Category: Newsletter (Page 17 of 23)

I hosted a dinner party on Friday. Well, I’m going to call it a dinner party. It was really just having a couple friends over, but that is more than I have done previously in my current residence. The food was simple, a beef stew cooked in the crock pot served over rice with a side of roasted bell peppers. Are those complimentary? Maybe not, but that’s what I had so that’s what I made. The food wasn’t really the point anyway.

The purpose instead was live, in-person social interaction. I had very little of that during most of July and so have taken some steps in August to add more. Not much more, mind you, but more than zero. We discussed topics ranging from the mundane to the comical to the serious. I wasn’t the only one who had suffered from COVID during July, so we commiserated about that. They told me about a blowout wedding they had attended and the possibility of expanded social connections in the Triangle for all of us as a result. They did their best to get me to finally purchase a new set of golf clubs and join them on the course, something I haven’t done yet. I told them about the vision for the law firm over the rest of 2022 and about my efforts to sink some roots here so that I don’t feel compelled to leave again as I have lived the last decade mainly in 2 and 3 year stints in different places.

The conversation lasted several hours and was just the sort of thing I needed. There were even pastries from one of Raleigh’s local bakeries for dessert (and breakfast on Saturday morning). It was the sort of evening I’d like to have more of in the future.

I have reflected on my approach to reading this week. In doing so, I came across an article from one of the few blogs I check on a semi-regular basis and have been chewing on its contents over the past few days. This missive incorporates from the whole piece, but focuses on a few sentences (helpfully bolded in the original): Read old books. Read the best ones twice.

When it comes to knowledge, time is the greatest filter. What is useful is remembered, what is not is forgotten. To survive for more than a few years (or sometimes even months), a book must have something real. It need not have more than a single core idea, but that idea must have substance. Even if the examples are no longer relevant, the idea still matters. Those are the books I want to absorb. As an aside, allowing the filter of time to work its magic is also why I gave up reading the news a few years ago, a decision that continues to bewilder some but one upon which I have no intention of reneging.

I plan to begin this new course by re-reading books I have already read, or more realistically re-reading the bits I highlighted or underlined when I read them the first time. After all, returning to the highlights is why I made the effort in the first place. I still haven’t gotten to the point of feeling comfortable writing my own notes and summaries in books—one step at a time.

With my fiction reading, I am taking a different approach as it serves a different purpose. It is more for entertainment and helping me wind down and get to sleep. Even there, though, I am steering away from the newest books and allowing time to filter for quality. Now I just need to cut out some of the mindless YouTube videos so that I may set upon the path, something easier said than done after the many hours I have spent on that particular platform over the past month.

I have finally recovered, so this will be the last of three posts in a row centered around a movie/show I watched while I couldn’t do much else. At a pace of one episode per day, I watched a courtroom drama mini-series set in London called You Don’t Know Me. I cannot recommend it for children, but last week’s piece was about a show tailor made for the kids so I don’t feel too bad about that. The show starts with the prosecutor’s closing argument, and the evidence is stacked heavily against the defendant—the gun used in the murder found in his apartment, in a shoebox with his passport and some money no less, the victim’s blood recovered from under the defendant’s fingernails, CCTV footage of the defendant driving to the scene of the murder, and cell tower data placing the defendant at the scene of the murder too.

With all of that wrapped up in a nice summary package, the real drama starts. The defendant has fired his own solicitor so that he could deliver his closing argument himself. Through a series of extended flashbacks, the real story unfolds, and there is a surprise at almost every juncture. How the judge allowed him to tell the whole narrative strains credulity from a legal procedural perspective, but people who aren’t attorneys probably won’t need to suspend disbelief as much as I did. I won’t spoil anything in case people want to watch the series, but it is definitely one where you can debate the ending after the credits roll on the final episode.

This mini-series was based on a book. I commented a few weeks ago about how movies based on books are almost never as rich as the original works. Extended television series face the same problem to a lesser extent, as those who read the Game of Thrones books would surely attest. The extended television series, though, is what ushered in the golden age of television that we have experienced over the last decade or so. This is perhaps because of the genre’s ability to tell more complex and layered narratives and to delve deeper into the character’s minds than was possible before, to be more like a book.

There is a television series I have watched during the past few weeks, a series that I dare say would be impossible for an American studio or production company to get the green light to film given American mores and even laws in some states. So what happens on this show, you ask? A young child, often about three years old, is sent by his or her parents on an errand alone. The errands are things like delivering a work uniform or buying diapers or picking up lunch. A pretense is created to set off the errand, a discussion about the task (sometimes taking as long as half an hour if additional motivation is required) takes place between the child and a parent, and then the child sets off. There is a microphone hidden in an amulet that each child wears like a tiny purse. There is also a large camera crew following each child around at all times and the store owners have all been made aware of what is taking place—the children aren’t actually alone at any point even if they don’t realize that. The self-talk is hilarious, there are often moments of confusion or hesitation, but eventually the tasks are completed. The best part of the show is the triumphant walk home. You can tell in their walk that the children are brimming with confidence. They know that they have just taken a step towards growing up.

There is a careful logic to the errands. The tasks are always things the children have done before with their parents and are at places they have visited before. The parents also center the errand around some other person to provide extra motivation. The diapers are for baby brother, the uniform is for dad, the lunch is for grandma, etc. This allows the children not just to be brave for themselves, but to be brave for someone they love too.

This show illustrates what some academics call the zone of proximal development. The cliff notes version is that there is a zone of competence where you know what you are doing, know what to expect, and where you can operate on autopilot. Outside of that is a much larger area of things you don’t know or don’t know how to do. The area just beyond your zone of competence, the things you can do with a little assistance or can do but haven’t quite mastered, that is the zone of proximal development. If you stay in your zone of competence all the time, you stagnate and grow bored. If you stray too far outside the zone of competence, you freeze up and become disoriented. Growth lies in between, in always pushing just beyond the zone of competence, expanding the zone of competence. That is exactly what happens on this little show.

P.S. The show is called “Old Enough” on Netflix. The show’s audio is only in Japanese, so you do have to be willing to read subtitles to watch it. I have also seen a similar thing on British television where slightly older children navigate their way across central London, probably on YouTube.

I have more-or-less recovered and returned to an almost regular schedule. Not that we have a regular schedule in comparison to most people (e.g. we had a meeting last night with someone in Japan), but regular for us. Over the last week and a half, though, I have watched more movies and television than normal. One of those movies was Dune, fare outside my normal entertainment diet but a film I had planned to see for some time. This is a movie based on a book, a book I read and enjoyed.

I was underwhelmed by the movie. Sure, there were some tweaks to the story that ranged from unnecessary distractions to contemporary pandering, but I expected that. Everything just felt rushed. There was nothing wrong from a technical perspective. The editing was good, everything flowed, and the scenes were shot to provide an epic scale. Despite this technical proficiency, the characters and the story were flat. The book contains large chunks of inner monologue for each of the characters, monologue that reveals motivations, desires, and concerns. The movie contained none of that, to the point that if I hadn’t read the book I doubt I would have even been able to follow why certain characters took certain actions (or even who those characters were).

My overall impression was that in changing the medium, a masterwork was made into a good but forgettable piece. It is a common refrain that the book was better than the movie, but maybe this is more a product of the book coming first than any inherent superiority. I’m ruminating on how this concept might affect my business or my life more broadly, but writing out my thoughts is part of the process and one of the less-intended benefits of writing this newsletter every week.

For the Fourth of July, I took a bit of my own advice from last week’s newsletter. I opted to go somewhere I had not been before. There is a large state park (Umstead) located between Raleigh and the RDU airport. There are miles and miles of walking trails, a few lakes for boating and fishing, bike tracks, and there can even be horses on the multiuse paths. A few years ago, one of the large trees beside one of the multiuse trails fell parallel to the trail. A few local artists took the opportunity to carve into the tree with chainsaws. Over the span of nearly thirty feet of fallen tree, there are numerous animals depicted—herons, owls, foxes, squirrels, rabbits, etc. The carving has become something of a landmark and even gets its own signage at the nearby trail junctions. I have visited the park a few times previously for the hiking trails but had never ventured to see the carved log and decided Monday was the day.

The log is only about a mile from the parking lot, so I added in one of the other hikes too to get more value for my journey. This was also a hedge as I knew I enjoyed that particular hike and the log was something new. That attitude is akin to the concept of the zone of proximal development in my mind, but that may just be a mental crutch. In any event, I do often mix the familiar with the new to reduce the risk of being overwhelmed. It may not be that that is necessary for everyone, but it is a tactic that has worked well for me down the years.

It’s a good thing that I took the other hike. I won’t denigrate the artwork, but that is definitely not a site I will be taking guests when they come visit me. I’m glad I saw it since I’ve wondered about it for some time, but that wonder is now permanently sated. On the walk back, my face displayed a combination of a wry smile and a knowing head shake of resignation. So it goes.

Last Friday, I joined some friends for wine night. This is a regular event that they have been attending for months but was my first time. Although I did have a few glasses of malbec while in Argentina, no one would ever mistake me for a sommelier. I am trying to expand my horizons though and saw this as low-risk.

The event took place outside a bakery café currently undergoing renovations around a makeshift bar with tables and chairs filling a parking lot. They are installing a bar on the back patio as part of the renovations, but the place had a temporary feel that did little to create ambiance. My friends were sitting on barstools talking to the bartender when I arrived. It was clear that they were regulars from their conversation. They had just returned from a trip out west and so were regaling the bartender with some of their stories, and I just listened in also as I hadn’t seen them since they got back either.

I don’t know what wine I had. It was something light in color from Portugal and on the funky side, a bit like some sour beers. For me, the wine wasn’t the point. I wanted to have some conversation after a hectic week of dealing with lawyers on the other side of transactions. I didn’t even choose the wine I drank; I left that decision to my friend who knows me well and know wine much more than I do.

My friends knew everyone who was there and talked to most of them. This was their spot. Being there with them was a reminder of what I have missed thus far in Raleigh. I don’t have my spots yet, and that needs to change. Will change. I write that knowing I’m planning on a short trip away again after the holiday weekend, but summer is the time for this exploration and that will be my focus over the coming months. I encourage you to do the same wherever you are this summer—go out and explore and find your own local spots.

I attended a startup pitch event last week, the sort of event I have been attending on a regular basis for a few years now. Investors in the Southeast have always been more concerned with a path to profitability than their counterparts in Silicon Valley, but sustainable growth was even more of a focus at this event and there seemed outright disdain for the growth-at-all-costs mindset that dominates most venture capital (e.g. there are publicly-traded companies that grew with venture funding that still aren’t profitable). This event was more for practice for the founders than anything else and most of the companies speaking will never seek investment from venture funds, but that wasn’t the point—I was there to listen to the investors and get a sense of what they are thinking.

There has been some heavy consternation in the startup space during the last few months. Y Combinator published a memorandum to founders telling them to prepare for lean times that has become a lightning rod for both criticism and praise. The current economic state might best be summarized by a quote from Game of Thrones: Chaos is a ladder. Lots of companies will retract and recoil. Some might fail entirely. Yet there will be others that come through this crucible and become juggernauts. And for those of you reading this who don’t have your own businesses, a similar logic holds for people as well. There will still be opportunities, just maybe not the ones you thought would exist a few months ago.

During the final weekend I was in Buenos Aires, I went to a soccer match. It was the first game of the new season so there was an air of novelty, though Argentina is unusual as there are two seasons every year for its top division. I chose to attend a home match of Boca Juniors, one of the two biggest clubs in Argentine soccer along with River Plate. This match was not a superclasico between the two Argentine giants, but Boca is famous for having one of the most imposing stadium atmospheres anywhere in the world. The stadium is called La Bombonera, which translates to the chocolate box, so named for an older version of the stadium that looked like a box of chocolates and one of the great stadium names anywhere.

Attending a soccer match in Argentina is not as simple as just buying a ticket and showing up. For one thing, visiting fans aren’t allowed inside stadiums. Argentina is not the only country in Latin America with this policy that is a sad reminder of the violence that has sometimes broken out in the stands. There are also different classes of tickets. Most tickets are allocated to socios, a form of membership that is comparable to being a season ticket holder. There can be additional single tickets for purchase, but there is no guarantee that any will be available.

To eliminate the risk, I overpaid to ensure someone local would be with me attending the match. As it turned out, I’m not sure this was an overpay at all as there was an issue with the socio card I was given to enter the stadium. I still don’t know exactly what the problem was, but I was escorted by a team employee to another line where he explained the situation to a cashier and she placed a wristband with an embedded scannable code on my arm. It was stressful, but there was nothing I could do other than laugh at this misfortune. Eventually, though, everything got sorted and I was able to pass through the turnstiles.

There was still almost a half hour before kickoff, so I was still able to get the full pregame experience. My seat was along the sideline, about at the 25 yard line if it were a football field. Mind you, this is not where our tickets were, but I preferred to be a little higher up than the fourth row so I could see more of the pitch. The atmosphere inside built as more and more people crowded into the stands. When the crowd really got going in the minutes leading up to kickoff, both ends of the stadium were just noise and color of waiving banners and balloons. They were singing the same songs, but the timing was a little off between the two ends so the effect was a very strange and rapid echo. A few flares added some smoke to the atmosphere, and then we were ready for kickoff.

For large stretches, what was taking place on the field was almost an afterthought. Boca were dominant in possession, but the final killer pass was lacking for most of the half. Then someone finally found that perfect pass and it resulted in a simple tap-in goal. When Boca scored, the place shook. This was both exhilarating as it resulted from such an outpouring of joyful emotion and disconcerting as the structure is mostly concrete and steel. A second followed shortly thereafter and all signs pointed towards a blowout. Then out of nothing the visitors stole the ball in midfield and broke forward to score themselves. And the Boca fans responded by getting louder to back their team to respond, something I’ve always wanted to see but that never happens when the other team scores in our stadiums.

The second half was rather drab with the only real on-field action being a mistake from one of Boca’s central defenders and a great save to keep the score at 2-1. When the final whistle blew, I stood and slowly turned in circles to take in the receding scene around me. The wall of people and noise to my left only began to fade after the players left the pitch, but those in my section filed out in quick order. Exiting the stadium was much less chaotic than entering, and we walked backed to where the car was parked. I was then driven back across the city and dropped off at a subway station to proceed with the remainder of my time in Buenos Aires.

In order to traverse Buenos Aires as quickly as possible, I have taken many journeys by subway during my stay. It helps that each ride only costs about fifteen cents. During off-peak hours, vendors walk through the train cars selling things. They sell boxes of tissues, face masks, chewing gum, sewing kits, highlighters, or whatever else they have managed to procure (chewing gum is a consistent best-seller). There is an established protocol for how these vendors operate. The vendor places the item in the lap of everyone seated in a train car (you can opt out with a simple hand gesture no) then doubles back to collect the goods. Prices are listed on stickers on the items. If you don’t want to buy, the vendor will pick up the goods as he circles back. If you wish to make a purchase, you hand him money instead of the item. If you want a different flavor or color, he will make it happen. And then the vendor will move into the next train car and repeat the process. The whole operation takes about the same amount of time as traveling a single stop, but if you wish to purchase before exiting the train you can flag the vendor down and he will make his way over to you. And you can just leave the item on the seat if you aren’t buying but have reached your stop.

The rules for this commerce are not posted, but all of the locals know them. This has been a simple example of something that I don’t normally notice but that is heightened by being a visitor here. Everywhere as its own quirky customs, things that don’t make sense when first viewed by outsiders but that often have internal logic. In the case of these subway vendors, it is an efficient way to purchase things in transit even if there is a lottery to what is offered. Stepping out of my normal environment into another has allowed me to observe this, and that is one of the great benefits of travel.