Member-only story
Abundance creates abundance
Why everything arrives at the door of the person who looks like they don’t need it
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Do you know what street musicians do? They put a few bills in the guitar case before they start playing. Because an empty case repels money and a case with something already in it attracts more. People don’t want to be first. They want to join something that’s already working. A bartender told me the same thing about the tip jar once. You seed it. Always. An empty jar stays empty. A jar with a five in it fills by midnight.
That’s a trick, of course, but also a law wearing a disguise.
The sociologist Robert Merton named this the Matthew Effect in 1968, after a line in the Gospel of Matthew:
“To those who have, more will be given.”
He was documenting a pattern he kept finding in academic publishing. Scientists who already had recognition got disproportionately more credit for collaborative work. Same paper, same research — the famous name absorbed the attention. Just because attention flows toward where attention already exists. It pools. Like water finding low ground.
