Volume 4 · The Ledger and the Loom · Essay 135

Inner Citadel

Inner Citadel is a small handle on a large fact. Grip it, and the fact becomes easier to carry.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Consider the chit fund in a small town. It survives not on contracts but on the shame of defaulting before neighbours. Reputation is the oldest collateral in India.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. Print it on a card if you like. Better: print it on a habit.