I reckon there’s some tipping point of wealth/power/privilege that totally transforms a person, any person, into something fundamentally different at heart.
Like, they won’t part with hundreds of lifetimes worth of cash because that would feel like self destruction. To them, they are their wealth. Nothing else remains. The accumulation isn’t pointing at anything other than accumulation.
…. And that’s not a new idea. Fucking st. Basil raged about this in the 300’s.
I think that extremes exist and go to both directions. I have known people who lost their mind when their wages tripled after they started working abroad (e.g. my father started having mistresses when his salary went from 800 euros to 2200 in today’s money). But I have also known millionaires who live very middle class lives, except they travel more and drive better cars.
I reckon there’s some tipping point of wealth/power/privilege that totally transforms a person, any person, into something fundamentally different at heart.
Like, they won’t part with hundreds of lifetimes worth of cash because that would feel like self destruction. To them, they are their wealth. Nothing else remains. The accumulation isn’t pointing at anything other than accumulation.
…. And that’s not a new idea. Fucking st. Basil raged about this in the 300’s.
Yea, power corrupts. That’s what most of the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion was about.
A tale as old as time, a song as old as rhyme…
I think that extremes exist and go to both directions. I have known people who lost their mind when their wages tripled after they started working abroad (e.g. my father started having mistresses when his salary went from 800 euros to 2200 in today’s money). But I have also known millionaires who live very middle class lives, except they travel more and drive better cars.