Living The Life

Obsession with money is like Alzheimers. Over time you begin lose memories of everyone and everything around you. You become so cut off from society and locked away in your bubble. Fortunately, obsession with money also known as greed has a cure. To let it go. But those that chase their ambitions are often never redeemed and either wither away or dethroned by the next revolution.

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Life seems trapped in an endless cycle of abundance and struggle. Groups within society rise and fall. Ideologies develop through brainstorming and wither away from dogmatism. People fight for change and the winners eventually become defenders of the status quo. The idealist will eventually fall to the temptation and benefits of pragmatism. Things come together and things fall apart.

There is always a struggle for freedom, and then a struggle for control. Governments fall and new governments replace them. Those who seek freedom later desire security. Those who seek security later desire freedom. Things will be different next time, but they are always the same.

There's nothing worse than the prideful tyrant sitting on his or her throne reigning over an empire. The tyrant always thinks that he or she knows what is best for the people. The people always think they know what is best for themselves. When the tyrants head off to the guillotine, new tyrants take their place because the people don't want freedom they thought they wanted. They cry for the stability they abhorred. And thus the cycle continued.

But what of the next tyrant? What did they promise the people? At first they promised change. They promised that they would change the system and be better. The prior governments were corrupt, but there would now be no monarchy. There would be a free rule by the people. The people are the leaders of this new world.

And then the tyrants took over and gave the people security and reassurance that they would get their dues. That it would be the tyrants who would watch over them and keep them safe. It was the tyrants that cared about the community and had lead the prior revolution for prosperity for all. These tyrants had been ordinary people, but now that they had won they were hungry for power and control.

And now we wait for the next bloody revolution. A cycle we cannot escape as time continues to move forward.

What is it that cryptocurrencies will do? Bring freedom to the people? Or simply bring power to those who seize the moment? Should these be tools that are used to advance humanity or will they be used as tools of arbitrage to leverage against those who lacked the vision that the innovators had?

Will it be a movement of the people to escape the grasps of corrupt governments? Will it be a movement of the greedy to secure power when the current cycle ends and the next cycle begins? Will the sheep simply move from one field to another under the guidance of another shepherd who only cares about themselves?

That's living the life. Chasing the dreams of change and corrupting the vision in order to accomplish it. To enrich ourselves before others blinded by ambition and greed. The human condition overwhelmed by its animalistic nature. Slaves to instinct we find ourselves ascending to the throne blind to the fact that we are indeed corruptible.

Perhaps, we can't trust anyone, but we must trust someone to move forward. We can reflect on the grand motions of different paradigms in history to see the cycle in movement. It was through our redemption we found our corruption. It was through change we fought to keep things the same. The mortal men seek immortality but ignore the fragility of humanity for all great deeds are to be erased by the sands of time.

So, where do you lie on this day of execution? Are you the tyrant being led to death by the people that you had initially tried to save? Are you a person that seeks escape from tyranny when you only seek to enrich yourself? Are you the next tyrant who led the revolution and made promises of change that one could not keep?

Or perhaps you are different from the others. Maybe you accept your mortality and accept the cycle. You recognize you cannot escape. The hope of prosperity is laced with hunger for power and control. Perhaps you help others when is it dangerous. Perhaps you remember those that everyone else forgot.

You won't be remembered by statues and paintings as a tyrant would. You never lived the life. But you never died on the stage surrounded by hollow men, memories of a time forgotten. The pig slaughtered not because he never shared. The pig slaughtered because he forgot how the outside of his own bowl looked like and grew fat and weak when things fell apart.

But if you are not a hollow man, then what are you? What do you have different than the other animals? You remember the cycles and remember the people and those around. You denied the food bowl and made a sacrifice to share with those that were starved. Nobody will remember how brave you were, or how strong you were, or even how kind you were. But as the world withers away, kingdoms fall, and the cycle begins anew. The moment shines brightly, even just for a moment, a star in a vast sky of emptiness.