KEEP THE CHANGE
I've started doing something of a pecuniary interest.
Now, when I buy anything with cash, and there are coins due back for me, I just say, "Keep the change," and then I'm out the door. It isn't much, but people seem to like it.
I've long had a maxim that one should just give a little, or suffer a little, because we are all the ones, lucky to be alive, so what is a few cents here and there? I called the meagre gifts I gave up, "offerings to the ducks." Like bread crumbs, when you feed the ducks. It's a transcendent thing. Because you don't need it, the ducks don't need it, but they're happy to eat it, and you're alive to see it. Dust in the wind, or offerings to ducks? You decide.
You'll be surprised, how things redound to you, oh former Scrooge. When you take this stand. You just might wake up to a fattened duck on your sill. Or maybe get thrown into the pond, thus enriching the water supply of everyone.
Warren Buffet likes to travel by bus, or least that's what he was doing in the 2000's. Once, I was taking the bus home from Oklahoma, and who should appear, but Warren Buffet? He was in front of me, in line. And he paid the fair of the man standing in front of him. And I looked at him with an irish eye, as if to say, "In what universe are they rewarded who are merely situated conveniently to the nearest billionaire? Oh, Mr. Buffet, if you only knew the story of my life, and felt how it pains me to see that money fly from my direction to some bloke who probably owns an oil rig. You would think twice, and demand reform, of the laws of morality, in a world of nothing more than perverse circumstance pursuant of death."
I stopped and slightly shrank, like one of those black snake fireworks you ignite on the sidewalk, where all the glory is in the fire, not the charred, frozen body left behind. If you only knew.
But, Mister Buffet had the right idea, which was to give a little of yourself up to the ducks. If only others would know to do as much. Pay it forward. Then - then you'd have an ethos, in action, approaching justice, just in the randomness of it all. But, the oil rig guy who received the money was too normally dumb to think, "Hey, wait! What about that lowly suffering charred gambler of a fool over there, throwing toothpicks at us? Wouldn't it be great if I passed on this money to he who really needs it?" And then - then - a world of glory would have been born. There would peace in the Middle Ear and a plumper duck in every pot. Hey, Mister, are ya goin' my way? It's a Depression, out there, you know.
And along come the Bidens, making a complete mockery of all this. What could have been a willful gratitude and grace, on the part of all citizenry, becomes TOP DOWN MONEY FOR EVERYONE, until the ducks are seen going tail-up, and the trains stop running on time, and the gods try to impose their wrath but are reduced shedding more disquiet and uncomfortable underwear. That's not my idea of democracy.
My idea of democracy is every man, woman, and ward, just giving up a little of their wealth, here and there, to the greater ducks of our nature, so it all trickles sideways down and up and inside and out, like laundry - a lot like laundry - and we become, once again, the chaotic determiners of our own fate, and have no more need to be taxed, or to be called into political TV commercial duty, or to give up our guns to all those rednecks out there killing our god blessed American ducks. We will all fall in love and hope for the better and think well of our neighbour and expect fanciful things to possibly happen.
You get all that, and no more riots, just by saying, "Keep the change."
Because change belongs to everyone.
Society is a bank.
Smile and prosper where you can.
Enough of these stinking times.
Everyone is out there wanting the spotlight - if they would just sit down like Rodin's Thinker and contemplate their common tragedy, they just might have a Eureka moment and shout, "Of course! It IS about me! It has always BEEN about me!"
"I start it here and I start it now! By giving up what I have! And setting an example for humility, generosity, and gratitude! It is the ultimate selfishness! To become food for a better future. Become the change you would have sought, keep it in your heart, and throw away these tokens, to mean: There is more to life than wanting, and proving, and amassing. Because, try as you will, your paltry mass will one day be gone, and what have you done, by being captured and waiting for the petty coins, of Caesar? Alas, I am great!"
We need to break free.
Start telling people to keep the change.
Shine a light and own your soul.
Even when the prices are drowning everyone out, keep giving, keep leading. There is darkness coming, and people will be at a furious loss. They don't know the way out, of a world that is clutching deeper all around them. Show them a way out. You crazy diamond."
Now, when I buy anything with cash, and there are coins due back for me, I just say, "Keep the change," and then I'm out the door. It isn't much, but people seem to like it.
I've long had a maxim that one should just give a little, or suffer a little, because we are all the ones, lucky to be alive, so what is a few cents here and there? I called the meagre gifts I gave up, "offerings to the ducks." Like bread crumbs, when you feed the ducks. It's a transcendent thing. Because you don't need it, the ducks don't need it, but they're happy to eat it, and you're alive to see it. Dust in the wind, or offerings to ducks? You decide.
You'll be surprised, how things redound to you, oh former Scrooge. When you take this stand. You just might wake up to a fattened duck on your sill. Or maybe get thrown into the pond, thus enriching the water supply of everyone.
Warren Buffet likes to travel by bus, or least that's what he was doing in the 2000's. Once, I was taking the bus home from Oklahoma, and who should appear, but Warren Buffet? He was in front of me, in line. And he paid the fair of the man standing in front of him. And I looked at him with an irish eye, as if to say, "In what universe are they rewarded who are merely situated conveniently to the nearest billionaire? Oh, Mr. Buffet, if you only knew the story of my life, and felt how it pains me to see that money fly from my direction to some bloke who probably owns an oil rig. You would think twice, and demand reform, of the laws of morality, in a world of nothing more than perverse circumstance pursuant of death."
I stopped and slightly shrank, like one of those black snake fireworks you ignite on the sidewalk, where all the glory is in the fire, not the charred, frozen body left behind. If you only knew.
But, Mister Buffet had the right idea, which was to give a little of yourself up to the ducks. If only others would know to do as much. Pay it forward. Then - then you'd have an ethos, in action, approaching justice, just in the randomness of it all. But, the oil rig guy who received the money was too normally dumb to think, "Hey, wait! What about that lowly suffering charred gambler of a fool over there, throwing toothpicks at us? Wouldn't it be great if I passed on this money to he who really needs it?" And then - then - a world of glory would have been born. There would peace in the Middle Ear and a plumper duck in every pot. Hey, Mister, are ya goin' my way? It's a Depression, out there, you know.
And along come the Bidens, making a complete mockery of all this. What could have been a willful gratitude and grace, on the part of all citizenry, becomes TOP DOWN MONEY FOR EVERYONE, until the ducks are seen going tail-up, and the trains stop running on time, and the gods try to impose their wrath but are reduced shedding more disquiet and uncomfortable underwear. That's not my idea of democracy.
My idea of democracy is every man, woman, and ward, just giving up a little of their wealth, here and there, to the greater ducks of our nature, so it all trickles sideways down and up and inside and out, like laundry - a lot like laundry - and we become, once again, the chaotic determiners of our own fate, and have no more need to be taxed, or to be called into political TV commercial duty, or to give up our guns to all those rednecks out there killing our god blessed American ducks. We will all fall in love and hope for the better and think well of our neighbour and expect fanciful things to possibly happen.
You get all that, and no more riots, just by saying, "Keep the change."
Because change belongs to everyone.
Society is a bank.
Smile and prosper where you can.
Enough of these stinking times.
Everyone is out there wanting the spotlight - if they would just sit down like Rodin's Thinker and contemplate their common tragedy, they just might have a Eureka moment and shout, "Of course! It IS about me! It has always BEEN about me!"
"I start it here and I start it now! By giving up what I have! And setting an example for humility, generosity, and gratitude! It is the ultimate selfishness! To become food for a better future. Become the change you would have sought, keep it in your heart, and throw away these tokens, to mean: There is more to life than wanting, and proving, and amassing. Because, try as you will, your paltry mass will one day be gone, and what have you done, by being captured and waiting for the petty coins, of Caesar? Alas, I am great!"
We need to break free.
Start telling people to keep the change.
Shine a light and own your soul.
Even when the prices are drowning everyone out, keep giving, keep leading. There is darkness coming, and people will be at a furious loss. They don't know the way out, of a world that is clutching deeper all around them. Show them a way out. You crazy diamond."