In this age and in this wintry season, there is one ruthlessly effective way to inform the world that you have made it: post a picture on social media of you and your family, smiling deliriously, cheeks rouged from wind and sun, on a ski slope in Colorado, Utah or some other snow paradise out west.

It is the time of year when I am blitzed by such images, and they increasingly stir a cocktail of shame, self-loathing and desperate longing. I love to ski. I grew up in a skiing family. And yet, because of certain life decisions and the ski industry’s evolution, I can no longer quite afford it — at least not in the style I would like. Thus, when I encounter friends just back from an extravagant trip to Vail or Park City, I smile and ask: “How was the powder?” What I’m actually thinking is: what would it take to drive a ski pole through your eye?

Skiing is the US class dividing line that now consumes me. There are those who can afford a trip to the great mountains out west — airfare, accommodation, larcenous lift tickets, equipment rentals, overpriced restaurants — and there are those who cannot. Then there are the helicopter-skiing hedge funders sneering at us all.