A few days ago in the Times, Paul Krugman wrote:<\/p>\n
Some years ago \u2014 I think it was 2015 \u2014 I got a quick lesson in how easy it is to become a horrible person. I was a featured speaker at a conference in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, and my arrival flight was badly delayed. The organizers, worried that I would miss my slot thanks to the city\u2019s notorious traffic, arranged to have me met at the airport and flown directly to the hotel\u2019s roof by helicopter.<\/em><\/p>\n Then, when the conference was over, there was a car waiting to take me back to the airport. And just for a minute I found myself thinking, \u201cWhat? I have to take a <\/em>car?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Krugman then says his normal conveyance is almost always the subway.<\/p>\n Krugman’s “confession” was both amusing and thought-provoking…for me, at least. Because, dare I say probably more often than Krugman, I have occasionally had the experience of riding, floating, soaring in glam vehicles. They have included multiple limos, one seaplane, an eight-seater prop plane traversing the South Pacific, several big boats, a private LearJet and a 727 reconstructed into living quarters upholstered in white leather.<\/p>\n So can luxurious transportation become a psychological necessity, the deprivation of which can make people descend into a circle of hell Dante overlooked, the Eleventh Circle, the Eternal Sulks?<\/p>\n Krugman escaped, I think because he’s supremely intelligent and has a terrific sense of humor, especially about himself. But have I escaped?<\/p>\n Yes, because I never got there in the first place. What I did<\/em> get — on ritzy transport — was the pleasurable excitement of a child who is easily entertained or, on some occasions, the deadpan incredulity of a student of life, bred with a satirist’s soul. If limos had become my standard mode of transport, I’d lose the sense of exquisite comfort of riding in a car with infinite knee room. Ooh. Even typing that stretches my legs in muscle memory.<\/p>\n That temporal delight would have morphed into, “What? I have to take the subway<\/em>?” My soul forever corrupted by a feeling of deprivation? In other words, I could have become a horrible person.<\/p>\n I’m not, though. I lack the requisite character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few days ago in the Times, Paul Krugman wrote: Some years ago \u2014 I think it was 2015 \u2014 I got a quick lesson in how easy it is to become a horrible person. I was a featured speaker … Continue reading