Take a twenty-dollar bill. It is crisp and clean. It is worth exactly twenty dollars. Now send it out into the world. It is spent on food. It goes into the bank. It is withdrawn, and given to a child on her birthday. It is spent on books at a yard sale, then lost on the streets. It is found. It is spent on drugs. It is spent on favors. It is spent on clothes, and milk.
On and on it goes, and one day, by sheer luck, it comes to you again. And you recognize it for what it is, because of the mark that you had put upon it before you sent it out into the world. It is torn. It is stained. It is crumpled. It has sustained life, and it has enabled vice.
But for all that has been done to it, and all that it has done, its value has not diminished one whit. Despite everything, it is still worth exactly twenty dollars, just as when it was clean and crisp and fresh in your hands.
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