Income Addicts

You can live off an Income, a Buffer, or an Engine, but they are very different beasts. If you live off an Income, it has to come in. What you get, you spend. So if you don’t work, you don’t get, and you can’t spend. A Buffer has to be very liquid. You have to be able to sell it quickly if it isn’t already cash. That means it can’t be working too hard, or be doing something where the benefits only come in the future. If you are living off a Buffer, the clock starts ticking. It will run out. But, it gives you time to retrain or find more work. An Engine is a long-term vehicle. It provides Endurance if you can live off less than it produces. If you are a good custodian who doesn’t extract all its future potential during the short term. If it is protected by a resilient Buffer, and invested in when there is work available. Unfortunately, the world focuses on humans as productive assets and calls this “Work Ethic”. With no Buffer, and no Engine, there is no space to pause. To breathe. To reflect. When you have no choice but to stop, the cost suddenly becomes real. When the world restarts, we must never again forget the need for Buffers and Engines.

Work (1852 - 1865) - Ford Madox Brown