One of my guilty pleasures is taking long walks on the beach alone.  During beach season, it is fun to watch the visitors.  Ninety percent of them and 100% of the dogs are enjoying themselves.  I don’t know why it is so enjoyable, other than the novelty of it.  Less than 50% of the adults but more than 90% of the kids actually go into the water.  They could more easily stay home and get wet in their bathtubs.  Some psychologists think there is an evolutionary need to remember the watery world of pregnancy.  My wife  thinks it is just a grand conspiracy to track sand into the house.

During non-beach season, I have the beach to myself and a few other hearty souls, as I watch the ships going in and out of the Chesapeake Bay.  I have seen many awesome aircraft carriers pass serenely, secure in the knowledge they could easily defend or destroy Hampton Roads whenever ordered to do so.  Several times, I have been inspired whenever I see the U.S.S. New York, which was forged from the steel girders of the World Trade Center.  The Chesapeake Bay also reminds me to take a long view — of everything, especially when I remember the giant meteor strike hundreds of millions of years ago that formed the Bay.  We are merely a vapor.

Yet, this blog touches on things existential and things economic.  What is existential about this guilty pleasure?  Well, I like taking these walks alone and even do so during those forlorn winter months.  Remember:  every person is an island.

And, what is economic about this guilty pleasure?  Economics is a study of how scarce resources are allocated.  One very scarce resource is time.  How can I justify a 90-minute walk when I could spend the time solving the quadratic equations of the latest econometric analysis by some academic nerd?  If you have to even ask that question, you wouldn’t understand the answer!

Oh, yeah . . . it is also good exercise . . . so, as Nike says . . . JUST DO IT!