My father used to read the newspaper obituaries every morning during breakfast. I’d hear him murmur “beat that guy, beat that guy, beat that guy” as he worked his way down the page. I think he did it for comic effect, but I was never sure. He was in his 60s at the time, around the same age I am now.
My dad never really retired. He worked hard his whole life. He was a successful businessman. By the time he reached that age when people stop working to take it easy, he was more than financially secure enough to sit by the pool and sip drinks all day, or play a few rounds of golf. He did neither. When he and my mom made the traditional migration to Florida like all New Yorkers of their generation, my mother joined flower clubs and played mahjong, and made lots of friends. My father began making investments in local businesses and spent his retirement at his desk, or on the phone, arguing with people. The other men in the retirement community golfed or sat in the clubhouse bar, drinking afternoon cocktails.
I asked him why he didn’t stop working and take it easy. He was shocked. “What do you mean? I am taking it easy.” He insisted he was happiest while playing the game of business. Don’t get me wrong, my parents had fun. They traveled a lot, went out to dinner with friends, and seemed very happy. It was just that my dad was happiest working on some business venture or another. He was still working when he died.
People who knew my father saw him as a happy, carefree person. He cultivated that image. His immediate family knew better, though.
My dad was scarred from his childhood. He was a first generation Italian American, raised in a poor section of Brooklyn New York, just as the Great Depression was kicking in. His father was an uneducated immigrant who worked as a janitor when he could find work. He didn’t find any work during the depression, so instead he drank. Life wasn’t pleasant at home. My grandmother brought sewing piecework in to make some money, but it was never enough. When the economy improved, my grandfather still didn’t work much. By then he was a full time drinker.
As a result, my dad always felt insecure about money, no matter how wealthy he grew. He passed on his values to me. The message was clear. A man’s role was to work hard and make enough money to support his family. It’s an old school notion, rooted in sexism and traditional gender roles, but it’s who I am at my core. There’s not much I can do about it now, even if I wanted to. And I don’t.
By the time Satoshi wrote the white paper, I was already living a low time preference life. I thought of it as saving for a rainy day, and it came naturally. I joked with my friends that all I needed was a room with a comfortable chair and a tv set and I was happy. Once the internet came out I swapped that tv for a computer. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t a buddhist monk, but I always made sure to live below my means.
I must also mention that I’m a person who has trouble living in the moment. My brain is constantly thinking about and preparing for future events. I have flirted with eastern philosophies in an attempt to live in the moment, with limited success.
When I discovered bitcoin many things about it confused me. I was older and not technically brilliant. I’m still learning. The one thing no one needed to explain to me, though, was the idea of low time preference. That came naturally.
Now I’m old myself. I’m semi retired, but have trouble fully shedding all my work responsibilities. I first bought bitcoin in early 2018. I didn’t buy much. I was drawn in by the hype of the 2017 bull market and got discouraged by the bear that followed. Still, I never sold a sat. It wasn’t until 2020 that I fully embraced bitcoin. Once that happened, any excess money I had after paying my family’s expenses went to bitcoin. I have never sold a sat. I do spend bitcoin for the things I need whenever I can. I don’t think of it as diamond hands. It’s just something that never, ever occurs to me. I was like that with my fiat savings too. We have a good life. We have everything we need.
My wife and I talk about retirement. We talk about how to spend our golden years. She naturally talks about things that cost significant fiat dollars. When it comes right down to it, I can’t bear the thought of trading my precious bitcoin for fiat to buy this stuff. That’s the case even though the actuarial tables tell me I might have 10 more years, if I’m lucky. If I’m being honest, I don’t care. I still don’t want to sell my bitcoin. I do feel foolish at times that I’m still having trouble living in the present when I may not have much future left.
I am a Pink Floyd fan. A lyric that always stuck in my head when I was young was “no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” I think of that a lot now. I’m at the point where no one is telling me where the finish line is.