How Up To Date Is Your Security?

I remember when money and identity were fixed
by where individuals lived, by who their parents were,
the schools chosen for them, and the grandeur of the bank
building that local people put their money into,
to save for that mortgage that would tie them to the town
by the local property their parents insisted was right,
where the mortgage holder would remain in debt
long enough to make them stay after the debt was cleared.

I can remember this because I had no money
and dimly saw how my identity was tied
to me reinforcing how much my parents choices mattered.

They said they had little money, and less to spare for me.
Dad had character-when character meant having mates
to drink with, and drink was his security until the lack of money
in his pocket didn't matter; his character was enough for all the family.

Such was the power of localism back then.

Nowadays money is flexible and invisible,
and no single building helps us to identify it.
For apparently being transferred 'peer to peer'
where the next trend always has yet to appear;
wealth that once seemed secure can fall down
some digital sinkhole/plughole that nobody knew
was there-leaving people in debt for no logical reason. 

Electronics have taken over identity too,
Where attention shifts to smartphones
-which are electronic swiss knives
that do everything the user has to watch
where the phone is, and what it is doing
that they did not realise it could do.

The oldest line on any new flexibility
is 'Be sober and vigilant for the devil
roams the earth posing as a roaring lion
seeking whom he may to devour'*
-in other words every new ease we find
requires us to make new security conditions too.

*1 Peter Ch 5 V 8 in the The New Testament