Looking at the Cloud servers. -- Image by Владимир from Pixabay
A Modern Retelling of "The Rich Fool"
Ethan Alvarez was crushing it. At 34, he'd sold his startup to a bigger fish in Silicon Valley for a cool $40 million. Now he worked from his smart-home loft in San Francisco, sipping single-origin coffee while watching his stock tickers glow green on three monitors.
But Ethan had a problem — not enough space. Not in his loft, but in his cloud. His Google Drive, his Dropbox, and even his encrypted hard drives were maxed out. "I'll build bigger storage," he told himself. He upgraded to enterprise plans, bought servers, and even rented a warehouse full of racks to hold his "digital empire."
One night, leaning back in his $5,000 ergonomic chair, Ethan smiled at the rows of blinking servers. "I've got room for data for decades now. I'll take it easy now — eat, drink, binge prestige TV, listen to the servers hum, and watch all the mesmerizing blinking green lights. I have got it made."
But as the humming machines kept churning, an alert popped up on his screen he didn't expect: a doctor's email, test results flagged urgent. Ethan had ignored the symptoms for months, too busy building bigger barns for his bytes.
The irony hit hard. He spent his life storing up more and more — and never stopped to ask what it was for.
Because in the end, what good are servers full of treasure if you never learn how to live?
The servers are gone, the warehouses are empty, the ergonomic chair and the loft are sold. Somewhere hidden in the middle of the ghostly cemetery is a headstone. Headstones have a birth date and a death date; between them is the dash. The dash represents the life they have lived. On Ethan's headstone, there is not a dash, but a green dot.
Based on Luke 12:16-21
Synopsis:
In the parable of the rich fool, Jesus tells of a man who built bigger barns to store his crops but never considered that life itself could end that night. The lesson: wealth and possessions can't guarantee security. True wisdom is being "rich toward God" — investing in what lasts, not just what stacks up.
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