Beloved Free Baba Jimi in Cannes

The last 2 days, I’ve seen opulence I barely knew existed. Each afternoon, as we were picked up by our yacht tender, which takes us out to our yacht worth $7 million with a maintenance budget of $700,000 yearly, I saw much bigger yachts worth a lot more. Some of the owners were paying $50,000 a week berthing fees. One yacht, owned by a Saudi family, had a crew of 75, helicopters, 2 yacht tenders – each worth over hundreds of thousands of dollars, a mine detector and a highly trained and armed security team of 7.

I was impressed, in awe, but I wasn’t the least bit envious.

I mean, the rest of us can at least always have the hope that if we just had more money, things could get better. We could buy this or that, go here or there, quit work, etc. This Saudi prince already has everything money could buy, so unlike us, he doesn’t even get to have illusions of a better life as the rest of us do. His ship, literally, has already come in. Think about it, every day he wakes up, he knows this is as good as it gets – nothing to strive for, no precious illusions.

By the time we reached the yacht, I was actually somewhat gloomy. I mean, here I am, with all my diamonds inside, and these fools thinking their yachts, mere colored pebbles, could make them happy.

However, after a few glasses of champagne, I started feeling better. And after gorging myself over a gourmet lunch and then a wonderful afternoon nap on the deck of the boat I felt a lot better. As I gazed out across the water at the mere mortals on shore, I felt empowered and, I must admit, somewhat superior to them all.

As I drank my cappuccino, I thought, my God, maybe I got it all wrong. Maybe I should have spent my life in pursuit of the god almighty dollar. Hell, if I change my thinking and quit being so complacent in my retirement, I, too, could still make a fortune and buy my own yacht before it’s too late.

I know. I know what you’re thinking – this guy’s mind is all over the map. One moment he’s thinking this, and a few hours later he’s thinking something totally opposite. Actually, it’s worse than that because the contradictory thoughts were going on all at the same time. You know what I say to that? You’re right, it’s never been easy to be jimi. If you’re looking for consensus, you shouldn’t be reading this. Transparency yes, consistency no. Remember we don’t have a rational mind, we have a rationalizing mind….enough for today.