Tired of reading about Elon Musk’s adventures in rearranging American government? Bothered by the prospect that his Musketeers obtaining your IRS records may turn out poorly for you? Unsure if buying pre-construction time shares in Gaza Riveria Villages on the Mediterranean is the best use of your Bit coins?
Worried that Ukraine will not exist after Trump and Putin carve it up? Remember what happened after Hitler and Stalin divided up Poland? Ignore the news. It’s time to put on a happy face. Take advice from the MC in Cabaret: “Leave your troubles outside. Inside this column, the world is beautiful. The girls are beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful.”
We are going to pour several spoonfuls of sugar on all those unpleasant thoughts. Take off your thinking cap, we are going to cross the Event Horizon from grim reality into the land of blissful willful ignorance.
Today’s lesson will lessen the chaos surrounding us by digging up smiley face aphorisms suitable for printing on inspirational plaques sold at the Cracker Barrel. That’s right, boys and girls; walk down Quotation Lane to lighten up current reality. Our old pal Samuel Coleridge advised forcing a willing suspension of disbelief to enjoy life. John Bucher once said: “Ignore the fact that the arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward chaos.” Chaos is just a negative name for reality. Back in the 60’s there was a popular poster that cheered us up proclaiming “Reality is a crutch.” You don’t need no stinkin’ reality when you have a willing suspension of disbelief. Like Voltaire had Candide say: “We live in the best of all possible worlds.” Attitude makes reality swell.
Alice and the White Queen discussed reality during Alice’s visit to Wonderland. Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,’ she said; ‘one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger. I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Gentle Reader, get up a half-hour earlier each morning and practice believing impossible things. If you need coaching on this skill, watch more Fox News. It will take you there.
Be like the ax in the proverb: “The ax forgets. The tree remembers.” Who wants to be like a Weeping Willow tree? Trees are morose with bark worse than their bite. Cut through the inconvenient reality of 2025 to be an ax. Despite what Joyce Kilmer said, trees are stupid anyway. They just stand around waiting for DOGE to turn them into toothpicks. National Parks are so 20th century. It’s time for the National Parks to pay their own way. Drill baby, drill! Tea Pot Dome be darned. Oil derricks produce more revenue than Red Wood Trees any day of the month.
Reality just makes people unhappy. Our old buddy Thomas Hobbes opined that “life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Who needs that sort of reality? Ignorance makes one happier. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said: “It’s not ignorance that hurts so much, as knowing all the things that ain’t so.” The more stuff you know that ain’t so, the happier you will be.
Maya Angelou was dead wrong when she wrote: “Every storm runs out of rain.” The news has more rain than you can shake a stick at. Look at the hurricane damage in western NC, floods in California and Kentucky. Wouldn’t you be happier if you didn’t have to think about reality?
An Arab proverb summed up how best to deal with reality: “It is good to know the truth, but it is better to speak of palm trees.” You can know the truth if you choose, but speaking it can get you into trouble.
America’s favorite lawyer, Jackie Chiles, Esquire of Seinfeld described the problems of reality well: “It’s egregious, preposterous, lewd, lascivious, salacious, outrageous, and flaunts the conventions of society.“ Pro tip: If you are flaunting the conventions of society by following reality instead of happy talk about the current Administration, stop it. Get over your fixation of reality. Stop complaining about reality.
Another Arab proverb says: “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.”
If you persist in focusing on reality, not only will you be unhappy, but you might end up in GITMO stuck between the Devil and the deep Blue cheese. There is a reason the Swiss put holes in their cheese. They have figured out how to sell you holes. Reality is nothing but a Black Hole of unhappiness. Look for the holes in reality. There you will find true happiness.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)