Wile E. Coyotes Guide to Navigating Cliffs
By Brian Lee - January 2, 2013
...One thing people always forget about falling off cliffs is that you dont actually fall down until you realize that youve already run past the cliff. A good strategy to cope with cliffs is to deny that youve ran past them: let the delusion keep you afloat. So pretend that this whole fiscal cliff deal is not real. Repeat to yourself that America is still the greatest nation with a totally functional budgetary process. Until youre tired of lying to yourself, you should be fine.
You may feel a strong urge to rely on giant corporations to fix problems for you. While private corporations such as ACME have provided jobs and innovative products, they have also frequently shown that consumer interest is far behind profit in their priorities. We must keep in mind that a part of the mess we are in right now came from catastrophic failures of corporations behaving irresponsibly.
The odds are likely that once youve run past the cliff, the fall will happen eventually. The fall itself is harmless; in fact, I find the sensation of zero-gravity rather entertaining. What really hurts is the crash. You might find yourself at the bottom of a small crater. You might be unconscious. But regardless of how awful that crash was, come next weeks show, youll still be the same coyote you were before the crash. So keep your chin up. Before you know it, it will be next fiscal year.
Wile E. Coyote, Nemesis ridiculii, is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry. He is the author of The Wiley One: My Life and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bird...
Denial is the most comforting of the stages of grief and a wonderful drug.