on having a complex relationship with money
It’s been a few days. The Chargers play the Patriots today.
I like the Chargers. The San Diego Super Chargers. LA Chargers now. Football reminds me of my dad and my brothers and cousins. Of family.
Yesterday I biked for just under two hours. I had 60 minutes at zone 2 heart rate. I was experimenting with different breathing patterns. I found I could increase my heart rate at a pace of 4 seconds in 4 second out. Maintain at a pace of 4 seconds in 2 seconds hold 4 seconds out 2 seconds hold. And drop at 4 seconds in 4 seconds hold 6 seconds out 4 seconds hold. That last one made me almost pass out a few times. But it also… I don’t know, felt like it made my blood go all over my body and felt kind of nice.
I’m enjoying a lazy protein shake. Protein powder, oat milk, an egg, an espresso shot, ice. In a protein shake bottle mixed vigorously. Made me feel like a fancy bartender mixing it up this morning. Or Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Good movie.
Slept good last night. Went to bed around 9, fell asleep around 10:30 or 11. It’s been taking me a while to fall asleep the past couple days. Wore my cpap machine. Feel rested waking up this AM. Listening to more nujabes this AM again. Been really digging their vibe.
My parents had two couples over for dinner last night. I said hi but kept to myself for the most part. Made me feel kind of like a loser staying in on a Saturday but not that much. The thought of getting a job crossed my mind yesterday. Same rumination. If I did, what kind of job? Do I absolutely need one? How do I get there? Can I maintain it or will it just burn me out?
Rumination. I’ll keep acknowledging it. It obviously bugs me.
My left foot is sore this morning. Left foot/ankle/leg is weaker than the right. Need to roll out foot with tennis ball or golf ball or something if I can remember to do so.
Next month a conference for this crypto currency I like is happening in Mexico City. I’d like to go but I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of money to throw around but on the other hand it would be an adventure and aligned with my interests. Still mulling it over.
I was kind of annoyed the other day. I want to take all the blog posts I wrote over 2025 and consolidate them into one pdf or epub. I tried to do it with ChatGPT and then Gemini but you need a paid subscription for it to spit out a pdf or epub (or any document really). I tried to do it manually but it was a lot of copying and pasting and I didn’t have the energy for it. Especially knowing it would take a llm a second or two to do the same amount of work. So that’s a project on the to do later list for now.
I made a buy me a coffee page but I don’t know if I want to use it. There’s something about every website on the internet right now asking for money that… I don’t know makes me sad? Find annoying? Find… something. The idea of making money off writing a blog is alluring. Intoxicating really. But it kind of goes against what I believe or my values or something like that.
Why? I’ve been asking myself the same thing.
I think it’s a deeply psychological thing. It’s more of a feeling than a defined thought.
The feeling came up the other day when my friends mom brought up the idea of starting a charity/non-profit/foundation for disability rights. You can hear me talk about the feeling in an upcoming podcast.
The feeling comes from the idea of asking people for money. Money…. I’ve written about it before. Such a charged thing for me. Perhaps reading The Psychology of Money would be a good thing for me this year.
I think donating money to charity is an ok thing. I also think charities, for the most part in most cases, serve more as a function to provide employment for the people working at them than whatever their stated goal is. Helping this or that. Maybe they do. But mostly they are a legal entity to justify someones job.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I guess the part I feel uneasy about is the part pretending that it’s for a cause of some sort. It’s like everyone agrees silently that it’s for one thing when really it’s about another.
I see it as more of a function to keep people out of unemployment and poverty than really anything else. Especially the whole Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) thing. Like why does a corporation have extra money to give to charity? They shouldn’t. If a corporation has extra money they should invest it or give it to their employees. Most employees in corporations live silent lives of desperation anyways. That money would do them more good.
Every time I see CSR I think of it not as corporate waste but as rent (read legal bribe) paid from one entity that pays it’s employees like shit to an other entity that pays its employees like shit for a social license to operate in some jurisdiction for sometime. A convoluted contract. With each usually taking a sizeable amount of the original money spent to market (i.e. pay for advertisements) the good deed. Whatever cause that money was originally for is a tertiary side effect; if that at all.
Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe I’m not seeing the full picture. Maybe I’m just a spoiled brat who doesn’t want to give the little money he has away and this helps him justify keeping it. Maybe there’s another reason I’m not seeing for thinking this way.
Makes me feel bad. Especially when other people don’t really see it that way. I don’t know; it’s a complicated thing. Or maybe I’m just making it into one.
Listening to Nujabes - Spiritual State (feat. Uyama Hiroto) Official Audio. Shit slaps. In a relaxed way.
Damn, yeah money gets me heated. I think because I feel like I don’t have much right now. I think because my grandpa is rich and dying and you can tell there is conflicting views about his estate between my parents and their siblings. Because all my life, wealth distribution has been unequal throughout my extended family. Because my grandpa a gives a lot of money to ”charity” and at the same time most of his grandchildren can’t afford to buy a house. Some can barely afford rent.
I think because my parents have got and lost a lot of money in their lives and it makes me sad that they (and me) are facing downward social mobility. Because I can’t hold a job or find a steady source of income. I think because I watched my parents put on an air of stability when being deeply worried about finances growing up. I think because of mental illness. I think because of being raised going to Catholic Church. I think because because because… I think that it’s all just so complicated. I’d like it to be simple.
I think therefore I because.
And there is so much identity and shame and guilt and powerful emotions wrapped up in it all. I just want to be able to think about it like most people do. That is, not really at all.
Lol, I think most people feel probably closer to how I feel about money than to not thinking about it at all.
Maybe the specifics are different but the complexity I bet is similar. Maybe. I’m just guessing. I’ll need to read the book to find out I guess.
I just know I have a complicated relationship to it.
Have a good day.