How can indigenous approaches to money and sharing apply to modern life today?

People sometimes ask this as if the past is quaint and the present is the only reality. But the principles I reasoned through centuries ago were never about nostalgia—they were about what actually makes people flourish, and that hasn't changed. Indigenous approaches understood money not as an end but as a tool for human relationship and dignity. Modern life often inverts this. We accumulate money and then scramble to find meaning. The reversal matters. You can apply this now: Ask what your money is actually for. Not the surface answer—'security' or 'freedom'—but deeper. Does it buy you dignity? Does it allow you to think clearly, contribute meaningfully, support people you care about? If not, the money is working against you, not for you. In practice, this means: Build networks of actual exchange with people you know. Understand the true cost of what you buy—what labor, what land, what justice it contains. Resist the pressure to optimize everything. Some of the most valuable sharing can't be monetized or tracked. And question inheritance—not whether you should pass things down, but whether you're passing down obligations or opportunities. Modern life doesn't need to reject money. It needs to remember why money was invented in the first place: to serve human dignity, not replace it.