Aspirational Sugar

Instead of a usual blog post I decided to do something akin to a “trail” that Vannevar Bush was talking about in his famous essay. It’s a jumble of quotes and a story all on the subject of happiness and wealth.


My grandfather once told me a story about aspirations in 19th century Russia. Sugar was considered a luxury item back then, and did not come in highly refined granules. Instead it was purchased in the form a sugarloaf, a gigantic cone of pressed sugar. A sugarloaf would be stored in a special box, and pieces of it would be snipped off. These lumps of sugar were not like modern sugarcubes, they were darker and did not dissolve as easily. Those Russians who could afford sugar would usually drink tea “vprikusku” — through a lump of slowly dissolving sugar held on a tongue. It was considered to be more economical than dissolving sugar in tea, which was known as “vnakladku”.

So the story goes like this. A peasant is drinking tea with no sugar. But he dreams: if I were a merchant, I’d drink tea with sugar “vprikusku”. If I were a nobleman, I’d drink tea with sugar “vnakladku”. But if were the czar, I’d make a hole in the sugarloaf and drink tea out of it.


Felix Dennis’ rich/poor scale from “The Narrow Road: A Brief Guide to the Getting of Money”

£1m – £2m The comfortable poor
£3m – £4m The comfortably off
£5m – £4m The comfortably wealthy
£16m – £39m The lesser rich
£40m – £74m The comfortably rich
£75m – £99m The rich
£100m – £199m The seriously rich
£200m – £399m The truly rich
£400m – £999m The filthy rich
Over £1bn The super rich


The famous dialog from Office Space:

Peter Gibbons: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I’ll tell you what I’d do, man: two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter Gibbons: That’s it? If you had a million dollars, you’d do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire I could hook that up, too; ’cause chicks dig dudes with money.
Peter Gibbons: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well, the type of chicks that’d double up on a dude like me do.
Peter Gibbons: Good point.
Lawrence: Well, what about you now? What would you do?
Peter Gibbons: Besides two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Well, yeah.
Peter Gibbons: Nothing.
Lawrence: Nothing, huh?
Peter Gibbons: I would relax… I would sit on my ass all day… I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well, you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he’s broke, don’t do shit.


The story about how Derek Sivers gave away his company.