The Ultimate Wealth
A newsletter on the value of human life.
What’s up my fellow apex alpha males.
Two and a half years ago an old friend from childhood had his first child with his wife of 7 years. A few days later his wife died, leaving him with the responsibility of a newborn baby, living on as a single dad, and surviving the grief of being a widowed husband.
My friend had to watch his own wife die, holding their newborn son. A son that would never know his own mother.
His wife had a heart attack a few days before the due date. She was born with a heart condition, had major surgery as a baby, and everything was supposed to work out. She was a star athlete in her youth even. Track, cross country, volleyball. Never a problem, and closely monitored during the pregnancy just to be safe.
There was a lot of drama as you can imagine, rushing his barely living wife to the hospital with their baby inside, hanging on by a thread. He was doing over 120mph on small roads in the Florida keys driving to the hospital, screaming at 911 on the phone to “shoot the tires or escort me to the hospital, I’m not stopping” with police in pursuit.
When I first talked to him about this I was horrified. This is easily one of the most fucked up, devastating experiences that can happen to a young man and new father. I say that as someone who woke up one day, so many years ago, to learn that my then wife was a literal prostitute.
That was an unfortunate and strange learning experience, but not even a drop in the bucket compared to this in terms of the fall out. By comparison it’s a funny life story vs. a dark tragedy.
My friend fortunately has a lot of support from her surviving family and his own. He’s making it work as a single dad and widow. Living it up with his son, enjoying fatherhood to the max given the circumstances.
Hearing his stories as he dips his toes back into the dating markets with Tinder and Bumble is absolutely hilarious. This is someone who hasn’t dated since pre-woke America. It’s like stepping out of a time machine, being surrounded by bat shit crazy single mom sluts as far as the eye can see.
His son - happy and healthy - is a source of inspiration for continued drive, focus, and purpose as a man. Without his son he might be in a darker place. Many men have killed themselves over far less. High school relationships ending, losing money in a business or the stock market, etc. Trivial nonsense in the grand scope of life, but these events can feel far greater in the moment, in the fog of war.
Those hyper-emotional responses can drive a man to madness. Literally out of a 20th story window onto a sidewalk.
Another friend in Orlando lost his 17th month old son in a pool accident not that long ago. This is someone who used to help me with the websites and marketing for 21 Studios.
Children are incredibly fragile and delicate. Many young kids have died falling into a toilet, or in bath water no deeper than ankle high. Only a takes a minute, gone.
As an adult you think life comes at you fast. Faster and faster as you age. Shit happens. In truth death comes at you even faster.
Knowing these two men and having to watch them survive this level of devastation really puts my own life in perspective. Just having a happy, healthy, living wife and daughter makes me feel like a legit billionaire.
Both of these men would trade all the gold in the world for even one more day with their family intact.
In the philosophy of Objectivism that I’ve practiced since 2010 - my religion - the ultimate value is individual human life. It is the entire, objective standard of value that it’s moral system operates on as an axis point.
There is nothing higher or more fundamental, without leaving the context of moral philosophy. Individual human life is the most fundamental value that every sane person shares, in every situation, and every context.
You might be of a different opinion in abstract theory and ideas. Maybe you are a collectivist hippie who believes in the “common good” and “society”. You might be willing to break a few eggs for that higher value. Individual rights be damned, the rich have to pay their fair share.
You could also be a religious man, valuing the word and commands of God over human life. God himself of course would be your ultimate value with unlimited power and infinite grace.
Better do what you’re fucking told, or you’re gonna burn.
Whether you are a collectivist hippy, inspired by religious mysticism, or anything else, this will all melt away if I put a gun to your head in the middle of a conversation.
All of a sudden reality is absolute. Your reason and senses are reliable and valid. Your reason, not your faith in society or God tells you that a bullet going through your skull is going to do more than hurt.
Your life suddenly becomes a supreme moral value that must be defended at all costs.
And just like that you become a staunch Objectivist for that brief moment in your life. All other mystical, magical, abstract ideas and woo woo bullshit melt away like butter.
I raise these moral issues around Objectivism because becoming a father in itself - and watching my friends go through hell - has helped illustrate these philosophic principles in real life.
Human life is the ultimate objective value, and most of you who don’t have kids yet, really need to get the lead out of your ass on that front. Some of you reading should be a grandfather by now, but you are not yet even a father.
And perhaps its too late, which is a tragedy.
Not every man should become a father. There are billions of men on the planet. The idea that every single one should be a father is unrealistic and ridiculous. Some men just aren’t cut out for it in their personality and life path. Some men are literally gay and it’s just not in the cards for you. Nor should you try to circumvent and disrespect nature, like these two goofballs.
Nature will win, and nature punishes harshly.
But most men by far I think should strive to breed hot young thin white women with big milk jugs like I have. You should strive to become a father and patriarch.
I’m only 18 months in and it’s easily one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. For many of you it will be among the most important work you ever do, and there’s no shame in that.
I know a lot of older millennial and GenX bros who don’t have a wife or kids yet. Making a sweet six figures, not even in a HCOL area. Working their ass off at a job they don’t care much about or actively hate.
To make money they don’t need, to buy shit on credit cards they don’t need, at interest rates they definitely don’t need, to impress people on the internet they barely know, half of which are just spam robots and AI.
It’s ten levels of insane. These dudes are basically the male equivalent of what I call “frozen egg queens” among American women. Late 30s/early 40s chicks that have been banged out by 50 dudes, sitting on frozen eggs from their early 30s, crying themselves to sleep petting their cat.
I watched a 39 year old dude once taking business calls at his grandma’s funeral not that long ago.
American culture has been hollowed out by what Professor
would call I think a “lavish decadence”. Or in the words of our old friend Bane victory has defeated you.Some of you have told me privately via email and stuff that me building a family has inspired you to do the same. I’m glad that I have and hope many of you do as soon as you reasonably can.
I’ll continue leading by example, one step at a time.
/s/ Anthony Dream Johnson