The Velveteen Brew Pub - Granite Grok

The Velveteen Brew Pub

There are several classic stories — The Velveteen Rabbit, Pinocchio, The Magic City — about toys that become Real.  This whole mess — not so much the virus, but government’s wild, flailing, spastic over-reaction to it — is providing businesses with an opportunity to become, in a similar sense, Real — but they will need help from the rest of us to do that.

What makes you a toy?  Someone else makes decisions for you.  He decides  when you’ll be played with, and how much, and how.  You exist for his sake.  And when he decides that you’re no longer essential, he can set you aside. Maybe in a closet, for later.  Maybe in the trash, for good.

By contrast, what makes you Real?  You make your own decisions.  You decide what you’ll do, and when, and how.  You exist for your own sake.

A business that believes it needs a license to operate is, in this sense, a toy.  It can be declared non-essential, and set aside at the whim of someone else.

The thing about the word ‘essential’ is that it only makes sense in the context of being essential to someone or something else.  For example, essential amino acids are essential only to animals that can’t synthesize them.  In the same way, permission to do something is essential only to people who can’t give it to themselves.

(This is why the Declaration of Independence was a declaration, and not a petition.)

A business that only operates if it is considered essential by the state isn’t Real.  A business that operates because it is essential to itself, and its customers, is Real.

With each passing day, we’re seeing examples of businesses becoming Real.  A restaurant in Houston.  A salon in Dallas.  A racetrack in Ohio.  A brew pub in Maine.

The Maine example is instructive.  The state’s response to the pub’s decision to open was to take away its health and liquor licenses.  The pub’s initial response was to declare that it would continue to stay open anyway, but the owner quickly folded, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to pay the fines that would be levied against him for remaining open.

But a wonderful thing happened, which illustrates the process of becoming Real.  In The Velveteen Rabbit, the Skin Horse explains it this way:

Real isn’t how you are made. It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.

In Maine, more than 150 people showed up to support the brew pub when it opened for business.  When its licenses were revoked, more than 600 people donated to a fund to help the owner pay his fines.

To be ‘essential’, you need the permission of the state.  To be Real, you need the love and support of your customers.

Of course, you also need to be able to stand up to the police, should they show up and try to shut you down.

My wife just asked me an interesting and instructive question:  If the police are willing to go around hassling parents and kids at playgrounds, why weren’t they at Saturday’s rally in Concord to tell everyone to go home?  Do you suppose it could have anything to do with the fact so many of the people at the rally were armed, some conspicuously so?

Imagine that somewhere in New Hampshire, a restaurant — or a hair salon, or a gym, or a clothing store — opens without asking permission from the state.  Its licenses are revoked.  It stays open anyway, and its customers show up armed, some conspicuously so.  The police show up to shut it down, and the customers refuse to leave.  What do you suppose would happen?  Or wouldn’t happen?

That would be a business becoming, not ‘essential’, but Real.  And as the Skin Horse explained, ‘once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always’.

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