The rule painted on the slipway

In the small harbour at Sur, the fishermen have always shared one slipway, and for years nobody needed to say how.

You brought your boat up, you unloaded, you moved it. Whoever came in at dawn found the ramp clear, because whoever came in before him had cleared it. Nothing was written down. It did not need to be. Everyone understood that the arrangement worked only because everyone held back a little.

Then one owner began leaving his boat on the ramp overnight. When someone complained, he pointed out, correctly, that no sign forbade it. He was not breaking anything. He was simply taking more than his share of an understanding that had never been put on paper.

Within a season there was a sign. Then a painted line, a time limit, and someone from the port who came by to check. The whole harbour now works to a written rule, with a fine attached, because one person decided that what was unwritten did not count.

This is how most rules arrive. Not because a community loves regulation, but because someone leaned on an arrangement that depended on goodwill, and goodwill could not defend itself.

The best arrangement was the one they had: people who could have taken more and chose not to. The next best is the sign, clear and enforced, which at least protects everyone equally. The worst is the stretch in between, when the old understanding is honoured by the considerate and quietly ignored by the one who pushes, and he keeps winning.

Every time someone says a thing is not actually forbidden, they are helping to write the next rule.