Category Archives: World Events

A Time for Decadence

The Light

Last night, I watched Forbes Luxe 11: World’s Most Extravagant Meals.

It was circa 2009, a time when decadence was still in fashion, and people would stop at nothing to get the very best, and to live an extraordinary life (of course, to show off too).

Imagine, a $1,000 dollar pizza (with salmon roe, lobster, caviar), a $1,000 golden cake (literally made of gold, that is, 24 karat gold leaf), a $5,000 hamburger (with foie gras and a bottle of a really expensive wine), an executive chef cooking for you in the comfort of your own home ($10,000 for 10 people), taking a party (even a piano and a pianist, or a band!) high up into the sky (Dinner in the Sky, $50,000 – $100,000).

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Stopped Reading or Watching the News But Then the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Happened

Replanting, Rebuilding

I used to love reading newspapers.

It was in fact the highlight of my day.  I could not get enough of them, and would read not one but two or more of different newspapers.  And if I make it home before 7 at night, I would switch on the television and hungrily watch the news, letting it envelop me, allowing the visuals – grim or otherwise – to reiterate what I already know.

It is funny really – the way news would explore every avenue and have every possible slant and not stop until a news story is exhausted.  And I mean, exhausted.

But after some time, I realized – all the news I have been reading and watching, all that corruption and greed, all that plummeting of the stock market and political upheavals and the skyrocketing of gasoline prices – all of those would get me to a panic, and get me depressed.

I was engaged, involved, but depressed.

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