The existence of 401(k)s serves as an admission that salaries/wages are too depressed to extend into retirement the coverage of costs associated with the standard of living a former employee enjoyed while employed. We are goaded, then, to play the game, to be complicit participants, lest we one day lose the comforts to which we’ve…
1. People tend towards talking about things in absolute terms because doing otherwise requires more energy-consuming real estate in the brain. 2. Some people live according to a fortress of rules that they build for themselves. Combining 1 + 2 can yield resolute resolve across a myriad of topics, currency chief among them, such as…
I’ve written several times of my interest in becoming a certified EMT, the intrinsic rush of pulling a damaged body away from the alluring blankets of effortless death that would smother and asphyxiate. I would also like to substitute teach high school math and physics. In anticipation of the inevitable lament “When are we ever…
There’s a section of the local paper called community snapshots, where the pictures featured depict usually two individuals, one handing the other a check. The people pictured represent their respective organizations, sometimes non-profits, sometimes banks, etc. The money exchanging hands, with the check posing for the photo between the grip of the two individuals, is…
Last week I was mistaken for a street dweller. I was walking home from school via my usual route behind buildings, staring a few steps in advance of my feet, oblivious to things not in my vision, wearing the large hood of my green winter cotton/wool coat. A man in the parking lot of one…
If there were an award for expressing simple, obvious things in the most long-winded manner possible, I’d win it: Aspiring writers of non-fiction, or of stories based on true events, might choose their subjects owing to the belief that if their writing concerns something which takes up considerable space in the public consciousness, then what…
People pay a premium for goods that exhibit prized characteristics. I’m curious how a consensus is established about what these characteristics are. Like the explanation for so many things, it’s probably a combination of learned behavior and instinct, the exact proportions of these two ingredients depending on the person and the good in question. I’m…
I’ve never understood the logic behind this: “Eat everything on your plate. There are people in this world who are starving.” Yes, well, knowing they would finish my plate if they were here doesn’t make me want to finish it on their behalf. Wiping the plate clean won’t make them any less hungry. A phrase…
You must be logged in to post a comment.