“Isn’t it proved by our futile efforts to outwit the alcoholic, to compel him to stop drinking and meet his responsibilities” (ODAT, 29 November)
The clown always wins.
The clown circumvents all the rules.
Things do what they’re not supposed to: flowers squirt water; handkerchiefs are endless.
They always find a way around everything.
And that’s part of the game: even the seeking of help is very often an invitation to a game in which one provides help, then the help doesn’t help, or backfires, or fails, and everyone is in exactly the same position as they were before, except now it’s all your fault.
I can’t give a solution to anyone. You can barely give away a solution, let alone sell it.
What I can do is put it down in plain view, and leave it to others to pick it up, like leaving out water for a hedgehog [by the way, don’t leave milk for them: they’re lactose intolerant and it gives them the squitters].
Anyway, with offering help, nothing else seems to work, and the system requires my indifference to operate.
Actually, going back to hedgehogs, a great example of Do-Gooding Going Very Wrong. People that know nothing about hedgehogs giving them milk because they themselves like milk, regardless of what is actually good for the hedgehog. QED.