The Rich just Have More Fun
“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”
-Henry Thoreau
Back in 2022, I spent a half a year as a writer for the luxury magazine startup based out of Miami Beach, Florida, called Private Key Magazine. The articles covered lifestyles of the rich including motorcycles, yachts, $50 million dollar apartments, cars the average person would mistaken as an alien spaceship encounter; exotic trip destinations that would make some all-inclusive resort trips for Jane and Joe seem like swimming in a warm mud puddle on a summer’s day in Hunt’s Point; I covered high end cigars, watches, art and other miraculous and grossly expensive wonders that you and me would only be allowed to admire through 5-inch bullet proof glass.
It was an exciting time, everyday brought new and interesting toys and magical locations that make the rich remember they are different than you. You might try and dress like them, talk like them, attend the same social events, but you are not a member of the club. Not even close. They can see through you like a sheet of rice paper.
I learned a lot about human behavior studying the ultra-rich. Writing those articles was some of the most fun I’ve had as a journalist. That’s when I realized the rich were a different species. And I’m not talking about a golden retriever to a Doberman. I mean Tyrannosaurs Rex to a slug on rock. The difference is that vast.
I was part of the publication of one issue and we put out a great issue. It’s a great read. One of the pieces of “art” that I wrote a feature piece on was a conceptual work consisting of a Banana duck-taped to a white wall. The work was titled “Comedian,” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattela. Back then, it was gaining attention but still more of a whimsical piece viewers would be able to gawk at during Art Basel in Miami Beach. However, the piece of “art” became a sensation. I had just recently gotten back from Miami Beach where I watched them working on the construction and organization of the convention center. It was a big deal. Art from around the world would be exhibited.
Art Basel in Miami is where the rich and famous can rub elbows and be seen without too much hassle from the ordinary Chad and Karen crowd, videoing them for Instagram and trying to pretend they belong. At these events there are people with good connections that are able to get inside but you don’t need a trained eye to pick out the posers from the real rich. The rich even eat differently, they chew clockwise and the rabble counter clockwise. They walk with the purpose of knowing they are better than you. You walk with a flex. It’s just different. You have second-hand name brand attire that has been worn. They bought their outfits new that morning, and they’ll probably only wear them once.
On November 20, 2024, the “Comedian” went to auction with experts ascertaining that it might sell, if the banana was organic, for at least $15-$20. The art world was astounded and a few art purists vomited in their mouths when founder of cryptocurrency platform TRON, Justin Sun, decided to make art history, or agricultural history by purchasing this piece for $6.2 million.
I laughed when I first saw the article in the New York Post. It was a nervous laugh. I thought about taping a string bean to a large canvas and calling it string theory. But Sun was laughing at me. The news of this preposterous sale made me feel more on edge than when Dak Prescott was given $60 million per year to sit on the bench without ever having won a single playoff game. I realized afterwards that I was the fool.
Sun was asked what he was going to do with the piece of “art,” and he said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I’m going to eat it.”
Later, at a press conference at The Peninsula Hotel in the Tsim Sha Tsui, the Miami Beach of Hong Kong, Sun peeled off the tape and ate the banana. You and me would have just stared and cringed at the sound of him eating it. The rich though, they saluted. Their pulses raced and lightening bolts of energy, excitement, and envy exploded within them more powerful than a drawn out orgasm.
As you can imagine, I was vexed by this awkward sale, fondling the idea over and over in my mind for hours. A piece of “art,” that was destined to end up in the sewer system. I can name plenty of pieces of art that deserve to be in the sewer, what part of the puzzle was I missing? I knew at that moment I would never be part of the in-crowd. Am I jealous of Cattela? It’s a question I have since I asked myself. However, I’d have to understand it all to be able to be envious.
It then occurred to me, the rich just have more fun. Nothing wrong with that. What doesn’t make sense to the average schmeck walking around complaining about a .50 cents increase in the price of Froot Loops is the answer. I can’t think of anything more exhilarating and fun than dropping north of $6 million on a banana. Nowadays with the ridiculous salaries of professional athletes, and unearned bonuses enjoyed by Wall Street hipsters paid for risking “other people’s money,” and the cost of things like olive oil worth as much as a Mont Blanc fountain pen, the value of the dollar is hard to put into perspective and large numbers are thrown around like blondes at fraternity parties.
To give you normal people (this journalist included) a little context, if you work a normal job consisting of 2,080 work hours per year and earn $6.2 million dollars you essentially make $119,230 per 40-hour work week which translates to $2,980 per hour. $6.2 million can get you 2.39 Ferrari F40s or, for the normal people, 219 Honda Accords.
It occurred to me reading that New York Post article of the banana being sold for more than my life is worth, I’ll never truly understand the world. I understand work, where a dollar comes from, but not what it is worth. Dollar bills have no real set value. It is a hard concept for the average worker to wrap their head around. Everyone wants to think they are in control of their own lives. You’re not though, not unless you are one of the super rich. Everyone else is a spoke in a giant wheel that is forever spinning.
Whenever you feel angry and hostile at the rich, don’t be. You are wasting your energy because they aren’t concerned with your opinion of them. They are too busy thinking, working, planning and playing with their toys that are more fun than your toys. It’s nothing personal. They just figured it out. They are smarter, more disciplined, luckier, have better work ethics and the only way to get that chip off your shoulder is to become one of them.
Chung Ju-yung, founder of Hyundai told the story of how he was inspired to succeed by studying the behavior of bedbugs. What is interesting is that if you adopt their drive, discipline, and ability to think outside the box and never quit, you can do the impossible. Maybe even despite being average, you can become one of the super rich.
Ju-yung was living in a 700 square-foot house with about 20 family members. And you think your life is hard? Every night, the bedbugs would torment them. They tried everything to combat the bugs. They even started taking turns sleeping on a dining room table but the bed bugs would climb up the legs of the table. They then put the legs of the table in pots of water and that helped for a few days as the bedbugs would drown in the water. Surprisingly after a while the bugs once again, continued to bite the people sleeping on the table and frustrated and confused, they wondered how is was possible?
One night they decided to watch and see how the bedbugs were able to maneuver around the water. They watched the bedbugs climb the walls, travel along the ceiling and drop down onto the sleeping person. The bedbugs literally thought it out and found a way to achieve their goal- succeeding at all costs instead of giving up because of setbacks. They figured out how to get to the sleeping person. Ju-yung realized that anything is possible if you set your mind to it and don’t settle because of a few failures.
That is the difference between you and the super rich. They are the bedbugs and you are the worker sleeping on the table.
