Never EnoughAndrew Wilkinson

Quo vadis, anima mea? (Where are you going, my soul?) Ad astra, ad astra... (To the stars, to the stars...) Quis est numerus tuus? (What is your number?) Duplum... semper duplum... (Double... always double...) ETIAMNE SATIS EST?! (IS IT EVER ENOUGH?!) Yeah. I was born with a calculator for a heart, every pulse a transaction, A subtraction, a fractional dissatisfaction. Chasing a ghost in a machine, a decimal point dream, Stitching together a fortune but tearing apart at the seam. My ambition’s an algorithm, it never sleeps, it just iterates, Recalculates the deficit, then calmly re-litigates Every choice I ever made on the path to this glass tower, Every sacrificed second for another phantom hour. I came up on a hunger for a life I'd only seen through a screen, A pixelated paradise, a pornographic, green- lit scene of excess, a protest to the tension Of a childhood spent in a different financial dimension. Quo vadis, anima mea? (Where are you going, my soul?) Ad astra, ad astra... (To the stars, to the stars...) They ask me "What's the number?" like it's some kinda holy grail, The master key to cancel out the quiet, constant wail Of inadequacy, the engine of the whole damn chase, A finish line they keep moving all over the place. From a hundred to a thousand, a thousand to a mil, The appetite's a monster that you can't ever fill. You climb the ladder just to find the ladder keeps on growing, The only thing you're sure of is the wind that keeps on blowing You further from the shore, from the kid you were before, The one who only wanted what was on the other side of the door. Now the door is gone, there's only open space, a vacuum I can't stand, With a number-shaped hole burned right into the palm of my hand. It was never 'bout the commas... it was always 'bout the cage, Just trying to buy my freedom, turning another empty page. So what's my number? It’s a phantom, it's a fraud, it's a lie. It's the echo of "more" when you ask your own reflection "why?"

Porcelain composure, a polished pantomime, I'm running diagnostics on the currency of time. A textbook execution of a smile that isn't mine, A low-res JPEG copy of a life that's so sublime. I catalog their artifacts, their heirlooms, their resorts, And stitch a borrowed narrative from their annual reports. My accent is an acquisition, my posture's an impostor, I'm a self-appointed scholar on a borrowed-money roster. Harmony swells, then glitches and distorts We're just ghosts in their garden, we're weeds in their lawn, We're chasing a sun that was already gone. We're building a life on a beautiful lie, With a borrowed reflection in a dead man's eye. I memorize the family crests, the passive-income psalms, And hide the frantic frequency inside my sweaty palms. Their lineage is listed stock, their history's an asset, Mine's a half-told eulogy I haven't written past it. My Winners-brand bravado is my only coat of arms, My shield against the gravity of their financial charms. A cheap translation of their blue-blood pedigree, This whole damn performance is my only currency. I'm a guest star in their memories, a footnote in their book, Just trying to reverse-engineer the way their future looks. We're just ghosts in their garden, weeds in their lawn, Chasing a sun that was already gone. Building a life on a beautiful lie, With a borrowed reflection in a dead man's eye. He never made the dinner. Too much work on his plate. She stretched the dollar till it snapped under the weight. I'd sit on the landing... a silent, little referee... Just praying for a bigger number to come and set us free. Was I... wrong?

Fifteen years old in a suburban haze, Running Macteens through a dial-up maze. UPS man knocking, he knows my first name, Another review unit, playing the press game. Got a backstage pass to the digital zoo, Front row seats to see the shiny and the new. The world was a system, and I knew the master code, Watching an empire from my humble abode. (Yeah!) I'm a legend in my own zip code. (Alright!) Got the whole world on a light-speed download. Yeah, you can see it in my eyes, Living on rumors and industry lies, And it feels so good, Yeah, it feels so right. Flew to New York, paid my father's way, A teenage tycoon with something to say. Got the email back from the big machine, Said "No interview, but you can see the SoHo scene." Walked up to the storefront, a nervous little nod, And then a black turtleneck steps out, and it's... god. Shaking hands with a ghost from a magazine page, Standing in the spotlight on a global stage. (Yeah!) I'm a legend in my own zip code. (Alright!) Got the whole world on a light-speed download. Yeah, you can see it in my eyes, Living on rumors and industry lies, And it feels so good, Yeah, it feels so right. He asked about the iMac, I talked about the glass, Told him his design choices had a different kind of class. He humored the questions from a kid playing grown, In that moment, I felt a future that was all my own. Yeah, all my own... (Yeah!) I'm a legend in my own zip code. (Alright!) Got the whole world on a light-speed download. Yeah, you can see it in my eyes, Living on rumors and industry lies, And it feels so good, Yeah, it feels so right.

Landed in Toronto with two boxes and a plan, Gonna be the next great, the intrepid news-man. Professors quoting Woodward, talking 'bout the Golden Age, While I'm scrolling through a blog post on a different kind of page. They're teaching print formatting, they're preaching from the past, Like guys developing a photograph while the future's coming fast. They're sharpening their pencils for a world that's already dead, I got a head full of the internet... and a stomach full of dread. [Chorus] This is the sound of a dying machine, A lecture hall painted in institutional green. I am a film student in a digital scene, And the dream... the dream is obsolete. They talk of Life magazine, of mastheads and of might, I see a terminal illness bathed in fluorescent light. This whole damn industry is holding on by a thread, And every single textbook that we're assigned has not been read... By anyone who matters, by anyone who's real, They're teaching us a language that nobody's gonna feel. I'm training for a battle that was over years ago, The only thing they're building here's a terminal "I told you so." This is the sound of a dying machine, A lecture hall painted in institutional green. I am a film student in a digital scene, And the dream... the dream is obsolete. There is no future here. There is no future here. There is no...

Steam wand hisses, a serpent's song, Wipe the counter where the lost belong. The day unfolds in shades of steam and steel, A meditation on a life that isn't real. Each latte's heart a fleeting, fragile art, A ritual performed to play a part. This repetition is a prayer I didn't choose, A penance paid for dreaming I could lose. But then the glimpse arrives, A crack in the sky where the future thrives! A signal through the drone, a flicker on the screen, A vision of the ghost inside the new machine! Two gods arrive on a different-colored sound, Speaking dialects on holy, digital ground. Their keyboards chatter, a code I can't decode, Planting server farms along a brand new road. They order flat whites, talk of IPOs and seed, And water all the gardens of my secret, dormant greed. Their world is scalable, a network and a name, While I'm just polishing the chrome around a dying flame. And oh, the glimpse arrives, A crack in the sky where the future thrives! A signal through the drone, a flicker on the screen, A vision of the ghost inside the new machine! I see the path... it's paved with light, not with stone... Their language is a logic... mine is only bone... I want to live inside their signal... not just hear the drone... I need a life... my own... my own... And oh, the glimpse arrives! A fire in the sky where my own future thrives! This signal through the drone is the only truth I've seen! I'll be the ghost that builds the new machine!

[Verse 1] Woke up this morning, and the phone was buzzing, A quiet little song for my digital dozen... cousins. Yeah, an intern and some code we wrote on a whim, A barnacle we fastened to the whale's big fin. He said, "Build us a template, a skin for the machine," So we built them five façades, a digital pristine... dream. Just a week of late nights, fueled on coffee and on doubt, Then we flipped the switch to "live"... and let the ghosts all out. [Chorus] And the money just arrives now, a river made of code, From a digital gold mine on a forgotten road. I'm making profits in my pajamas, a king without a throne, Yeah, the money just arrives now, while I'm sitting here... alone. [Verse 2] No meetings and no handshakes, no frantic conference calls, Just a sales notification bouncing off my bedroom walls. Tesla uses our theme now, the Lakers and the rest, A little piece of software that is passing every test. It replicates a million times, a fractal made of gold, A single story that gets automatically retold. This is the cheat code, the life hack, the passive-income hum, For every bit of work I did, a thousandfold will come. [Chorus] And the money just arrives now, a river made of code, From a digital gold mine on a forgotten road. I'm making profits in my pajamas, a king without a throne, Yeah, the money just arrives now, while I'm sitting here... alone. [Bridge] This isn't work. This is magic. I built a ghost that pays my rent. A beautiful, benevolent ghost... ...Is this what it feels like? ...To have enough? [Outro] ...Profits in my pajamas... ...A river made of code...

Mon beau château de cartes... (My beautiful castle of cards...) Le vent se lève... (The wind is rising...) Yeah, the string quartet is silenced by the sirens! The ivory tower's shuddering from financial violence! Woke up from a daydream of dividends and trust, Now I'm back inside the nightmare, where the metal turns to rust. The profit margin's bleeding, a slow and steady drain, Got a flowchart for a future that's circling the drain. They told me "only paranoid survive," a motto I once held, But paranoia doesn't pay the bills when your whole story's shelled! From passive-income prophet to a desperate street chemist! This ain't a market correction, this is psychological blemish! Yeah, I'm photoshopping futures! I'm financing the fear! This is the ugly, boring truth of how we end up here! I'm checking bank statements like a man possessed, a frantic kind of prayer, Looking for a single comma that is simply no longer there. My safety net was made of numbers, a theory I believed, Now the only math that matters is the lies that I've conceived To keep the lights on for another 24-hour run, To face the new day's damage when the damage is never done. I traded all my leverage for a single, losing hand, A low-rent Sisyphus in a god-forsaken land. From passive-income prophet to a desperate street chemist! This ain't a market correction, this is psychological blemish! Yeah, I'm photoshopping futures! I'm financing the fear! This is the ugly, boring truth of how we end up here! Uncle told me... "Don't sell now..." (Worst time) "Hold the line..." (Bad advice) But he ain't the one staring at the bottom of the page... He ain't the one locked inside this gilded, empty cage... Hair follicles... Potatoes... The architecture... of the broke...

He spoke in mantras of the market... a zen-like discipline... Showed me the path to profit, cleansed me of my financial sin. His smile was a tidy garden, his advice a polished stone, He was a master architect designing a new throne. I was a student to his teachings, a convert to his calm, Holding every word he spoke like a sacred, holy balm. A perfect porcelain mentor... but there's a hairline crack I feel... A whisper in the silence... a dread that feels too real... He's my guide... through the shadows of the doubt, He knows the secret scripture that I cannot live without. He's my guide... he'll keep the wolves at bay... ...or will he show the wolves the way? That smile's a mask for a sickness! that calm's a cold-blooded guile! Check the God-blessed hotel bills! check the expense report file! Yeah, "pay the inspector's graft!" - a casual slack inscription! He was writing up my eulogy and selling the subscription! He's a shark in a cashmere sweater, a viper in a suit! He was planting poison ivy at my garden's very root! Yeah, he thought i was the grandma, a problem to remove, But he forgot this is my house and I make the final move! He's a ghost! a hungry demon! a calculating, smiling, financial heathen! He's a ghost! He's in the water! He thought I was a lamb being led to the slaughter! This is war! This is war! get the lawyers, lock the door! This is war! This is war! settle the god-blessed score!

Yeah. I was searching for a cheat code, a complex system hack, Trapped inside a labyrinth with no way of turning back. My prophets wore sharp suits and spoke in future-tense commands, But they built my whole foundation on a shifting bed of sand. The crash was not a whisper, it was a clarifying sound, A screech of burning metal as my theories hit the ground. I woke up in the wreckage, with a silence in my soul, And found a dusty paperback that claimed to make me whole. Heard a voice from the plains, simple and slow, Said, "The harvest only comes if you give the seeds time to grow." It ain't about the speed, son, it ain't about the hustle's art, It's about the patient rhythm of a calm and steady heart. He's buying up the railroads, the candy shops, the pop, While I was chasing phantom trends I thought would never stop. He's building out a castle with a moat a mile wide, I was just decorating prisons that I built for me inside. He says, "The best move is no move," just sit and watch the game, While I was burning all my energy just screaming out my name. It’s a different kind of currency, a different kind of wealth, It’s the quiet satisfaction of just knowing your own self. Heard a voice from the plains, simple and slow, Said, "The harvest only comes if you give the seeds time to grow." It ain't about the speed, son, it ain't about the hustle's art, It's about the patient rhythm of a calm and steady heart. So I'm selling all my paranoia... Trading my anxiety for grace... Learning that the only kingdom worth the building... Is the quiet of your own time... and your own space. Yeah. Finding my own pace. Yeah... that patient rhythm... Oh, a steady heart... Just let the seeds grow... Just let 'em grow...

The inventor had a calm in his old eyes, A look that said, "My treasure isn't tied to market size." He spoke of physics, of airflow, of a pressure he could prove, While I was calculating multiples, planning my next move. He lived inside the beauty of a simple, perfect thing, I lived inside a spreadsheet, and the chaos it could bring. He named a number that felt more like myth than it did math, A casual apocalypse upon a well-worn garden path. And the contract ink was blacker than the coffee that it bought, A transaction for a feeling that I'd only ever sought. I'm standing in my kitchen now, in the quiet of the dawn, Holding seventy-million dollars... and a feeling that is gone. The house has too much silence, the security's a ghost, My own reflection in the chrome is who I fear the most. I’m paying for a life that I don't have the time to live, I have nothing left to ask for, and nothing left to give. This plastic tube is honest, it does just what it says, It frees the hidden flavor from the prison of the dred...ges. I bought it for the simple truth that it was said to hold, A perfect cup of clarity... for a story getting old. And the contract ink was blacker than the coffee that it bought, A transaction for a feeling that I'd only ever sought. I'm standing in my kitchen now, in the quiet of the dawn, Holding seventy-million dollars... and a feeling that is gone. Is this the top? This cold and quiet peak? Where the silence is so heavy... You can barely even speak... You can have everything... and it's not enough... Is it just a different kind of "not enough"?

Hey... Brent. Speaking from the echo chamber. Remember the steakhouse? A sermon on my anger. You laid out all the numbers from a ledger I ignored, I was hoarding all the treasure while you fought a losing war. I told myself I took the risk, I carried all the weight, A self-deceiving gospel to justify my plate... being full. You weren't wrong, you saw the game for what it was, a flaw, Just an early-stage disciple of a broken, cosmic law. Maybe I'm an asshole... maybe that's the final truth, Just a frightened, hungry kid still wasting all his youth. In this cathedral of my ego, the stained-glass starts to break, For every perfect garden I built upon your back... and for goodness sake. Hey... Liam. The intern king. You built a perfect engine, made the whole damn business sing. And when the gray-haired suits arrived, with a scalpel and a smile, I just looked the other way, and I let you bleed a while. Said "That's just business," a coward's final plea, The cost of my own comfort was your stolen legacy. I stood by like a statue, a monument to fear, Pretended I just couldn't see the writing that was clear... as a bell. Maybe I'm an asshole... maybe that's the final truth, Just a frightened, hungry kid still wasting all his youth. In this cathedral of my ego, the stained-glass starts to break, For every perfect garden I built upon your back... and for goodness sake. And to Luke, and to Ali... to all the ghosts I know... Who planted all the seeds but never got to see 'em grow... I got lost inside the numbers... the exit and the art... And forgot the simple rhythm... of a human... beating... heart.

Met a prophet in a coffee shop, a former circus clown, He'd built a paper kingdom then he burned the whole thing down. He said, "I traded all my stock reports for a single, simple plan, Became a refugee from the promised land of the money-making man." He told me 'bout the boat-burners, the point of no return, A lesson in addition that you first have to unlearn. He said, "Hell yeah! or it's a 'No!'" A fire in your gut is the only way to know! This ain't a dress rehearsal, it's the only show you get! So burn the boats behind you and live without regret! He put his future in a trust, for a song he hadn't sung, Gave away the fortune that around his neck had hung. Said, "I feel like I got sober in a room of desperate fiends, Who are all still chasing highs inside their broken, toxic dreams." He said the yardstick isn't useful once you're past the finish line, Now the only race worth running is the one that's truly mine. He said, "Hell yeah! or it's a 'No!'" A fire in your gut is the only way to know! This ain't a dress rehearsal, it's the only show you get! So burn the boats behind you and live without regret! You won your gold. Why run another heat? Just get yourself some new shoes... And walk down a different street... it's hell yeah! or it's a no! The fire in my gut is the only way I'll know! I'm burning every single boat I've ever built! I'm washing off the ache and I am dumping all the guilt! yeah!

The market's crashing on a screen across the hall, A silent, digital inferno, watching zeroes climb the wall... and then fall. I should feel a phantom limb, a pain where the money used to be, But all I feel is the weight of this cheap ceramic cup of tea. My legacy is vapor now, a ghost inside a wire, Just the dying, glitching embers of an old and foolish fire. And the punchline of the story, the truth I couldn't see, Is that the cage I built was freedom... and the prisoner was me. And my sons are in the kitchen, making kingdoms out of chairs, Their laughter's the only currency that settles my affairs. This whole time I was climbing, just to reach a higher plane, But heaven's just a quiet house... listening to the rain. And it's almost enough. It's almost... enough... It is... enough.