Margins

Why is this important? Is the reading of novels not just a pastime, a way of escaping from reality for a few hours, and thereby just another element of the entertainment machine in which we live? Is it not more important to engage with our neighbor, who after all is real, rather than with one who exists only in a work of fiction? The difference between engaging with a real neighbor and one in a novel is that the former occurs in the social sphere, within the boundaries of its rules and practical constraints, whereas the latter occurs outside of it, in the reader’s own most private, intimate sphere, where the rules that govern our social interaction do not apply and its practical constraints do not exist. Only there, in that encounter, are we able to see the concept of the social and see exactly what it is. And only there, in that encounter, are we able to see what a human being is outside of that concept, in itself and on its own terms. This space—that is, the novel’s—is idiosyncratic, particular, and singular: in other words, it represents the exact opposite of the media, which strives toward the universal and general.

There are two forms of intelligence that will help you find music: machine and human. Music discovery companies target the type of music listener who’s heuristics will always yield better results from the machine. They bring enough probabilism to bear to ensure good outcomes from collaborative filtering. This is not most people. Most people won’t have inputs such as “post punk from Boston between 1980 and 1984 who toured along side but not with R.E.M.” Most people have inputs like “something inoffensive that won’t bother me and that my kids won’t fight about.” For most people the music discovery engine that matters still has an actual name. It always did. It may be Keith McPhee or Kevin Weatherly or Bob Pittman.

He told me that when he was young he had a friend who suffered from serious depression, and he had been surprised to find that there was almost no treatment available. It spurred a lasting interest in psychiatry. “People think you are weak if you are depressed,” he said. “It is still a common prejudice. But many people suffer from problems we cannot begin to address. The brain is still the place in the universe with the most unanswered questions.”

I keep thinking of Healthcare.gov. Everyone knows that the initial project was a costly disaster, but less well known is that a small team came along and saved it. The story includes this remarkable fact: The old system cost $250 million to build and $70 million a year to maintain. The new system—which actually worked—cost about $4 million to build; its yearly maintenance was about $1 million. If the initial system hadn’t been such a public failure, we might not have learned that it was two orders of magnitude more expensive than it needed to be. How many more projects are being run at 60 times their actual cost? Should we stand around waiting to find out?

But a thing that you’re reminded of, watching those old Bulls games, is Jordan had some stinker games in the playoffs. But he would get that out of his mind, and then the next moment comes and he’s right there. He could have a terrible game for the first three quarters and then suddenly go crazy the fourth. Or he might miss a free throw, and then the next play is he’s stealing the ball and hitting the game-winning shot. Part of what I try to do—not at the level that Jordan did on the basketball court, but part of what you aspire to as president or any of these positions of leadership—is to try to figure out how to be in the moment, make the best decision you can, know that you’re going to get a bunch of them right, but a bunch of times you’re also not going to get it exactly the way you want it.