The Present Indicative, 7 July 2026
My Current Mood: An Axe to Grind and a Nose to the Grindstone
The platform remains free (and worth it) but in case you’re feeling philanthropic, I’ve set up a subscription page!
“My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble; and I found that, tho’ it might be practicable where a man’s business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, that of a journeyman printer, for instance, it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master, who must mix with the world, and often receive people of business at their own hours…” The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Happy birthday, America! With 250 years of myth and marketing my thoughts turn to a Founding Father whose curiosity, ingenuity, and motivation were elements to our collective composition. I previously referenced Ben Franklin last Thanksgiving, and his appreciation of the turkey. Today, I want to examine one paragraph from his autobiography, a book that so influenced generations of American parents Mark Twain once wrote:
“With a malevolence which is without parallel in history, he would work all day, and then sit up nights, and let on to be studying algebra by the light of a smoldering fire, so that all other boys might have to do that also, or else have Benjamin Franklin thrown up to them. Not satisfied with these proceedings, he had a fashion of living wholly on bread and water, and studying astronomy at meal time–a thing which has brought affliction to millions of boys since, whose fathers had read Franklin’s pernicious biography.”
Memory Makes the Individual; Order Makes the Corporation
...Order, too, with regard to places for things, papers, etc., I found extreamly difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method…
My first real job pushing papers taught me the value of order and the cost of memory. I worked with another paper pusher whom everyone liked: he was quick with a joke and easy in his oversight. But when the university went through an administrative contraction, he lost his job and I found his responsibilities now mine. And that’s all I found in the impenetrable mess of his paperwork. Manila folders vandalized in ballpoint geometric design–a labyrinth inviting the discovery that he knew where everything was due to a prodigious memory without repeatable rhyme or evident reason. And when I showed these inexplicable files to those in charge they sympathized with, “He could always provide what we asked.” But left the details and consequences to me.
Perfection Is the Enemy of Progress
...This article, therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect, like the man who, in buying an ax of a smith, my neighbour, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge…
A later stop in the same university moved my efforts from the departments to central administration, where the mission lost the face of students in favor of systems overseeing expenditure. New processes (and MBAs) promised cleaner outcomes, itemizing a line for every cost and every cost in line. But the binary nature of this technology meant everything became all or nothing, leaving the system to accept or reject the math of our humanity. Often our collective instincts were rejected in favor of the logic of these systems, but I can’t say we saved either time or money.
My Sweat Beats Your Intention
...The smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel; he turn’d, while the smith press’d the broad face of the ax hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on, and at length would take his ax as it was, without farther grinding. “No,” said the smith, “turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-and-by; as yet, it is only speckled.” “Yes,” says the man, “but I think I like a speckled ax best.”...
Not that I’m against the attempt…within reason. The surface of Franklin’s ax may never get as bright as the edge, and the continual attempt may grind the blade down to a blunt block. But a builder takes care of his tools. I left one university for another, only to find multiple veteran faculty submit expenses for reimbursement for travel they did not take, for others not employed at the institution. I do not endorse bureaucracy, but best intentions that exclude embezzlement.
No One Likes a Showoff
…And I believe this may have been the case with many, who, having, for want of some such means as I employ’d, found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that “a speckled ax was best”; for something, that pretended to be reason, was every now and then suggesting to me that such extream nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous;...
Nice means a lot of things. Both polite/pleasing as well as fitting/fastidious. Let us be all the definitions of nice. And when necessary, not nice. For as Franklin concludes:
...that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.
In Other News…
Speaking of friends who see our human faults, this week The Future Indicative connects with someone who professionally reads people.
The Future Indicative, Ep 9 Part 1
The Future Indicative, Ep 9 Part 2
Kate Morgan runs Boston Human Capital Partners to assist entrepreneurs and small business owners find the right people at the right time. And she helped me think through what is capital about humans in business. Take thirty minutes to hear it for yourself, and if you want to learn more, there’s always her book, Custom-Fit. It’s good beach reading.
Stay cool!
Alex Effgen