Liquid Equity

I’d like to begin this article with a simple statistic:

The average starting cost of a Rolex Submariner, in 2024, is around $10,000.

Now, what do most people think of when they think of the Rolex brand? Perhaps, “prestige,” “status,” “exclusivity,” or “dignity.”

Something like a Rolex watch is often coveted; its value precedes itself. It carries a certain weight, that within certain circles, is envied and respected. Its history and value are well-established.

Let’s say that you went out and got yourself a Rolex Sub, tomorrow. How might people react? Maybe you’d catch some longing gazes in the supermarket aisles or get a little extra attention from Susan at the water cooler. Your great-uncle Joe might comment on its value and how it really commands respect, over a heaping plate of casserole at Thanksgiving dinner.

“It’s a real head-turner, that one. People ought to know you mean business with that thing on.”

Now, let’s consider something else.

What if you spent $10,000 on training, health, and personal development?

How might those same people react?

Perhaps you’d be labeled a fool. Susan wouldn’t want to talk to you at the water cooler anymore. Great-Uncle Joe might tell you that you ought to be more like your cousin Stewart; Stewart just bought a C-Class Mercedes and was elected to his Homeowner’s Association.

Physical fitness, personal agency, and equipping oneself against the evils or hardships of the world is pretty low on the totem pole, for the majority of Westerners. Self-determination, for personal protection, health, and fundamental critical-thinking is incessantly outsourced.

“Someone else will take care of that. I’ll just do what feels good.”

Be careful not to color outside the lines too much.

This comparison isn’t a dig at Rolex; I think they’re cool watches and I’d certainly like to have one.

Rather, it’s a display of the complete absurdity that has seeped into American values, in regards to the self.

Everything is projected outward; the average American spends not a moment truly looking at the “man in the mirror,” so to speak. What’s behind all those masks? Who is truly the Wizard of Oz, under all of the posturing and tapdancing?

So, let’s say that you spent $10,000 dollars on training, health, and personal development. That just gets your foot in the door, barely. The real currency of the physical, visceral world is effort and intent.

You can pay the trainers. You can take the classes. You can buy the gear and the tools. But, you can’t buy the gut-wrenching effort and consistent discipline that it takes to truly wield them. That comes from within; outsourcing doesn’t work.

In this regard, genuine physical training, development of personal autonomy, and pursuit of higher degrees of self-knowledge is perhaps one of the most exclusive, isolating endeavors.

You can’t rationalize your way “in.” You can’t buy your way “in.” Reality doesn’t care; nature is indifferent to fantasizing and delusion.

Physical shortcuts seldom exist for a reason; the gate is strait and narrow. Effort is the currency and the ferryman doesn’t give discounts. Sink or swim.

The preoccupation with “shortcuts” to physical capability is a natural side-effect of our frantic, “I-want-it-now” culture.

The “shortcuts,” if they even work, always come with a cost; to the mind, the body, or both.

So, just like buying that Rolex Sub: if you genuinely want to be physically capable, you need to pay the price. It’s not discounted; the shortcuts are probably fake or stolen.

We’re dealing with liquid equity. There’s a river of sweat between where you are and where you want to be.

Pay your share to the ferryman.