This Slacker Doesn’t Even Work Weekends

You can’t always extrapolate from the example of genial and useful people like Frank Catalfumo. Many other people once worked at the same job as he has all these years, and were wiped out in their turn. His continuing existence is not proof that others could have made it, and should have kept trying.

People who operate businesses that have their name on it act differently than those that don’t, though. It’s personal. There’s the potential of starvation and ruin, of course. That’s pretty personal. But that’s not the end of it. People are amazingly stubborn about businesses that they feel a personal connection to. Many hang in there long after any outside person would counsel them to quit. If you’re a hired hand, you are generally much more ambivalent about the continued existence of a trade or business as long as you get a job at whatever replaces it. The owner feels a sense of pride if he’s hanging in there, and a kind of shame if it goes down the crapper.

Business is predicated on a kind of faith. If I’m useful, someone will use me. But as Nietzsche said, “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.” A man’s dream must become a stranger’s reality, or it’s just daydreaming.

We should be in awe of Frank Catalfumo’s dream.