Chaos agitated me, but it seemed to invigorate Barack. He was like a circus performer who liked to set plates spinning: If things got too calm, he took it as a sign that there was more to do. He was a serial over-committer, I was coming to understand, taking on new projects without much regard for limits of time and energy. He’d said yes, for example, to serving on the boards of a couple of nonprofits while also saying yes to a part-time teaching job at the University of Chicago for the coming spring semester while also planning to work full-time at the law firm.
