y’all i’m not trying to play saintly here, i’m just being honest about my experience from being a lower middle class second gen immigrant kid to very rapidly being handed a lot of money all at once...

we went into a financial advisor’s office where they explained to us a handful of the very smart ways to pay less in taxes. moving money here and wherever. it’s all very smart + smart people figure it out for you. but after about an hour I got viscerally angry. like red hot.

and yelled at collin the whole way home about how I refused to spend the rest of my life trying to hide change in my pockets and if we pay more in taxes that’s fine because money IS A TRAP.

and yeah, I get that it’s not fair that “I earned this money” and the government is doing stupid stuff with it. all yes. all still a trap. what is “earning money?” who decides what value to give what occupation? “the market!” sure! the market is built by the people who benefit.

why a teacher makes less than a baseball player is beyond me. yes, i know, “the market.” there’s money in the system. but there also... doesn’t have to be. baseball could cost nothing, and players could make less, but no one will ever make that decision.

we could put money into education but no one will make that decision either. because rich people pull their kids into rich private schools and want to pay less in taxes cause their kids aren’t going to public schools. public schools in poor areas are now pre-detention centers.

the point i’m making is that it’s easy to look at taxes + stuff and say “ugh paying this isn’t fair.” but a lot of stuff isn’t fair. a whole lot of it, actually. you’re not eradicating injustice by finding ways to corral your money into hiding. you’re omitting yourself from it.

and look, if you’re a christian and you’re having a whole lot of trouble with this thread, I highly suggest you read the bible. I have, and this is in it.

I am a
-insert some religion here, idk-
but i believe the only wealth worth cultivating is the collective health of the places we live + the people we are amongst. it is nothing to live in a gilded bunker in the middle of despair. it’s not happiness. it’s not worth it.

and the planet, we need that. we keep forgetting we live on it.

twitter to me now: