You need to understand how insane this is.

This is not a painting.

This is a painting, on a ceiling.

A painting, on a ceiling, in the entry-way to a home.

Recently my family came out to visit, and while they were here we went on a trip to Paris, France. While in Paris we heard that one of the cool things to do and see was the palace of Versailles. The famous palace of the "Sun King" Louis XIV.

It truly is an incredible sight to behold, and it was honestly overwhelming to be there. The crowds are insane, but what is even more insane is the result of unchecked, unlimited, and uncaring wealth and opulence.

Here is another photo on a ceiling.

Here's another.

And another...

And one more...

You see, I could keep going on for quite a while here, but after fifteen or twenty, I really got bored of taking pictures of masterpieces on ceilings at some insanely rich guys old house.

I come from a humble family, one that has never known wealth, nor the need to accumulate it. My parents are the most generous people I have ever met in my life, though they have never had all that much to be generous with. While we were touring around this monument to insanity known as the palace of Versailles, my dad really got tired of it, and it kinda made him sick.

He couldn't help but think of the unknown amount of poor people that likely starved to death, worked to death, died of disease, or died in some stupid war while this guy wandered the halls of his insane house.

My dad hated it.

And I don't blame him, I kinda hate it too. I mean we both get that it's a marvel and it's amazing and it's beautiful and blah blah blah, but in the end it's really just insanity.

I read that a very conservative estimate of the cost of this place was put at around 2 billion US dollars, which would have been about 60% of the revenue of the entire country of France at that time. Not to mention the cost in human lives, as many of the workers who built this nut house in what was once a swamp died as they contracted malaria.

You need to understand how absolutely insane it is.

Money is a crazy thing, and it's not worth what everyone says it is.

It's not worth your life.

It's not worth your happiness.

It's certainly not worth your family.

In the end it goes away anyhow, and in the most extreme example this is what you get:

A giant, pointless hallway, filled with gold and glass and art...

and thousands of gawking strangers wandering around in your old house, none of them giving a damn that you ever even existed.