13 Observations Made by Someone of No Importance Who has No Famous Pseudonym While Reading Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance.
1. If you work hard and become successful, the two are more likely to be related than your hair length and your height are likely to be related. In other words, hard work in a free society often leads to financial success or at least a certain amount of financial security. People who are giants never have long hair because they are giants.
2. There is no such thing as luck, or fortune defined as luck. If you have a fortune aka a Lot of Money, there’s a reason. Somebody worked for it. Or stole it.
3. “Money is like a child–rarely unaccompanied.” If you want someone else’s money (or child), you’ll have to wait until he’s not looking and take it. Or you could get him to sign it over in return for something you do for him. Like work or provide a service or product. Rumplestiltskin got a baby (almost) in return for work, spinning gold. If you can do that, you’ll probably earn a lot of money.
4. People who say money doesn’t matter are right in the sense that that it’s the stuff we use the money to symbolize that matters. But they’re also wrong, because we need money for the basic stuff of life: food, shelter, clothing, and books. Cake doesn’t matter.
5. Just because I didn’t do everything that’s involved in making the cake, but rather used my skills to barter for money that I used to purchase certain necessities for making the cake doesn’t mean it’s not my cake, made by the fruit of my labor. If others want a cake, they can make their own, buy their own, or quit yelling and ask nicely.
6. Safety nets made by governments spending money that is borrowed from other governments are not trustworthy, and I would only want to fall into one if the alternative was death on the sidewalk. I might die anyway.
7. If you sit and have a drink with someone who has a grievance, be prepared to have more than one drink. And prepare to be the one who pays for all the drinks.
8. As we all tell our children, life isn’t fair. So don’t go around asking anyone if it is.
9. People gathering in the streets feeling wronged tend to be loud, not because there’s a tall building in front of them, but because they are like children who think that if they shout loudly enough they’ll get what they want. Tantrums are not nice and are rarely effective if a real adult is in charge.
10. If the people shouting outside have no solution to the problem, then why don’t they grow up and quit shouting and let the adults inside the building get on with trying to solve the problem?
11. When a parent ignores a two year old who is throwing a tantrum, the two year old sometimes stops the nonsense. However, this technique may be less effective with adult tantrum-throwers. The story may have a very unhappy ending, but whose fault is that? The parent or the (twenty)two year old who never grew up?
12. If you have a large crowd shouting outside your building, someone needs to tell them to go home and go to bed.
13. Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler is a part of the 1%, which is probably why he’s observing from a discreet distance instead of going down to OWS and handing out a lot of cash. Or cake. Or both.