Musings

I have been feeling a bit bereft lately...

I go through periods where suddenly fiction just doesn't appeal, which is when I often switch to non-fiction...

But lately I haven't wanted to read things that are too grimdark. Call it a reaction to the perpetual bad news. Maybe we really are all doomed, but I'd rather focus on what we can, rather than keep complaining about how much things suck. (and boy, do they!)

And yet I also don't want to read things irrelevant to the issues of the day.

So I started looking through the books I've saved on my 'want to read' list on Goodreads, where I throw pretty much any book rec I come across that sounds the slightest bit interesting. 

Fascinating though the history of a siege on Malta or the Silk Road may be, they didn't feel right. Same for all the computer and programming related material. Well, I did hear good things about Clean Code, so I may get to that when I'm ready for a break from the one I finally chose:

Adults in the Room, by a Greek finance minister back when Europe was pressuring Greece to do austerity measures a few years ago. I kind of remember the time period, though as an American I was only peripherally aware. 

Anyways, in the very first chapter we have this quote:

"‘There are two kinds of politicians,’ he said: ‘insiders and outsiders. The outsiders prioritize their freedom to speak their version of the truth. The price of their freedom is that they are ignored by the insiders, who make the important decisions. The insiders, for their part, follow a sacrosanct rule: never turn against other insiders and never talk to outsiders about what insiders say or do. Their reward? Access to inside information and a chance, though no guarantee, of influencing powerful people and outcomes.’ "

That's rather depressing, really. Either speak your truth and remain powerless, or keep your mouth shut and basically become part of the problem?

Yeah, not cool.

I wouldn't mind 'speak truth in private and keep a united front in public', that's not too different from what I'd expect in the military (though speaking a contrary opinion behind closed doors also has a time limit, once the decision is made. I've seen that that doesn't hold true for all orgs though, as ideas that weren't chosen keep getting brought up.)

Heck, I'd probably even be okay with something like my views on the 'thin blue line' and cops protecting each other (namely that I don't really care if you ticket a cop, so much as that you address the bad behavior - if not formally then informally. If you don't want to give your buddy a ticket for drunk driving, make sure you tell them when they're sober that they can't do that again. Whether they need to seek treatment or call you next time or whatever you come up with... Whatever you choose, you need to fix it. That's also why racist cops are rotting the whole police force. Why aren't they pressuring their fellow officers to knock it off, just like they harass the ones who break that unwritten law about protecting each other? If they can't fix it privately, then they shouldn't get upset when their messes become public.)

Anyways, that rule is also why it's so hard to tell what's really going on. The insiders aren't saying, after all.

Given what a mess those insiders create (and I selected this book partly because it's not straight up bashing them for that), I can't help wanting a peek behind the curtain.