Weekend Wrap 11/02/2025

Each weekend, I like to pause, reflect, and look back on the past week. This isn't a deep dive or grand reflection—just a quick review of a handful of things that brought me joy, made me think, or challenged me.

Lately, life seems to be unsteady. I suppose that's the best word I can use. Even though it isn't accurate, I can't help but feel like everything around me is in flux. I'm in California for a work conference. The conference is bookended by travel for swim. Amongst all of this, I just feel like I'm off balance. I hope that I can, soon, regain that balance.

Music

Speaking of unsteady, Conjurer does their very best to make their third full-length album, Unself, feel just that. The album starts with the title track, an acoustic guitar and singing that would be at home around the campfire, the sun long set, the simple, clean guitar accented only by the cracking of the burning logs.

Then.

An atonal guitar note builds, dissonant and uncomfortable, until the lyrics, "And I can't feel at home in this world," completely fall apart into a guttural scream, "anymore."

It paints a perfect picture of the dichotomy that is found on Unself. I've been a fan of this UK band since their first album, Mire, and Unself has been my jam. There are moments of beauty to be found here. But there is a lot of heaviness and ugliness.

Just like life.

Games

Remember my ambitions to play Baldur's Gate 3? Yeah, I don't really either.

Or rather, I do, but I just couldn't face it. Knowing I was going to be traveling and would be taking at least a week's break from it, I didn't feel I was ready to face a huge, deep game with a lot of story.

So I decided to finally try Super Mario Galaxy. Even though it is an old game now, it looks pretty good on the Switch 2, a testament to Nintendo's art direction. I enjoyed what I played.

But it didn't pull me in. I stopped after only a short time. I'm still struggling to find "that game" that will pull me in.

Books

No, don't be worried. I'm not planning anything.

But I have been loving Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes. It is a funny, engaging story of three people who are all trained by the McMaster's School to carry out appropriate "deletions". And their targets all deserve it. I am very close to being done, and I can't wait to finish writing this so I can read some more.

On top of a fun story, it is so refreshing to read something that feels more "literary" than Wind and Truth. Aubrey and I talked about this latest Sanderson tome over on Generations. We really get into it. I'll just say, while I enjoy his characters and world-building, Sanderson won't be winning any awards for the quality of his prose.

Rupert Holmes? Not only has he won some awards (a pair of Tonys), he's also the writer and performer of "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)". Yes, you read that right.

Quote of the week

That, right there, is it. That is the very reason why so many people in health care are burnt out. Our needs are never met. We are absolutely not valued by the administration, and our sense of control is eroded daily.

We don't belong, because private equity could not possibly care less about us. All it cares about is the next quarter's profits so that the stock price goes up.

Number go up.

Their entire world. As ours crumbles around us.

The only ray of hope in all of this is that I can do everything in my power so that the people who work directly with me feel all those things from me. It's all I can do.

What didn't work

Any ideas?

Work is a disaster, and it is a systemic problem for which I don't see a solution. The drive of healthcare is to burn everything to the ground in the name of the next quarter's earnings. We are losing good people who care because they are being systematically abused by people who don't.

I don't know how this ends. But folks? It's going to.

Wrapping up

Not a cheery week. That's how it goes some weeks.

I hope that some time away will help me recalibrate so I can come back with a better sense of how to be a force for good, at least to some small degree.

Because that's all we can control. Ourselves.