On Wednesday night, I just happened to stumble upon The Big Short on television, and, blue-blooded bear that I am, I simply couldn’t stop watching it. I’ve seen it before, obviously, but watching the film again back my bear juices all hot and bothered, but I stopped it about twenty minutes before the end, because I always get extra-ticked-off when they review how basically all the bad guys got away with it.

I then turned my attention toward a book that I had just received, and which had only hit the shelves that very day, which was Going Infinite, the book about Samuel Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall. It occurred to me it must be Michael Lewis day, because right on the heels of watching a movie based on one of his many books, I started reading a new one by the same guy.

Even as a young lad, I was drawn to dark movies. My friends would puzzle over this, wondering why I didn’t want to see the latest blockbuster. “Don’t you want to be entertained?”

Actually, no. I want to be changed. I want to leave the theatre feeling different about myself or about the world in some way which persists. I’m not there to be distracted.

I was reminded of this as I was reading the Elon book, about which I wrote an extensive review yesterday. The book changed me. Yes, I learned a lot about the man’s life and times, but more important to me personally, I finished the book a different person than the person who started reading it a week earlier. Above all, I felt bolder. If you could use some of that, maybe you could give the book a read as well.

As I try to decide what to say about a total non-event like today, here’s a comment cleaner.