Wealth & Power

 One day, I spent time at a café with the team Chat Braille, and the conversation has remained with me long after the cups were cleared and everyone went home. Some meetings pass pleasantly and disappear. Others reveal something deeper about where a person stands in life. This gathering belonged to the second kind.

Team Chat Braille is not just a project group to me. It is a symbol of a turning point. We were the team that won the best prize in the software contest at KNOU in 2025, and even now I feel a certain disbelief when I think back on it. There are moments when a person senses that a line has been crossed. Before such a moment, one is merely interested in something. After it, one has evidence that interest can become reality. Chat Braille was one of those moments for me.

The project itself carried meaning beyond a competition result. Chat Braille was an embedded system built on Arduino for blind people. It aimed to provide a braille system for multiple languages linked to the ChatGPT translation system. In simple terms, it imagined a world in which language barriers for the visually impaired could be reduced through intelligent tools and physical devices working together. That combination mattered to me. It was not technology for spectacle. It was technology pointed toward human use.

Many professors at KNOU admired the project. I understood why. They did not praise it merely because it used popular technology. They recognized the broader possibility inside it. Traditional braille systems are often tied to specific language structures. But if AI could dynamically translate and adapt outputs according to the user’s language, then braille itself could become more flexible, more global, and more responsive. It suggested that old systems need not remain frozen simply because they are old. It also suggested that disability support could be transformed when intelligence becomes embedded in tools rather than locked inside institutions.

There was another meaning inside the project that I still find important: AI for all people. Much of the public discussion around technology revolves around productivity, convenience, profits, market competition, or entertainment. Those things are real, but they are incomplete. A civilization should also ask whether new tools widen dignity. Do they help those who have been overlooked? Do they reduce barriers for the disabled, the elderly, the isolated, the poor, the late starter, the ordinary person who lacks elite advantages? If the answer is yes, then technology carries moral value beyond economics.

Chat Braille touched that question. It was small in scale, but not small in implication. It pointed toward a future in which intelligent systems might become companions to human limitation rather than trophies for the already powerful.

While we were together today, one of the team members asked me a simple question: why did I choose to study computer science and walk the path of a developer?

I answered immediately: “Wealth and power.”

Everyone heard it as a joke, and I understood why. The phrase sounds theatrical, almost like something a villain would say in a movie. It is blunt, stripped of polite packaging. Most people would answer with safer words: curiosity, passion, innovation, dreams, contribution, lifelong learning. Those answers are not necessarily false, but they are often incomplete. My answer sounded humorous because it was too direct.

Yet I was serious.

I have been thinking all evening about why that answer came out so naturally. Perhaps because I have reached an age where I am less interested in decorative language. A person can hide motives beneath noble vocabulary for many years. But eventually honesty becomes simpler.

When I said wealth and power, I did not mean greed in the childish sense. I did not just mean yachts, vanity, domination, or typical cruelty. I meant something deeper and more structural. Wealth is stored freedom. Power is the ability to shape reality. Those two forces, when rightly understood, determine much of what individuals and societies can actually do.

People who dismiss wealth often do so because they confuse it with vulgar consumption. But wealth at its core is optionality. It is the capacity to choose without constant fear. It is the ability to endure bad seasons, support family, invest in growth, and refuse humiliating dependence. It is time protected from desperation. It is leverage over circumstances that would otherwise command you.

A public school teacher understands this acutely. Teaching can be meaningful, honorable, and socially necessary work. Yet many teachers also understand the limits of relying entirely on salary structures and institutions. One may contribute greatly while remaining constrained financially. One may work hard while watching inflation erode gains. One may carry responsibility without corresponding autonomy. To desire wealth in such a context is not shameful. It can be rational.

Likewise, power is often misunderstood because people equate it only with political manipulation or coercion. But power in its broader form means capacity. It means being able to make things happen. It means possessing knowledge, networks, tools, reputation, capital, and competence sufficient to move the world around you, even if only in a small radius.

A powerless person may have good intentions and yet remain trapped. A powerful person can translate intention into effect.

Why computer science, then? Because in this century, computer science is one of the most direct roads toward both wealth and power.

Software scales. Code written once can be used millions of times. A tool built by a small group can influence continents. A platform created in one room can reorganize industries. Even those who never found giant companies can use technical knowledge to gain income mobility, geographic flexibility, entrepreneurial leverage, and strategic understanding of how modern systems function.

The old world was built around land, factories, inherited capital, bureaucratic rank, and physical infrastructure. The new world is increasingly built around information systems, networks, automation, data, and digital products. To study computer science is to study part of the operating logic of contemporary civilization.

This is why my earlier essays matter to this answer.

When I wrote about civilization shift, I was trying to describe how power is moving across the world and within society itself. I began not with China as a nation alone, but with the larger reality that industrial strength, technological capability, and political influence reshape global order. That essay was not merely geopolitical reflection. It was an attempt to understand where power now resides and where it is moving next.

If manufacturing strength can shake alliances, if AI can reshape labor, if digital platforms can influence elections and culture, then anyone who wishes to live consciously in this era must ask: where are the new sources of power? Computer science is one answer.

When I wrote about versatility and one-person business, I argued that AI changes entrepreneurship by allowing one capable person to perform functions once requiring many specialists. That essay was also about power, though I used a different vocabulary. A person who can design, code, market, analyze, and execute with the assistance of tools becomes less dependent on large institutions. That is power. A person who can generate income through independent products rather than one salary stream accumulates wealth potential. That is wealth.

Even my reflection on being an elementary school teacher connects here. Elementary teaching trains breadth: communication, management, emotional intelligence, multi-disciplinary thinking, patience, improvisation. These are valuable capacities. But breadth alone without leverage can become exhaustion. Breadth combined with technical leverage can become uncommon strength.

So when I answered “wealth and power,” I was summarizing years of reflection in two words.

I know some people prefer moral distance from such terms. They like to imagine themselves above worldly motives. But history suggests otherwise. People seek wealth and power constantly, only under different names. Security. Stability. Influence. Opportunity. Legacy. Freedom. Status. Independence. Voice. Protection. These are often branches growing from the same roots.

The danger lies not in acknowledging the desire, but in pursuing it blindly.

Wealth without ethics becomes predation. Power without restraint becomes tyranny. But poverty is not automatically virtuous, and powerlessness is not automatically noble. Many decent people suffer not because they are morally flawed, but because they lack leverage.

I think of disabled people using tools like Chat Braille. If intelligent devices help them access language more easily, is that not power? If families save time and resources through such tools, is that not wealth in a practical sense? Human flourishing often increases when people gain more capacity and fewer unnecessary barriers.

This is why I reject simplistic moral stories that romanticize weakness.

My own life has moved through several institutions: education, military structure, public service, writing, and technical study. Each taught me something about power.

The military teaches formal hierarchy, discipline, command chains, and the role of force in maintaining order. Public education teaches institutional endurance, bureaucratic complexity, and the long timelines through which societies reproduce themselves. Writing teaches symbolic power: words can persuade, frame, and inspire beyond physical presence. Technical study teaches system power: code, platforms, and automation can alter behavior at scale.

To live only inside one model of power is to misunderstand the world. Different domains produce different forms of leverage.

Yet wealth remains essential because it supports independence across domains. A person with no savings may know the truth yet be unable to speak it. A person drowning in debt may recognize opportunity yet be unable to seize it. A person living paycheck to paycheck may possess talent yet lack time to cultivate it. Wealth buys room for action.

This is another reason I study. Learning itself requires surplus. Attention, time, calm, books, devices, tuition, experiments, failures—all cost something. The poor often pay more for everything, including delayed growth.

Some hear ambition and immediately suspect corruption. But ambition can also be the refusal to remain unnecessarily small.

When I entered computer science, I did not do so because I believed coding was glamorous. Much of it is difficult, frustrating, technical, and often invisible. I did so because I recognized that modern power increasingly flows through technical systems. Those who cannot understand them risk becoming permanent users of worlds designed by others.

There is a difference between using tools and shaping tools.

Millions use software daily. Far fewer can build it, modify it, or strategically deploy it. That gap matters. It resembles the difference between living in a city and governing a city. Both inhabit the same environment, but one exercises greater agency.

I do not need to become a billionaire founder for this truth to matter. Even moderate technical competence can change a life. Better opportunities, side businesses, analytical ability, confidence, relevant networks, problem-solving habits—these are forms of return.

Today’s café conversation reminded me how far I have already come. There was a time when I belonged entirely to older professional categories. Teacher. Officer. Writer. Public employee. Those identities remain real, but they are no longer complete. Through Chat Braille and later efforts, I entered a different arena: creation through technology.

Winning the contest mattered less for prestige than for proof. We built something that people respected. Professors saw possibility in it. Our team moved from passive consumers of technology to active makers. That psychological transition is difficult to reverse once experienced.

It is one thing to read about innovation. It is another to participate in it.

And perhaps that is another hidden meaning of power: confidence earned through competence. A person who has built something real carries himself differently. Not arrogantly, ideally, but with a grounded sense that reality can be influenced through effort.

This differs from fantasy confidence, which depends on slogans. Real confidence comes from shipping, failing, revising, learning, and eventually succeeding at least sometimes.

I think again of the laughter after my answer. Wealth and power. It amused people because it violated social etiquette. But maybe polite society often asks dishonest questions and expects dishonest answers.

Why do people seek promotions? Why do nations compete in science? Why do families invest in education? Why do entrepreneurs endure sleepless years? Why do students study difficult subjects? Because resources and capacity matter.

The honest task is not to deny this, but to discipline it.

For me, disciplined wealth means building resources through value creation, not manipulation. It means increasing freedom while maintaining character. It means using gains to support family, future projects, learning, and resilience.

Disciplined power means becoming more capable without becoming cruel. It means influence joined to responsibility. It means being able to protect, build, decide, and contribute.

In that sense, teaching and computer science are not enemies in my life. Teaching reminds me of human stakes. Technology offers leverage. One keeps the soul connected to society. The other expands tools available to act within society.

This combination may become increasingly valuable in the future. The world does not only need brilliant coders detached from humanity, nor compassionate workers unable to scale solutions. It needs people who understand both systems and people.

Chat Braille represented exactly that union. Hardware and software joined to accessibility. Translation joined to tactile reading. Innovation joined to inclusion. It was not perfect, but it pointed in a worthy direction.

I also recognize another layer in my answer: class consciousness. Many middle-class professionals live respectable lives while remaining economically constrained. They may own credentials but not assets. They may possess status but not leverage. They may be admired yet replaceable. Technical entrepreneurship offers one possible route beyond that ceiling.

This does not guarantee success. Most ventures remain small or fail. But possibility itself has value. To have no route upward is demoralizing. To have a difficult route is better than none.

That is why I respect the one-person business model I wrote about earlier. It offers ordinary people a chance to convert skill into ownership. AI tools may accelerate this further. A teacher can build educational products. A nurse can build health communities. A craftsman can sell globally. A programmer can launch software from home. The map of opportunity broadens.

Of course, many will waste time chasing illusions. But some will build real things.

I hope to be among the latter.

As I walked home after the café meeting, I thought about how casually life-changing truths sometimes appear. A friend asks a question over coffee. You answer with two words. Everyone laughs. Yet beneath the laughter stands a serious philosophy of adulthood.

Wealth and power are not everything. Love, meaning, honor, friendship, health, and beauty matter greatly. But to pretend wealth and power do not matter is childish. They shape the conditions under which many other goods become easier or harder to sustain.

A loving family under crushing financial stress suffers differently than one with stability. Meaningful work without any autonomy can become burnout. Honor without capability can become helplessness.

Thus maturity may require integrating moral aims with material realism.

I think my former essays were all attempts to move toward that realism from different angles. Civilization shift examined where global power moves. Versatility and one-person business examined how individuals can adapt economically. Now wealth and power names the underlying motive more openly.

Not everyone will approve of such bluntness. That is fine. Approval has never built much.

What matters is whether I live the answer responsibly.

Can I continue public service while building private capability? Can I pursue wealth without worshipping it? Can I seek power without becoming vain? Can I use technical learning not only for myself but for people who need better tools, as Chat Braille tried to do?

Those are harder questions than the original one.

Yet I feel grateful for being asked at all. It means I am no longer merely drifting through inherited roles. Others can see that I have chosen a path requiring explanation.

I remain convinced that choosing computer science was wise. Not because it is fashionable, and not because it guarantees riches, but because it aligns with the structure of the age. It teaches how modern engines run. It creates opportunities for ownership. It sharpens thinking. It increases agency.

And yes, if pursued well, it may bring wealth and power.

I no longer feel the need to apologize for saying so.

The real apology would be to live timidly while knowing better, to hide ambition beneath false modesty, or to refuse growth because honesty sounds impolite.

So I will keep studying. Keep building. Keep teaching. Keep watching where civilization moves. Keep seeking ways to turn versatility into leverage and knowledge into creation.

If one day I gain meaningful wealth, I want it to be earned. If one day I gain real power, I want it to be useful.

Then those two dangerous words may prove not shameful at all, but properly understood.