We Are All Cassandra. May We Meet a Better End.

Storytelling was once my one power and it is again. But since the last time, I helped change the law.

“Even then Cassandra opened her mouth with our future fate, but because of the god’s command, no Trojan believed her.”-Aeneid II, Lines 246-247 (translator: me)

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I think of the times where I have been choked by rage, not believed, even when I know that I am right. When I see all that I believe to be true or good burning like the doomed city of Troy around me.

I am a Classicist. Though it has been years since I formally studied Latin and Greek, I spent eight years immersed in Latin, four in Greek. I took every AP Latin exam, won my high school’s Classics prize, minored in Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Chicago. Even now, I continue to read these works, drawn back to them again and again.

As a teenager, I was captivated by Cassandra. That fascination never truly faded, only ebbed and flowed. Now, after fifteen years as an intelligence officer and policy advisor—roles where I offer analysis and warnings but do not make the final decisions—I understand her better than ever.