IN THE VACUUM

In all the vacuous nature of space, there exists us, and we struggle to make sense of what we are, and whether that's important and whether we're important. We want to be, but in the back of our minds, there's always something that generates fear in being too important. It's possible that we don't want others to be too dependent on us, or that without us others might fail. We want people to like us, but we want them to like us for the right reasons.

In my experiences, some of the most miserable people I've met have been rich. They're 'burdened' with the cars, the lifestyle, the opinions of how the money was made, and the change in disposition when meeting people for the first time, even though those people 'knew' of you before you even met. Want becomes the norm in conversations, rather than ideals. And the truth is, our very definitions change, and we realize that rich becomes a relative term. Paraphrasing Steve Jobs, the goal is not to be the richest man in the graveyard, but rather to wake up every morning knowing that you made some kind of positive change in the world and for the people around us.

Did you ever notice the difference in your thoughts in college, when you had nothing, and the thoughts you have today? Do you love, hate, inquire the same way? Are you passionate like you were then? Are you the same you?

Of course not. The only constant in the universe is change. And when we change from poor to rich, the world around us changes as well. Commonalities change, because you become not so common, though you still breath and cry and touch and taste. But it's still not the same.

And if you are one of the few that has a great idea, or many great ideas and can communicate them effectively to others, and organize the effort with deliberate passion you may find yourself in the situation of leaving your cocoon, and becoming a butterfly. This transfiguration is as much the purpose of life for you as it is the butterfly, yet many fear it because it is change.

And the questions we leave behind in the process are as important as they always were. Will I be a good person? Will I help others? One can often be so caught up in the change that we stop asking the questions, and this is where the misery begins.

Many people forget about these questions, though, scrambling for the way to overcome the game that capitalism is, and this can lead to ultimate loneliness. The worst kind of isolation is the mental kind, and the last thing that we want in our youth often turns into the thing that we become. But there is a way out.

Someone once told me wisely that if you want to succeed in the world, find the thing that drives you crazy the most and try to solve it. I like that, in that inherently this task reaches into your personality and pushes you by your very nature to resolve it. Many of the people that I have met that were innovators were first mainly pissed off at a situation. And several of them became rich being pissed off, until the situation stopped pissing them off, and the tool or method they created became necessary or helpful, creating an abundance where once there was none.

The digital world is very much a metaphor for this same process which has existed for centuries. The difference is that it is more accessible. A man who sees a gap in function amongst millions of functions can take a coding language and innovate a method which will give him a solution. He can then distribute that solution to millions of people and become 'someone'. This is beautiful. And that engineer or programmer or inventor can light up the world in a way that is distinctly his or her own. But the thing that makes us 'someone' was the creation, not the money.

And in this ethereal world is abundance. But what does the person do with the abundance, when the world around him screams 'material, material, material'?

I met a man in Budapest who handed me a solid gold business card. But he was staying in the most modest youth hostile we could find (which was all my brother and I could afford). When I asked him why he wasn't staying in the nicest hotel in the city, he looked at me and said, "I'm looking for a wife." Being young and certainly not in marrying mode, I responded with "Don't you mean you're looking for a woman?" He smiled back at me and said "No. In all the time that I spent becoming a doctor and a businessman, I ignored being social. I spent all my time studying, never dating, never being with people. Now when I meet women, they want me for things other than my heart, so I go to places where people don't know who I am, or what I have." It opened up a new reality for me, and the very definition of the term 'rich' launched a query which swirled in my consciousness. 

This is the question we must always keep in mind. The shiny new car or yacht will never give you the same feeling as helping people, and there's a good reason for that. Dying alone is dying alone. It will always suck, no matter how you drape it in faberge eggs and fine linen. 

So we try to surround ourselves with friends. But the truth of the matter is that after you go through this metamorphosis, you're less and less sure of who your friends truly are. Unfortunately I've known people who were more consumed with inheriting their parents money than being something on their own. The very thought of this to me is a great example of what kind of hollow emptiness can exist in the human soul. When people are consumed by these kinds of thoughts, they cease to be people, and are rather meat puppets dangling from the strings of malfeasance.

Money does not make the world go around. Relationships do. If you don't believe me, look at the relationship between the earth and the sun.

So it is every person's responsibility to shine in their own way. They should do this not only to be the best person they can be, but rather, to help others shine in their own way. Leading by example is the best way to lead. And innovation is simply digging into the core of your being, and finding a helpful truth. It is there, believe me.