march 2024

CIA orchestrated weeknight activities

Hello! Happy 20th of April!

Another month, another gymnastics injury. This time it's my right hip abductor, which I strained doing backflips. But it's recovering nicely so far.

Also! Daylight savings has finally come. Prayers have been answered and I’m once again graced by the sun’s presence outside of work hours. Truly changes my whole outlook.

weeknights

Now that me and all the people I hang out with have a full-time-9-5ish jobs, weeknights have held more significance.

Those free hours from 5 till sleep hold so much possibility. Especially now that the sun goes down past 7pm. Truly a whole new world.

It makes me wonder if I should plan more activities. Is discipline freedom? Should I have every weeknight hour scheduled?

No way! I love a free night. Just the idea of free time is appealing.

But the result? Perhaps not as focused or rewarding as it could’ve been if it was planned. That’s true!

Is life just planning things, then doing them?

I’m already planning on several time scales:

• In the coming decades - I plan to work and save money for retirement.

• In the coming weeks - I plan to buy groceries and meal prep.

• Tomorrow - I plan to go for a walk.

Specific planning is good and rewarding. Especially if it’s out of my ordinary, typical routine. Having something to do immediately after I finish working is valuable.

That said, it can’t be spent in front of my laptop. Spending more time than I have to in front of a computer screen is tough to justify. That's what makes writing these blog posts so difficult. And doing my taxes! But that's not a universal rule. Editing a fun video or making music or other fun artsy activities are all exceptions.

Iran

I finished reading All the Shah’s Men this month. It’s a book about the first Iranian coup in 1953.

The book was interesting for a bunch of reasons.

The coup, roughly, went like this:

The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (Britain) owned oil fields in Iran. The reigning monarch at the time, Reza Pahlavi, was okay with Britain extracting oil and profit from Iran. A new political figure becomes relevant in Iran, wanting to nationalize Iranian oil; Mohammad Mosaddegh. He is elected and the Iranian oil industry is nationalized. The British are mad about that, refuse to negotiate with Mosaddegh and convince the CIA that he’s a communist. The CIA orchestrates a coup, remove Mosaddegh and re-install the Shah.

A couple things stood out:

1.

Iranian history, even just serving as context for the aforementioned coup, is fascinating. That country’s journey away from a monarchy and towards religious republic is unique. It gets me interested in reading more about the Arab Spring and the Saudi-Iran split.

2.

Obviously foreign intervention played a huge role in the coup. What stood out to me was the contrast between British and American attitudes leading up to it. It reminds me that Britain is the original colonizer. The contrast is kind of shocking. The Americans encouraged negotiations and were optimistic about Iran’s future under Mosaddegh:

He and others in the Truman administration never stopped urging their British counterparts to turn away from their policy of confrontation and to offer Mosaddegh a legitimate compromise.

But at every turn, the British were stubborn:

the British held “a completely nineteenth-century colonial attitude toward Iran.” Instead of negotiating seriously, they issued only “rash statements” and “impulsive expressions of resentment” about what they considered the theft of their property in Iran.

Of course, there was a contract signed in 1901 which gave the company “exclusive rights to prospect for oil in most of the country”.

But after 50 years pass and an entire country says:

• “Give us a fair profit split”

• “Let’s renegotiate this deal”

How can you remain so entitled!?

“My only crime,” Mosaddegh told his judges, “is that I nationalized the Iranian oil industry and removed from this land the network of colonialism and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire on earth.”

Anyways, not sure what lesson is meant to be learned from this. It's at least an interesting history that helps me frame stuff.

miscellaneous

• A few 🥴 weeks at work this month. Project management stuff.

• Did a good job climbing this month, happy with that.

  • Successfully completed a dining table boulder.

• Spent a glorious weekend outside that felt so much like summer (March 16th).

end

Apologies for the lateness of this one. Hope you all have a good rest of April 😁