Elon Musk and Working Class Viraha

Elon Musk

I’ve found myself going back and forth on Elon Musk over the past couple of years, genuinely trying to understand his perspective and the vision behind what he’s building.

But I keep coming back to a question that I can’t shake.

When did we collectively decide that a single person—or a handful of companies—could reshape our shared environment? The sky, low Earth orbit, the atmosphere above us… these don’t feel like things any one of us should effectively control simply because we have the resources to do so.

We can now send private objects to the Moon. Thousands of satellites orbit overhead. Human ingenuity is incredible, and I genuinely admire what we’ve achieved technologically.

At the same time, I struggle with the contrast. So many people still lack stable housing, clean water, healthcare, and basic security.

Progress is important. Exploration is important. But I hope we keep asking who benefits, who bears the costs, and how decisions about our shared world are being made.

These aren’t questions about one person. They’re questions about what kind of future we want to build together.

Working Class Viraha in Conversation

I actually understand what you’re saying, and I think we’re closer in our thinking than it might seem. One small thing I’d offer, though, is to be careful with words like “rigged.” Negating or absolute words can sometimes lead people off the path of understanding because they get fixated on that one word and start arguing over whether the system is “rigged,” rather than engaging with the larger question underneath it. Sometimes diction matters because a single word can become a distraction from the point.

I also completely understand the feeling of not wanting to work for or participate in something you don’t believe in. I’m working class right now, and I feel that contradiction pretty deeply. We spend so much of our lives working within systems we may not actually believe in, and then we’re told that our personal security depends on investing in those systems, contributing to them, and essentially playing along with them.

I don’t particularly care for privilege, and I don’t think capitalism is a system I’m particularly interested in defending either. But I also understand why people participate in it: we need housing, food, healthcare, security, and stability. It’s difficult to simply opt out when survival itself has been tied to participation.

That’s why I think the deeper question is more interesting than whether capitalism is “rigged” or not. What kind of system would allow people to live securely without requiring them to participate in something fundamentally contrary to their values?

That’s the conversation I’m trying to have. Not Elon vs. us, or even capitalism vs. socialism, but what kind of world we actually want to build—and who gets a voice in building it.

Viraha Definition

The Sanskrit word for the sacred ache of separation. Not mere longing. Not ordinary grief.

The searing space between presence and absence— where the soul burns for the Beloved and the burning itself becomes the highest form of love.

In the bhakti traditions it is exalted above union. Radha’s tears for Krishna. The reed flute’s cry after it was cut from the bed. The wound that does not heal because healing would end the song.

Other languages circle the same fire: sehnsucht — the German inconsolable yearning for what was never fully here. saudade — the Portuguese bittersweet remembering of what is gone. pothos — the Greek pull toward the unattainable.

But viraha carries the weight of the sacred most purely.
It names the holy ache that is not a problem to solve but a path to walk.
The empty that draws.
The absence that makes the heart a temple.

A combo of ChatGPT & Grok prompting on 08072026