Unicorn Farming

Unicorn farming is risky business.  I should know.  For the past 30 years, I’ve lived and farmed here on the world’s biggest unicorn farm called San Francisco.  Growing unicorns requires massive investment.  Care must be given almost exclusively to fueling their mythical growth.  They’re highly susceptible to infection by ethics, laws, economic reality, truth and any number of other real-world impediments to growth. 
 
Our farm has been successful for many years.  Until recently, people came from all over the world to join us.  As our population soared, we had to build more structures and hire more farmers.  At some point, farming was so good that we stopped selling our unicorns, instead keeping them on the farm to grow astonishingly large, next level mythical.  I guess we got a little caught up in our own fairy tale.
 
Today, our farm is in bad shape.  Our unicorns are mostly infected by the scourge of truth and economic reality.  No one seems to want to buy a unicorn anymore, especially one of our bloated super unicorns.  People are leaving the farm, some voluntarily, others having been forced out.  We’re selling off our equipment and buildings at fire sale pricing.  Many of the businesses that thrived here to support our farm are also struggling.  It’s a hard time. 
 
This old farmer is looking around at the carnage, feeling a bit like the first time I realized Santa isn’t real.  I still enjoyed getting gifts, but the magic was gone.  Farming unicorns without the magic is, well, just not the same.  But I know this much, the magic will come back.  It always does.  We’re just made to believe.  All of us.  We want to believe in unicorns, to ride them to the highest heights.  Even now, as I write in this dark hour, some of our best farmers are busy grooming a whole new generation of unicorns.  Buyers will feign skepticism for a while; but in the end, they’ll come back.  They always do.