Tactical Wisdom

burning questions

Since coming back from my first trip to Burning Man, I’ve been turning over some questions in my mind. Well, not some questions, just one question, or rather multiple angles on a single question, trying to get to the heart of the matter like an artist’s chisel biting through stone to find the…

many goods are incommensurable

There are many simple ways of saying things pretty similar to what I’m saying here, such as:

• To each his own.
• One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
• It’s apples and oranges.

intelligence is a crutch

Being smart is a good thing, as any smart person will tell you more times than you care to hear. And being really smart is like some kind of weird superpower. If you’ve ever been at the head of your class, or the smartest person in the room, or even just the subject matter expert in…

four for forty

I’m four days from my fortieth birthday, and thinking hard about what I’ve learned over the past four decades. Over the next four days, I’m going to write about the four lessons that were hardest for me to learn — these are not necessarily the most important, or the most valuable, or the most…

career two by four

Lately I’ve had occasion to give advice to a few people who are early in their careers. I always find myself amusingly inept at this activity — the more actual experience I have, the more young people think I have something useful to tell them, but the further I am from the time when I was…

the iron quadrangle

I was talking with a friend tonight about “The Iron Quadrangle” — my name for a concept that I’ve read about and pondered over the years. Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I first saw it; happily, we agreed that this means I can restate it without attribution . . .