The Intangible Orientation

The other day, one of my best friends and I had a really interesting conversation.

It was more of a thought experiment really.

He was telling me about families that exist in this world who literally have trillions of dollars at their disposal.

This is a really hard idea to comprehend.

To try to give you a very real sense of what that feels like, my favourite explanation goes like this:

A million seconds when converted to days, is a little over 11 days.

A billion seconds when converted to days, is a little over 31 years.

You can continue this logic to look up what a trillion is.

I can assure you that whatever number you're thinking in your head right now, you're wrong. It's bigger.

***

So the conversation we were having revolved around a simple premise:

Regardless of how much we have, human beings will still have wants.

This led us to a question:

If you have access to trillions, you can literally have any tangible thing that you want. What do you want then?

The only logical answer is that you want the intangible.

We thought this through with a simple example:

Suppose you have access to trillions and you really like fancy cars.

You have so much money that you could literally buy the entire manufacturer and ask them to just produce cars that you dream up.

From a tangible point of view, you can't take that line of reasoning any further.

The only problem here is, if you buy the manufacturer, you take away something intangible.

The feeling that comes when you own something rare.

Also the feeling that comes when you're able to show off something rare.

Those are the intangibles. If you can get any tangible thing you want, and all human beings have wants, then what you want must be the intangible.

***

All of this led me to a fundamental question that I am currently asking myself, and one that I think I will be checking-in on from time to time, year to year.

Am I currently oriented toward the tangible or the intangible?

Sure you can insert all the arguments you want around balance, and "a little bit of both," and any other hedging statement.

But I think if you're being honest with yourself, you can actually force yourself to just answer with one orientation. Especially if you narrow your time frame.

This doesn't mean you ignore the other at all costs, it just means that you center most of your decisions around your primary orientation.

In reading this you might think there's an obvious answer that I am biased toward. The intangible.

If I'm being honest with myself, there have been many moments in my life where this hasn't been and still isn't true.

What I think the conversation with my friend has allowed me to remember is that at the very end of the tangible extreme, all that's left to want is the intangible.

What are you currently oriented toward?

p.s. This is my 200th post. Your attention is one of the greatest intangible gifts you can give and it means so much that you're giving it to me. Thank you, dear reader.