sophistique.

Every magazine boasts wealth – the exquisite foods you can buy, the wheels you may purchase, the fashion you may drape and own – heck, even the hotels boast sophistication. So much so that sophistication is fast becoming vulgar.

So you’ve got a pool overlooking the cityscape. Lovely. Does it feel very different when you’re in it? Not likely, unless one side of the pool’s breached and you’re now swimming for safety. Oh, the irony of dying in an urban waterfall.

Believe me, the people worth impressing aren't impressed by these things, infinity pools or not.

The people who have the money and sense are the ones to build these sophisticated places that aren’t places – hotels. Or resorts, as fashion will have it these days. These are the people who make a place pretty so it can command a premium, and because of the gullibility of people and viability of it all – these hotels spring up like gilded mushrooms.

With all of this money and wealth – do you realize that these hotels are merely status symbols, even for the traveling businessperson? It provides a pretty name to call up when an associate asks “so where’re you putting up at?”

A gold-leafed version of the hand signals when two black brothas greet each other on the curb perhaps – what price high street-cred?

Not much, just a few thousand dollars – but when you are there money no longer has much meaning. For some, it is a target, for others, it is a score. Money's what happens when you are doing something with your mind and self to fill time.

Some say you have arrived. But have you come?


Excuse me.

What I’m trying to say is, does it feel - good?

What will you give for an ounce of time? Two? What about a yarnful – not quite a bucketload but better, much better?

…what if the currency of exchange weren’t bills and coins, hmm? And what if it isn’t too costly neither, even if it weren’t tangible?

Nobody said it’s got to be an absolute exchange.

Well, do think about it, because you may have it, no matter who you are. Because you can, dammit. And it’s time you saw that.