Whether you feel like the winner or the loser of the recent election, there is lots to think about and learn by asking the right questions. As I get older I get lazier and am reluctant to step into tedious expository prose. I prefer to look for vignettes or metaphors, each better than 'a thousand words.'
Cold, high winds were interrupting my usual 'backcountry babushka' duties at camp. So I deigned to carry some dirty clothes to a laundromat I used to use. Prices were 50% higher than expected. I am glad I started hand-washing clothes a couple years ago, lest I have to put up with these high prices all the time.
Then I dug my heels in, picked up my basket of clothes, and simply walked out. They didn't have many customers. I had never done this before at a laundromat. High prices can be fought to some extent by substitution. Perhaps a lack of skills or imagination hold us down sometimes. Perhaps we are slaves to habit.
But many times our surrender to higher prices comes from wanting to be a 'sensible' person, who has learned to go along in order to get along, with the external world. A certain amount of that makes sense, otherwise you would wear yourself out fighting the world.
But there is a point when even a complacent and 'sensible' person says, "Stop. I am not putting up with your bullshit anymore, and I don't care what you think of me."
Think about my tiny bit of defiance in light of the recent election.
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