Money is basically the ring from Lord of the rings. You can’t have it without it changing you. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of knowing a great many millionaires and they’re all miserable bastards pretending that they’re not. Their families hate them, most of them are alcoholics and drug addicts. They hate themselves even more and their money doesn’t mean anything to them so they use it to impress others or hurt them, just so they can feel something. It’s all a disgustingly wasteful, tragic act.

Money, like all abstractions, inherently alienates us from human essence. It’s the price we pay for a prosperous society that functions at scale and efficiency. A Faustian bargain of sorts.