This week we saw Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.1 He’ll probably end up serving half or less of that sentence.
It’s widely reported that during sentencing, he uttered the words: “My useful life is probably over.”
Those words show that even after all he has gone through, he still lacks an understanding of what a useful life actually is. Indeed, his life has never been ‘useful.’ Rather he has lived as a hustler, a crook. Without a meaningful moral compass, following the explicit teachings of his morally bankrupt parents.
In a now infamous essay penned in 2013, Bankman-Fried’s mother argued that it was time for our society to somehow move beyond personal responsibility. Indeed that “The philosophy of personal responsibility has ruined criminal justice and economic policy.” Adding that “It’s time to move past blame.”2
Given what she taught, is it any wonder that her son found theft so easy?
Indeed, his actions seem to indicate that Bankman-Fried’s idea of a useful life was to steal as much money as possible, spending some on a lavish lifestyle, diverting the rest into both legal and illegal contributions to politicians across the political spectrum.
Stealing money to give to political campaigns is not leading a useful life.
It’s a crook, trying to buy protection.
So what is a useful life?
It’s a life in which we have the best relationships possible with our relatives. Positive and supportive relationships with our friends. Where we work honestly, play hard, and contribute in some positive way to the world and the people who surround us.
As Freemasons, we have excellent opportunities for all of those things. And if we are smart, we will seize those opportunities.
A useful life is also a moral life.
Immoral people are untrustworthy people. People known to be untrustworthy can never have truly solid and positive relationships with the people around them. They will always be looked at skeptically.
Our society today tends to greatly honor those who have amassed tremendous wealth. When in fact wealth plays little role in the value of one’s life. As our ritual points out:
“Freemasonry regards no man on account of his worldly wealth or honors.”
Good family, good friends, care for those around us. These are the measures of a good man and a useful life.
That is a lesson that Bankman-Fried, in his quest for ill gotten gains, and his refusal of personal responsibility, failed to ever learn.
His useful life is not over, his useful life never began.
https://news.yahoo.com/judge-rips-bankman-fried-throws-154926206.html
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/sam-bankman-frieds-prof-mother-penned-2013-essay-shredding-philosophy-personal-responsibility
Well, I'm sure we can related one way or another with this story by reflecting on self value and our self importance in this world. We all have been in darkness, led by the will of self.
To me, when one discovers and owns thier own defects, it is like removing a hoodwink or a chain restaint around the waist. He's in the perfect place, not having a cent to give. This as we all know is the perfect initiation, a call to discover the true self, or no-self, however you look at it.
“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” -George Bernard Shaw
We all have a social contract to society to do the right thing of our own accord, or we will be compelled to do so by threat of violence or force by required governance. Volunteerism is much better than its counterpart. Its all there in our closing charge. Here is a man that chose not to self govern and is finding out that that is the reason we have to have laws and are compelled to follow them.