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80 Whatever Happened to Defiance? People you will never want to know are telling you to vote, enlist, invest, travel to Acapulco, buy now and pay later, smoke, stop smoking, curb your dog, remember the whale and praise the Lord. Like windshield wipers they repeat themselves. Because they tell but never ask, you learn to live around them just to live. You understand why Paul Gauguin preferred Tahiti to the bourgeoisie of France. But then Tahiti’s not the answer anymore, and frankly never was. This leaves you weighing Schulberg’s waterfront philosophy: “You do it to him before he does it to you.” Reactionary, you admit, but nature’s way, the way of this world where he who wins is always he who loses least and last. . . . But if you’re bored by triumph through attrition, imitate you may the strategy of Puck. Listen carefully to all solicitations, smile and respond in classical Greek. It’s devious, but then it gives 81 you time to smell the always breathing flowers. Or to watch dissolve into the mystery of coffee the faceless dice of sugar cubes. Or say just how remarkable it is that every evening somewhere in this world a play of Shakespeare’s being staged with nothing to be won but excellence. ...

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