I find myself often pondering the peculiar nature of wealth, how it seems to flow like water seeking its own level, yet paradoxically pools in vast reservoirs while leaving entire landscapes parched. In my youth, I believed, as many do, that fortune was distributed according to merit, that the industrious would prosper and the lazy would suffer the consequences of their choices. Yet as I observe the world more closely, I see that this comfortable fiction dissolves like morning mist before the harsh light of reality.