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There is a lovely piece (as almost always) in the “Lives” section of today’s New York Time’s Sunday Magazine. Called “Money Always Talks,” the essay is about a woman and her daughter as, together, they walk around Southampton and take in the mesmerizing sites of great wealth to be found there.

The most striking part of this piece written by Daphne Merkin was her commentary on how many of us feel about the wealthy–and the money at their command. I thought it relevant to the notion of trading up, particularly in the luxury marketing segment. More specifically, I think it sheds light on the guilt and uncertainty many of us feel whenever we spend more than we have to for something, be that a guitar, a home or a private jet. Here’s an excerpt:

So, as it turns out, Ernest Hemingway was wrong, and F. Scott Fitzgerald was right: The rich are different, not only because they have more money but also because they elicit such an oxymoronic barrage of responses. They’re worse, and they’re better, reviled and adulated. They stir up envy, and they invite respect. Most of all, they make us think we would do better if we had their dough (exercise more discerning taste, give more generously to worthy causes, assume a more modest air). Or, at least, we want the option to prove our lofty conjectures. As Kingsley Amis wrote before he got lucky: “I want to prove that money isn’t everything.”

Is it or isn’t it? In the history of love-hate relationships, our paradoxical romance with money ranks among the oldest and the most enduring. And there is no end in sight.

Good stuff. Though I remain convinced that should I become one of the super-wealthy, I will buck the trend and do far greater good with that cash than most anyone. Well, I’d be in the top 30% anyway. Well, at the least the top 70%-80% On a good day, anyhow.