544 Days podcast thoughts

544 Days is about journalist Jason Rezaian being stuck in an Iranian prison, and how his family and the government tried getting him out. It touched on international diplomacy, coordination and negotiation, journalism, government strategy, and human rights. It's crazy how people can pull off complicated high-stakes missions with teams planning and coordinating, and I want to experience this way of learning by being with people working as a team with agency and expertise to get stuff done. That's a very big part that I'm missing because that would help me learn more things way better, so I'm trying to find friends that care about stuff and want to get things done.

Highlights were listening to Jason's wife Yegi, mother Mary, and brother Ollie (?) talk about their concern and experiences, and Jason and Yegi readjusting to life after prison in the final episode, which made me want to look at my every day life with a lense of feeling free and more lively. Getting some insight to how political people do their work was cool too.

This reminded me of the coordination of human rights and international law lawyers getting Edward Snowden out of Hong Kong, Ross Ulbricht's experience in prison, and Anita Dunn doing political stuff.

I recommend this podcast series if you want to listen to the experience of being in prison, people coordinating on the outside and what they were all feeling, diplomacy working, and a bit of what Iran is like.