WHILE YOU WERE MARRIED
WHILE YOU WERE MARRIED
Things happened in 1991... apart from my spouse and I tying the knot.
Desert Storm
Visegrad
Germany is formally unified
… And they all laughed. Save from my deskmate, and brother to this day.
It was early 1991, and the receding winter had been the one when Kuwait had been invaded, and while the Allied forces had been deployed in the Arabian peninsula, no significant action had taken place. The US divisions which had been until the year before deployed in West Germany in order to parry attacks by the Soviets were now there, and for the first and the last time since 1973, two significant and comparable armies were bound to clash on open ground.
“They” was the customary investment meeting in the company I worked for, as a very junior junior equity manager. Yet, I had been a military buff since I was eight, I kept current as I try to do to this day, and I had said something so preposterous that I can understand the reaction.
Now, the official history now says “Iraq’s outdated and poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. “, but make no mistake, before the February counterattack no Beltway Bandit would have been found telling that to his own significant other behind locked doors. Ex post facto wins again. Yet, I failed on numerous counts, many of which are my defects to this day.
For one, albeit young and naif, I should have known rule no. 1 of organizations: “Meetings” are not something where decisions are made, or God forbid attacked in order to see if they crack under pressure: they are the secular equivalent of a Mass where the Word is imparted to the congregation, especially in times of doubt where Orthodoxy is in danger. Decisions are taken elsewhere, and if you are not aware that in any civilian or quasi civilian organization you see there is an Org Chart, and then there is how it works, sorry, I cannot help you. Also, the fact that I had been right has been one of my ego high point. That is, until I realized that that was totally immaterial: indeed, if Pride doth not go before the fall, is is extremely close.
The point is that in order to function, any organization whose aim is working in financial markets must be extremely careful about what happens if it is wrong. What I had said and could back up with concept and numbers (training syllabus, known specs of equipment, especially night vision of the era which made guessing the date fairly easy, since they needed enough Moon for Gen II Image intensifiers but not so much that the naked eye would work) should have been examined, and if they higher ups had found it proper, rejected. Yet, for another decade or more, I was still naif enough to believe what the established organizations said about their goals, values and aspirations. Thirty years on, I don't even listen, I Rickroll myself every time. My only reason to listen is that the difference between stated objectives and actual behavior is a prime indicator of dislocation, and since now I have a son who know almost all the Ferengi rules of Acquisition by heart, I could add one saying “Difference between stated and revealed objective equals profit”.
Yet, that took decades to come and two changes of job, which for an Italian is not at all the usual path, which is joining a company and becoming a kind of comfortable piece of furniture, in which the user and the used gradually take each other's shape to mutual satisfaction. And mind you, not only there is nothing wrong with that, but as a person the more people are satisfied with their lives the merrier I am. Yet, in that moment, a very much younger me, with a bride to be organizing a marriage lasting to this day, a fruitful intellectual life with a number of stimulating friends, both mine and my family's, I got imparted a lesson which took almost three decades to be fully realized in all directions.
The first was, I fear consensus as a concept. What would challenge me to believe as an individual remains so, irrespective of how many people think otherwise. Color me “stubborn” if you will.
The second is a partial positive: I do not mind at all if people think different from me. That not only is not enough to make me think less of anyone, but provided I do not get repeated proof that they are pigheaded groupies without an original concept of their own, I find that stimulating. I crave the challenge, provided it is civil, if we're not close enough to dispense of the civility for a short time. My business partner and I can and do have at times quarrels which could look murderous, until it's time for an Ice cream. There are things that are not to be disturbed by mere quibbles. And anyway, as the Bard said, “we are more like than unlike”.
Also, I don't bear grudges, or as I said to a friend I respect immensely, “I don't give out rent-free space in my head to people who have proven they don't want me to care for them”. I can be extremely loyal tough.
The third is that, try as I might, I cannot simply let go of what I am. Like Ulysses meeting the Lotus Eaters, I refuse to simply annul myself and go with the flow. I may not go as far to try to recover people who ate of the flower, but I try, most of the times. But I force no one, free men in a free country.
The fourth, is what makes me obnoxious: in my book there is no power without personal responsibility. Hence my frequent scraps with the bureaucracy, and believe you me, Italian bureaucracy would drive Kafka mad.
Yet, as time went by and with the relentless push toward conformity, aided and abetted by subservient Central Banks, we have reached a point where uniformity has assumed a hallow status. The raging rebels of 68 have turned into the ruthless bureaucratic enforcers of a new order, which is no order at all because as much as you want to compress chaos, it will come back stronger.
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