thoughts from saturday (not published then because i fell asleep in the middle of writing)

Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. - Lord Acton

I'm not sure if I believe it, and if I do, I don't know how to incorporate it (into a money making business). I'm all for keeping things on the up and up. But absolute transparency sacrifices an awful lot of efficiency. To say nothing about organizations or governments, I would find such an open policy to be cumbersome on a personal level. And so while the saying has a nice ring to it, it might only be as true as something like "Ultimate power corrupts ultimately." (A lengthy discussion on this topic is not suitable for my present level of wakefulness. But if pressed, my quick and easy cop out answer is that I haven't seen overwhelming evidence for either side)


The thing I like about allusion and metaphor is uncertainty of the boundaries. I've gotten myself into trouble before by saying "as you wish" to people who've watched The Princess Bride more than I have. And so that would be a misinterpretation. Similarly (but oppositely), I might say "Good night, good night," but the "parting is such sweet sorrow" might be lost on someone not looking for it, and therefore they might not recognize that in repeating my farewell I'm expressing just how much I appreciated our time together. Or, they might take the allusion to an unreasonable extreme and deduce that I plan, in the next few hours, to kill myself with a dagger. All I'm saying is that allusion leaves a lot of room for user error. But, I still like it. It does such a good job compressing a lot of meaning.