It's story time

It's story time. This time I am not especially alert, as earlier I cut my sleep in half to drive to and from a pre-sales meeting downtown, and I am probably going to nap after this.

The past few days have been moderately volatile - the quality of volatility is never the same, in a small, highly diversified business, due to the great degrees of freedom. On one hand, business has basically resumed normalcy ... bearing in mind that we are a normally lossy business, that is nevertheless a decent improvement from a few months of waiting for broader society to get over its anxieties about sickness and extermination. I continue to coach our small team of operators on issues of quality. I continue to pursue developments in technology for our future. I continue to keep our books, and to proselytise our brand despite internal regulatory hurdles. In case you, the reader, are unaware, we operate a cafe.

Much continuation, very little to look forward to besides the status quo. That is generally how I approach life, as an individual, and I have done so since about the beginning of the millenium. Given my personal appreciation of life and its events, I generally find it intellectually challenging to figure out how to operate in broader society as if I have the same aspirations as various other people. It is almost a matter of method acting. More broadlly I see it as cultural anthropology. First I study a set of people, for example, people who operate businesses, and Iearn about their culture and motivations. Then I insert myself into their rituals and ceremonies. That is an enriching process in and of itself. But it takes energy, to keep in mind what I do and how to do it, so perhaps that is partly why I am always tired.

I have always felt a little too privileged, given my standing in society. Generally I have made more money than I care for ... when I was in college, I was buying things through charity organisations. After college I began my study of commerce and politics in Malaysia. Malaysia is generally a quaint and polite hamlet in the world of nationstates, and things proceed always fairlly predictably. It is so easy to make small amounts of money, but the amounts are never particularly interesting - I am usually more curious about what happens when we amble into unchartered territory than in doing what is predictable. Thus my academic orientation shows itself perpetually.

Every now and then I say too much about what I perceive, and I trigger the fear, rage, and loathing of some neighbourly individual who is unhappy to have their expectations interrupted. I worry about their happiness, so I am regretful in this regard. But not regretful enough to cease my study of humanity and to simply dwell on numbers - that, I suppose, I can do when I am fully enfeebled, in mind and body, one day.