Gearing Up
This morning it is not yet time for me to emerge from my office cave into the light of day. I have spent five hours talking to an old lawyer friend getting some pointers about the Investment Advisors Act (the 40-Act, as it is called in the biz) as it pertains to an expert witness case that I am up to my eyeballs in and then putting it down in writing. Only a third that time was on the phone with him (always a pleasure, even when we are talking business) and the rest of that time was about finding ways to adjust my draft report to reflect that refined thinking. It is fine line between playing investment expert witness and playing litigator/lawyer and I will admit that as much time as I have spent with lawyers over my career, I am still happy that I didn’t study of practice law since I would much rather think about how to apply it than to understand the Talmudic subtleties of how many angels can dance on a pinhead. All of that mental activity reminds me that I still have a properly functioning brain that can think through the logic of complex circumstances. Who needs puzzles and mathematical card games? That stuff is way too detached from reality and I prefer the hard wiring needed to make an argument in a report knowing full well that I will likely be deposed or cross-examined under testimony on what I write and will need to defend myself the way the knights of old crossed swords with their antagonists.
Yesterday I started to watch the epic Kingdom of Heaven which has Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons and Edward Norton, to name just a few of its stars. It is about the Crusades and thus set in a time that was decidedly not Woke in any way, shape or form. Women are treated like chattel, might is right, honor is a matter of convenience and humanity and Godliness bear little resemblance to one another. Liam Neeson has a memorable line that struck me when he is questioning the strength of his newly-encountered son (Orlando Bloom). He says that he fought once for two hours with an arrow through his testicle. Clearly, this image is intended to be both upsetting and intriguing. It is not so hard to imagine an arrow hitting a combatant in that region of the body, but did it actually go through one of his testicles or did it merely pass through his scrotum and cause his testicle some trauma? Could someone really suck up the pain such a wound would undoubtedly inflict and did that arrow stay lodged there while the battle raged and Liam’s fighting continued? Perhaps he removed the arrow simply to be able to better maneuver, but then what of the logical blood loss? Whoever wrote that line into the script did a great job of creating an audience conundrum and plenty of wincing to go with it.
It so happens that a battle shortly thereafter ensues and one of the “good guys” (were there really ANY good guys in those nasty days?) takes an arrow through the throat. It’s no testicular shot, but it looks pretty bad nonetheless. The good news is that the lodged arrow doesn’t really get in the guys way when it comes to using his arms or legs, so he keeps fighting and is perhaps even more enraged in the battle by the bodily affront he has suffered. One is almost left to assume that his aggressive post-injury actions are a form of death-throw that is adrenaline charged and superhuman. We are forced to suspend disbelief in that battle scene since lack of oxygenation to his body does not seem to be in play, meaning that the arrow (much wider than a normal skinny arrow) must have missed his windpipe and his spinal column somehow by going in at a very precise angle. He does die in the end, but not before sending a number of the Saracens to their maker.
I feel like my 40-Act lawyer friend was like Liam to Orlando in that he trained me to hold my broadsword up over my head in the face of an opponent and to swing that sword downward with conviction. This act seems to expose the warrior’s body to a quick forward thrust, for sure, but if you are fast and nimble enough to bring the sword down quickly, you can probably both block the thrust and take off a few of your antagonist’s limbs and vital parts while you are at it. The art of war has not changed so much over the centuries since the Crusades, but the weaponry certainly has. Then again, as I read about the Colorado Springs LGBTQIA+ nightclub shooting incident yesterday and the brave attack on that perpetrator by a combat-trained veteran who describes himself as just and old fat veteran with lots of ingrained training, I think that some of those same warfare tactics and weapons are still in use and come to the surface at strange times and places that may be on the new battlefield of our age. I hope I can end my days wielding nothing more than a pen and not the sword and count on the trained warriors to defend the innocents when needed. That veteran thought his battle days were done. I thought my battle days in the arena of finance were done too. But sometimes you are never done.
That is how I feel this week. Could I choose not to do battle in the expert witness or teaching worlds? Probably. Do I need to do it? Aye, there’s the rub. I think I do, indeed, NEED to do it for many reasons. The biggest reason is to feel vital and productive and to keep my mind sharp. In addition to that, while I am not a person who has stockpiled millions and millions of dollars like Scrooge McDuck, I have made a lot of money in my years of work and given away lots of it to others ranging from ex-wives (note that for non-combative reasons I would NEVER suggest that they were undeserving of that money, but I would also say that most of it was made through my efforts), to children (that is what it’s all about, right?), to help or bring enjoyment to family members, occasionally and in limited amounts to friends for the same reason, and to what I have deemed to be worthy causes. Money has simply not been a goal onto itself for me and having not a penny to spare when I die is a perfectly acceptable way to leave this world (so long as my family is self-sufficient). Nevertheless, having more of it through my work is a perfectly good thing to keep the wolves at bay. Dying broke is a good thing, in my view, and it is reasonable to suggest that none of us have much option in that anyway unless we want out name on some everlasting foundation or edifice to force people to remember us. I prefer to be remembered for who I was, not what I accumulated. But dying a pauper is not so much fun either.
So, with five expert witness cases on my plate right now (three of them in active deployment this very week) and two courses being taught this semester, I am about as fully engaged (and making income) as my current work configuration would allow. I only have minimal time for non-work activities until things grind to a halt for Thanksgiving, so that is about as much work engagement as though I was a fully salaried employee of some fine institution. That means that I am fully geared up for battle, so watch out. I am told that while I was a relatively more enlightened manager in my working days, I am also told that when in the heat of battle, I can also be a beast of war. When I gear up, beware the man of yore. I am not yet the Man of La Mancha, tilting at windmills, but rather Conan the Barbarian…right up until I get an arrow through my neck, or worse yet, my testicle.