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If you want people to love you, maybe try not being horrible.

“My idea of revolution is of the search for individual happiness through collective happiness, which is the only just form of happiness.” This quote is attributed to Colombian author and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, taken from a collection called “The Last Interview.” There seems to be some argument that it really wasn’t his exact quote, but it’s a pretty good quote that pretty much sums up my feeling that true happiness for an individual is not possible in isolation but can instead be found inside the well-being and happiness of the whole family, the whole community, the whole of humanity. My star sign is Libra, it’s symbolized by a blindfolded Lady Justice holding a scale, and in my case at least, the scale is usually whacking up and down: I don’t do well with injustice.
Márquez’s quote led me to a contemplation of money and fairness. Stay with me here: I’m no mathematician, but I started thinking about Jeff Bezos’ wedding. Talk about swanky. He apparently spent about fifty million dollars on it. That is a big pile of money, wouldn’t you agree? Like SO much dough. But fifty million dollars out of his net worth, which is $237.5 BILLION, amounts to—literally—TWENTY-ONE THOUSANDTHS OF A PERCENT (aka .021 percent). If you break that percentage down to something that is easier to swallow for a regular human being—let’s say, the median salary of an American citizen, which is $61,984—the same .021 percent of that regular human’s net salary would come to thirteen dollars and five cents ($13.05). That is the scale. For Bezos, fifty million dollars is chump change. And his net worth is even chumpier when compared to Elon Musk’s, which is $487.3 billion, according to a Google search I made just this morning. It’s not up-to-date, of course, because he makes twenty-three million dollars every HOUR. Also, it seems Musk will soon cross into the unimaginable trillionaire zone: Twelve zeros.
In contrast, I’ve been immersed in this month’s article about the Fort Bragg Food Bank, along with doing design work for the Mendocino Coast Children’s Fund holiday mailing. Here we are, talking about helping people who live paycheck to paycheck, or have no paycheck, or who are unhoused, uninsured, or have problems many of us cannot begin to imagine, whose kids are sick, who are very old and are suddenly threatened with losing their food assistance, and/or who, even though they often work at multiple jobs, cannot keep up with fundamental living expenses. Can you imagine the pain of watching your family go hungry? In this country. Thank goodness (and thank the big hearts of the staff and volunteers who joyfully give their time and love at the literal lifelines that are our nonprofits)—Thank goodness, as I was saying, that we have these resources to help our most vulnerable children and families.
How far would fifty million dollars go if applied to other than a private island wedding of unimaginable excess and swankiness? Say to…the Fort Bragg Capital Improvement Budget (FBCIB)? The FBCI Budget covers a LOT of really great stuff. Our town is being run quite prudently, and good things are happening because of conscientious spending on things that bolster the well-being of the whole community. FBCIB covers thirty-eight projects that prioritize water infrastructure, broadband expansion, street rehabilitation, solar energy installations, and wastewater facility improvements, among lots of other upgrades that will last for decades. Do you have any idea how much of a budget is allocated for all these projects that will enhance the lives of the entire almost-seven-thousand folks that live in the city limit along with all the other folks who come to town from outside the limit, and tourist visitors, too? Thirty-seven point eight million dollars. That’s a dozen mil less than Bezos spent on his week-long extravaganza wedding for two hundred guests.
At the WSJ Magazine’s Innovator Awards ceremony in New York City on October 29, 2025, in her acceptance speech to the assembled glitterati, singer Billie Eilish announced her tour and fundraising efforts had raised over eleven million dollars to be given to The Changemaker Program, which focuses on alleviating hunger and mitigating climate change worldwide. She had the temerity to look her audience in the eye and ask, “If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?” Bezos was sitting right there. Mark Zuckerberg, too. His net worth is $257 billion and counting. “No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties,” the impertinent young whippersnapper suggested. Mark and Bezos did not clap along with the rest of the audience. But why not, I wonder? You can only eat so many fillet mignons, you can only wear so many Armani suits, you can only sail around in one yacht at a time. Is there ever a time when you ask yourself, Is this enough yet?
Oh people, I know I don’t come close to understanding that kind of wealth, but I do understand being poor, and the ratio seems to me astonishing. Lady Justice’s scale is teetertottering like a crazy metronome.
There is so much money around and there is so little money around.
The Mendocino Coast Children’s Fund is sending out their Winter Warmth fundraising letter and here we all are, sending them $25 or something to help them make hundreds of at-risk kids’ lives happier and less precarious. The Food Bank is stocking up because they are expecting a 15 percent increase in clients who need food assistance this year, after a 20 percent increase last year. So many other worthy, crucial organizations are working like mad to fill the gaps. Our country’s national debt is thirty-seven trillion dollars—a phantasmagorical number. And our tax dollars are being squandered on a menu that offers items nobody finds delicious. Military buildup, for one. Bailing out dictators, for another. Knocking down the White House, paying masked thugs to kidnap our neighbors off the streets and warehouse them in sadistic gulags, million-dollar golf excursions, giving billionaires a tax break—while food stamps and schools go begging and old people worry their Social Security could be at risk. The incongruity is vertiginous—are you dizzy, too? Something’s gotta give, and I sure hope it’s a revolution of leaders and billionaires waking up and dashing toward helping the world achieve a more just form of happiness. REALLY.