Married filing jointly

The caldron holds nourishment for the benefit of civilized people, as the flame below prepares the food within for consumption; one grows beyond oneself in spirit by consolidating matters and maintaining a correct position.

Union endures when one has somewhere to go, finding self-renewal in movement; in and out, contracting and expanding, in the end standing firm. (I Ching)

It can be confusing to try to reconcile (a) the discriminating mind that compares, evaluates, and judges after half a lifetime of training to become a better critic, and (b) the practical benefits of seeing through arbitrary and hair-splitting distinctions to the commonality and the connection. But if things in the macro or the micro economy are as much of a mess as they appear to be, there might be hope after all. In that case, the material world in all its ugly, destructive wastefulness is not simply a reflection of a negative attitude. But that might be too optimistic.

Don't worry, be happy. It's the weekend. Get a grande Americano with a shot of espresso and a blueberry scone. Enjoy the freak show walking by in the strip mall paradise of value-added goods and services, secure in the knowledge that you are one of them, no better and no worse.

The good news is that there are many fun things to do in the meantime, things that may or may not make a difference in the scheme of things but would at least keep the lights on without doing great harm. Things like reading the paper, cleaning up the back yard, playing manic right-brain rhythms in a drum circle at the rec center on a Saturday afternoon, discussing a friend's next revision of a book he is writing, cooking lentil soup, meditating, doing laundry, watching basketball on TV. That's where the juice is.

Let the latent meanings turn and bend in the wind, free from authoritative comment. (Don DeLillo, Falling Man, p. 12)

Making derivative utterances about other people's pain, while not necessarily a bad thing, is working in the third-person, kind of like making money by moving other people's money and letting them take the risk. Rather than believing that human nature is good, or souls are reincarnated, or the pursuit of private interest promotes the public interest, rather than believing anything in particular, we could just suspend disbelief and treat it as a movie in which we act as if it's true and see how it turns out.

At least the paradigm shift, like deciding which movie to watch and which premise to provisionally get behind, offers the possibility of changing the way you handle your business, pay your bills, make deposits and withdrawals, process information, respond to inputs and outputs. What if we put 5 percent of every paycheck into savings for next year's shortfall, proactively rather than reactively making ends meet?

Suddenly the sun came out in the strip mall freak show, and I finished my grande Americano.