Table Rule

Every family has an unwritten rule that keeps the peace. Table Rule is that rule, written down.

The rule protects you from your future self — the fellow who will be tired, hungry, and full of reasons to make an exception. Rules exist for the days when reasons are cheap.

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.

During the monsoon, one clogged drain teaches the whole lane about the commons. Everyone kept it clean, everyone assumed someone else owned it, everyone waded home together.

Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. Keep it like a good key: accessible, unlabelled, and used often.