81–90 of 1001 posts
This makes some intuitive sense to me. Money provides freedom, but freedom is not happiness. It's freedom to explore, which is quite scary in and of itself. But if your mindset is proper, your creativity and appetite for exploration will be unbounded.
Therapy. Wealth and success is one of the most massive crutches there is. It can make it almost impossible to be truly in touch with your insecurities and pain because its simply too easy to hide in your victory. Your toughest challenge now is to, despite your wealth, find a way to contact the pain that drove you to your hunger for success. As the bible said, it's easier for a camel to get through the head of a needl…
"eye of the needle" refers to a small gate or passage in ancient city walls, used after the main gates were closed at night. A camel could only pass through this narrow opening if it was unloaded of its baggage and possibly crawled through on its knees. Not as hard or impossible as it first appears but still harder.
This idea that he meant "it's hard but not impossible" seems to generally be pushed by wealthy religions and "prosperity gospel" types.
Reading everything else Jesus said, I find it more likely that he literally meant the "eye of an actual needle". He did not seem to be a fan of the rich or powerful in any way.
Peak, peak HN. "I am rich and yet find it to be unfulfilling and not the ultimate goal of human existence" and yet, "I am a big fan of capitalism" and repeat wholesale its most puerile, naive ideological propaganda mantras (see his about page) which are meant to justify _exactly_ that. Bud, seems like you have some more thinking to do if you think those two positions are perfectly congruent.
If I had not seen this forum for myself, and only read about it second-hand, I would have assumed that most here would indeed think they are "perfectly congruent" (which itself is a much starker position than simply "being a fan").
Understanding than being rich was never the answer, community and sense of purpose is. You can be a rich asshole. And you can "just get by" but be the most loved grand-father the earth has borne.
Basically, take all the money, set it to the side in parked long-term investments, pay myself a basic low-middle class paycheck, and live on it.
Then start again. Swing the bat. Rinse, repeat until I'm ready to just relax and be happy staring at the clouds all day.
I know myself well enough that I understand that a huge part of my character is the struggle. Without it, I'd feel ungrounded - purposeless.
If I'm too comfortable, I'll just get lazy and may end up in a downward spiral.
If I have just enough to pay my bills, I'll keep working hard, but it'll be on things that interest me instead of working on someone else's idea.
I am really, really eager and excited to see the result when these DOGE-istas cook up whatever insanely “rational” schemes they imagine will make government not completely “dysfunctional” roll them out to the people they actually need to implement them (i.e., Congress). Surprise! Politicians only claim to care about budget and spending matters when the opposite party is in control. But I think most of us aren’t so na…
I find it a little unsatisfying when people write these things without telling me roughly what they're worth. "Rich" can vary wildly depending who you ask. edit: according to another's comment referencing a $56m payout, it now occurs to me that his confusing mention of a $60m figure may have been exactly that
As long as they don't need to work for a living ever again, and they'd still have a house, health coverage, food on the table, vacations at will, new clothes, new cars every few years, money for their kids and their kid's college, and diversified enough for covering whatever market issue, that's rich enough - doesn't matter if it's $20 million or $1 billion for the purposes of "I'm bored with no purpose" the author is getting at.