I have returned. I spent the last twelve days in Europe. My work sent me there. And at the end of the day it was work that dominated my time. Despite the best of intentions I did not spend a great deal of time sightseeing or experiencing the culture. True, I got a few opportunities. Nevertheless, the most of my time was spent inside various office buildings, hotel rooms and airplane cabins working on stubborn problems and curiously tenacious projects.

You ain’t got no problem, Jules. I’m on the motherfucker. Wait for the Wolf– who should be coming directly.
You sendin’ the Wolf?
Oh, you feel better, motherfucker?

Before departing I considered that work was sending me in to solve a litany of problems: similar to the way Marsellus Wallace sent in the Wolf to deal with Vincent’s and Jules’ tricky set of self-induced problems in Pulp Fiction. I fashioned myself a professional troubleshooter: the Wolf. This trip would be my way to redeem myself. It would be my way to rise to a challenge and succeed: alone, in foreign lands, and against unforeseen adversity.

And now I am back.

I will discover Monday how successful I was in completing my set of tasks. They were many and varied—and without going into recriminating detail—allow me to say that the promises of unforeseen adversity were more than well-fulfilled. Despite my planning and preparation, I had my share of surprises. “ No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” My experience was no different in this regard. I either overcame these surprises or found a way to work around them. I am proud of my accomplishments.

For those of you faithful readers who may not know the details, my itinerary consisted of three stops in Europe to our three locations there: London, England; Newcastle upon Tyne; and München, Germany. As I mentioned above, the overwhelming majority of my time was spent working. My humorous anecdotes and observations are mostly limited to the margins of my stay. I have a few pictures of England—unfortunately I have none of Germany.

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Sé mo laoch mo Ghile Mear
‘Sé mo Chaesar, Ghile Mear,
Suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas féin
Ó chuaigh i gcéin mo Ghile Mear

I have had a demanding month. The loudest voice making demands has been my workplace. We continue to lurch along at an awkward gait. The declared goal is: put together a cohesive set of studios around the world. Up until recently we operated only as a loosely affiliated hegemony. We shared a common stock symbol. We did not share much of anything else.

Even within a given studio location the balkanization was fierce— remains fierce. My work is often strained or blind-sided by these competing factions. I am overstating when I say competing. I do not believe that to be the case. What I believe is that the various principalities, baronies and fiefdoms are almost entirely ignorant of anyone else. In the end, they unwittingly make war upon one another. And like a poor free lance trapped in a post-Modern feudal system, I fight for and then against each liege lord in our Kafkaesque empire.

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I was speaking to my friend, Farmboy, yesterday. After a peculiarly arduous turn of events at work I had reached a more-or-less comfortable steady state. I had time to take a breath and look around. I had time to think about what had been going on all day. The act of reflecting prompted the question:

Which problem do you prefer to tackle—the difficult technical problem with concepts you know very little about or the difficult social problem with the people you know very little about?

For several minutes I thought only about that particular question. I had asked it; Farmboy had answered it providing his opinion on the matter. When my turn came to do likewise I hesitated some more and then weakly conceded to the answer Farmboy had given. I did not like my answer. I do not know why I did not like my answer—I did not like it. I attributed this distaste to the wide variety of problems with which over the course of the day I had had to contend. I was sullen. I was churlish.

I wanted to answer, “Fuck off!”

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My friends often talk about personality types. They take various quizzes and tests and they talk about the results. Often they post these results and discussions to their various websites. These tests and quizzes can be anything from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey Temperament Sorter to zodiac signs to What Harry Potter Character Are You?

For a sampling of some of these tests and quizzes, see the Personality Project, Quizilla, and the Geek Code.

I am interested in our apparent need to categorize and classify ourselves. It is not a new task. Unsurprisingly to those that know me, I am most interested in the early generations of these sorts of systems— those you will find appropriately categorized under philosophy. When wisdom itself had not yet become overly rationalized and categorized to the point that it becomes exceedingly difficult to talk about meaningfully. In many instances this difficulty is directly attributable to the very methods of discussion. Talk has become too complex. Expertise and mastery has become conflated with pedantry, recapitulation and recrimination.

Maybe this is why I am fond of the theory of the four humours.

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