The richest man in the world is not Jeff Bezos or any other billionaire.
The richest man in the world is Webb Chiles because he has enough and knows it, and because he has had the greatest wealth of all: time.
Neither of these came about by chance.
I have enough because I don't need much.
More than thirty years ago a British journalist wrote: "Perhaps no one in the history of seafaring has done as much with as little as Webb Chiles." That was after the $29,000 EGREGIOUS and the $5,000 CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE, but before the $35,000 RESURGAM, the $22,000 THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, and the $9,000 GANNET. While I spent more on each of them than that initial cost, I have never owned a boat that likely cost as much as your car.
Of time, mine has been my own for more than forty years. That was a deliberate decision. Few, if any, billionaires could claim as much. Their wealth owns them as much and perhaps more than they own it.
I have just come below after sipping Plymouth gin and listening to music on deck, a mix that included an African, an Australian aboriginal, an American, a Spanish group, a Portuguese group, a Brazilian, a Canadian, an Irishman, and an Englishman.
Friday night I started to listen to a Beethoven string quartet until a power boater in the next finger started working on his engine, which was always loud and became deafening when he revved it, as he frequently did. Poor Beethoven didn't stand a chance.
I did my laundry today. As I walked to and from the shore, I noticed four more owls on boats, in addition to the one on the power boat across from me.
Imagine at the end of your life being asked what you did and replying, "I made plastic owls."
"Why?"
"To frighten birds off boats."
"Did it work?"
"No."
Last evening while I was on deck a young man, at least by my standards, perhaps in his late 20s, came into view crossing from right to left on a stand up board. He had on a black tee-shirt. It read:
I ❤️ MY
CRAZY
(and then a word with smaller letters I could not read)
WIFE
When he got close enough I saw that the missing word was MEXICAN.
I called to him that I had been trying to read his shirt and said, "Good for you."
He laughed and waved.
A few seconds after he passed out of view to the left, an attractive young woman on a stand up board paddled into view from the right. She was smiling and I made the connection.
"You are the one he loves."
She nodded and grinned.
It is good to be young and in lust and love, which I believe is the usual progression.
It is good to be old and in lust and love.
And anywhere in between.
