Despite whatever misgivings I have about the current president, and I confess to having many, he’s right about pencils.
“How many pencils does a person need?” He famously asked recently. You only need “one or two,” he insisted. And when I read those words, I looked up from my newspaper to the three jars on my desk, each stuffed with pencils and pens I’ve picked up over the years, none of them sharp or even usable, and I had to admit that from the standpoint of pencils, as he might put it, President Donald Trump is making sense.
Let me clarify: I know close to nothing about economics or trade policy. Once, many years ago, I had a long and engaging dinner with the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, and he seemed like a guy who knew what he was talking about, so I decided that I didn’t need to do any further research into the subject. “Whatever Milton Friedman thinks is good enough for me,” has been my guiding economic principle since then. I’m firmly on #TeamMiltonFriedman: free trade, free markets, small government. Still, Trump is right about pencils.
And not just pencils. It’s getting close to Christmas, and though my gift list is smaller and more focused these days — I owe gifts under the tree for my niece and nephew, and thanks to a recent Secret Santa scheme imposed on the other adults in the family, only one more — I can feel myself applying the Trump Pencil Doctrine toward Christmas presents.
“How much more stuff do any of us need?” I find myself wondering, as I’m looking around for gift ideas. “Don’t we all have enough?” Wouldn’t it be great if this Christmas we gave each other as little as possible?
I know what you’re thinking, and let me stop you right there: I am not cheap. In fact, as any of my friends will tell you, I can be extravagantly generous. My new appreciation of the Trump Pencil Doctrine (and its corollary, the Two Doll Problem) isn’t driven by parsimony or Scrooge-ness. The truth is, as much as I love finding a great gift, wrapping it, and placing it under the tree, there really aren’t that many great gifts left to give. Scrolling through Instagram or any of the zillion “Best Gifts for the Holidays” features in magazines and newspapers, and it all looks like a lot of unnecessary and, frankly, humdrum stuff that’s going to get put somewhere and forgotten about. It’ll be nice, of course, and will seem useful and maybe even luxe, but we all know where it’s eventually going to end up: in a closet, on a shelf, never worn or used. Not because it’s a bad or thoughtless gift, but because, and here’s where the Philosophy of Trump kicks in, we already have one. In fact, we already have one of everything.
MAGAZINE: A COMEDY WRITER TAKES THE PULPIT
I am aware that I am not the first person to realize this, and that none of this gets me out of my (admittedly small) three-gift obligations on Christmas morning, even though in your heart you know that the president and I have the right attitude about all of this. So my plan is this: I am going to give my niece and nephew something that I already own. I am going to go into my stash of family stuff — some silverware, maybe; an old pocket watch; a set of studs and cufflinks from my great-grandfather — and select from those treasures something to wrap up and deliver. It’s win-win: they get something that’s actually meaningful and important, and I get to reduce the amount of stuff I have cluttering up my apartment. Also, it will be obvious to them that they’d probably get all of this stuff eventually anyway, when I’m dead, and my relatives are divvying up my loot, but that by giving it now, I’m making a statement about the importance of living in the present moment.
Or something like that. I’m sure they will be moved by the loving and generous gifts — that’s the real point of Christmas, right? — and you can’t beat the price, although that’s not why I’m doing it. But it’s not not why I’m doing it, either.
Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.