"V" for Vendetta

“People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.”

[A junior police detective asking his boss about the potential for masses of citizens to defy a curfew and face off against heavily-armed troops] “What do you think will happen?” The response: “What usually happens when people without guns stand up to those who do.” [Implying that many will be killed]

The above quotations are from a surprisingly bold and thought-provoking movie called, “’V’ for Vendetta,” – a futuristic drama (not to thriller status) about England becoming a fascist state and one man’s quest to wreak vengeance on those who shattered his life and in the process stir the consciences of the people to throw off the shackles of the police state. To me the film hits painfully close to home because of its portrayal of a population frightened enough by a terrorist threat to willingly give up their civil rights in exchange for the illusion of security.

The movie is rated “R” for violence, a bit of foul language, and some “disturbing images,” but it is well worth the viewing if you wish to ponder how easily it might be to fall into such a state. In “V” the seminal events were poisoning of large numbers of citizens by chemical weapons. In Weimar Germany the last straw was the burning of the Reichstag – blamed on communists, which led very quickly to Hitler being named Chancellor and then receiving extraordinary power less than three weeks later.

How many more 9/11-type attacks would it take for Americans to willingly give up as many of our rights as the Germans gave up in the 1930s? The Brits and Canadians have already given up their firearms. They have done so in the expectation that their government will always be able to keep them safe. But what happens when the government itself is the threat?

One additional caveat about the movie – homosexuals are clearly portrayed as a persecuted class, subject to being dragged from their homes and “disappearing,” into the abyss of police detention. Such a portrayal is disturbing, but has really made me think. While I in no way condone any homosexual act, I shutter to think that anyone would have their lives ripped away from them by governmental decree for such activity. All governments in human history with that much power have abused it to abominable ends. Just as no country has ever taxed itself into prosperity, no government has ever been perfected by voluminous legislation. Human beings are fallible. Every government ever instituted among men is imperfect and must be subject to and subservient to its people.

Thomas Jefferson, an honored Founding Father in spite of his proven sexual indiscretions, penned the following, “The government which governs best, governs least.” I wish the American people would demand that their legislators and other elected officials pledge to govern less every year until, perhaps, we could get back to congressional sessions lasting only a few weeks each spring and fall – like they did before air conditioning was installed in the Capitol.

Anyhow, if you can stomach the tough parts and want to tackle the thought of how easy it would be for our government to become oppressive, watch “’V’ for Vendetta.” I fear it is much closer to reality than any of us would wish.

“Fly high & roar loudly!”

dirk

Extraordinary Aristocratic Leadership & The American Republic

GriffinScat #11-08 1/14/08

The story goes that in 1519 Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernán (not “Hernando”) Cortés sailed a small fleet of ships on an unauthorized expedition from Cuba to Mexico. Not long after landing, in order to forestall mutiny, he set fire to the ships in the harbor that would become known as Vera Cruz. By removing the easy escape, he forced his men to work together and focus on the needs of the situation. It was an unconventional but extremely effective tactic. Cortés ended up conquering the Aztecs and claiming Mexico for Spain. Shiploads of Mexican gold would eventually make their way to the Iberian Peninsula because of Cortés’ success.

That story is fairly well-known, but most people don’t think about the possibility that Cortés may have burned the ships so that he himself wouldn’t have the option of retreat, and would have to see the expedition through to the end. He put himself in a position where the only way he would ever see Spain again would be to succeed. How’s that for performance pressure?

Not too long ago I lived in South America for two years. Living in a third-world country and working with locals who would sell their mothers for a visa to the US gave me an opportunity to reflect on what makes our country different. One big question I asked was, “Why did the American Revolution produce a stable government that has withstood all the pressures of civilization when almost all other rebellions have only led to more tyrrany and the things against which the people revolted in the first place? What was so different about the American Revolution?

The significant difference was that the revolt against the British in North America was encouraged, fomented and financed by what could rightfully be described as members of the colonial aristocracy. What made our revolution unique was that it was started by the men who had the most to lose if it went bad. Most of the men refer to as our “Founding Fathers” were wealthy plantation owners or merchants. If they had been content to “just go along” with the British program, they might have been a bit inconvenienced, but they would have kept their spacious homes, servants and luxurious lifestyles. They had the time to spend reading, writing and then sitting around in taverns in Boston, Philadelphia and Williamsburg debating the continued erosion of their rights as British subjects because their employees and servants were literally taking care of their business for them.

It was the best-educated, wealthiest and most respected men of the colonies literally putting their necks on the line when they signed their names to the Declaration of Independence that led the working and agricultural classes to join them in their revolt. This was “leadership by example,” to an extraordinary degree.

Sending the Declaration of Independence to Buckingham Palace was how our Founding Fathers “burned their ships.” They demonstrated their willingness to individually suffer the loss of everything they had in order to stand up for their principles, and shoved that arrogant piece of parchment right in the face of the king. They then had credibility to ask poor farmers, laborers and craftsmen to join them. In their eyes the “status quo” was no longer acceptable, and they proved their willingness to bear the burdens of leadership by taking the responsibility for the rebellion squarely on their own shoulders.

The last line of the Declaration of Independence reads, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor,”

(full text here). Some of them, in fact, lost their lives. Many lost their fortunes, but none of them lost their honor.

Extraordinary leadership is uncommon and always unconventional. When people who have the most to lose risk everything to change the status quo, those around them sit up and take notice, and some will take the step to upset the status quo in their own lives. The question we should all ask ourselves is, “What part of “normal” in my life needs to change, and what ships do I need to burn, or what “king” do I need to defy in order to guarantee that I change “normal” forever.

“Fly high & roar loudly!”

dirk

The War on Terrorism - Part 5 of 5

Wrapping up the first GriffinScat series….today the last of five installments on the War on Terrorism.

Apart from the death of almost 3000 people and the destruction of several billion dollars worth of material, we, the people of the United States, in the aftermath of that day, did trillions of dollars worth of damage to our own economy. The human cost of terrorism is incalculable – even if only one person is injured or killed. It is not my intent to minimize the human cost of terrorism. However, we need to balance the human cost of terrorism with the human costs that we accept with nonchalance every day. Accidents, tragic diseases and criminal acts maim and kill thousands of Americans every day. We take those in stride because we know they won’t affect our day-to-day lives directly. Those directly affected by these tragedies deserve our sympathy and support. However, we do not make major changes in our lives because someone across town was killed in an auto accident or contracted some terrible disease. Such things have become routine, and we don’t change our lives because of them.

In order to make terrorist strikes ineffective and irrelevant we have to keep terrorism at the tactical level. How? By not giving our enemies the strategic reactions they desire. If their attacks don’t instill terror in the broad populace, then their actions do not rise above being large scale crimes. If we react to terrorist attacks on our soil the same way we react to a crime across town we win and they lose.

It has worked in the past. In 1940, in the face of daily bombings by the Luftwaffe, the British people stood strong and would not be cowed in spite of their greatest cities burning night after night. They supported each other, their government and the Royal Air Force through the terror. The bombings stopped because the Germans couldn’t achieve their goals (the capitulation or neutralization of Great Britain) through that means. We need to be as hard as the stalwart Brits were during the Blitz.

If our minds are the target, then our minds need to be strengthened in order to deflect the next attack. In conventional warfare, the side that gets to fight on ground of its own choosing usually wins. In unconventional warfare (to include anti-terrorism), the chosen ground is our hearts & minds. That is where the enemy plans to do battle, so that is where we must meet them. The elements of our national power (diplomatic, informational, military & economic) have significant supporting roles to play and can reinforce the futility of terrorist actions attempts. If terror strikes are costly to the perpetrators and don’t achieve any of their desired ends, they will eventually quit. The starring role in defeating terrorism, however, belongs to the faces you & I see in the mirror every day.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

(P. S. If you would like the entire series in a single .pdf document (95kb), please send an email to griffinscat@gmail.com. Your email address will not be shared with anyone else and will only be used for GriffinScat communications. If you want to receive an email when Griffin Trek is updated, ensure you ask to subscribe as well. - dvdk)

War on Terrorism - Part 4 of 5

How do we prepare for the next terrorist attack???

Rock steady – combat ready. We prepare to respond in the last way that Al Qaeda expects, and the way that neutralizes their terrorist actions. We keep living just like we were before. If we don’t react to terrorist violence the way they want us to, they will eventually seek other means of achieving their goals.

We, as individuals, must adopt the attitude that says, “The physical victims of this attack have truly suffered and should receive our help, but since neither I nor anyone I care about was directly affected by this attack, I’m going to go on with my life. I’m not going to stop living my life the way I had planned just because someone blew up a building more than 1000 miles away in a city I’ve never even visited.” Basically, we need to get hard. No more, “doom & gloom” apocalyptic fear-mongering, which is what the terrorists want and expect.

Unfortunately, our 24-hr news “infotainment” industry will not make this reaction easy. If a tiger attacking three people in San Francisco or a suicidal gunman killing eight people in Omaha both become national tragedies, we will have to work extremely hard to demonstrate our lack of intimidation when the news media will surely be pandering to the raw emotion of the event. Commodities traders and mutual fund managers won’t help either. They will react to the events by taking actions that make critical goods more expensive, pinching Americans who really don’t want to be affected by what is really an isolated event that should be irrelevant to 99% of the population. We can do it, but it takes clarity of thought and deliberate defiance of the fear which will sorely tempt all of us.

The other side of the coin is our corporate or national response. If terrorists think they can hit us without being targeted by all our elements of national power (diplomatic, informational, military and economic) they need to be reminded. Our military response should be calculated and unemotional. War is never a pleasant business. We must not continue to try to mollify our consciences by insisting that we couch all our military actions in terms of “nation-building” and “spreading democracy.” But military action is only a supporting effort in the Global War on Terrorism, not the main effort. The main effort must be to engage the hearts and minds of the American people to stand firm against any terrorist attack and keep right on living – in mocking defiance of those who think their criminal actions can change our way of life.

Unfortunately, we continue to regularly reinforce the terrorists’ assumptions that we will bow to their threats of violence. Do you remember the Danish political cartoons that mocked Islam & Mohammed in 2005 and the violent outcry around the Muslim world about them? Do you remember how many U. S. newspapers had the courage to run those cartoons? At least for newspapers with circulations of greater than 100,000, I believe the number was ZERO. The editors who chose to comment on why they didn’t run the cartoons stated that they didn’t want to contribute to religious intolerance. However, the routine printing of cartoons critical of both Christians and Jews belies their true motivations. They were petrified that they and their newspapers would be targeted for violent reprisals by Muslims in the U. S. Whammo! Score another one for intimidation through threat of violence – terrorism by definition.

Next – Wrapping it up!

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

War on Terrorism - Part 3 of 5

The next attack is coming. If you have some worldly experience, you probably have a good idea how to protect yourself from common street crime. You lock the doors of your house, have outside lights on motion-detector switches, park in well-lighted areas when out in public, and maybe even use a steering-wheel lock and have a security system for your home. Good for you. You are probably doing enough to protect yourself and your family from 99% of the criminals who practice their trade no more than 5-10 hours per week. They are criminals simply because they are lazy and don’t want to work for a living. Lazy criminals always go for the easy target. All you have to do is make yourself a harder target and they’ll quickly take you off their list of potential victims. The other 1%, though, is your problem. If there is a burglar in the area who works 60-80 hours per week perfecting his technique and then making and rehearsing his plans, you’d better hope he doesn’t have his eye on your house or your car, because he’s probably got a 99% chance of success.

In the same way, we need to acknowledge and accept that we cannot, and, in some respects, should not, try to make the U. S. completely impervious to terrorist attack. The idea is absurd. If we can’t stop petty crime, how can we imagine that we can keep terrorists, who spend years planning a strike, from attacking within our borders? I, for one, do not want to live in a police state – and that is what would be required to even approach impermeability. Our security services have done a great job since 9/11, but expecting them to maintain perfection is unreasonable. The sad fact is that, though we will always have some degree of vulnerability because we are a free and open society, when the next attack occurs the focus will quickly shift to blaming one or more government agencies and many individuals for “allowing” the event to occur. House & Senate hearings will ensue and everyone will be talking about what “government” must do to keep America safe. We’ll probably even be treated to the Congressional chorus singing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol again. Won’t that be a joy?

But, if we take the courageous but logical step to accept that we probably are going to be hit again, how do we prepare? What do we prepare? Find out in part 4 tomorrow.

The War on Terrorism - Part 2 of 5

Yesterday I started this series with a football analogy to describe the difference between tactics and strategy. Today I’ll continue with another football analogy.

So, how is that [the previous analogy] relevant with Al Qaeda? Let’s use another football analogy. Let’s pretend that Al Qaeda starts a football training camp, and 45 jihadis throw down their weapons and suicide vests and start training for football. After a year they announce that, with the help of Allah, they will be able to defeat the best team in the NFL. After the laughter subsides, an exhibition game is scheduled in Foxboro, MA against the New England Patriots, which is wholly appropriate. Even though the Al Qaeda Ragheads have some equipment, it looks like it was stolen from a Jr. high school. At the end of the first half the score is 175-0 and half of the Ragheads have been carted off on stretchers. However, during the half-time festivities, the huge screens at both ends of the stadium appear to malfunction and the glowering sneer of His Vileness, Osama bin Laden, appears on the screens. In slightly accented English (he does, apparently, speak English), he tells everyone to look at one of the end zones where a man jumps onto the field and blows himself up. Then he tells the crowd that many more suicide bombers are planted in the stands and that that if everyone doesn’t leave the stadium immediately, they will start detonating themselves. You can guess the rest. Panic ensues, dozens are killed and hundreds are injured in the stampede to the exits. An hour later Al Jazeera releases a video from bin Laden claiming a huge defeat of the infidel football team and the capture of Gillette Stadium by a handful of faithful warriors.

In this analogy, Al Qaeda couldn’t have cared less about winning the football game. Their goal was to capture the stadium (at least for a few hours) and to humiliate Americans into panicking, hurting and killing themselves and basically looking like a bunch of scared “Chicken Littles.” The strategy they used included the tactics of trying to play football, but it was only a ruse. The players they used were expendable. They met their objective by employing a strategy that targeted the spectators (the people) not the opposing football team. The fact that we had the best football team in the world on the field was irrelevant to the outcome of this contest, because the people themselves were the targets, and, running like screaming mimis all over Foxboro, they performed their roles perfectly.

That, my friends, is the difference between tactics and strategy, and why having the best military on the face of the earth may not have much effect on whether we stop Islamic terrorism in our lifetime. You and I, rather our hearts and minds, are the real targets of terrorism. Those they kill and maim are only tools to get at your mind. You, hundreds or thousands of miles away from the event, who are glued to your 24-hr news channel, are the target. How do you react? They expect you to curl up into a ball, cry for your mother and stop living your normal life the next time they blow up a building or hijack a plane in the U. S. They expect their threats to cause us to avoid air travel, shopping at the mall or from taking certain commuter routes.

We’ve got them by numbers. We are a nation of over 300 million people. They can’t kill and injure us all. They can’t even harm 1% of us, yet the psychological damage in the wake of 9/11 crippled our economy. Guess what, folks? We did that to ourselves. No one forced us to stop flying commercial airlines. No one forced us to scale back our investment plans. All the economic damage in late 2001 and 2002 was self-inflicted, and Al Qaeda is betting that we’ll react the same way next time.

Next time? Yes. Next time.

Wednesday – The Next Terrorist Attack

"Fly high & roar loudly"

dirk

The War on Terrorism - Part 1 of 5

The turning point in the movie “The 13^th Warrior” is when an old hag tells Buliwyf, “Wars are won in the will. Perhaps you’ve been fighting in the wrong field.” That’s exactly what the U. S. is doing in the Global War on Terror (GWOT). We’re fighting terrorist tactics when we should be fighting their strategy. The problem is that we cannot fight their strategy with military force. All wars, truly, are won in the will, and the will our enemy is fighting is the will of the common American citizen, not the will of our soldiers.

The Department of Defense (DoD) defines terrorism as, “The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.” In military terminology, a terrorist act is usually a tactical action intended to achieve strategic objectives. “Tactical actions” are usually very short – from a firefight that lasts a few hours, to a bombing that only lasts a moment. “Strategic objectives” relate directly to the endstate, or final goals of a government or non-state actor. Because terrorists know that they cannot defeat the US by military power alone, they carry out their tactical actions against civilian and infrastructure targets in order to cause enough of a public outcry to force the government to change its policies in accordance with their desires.

Let’s use American football as an analogy. Tactics are the individual plays and the blocking schemes, snapcounts, coverages, etc. that make up those plays. The strategy is the overall game plan that the coach has devised to win the game. Do you see the difference? The strategy is devised based on knowing your opponent and trying to make his strategy (game plan) irrelevant while keeping him from doing the same to you. For example, if I know that my opponent’s star tailback has a knee injury that keeps him from being able to cut left, my defensive strategy will be to bottle-up the right side and only give him the left as an option. Since he is hampered going that way, I will have an advantage. If I know the opponent’s right outside linebacker is a rookie making his first start, I’m going to run and throw right at him to intimidate him early in the game and get him frustrated, and then plan on working that weakness all game. My individual plays (tactics) will be based on my game plan (strategy). It is worthless to have a game plan and then run plays that don’t go coincide with that plan.

Tomorrow – Another Football analogy

“Fly high & roar loudly!”

dirk

All material ©MMVIII Dirk van de Kaap. The goal of GriffinScat is to bring some semblance of logic and intellectual rationality into discussions in the public forum. All opinions are those of the author unless otherwise stated.

We Need to Stop Fooling Ourselves

GriffinScat #04-08 1/4/08

What was the last thing you did that you really just didn’t want to do? It may have been getting out of bed this morning, cleaning up some dog scat in your yard or maybe just going to work. Was it a pain? Did you resent having to do it? Do you think tasks like those are inherently enjoyable? I’d like the opportunity to prove to you that not only are they enjoyable, but you’ve already demonstrated more than enough force of will and desire to do everything in life well and enjoy what you do.

We have made a habit of fooling ourselves into thinking that we “must” do things we don’t “want” to do all the time. The reality, however, is much simpler and absolutely liberating. No one ever forces us to do anything we don’t choose to do. I’ll say that again for emphasis – NO ONE ever forces us to perform any action against our will. The concept is illogical. Unless there is some physiological disconnect between the brain and the body, no one can force the body to do things the mind does not tell it to do.

When we do something we think we don’t want to do, what we’re really saying is, “I believe that doing this thing is in my best interest. I wish it weren’t in my best interest to do this, but since it is, I am going to do it.” Well, if it’s in our best interest to do a task or perform some action, then we should recognize that our deep-seated desire is to do that thing. If we desire to do it, then we should do it with all our heart.

We cannot do anything well when we do it with a resentful attitude. When we start a task that we think we’d rather not be doing, we actually demonstrate that we have a very strong desire to accomplish the task because we are struggling against and overcoming the part of our mind that doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. The great irony is that we probably demonstrate as much or more desire in accomplishing something we don’t “want” to do than we show in taking on a task we think we enjoy. When we do what we think we would rather not do, we struggle against our mind to overcome the mental and emotional obstacles we put in our own way.

Why not simply recognize that everything we find ourselves doing is really something we strongly desire to do and engage all our mental and emotional machinery in the same direction? Instead of using our mental energy to construct obstacles in the path of accomplishment, we should use that energy to improve the process to create better and more enjoyable results.

Putting this concept into action and relishing everything that you find on your plate to do could completely change the way you live life, and will certainly put you head and shoulders above those around you who carry their resentment like 500lb. burdens on their backs and minds.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

Next: A multi-part series on why the U. S. military cannot win the Global War on Terrorism and why understanding that is critical to winning it.

[P. S. If you’ve ever read accounts of our POWs in Vietnam you’ll recognize this concept in action. Those amazing men were wracked with guilt every time they broke under torture – even if they said things that were really of no consequence at all. Through their agony they understood that they had willfully said or done something they regarded as below the standards to which they held themselves. They would have felt no guilt if their wills had been superseded by some external entity that took control of their bodies. Let me hasten to add here that the vast majority of those held by the Vietnamese, men like Jim Stockdale, John McCain, Lance Sijan and others, were and are heroes by any definition of the word. They demonstrated loyalty, dedication and self-sacrifice that were far and above anything that most of us have ever been close to accomplishing. They did not choose their fates, but bore them with valor that reaches anything we have ever read about prior. By the way, if you’ve never heard the name Lance Sijan before, Google him and read his story. You’ll meet a new hero.]

Improvement Requires Change

GriffinScat #03-08 1/3/2008

As it is still early January and thoughts of New Year’s resolutions are still near the top of our minds, I’d like to take a pseudo-scientific detour into the world of improvement. I would venture to guess that none of us think we have become, “the best we can be,” and since you’re reading this blog, you are probably the kind of person who is his/her own worst critic. If so, then you’re in a great place to take the actions required to achieve improvement in any area of your life you think needs it. What a great place to be!

Homeostasis is the condition of equilibrium toward which all matter tends. Eastern philosophy symbolizes this idea through the Yin & Yang that is commonly displayed by martial arts practitioners. Psychologists on television & in glossy magazines talk about the need to achieve balance in our lives for us to feel stable. Well, I’d like to argue that point a bit.

Water, as we all know, seeks its own level – its point of equilibrium, its homeostasis. We can use water as a source of power, but only when it is out of its equilibrium and trying to regain that state. Waterwheels and hydroelectric generators require falling water. A placid lake is worthless for power production. Static water is nice for a while. After a while, though, it loses its oxygen content, becomes stagnant and a breeding ground for disease.

Human beings are not much different. We seek our own balance, what many refer to as our “comfort zone.” However, if we stay in our comfort zone too long, we start to regress. The freshness we once knew becomes old. We dig our ruts so deeply that we start to operate on auto-pilot – not unlike the old-fashioned car ride in an amusement park where the cars run on a track over a guide rail that ensures that the car will stay in a predetermined path whether or not the driver even steers. As humans we naturally gravitate toward comfort and perceived safety rather than toward change. However, like that car running on the programmed path, we’ll never go anywhere new or see any different scenery unless we get disconnected from the rail. We are the only creatures on earth that can deliberately and voluntarily change our habits, actions & ways of thinking. We can even change our environment. No other creatures can come close to doing that!

If we know what we need to improve, we’ve got to take the step of changing our routines, getting out of our well-established ruts, and starting new habits. We’ve got to change what “normal” looks and feels like. But we need to be careful. The new “normal” will soon become routine and habitual, and we’ll have to take the next step toward improvement by once again changing the routine and doing things just a bit better. In essence, we need to keep our ruts very, very shallow. As soon as we feel one getting established, we need to change just enough to get out of it.

So look at the changes you know you need to make with excitement. Here’s your chance to break out of your rut and cause good change to happen. Don’t try to keep resolutions this year. Instead, make the changes that will put you on a better path.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk

Next: Really enjoy what you do!

The Veneer of Importance

Intellectual junk food takes many forms, but probably the most insidious means of transmission is through the veneer of importance. One afternoon not long ago I heard a radio advertisement for the evening’s local news broadcast: (Big announcer voice) “Tonight at 11 – What dangerous food ingredient is probably in your pantry right now, and you don’t even know it. We’ll tell you all about tonight at 11, on Newschannel 7. The station that cares.” Wait a minute! If it’s really that important, why don’t you tell me now? I’ve got to feed my family long before your 11 o’clock broadcast. Why don’t you at least direct me to your website where I can get this “vital” information when I need it? Of course, it’s not really that important, and I could miss the entire broadcast and be none the worse for it. The veneer of importance – the seriousness of the voices I hear and the intensity of the audio & video suck us in, waste our time and cause us to put our thoughts into things that don’t build us or anyone else up – that don’t improve anyone’s life at all.

This may surprise you, but I’m finding that the most relevant aspects of television news these days are the weather (so I know how to dress) and sports. Sports??? Wait a minute! Redneck beer-swilling couch potatoes like to watch sports. Yes, but it doesn’t take too much effort to see the lessons in hard work, unity of effort and personal excellence that are part of professional sports today. The irony of it is that the best sports outlets, such as ESPN, don’t put a veneer of importance on what they broadcast. It’s entertainment, they know it’s entertainment and they present it that way. ESPN has terrific writers and they throw in as much humor as they can get away with. It’s not supposed to be critically important. The verb “play” is used. There is a great lesson in that small fact. I’m sure many of us can recall spending hours upon hours playing pick up football or basketball, completely exhausting ourselves and only coming in the house when it got so dark that we were avoiding passes because we didn’t want to catch one in the teeth. We played hard. We were running wind-sprints – voluntarily!!!! We loved it!!! The bumps & bruises didn’t mean anything because we were having a great time – and we worked our tails off. It was good for us physically and mentally.

I’m finding that I appreciate and enjoy any performance that clearly requires excellence on the part of the performer(s). From classical music to rugby to synchronized swimming. If it requires significant dedication to excellence on the part of those I’m watching, I can learn something good for me. Portion control is important here. I could spend all day “appreciating” classical music or college basketball’s “March Madness,” but that won’t help me get my necessary work done.

Although I find National Public Radio’s fairly liberal editorial bent irritating, I must applaud them for keeping probably the highest standards in news reporting available. They generally report on things that do have some impact on my world, and it appears that they have a wonderful policy that absolutely forbids mentioning Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears. With the high quality of reporting, it is much easier to be critical of the editorial slant but appreciate the relevance of the information provided.

Often the veneer of importance blinds us to what really is. The guy who takes his son miniature golfing but spends the entire time on his cell phone conducting business completely misses what is really important. We need to constantly ask ourselves, “Is this really as important as I’m being led to believe, or is it really a waste of my time and attention that would be better placed elsewhere?”

“Fly high & roar loudly!”

dirk

Intellectual Junk Food!

Happy New Year from the Griffin’s Lair! As we enter a new year I’d like to tell you about one resolution I made a couple months ago - to recognize and reject the intellectual junk food that most media outlets throw my way each and every day. As the Information Age continues to develop, we have so much information available and thrown at us so often that we must be critical consumers of information. If not, we end up wasting huge amounts of time and brainpower thinking about things that really have, or should have absolutely no impact on our lives.

These days multiple 24-hour news channels compete for our attention. TV editors & producers now tell us what we should think is important in our lives and what stories are worth our time and energy. But why is a car chase in L. A. or Dallas worth my time when there is no chance it will affect me at all? Several months ago a four-year-old girl with her family at the Grand Canyon fell off a ledge, plunged 400 feet and died. Why do I know that? Why did that family’s pain have to be spread across the country? I am no better off knowing that. The only benefit of me knowing about that tragedy is that I could pray for that family I’d never heard of, but I don’t think that was the producer’s intent for putting it on the news – for TWO days! Why does the digital clock on CNBC display the time in hundredths of a second?

I have come to believe that information is like food – we can only take in so much every day and still remain intellectually healthy. Of course, that presupposes that we take in mostly nutritious intellectual fare. In our physical diets, most of us don’t have a problem, and in fact, very much enjoy, a tasty dessert after a good meal. Generally that’s not a problem. If we subsist on junk food, though, our bodies will soon take on the characteristics of our diet. Isn’t it just the same with information? The streams of information we put in soon become characteristic of our conversations and thoughts.

With so much information being fired at us all the time, it is often impossible not to take in things we have no desire to know. We are force-fed a significant amount of junk that is beyond our control. What can we do about that? We have to engage countermeasures. We have to block the junk with good, nutritious intellectual health food. There are a couple fairly easy ways of doing this.

1. Have a book full of wisdom within easy reach of your desk, couch and/or bed. The book of Proverbs, in the Old Testament, is nothing but advice about being wise and how to avoid foolishness, in bite-sized tidbits. In addition to the Bible, my recommendation for a book that will stimulate the intellect is, The Emperor’s Handbook, a new translation of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Marcus Aurelius was the Roman emperor from 161 – 180 A. D. He was depicted in the beginning of the movie “Gladiator.” He, in fact, did have a close friend and confidant - a perfect man, named Maximus. Aurelius was a student of the Greek stoics and kept a journal (in Greek, not Latin) of thoughts which he wanted to keep fresh in his mind to remind him of the importance of humility and service as well as of the great burden of leadership, and the pitfalls that lie on the path of greatness and worldly position. None of Aurelius’ entries are very long, but they are profound. Picking up that book when you are bombarded with informational junk can reset the brain to a better place. Here is the link to the book on Amazon’s website – It’s worth every penny of the $13.60 price. Buy a new one because you’ll want to highlight, underline and write in the book. Below is a sample from the book (a portion of entry #4 from book 3). Remember, Aurelius was writing to an audience of one – himself. When he writes “you” he is having a conversation with himself.

“Purge your mind of all aimless and idle thoughts, especially those that pry into the affairs of others or wish them ill. Get in the habit of limiting yourself only to those thoughts that – if you are suddenly asked, “What are you thinking at this moment?” – enable you to reply without hesitation or equivocation, “This,” or “That.” In this way, you show the world a simply and kindly man, a good neighbor, someone who is indifferent sensual pleasures and luxuries and untouched by jealousy, envy, mistrust or any other thought you would blush to admit.”

2. Even easier: When bombarded with intellectual junk food, pull out or look at a picture of one or more of the most important people in your life and remind yourself why you are so thankful that they walk this earth with you. Relationships are what make life worth living, and relationships mean PEOPLE (more on that in future scat). So take time to revel in your great relationships!

I am convinced that if I make no other changes this year, simply recognizing and rejecting intellectual junk food will make 2008 significantly better than 2007.

“Fly high & roar loudly”

dirk