Welcome to the place of wisdom

I used to think I understood my relationship with control fairly well. I know its obvious forms: planning, preparing, anticipating what can go wrong, wanting enough information before making a decision, taking responsibility, organizing people and circumstances, trying to influence an outcome. I have spent much of my professional life in privacy, compliance and risk, so some of this is not pathology. It is literally part of my job to ask what might happen before it happens, identify what can be controlled, and build structures around uncertainty.

There is something I began to notice in Cambodia that has become so obvious and it stayed with me more persistently than many of the extraordinary things that happened there. My mind was wrong surprisingly often.

Cambodia, part VII: Ara Tara, my shalaven, and becoming large enough to contain myself

Cambodia, part VI: Apsaras, inheritance, beauty, and what I could not see when I arrived

Cambodia, part V: seven hours inside Angkor Wat