Did you say donkey….?

SO the horse says to the donkey “Why the long face?”

A silly joke but one that works both visually and philosophically. Especially if like me you tend to overthink everything. Donkeys are known for their strength and their ability to continually repeat the same actions until they die. Hence the reason that I misattributed the definition of insanity, which is, as Einstein posited, ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’.

AA Milne is partly to blame for the impression of donkeys as dour, depressed creatures bowed down by a life of toil,constantly following the carrot but forever feeling the stick.

So the notion that the definition of insanity is a donkey following a carrot dangling in front of its face and expecting day after day to taste it is actually an apt one. Every day I check my bank account and every day I expect it to be different, it never is, the balance is always 0 at the end of the month. As time passes my wage remains the same but costs have risen. I do not live beyond my means, my means no longer even approach beyond. I’m now stuck at the end of a hot dusty track miles away from beyond, waving futilely as my money picks up its skirts and dashes out of sight.

Inflation is an evil curse that takes us from comfortable to barely surviving at the whim of an abstract financial market led by donkeys waving carrots at lions. If I tighten my belt any further it will snap me in two… although that would not be a bad thing because then my two halves could find work to support the whole…as long as they ate carrots and nothing else.

If something is not done to redress the financial imbalance in our world then even a 31 pence meal will become an unattainable luxury for the many while the few continue to grow fat on our labours. Just like the donkey handler and his carrot.

So why the long face? To quote Eeyore; “When your tail is missing, remember you have every right to mope.”

Suzanne Manners’ opinions are her own and are not necessarily representative of those of the publishers, advertisers or sponsors.