TL;DR: A wide week, three book quotes, and the practice of finding coherence across disparate angles.

“On Why I Read” May 3rd, 2026

Hiya

Sunday evening in DC. A good dinner, and then book open as I got ready to call it a day. That’s the moment I keep coming back to - not because the meal was remarkable, but because the reading was.

The week that followed was wide. And hard.

Work, then a run, and a friend across the table on Monday. Wednesday… a briefing to Command Team leaders. Thursday… two hours on Teams with people dialing in from +ten locations, and a mentor session “on the track” as we ran around base.

And then Saturday - Mama back in the ER, Felice by her side through the night; text messages until 2am. A 4am drive to LAX.

Expansive and difficult, all at the same breath.

What I keep noticing is that the books I read are doing something for me that the week alone does not. They are unifying disparate issues. They are giving me language for what I am already inside.

In “Next War,” John F. Antal and Mike Rounds write that “foresight is the ability to see and fix problems in the short term and create solutions for the long run.”

They are writing about war; but, I am reading it as a description of the world/experience I am holding - at work, where a wide spectrum of intents is in play, and at home, where I am planning to go to Europe with one set of parents while my mom is compromised and Jodi’s mom is having tougher and tougher days.

Multiple possible outcomes. Not all of them coexist easily.

It is heavy.

And at the same time, I am practicing letting go of what is not mine.

Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, in “Managing the Unexpected,” name the work this way: “Managing is firstly and fundamentally the task of attending to, sorting out, and prioritizing an inherently messy world of competing demands.”

I read that and recognize the muscle I have been building language around - Notice. Engage. Return.

Same task, different vocabulary.

Monday’s dinner with a buddy was the practice of it. I got to listen. Not fix, not input, not brainstorm.

Just be there. More and more, I find people are needing an outlet - a place to say things out loud, slower than they think, in the messy order words come out.

If the talker has enough time, they almost always arrive somewhere on their own. An aha. A resolution. An acceptance.

Weick and Sutcliffe again: “When we make sense, we turn continuous perceptions into discontinuous concepts, a finite number of types, and descriptions that we can meaningfully share.” That is what the friend was doing across the table. That is what I am doing now.

The angles are coming from everywhere this week.

That is the beautiful, weird part of it.

So – why DO I read? Coherence. A way to make the week portable. To myself first.

Then, sometimes, to someone else.

Much love from Montgomery, of all places!

JW