Sometimes, escaping society's clutches becomes easier without inheritance. When you come from nothing, society's grip loosens. Less to lose, more freedom. No golden handcuffs. No preset routes. 

Wealth imprisons through sophisticated means. Golden handcuffs turn privilege into a prison. You get tangled up in what everyone expects, what you owe, and the calculus of what you'd lose by walking away. Try to color outside the lines, try to build something new instead of polishing what was handed down, and you realize the cost. 

Your kids will inherit the same beautiful cage. 

The family business is work, yes, but it's more than that. It's who you were before you were born. It carries the weight of dead men's dreams, through generations of sacrifice and ambition. When you meet your patriarchs, the money is already there between you, counting itself like a third presence in the room. 

A meaty inheritance haunts this relationship. And if you walk away from it, if you choose something else entirely, they see it as betrayal and ingratitude. You spit on what your grandfather built with his hands, what your father kept alive through the lean years and the fat ones, what was supposed to be yours by birthright. 

Meanwhile, those with less may discover new freedoms. 

The poor might reinvent without destroying legacy, risk without toppling empires built by previous generations, or announce unconventional life choices without facing a boardroom of disappointed relatives who invested everything in your predetermined future. 

But extreme poverty can constrain harshly, too. Through missing safety nets and blocked paths to education or opportunity. You can't ponder freedom versus conformity when you're worried about next week's rent. Daily hunger kills individuality. Basic necessities demand every decision, every thought, every moment of your day in a hand-to-mouth existence that leaves no room for dreams or rebellion or even the luxury of dissatisfaction with your lot. 

Perhaps both extremes impose their own cages. Some cages are made of gold. Some are made of hopes and dirt. The golden cage smothers with expectations. The barren one gnaws with hunger. Both make you forget who you are. Both make you smaller. 

People spend entire lives looking for the key. They check their pockets. They search under stones. They ask strangers on trains. But there is none. And i'm so bored, so goddamn bored of pretending to be philosophical about your suffering when what i really want is to grab you by the shoulders and shake you until you understand that the door was never locked, that you've been rattling an open gate this whole time, that your grandfather knew it and your father knew it and they let you believe in keys anyway because what else were they supposed to do with their own terror? 

So, the cage is just something you will agree to live inside, day after day, until you can't remember what the sky looked like without bars across it, until the bars themselves become as familiar as your own reflection.