Similar to “girl math,” which breaks down the price of an item by the cost per wear to justify big-ticket purchases, spaving encompasses all the ways buying decisions are rationalized.

An autobiographical understanding seems to create a mine-ness to our reasons: we don’t just act on reason; we act for reasons that are ours, because we have the possibility of authoring the biographical story through which we act.

.” Jefferson may have privately justified his r elations with Sally Hemings by reminding him-self t hat everyone did it, or t ried to do it. F rom teens ending their ( and their victims’) virginity, t o married men sneaking around, t o single and widowed men having their longtime liaisons—master/slave rape or i ntercourse seemed “natural,” and enslaving one’s children seemed normal i n slaveholding America.

reasoning was not enough