I acknowledge my mind is a bit skewed at the moment due to being away for a bit, but it's also skewed by binge-watching Better Call Saul.
Don't worry. I'm not seeking to become legitimate through slippery interpretations of the law.
But it's almost 6:30 p.m. at night and I'm writing about an obscure policy trying to understand the rules while I slowly listen to a meeting from eight days ago. I don't know the decision yet, and don't know all of it.
As I write it, the entire situation becomes a story in my mind. I try to track down the information and piece it together so someone can come along behind me and follow along.
Two of the characters in Better Call Saul work very hard to learn the law for their clients' benefit. They make arguments, and to be able to do so, they have to research and know everything.
I'm not here to do that. Sometimes I want to, but I learned that I was not cut out to persuade anyone of anything. That's not how I was built. I chose a profession that allowed me to satisfy my need to follow doubt.
They say we're all the star of our own movie in our minds, and we live in a world where much of our common conversation is about the video stories we see on our screens.
I prefer to dig into the work I do. I see so many stories in all of it, and I love putting the patterns together to see what may happen next, and to understand how all everything adds up to just something.
I do want to persuade people to read my writing, because the larger the audience, the more I need to broaden my appeal. I have to work harder to make obscure policies more clear. I've been able to do this because I've spent a great deal of my life doing this work.
The character of Jimmy McGill is one of the best I've experienced in televised fiction. I understand him so much, and I've appreciated the early seasons that explored a time before he was who we'll later see in Breaking Bad.
Bob Odenkirk is perfect in the role. I first knew of him from Mr. Show, and one of the writers of that show is Scott Aukerman, who's spent the last 13 years hosting Comedy Bang Bang, a show for which I pay $7 a month to get access to a lot of bonus materials.
Comedy Bang Bang is nearing 800 episodes. He never takes a week off, and has worked hard to cultivate improvisational comedy. Bob Odenkirk showed up a lot earlier.
In my newsletter, I always try to be light and comedic in the opening. That's almost entirely due to listening to Comedy Bang Bang. Much of what I write about is serious, but I want to set a human tone.
I'm human and real, after all. More and more people experience me only through the media I send out into the world. That's been the case for all of us on social media now for the last decade or more.
There's lot to think about and a lot to know. As I continue to watch Better Call Saul (after a day's break because it's getting intense as I come to the end of the fourth season) the beauty of its construction helps me try to think of the world in interesting ways.
And now, back to obscure policy hoping to make something sharp.
