Richard > Recent Status Updates

It's always a good sign when I audibly chortle when reading a book by myself.

The sections on overreach in the discussion of Clausewitz and Tolstoy seem to point towards a way to deal with...ahem...other overbearing personalities. But getting a tyrant to reach too far invariably requires sacrifice of the space to stretch him out.

There are odd gaps in this text, at least to my mind - the religious zealots require Mary to read the scriptures five times before she is allowed to speak, and Mary is presented as an inquisitive youth. But no one ever quotes scripture and Mary never questions a text she is made to read five times.

The book focuses more on emotional textures and a denial of agency (at least thus far), but it's a hole in the story.

I didn't, however, need yet another admonishment to read Tolstoy and Thucydides.

So many ideas to digest: managing means and ends, the importance of flexibility, and the way said flexibility can be lost as one gets older.