Something for Nothing
There is a lot to be said about the idea of “something for nothing.” Undoubtedly, the first thing that comes to mind is all of the times we’ve heard Boomers hurl at younger generations the accusation of wanting something for nothing, of wanting hand-outs. Now not only is their accusation dishonest—merely a selfish excuse for not wanting to help younger generations build or leave them any inheritance—but its prevalence as a cultural meme can easily drown out other dimensions of “something for nothing” that tell us much more about modern society, pursuit and purpose, and our relationship with God. This essay is an attempt to flesh out some of the more meaningful phenomena that the idiom beckons our attention toward.
Boomers, Bankers, and Bitcoin
Because it is the most familiar—and because Boomers are everyone’s favorite topic—we will begin with the sort of something for nothing that Boomers themselves embody. This first sort of something for nothing is financial gain or the pursuit thereof without making any actual contribution warranting it. A perfect example of this is all of the crypto-bros: they literally hope to make boatloads of money from nothing but the massive inflation of perceived value of virtual pseudo-fiat that they hope to later exchange for a much greater amount of “real” fiat. The ridiculousness of it all is only made worse by the parasitical nature of it: not only do they contribute literally nothing to anyone, but their goal of striking it rich depends on others buying in at continually higher price points and then selling to those people willing to buy in at higher price points before the whole house of cards collapses. It’s literally just hoping that other people are gullible enough to buy into a digital scheme so that one might run away with the money they bought in with. It is the pursuit of unearned wealth, of getting a whole lot of money without having to make any contribution.
In a similar vein, there are Boomers who become enraged at the possibility of the presently grossly inflated home prices falling back down to Earth. Their refusal to sell a home they bought for $30,000 back in 1975 for less than the full $800,000 Zillow says it’s worth is a whole lot of something for nothing. Like the crypto-bros, they want a huge payday without having made any corresponding contribution. These extreme forms of something for nothing are among the most common, and are often pursued shamelessly.
Apart from inflationary profiteering, there are many types of “work” in the modern world that are centered around wanting something for nothing, and they are far too numerable to list them all. Identifying them is easy; simply ask the question: “What do they contribute?” Do the dozens of newly-invented college and university administrative positions really make contributions warranting six-figure salaries? Do insurance companies really make such massive contributions to society to warrant being the biggest business in the world? Do “Human Resource Specialists” really contribute to the continuation or growth of businesses? What do derivative traders and their network of bankers and legal advisors contribute? Do their massive, speculative gambles on future values of stocks, currencies, precious metals, and commodities amount to any sort of contribution to society? If so, is it worthy of both the boatloads of money they make and the cost to taxpayers whose money is used to bail them out when their gambles bankrupt them? There are innumerable industries and positions operating on a structure of something for nothing.
But these are mere economic understandings of something for nothing. As alarming and aggravating as they are, the something for nothing structure is less explored and more meaningful in other domains of human life that make the structure itself worth exploring.
Lessons from Solomon
There are two primary lessons to draw from King Solomon regarding the idea of something for nothing. Both of these lessons come as rejections of sorts.
The first is from very early in his kingship, and is indeed one of the defining moments of his life and his story as told in Scripture. God went to Solomon in a dream and said:
Ask what you wish Me to give to you.
1 Kings 3:5
As you can see, God left the question pretty simple and open-ended. There was no preface nor qualification, no parameters nor request for any accompanying explanation. It seems possible, even plausible, that God was offering Solomon something for nothing – a gift with no strings attached. But Solomon did not treat it as such. After acknowledging the great lovingkindness God had shown his father David, Solomon answered God’s question:
Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. Your servant is in the midst of Your people which You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. So give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?
1 Kings 3:7-9
Here we see that Solomon dismisses the idea of something for nothing even when presented with a literal God-given opportunity to receive something for nothing; instead, he asks for something for something, something for the sake of something else. He did not ask for some selfish blessing, but for something that would be useful in serving others, in service to God.
God was extremely pleased with Solomon’s request and immediately told Solomon—and us, by extension—precisely why:
It was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. God said to him, “Because you have asked this thing and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself discernment to understand justice, behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you. I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days. If you walk in My ways, keeping My statutes and commandments, as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days.”
1 Kings 3:10-14
God was pleased that Solomon, instead of asking for something purely for himself, instead of wishing to receive something for nothing, asked for something that he could use for the sake of justice for His people. This is a lesson straight from Scripture that though God may be willing to grant His children something for nothing, He is greatly pleased when His children ask Him for something for the sake of doing something good. Rather than “Please grant me this thing that I want”, the request is “Please grant me this thing so that I may do good with it.” Not only is it much more noble to want something for something, the something-for-something structure gives us a means of soul searching: “I want this thing, but why do I want it? Is it something that I want to use for good, or is it just something that I want for selfish reasons?” If we are to serve God, should not the things we ask of Him be centered around service—or, at the very least, should we not be eager to serve in gratitude for the things He’s given us? Or is our relationship with God just an endless pleading for something for nothing?
The second of the relevant lessons from Solomon comes at the end of his life. In Ecclesiastes, an old and solemn King Solomon laments the many labors and injustices he’d witnessed this world and which he knows will be with humanity as long as humanity persists—that are with us still today and will be with us tomorrow.
That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
Bear in mind, no man before or since Solomon has been as wealthy as he; he denied himself no pleasure, nor was he denied anything his eyes or heart desired. And what did he say over and over about all of his labor and wealth accumulation and, by extension, all human labor and wealth accumulation?
It is vanity and striving after wind.
Not just vanity as we commonly understand the term today—Solomon uses the word interchangeably with “futility” all throughout Ecclesiastes, which is backed up by the accompanying metaphor of striving after wind.
What, then, does this tell us about something for nothing?
Solomon is saying that all of the labor and hoarding of riches under the sun is ultimately something for nothing. Futility and striving after wind. In addition to not being able to take it with you, Solomon describes other aspects of the folly and futility of such practices: perpetual striving, worry, losing sleep, never being satiated, etc. Is this not the same as what we witness today? How many of today’s paper chasers have contentedly settled with “enough”? How many of the rich and famous live in despair, even dying deaths of despair: lifelong sexual deviancy and abuse, humiliating or silencing themselves for the sake of money, eating disorders, serial divorce, drug addiction, suicide, etc.? Nor is it only the celebrities and Bernie Madoff types who are afflicted; how many anonymous men kill themselves in despair after losing their job or their business fails? Did chasing fame and fortune pay off, or was it ultimately another case of something for nothing, an exercise in vanity and striving after wind?
There is nothing new under the sun.
Embracing Something for Nothing: A Lesson from Patrice O’neal
I’ve never been one to care when a famous person dies, but there is at least one that I genuinely wish was still around today: Patrice O’neal.
Many of his fellow comedians and various TV/network big-wigs often lamented the fact that Patrice “just wouldn’t play ball.” They lambasted him as “self-sabotaging.” Others called him “honest to a fault” as if that was a bad thing.
The shallow words from those shallow people could not be further from the truth.
Indeed, Patrice embraced a very different, very powerful kind of something for nothing: giving something for nothing. Doing something without trying to get something for it in return. Indeed, when he stopped trying to get something out of what he was doing, it changed his life. It brought him back from the brink of suicide.
This three minute excerpt from an interview he did sums it up quite well.
That “vague feeling of trying to make it” was the same vanity and striving after wind that Solomon lamented in his last days. Patrice’s solution was, like Solomon’s, turning away from the vanity and striving and instead focusing on immaterial things. Where Solomon advises to eat, drink, be merry, enjoying the company of one’s wife and one’s friends and doing work that one knows to be good in the sight of God, Patrice turned to “changing people’s lives—but not being profound about it.” He tells us that that is it—the it that he had been striving for in “trying to make it” as the saying goes:
“When a man tells you you changed his life, when a woman tells you you changed her life over some goofy shit you said, that feels good, man; that’s it.”
But in order to get there, he had to embrace the structure of something for nothing in a way that is opposite of how the world seeks something for nothing: he embraced giving something without trying to get anything out of it rather than trying to get something without making any real contribution. Had he not embraced this dynamic of something for nothing, he wouldn’t have been able to give what he’d been given to give to others; his honesty and good-will was never going to earn him a big payday, and chasing the big payday would’ve prevented him from being honest. The only way for him to share his gift with others was to embrace giving it away for “nothing” in return—and in doing so he got everything. He made it.
The top comment on that interview clip says it all:
Such is the power of something for nothing at its best, if only we will embrace it.
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