VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 9

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 9

That Hand Is Not a Monster, There Is a Lock on His Head Too

The last section lifted off two blames, the blame on the tool capital, and the blame on the great crowd of capitalists, you and me and him. Once the blames were lifted, that hand which had all along hidden behind the two words capital, the hand that truly takes the tool up to wring people and lock people, showed itself, alone, out of that great crowd of proper people. This section takes you up close to it, to look clearly. Reading this far, you have most likely already clenched your fist, ready to drag out the anti-human monster behind that hand. Here let me stop you a moment. Let me ask you to loosen that clenched fist first. Because when you come up close and look, what you see is not a monster. It is a person. A person like you, who gets hungry and grows old and dies, a person trapped by something.

I. That Hand Showed Itself, But It Is Not a Monster

You probably think that up close you will see a monster. Reading this far, the picture in your heart has most likely taken shape, a demon hidden behind the curtain, clutching heaven-vast wealth, using capital and AI to crowd people out one by one and lock them up, an anti-human devil. You have clenched your fist, ready to take a good hard look at this monster, and if you can, to drag him out.

Let me stop you here. Loosen that clenched fist first. Because when you come up close and look, what you see is not a monster. What you see is a person. A person like you, who gets hungry, gets tired, grows old, dies.

He clutches money he could not spend in several lifetimes, in dozens of lifetimes, and yet look closely, and in one day he can still eat only three meals. When he sleeps, he can still take up only one bed. When he falls ill, he still hurts. When he grows old, he is still afraid. What he wants in the end, peeled to the very bottom, is no different from what you want, from what that cement-hauler wants, from what that trash-picker wants, three meals and a place to sleep, a bit of steadiness, a few people who still hold him in their thoughts. That mountain of gold he clutches, not one bit of it can he carry into the coffin. Those extra sums he has beyond you, sums that run to a figure out of the heavens, have long since become useless to this one life of his. He can eat no more for them, sleep no wider for them.

Think this layer through, and that hatred in your heart ought to loosen. You hate him because you feel he has taken every advantage, lives ten thousand times more comfortably than you. But look closely, and this one life of his is the same as your life. Those extra sums of his, past the line that keeps him in three meals and a bed, in medicine and old age, are of no use at all to this one life of his. A person can eat only one bowl of rice, can sleep on only one bed, and the mountains of gold and silver beyond that he cannot enjoy, cannot take away, and in the end are only a heap of figures he stands guard over. You think his clutching a mountain of gold is a great blessing, and in fact that mountain of gold has very likely given him little joy, and may even be a heavy load pressing on him, a lock holding him fast.

Then what is he clutching that mountain of gold for, still piling it higher and unable to stop, what is he after? Here is the strange thing. A person whose money has long since grown to more than this life and the next could ever use, what is he after, still striving to the death, still piling to the death, piling until he even has to crowd out another person's way to live? If you stand far off, you will say, greed, evil, anti-human. But if you come up close, and look into his heart, you will find it is not so simple. That he cannot stop is very likely not because he is greedy. It is very likely that he cannot stop.

Think about it. A person who truly lives for himself, who is truly after his own enjoyment, when his money reaches a certain point, ought to rest. Ought to go keep his family company, go see this world, go live a few comfortable days. But this person clutching a mountain of gold, he cannot rest. His money is plainly more than several lifetimes could use, and still, like a thing wound up on a spring, he piles it higher day and night, piles until he himself has no time to enjoy it, no time to keep his family company, no time to catch a breath. Tell me, does this look like a person seeking his own good fortune? It does not. It looks more like a person set on the fire by something, not free to stop of his own will. A true glutton is at least greedy for himself, and can enjoy what he grabs. But this one cannot even spare the time to enjoy, and only, unable to stop, piles higher. That is no longer as simple as greed.

The difference in the middle of this is as wide as heaven. To be unwilling to stop is greed, is evil, and that is a monster. To be unable to stop, driven by something, pushed, locked, so that he cannot stop even if he wants to, that is not a monster, that is a person who is trapped.

Tell these two apart, clear and clean, and only then can you see the rest of this section clearly. A person who is unwilling to stop, whose own heart is black, insatiably greedy, wanting still more when he plainly has enough, such a person you should hate, he is evil. But a person who cannot stop, bound by something, pushed along, who wants to stop and cannot, such a person you should pity more than you hate, because he is the same as that person chased by the algorithm, the same as that person chased by debt, all of them locked by a lock. On the surface these two kinds of people do the very same thing, both piling to the death, both crowding others out. But one is a monster doing evil of his own will, and one is a prisoner driven to it against his will, and between them lies all the distance of heaven and earth.

Is it unwilling to stop, or unable to stop? This is the most important question of this section. The next passage takes you to see it clearly, to see what, exactly, is locked on his head, driving him so that he cannot stop even when he wants to.

Loosen that clenched fist first, and move that picture of a monster out of your heart. That hand which showed itself, come up close and look, is not a monster, it is a person, a person who likewise wants three meals and a bed, who likewise cannot carry the mountain of gold away, who very likely is not unwilling to stop but unable to. See this clearly, and only then can you take in what comes below, the lock on his head that drives him so he cannot stop.

II. The Lock on His Head: Earn No Money, and Be Wiped Out

You think a person who clutches heaven-vast wealth is the freest person in this world, does whatever he likes, stops when he likes, and no one can touch him. It is the very opposite. Let me tell you a thing you have probably never thought of this way. He is among the people most tightly locked in this world. The one who locks him is called the investor.

Think about it, that mountain of gold in his hands, that great mass of capital, where did it come from? It is not all his own. Behind him stands a great crowd of people who put their money in his hands, the ones who invested, who bought in, who lent to him. This great crowd handed him their money, and after what? After his using that money to earn them back more money. This is the one hope they had in handing him the money, and it is the one task he has, sitting in that seat.

So now, suppose he stops. Suppose his conscience stirs for a moment and he says, enough, I will not crowd others out, I will earn a little less, I will treat those workers well, treat the ones my algorithm chases well. In that moment, the lock on his head draws tight. That great crowd of investors behind him will not stand for it, at once. You earned less? You stopped? For what conscience did you let our money earn less? At the fastest speed they will invite him down out of that seat and put a fiercer one, a less soft-hearted one, a better earner, in his place.

Do not think this is made up to frighten you. This is the thing that happens every day in that seat. A person running a great company, so long as his statements show that he earned a little less than the others, a little slower than last quarter, the investors behind him at once cannot sit still, they meet, they press, they put out word, forcing him either to earn more fiercely or to go. If his heart softens and he says, I want to let the workers rest more, I want the goods made a little more honestly, I want to earn a little less money, then that seat of his is not kept a moment longer. The investor does not care about his conscience. The investor recognizes only that figure. The figure looks good, and he sits steady. The figure softens, and he is swapped out at once. This is the lock on his head, the lock that, real and solid, cuts into him every single day.

Do you see it now? That seat of his does not allow him to stop, does not allow him to soften, does not allow him not to wring. The moment he stops, the moment he softens, the moment a mercy stirs in him, he is out. And the next one to take the seat will be fiercer than he. So that he cannot stop is, for the most part, truly not because he is unwilling to stop. It is that the lock on his head, earn no money and be wiped out, drives him, gives him no leave to stop. He wants to stop and cannot. He wants to soften and cannot. That lock pushes him, drives him, all the way forward, striving to the death, striving until he even has to crowd out another's way to live, and he himself may not truly be willing, and yet he cannot stop.

This lock, do you not find it strangely familiar? Look back at the front of this chapter. The one running deliveries, chased by the algorithm, rest a little longer and this month's money falls short, he cannot stop. The one chased by debt, dares not fall ill, dares not quit, he cannot stop. And now this one clutching the mountain of gold, earn less and the investors wipe him out, he too cannot stop. It is the same lock. The lock on the rider's head is called run or you have no food. The lock on the debtor's head is called pay or you are dunned to death. The lock on the head of this one clutching the mountain of gold is called wring or you are wiped out. Three locks, and the thing each locks is different, but that core of cannot-stop, of not-free-to-be-oneself, is exactly the same.

You see, this is the deepest, most unexpected layer of this whole chapter. From the one at the very bottom running deliveries, to the one in the middle chased by debt, to the one at the very top clutching the mountain of gold, they look, one in the mud, one in mid-air, one in the clouds, worlds and worlds apart. But peel them open and look, and the thing locked on their heads is the same lock, and they are all driven, pushed, given no leave to be themselves, by the same force of cannot-stop. That one running deliveries hates that one clutching the mountain of gold, thinks him a man above men, high and lording it. Little does he know that the lock on the head of that one clutching the mountain of gold binds tighter, cuts deeper, than the one on his own head. This world, from the very bottom to the very top, turns out to be strung together on one and the same lock.

And so a thing most unexpected shows itself. All along you thought the one at the tip of the pyramid stood outside all the locks, free and easy, working the locks to lock others. Wrong. He himself is locked inside too. And more, the lock on his head is drawn tighter, cuts deeper, than the rider's, than the debtor's. The rider stops, and at most he has no food, catches his breath and can come again. He stops, and the whole seat is gone, kicked out with one foot, together with everything he clutched. He is the one locked at the very top, and the one who least dares to let go.

Think what an absurd thing this is, and what a pitiable one. A whole pyramid, from base to tip, and not one person on it is free. The people at the base are locked by the base's lock, the person at the tip is locked by the tip's lock, one layer locking the next, and no one can let go of his grip. The people at the base lift their eyes and envy the person at the tip, thinking him grand, thinking him free. And the person at the tip is in fact bound tighter than anyone, and dares not have even a little mercy, a little pity. This pyramid is not a tower where some are free and some are not. It is a tower where, from top to bottom, every single person is locked. See this clearly, and you understand why it is said that that hand is not a monster, it is a person who is locked, a pitiable person on the same road as you, as that one running deliveries, locked by the same lock. The next section takes a story and lets you see into the heart of this kind of person who is locked and cannot stop, to see what, at the very bottom of the heart of a person who looks most of all like a slave to money, is really locked away.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.