Makin' the most of the ride before we get arrested,
We're all wasted,
And we're not going home tonight!

Covered in black, we lack the social graces.
Just like an animal, we crawl out of our cages.
They can't tame us,
So if you're one of us, get on the bus!

If you're a freak like me,
Wave your flag!
If you're a freak like me,
Get off your ass!
It's our time now
To let it all hang out.

So shout, if you're a freak like me!
You were born to burn.
This ain't no disease; you don't need a cure!
It's our time now, to come out!
⸺ L'zzy Hale & John Andrews/Halestorm; "Freak Like Me"; The Strange Case of ... (2012)

What the majority of people (particularly those not dabbling in crypto) don't see, realise or understand is this: Fiat (money)  is a store of credit, of transferable debt. The "value" stored in it is not for the end user, the peons, the proletariat working-class person busting a hump or two to make ends meet (and somehow only just managing to do so). The value is stored for the banksters, the governments, the CEOs of MNCs: thugs who seek and hold authority and power over their kin, often by force (state-endorsed violence: police, military, security personnel). But don't mind me; I'm just a crazy, foolish and fanciful anarcho-syndicalist full of wild ideas and who doesn't know nor understand how the world really works.

Yes, the observation that, "Cryptocurrency is not a store of value", is a valid one, but it's an irrelevant/meaningless one that doesn't further the conversation. Crypto is not money, but it's intended to neither be it nor a replacement for it. Cryptocurrency is an alternative, at a fundamental and abstract/conceptual level, a different paradigm. As I see it, it's a store of worth, of freedom from transferrable credit and debt, of personal power and agency unencumbered by/from the stifling strictures, restrictions, regulations and rules imposed by the human powers that be. (As we all know, the weak point in any system is always the humans.) Crypto is, IMO, as much a philosophy, an ideology, as much as it is anything else. That's one of the reasons why there are no physical Bitcoins you can hold in your hand and count. (Another is that if they're physical, they can be confiscated or distroyed. Data on a distributed and decentralised network are much harder to seize. Buterin and Nakamoto are very sharp, sparky people.)

Wake up, Neo. The Matrix has you.

That's the real reason why banksters, financial institutions and governments' tax men are so against cryptocurrency: They're not just losing money every time you put your fiat through an exchange and pull out crypto. They're losing your mindshare and participation in democratic slavery as well. It's also why you lose when you exchange your crypto for fiat: You're exchanging your worth, freedom and power for debt, bondage and subjugation. Having done that in order to settle my debts with fiat (extremely inadvisable, I know), I know full well that I have  gone through zugswang. It is a very upsetting/anger-inducing process. I know why this has happened, what I've done to be on the receiving end. I made the mistake of trying to change the system from within instead of annihilating it. So they sentenced me to twenty years of boredom working for/within it. But I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them. (Thank you for the items that you sent me; the monkey and the plywood violin.)

Going forward, I will have to be vigilant not to be tempted back into the cycle of obligation and debt that is consumer capitalism, to not literally buy back into its myths and shackles. That is why I refused my birthday "present": It would be morally reprehensible for me to accept material possessions (especially those bought with fiat) as "gifts" (including today, my birthday, which has always been, for me, one of the days of mourning my wasted life and failure to thrive/escape to freedom). It would be admitting defeat, again. Things are not gestures of love; they're symbols and implements of bondage and entrapment in the illusion(s) of Maya. To claim otherwise is to spout consumer capitalism bullshit. If you want to express love to me, to speak my love language, give me gifts of your time, your knowledge, your energy, your true Self. If you cannot do that, send me crypto as a poor substitute, or don't bother.

Unhappy birthday to me, The Snark. I have some qualms about eating my birthday cake, am looking at it with serious side-eye. It is very tempting and I can't not eat until I get myself sorted with a crypto-backed credit card, simply because I'm a man of strong principles (and the body has its needs, after all), but the very idea of compromising still gives me pause.

Sooner or later, everybody's got to get on the bus if they don't want to get run over or be left behind by the crypto kids. Mine the crypto, save the people.

The world is fine. It's the people who are fucked! ⸺ George Carlin; Comedian

To clarify: Capitalism, communism and socialism are not the problem, merely aspects of it, myths built on a larger myth. The problem is the myth of material possessions and ownership thereof, the assumption/delusion that the material world is real and, therefore, ownable (simply because it seems to be so). Indeed, appearances can be deceiving. I don't reject just capitalism alone; I reject all of that multifaceted coin. However, being raised and indoctrinated in capitalism makes it very hard to cut and remove its multiple nefarious roots that have grown hooks and tendrils into me, without causing pain to both myself and others. I don't want more things, don't want to take my existing stuff with me when I move on, but I'm not yet ready to give/throw it away (so it sits immovable on my bedroom floor, bothers my house-mates and I until I gather the resolve to deal with it). This is a dilemma of döstädning.

It is harder for a capitalist to reach nirvana than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

If you think I'm going to willingly waste my time looking for a corporation to employ me, to give me busywork that drains/wastes my time and energy, keeps me down for its benefit instead of mine and be grateful for the "career opportunity", you are not only mistaken, you are the one that's delusional.

All you read and wear or see and hear on TV
Is a product begging for your fatass dirty dollar.

So, shut up and buy, buy, buy
My new record!
Buy, buy, buy;
Send more money.
Fuck you, buddy. [x6]
⸺ Manard James Keenan/Tool; "Hooker with a Penis"; Ænima (1996)