While I am most certainly “Going Galt” in certain aspects of my personal and professional lives, I am unfortunately working in an industry that has undergone a Federal purge (“…the IRS’s credit counseling compliance project resulted in … the reported revocation or proposed revocation of up to 80% of the entire industry as measured by revenue….”) with the result that the survivors, like my employers, are those who have learned — the hard way — to comply with the whims of the regulators, no matter how inconstant, vacuous or corrupt they may be. Be a good serf, and you’ll be allowed to continue existing.
As I grind my teeth at this, I find some solace in Kipling’s revised doxology:
Ere they hewed the Sphinx’s visage
Favouritism governed kissage,
Even as it does in this age.Who shall doubt “the secret hid
Under Cheops’ pyramid”
Was that the contractor did
Cheops out of several millions?
Or that Joseph’s sudden rise
To Comptroller of Supplies
Was a fraud of monstrous size
On King Pharaoh’s swart Civilians?Thus, the artless songs I sing
Do not deal with anything
New or never said before.
As it was in the beginning
Is to-day official sinning,
And shall be for evermore!– Rudyard Kipling, A General Summary
Ah, Kipling brings a smile to my face no matter what.