On the Moral Virtue of Jack Shit

Nine tenths of the evil and suffering in this world is rooted in the idea that something must be done. Why must anything be done at all? All the advocacy and protest in the world would pale in the face of practiced inertia. The way to confound the authorities is to sigh and take your time when they ask you to remove your shoes at the airport. The way to confound the terror-profiteers is to shrug and look for lunch. I am deeply inspired by the British who seem largely not to give a shit that some nuts tried to blow up something with a car. A nation of people who carry umbrellas on the sunniest days is a nation with an admirable relationship to fate. By failing to react, they have driven American conservatives into spectacular and hilarious conniptions, eructions of rage, howls, cries, squeals, belches of anger. It's a good show, and I'm jealous that I had no part in doing nothing to provoke it.