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 GM!

I woke up at the age of 30, when I finally started reading non-fiction books of my own choice, instead of the books that the school and university obliged me to read.

When did you wake up and why?
 https://image.nostr.build/2aca1a473a0f72c582fc83dec6c2ef4b78456d68ca48509c412a9676f7560ef6.jpg 
 Watching Max Keisers Keisers Report in 2011 

Growing up I always asked people 'where does money come from?' and never got a reply

Then a deeper awakening when 'covid hit and I relised it wasnt real, then read The Sovereign Individual, The Bitcoin Standard, Layered Money and Confessions of an Economic Hitman 
 Thx - and how old were u? 
 Gm 
 GM! 💜 
 GM!
For me it was the inflation, it has haunted me for years. Didnt make sense to me that we must have 2% inflation just to 'grease the wheels'. So fraudcoin was part of my awakening and bitcoin standard sealed the deal so to speak  
 I finally started wake up to the fact that our government does not have our best interests at heart, but indeed views us as little more than livestock to be exploited and sacrificed at will, between 2001 and 2003. 

It was a combination of things that led me to this conclusion. In 2001 at age 30, I finally learned about what “money”, as I had known it since I was a kid, is. A man whose brothers I was working on a startup venture for suggested that I read “The Creature from Jekyll Island” by G. Edward Griffin. Having studied economics a bit in college, it didn’t take much to convince me to read it. My mind was blown. I instantly realized that on top of the criminal, overt forms of taxation we are being subjected to, there was this insidious hidden tax called inflation that was not only stealing from all of us, but had only one possible eventual outcome in terms of the long term economic  effects on the country itself. It was the first time that I finally understood that the word inflation doesn’t mean “the increase in the cost of goods and services over time”, but that it simply means inflation/dilution of the money supply. What really blew me away was that none of this immensely important material was covered in any of my Econ classes. 

The whole thing stunk, but what was there to do with this information? I was working an exciting job, trying to “get somewhere” and didn’t really have any assets to speak of. 

After my friend (and CEO of this venture) and I took this group of companies from incorporation to profitability in an 18 month period, the owners unceremoniously cut us loose and basically said “we’ll take it from here” and moved the whole operation to Texas. I had just gotten married and started a family, so I had to try to parlay what experience I had in business into another position that would pay me similarly to what I had been making. 

Of course that fall was when 9/11 happened. While I was initially gripped by the same nationalistic desire for justice as the rest of the country to see this act of terror avenged, there was something about the events of that day, the collapse of the towers themselves, and the official narrative that didn’t mesh with what I knew about physics. 

I worked for a couple of years doing whatever I could do to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads, and eventually got a job as national service manager for a company that builds and distributes critical power equipment for healthcare, industry, the military and transportation. 

Despite the owner of that company being a real tyrant and it being the longest three years of my life before the 2008 financial crisis and the owner’s lack of fiscal responsibility led to mass layoffs, the position afforded me a lot of free time to read. In the first year I automated a lot of the QA and service functions in the company, so things that used to take the former service manager all day to do, I usually had done by mid morning most days.

All this time, the things were bothering me about our monetary system and 9/11 had persisted. That was when I read Niels Harrit’s peer reviewed report in The Open Chemical Physicals Journal 2009, entitled “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe”. Between that and the hours of research I did through resources provided by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and other organizations, I became obsessed with unravelling a bunch of other things that weren’t meshing with my previously held belief that government and authority were there for our good. 

I consumed everything I could on history, Austrian Economics, the teachings of Ron Paul, and material from notable anarchists for the next couple of years. I spent a good five years quite angry and disillusioned. And I was driving people around me crazy sharing what I had learned, particularly about 9/11 and the government. 

I finally reached a point where I realized that I could either drive myself and my family crazy with things I was powerless to change, or I could focus on preparing for what lies ahead and enjoying my life. 

It wasn’t until I found Bitcoin in 2020, and finally learned enough about the mechanics of acquiring, moving and custodying the asset in early 2022, that I was not only fully awake, but finally had a sense of real hope again. 

God Bless Bitcoin ₿ 
 For me it was 9/11. Specifically when building 7 collapsed streets away from the WTC due to "falling debris" while all the closer buildings remained unscathed 🤔 Then the WTC collapsed and the plane that hit the pentagon evaporated into thin air "because of the heat from the jet fuel", but the hijacker's paper passport survived intact 🤨  
 Wide awake bc of Covid. Very gradually years ago when I realized a lot of science was tainted by political bias. Continued when the realization that identity politics was just a farce. Further awakening when learning about dietary recommendations from government (USDA) was based on economics not health.
Steadily found relief from consuming independent sources of reporting and science.
#bitcoin was the final clincher that allowed the return of Hope and comfort about my future and that of others.✌️💜 
 When I was 17 I had a "free reading" class where the only work was to read a certain number of pages and write a book report for each book I read. To minimize the number of reports, I selected the largest fiction book on my parents book shelf - Atlas Shrugged (800 pages). I've been skeptical of government economic and cultural propaganda since.

It's been a gradual awakening about other topics since then, but 2008 made me very awake about classic investing. Although I took the wrong lessons - I should have double downed on leverage and buying stocks instead of into mostly cash and SPY.

It wasn't until Bitcoin that exactly how the economic game has been played by those in power has started to make sense.

 
 I was 28 and I almost lose a finger with a circular saw.
I point towards a new direction since then, haha.
Worst things can be the best and vice versa  
 Many interesting comments in this thread on what made people "wake up" - something which obviously means different things for different individuals:

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 I was always interested in history so at least that genre has been part of my life since I was a small boy! Economics books came later in life, like late 20’s (outside university, as I’m even an economics graduate) 
 Around 14-15? Since then I never really went along with it all… Oh well, I made it from then at the tail end of the Cold War to #Bitcoin now, no way will I go into any fiat mine now! ;-) 
 When I was 21, thanks to intelligent and kind people who gave me a push in the right direction, and as I started searching the answers for three questions since then: 

1. What is Money?
2. What is Government?
3. What is God?

 
 Fantastic! 
 TLDR 1989 19 years old

see myrabbitholestory.com 
 21 when I met Thich Naht Hanh.