Exit Ghost - Day 2, The Riches

I'm reading Philip Roth at a pace because he is so good to read, but at the same time not too fast( as before in another post. I think, I moderate my reading speed in order to pay attention). I'm also reading other stuff, and writing too, and thinking, so this blog could indefinitely branch off into that avenue or this. I like cutting and pasting bits of my own work, randomly - well not that randomly - new stuff that I am writing - into the blog.  What I'm watching too. The Riches deserves oscars or emmies or something like that , or Eddie Izzard does certainly, just for inventing the word "buffer" - what grifters call the rest of us in our settled homes and jobs. Uneven plot but great writing in this series. Fantastic names - the "Riches" alerts us to the fact there will be great puns throughout, and they make their new home in "Eden Falls". 

One sleepless night, when Wayne/Doug is woken by the running teacher, and groans out to him "I'm a fraud", the teacher (good guy) says, "We're all frauds. This is Eden Falls", or something like that. The American dream has never seemed more unattractive. Or the grifter life come to that. You can see that people live in what they are used to, and don''t get along with what they're not. 

There's a universal truth for you. Give someone complete freedom, to do whatever they like, and it's like you set them down on a limitless plain, the horizons so big and faraway and full of distant promise, they just spin on the spot. Confine someone, however, to one of those narrow trails, up the side of the hill, working your way up or just traversing, but ever with an eye to the drop down below, and the mind is concentrated  you know what you've got to do.  You may moan and cry, but you make sure you put one damn foot after another on the path because diverting to the one side is the drop, to the other a climb up a steep, treacherous  loose shingle. At least the path's marked out, at least there are footprints to follow, at least you know other people have gone before you.  At least you know there is a destination?