The Rest of the World

I hate cleaning. Not that I'm a slob, it's the exact opposite actually; I can't stand a speck of dirt. It's exhausting to keep up with the level of sanitation my OCD demands, thus I'm forced to hire cleaners so I can make better use of that time. In particular, I'm fussy about the toilets; they need to be cleaned to a blinding sparkle or I make them redo it.

My maid's name is Maria. She's a foreigner, speaks little English, but she really does a good job cleaning my place up, and best of all, she's CHEAP! I mean ridiculous cheap. I've tried using cleaning people that are citizens, but even looking past the double to triple cost, they never seem to do as great of a job as Maria. She works very hard, but hey, she didn't get an education, so really, what are her options? She obviously doesn't pay taxes on the cash I hand her, so she gets every penny to herself; must be nice.

I pay a god-awful amount of taxes. Seems like I'm personally supporting our entire government's payroll. It pisses me off because I don't believe in most of what the government stands for, nor am I happy with how potent the 1%'s leverage is over the government. I truly believe that the 1% are ruining this world with their greedy influence that permeates into all our lives in one form or another; whether it be mortgages, bank bailouts, oligopolies, etc. We are slaves to these masters.

How did we get here? How do we find our global wealth so tightly concentrated into the hands of the few? I'll tell you, most of them were born into privilege. You've undoubtedly heard the old saying, the first million is the hardest? Well of course it is, because while you're trying to get to your first million, you have to live, and work, and pay for shit. You don't have the passive income that already having a million dollars could give you. If I had that kind of money, I'd quit my job and create idea after idea, making millions from my genius, but alas, the 9 to 5 knocks me to my knees 5 days a week, taking all my energy to make someone else rich.

It's so unfair.

What can we do about this? The first and foremost thing to recognize is that we need the same opportunities that the rich have. This feels fair and just to me, but the problem is, the system allows for transfer of wealth from generation to generation via inheritance. The rich stay rich.

Even more important to realize is that because of their wealth, they have nebulous investment opportunities that the common person doesn't even understand! Who knows what a hedge fund is? Anyone? Usually a minimum of millions of dollars required to even be able to join a hedge fund; how can that be just? Legal even? Why can't I join a hedge fund with my modest cash? Seems like the best investment opportunities are only for the rich. Greedy pricks.

It's so unfair.

This is why I'm so excited about XRP. It does seem like I'm finally tapped into the opportunities that level the playing field for all. Now I can partake in the incredible realm of easy money that previously was only accessible to the rich. Fingers crossed.

Things are rough at first, because I knee-jerk like every other newbie, losing a bunch of my hard-earned cash to the whales. But eventually I get the hang of hodling, and learn how that is the means by which to escape the wrath of the rich bastards. It pays off, I get more money, and then LOTS more money! Woohoo!! Holy fucking shit, I'm actually going to make it big! More than my wildest dreams!

Then something bigger than all of us happens, the specter of instability spooks the market, panic ensues. Seas of red fill every chart. Whales are cashing out hard, running for the hills. You hodl, but the pain is enormous. The rich whales are taking every drop out of the markets, crushing everyone in their path. How can this be happening to me even here?? I'm supposed to be on equal footing in this arena, and yet, I'm STILL getting ripped off by the RICH! Damn you bastard whales!! You are all evil selfish pricks!!

It's so unfair!!

I'm so MAD! Something has to change, something at a fundamental level. It won't happen by regulation alone because the rich control most of that anyways. It won't come by appealing to the rich, obviously, because they can't see past the end of their greedy noses just how unjustly they are taking advantage of us. I can't quite put my finger on it, but somewhere, somehow, we need to click the "Reset" button that can correct this perverse imbalance of wealth and power that robs us of our time, our happiness, our lives!

I hear Maria cleaning up behind me. I feel the need to vent so I start to tell her about the injustices of this world. I embarrass myself with my piss-poor attempt at speaking her language. She sees me frantically waving my arms, pointing to the laptop covered with complex charts and lines. I could be talking about lunar landings for all she knows. She patiently listens, really trying hard to grasp anything, not out of interest, but out of duty-bound respect for me.

I soon realize how crazy I must seem to her. She could never understand what I'm saying, this poor uneducated woman from a 3rd-world country. She did understand one thing I said though, and that was how I thought this eggs-ar-pee could help people send money to other countries for next to nothing. She tells me that she sends almost all her money to her family in her home country so they can eat and pay the $50/month rent for their corrugated-tin shack. She shows me a 'real' paper picture of her huge family in front of their tiny shack, with a backdrop of hills covered with similar shanty structures.

I try to explain to her how XRP will someday work behind the scenes of Western Union, but it's still going to take some time before it will benefit their customers, and even when that does happen, the effect will be watered-down because Western Union still has to make enough money to feed their thousands of employees.

Excitedly though, I promisingly demonstrate to her my digital wallet on my $1000 phone, and explain how she could bypass all of that middleman nonsense by just transferring XRP instead of cash, but I hit a wall pretty quickly when she asks how someone that can't afford a smartphone can buy, send, or receive the eggs-ar-pee, much less pay rent with it.

I apologize to her for getting her hopes up. I explain that without some form of technology skills and access, it would essentially be impossible to benefit directly from XRP. She musters a brave smile and says in her poor English, it's so unfair..

It's so unfair.

click

I thank her for the wonderful job she's done, and I tell her I'll see her at our next scheduled cleaning. She's very confused because I put double to triple her normal rate in her hands. She keeps telling me in her language, "but I'm not finished!.." I assure her, she's doing a fantastic job, see you soon.

It's a thing of beauty, my toilet is all sparkles and shiny; could probably eat off it, lol. Seems ridiculous that one person needs three toilets, but I have nobody to blame for that but myself I guess.

Now to clean the second one.

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