The perfect secret agent goes behind enemy lines with the certainty that she will execute her coded instructions, as broadly or exactly as they are specified, no matter what those instructions might be. She recognizes that this is necessary in order to serve her organization and her society effectively, and this is why she has been invested with their confidence and resources. She can be counted upon, absolutely, to carry out the considered decisions and policies of the state.

     Bureaucratic agents in the catacombs of bureaucracy are not so reliable. Such agents are likely to accept their instructions and then do as they please unless they are under close supervision, and their supervisors are likely to do the same. The considered decisions and policies of the state are not decisive in the bureaucratic catacombs. The state is likely to be hamstrung in this arena no matter how smart it is or how effective its decisions might be. Just read, watch, or listen to the news.

     It is also like this for each of us personally. People routinely report their surprise at finding that they do not follow up on important decisions that they have made themselves. It is as if they are reporting on someone else, on some bureaucrat in a catacomb, but they are talking about themselves. Even the most disciplined among us can relate to this if we are honest, but there is a huge variance among individuals in their ability to follow the consequences of their own insights and decisions. It is as though we were each a society of diverse personalities rather than a unitary individual which, of course, is the actual case.

     Some of our own personalities are more perfect agents than others, but until we recognize this it is not possible to systematically promote these over the internal bureaucrats that lurk in the neural catacombs of our own brain. It is pointless to have insights unless we can count upon ourselves to act on them, so this is a discipline that must be constantly developed and reinforced.