Building Immaterial Wealth
2025-10-17
this is a rewrite of a piece originally posted on my Substack on January 15th, 2025.
The Lie of Wealth
It's good to have material things. The more we have, the happier we are—or so the narrative goes. New technologies generate diminishing returns when seeking fulfillment through acquiring more things. The world, materially speaking, is the most prosperous it has ever been. Despite this supposed prosperity, people still yearn for more. This signals that true wealth, despite what we’ve been told en masse from media outlets and influencers alike, comes not from the material aspects of the world, but the immaterial ones.
The true measure of one’s wealth is not their means to access the material, but the immaterial. People rarely discuss this because immaterial things resist measurement; what can’t be measured can’t be compared. But this difference is why it is more important to gauge one’s true sense of wealth with the immaterial. With immaterial things, there is no scarcity. There is always enough to go around and because of this, people are less concerned with what they have to offer. Most people would rather spend their time chasing possessions.
The world we live in is conditioned towards material thinking. People guard their possessions and make sure that they’re protected. We are also always thinking of ways to create more material so that there’s more to go around, but prevailing power structures manufacture a shortage. There’s more than enough food for us to eat, yet people go hungry. There’s more than enough homes for people to live in, yet people sleep on the streets. The lie that we’ve been told is that if we simply work to gather enough material wealth, these problems will go away. But this is simply not true.
Defining Immaterial Wealth
Immaterial wealth is the value in what can't be touched. It is the relationships and affiliations we build our lives on. Someone with it has strong values and a full support system. This person is someone who is the opposite of isolated; they are surrounded by a series of interactions and ideas that work together to create value. What this person often finds as a result of their works is that materially, they do not want for more. They are satisfied with whatever material conditions may exist, no matter how grand or meager they may be.
Today, our economic conditions put many people into materially precarious situations. Many people are struggling to make ends meet financially, often accruing massive amounts of debt just to stay afloat or even worse, becoming displaced and going hungry. This material poverty also deepens immaterial poverty. People feel more isolated than ever before, and many of the social institutions that help people build immaterial wealth (churches, schools, community centers) have become ideologically dysregulated and have seen either a lack in participation or a mass exodus altogether.
When people in positions of power (big corporations, governments) offer solutions to these problems, their solutions often lie in the material. These solutions are often pitched in the form of products for people to consume. The pitch is that it just takes one more purchase for all of it to make sense, for everything to come together just the way it’s supposed to. Unfortunately, this line of consumerist thinking has created a set of consequences that are slowly decomposing our morale and psyches year after year.
Despite these obstacles, we still have the opportunity to create immaterial wealth.
How to Create Immaterial Wealth
Building immaterial wealth boils down to two practices:
- Deny the self
- Help others
Immaterial wealth is built through the establishment and development of strong and cohesive social relationships. These relationships give the individual access to a network that complements their own abilities. Denying the self and helping others is what creates community.
Denying the Self
Denying the self is an odd practice, especially given the Western hegemony of ego-centrism and individualism. It is something that doesn’t get a lot of attention and as such, most people either don’t know or aren’t comfortable with the idea. However, the practice of denying the self is something that has been around for a very long time. It leads to more favorable outcomes not just for the society, but the individual as well.
Denying the self as an action is relatively simple. It is a refusal to act by means of desire. It’s not about whether or not you deserve the thing, but rather the act of saying “no” in and of itself. Denying the self deflates the ego and soothes the rift between the ego and the spirit. One can do things that constantly feed the ego, such as fulfilling desires of the self, but the spirit will still hunger because it can’t feed on the ego.
But what exactly feeds the spirit?
Helping Others
These days, people are so caught up with themselves that they often can't see the forest for the trees. The world is so much bigger than what’s between the ears. It is up to us to see it and nurture it so that it can grow into something that can feed the spirit. Instead of being selfish, that energy can be invested into helping others. It doesn’t have to be anything beyond one’s own means. Any act of service, no matter how small, makes a significant impact on the world. This is because one act of service isn’t isolated in itself. It snowballs into other acts of service.
The best part about helping others is that it always comes back to those that help. This is the food that feeds the spirit. Think of it like this: what tastes better, a meal that you cooked for yourself, or a meal that someone else cooks for you? The meal cooked for others always tastes better because acts of service are what truly nourish the spirit—when the spirit is fed, we are truly satisfied.
Immaterial wealth is a community of people who serve you because you serve them. The bigger the community, the wealthier you are.
Deny the Ego, Feed the Spirit
It’s clear that immaterial poverty is a crucial problem. We forget how to nourish our spirits because our egos consume them. Every day, ask yourself this question: how can I help someone? Then once you find an answer, do it. One small act of selflessness—each and every day—builds the foundation for a lifetime of immaterial wealth.