The Present Indicative, 11 November 2025

My Current Mood: Patience is a Virtue…so is Sacrifice

“There are seven emotions, neh? Joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear and hate. If a man doesn’t give way to these, he’s patient. I’m not as strong as I might be but I’m patient. Understand?” Lord Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Minowara, Shōgun

“I’m-a Wario! I’m-a gonna win!” Wario, Mario Kart

I just finished reading the novel Shōgun for the fourth time in three years. If you’re not familiar, it’s a fictional epic set in feudal Japan, a prelude to the very real Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 that established the Edo period (1603–1868) with the Tokugawa shogunate.

The names were all changed to protect the identities of the innocent and guilty, so Lord Yoshi Toranaga is, in reality, the daimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu. Liberated from the letter of historical accuracy to represent the spirit of personalities embroiled in cultural change fostered by internal political maneuvering and external European influence, the book introduces our protagonist, English pilot John Blackthorne, to an alien world where his aptitude at languages and navigation identifies him as an asset and a liability. I won’t commit to recap the 1200-page journey here, nor disclose the clever destination it reaches before Sekigahara, but want to share a few choice quotes from the final chapter of the book that relate to our family’s Nintendo Switch.

“You must choose the good and get rid of the evil without sacrificing the good.”

Nintendo released its first video arcade game, EVR Race, in 1975, the same year James Clavell published Shōgun. Fifty years later Nintendo released an update to its very popular console, the Nintendo Switch, just in time for Donald Trump’s tariffs. In a recent earnings report Nintendo announced the Switch 2 has sold 10.36 million units since its June launch, selling twice as fast as the original Nintendo Switch (which sold 4.7 million units in its first four months after its release in March 2017). So much for tariffs. We bought our original Switch on Black Friday 2019. It was the big Christmas present for the family, and became a form of collective respite that next year during Pandemic lockdown.

Not that it’s been all fun and games. When my younger son discovered Fortnite, there was a series of calls to Epic Games to pair an existing account with the version for the game console. Consider me surprised when we learned my name and email already existed in Fortnite, for a user based in Russia. That took some negotiation.

But identity theft aside, the games have been worth it, bridging generational differences during moments of family gathering when each would inherently default to staring at their own phone. We bridge our data silos with digital competition.

“Everything’s right if you win. Stupid to fail. Unforgivable.”

With family expected in three weeks we’ll have four boys ranging in age from 4 to 16 looking to ruin Thanksgiving. If I want to keep my house intact I better make sure the Joy-Cons are charged and ready for distraction…Uh oh. Error message.

Six years into its tour of duty and we now only ask the Switch to perform during the holidays. Starting everything up and the console self-diagnosed an issue connecting to the house WiFi. I brought it to the store. The immediate resolution was a wired internet LAN adapter that plugs an ethernet cable into the docking station and removes the need for WiFi provided you leave the Switch in its docking station and interface with your television. Not a problem, I got four Joy-Cons…one for each barbarian.

I set everything up, removed the two connected Joy-Cons from left and right on the Switch, and prepared to test the adapter, when I discovered the Joy-Cons did not work once detached.

Hmmmm. Joy-Cons work attached to the Switch, but can’t be accessed when the console is in the docking station, and I can’t test the Switch connecting to the internet with the LAN adapter because the Joy-Cons do not work once detached, nor connect to the internet once out of the dock. Problem.

“I did not choose to be what I am. It is my karma.”

“Haven’t heard that one before,” the guy at the store said once I thoroughly explained the Catch-22. If you can’t get a simple fix, then might as well stump the professional. So much better than a common complaint. Let’s be exceptional.

While karma can be defined as spiritual cause and effect based on one’s actions and how their consequences determine your future state, that is not how it’s represented in Shōgun. There is a degree of pre-determination attached to karma in the book, and while your past actions might help you be reborn to a better station in society, or explain failure that occurs in your present situation, what you are is what you are and you must be the best version that…whether you’re samurai practicing the Eightfold Path or a father patiently preventing the holiday implosion of his house.

A new Switch 2 is $450, or $500 as a bundle. Some refurbished originals will arrive this week for $150. Sold! Thanksgiving will be saved by Mario and a second-hand certified pre-owned problem solver. And if not I can always put on the recent adaptation of Shōgun on Hulu, explaining the sex and violence to the children with historical context. Afterall, I’ve read the book four times.

In Other News…

It’s Veterans Day in the US, and I think of a memorial on the campus of Boston University that I often passed when I worked there. It quotes General Douglas MacArthur’s Farewell Speech at West Point in 1962:

“The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training–sacrifice.”

While I haven’t agreed with many of the foreign and domestic policies imposed by our politicians, it does not influence my deep appreciation of the men and women who serve in our military. Our soldiers deserve better than the bait and switch we continue to give them, their families, and their legacies. Reach out to those in your community and thank them for our freedoms and security. They deserve our respect and our attention for their sacrifice.

Next Tuesday’s episode of The Future Indicative will feature someone who deserves our respect and attention (even if I bust his stones remorselessly every other day of the year). My guest, Tom Clapper, served in our army and now provides cybersecurity on our digital front lines. He shares some stories and solutions to our digital insecurity. He also shared the last interesting thing he read. On brand it features our military:

I just finished a book from two Navy SEALs. Leif Babin and Jocko Willink are their names and Dichotomy of Leadership is the book.

They had previously written Extreme Ownership, which is a great book as well.

But I’m a big believer in the idea that leadership isn’t black and white. There’s a lot of gray. There’s the balance between being respected/liked to also being effective. And this book gives great examples between both the military—and me as an army veteran I will always divert back to some of my military training—as well as how it translates directly into business.

They give great examples of things they encountered as SEALs and then direct correlations of how it works inside of a business. And they give you real world examples. For me, it’s something I’ve always appreciated when you see those sorts of examples and how they translate well, and how people can take that and apply it to their daily life.

Our conversation next week on cybersecurity also directly applies to our daily life. This one is relevant to the consumer and to business protecting consumers, so get ready for a good listen! It publishes on November 18!

But in the meanwhile you can purchase Shōgun and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

Alex Effgen