How the f💰💸k is everybody living like this?

The state of spending today.

I’ve wanted to write this for so long, but there’s so much to say and it never feels complete. I’ve tip toed around it— talking about founder debt, how we are living through a second Gilded Age, “quiet luxury”— but never hit it right on the nose. As I’m learning with writing, more regularly and more seriously, you sort of have to release the hope of ever fully capturing the thing. You will never fully get it all down on paper. Someone will always send you some interesting podcast or deep dive article about it after they read what you hit publish on. Said podcast or article will crack the nut in a way you wish you had in what you wrote. I’m deciding that that’s the beauty of Substack rather than a defect— I get to write you again or post a note and say “so-and-so had a great point to add!” instead of having my thoughts etched on a scroll for all of time. Feeling bad for all the philosophers of yore. I wonder if Socrates was ever like in the shower and suddenly remembered something he d…