Nouveau Wealth
This narrative I thought of in the United Club at Terminal Two of London Heathrow Airport, and subsequently written on the plane over the Atlantic Ocean. This is an elaboration of my thoughts while sitting in that lounge.
This is me. I don't belong here. I never asked for this but this is how I was rewarded, for being financially irresponsible, putting myself in significant amounts of debt for a novel type of gambling, catching the heat of the hard labor of people much smarter than me, developing technologies to accomplish things much greater than I will probably ever accomplish in my life. Yet here I am, in this space reserved essentially for the top 1%; an abundance of custodians, cutting edge interior design, restroom attendants, a barrage of complementary food and alcohol at my disposal. To anyone not accustomed to 1st world wealth, this is true decadence. One side of the room is glass from top to bottom, with a perfect view to a football fields area of construction; hundreds of workers grinding day in day out, all for our viewing pleasure. ‘This bacon is a bit chewy,’ I think, as I take another sip of my freshly made espresso.
No, this is not fair—not that anyone ever implied that life was. But what is fair is to acknowledge this— Everyone sitting in this room, me especially, is resting on an unfair advantage in contrast with the rest of the world. Within this system we live in, there are many who would say that it's rigged against them. Though I've never investigated this myself, I’m certainly not one to argue against it. Further out are people who live in the third world, the ones who’s labor produces all the things that we take for granted. It’s not necessary to consider the blood sweat and tears that we benefit from so thanklessly, nor is it considered a faux pas to ignore it. It’s simply a layer in which our social paradigms conveniently rest on on top of—out of sight, out of mind. The same applies, with increased severity, to every living being who’s flesh we harvest for food and various luxuries. The injustice of this is astounding. On par with this level of suffering, is almost every living creature outside of our dominion. Much more cruel than we often choose to acknowledge is Mother Nature herself. Within her realm is constantly more suffering than humans have ever afflicted on ourselves or other forms of life. When you put it in perspective, we’re really not so bad, considering where we came from.
I don’t know where this was going—I suppose this wormhole of suffering we went down serves to contrast this privilege that I’m experiencing, as someone who hasn’t even earned my place in this environment from which I write—not really. I’m not a trustafarian. I was just in the right place at the right time, and had the initiative and the savvy to see the shortcuts that were available to me and take advantage of them. Living near one of the most expensive cities in the United States, I worked as taxi driver 2.0, taking advantage of highly competitive wages made possible from VC funding for one of the largest and most innovative transportation companies in the world, earning twice as much as what my work was really worth. From there, thanks to smart phones, digital audio and RSS feeds, by happenstance, I discovered digital currencies moments before they caught on in the world of mainstream finance. A reasonably strong work ethic from the comfort of my 2010 Toyota’s driver seat, the ability to read between the lines and take a few bold risks are all I can really give myself credit for.
The system acknowledges these digital signals, these bits of data in various electronic ecosystems, linked together through certain protocols. Every time I swipe my card to sign up for a little bit more debt, it’s reimbursed sooner or later by tokens of perceived value; money that isn’t really money yet, utility tokens that currently have no utility, though somehow worth 5-10x more on average than they were within the past year. It can be awkward, while most of my friends and family grind, day after day and struggle with the vices they’ve become accustomed to, I rest easy on upwards of $100k worth of digital assets. I get to decide if I want to continue to risk it all in a play of double-or-nothing, or pass up the possibility of an even higher level of unprecedented wealth, left only to pursue passive income endeavors and passion projects, or allocate time for self-improvement and address personal hangups. It’s strange being accustomed to this kind of luxury and leisure. It’s sometimes exhilarating. People don’t always feel like they’re 35k feet in the air when they’re 35k feet in the air.
The prospect of failure is still possible, merely because of greed. This could end at any moment, even while I’m sitting here writing this in the sky, I could call it in before the big crash happens. Should I? This decision, right here right now, is life-changing, not to get overly dramatic. As you might expect and probably to your disappointment, if you were at all invested in this narrative in the first place, I’m going to end on a cliff-hanger. The truth is, I’ve already made up my mind, but you as a reader don’t get to know. Why… isn’t that what good writers do? Perhaps it’s to let you play this story out in your own way, who knows. I’m an amateur anyway, in writing and in life. I just didn’t expect to be treated this well for being so unexceptional.
