Many people have asked me if I’m excited about my upcoming Sabbatical, which begins February 1 and ends July 15, and which takes me and my wife and one of our daughters to Wales. I am excited. But actually I’ve had little time to think about it. January’s been a whirlwind. That’s largely because I’m trying to cram too many things into too little time. This entire month I’ve felt like a traveller running late, breathlessly trying to catch up to my next point of departure, whil

Holidays prove a hunch: the world runs fine without us. Our absence is at most a minor glitch in the steady functioning of the organization, a tiny spasm in the smooth ordering of society. It’s not even a hiccup in the rhythms of planetary motions. Things happen, and well, without our hovering and meddling presence. The world does not malfunction if we’re not there to tinker with it. Progress is made without us having to express an opinion. Most of us get – and need – a yearl