$30,000 Bucks a Night

On my AOL Welcome Page yesterday there was an article about the Ty Warner Suite at the Four Seasons. It costs $30,000 a night to stay there. It is filled with priceless treasures...marble, rare woods from around the world, mother of pearl inlay on the living room walls, a waterfall, exorbitantly expensive accent pieces. Decadent comes to mind. As a customer service rep/secretary, $30, 000 is more than I make in a whole year. Does anyone really need to stay in a hotel room that expensive when there are perfectly good Red Roof Inns right around the corner? And who is it that can afford a room that pricey just to lay their head on a pillow for a single night? (a pillow covered, no doubt, with a pillowcase made of exquisite imported Chinese silk) Everything in the suite is so rare and priceless that guests are required to take off their shoes before they enter the suite. Special luxury booties are provided. Ahhhhhh....for $30,000 a night I think I'd like to keep my Nike's on, thank you.

This has come up as a topic of conversation between Keith and I before. Indignantly, with much self righteousness, I declare that with starving children in the world....nobody needs that much luxury. There is no reason anyone should sit at a custom made Laianne bronze table, atop French travertine floors in the breakfast nook, which is adjacent to a balcony that overlooks Central Park...where there are hungry, cold, homeless people sleeping on park benches. To which Keith might reply, "How much is too much?" Hmmmmm. How much is too much? His point is that in comparison to much of the world we are filthy rich. Do I have "too much"?

There is a ten year old shag rug on my bedroom floor, not French travertine, but it's not a dirt floor either. And the love seat I am sitting on is over ten years old, too. It came from a tent sale and cost about $150.... but it is soft and comfortable and it is not a rock or a straw mat. We drive old cars, not quite beaters, but definitely not new. And what about the three computers in our house. Granted, one is about 8 years old....but do I really need this laptop I got for Christmas? A bottom of the line Dell, yet, is that too much when so much of the world is poor and there is so much need everywhere? Do I really need a computer that I can hold on my lap on the $150 love seat?

I don't have the answers to those questions. I think about it sometimes, and wonder whether I should do more to alleviate suffering and poverty in the world. Even though my lifestyle is rather modest, am I living in far too much opulence? Where exactly does one draw the line between enough and not enough? Between enough and too much? I'm not sure. Any thoughts?