13 highlights
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We can opt out of the stories of religion or politics, but we cannot opt out of the story of money. It is so interwoven into the fabric of society that even our physical health depends upon how abstract numbers on a screen can be converted into tangible meals.
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That steep descent to zero is what I call The Nothingness of Money. It’s when the pointlessness of money is no longer theoretical; it’s truly understood. This delineation is important.
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For people that depart due to fatal accidents, it’s entirely possible that they lived their lives without ever internalizing the pointlessness of money.
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Equipped with this knowledge, people decided that they didn’t want to spend their entire lives thinking about money. They wanted the Nothingness of Money to start earlier than the last few moments of their lives, so they could spend at least a few decades living without the attentional drain of their finances.
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They devised a tool that helped elongate the Nothingness of Money, and its invention ushered in a new way of thinking about financial freedom.
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That tool was called retirement.
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Traditionally, the age at which the Nothingness of Money would begin its descent is around 65.
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Movements like FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) attempt to start the descent much earlier
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The thing about FIRE is that it requires an almost obsessive level of attention to money, especially in that initial frontloading period. Usually there is a goalpost that is being pursued, or some magical number that signifies the peak of the curve. This goal becomes the sun your behaviors orbit around, dictating what jobs you take, the products you buy, and the rate at which you monitor your expenses or check your portfolio (which I’m guessing is very, very often).
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By being maniacally focused on reaching that goal, you accelerate your ability to get there, which is what early retirement is all about. You view the world through the lens of money now so you can free yourself from it later. The problem, however, is that this lens can’t be removed the moment you want it to.
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Habit is the glue that gives perception its stickiness. If you spend 15+ years logging your expenses every night, checking your portfolio twenty times a day, and making decisions based on their fiscal impact, how plausible is it that you will stop thinking about money after you’ve reached your goalpost?
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That when you’re fixated on its pursuit, you can break the spell by understanding how laughable it is to be remembered for it.
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Wisdom is the co-existence of contradictory truths, and money is the clearest example of this. We must internalize its importance while also recognizing its pointlessness. We must operate within the story of money while also understanding that it’s a fairy tale.