A friend is dealing with a large bureaucracy and it brought to mind this aphorism. It’s way too damned difficult to get a human on the phone any more and it’s not just cost.

214.
Someone’s deceleration to exit, read a sign or
rubberneck starts a little chain of responses
that becomes a five-mile backup. So much of
what turns out to be the huge evil of systems
is the amplification of tiny reluctances to let go
of a habit, to lift a phone, to look up and meet
someone’s eyes.

-James Richardson, ‘Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays.’

41. If you do everything for one reason, then all you have done will be become meaningless when the reason does.

James Richardson, Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays

26.
The tyrant’s self-esteem is just fine, thank you. It’s you he
doesn’t care much for. And yes, he recognizes that he doesn’t
feel what you feel. Which is a good thing, since your feeling is
so weak that it makes him need to beat you up.

James Richardson, Vectors 3.0: Even More Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays

208.

If you change your mind, you are free. Or you were.

and

174.

Debts of a certain immensity demand betrayal.

‘Vectors’, by James Richardson