It is in the way of mystery, how this world works. In my experience anyway. Parts of it.
We just had a trial conclude here on Friday and the former CEO of JEA, Aaron Zahn, was convicted of conspiracy and wire fraud in an effort to enrich himself to the tune of tens of millions of dollars from the sale of JEA to FPL. JEA is among the largest publicly owned utilities in the country.
I'm a member of the United States Naval Institute, I get their emails and from time to time the title of a piece catches my eye, as this one did. I wasn't enamored with it overall after reading it, but I genuinely do agree with the premise.
And it made me think about the "philosophy" of other areas of service, particularly in the context of the JEA debacle. What was the "philosophy" of the politician who put Zahn on the board, which then chose Zahn to replace the departing CEO?
Why do people enter politics? Is it public service, or personal ambition? Is it being attracted to the trappings of power? Is it the desire for personal advancement? Maybe it's just a job.
I think that many people in public service positions don't understand the value of service or the opportunity it presents. They don't understand the relationship between the responsibility that goes with the office or the position, and the public they notionally serve.
On this morning's walk, I thought I'd blog about this; but one thing led to another, breakfast, call Mom, and next thing you know it's the Tinderbox meetup. Great session with Dr. Beck Tench. We had a little back and forth toward the end, and she related the story about how she came to change her feelings about her wedding ceremony.
That brought to mind my experience with navy retirement ceremonies, so I offered a little sea story.
In a moment I'll post something I wrote late in the night on September 5, 2005, in the midst of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. The sea story will be in there, but you've probably heard it before.
I found that post looking for something shorter. It's terribly long for 2024, nearly 4K words! So, I'll understand if you don't read it.
But it speaks to everything I was going to blog about, prompted by the JEA trial and an article in Proceedings.
I'm not especially proud of that piece. It's not great writing. But I believe every word of it, nearly 19 years later.
It is to our everlasting regret that we have a blinkered view of who we are in the world. To the nature of our relationships to one another. To the duty of care we owe to one another, to the responsibilities placed in us.
We are born. One day we die. Everything that matters happens in between. How it matters, why it matters, these are questions we should be asking ourselves, if we had the time. If we had the awareness that the answers might mean something.
You can get pretty far in life without ever asking those questions. And it seems like most people do. You can also go pretty far astray by never asking those questions. Either way, at some point you may find it's too late, and you didn't take advantage of the opportunities the questions might have revealed.
We're all in this together. All we ever really have are each other. Life is meaningless. We bring meaning to life. That's the opportunity we have. To make meaning.
Make meaning, or make money? Power, position, privilege? Empty. People that have all that are still empty. Still looking for something to fill the aching void. More power. More money. More privilege.
Faith and fear are the "harmony of binding opposites." Yin and yang. Every breath is an act of faith. Love is faith in action. Courage is love in action. Love one another. Keep faith with each other.
Do your best, and the rest isn't up to you. What is your best?
I guess pulling off a multi-million dollar scam was it for Aaron Zahn.
He'll have some time in a Club Fed to reconsider.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 13:40 Sunday, 17 March 2024