This 40 year old movie explains why most people never get ahead.
Labyrinth is undoubtedly my favourite movie of all time.
Despite this movie being on high rotation throughout my life, it wasn't until I watched it on the big screen for its 40th anniversary this year that it hit me differently. Over the last few years I have been lucky enough to fall down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Once you learn about Bitcoin, you also start to learn the truth about something we were never taught about, but affects every part of our lives: the financial system. As I enjoyed the music and the fantastical imagery, scenes started to appear to me as little snippets of decentralized wisdom. I could have honestly drawn comparisons with nearly every scene, but I'll limit it to just a few.
We start with our heroine Sarah, a teenage girl who, wanting to be left alone in her own whimsical world, gets frustrated at being asked (again) to babysit her baby brother, Toby. Overwhelmed with his crying she off handedly asks for him to be taken away by Jareth, the Goblin King.
Her careless wish is granted by him, and immediately Sarah is in regret. She has inadvertently entered into a contract that she does not understand and did not consent to with any comprehension. To me, entering into the fiat system is similar. We are either born into it without choosing, or do so with inattention to the details. And these details are purposely meant to be misunderstood.
The start of Sarah’s journey into the labyrinth begins with Jareth explaining to her that she has 13 hours to get to the castle to rescue her brother before he is turned into a goblin forever. It’s here she meets Hoggle, the first of her unlikely companions, a character that is not happy with his existence, but with lived experience and wisdom to navigate the system to the best of his ability and self-serving purposes.
Once Sarah has entered the walls of the labyrinth she walks on for what seems to be an endless amount of time without reaching any entries or turns. Giving up in a bout of frustration and exhaustion, she meets a little worm on the wall who informs her of an opening across from her that she didn't see.
“Things are not always what they seem in this place. So you can’t take anything for granted.” says the worm. Sarah expected a straightforward journey with normal outcomes, but as we know, like the financial world we find ourselves in, it truly is not as it seems. We can no longer simply save for our future, we are now expected to become full time investors with knowledge of rules that are unknown, complicated or just plain hidden.
Accepting that things in the labyrinth shouldn’t be taken for granted, Sarah continues on, keeping her eye open for opportunities that might not be as obvious. What she soon learns is that also, actually, the rules can be changed without notice, dead ends can mysteriously pop up and difficult riddles need solving before moving on to the next stage. This feels all too familiar to those of us who have wanted to move money, purchase bitcoin or even simply get cash out of the bank.
Eventually Sarah meets her second companion, a hairy and friendly creature called Ludo. Together they stumble upon a set of doors, each with a unique door knocker. One has a ring in his ears so he cannot hear clearly, the other with a ring in his mouth so that he can only mumble. These door knockers argue continuously, contradict each other and offer plain confusion. But Sarah has to pick one door to knock on if she wants to enter and move on. And that’s the key. These doors represent taking action, maybe on Bitcoin, or maybe for taking more accountability for your own finances. Most people get stuck at the door, scared to knock. But you have to enter. It’s only in the legacy banking system’s best interest for us to stay confused and fearful at the doors of opportunity.
To me, one of the most iconic scenes in the Labyrinth is when the limb-flinging Fireys appear in the forest and break into a frenetic song and dance for Sarah. Their energy is fast, aggressive and destructive. They live for the now, and could represent the parts of society that dwell in addiction, excess and pleasure above all else. Like their name, they burn through energy like most people burn through their money. This is essentially High Time Preference. If the energy (or currency) loses value quickly via inflation, money printing and corruption, then the result is that people want to use that energy up now, while they still can. Sarah opts out, and we can too, via Bitcoin. The Fireys chase and mock, but all Sarah has to do is choose a different path.
The Bog of Eternal Stench is one of those scenes where you just feel like you can smell it through the screen! The bog represents fiat decay. We all know it's happening, we know it's there and what's worse, we all just accept it as a normalised part of society. Even though the stench is so bad, we eventually all just acclimatise to the smell, or we’re told to just ignore it.
Some might say that the bog was always there, always decaying. Just like another bank bail out or bail in, currency debasement, inflation and un-repayable growing debt, it doesn't shock or surprise us anymore. That stench is our collective resignation.
Sarah's last friend to join her on this journey is Sir Didymus, a small terrier-like dog with knightly attributes. He has been assigned to not let anyone cross the bridge out of the bog, without his explicit permission. Sir Didymus is extremely loyal to the rules, and so never questions the status quo. A fight ensues with Ludo until eventually Sarah realises she can just ask him for permission, which he realises he has no reason not to grant. Sometimes the most obvious solutions are right in our face. Bitcoin is permission-less to use. You just have to decide for yourself to join a parallel financial world. Like Sarah, we need to cross that old and decaying fiat bridge out of the bog. It wasn't easy for Sarah, but with Ludo’s help calling his rock friends as stepping stones, it was possible. For us, those stepping stones look like the Bitcoin blockchain. Steady solid blocks, ordered and unmovable. A direct and stable path to a better money.
As our entourage gets closer to the castle, Jareth reminds Hoggle to give Sarah a poisoned peach to set her off course. One bite and Sarah finds herself floating in a bubble to a masked ball, surrounded by costumed attendees high in revelry. This scene shows Sarah confused and forgetful of why she is there. Her mission to set her brother free is sidetracked as she dances with Jareth, mindful though that something isn’t right. That confusion is prolific in our everyday lives as we engage in a shared cognitive fog just to survive in the financial system we find ourselves in. No wonder we distract from our true purposes and happiness with shallow entertainment, short term pleasures and meaningless relationships. Something gnaws at Sarah, (like it does for us all if we choose to listen) and she eventually breaks the spell of this baseless party and escapes.
Sarah falls out of the illusion of the masked ball and finds herself amongst a rubbish tip. A junk lady convinces Sarah that everything was just a horrible dream, and she finds herself in her bedroom. At first relieved that the nightmare is over, Sarah quickly learns that again, things are not what they seem. The junk lady enters and tries to convince her that all she was looking for were her prized possessions. Sarah is piled upon with different belongings, and the more that is added, the less she feels content. We have all felt that in this consumerism lifestyle, that just one more thing is what will make us feel good, fulfilled and gratified. But it never does, because material things can never fill an immaterial longing. The accumulation of stuff is what keeps us entrapped in the fiat world.
Following the battle at the Goblin City, we find our heroine on an interpretation of the stairs from the famous picture Relativity by Dutch artist M. C. Escher. Sarah sees her brother Toby on different levels, but no matter which way she goes, the gravity laws do not align to let her reach him. We also see Jareth here, defying the normal laws of physics, and Sarah, though she tries to move forward, continues to do so without progress. We can take this scene to directly explain how most people are feeling right now as they struggle to make ends meet. Earning more money does not cover the rise in costs and everyone is feeling the pressure of continually trying to swim upstream. Bitcoin offers us an alternative to save our earned energy and develop future wealth where the rules are set and can not change on us.
The final confrontation between Sarah and Jareth is a perfect example of the fiat system trying to convince us still that it loves us, cares for us and is all we need, as long as we do what we’re told. This is of course a lie, and one that more and more people are fortunately waking up to. This traditional financial system we live in only exists because the majority of the world believes in it. It is 100% based on faith and backed only by military power. When we start to outgrow the lies and then withdraw our belief in such a system, we realise we are free to exist in a different one. Sarah realises this and breaks the hold Jareth has over her when she says “You have no power over me.” She does not try to fight him, she simply rescinds her permission to be ruled. We do not have to fight the system, we can simply leave it for a better one.
Sarah's character does quite the redemptive arc from the start to the end. She starts out as a typical teenager, self absorbed, whiny and complaining of how life is not fair. Throughout her journey Sarah becomes more empathetic, resilient and responsible for herself. She realises that in fact, the system is not fair, but that's just how it is. Armed with this awareness, she can move forward and make better decisions for herself. In a way we are all Sarah, and once we take more self responsibility, we can exit this corrupt unfair fiat world.
The Labyrinth still exists, but with Bitcoin you don't have to exist in it.
