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The robe and the abacus...

Never trust a man in a suit and tie.
He may hide his evil intentions behind
his haberdashery perfection. In the
same vein, a female who reveals much
more than is needed to hide the 
necessaries may be masking the real 
thing she is hiding
It is said that the mark of the fall of an economy or, to go as far as a civilisation, is the disproportionate increase in the numbers of accountants and lawyers in society. Disproportionate to what, one may ask. For a community to propel to higher heights, we desperately need educators, engineers, scientists and health care workers. Educators to teach the young minds, engineers to push the boundary of the mind to explore new frontiers, scientists to discover ways to ease living and health professionals to ensure healthy bodies and minds for continual progress. As society becomes complicated, or the piece of the economic pie gets smaller, there would arise the need to protect or usurp material as much as possible, the legal way. After all, good times do not last forever.

Furthermore, the generation next would not be so resilient or antifragile to handle things given to them on a platter. Still, prosperity has to be continued down generations. Hence, there is an innate compulsion for good times to continue rolling within the family. Finances need to be fixed.

The significant jump in the numbers of lawyers and accountants may also mark the decline of morality. Whether the downfall of society is because of their increase or as a response to the fall, it is a matter of conjecture. When one sees things that used to be settled with a gentleman’s handshake amongst close-knitted friends or relatives now mandates legally signed documents to seal the deal, we know we are going down the rabbit hole of mutual distrust.

Washing dirty linen in public and broadcasting intimate detail to shame the other party is in vogue these days. The accusers think that they could play the victim card by putting all lewd pieces in the open. Little do they know, the public says a free daytime soap opera.

Trustfulness is now a forgotten virtue. When a person used to be entrusted with our monies, we did that not because he could give a beautiful account of our income and expenditure. We knew that there was no doubt about his trustworthiness as he would guard his assigned duty with his life. Now, we want a nicely executed (maybe concocted) Excel sheet with all the 't's well crossed and the 'i's meticulously dotted. Creativity and documentation supersede honesty and hard work.

Honest toiling and passion do not count in this material. All one needs to be successful and marketable in a colourful resumé with skills of articulation Lawyers and accountants help us towards that end. Teachers and medical personnel do not serve to broadcast their deeds. There do it because it is a service to mankind. At least, that is how it used to be.

[P.S. Writers and literary figures are still needed for they need to stir emotion and push boundaries, for we only know our limits when we push them to the brim.]



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