet dog. These follow-throughs — whilst are multiple transaction’s chain, they are an artifact of passage of time.
I want to talk about multiple-transaction that are, rather more immediate here now — transactions that we are some-how blind to. Transactions that follow in time but quicker than those discussed before. Transactions that a wiser and aged person can perceive more clearly than the younger generation. Let’s start with that dog being fed. But instead of a pet dog, consider a stray dog being-fed by that little girl while she went for a walk with her dad. Forget that the fed dog-biscuit cost the dad some money — oh, why forget that, let’s say it cost them 5 rupees. Now, once that cute little dog ate those bites it, let us suppose that it became happy — which made that girl and her dad happy. That happy-dad made a few good and happy decisions with his investments at that very moment on his smart-phone and made a thousand rupees. That little girl became so happy with the dog that was fed’s jovialness that she called her mom up and said nice things and she promised her a nice treat when they would reach home. That dog trotted merrily to another person in the park and lovingly licked that person so that s/he became happy. Till now, the dog-feeding lead to more than five transactions — that included money and/or emotional transactions. Since, emotional and monetary transactions are intertwined — just like the happy father’s stock-market victory due to being in good mood. So, now, we can say that there are multiple transactions that occur when we do — what we think as a single-transaction. There can be a quick chain-reaction that may happen. But this is not just it. There are even more transactions: what if another person who was in the park witnessed all this happen? S/he may want to feed the dogs in the park too.
In general, whenever happiness (or for that matter any emotional artifact is generated), money is made or lost and further, whenever money is spent or incurred, an emotional transaction occurs. It occurs somewhere — in the universe — to be blunt. Just like the butterfly effect. However, this is not about chaos and sensitive dependence on initial conditions that is required by chaos theory and the butterfly effect. These chain-reactions of transactions are an Eather that tie us — living and non-living things — together in this beautiful universe that we reside in.
