"**Growing up, I assumed that the newspaper on the breakfast table must be assembled by people who truly knew what they were doing; then I got a job at a newspaper**. "Unconsciously, I transferred my assumptions of competence elsewhere, including to people who worked in government. But then I got to know a few people who did—and who would admit, after a couple of drinks, that their jobs involved staggering from crisis to crisis, **inventing plausible-sounding policies in the backs of cars en route to the press conferences at which those policies had to be announced**. "Even then, I found myself assuming that this might all be explained as a manifestation of the perverse pride that [[British]] people sometimes take in being shamblingly mediocre. Then I moved to [[America]]—**where, it turns out, everyone is winging it, too**. Political developments in the years since have only made it clearer that the people “in charge” have no more command over world events than the rest of us do." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[expectations]], [[humility]], [[fake-it-till-you-make-it]], **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]]