Folks, let me tell you, a schoolhouse is a curious place. It’ll teach you how to sit still, raise your hand, and salute the bell, but it won’t teach you how to raise yourself. They’ll hand you thick textbooks on long division but never a ledger on how to divide profits. They’ll teach you citizenship, but not who prints the money, nor why inflation is the quietest thief in town. They don’t show you how to invest, how to build, how to lead—they show you how to follow. They don’t breed wolves, they breed sheep. And if you think I’m joking, look around: the best and brightest march out with diplomas, only to march straight into debt, mortgages, and a life lived on someone else’s clock. Public schools don’t prepare you to be rich, they prepare you to be a cog. They want you to be a consumer, not a producer; a follower, not a leader. Life, my boy, is a hustle—and if you want to get ahead, you’d best learn outside the classroom.
Now, speaking of hustles, let me tell you about one of the strangest lessons ever smuggled out of the ivory towers: it’s called Game Theory. Don’t let the name fool you. It’s not about marbles or poker chips—it’s about how you deal with your wife, your business partner, and the big war always sitting on the world’s porch chewing tobacco, waiting for someone to glance at it cross-eyed. It all started with a parlor trick in the Cold War, a puzzle they called the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Picture two fellows locked in separate cells with the law breathing down their necks. Each can either keep his mouth shut like a gentleman or squeal like a rat. If both hush, they walk free with dignity and a few coins in their pocket. If one squeals, he pockets five shiny coins while the other poor devil gets nothing but regrets. But if both snitch, they both wind up with a crumb—a single coin apiece.
Now, the mathematicians said the smart move was to squeal every time, but here’s the trouble: life ain’t just one round. It’s many rounds, over years, over lifetimes. You cheat once, and the other fellow will remember it like a bad loan. He’ll pay you back with interest. Soon enough you’re both sitting at a table of scraps when you could’ve been feasting. Back in the 1980s, some clever souls gave computers a crack at it. They loaded them with every trickster’s playbook you could imagine: the grudge-holder, the gambler, the liar. And who won? Not the slickest, not the shadiest, but the simplest of them all: Tit for Tat. Start honest, cooperate, give the other man a fair shake. If he betrays you, give him a sharp slap right back. But here’s the rub—you forgive him after. No long grudges, no endless cold wars, just cooperation with teeth.
And there’s the lesson: don’t be a fool clutching grudges like they’re gold. Grudges are heavy and don’t pay dividends. Be honorable, be forgiving, but not so soft you get trampled. That balance—kind but not gullible, tough but not cruel—that’s the winning hand. The powerful understand this. Among themselves they play a gentleman’s game of cooperation, honor among thieves. But to the masses? They preach suspicion, division, hatred. “Divide and conquer,” says the old war manual. They’ll send your sons to fight, your neighbors to mistrust, your people to fracture. A divided people can’t rise, can’t build, can’t threaten the throne. But here’s the thing: nature, business, even the human heart—they all lean toward cooperation if you let them. Cooperation fills pockets. Confrontation just burns the house down.
So my advice is plain: don’t follow the drumbeats of those who profit from war. Don’t let schools or politicians or bankers raise you into a sheep. Don’t hold grudges like a miser polishing pennies. Instead, build circles of trust. Play fair. Forgive quick. Strike back only when you must. Play Generous Tit for Tat. It’s the art of prospering without being anyone’s fool. Because honor, unlike gold, is never a zero-sum game. You can spend it, give it, live by it—and somehow you always end up richer
EXTRA CREDIT:
The Art of Money Getting — Barnum’s Rules
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