“If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need.” - Cicero

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

2 December 

I pack around with me an unspoken, apologetic attitude that my world is SO small, but that's not true at all. Or rather, it’s no smaller than anyone else's. Take a look at the world of, say, the U.S. Secretary of State. The President calls him to discuss a trouble spot, say, in the Middle East [that’s always a good bet since that’s been a chronic, festering trouble spot since the dawn of history]. Here’s the strategy you’re to follow, the President will tell him; kick the following butts this much and no further, and offer the following carrots and no more. Now, go get the job done. So he takes his limo [not a taxi] to Andrews Air Force Base. Needless to say, he doesn't consult his driver. And he doesn't fly coach or even first class. He's on a government jet, which means his jet is as hermetically sealed from ordinary people as he was in his limo. When he arrives he's still hermetically sealed – once again a limo, not a taxi. Then comes the horse-trading, but with people who, would you believe, are equally hermetically sealed. After the requisite butt kicking and carrot-dangling, it's back to the White House in those hermetically sealed vehicles to report to the [hermetically sealed] President. 

So, you see, his world, for all its flash and glitter, for all its smoke and mirrors, is about as narrow as yours and mine, isn’t that right?