Series overview:
Part 1: ieStory 26022 – Dependence
Part 2: ieStory 26023 – Responsibility (approx. 20 Feb 2026)
Part 3: ieStory 26024 – Dignity (approx. 27 Feb 2026)
You sit at the kitchen table, staring at your phone as if it might give you an answer. The coffee has gone lukewarm, but you drink it anyway. Not for pleasure. Out of habit.
On the screen, your payslip glows. A few numbers. A few deductions. A few words that pretend to be neutral.
You work. You show up. You do your part. You are not someone who constantly complains.
You just want to know one thing: what is actually yours?
The money is in your account. Or rather, on your account. You have the app. You have the login. You have the feeling of access.
And yet, there is this sentence in the back of your mind that you usually ignore:
“Available within the limits of the terms and conditions.”
Within limits.
It sounds like a picture frame. Neat. Clean. Rectangular.
And you are inside it.
Everything Is Regulated – Nothing Is in Your Hands
The next day at work, your boss announces new rules. Nothing dramatic, he says. Just adjustments. A new shift system. A new process. A new target.
You sign, because everyone signs.
You don’t ask questions, because you have learned that questions rarely help when the answer is always, “That’s how it is now.”
You keep working.
Later, at the supermarket checkout, the scanner beeps.
Not the friendly beep that says, “All good.”
The short, sharp one that says, “No.”
You look at your card as if it has suddenly become a stranger.
You have money. You saw it yesterday. The cashier waits. Someone behind you shifts impatiently.
“I’ll just try again,” you say.
Another beep. Still no.
You smile awkwardly, mumble something about the app acting up, leave the basket behind and walk out. Not running. Just faster than usual.
Outside, you breathe as if you had been carrying something heavy.
It was only pasta, bread, and a piece of cheese.
Security That Keeps Its Distance
You call the bank. A friendly voice, like a poster in a waiting room, explains that a security review is in progress. Routine. For your protection.
You just need to confirm that you are you. You confirm. Again. Another question. Another code.
At the end, the voice says:
“Thank you. This may take up to 48 hours.”
As if someone had put your salary into a cupboard and taken the key to administration.
That evening, a message arrives from a public authority. It concerns a support application you filed months ago, when things were tight. Back then, you thought: I paid in, I played by the rules, this is what it’s for.
Now it says:
“Please submit additional documentation.”
Documentation.
For your own life. As if an empty fridge were not proof enough.
You know the game. If you don’t deliver, you get nothing. If you deliver too much, you get questions. Somewhere in between is a narrow strip you are expected to balance on. Quiet. Grateful. Correct.
Responsibility Without Control
You send what is requested.
You wait.
The next morning, your mother calls. She needs help with her phone. Her bills are now handled through an app.
She used to hold the payment slip in her hand. Pen. Signature. A clear action.
Now she says:
“It says I need to agree. But I don’t know what I’m agreeing to.”
You try to explain. And notice how you stumble yourself. Words like “terms”, “usage rights”, “consent” fall out of your mouth.
It sounds like a rental contract no one truly understands.
That’s when it becomes clear: this isn’t an isolated case.
It’s a pattern.
You may use the car, but the rules come from elsewhere.
You may live in the apartment, but the rent rises because “the market”.
You may see your money, but you cannot always access it.
Even your time sometimes feels borrowed. You are expected to be available, flexible, responsive.
Responsibility is demanded, but decision-making power is rationed. Just enough to function. Not enough to truly decide.
Not Poverty – But Dependence Without Choice
You are not poor. You get by.
And that is exactly why it’s so quietly dangerous.
Everything looks normal. No one is shouting. No one is openly forbidding anything.
And yet, you live in a system that secures you – while slowly taking agency out of your hands.
One evening, you sit outside with a colleague after work. The city slows down. The air cools.
He mentions a small side project. Nothing flashy. No pitch.
“I’m part of a community,” he says. “Infinity-Economics. It’s like a parallel space. No one decides for you whether you’re allowed in.”
He doesn’t explain the technology. He talks about how it feels.
That when something arrives there, it actually belongs to him. Not “you may use it”, but truly his.
And if he messes up, it’s his mess. No switch someone else can flip. No hotline. No “we are reviewing this”.
You laugh quietly. It sounds almost banal.
And at the same time, radical.
Later, at home, you look it up. Not as an investor. Not as a tech enthusiast.
More like someone testing whether a key fits a lock.
You don’t feel excitement.
You feel calm.
When Ownership Brings Back Responsibility
A few days later, something small happens. A modest amount arrives. Nothing impressive.
But it’s just there. No waiting. No approval. No review.
No fireworks. No promises.
Just clarity.
And with that clarity, something returns that you hadn’t noticed was missing: dignity.
Not as a gift. But as a consequence of real ownership.
You realise: responsibility only makes sense where control exists. Where decisions are not simulated, but carried.
You go back to your daily life. The bank will still be polite. The forms will still ask for proof. The rules will still be framed as “adjustments”. None of that disappears.
But now you have a contrast.
A place that doesn’t try to protect you like a child, but treats you seriously as a human being.
The Realisation
Poverty is not the core problem.
Not even inequality.
The deeper issue is dependence without choice.
Systems that try to secure everything often remove everything from your hands.
And what you do not own, you cannot truly be responsible for.
Ownership is not a privilege of the wealthy.
It is the foundation that allows human beings to act with dignity.
And then the thought remains, calm and sharp at the same time:
Those who own nothing can have everything taken from them – even their dignity.
And those who are only allowed to use things will never truly be free.