October 28, 20XX+1
Dear Lucilius:
Seneca has always said it was fine to write to you whenever I felt like it. He offered to let me read the letters he has “sent” you and will sometimes read part of them out loud tome. I typically do not read them without him as someone’s mail is their business and I like to respect people’s privacy. And sometimes I think he shares things with you he cannot share with anyone else here.
But I am worried about him.
I am sure he wrote to you that people here have asked him to help… I am not sure the word I would use here. It is not really lead, as he has firmly rejected the idea every time it comes up. It is not really advice, because from what he talks about to me and to Young Xerxes when he is here, it is more than strong suggestions.
He has used the word “caretaker”. I am not really sure why he chose that one, but it is the one that he keeps using.
Every since that meeting, he has been distracted and not home. I have to count on Young Xerxes or my daughter to tell me these things, because he even when he is home, he is not really home.
From Young Xerxes, I know that he has been walking – walking up and down the state highway that cuts through the town, walking around the edges of the town, walking down the handful of roads and streets that constitute the town. And then he comes back and draws at night on scrap paper. I have looked over his shoulder and it looks to be a map of the town that he has been drawing, with lines and squares and arrows written on them. He has at least a half dozen on the table.
I also know from Young Xerxes that he has now visited almost everyone in town. I think there are not more than 20 houses now that have someone living in them, and some of those are the people that think less of him after the trial. But Young Xerxes is sure he has been to every one of them, looking around, talking, asking questions.
He seems so tired and distracted when he gets home that I have to forcefully remind him to eat and drink – and even when he does that, it is less than he would usually do. When I ask him about his day, it takes him a moment to almost “come back” from some other location. He is somewhere at the moment that no-one else seems to be.
I having been giving him shoulder rubs in the evening. The tension is so much there and he seems so unaware of it. And I know he is not sleeping well, that he rises in the middle of the night so as to not wake me (he always does, of course; I don’t have the heart to tell him that as it will add just one more thing to his load) and comes out and sits in the very dim light of the fire. I don’t hear any noise when he is out there; I think he is just staring into the flames.
I love my husband, Lucilius. I just wish sometimes he had less of a sense of responsibility for others.
Your friend, Pompeia Paulina
The burden Seneca carries is heavy enough that a observant spouse can notice.....who wouldn't worry? Seneca is probably considering the long term viability of the town, who lives where and defense against the collapsed world I'm guessing. A thoughtful post TB.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, those that are really public or service minded struggle with managing both sides of that relationship in my experience. Generally they have a spouse that can understand some level of the burden, though not all of it.
DeleteGiven the layout of the town, it is not very defensible, so I suspect he is thinking of options.
Good Leadership is a burden. From the NCO that eats last in the chow line to see what his solders are really eating. To those that are trying to "Advise" a semi-coherent group that like all of us already forgot the expedition against the locusts-looters.
ReplyDeleteDakota Viking posted an excellent first-person Viking raid over that Chant du Depart. The first person Viking spoke of how little treasure they got from their first raid. From the Vikings viewpoint its little, to the villagers it was all they had.
A good leader knows not all things can be prevented and knows in Seneca's case the lack of cohesion compared to the Saxon villagers raided makes his "adviser" situation even more difficult.
Pre-coffee, I hope this makes sense.
Michael - Daktota Viking's piece was very good. I hope he posts more.
DeleteOne of the best pieces of advice I read when I first became a manager was something from a British Officer's manual, that the leader of the troop was the last to eat, the last to shower - really the last to do anything that his men could and should be doing. It has served me in good stead.
In my real life job, I find a lot of what I do looks suspiciously like "advising" as I do not have the ability to enforce anything. It takes longer but is sometimes the only way to move things forward.
With a Gemba (going to the place and walking the process), it is very difficult to truly understand anything. And Seneca needs a lot of understanding; he is trying to make a partial whole out of a multitude of different threads.
It's good to get another persons perspective of Seneca. It helps with our understanding of him and what motivates his decisions.
ReplyDeleteLeigh - One wonders what the wives, girl friends, and mistresses of famous men would say in terms of the men for whom we have one side of history.
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