The Fundamental Thing Is To Dream a Dream Together d'apres Tom Jobim

drawing/collage by marguerita

At the heart of the matter, of course, are the complex feelings we all bring to the subject of money itself. We covet it but we are ashamed of overtly lusting after it.
As a culture that tends to look for black-and-white, reductionist explanations, it is doubtful that we will ever fill in the gaps in our understanding of a situation that is shot through with ambiguity. There is no single code word — no “Rosebud” — that will lead us to decipher the Madoff phenomenon, no eureka realization that will account for his strange and ultimately ruinous trajectory or the dissociative behavior that allowed him to believe one thing while doing another.
What this intense focus has enabled us to do, however, is to skim over the psychology of the other participants in the drama: the ones who got taken.Op-Ed Contributor - If Looks Could Steal - NYTimes.com