If I could afford…

…to be ripping around in a private jet, I’m pretty confident I’d get to the point of realizing at least two things: 1) I could likely make a bigger impact in some or more lives, including my own, spending money another way, and 2) I don’t believe I’m that important to think I should carry exception. I’m actually embarrassed when I catch myself thinking I do. But mostly, as enjoyable as the privilege may be or however we may rationalize the privilege being earned, I still have issue walking past any one with less opportunity. That’s not a declaration of righteousness. Much more an admission of guilt.

I have had the privilege of traveling privately. It’s exceptional to say the least. Totally void of large airport mayhem and as it is, is a much more pleasurable experience. Flight in a smaller jet can be a very different experience than flying in the larger commercial jets. And personally, I’ve been much more comfortable on long flights in first class with commercial airliners - yet, another example of a guilty privilege. But arrival time, check-in and luggage experiences? Simply nothing to compare. Flying private is just a little bit more in effort and time than waving to someone at the desk and asking which jet you’re walking to while anticipating the on-time arrival of a car service when you land. Pretty exceptional.

As the great wealth expansion and gap of this millennium continues to build, I try not to judge the privileged circumstance others have or their viewpoints on wealth and privilege for that matter. It’s just a sense I have for myself. And I don’t have a ‘climate change’ point of view to challenge the private elite, and I have no political stance or side to take on it. It’s just one of those things I’ve peered into, even enjoyed, but was ultimately left asking ‘why?’

My experience with private jets is all corporate. The advantage of using the corporate jet meant visiting multiple, and somewhat remote locations in a very short span of time. I can’t tell you if the expense was worth it. And I’m curious if the sense of urgency created to be in all those locations in a short span of time was even necessary. The urgency of the schedule left the quality of the visits less than usual - the visits themselves being short, condensed - less than. So,…why?

I think the reasoning and rationalization of almost anything has become about fitting something into the convenience of our lives. We’ve ‘reasoned’ ourselves into what success looks like, where the best education is to be successful, the social status we achieve as we conform to our reasoning and rationalize the why we do things and have things.

Popularism and Elitism reign. The most popular, the most elite, the wealthiest, the high society social guilds all know what the rest of us should be doing. So it seems they think. We watch them so that we may learn to be them. For don’t we want to be them?

At Tyngsboro Airport, a bit northwest of Boston, I watched a family - mother and father with three younger children and their dog - climb the stairs to a small private jet along with the crew of two. I have three boys myself. We didn’t have a dog. And we didn’t have a jet. Maybe that family didn’t own a jet either, but I could feel jealousy knocking on my door. It looked easy. Everyone looked happy. I wondered a bit if my boys would have been lucky enough to be those kids.

I climbed the stairs to our corporate Gulfstream, asking myself what those parents had done in life. What was their status in society? Where did they get their money? Once aboard, I sat down and watched their jet take to the air from my window as my colleagues were boarding. I almost felt a sense of defeat. A sense of ‘less than.’ Embarrassed by how I left myself to feel, I could only ask, ‘how have I gotten to feel this way.’ Admittedly, I was a little angry without any good reason why.

Our rationalization of what success looks like, what the path to get there is, and power we’ve afforded the Popular and Elite, is unhealthy. And absurd. We elect public officials now this way. We listen to actors - actors who we do not know much about at all privately - try and persuade us how we must vote and how we must live our lives. The Gipper became President. We even have a population that has asked that Oprah run for office. I’ve nothing against either Reagan or Winfrey, but I trust a Populist pattern of electing officials can lead us to voting in Looney Tunes’ Foghorn Leghorn.  

The oligarchs are now the new Populists with an influence you and I can’t compete with. Their sphere of influence is literally the entire sphere we live on and more. Their wealth is manipulative, controlling and seemingly all too often misappropriated.

Never mind any party allegiances, the hypocrisy of the super wealthy is apparent in every corner of our lives. Nine-figure weddings, 50,000 sq foot homes, some with more money than entire countries. Yet we have homelessness, ever-failing and extraordinarily expensive health care and education and growing poverty. Social strife that continues to escalate as the Populists and Elitists in government strengthen their position as benefactors of the oligarchy in lieu of representing their constituency. All of which is undoubtedly heading to a moment when jealousy turns to anger and culminates in revolt.

And at some point we all must realize that the revolt coming, needs to, but will not be from the left, or the right. It won’t be from the divisive on Facebook, Instagram and X. It’ll be from those staring out a window at another life, questioning their own jealousy and not understanding why. Until they do, and reasonably consider being exceptional is more greatly achieved and respected when they’ve not considered themselves an exception.