Ballard of Lola Maxwell Walker

In Paris a few weeks ago I had arranged to hire a convertible (an Alfa Romeo in fact) for the day.

The idea was to ensure that my daughter, at the age of 13, had ridden through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.

An unnecessary and paradoxical inoculation against future alienation from the self, derived from the slavery of consumerism and poverty of the heart.

Then she caught the cold from which I had just recovered, and I had to cancel the booking. She spent the day in bed.

The next day we had to fly back to Australia, so that was that.

Yet another example of well-meaning social engineering going up the wazoo.

If there is a moral to the story, it is this:

They have to live their own lives, for better or worse. Any attempts to engineer specific outcomes are battles against social entropy. All you can really do is equip them with the precursors to wisdom.