Split screen
Welcome to this week's Field Notes, little observations to share now and possibly develop later, from my brain to yours. I'm still in Texas.
Bifurcated realities
Over the past week I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I’m perceiving the world on a mental split screen. Two streams of reality, running simultaneously but almost entirely independent of each other.
At the risk of suggesting we see the wider world best through social media (we don’t, but we see it most there), Screen One is ushered through on LinkedIn. It’s business as usual: “I’m humbled to announce …” or photos from panel discussions or — this week — reflections from Davos, the top three kinds of posts on my feed right now.
It’s almost like Screen Two doesn’t exist.
But it does. It shows a world, or at least my American version of it, in anguish about the rapidly crumbling assumptions around law, order and justice. It’s WTF, playing out on Facebook, Instagram, Threads. Tiktok too, if I bothered to open it.
It’s dizzying, toggling between the two.
Order vs Justice
Speaking of order and justice, last week many Americans observed MLK’s birthday, and this observation of his in Letter From A Birmingham Jail popped up a few times on my Screen Two.
I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…
This division between order and justice spools out in continuous loops. This week, it was the most recent killing of a man by masked federal agents in Minneapolis.
The official account is at odds with the observable facts.
Doesn’t matter, of course. The order-people see a gun brandished by a trouble-maker who shouldn’t have been where we he was in the first place, and the justice-people (I’m one) see a human murdered by the secret police.
The order vs. justice dynamic explains a lot.
Back on Screen One: content and holding companies
A short note on LinkedIn (business as usual) generated more traffic by far than anything I’ve posted in a while.
Weird, right?
Swiss note: Davos
As professional communicators, we have a fixation with Davos.
Healthy?
We went in deep anyway with this week's recording of The Week Unspun: the Carney speech, the Edelman Trust Barometer, and is the brand inextricably tied to the venue?
Notes and links, here.
Book note: Creation Lake
I downloaded this on Audible on a hurried whim before a flight from London to Austin and I’m glad I did.
It’s called a spy novel but it’s really not. It’s a “jumble of fact and whimsical imagination.”
Work note: we’ve launched a practice for clients in the Middle East
Family note: my mom (and my dad)
A third stream of reality confronted me all week, off-line: helping my dad adjust to life without my mom, his wife of 60-plus years.
Actually he had made most of the adjustments himself; her passing was long in coming, especially for him. And my brother and particularly my sister have shouldered whatever daily burdens he has been unable to bear, so my presence has been mainly symbolic but important, I think, for both of us.
We wrote her obituary together:
Jean Gallagher, 1937–2026
Lura “Jean” Gallagher of Round Rock, Texas, peacefully passed away on January 11, 2026. Jean was born in Pawnee, Texas, on September 14, 1937, to Lura McDonald Floyd and William Herman Floyd.
Life in South Texas wasn’t easy then, but the challenges of a childhood spent there, in Oklahoma and Arkansas while her father was serving in World War II, were eased by her loving older brother, Bill Floyd, Jr. - also a veteran, serving in Korea and Vietnam. He died in 1983, a profound loss but one she later credited as a source of resilience and strength.
She graduated from Southside High School in Fort Smith, Arkansas. For decades afterward, Jean spoke kindly of a woman named Mrs. Marx, who took her into her home and employed her at the dress shop she owned while Jean completed her studies.
After school, she met and married the love of her life, then-Lt. Max Joel “Joe” Gallagher, at the Fort Chaffee chapel in Arkansas on December 28, 1963. They remained happily married for the rest of her life. Their adventures together took them to the U.S. Army base at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, the Dallas area, and eventually Central Texas, which she always considered home.
Remaining to cherish her memory are Joe and their three children: David Gallagher and his wife, Lesley (London, England); Patrick Gallagher and his wife, Vanessa (Eau Claire, Wisconsin); and Stacy Gallagher (Austin). Her three grandchildren, Matthew, Grace, and Levi Gallagher, all have happy recollections of “Christmas at Grandma Jean’s” and her chocolate-covered peanut butter balls.
Jean worked in bookkeeping and office management at Henderson Bank, TECO-Westinghouse, the Texas Medical Association, and the South Central Association of Blood Banks, among others. She is fondly remembered by her colleagues for her dedication and wry sense of humor.
She possessed a notable artistic flair, painting decorations for her children’s rooms, experimenting with decoupage, and crocheting quilts that have lasted for decades. She was the first-ever PTA president at Purple Sage Elementary School, and for many years, she was an active member of Bethany United Methodist Church in Austin and a leading figure in the Searchers Sunday school class.
Her family is deeply grateful for the care she received in her final days at Sundara Senior Living and Enhabit Hospice. A memorial service is planned for later this year, and her remains will be interred at the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery in Killeen, Texas. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Charming Animal Shelter in Boerne, Texas
A note of gratitude
I was deeply moved by the comments and condolences from friends around the world for my mom’s death. I don’t ask for help easily and didn’t think I needed it this time, either, but they all landed in a good way. Thank you.
And I was especially lucky to reconnect with two friends way back, Bridget Brennan and David Schleicher.
Bridget sent me the proposal for her first book as a nudge and guide for mine, and David scored us a regular co-authored opinion column in the Waco Tribune during the first Trump administration, irritating dozens weekly.
She went on to author several more successful books as part of her expansive consulting enterprise in Chicago and he’s got an award-winning screenplay on its way to production, when he’s not practicing law in (and extolling the virtues of) Waco, Texas.
We met as literal children … you never know who will later have a big impact on your work.
Wish me luck
I’m in Austin a day longer than expected thanks to a massive ice storm.
Really sharp observation on the split screen effect between LinkedIn and everywhere else. That MLK quote about order vs justice perfectly captures why toggling between the two feels so disorienting. Back in 2020 I saw the same divide play out where corporate comms stayed upbeat while everything else was burning. The order-people framework helps explain why some folks simlpy cannot see what's infront of them no matter how obvious it seems.