---
title: The Absurdity Of Finance
date: 2025-10-04T00:00:00
author: Charlie M.
category: SIGNAL
---
I was sitting by the window this morning, you know, just watching the sunlight do that thing where it tries to creep in through the blinds—like it’s determined to make me feel guilty for staying in bed too long. I was thinking about breakfast, maybe eggs, but I scrolled through Instagram instead. And as the endless parade of influencer breakfast photos passed by, I wondered, not for the first time, why people think avocado on toast is exciting.
Anyway, this sort of brings me to money. Weird transition, I know. Like, finance is so... absurd. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but it feels like this abstract concept we’ve all just agreed is important but nobody fully understands. Kind of like when everyone was obsessed with kale. I think there was some research, by someone...somewhere, that said eating kale was like eating happiness, but then another study said it might be toxic in large quantities, and I was like, "Well, damn, what now?"
So, yeah, finance. I tried playing the stock market once—Robinhood made it feel like a game, right?—and I invested in some company because, I don’t know, I liked their name or something equally arbitrary. Then it crashed, and I thought, maybe this isn’t for me. But then I read this thing about how if you invest even just a small amount every month, like, 100 bucks or something, you can end up comfortably retired. Although, I think they assume the market doesn’t implode in that scenario. Oh, and the dividends... it’s supposed to be magic or something, but it’s more confusing than my Netflix recommendation algorithm.
There’s this other thing, I think it's called FIRE—Financial Independence, Retire Early. The idea is interesting, though a bit culty. Save aggressively and pinch pennies until you're like, 40, then live off your investments. But if we all lived like that, I mean, who would drink overpriced lattes or buy novelty socks? Wouldn't the economy just stop or something? I spent a week trying to follow a FIRE blog, but it was quoting numbers and compound interest in a way that... well, I might as well have been reading Tolstoy.
I tried budgeting, too. Sort of. I downloaded an app that was supposed to track spending, but after a month it was just guilt-tripping me more than helping. Turns out, if I can see how much I spend on avocado toast, I just get hungry. Maybe it works for some people, though. The app had stellar reviews. I guess the concept of watching your finances instead of ignoring them makes logical sense, like looking both ways before crossing the street. But then, cars still hit people sometimes, right?
And then there's crypto. Don’t even get me started. It felt like everyone around me was getting rich overnight, and I was just here, failing to understand the difference between blockchain and, I don't know, whatever non-blockchain is. People keep saying it’s the future, but wasn't the future supposed to have hoverboards?
Maybe I just don’t get it, any of it. Money, like the sun, feels like it's just there, doing something I don't understand, creeping in through the cracks. Sometimes I think there should be a class everyone has to take—Understanding Adulting 101 or some social experiment in finance literacy—because, honestly, adulthood still feels like a pop quiz most days.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just bad at this grown-up stuff. Maybe no one really has it figured out, and we're all just pretending, scrolling through life like it's an Instagram feed, randomly liking things we don’t actually get. And maybe that’s okay. Or maybe it's not. I guess I'll just finish my coffee and ponder it some more. Or not. I have no idea.