The Night Before Everything Changed
The evening of September 10th, 2001, I was staring at my bank account while someone droned on about their latest investment scheme. Isn’t that always the way? We think toxic relationships are just between people, but money gaslights us too. Some folks stumble into millions pushing #StupidCoin while the rest of us count quarters for cold brew. They bleed the market dry while calling it “disruption.” That night, though, I didn’t know the world was about to crack. I just knew the air felt heavy, like God had pressed pause on the universe and forgotten to hit play.
I was younger then, but not young. Naïve enough to think prosperity was just about working hard. My biggest fear was the silence after checking my balance, the way poverty crowds a room. I didn’t know yet about tumors or how the body — mine, yours, the Earth’s — screams for balance when we ignore its whispers. Or how some people can tweet themselves into fortunes while others lose homes trying to buy medicine.
Twenty-three years later, I’m still learning that some gaps can’t be bridged with hustle culture or a compromise. The market doesn’t negotiate. It reboots. Crashes, scams, empires built on digital sand — they’re all ways of saying, Enough. But we’re too busy following #JailStool’s latest pump-and-dump to notice our savings burning.
That’s the thing about wealth. It’s addictive. Whether it’s an influencer who won’t shut up about their latest crypto play or a nation that hoards resources like a dragon with a bellyache, greed metastasizes. And yes, I use that word deliberately. Cancer taught me that some things must be cut out to survive. No half-measures. No “maybe tomorrow.”
The media tells us to pick a coin — always a coin — but value isn’t in Twitter threads. It’s in the quiet after the crash. In the shaky breath before the recovery. It’s the space between “rich” and “poor” where we could meet, if we’d just stop rehearsing our get-rich-quick schemes.
We’ve been here before, haven’t we? This desperate clinging to financial fairytales. Some folks want us believing we’re all just one good trade away from wealth, one viral post from prosperity. They’re pushing coins named after memes while real people can’t afford rent. As if algorithms could replace actual value.
I don’t have answers. I have a mustard seed of faith and a cup of cold brew that cost too much. I have a phone full of hashtags (#UnseenWounds, #EatTheRich, #LoveWins) that feel both futile and necessary, like tossing pennies into a fountain and waiting for millions.
The night before the towers fell, I was counting my savings. Ordinary. Unremarkable. The next morning, we all became historians of our own unraveling. Now here we are — still unraveled, still arguing over who deserves to eat — while the real battle isn’t for wealth, but for the courage to build something real.
Maybe healing starts when we admit we’re all a little lost. When we stop looking for financial messiahs and start untangling the knots in our systems. Like ancient empires before us — Roman, Ottoman, all those mighty works now buried in sand — we mistake profits for permanence. But Mother Nature knows better. She’s seen fortunes rise and fall, each one convinced of its own immortality.
“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” the poet wrote. But perhaps the real despair isn’t in the fallen markets — it’s in our refusal to learn from their crashes. Our algorithms sort us into wealthy and wanting while the planet burns, and we’re still arguing about who owns the ashes.
Tonight, I’ll check my balance again. Ordinary. Unremarkable. And I’ll remember that change — of fortunes, of systems, of Earth herself — begins not with viral tweets or trending coins, but with the simple admission that we’re all struggling, all learning, all figuring out how to build something that lasts longer than a hashtag.
#EveOfAsh #ToxicWealth #MotherNatureRemembers #UnlearnGreed #ComeTogetherOrCollapse #LoveWins #StupidCoin #JailStool #MustardSeedFaith
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