The Dark Side of Stealth is Silence
The Dark Side of Stealth is Silence
I have a little world that exists inside my head. It’s full of numbers and figures. Projections and estimations. I plot these thoughts on spreadsheets, in my mental calculator. I know the last ten years of S&P 500 returns, and have considered the ups and downs of stock picking. Mulled over the expense ratios of my favorite funds. Relentlessly checked and rechecked. Optimized. These thoughts I retain remain inside me. The dark side of stealth is silence. The personalized, isolated, silo’ed mania in the hot pursuit of financial independence.
I have tried to share these thoughts at the dinner table. Fielded questions late night over a few beers to a restless crowd. Listened silently as one intimate or another relayed the latest venture into gold, or Bitcoin, or penny stocks, or vacant land.
Yep, Uh-Huh
The dark side of stealth is silence. The response is always affirmative. Affirmative-ish. As your point is totally ignored. No one wants to really understand the nature of speculation. They want to get lucky. They want to get rich quick. I totally agree with what you’re saying, but. There is always a but. Always a moment of recognition before pitching to the wayside your thoughts and concerns.
So you stop commenting.
Conquest
You don’t talk about your purchases. You buy secondhand. Used. Old. Beaten. Reliable.
Your friends are always bragging about their conquests. That which they dream of buying or just bought. Sports cars and overbuilt houses. They speculate on the millions that will one day overflow in the bank, and then they 
reminisce about how they blew the whole paycheck on a night out at the bar that they no longer remember.
The dark side of stealth is silence. You bite your tongue.
Online
So you retreat to Facebook, and twitter, and Reddit. Or whatever form of social media that helps you connect. And you feel for once that you don’t have to be stealth anymore. In an artificial environment, often without names, or faces, or any real chance of consequences.
They drive beaters too. Understand what the acronym SWR stands for. And can relate to the pitfalls of discussing details with friends. The immersion becomes more and more complete. Faces fade into mobile devices and screens, and miss the beauty of everything else which is going on around them in the world.
But it is hard to stare into the eyes of an online friend. Hard to hold a hand or give a hug. This is something we usually save for relationships in real life and not online.
The dark side of stealth is silence. Silence in real life.
Silos
The dark side of stealth is silence. Silos. Separate lives lived anonymously and disjointedly. Disconnected.
Alone in our little rooms. Waiting for the next comment, the next like, the next post to pop up on Facebook or surface on our twitter feed.
Our superpower separates us. Makes life more simple. Easier. Lonely.
The Millionaire Next Door talks about those who are “all hat and no cattle” to refer to people who brag about wealth that doesn’t exist.
We in the stealth wealth community are all cattle and no hat.Yet we live in a world where community, connection, and even love is often based on one’s consistent ability to marvel over the stupid flippin hat.
To run with your analogy – I get the feeling that those with ‘stealth wealth’ would love to live life with a little more hat but fear that others may try to knock it off their heads.
I’d say that the average person pursuing FI is far more preoccupied / obsessed with / addicted to money than the ‘all hat and no cattle’ crowd. It’s just that an FI approach towards money can look so unusual / extreme to most people that it can evoke a strong, viceral and often negative response. ‘Stealth wealth’ can be a way of protecting oneself from this such responses.
HH
Good point. I wonder if this “protection” brings isolation.
Waiting for the next comment, the next like, the next post to pop up on Facebook or surface on our twitter feed.
Thankfully, I will not be doing any of that for the next couple couple days is I’m going out in the woods with some friends for some adventures. Great post!
Wow…have fun. See you when you get back.
I get it
As a fellow physician I feel that a lot of my colleagues are a lot of hat (exotic trips, another pair of Gucci shoes, etc) and some to little cattle
I also spend a lot of reading blogs (rarely commenting) so this article did speak volumes to me
I’ll be reading along w your journey
Thanks WLL. We physicians are certainly at risk for overspending!
On the flip side it gives variety. Talk about finances on blogs/online and about travel, hiking, gardening, or whatever else suits your fancy through other avenues. I’m less interested in one more talk about bitcoin in person then I am about how someone’s family is or the fishing trip they took last weekend.
The deeper I get into blogging about personal finance, the less I want to talk about it in real life.
To die rich, such a luxury, such a fantasy, such expansive freedom! To die not poor however is the point. I can’t eat my hat. I can eat my cattle. I guess the converse: is my hat eating me?
“To die not poor”. Exactly! The cattle tastes better than the hat.
My modest house, our old cars with mega-mileage and my side gigging consulting jobs all belie the fact that we have wealth. I sometimes think my friends feel sorry for me since I still work part time for fun. They do not like their jobs so they assume if I still work at all it must be driven by economic need when I need more money about as much as I need a pet rattlesnake. Maybe that is why I blog and comment, I can be honest in this space about having saved and invested well so I can work for fun or not work at all without impacting my financial security. Nobody in this space is puzzled by early retirement or by side gigging. In fact the only time people react to me with puzzlement is about the fact that I had a job I loved and stayed in it way past financial independence, but even then nobody condemns me for it. Even when I get into my Big Hat and lots of cattle zone. It is a warm space in spite of its diversity. And nobody displays that better than you Doc G!
Social media and the blogosphere have created a warm and welcoming atmosphere. But that also makes me sad, why should we have to hide ourselves in the real world? Thanks for your kind comment.
That’s me. My tribe is online. Real life people have too many other things to deal with. I rarely talk about finance with IRL friends and acquaintances. You can’t help comparing and nothing good comes out of that.
I bounce between being really happy and proud that we have this community, and yet wonder why it has to be online only.
Hmm… I’m going to venture to say that perhaps many of us in the younger “Hey Young World” generation (see what I did there) actually do not see silence as a dark side of stealth wealth. In fact, I would say that a lot of wealthy millennials are proudly displaying their stealth wealth. I know it sounds like an oxymoron to display stealth wealth, but let me explain. There are a lot of wealthy millennials who are part of the “hipster” crowd who dress like they look urban poor on purpose. Or they dress like a minimalist. Speaking of wealth, social media, and Facebook… Mark Zuckerberg wears the same kind of gray t-shirt every day and a maybe he’ll throw in a plain hoodie just for kicks. He’s a clothing minimalist. The only time I’ve seen him dress up was when he wore a suit to testify in front of the U.S. Congress! Like many other millennials, I sorta follow Zuckerberg’s lead in terms of stealth wealth (though not nearly as wealthy obviously) via minimalism. And I’m not silent about it. I try to encourage colleagues at work to live more simply and not spend so lavishly so that they can buy more of their time and freedom. I don’t think there is a dark side to stealth wealth, only bright side as we try to enlighten those around us! 🙂
I think you may be right about the generational difference. Millennial a look at wealth differently.
There is such a sliding scale with the millennial. I was born in 87 so I am considered an old millennial and identify in some ways but many I am like heck no that’s not me. My close friends have chosen vastly different paths and either have huge houses they don’t need or can’t even buy a condo or are being essentially supported by a husband with no involvement in finances. All vastly different from me so if I bring up anything like that it’s always a personal attack on their choices because honestly I think they know I’m right. I have learned to keep everything on the down low.
You are not alone. Many of us keep silent. It must be hard to be stuck in the middle of generations that are so very different.
What what DocG?!!
I do not try and ram my way of thinking down anyone’s throat. But my family, friends, colleagues, even some patients are well aware of my lifestyle (or lack thereof). You just got to be you. I am careful to not be offensive in public since many people are on different paths. But do I stay silent?!! Absolutely not!!!
I am waaaaay more opinionated in person than online. Everyone who knows me has pretty much accepted that I am this way. And if they give me a hard time- I am give it back in spades😆.
I don’t share my networth but I also don’t hide the fact that we can buy cars and homes with pure cash. Maybe being Canadians and the crowd I associate with- no one really cares since many of them do better than we do.
It sounds like stealth wealth is not an issue for you. Where I live, people are uncomfortable with naked displays of wealth.
Man, I can relate to this so much.
It is was spurned my recent post on being careful discussing FIRE. It is often spurned. And often disregarded as a real option.
I’ve accepted your stance, which is to stay silent with most. Except my residents. I refuse to let them not know its an option. Fortunately, the rate of acceptance from residents is much higher.
My colleagues? Very uncomfortable except the rare few. It’s better just to stay silent.
Sad but true. Luckily, the young ones are listening more closely.
Two words. Fin Con. Or is that one word? That’s where the silos will come down and we are all like-minded in one room. I’m excited about my first one ever this year.
Should be really great. We’ll have a lot of fun!
Oh boy, I am experiencing this! As a new blogger I am finding that I have to be intentional about scheduling in person face time otherwise, I get lonely.
CampFI mid-Atlantic was a great way to meet other like minded people face-to-face.
My local ChooseFI group is another good outlet.
However, I need others. I am finding I am just happy to have people in my life whether we talk about FI or not. I just need to relationships. And just sometimes, a moment arises where I get asked a money question 😊.
Nice post!
Thanks Ms. Fiology. Relationships are so key to happiness. It’s hard when a big part of your life is unmentionable to those you love.