One benefit of this Covid Spring is that we all get the chance to reexamine our priorities, which can become wildly skewed during lengthy periods of prosperity. We’ve been prosperous for a very long time, most of us essentially unscathed by our various wars and rumors of wars, and on the macro level we may have forgotten that our extraordinary wealth is historically unusual, requires vigilance and constant maintenance, and is also an addiction. We have a lot of addictions in this country and the comfort derived from immense prosperity is one of them. If you have ever observed a sofa full of people watching television you know they look exactly like a park bench full of heroin addicts.
Which every television executive, and Jeff Bezos, understands instinctively.
The First Marine Division, in Iraq, had a saying taped to the wall in a battalion operations center. It said, “The Marines are at war. America is at the mall.” I’ve often wondered if Roman soldiers marching through the dusty zephyrs of Spain or grinding through the mud of Germania fought on with the same sentiment in their hearts. The Legion is at War. Rome is at the games. Was the average Roman even aware of the fighting in Spain or Carthage or Londinium? Or was he too busy ducking buckets of sewage thrown down from above and chasing down his daily bread?
I don’t have those answers but I do have Melville in the tack room which is a great place to read and work because it smells like oil and leather and horses. I leave the door open because I can see across the alley to the stalls where the mare is at work on her feed. On the radio, which sits on the window ledge, two guys from Bend, Oregon, are arguing about which stocks people should buy in the middle of a seesawing economic shitshow. They are giddy that the Oracle of Omaha has announced his continuing belief in American Exceptionalism and economic miracles.
I keep them on but only low enough to enchant the mice.
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