I run a restaurant in downtown Salem, Oregon. At 8am you can find: • people sleeping in the doorway • someone pacing and arguing with nobody • staff walking in already braced for whatever today’s crisis will be We’ve had a guy huff paint in the bathroom until the can exploded on his face and then wander into the lunch rush. My line cooks have administered Narcan to strangers before they clock in. The more I look around at everything, the more I return to one observation: “If the rules aren’t real, people go insane.” Not “insane” like diagnosis. Insane as in: you cannot stay honest and stable if the stories you’re given and the mechanics of your life are two different games.