The perils of attention at the highest level

One gets the sense these days that the Big Men of the world are playing for posterity, in the worst possible way. Globally the network economies of attention and the ability of social networks to concentrate it at scale have contributed to a general rash of them breaking out all over: Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping, MBS, Modi, Erdogan and so on down to the Mileis, Maduros, Musevenis and Bukeles of the world. Everybody jockying for position on the big board and trying to siphon eyeballs away from the Zuckerbergs, Bezos, Elons, etc. 

An article in The Economist this week noted that Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran is now 86 and that he probably wants to cement his legacy in a big way. Hell, they all do. Right now I think in their respective minds they are all playing chess with Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc and trying to figure out how to inscribe themselves into history indelibly. While they are also competing for eyeballs with Mr Beast and Sydney Sweeney's breasts.

Not a good situation. On the flip side, I continue to be impressed by people working hard to build low level connectivity across domains. My former client at the University of Georgia who works building relations with other universities globally. YouTubers traveling the world (and the US) on foot, on bicycle, on motorcycle to the deepest nooks and crannies of places insanely far off the beaten track and posting testimonials to the hospitality and ingenuity of others everywhere. It gives me hope.

Things fall apart. But which things fall apart most quickly, that's the question.

One last time

Up at the UNC Surgical Hospital for one last cosmetic little touch-up procedure* which will hopefully bring Mary's little cancer journey to a full and final conclusion. When did we start down this road? 20 months ago? Hard to say. It's all a bit of a blur.

To be sure sure we have thrust into a whole new level of adulting and have been offered fresh perspective on things in general. It is much harder to get bent out of shape over little things, though, as our kids can attest, it's not like we're fully immune from all of our historical petty squabbles. Rather, our immunity has been boosted to a level not likely to cause severe illness, as with a COVID vaccine, for example.

In the autumn the '83 Tigers had a collective 60th birthday party out at the Farm. I found out when this grey-haired guy greeted me as I was getting in my car after tennis. It was Doug Rose, who told me to stop by the party. "We're in the 4th quarter," he told me. I am not a fan of that metaphor. I prefer to think of the years after 60 as the third trimester. For one, with life expectancy for American 60-year olds hovering around 86, with a higher skew yet for the affluent, the trimester metaphor is more mathematically accurate. Cosmologically I think it is perhaps less accurate than the sports analogy, as I have not yet gone to church enough times to have bought into the whole rebirth in Jesus/New Life construct. 

Keep reading. We'll see which way it goes.

*The surgeon just came out and gave two thumbs up