I just read a book that really got me thinking. It's called "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery.

In the book, one of the main characters, Renee Michel, is a lowly concierge at an apartment building filled with rich residents who look down on her because they believe she is just a lowly concierge and nothing of more consequence. Renee hides from the world and is content to simply let the residents believe she is stupid because she believes that is what the residents want to believe of her. She is anything but lowly or stupid

During another part of the book, another main character named Paloma makes this observation, "Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary- and terribly elegant."

This is the quote that got me thinking. How many times in life are we afraid of showing other people who we really are? How many times do we pretend to be something else because we believe that it is what is expected of us? How many times are we too afraid to show our true colors?

Why do we feel this way?

There's people out there who act dumber than they really are just because they believe that's what they are supposed to do. There are others out there that over-compensate for what they are missing because they are too nervous to be real and to be true to themselves. Is there a need to do this?

Why is being ourselves so uncomfortable for so many?

It's a struggle to be totally comfortable with yourself. I know I still struggle with this. It's not easy to just accept yourself automatically. Maybe if we weren't so afraid... if we didn't worry so much about what others think or see us as, it would be that much easier. Until then, we all just have to keep pressing on.

Today, Robert McNamara passed away. I can definitely say that he is a politician that I looked up to. Not necessarily for what he did as a politician but for his humility and his willingness to admit mistakes. Both are qualities that are not usually found in the political world.

About a year ago, I posted about his book entitled "In Retrospect." It is truly one of the most prolific and most honest books by a politician that I have ever read. Below is the post:

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I just finished the most amazing book today entitled In Retrospect by Robert S. McNamara. If the name sounds familiar, you probably pay some attention to politics. McNamara was the Secretary of Defense under both JFK and LBJ. If you are familiar with the book, you probably took either a 20th century history or politics class. I found out this book in one of my undergrad classes when we watched a documentary called "The Fog of War." In this book, McNamara lists eleven lessons learned from the Vietnam War. These lessons were based on mistakes that McNamara felt were made.

Here is how the book starts out:
“This is the book that I planned never to write.
         Although pressed repeatedly for over a quarter of a century to add my views on Vietnam to public record, I hesitated for fear that I might appear self-serving, defensive, or vindictive, which I wished to avoid at all costs. Perhaps I hesitated also because it is hard to face one’s mistakes. But something changed my attitude and willingness to speak. I am responding not to a desire to get out my personal story but rather to a wish to put before the American people why their government and its leaders behaved as they did and what we may learn from that experience.”

Yes, McNamara does not seek to point out other's mistakes but he is willing to point out his own. For someone in government to do this is amazing, but think about, how many of us are willing to point out our mistakes? Our flaws? When we should have done something differently? When we should have said something differently?

Unfortunately, the answer is not many of us. We are happy to continue to defend our mistakes or worse yet, pretend they never occurred.

This book came out in 1994. Discussion of the mistakes made in Vietnam continue to this day. It may be arguable to say that they have increased in the wake of the Iraq War as many comparisons are made. To admit mistakes on something so controversial takes bravery.

If someone could admit mistakes about something so big, why is it hard for us to admit mistakes in our own lives?

I haven’t felt much like writing lately. I blame a combination of school and the Metro. The Metro still hasn’t been running correctly and there are still speed-restrictions going on which means service is super slow. Because of the slow service, the trains have been super crowded. Today is the first morning that I have had a relatively regular commute. Believe me, my nerves are pretty frayed and I am looking forward to the 3 day weekend. I have absolutely no plans and our pool is calling my name.

A person in my school group finally dropped the class… after 6 weeks because she said it was too much work. Everyone in the group got a whiny email from her saying she couldn’t keep up with the work and the professor was not very flexible with deadlines. She wasn’t doing any work anyhow so I say good riddance. I know there are some people whose parents force them to go to undergrad but grad school is typically pretty voluntary. You would think that people who are taking grad classes would know what they were in for. Apparently some of them do not. Hopefully our group can work a little bit better now. We’re halfway through the summer semester!

Oh, this weekend, I hit up Borders and got 5 books for about $20. Pure excitement! Maybe I’ll get to read a bit of them this weekend. One problem with the Metro being so crowded is I don’t get a seat and trying to hold up a book while being bumped my standing people while trying to hold on so you don’t fall over just doesn’t work very well.

What are your plans for this weekend?

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I found the perfect thing that I feel like doing to Metro after the horrible 1.5 weeks of commuter misery. Anyone seen this scene from the movie, "Officespace"? Yeah, I want to do this....

This has been such a busy week and will prove to be a busy weekend:

The Rundown:

- School has been sucking. For one of the classes that I'm taking this summer, we have to write a group paper. This may be more difficult than a group project. It may be even more difficult for me because I'm sort of a perfectionist when it comes to writing papers. No one wants to do any work and I just want to ask them why the heck they decided to go to grad school then, something that is supposed to be more difficult than undergrad. So I've been dealing with that.

- Last night, the Architect took me to the Nats vs. my Red Sox game down at Nationals Stadium. We had awesome seats but unfortunately my Sox did not do so well but we had fun. I could definitely see going to more games. I went to college in Baltimore and loved going to Camden Yards. It made it nice that the Orioles are an American League team, which equals more games against the Sox!

- Tonight, we're going to Artomatic, an annual art show here in DC. The show moves to different buildings each year. There is all sorts of art and music there. I've gone for the past two years and it's a blast.Yay!

- Tomorrow means a cookout in the afternoon with some of my hometown friends at one of the pretty state parks. Tomorrow night, we're going to Iz Drasti's parents house to see her and McAwesome since they're home from the ATL.

- Sunday, is B's birthday so we'll be with the fam. My "Twin Cousin" (we're only about 6 months apart) is coming home for a long weekend from CO for a wedding but he'll be able to spend Sunday with us. I haven't seen him since January!

 

Life on the red line hasn’t quite returned to normal. The Metro is actually able to run the entire length of the red line now but Metro itself still seems to be dealing with major issues. This morning, I got on the train a little earlier than normal. I wanted to get in early. The train I was on had mechanical issues (major issues as in no power for the electric train; not good) right after leaving the station. We sat on the train for about 25 minutes before being pushed back into the station. I then got on another super crowded train. I finally got to work about two hours after leaving my apartment (usually it takes me just over an hour).

It kind of scares the schiesse out of me that the train accident on Monday kind of looks like it was due to safety issues with the train. The NTSB told Metro back in the 90’s that they needed to phase out these 1000 series trains (the kind that crashed into the parked train). The NTSB came out with this suggestion after a 1996 incident when a train overshot the platform at the end of the red line. Now in 2009, this 1000 series car still accounts for 25% of the entire Metro fleet!!! Removing these trains right away from the fleet would cripple the system and folks, Metro doesn’t need any help. It’s doing a great job of crippling itself right now.

Metro’s complaint for years has been that it doesn’t have enough money. I don’t see how this can be. Riding fees keep going up and up.  I must pay $9.00 round trip each and every day to ride Metro. I have to pay an additional $4.50 to park in Metro’s parking garage. Times that amount of money by the amount of people that ride Metro and they have to be making a ton of money. The system is old (Metro came out of LBJ’s Great Society Plan actually) and it’s a big system so obviously upkeep is going to be difficult and expensive but its necessary. Hundreds and hundreds of people ride Metro every single day.

Okay, so now the likes of Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) want to throw tons and tons of money at Metro without having Metro carefully plan how that money will be spent. Congress is very good at spending money but the unfortunate thing is that when you throw money down a black hole, you often don’t see a return on it. I think that there needs to be a lot more oversight on the Metro system as a whole. Money itself will not change the infrastructure and I truly believe that Metro’s issues are infrastructure related and not simply limited to broken circuits and old train cars…

Maybe more money needs to be spent but Congress should make every effort in order for the money to be spent smartly.