The Ruse of Necessity

I was reading Advice to Myself by Louise Endrich recently.  The poem is, as you might expect, full of advice, yet one piece sticks out for me – her admonition to only pay attention to “what strikes at or what shatters the ruse you call necessity.”  Now there are five words full of meaning, begging for thought and introspection – “the ruse you call necessity.”

That said, it doesn’t take much thought or introspection to declare “necessity” a fraud, at least as I commonly use it in the more common form – “need.”