The Blue Ribbon

When I was in third grade, or maybe sixth, at the end of one school year in June we had a brown-bag day with kids running all over the playground behind Monroe Elementary, and parents and teachers organizing races – sack race, three-legged race, sprints. I got third prize in something: a little brown “ribbon” made of construction paper and glitter. Later I was left alone on the sidelines, sitting on the grass next to one of the grown-ups’ bags of supplies. There were some extra ribbons. They were blue and silver, glitter and glue. I took a couple of the Firsts.

This is the only key idea necessary to keep in mind whenever I meditate on how anyone with a shred of decency would ever get into the financial speculation industry. As an acorn, it explains a lot.

The Nine Circles of Creativity

1) Wrote a novel, published it, told everybody
2) Wrote a novel, printed ten copies, gave them to friends
3) Wrote a novel, locked the only copy in the storage unit
4) Wrote an outline for a novel, but never wrote the novel
5) Told people you were thinking about an outline, but never wrote down the outline
6) Never spoke of the existence of the idea to anyone
7) Went back in time to 2006 and stopped the invention of Blogger, preventing this list
8) Went back in time to 100,000 BCE sub-Saharan Africa population bottleneck and killed all 2000 individuals in the human race, preventing Art
9) Music Director, “Glee”, season 4