Supporting Roles

Morning routine. Breakfast for Loni's family. Farewell walk with Wolfe and Bell. Weekly review work. Watched Machiavelli video. Pre-New Zealand exercises. Minecraft with Leland. Walk to Suds. Beer with Mary, Cathy, and Tim. Book club email coordination.

Being Present in Other People's Stories

Events and activities that occurred on Sunday, January 18, 2026

Bird seen from yesterday's
walk

The morning began with a bittersweet farewell ritual that's become familiar over the years. I fixed breakfast for Loni, Sam, and the kids—scrambled eggs, bacon, toast—the kind of simple meal that feels like care made visible. Then we walked the neighborhood together, Wolfe's small hand in mine, Bell trotting alongside. These ordinary moments carry weight because they're borrowed time, stolen from the relentless pull of separate lives lived in different places.

After they departed, the house settled into its usual Sunday quiet. I found myself drawn to a video Ian Page had shared: "Why Stupid People Run the World," a meditation on Machiavelli's observations about confidence masquerading as competence. The premise hit differently in light of a newsletter I'd received from James Bailey about Anthony Hopkins and his sixteen minutes as Hannibal Lecter—a supporting role that won Best Actor because Hopkins understood something fundamental: the performance isn't about you; it's about the whole.

Bailey's essay threaded together acting, investing, and living through a single insight from Laurence Olivier: "The third spear carrier from the left should act as if the play is all about the third spear carrier from the left." Hopkins embodied this. He barely moved, rarely blinked, pulled everything inward while the camera captured his restraint. But the deeper revelation was about life itself—that meaning isn't found by staying inside our own story, but by stepping into someone else's.

The idea lodged itself somewhere between my ribs. This weekend had been exactly that: holding space for Loni's family during their Corvallis visit, being the third spear carrier in their brief time here. The scrambled eggs, the neighborhood walk, the tidying up after their departure—supporting roles, all of them. Not diminished by their ordinariness but made meaningful by it.

The afternoon brought weekly review work, refining the information architecture that helps me see patterns across days. Three forty-five-second planks, fifteen bird-dogs, five stretches—the Pre-New Zealand Exercise Phase 1 routine continues building capacity for the trip ahead. Leland appeared for a few minutes of Minecraft, another small scene in someone else's story that required nothing more than presence.

I walked to Suds, thirty-plus minutes to arrive at a table with Mary, Cathy, and Tim. We talked about the things people talk about over beer on Sunday evenings—the texture of lives being lived, the small victories and frustrations that fill the space between major events. Mary and I talked a little about Dan, a mutual friend we'd both known. Mary gave me a ride home afterward, a kindness that extended the evening's warmth.

The book club email thread continued building momentum. Jim Cole wrote that Tuesdays work most reliably for him. Rajeev suggested Wednesday at 5pm PST. Larry confirmed the evening times should work. Bill said all the proposed times work from his North Carolina vantage point. The discussion itself was another form of supporting actor work—each person adjusting their schedule to make space for collective reading and conversation.

As I forwarded Ian's Machiavelli video to the Philomath Salon group, I added a note about "the mechanism behind enshittification." The video's central argument—that confidence gets interpreted as competence—felt like the inverse of Hopkins's lesson. Hopkins succeeded by making himself smaller, by creating space for the whole performance to breathe. The "stupid people" running things succeed by making themselves larger, by claiming competence they haven't earned through discipline and restraint.

Bailey's essay ended with a hope: to arrive at the end of our days with a single piece of hardware on the mantle—"the Oscar for Best Actor in Someone Else's Story." That's the work, isn't it? Not the dramatic soliloquies delivered center stage, but the quiet presence that makes other people's scenes possible. The breakfast prepared, the walk taken, the beer shared, the schedule adjusted to make room for collective reading.

The house is quiet again now, the weekend concluded. Tomorrow Loni's family will be settling back into their routines while I prepare for Tuesday's SESIG gathering and continue building strength for New Zealand. But tonight, I'm sitting with the recognition that this weekend's value wasn't measured in my story at all. It was measured in the small ways I got to be present in theirs.