Volume 4 · The Ledger and the Loom · Essay 230

Safetyism

Some ideas arrive wearing uniforms. Safetyism arrives in a kurta — plain, comfortable, and ready for work.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

The housewife with her kitchen budget runs a tighter ship than most finance departments. She knows the difference between price and cost — one is on the tag, the other is on the month.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. And when you forget it — you will — the world will remind you. It is a faithful tutor.