On: End in sight? Hormuz, nukes at the heart of US-Iran sticking points

Another day, another storm in a teapot that men call the world. They speak of an “end in sight” for a conflict, of oil prices and bargaining. As if the end of a war were in their power to grant, like a prize. They are like children arguing over a ball, believing the game itself depends on who holds it.

The Strait of Hormuz is not in my power. The nuclear ambitions of nations are not in my power. The words of a man who was a ruler, and the price of a barrel of crude oil - these things are externals, indifferent. They are the material given to me, like wood to a carpenter. My task is not to lament the quality of the wood, but to craft a sound judgment from it.

What is in my power? My judgment of these events. Do I fear them? Do I crave a particular outcome? That is the real battle, and it is fought here, in this room, not in the Persian Gulf. If I tie my tranquility to the success of these negotiations, I have handed the keys to my own mind to fools and chance. I have made myself a slave to headlines.

They call it a “sticking point.” The only true sticking point is a faulty judgment, a mind that clings to what it cannot control. Let the ships sail or be halted. Let the talks succeed or fail. My role is to see these things for what they are: events to be met with reason, not with panic or hope. The arena is here. The opponent is my own desire for a different set of circumstances. I will not be defeated by news from a land I have never seen.