?????? Rank money, time, and health

Spoiler alert: health > money > time is the correct order.

Here’s why.

At the age of witnessing loved ones losing memories, family members diagnosed with cancer, and even a high school classmate passing away, I know that when health goes down, life goes down, too. And when health reaches zero, there is no life. When your bank account balance is negative, you can always borrow more money if you know the rules of the game - think about how people live luxurious lives when they have loans and negative assets.

You just cannot use any leverage to get a healthier body like money. In the case of cancer treatment, even then, it’s using money to buy time to live longer on health as a low-health cancer patient hanging there, rarely as an entirely eradicated, healthy individual.

And yes, two things about time. Time does not exist, as stated in this book on relativity - Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli. You can use money to buy time. Do you know that if you let the biggest banks in the US manage an asset of 1 million USD, they will happily offer you a guaranteed annual return of 7%? That’s $70,000, and this return is actually more than the minimum wage for a 40-working-hour-per-week-regular-job. Money can buy time. Money cannot buy health. Health can generate money. So health can generate time.

What has never changed throughout the many millions of years of human life?

My sudden lower back pain on the left lasted for many days, makes me believe it is a “knock knock” from the devil, just like how I’m taking a hot shower for too long, and my mom knocks on the door telling me to stop - a reminder about the cruel reality that the running hot water, or the unappreciated healthy body, would at some point stop.

What has never changed throughout the many millions of years of human life?

It is the cruel rule of the game of our life: the longer you are alive, the higher the chance you will die. This is an unspoken, rarely mentioned rule, but the most important rule of life - not knowledge is power, nor power is freedom, but life is never meant to be forever.

If life is a simulation, it makes sense that such a cruel rule is implanted because biology encourages diversity, the passing along of genetic materials, and longevity. If you think about it, the mutation rate is not getting lower as a reward for human advancement. In the big picture, batches of batches of humans got run down the sink, replenished by batches of batches of newborns. Did you guys discover electricity? Dont care. Flush. Next batch. Did you start a revolution? Flush. Next batch.

It is the cruel rule of the game of our life: the longer you are alive, the higher the chance you will die.

When I explain aging, I love using this metaphor: every day, we are dealt with a card, which has a certain percentage that we will get these significant health threats and problems (cancer diagnosis, cardiovascular diseases, etc.). As we age, we get to reveal more cards per day, no longer one card per day but a hundred cards per day. So yeah, older people are basically revealing maybe 100,000 cards per day, while the grandchildren are revealing 1 card per day. That’s aging in a nutshell. In the end, nobody, no matter what kind of influence and wealth you have, can quit playing this game - think about the emperors, superstars like Freddie Mercury or Kobe Bryant; if the card is given to you, as it is revealed, as it says so, then you are out. No negotiations. Cruel and emotionless game.

What is beautiful is that we live our days like throwing away these rules as the annoying flyer we don’t want to receive on the street - with a fling, we make music, dance, write love stories, love each other, laugh, and enjoy the moment in the midst of playing this cruel game of life.

I’m not sure if the subject behind this simulation will be moved emotionally or confused by our total ignorance about this cruelty of life. We don’t say the longer you live, the higher chance you will die and cry. We say life is short, then we cheer with our beers in hand, smile at the sunset, and dance and shout, “It’s my life; it’s now or never!” as Bon Jovi sang. At a certain angle, I think we are kind of naive and stupid, but this also makes us beautifully and foolishly exciting subjects to be investigated.

You say, well, for health issues or body suffering, in general, it is you who defines it as pain or suffering! Just like in the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, the guy was tortured physically in the concentration camp, but as long as he wanted, his mind was free, and physical torture did not limit his potential. True. That’s why even though I have this backache and cannot bend down at all, I can still write and carry on my thoughts. Also true is that it is up to you to define all these health problems as blessings or sufferings. So, if I may add one more thing to this typical question of “rank money, health, and time” that you will find on Bumble or other dating apps, I’ll add “mindset.” I think mindset, in the end, is the true form of liberation in our lives and this cruel game of life. It’s the same as giving the middle finger or IDGAF gesture to the creator of this simulation, game, nature, or the origin of life. To put it in a dialogue, it is like, “Yup, the longer we are here on Earth, the more mutations we will acquire and the higher chance we will lose our life. So what!”.

With a fling, we make music, dance, write love stories, love each other, laugh, and enjoy the moment in the midst of playing this cruel game of life.

To end this monologue, let me say that keeping a positive mindset is as important as a regular body check, which I’ll also schedule tomorrow :)

P.S. For those having different kinds of health problems and conditions, stay positive. But more importantly, for those who are healthy, young, and full of energy, you have nothing to lose. Go and make an impact on the world because everyone dies with their opinions, and nature doesn’t care. Flush. New batch. If you are one of the healthy peeps in the new batch, it’s your turn now - your time to shine. Don’t get intimidated by judgments because, as I said, people rarely change their minds about you but die with it. And as the new batch, you’ll probably outlive those who judged you in the contemporary sense.