To work, to do, is not always to think. Most of the time the thinking is delegated to pattern recognition, you’ve seen a before, then b happens, then I expect c. The work is simply a matter of routine. But every once in a while you see something new and get to practice how you…

Considerate. Supportive. Kind. It made the okay, even the unpleasant, better.

At the macro a tug between good and evil. At the micro, a thousand little decisions taking place between the two ends of the spectrum. And the start of those decisions, an individual.

In the summer of 1795, a Scottish-born American merchant named James Swan did something extraordinary: he personally paid off the entire US debt $2,024,899 owed to France from the Revolutionary War. Let’s set the stage. When the war ended in 1783, America’s total debt reached $75 million, with France being the largest foreign creditor. The…