Uber-Wealthy Word Economy

Arianna Huffington and others have aptly remarked on the fact that our growing cadre of billionaires face rising challenges when it comes to gifts. Well, let's clarify that. There's no end to the possibilities of their giving (and I seriously and sincerely laud the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).

What to get you favorite billionaire?

Hmmm. As noted in The Wall Street Journal: A Triton submarine? Jewels? flashy cars?

How about a commissioned biography for $30,000?

Presumably, said bio would praise its subject lavishly.

There's a more economical yet spiritually enhancing (as well as more capitalistic, for me at least) alternative:

I hereby present this special billionaire's offer:

Haiku for You.

A bargain at $1,700 apiece.

A hundred bucks per syllable.

(But think of all the free enlightement!)

Not Craig's List

If you have $1.3 billion in your pocket, join the club,

The Forbes 400.

Square-jawed speech not needed anymore. Just cash, not class.

Paper Chase

"There's so much

money going places

only money knows."

Bob Hicok

in

This Clumsy Living

I usually keep my money crumpled up or folded, with notes to myself, unlike Walt Whitman's songs to himself. I can't remember when I last put money in my wallet. Too bulky. The weight of wealth. The color of money: faded.


No doubt about it. Money goes to money, sticks with it, rubs elbows, holds pinkies out, makes conscience-salving donations, runs from poverty. Just watch the suits and the minks at the latest symphony fund raiser for the downtrodden.

The Well of Wealth

"Wealth has never been a sufficient source of honor in itself. It must be advertised, and the normal medium is obtrusively expensive goods."

John Kenneth Galbraith



Top 10 money drains

Anxiety's Seeking

In his Christian Discourses, Etc., the Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard has a chapter entitled "The Anxieties of Self-Torment." It's a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. He leads off the chapter with the verse from Matthew: "Be not therefore anxious for the morrow-- after all such things do the heathen seek." The kicker is this: In essence, Kierkegaard says you're greedy if you worry beyond the day. (Okay, okay, covetous is a shade different.) He declares that one who trusts in the care of a Higher Power [no, no, you're absolutely correct; he says "the Christian"] does not have this anxiety.

Kierkegaard writes:

"Every day shall have its worry, that is to say, take care to be free from the next day's worry, accept tranquilly and gratefully the worry of today....for every day has enough of its worries. In this respect also God provides: He measures out the amount of worry which is enough for every day, so take no more than what is measured out, which is exactly enough; to be anxious for the next day is covetousness." [Walter Lowrie translation]

This profoundly touched me when I first read it, around 1979 or 1980. It struck me how radically useless it is not to live in the day, "this very day," as Kierkegaard terms it. For me, personally [forgive the tautology], I used to go with "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die!" But it was a cry of desperation and despair. Today I say the same words out of gratitude and celebration, somehow infinitely different--which I am explaining very poorly.

Consequently, I have an "I Leap for Kierkegaard" sticker on my car, albeit a faded one.

Golden Treadmill Parachutes

It used to be called the rat race. Now, for these millionaires, the term is the golden treadmill.

The Golden Calf Treadmill.

The Golden Calf Treadmill of Leaden Albatrosses on Mount Suburbia.

The Golden Calf Treadmill Rat Race of Leaden Albatross Anxious Dreams on Mount Suburbia.


Parachutes for Sale.