In this episode I discuss:
– Why conspiracy theories are often counterproductive
– The template and criteria for a “narrative” that enables control freaks
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My new sci-fi noir novel The Aridian is now available on Kindle.
From the book teaser:
In a galaxy dominated by the ruthless Curassian Empire, the last thing Dell Kyros wants to discuss is interplanetary politics. A pardoned rebel following a failed revolt on his home planet Aridia and now disillusioned by the outcome of the conflict, he’s content to run a dive bar in the inner slums of the city-planet of Curassia.
But all that changes when he unwittingly finds himself in possession of an encoded message sought by the Curassian government, corrupt local police, and rival warlords. Desperate to stay one step ahead of them all – with his head also intact – he is forced to play a dangerous game of alleyway diplomacy even as forces beyond his control attempt to pull him back into a conflict he’s spent many nights drinking to forget.
Packed with nonstop action and razor-sharp dialogue, The Aridian is a literary cocktail mix of Star Wars, the Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca guaranteed to keep you in suspense until the final page.
In the last episode recorded at my mountain home I reflect on the life lessons I’ve learned since buying the house.
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I talk about the end of an era and life lessons I learned along the way.
Much of life is an illusion. We perceive things to be a certain way because our limited perspective doesn’t provide full context.
Freedom is one of them. A person feels free only insofar as they feel capable of doing something without permission or external constraints. But like everything else, context can create an illusion.
Imagine two children growing up in the same household. One goes to bed early and rises early. The other is a night owl. The former won’t feel restricted by a strict curfew by their parents. The latter will feel controlled. But both are equally constrained.
Too many people think they’re free when they’re actually on a leash, however long or short. The illusion is maintained only as long as they remain within its length, or their master chooses not to pull on it. The illusion of freedom often makes one blind to the leash as it shortens.
There’s no better way to tell someone didn’t learn their lesson after a conflict than when they choose to focus on the real or perceived wrongdoings of the winner rather than how they won.
Julius Caesar. Alexander the Great. Charlemagne. Martin Luther. Oliver Cromwell. George Washington. The boys at the Alamo. Abraham Lincoln. Teddy Roosevelt. Winston Churchill. Ho Chi Minh. The Taliban. Bashar al-Assad. Vladimir Putin.
Fill in whatever person or group comes to mind that has amassed a fanbase of haters who think there’s nothing to learn from these people and the only emotion to have toward them is contempt.
At a micro-level and in a more conventional context, it could be a soccer, football, or baseball team.
Or, say, a hockey team. For years the Soviets crushed everyone at the Olympics. Herb Brooks studied their strategy to figure out how to beat them, then trained his team accordingly.
That’s how you win. The Soviets were the best, and Brooks realized his boys had to be even better at the game. He didn’t just wallow in self-pity and talk forever about how they’re wicked communists.
Instead, he trained his boys so they put the best goaltender in the world on the bench.
Rocky Balboa gives a great speech to his son in the 2008 film about the difference between winners and losers.
Too often I see the losers (or their descendants) of a conflict fixate on the moral underpinnings or cause, typically by highlighting the failings and crimes of the enemy or their leader. They are blamed for every real and perceived problem going on.
They may be right or wrong, but right doesn’t make might. If it did, then how come the “bad guys” won and continue to win? Virtue matters, but it won’t win fights. Shrewdness, cunningness, brilliance, wit, pragmatism and adaptability make victory possible.
When you lose in a conflict, you don’t wallow in self-pity or focus forever on how bad the other person or group was. You figure out why they won from a practical perspective, and incorporate that into your strategy if you’re still in search of victory.
But perhaps that might require a level of self-awareness that, if it existed before, might have prevented the conflict in a lot of cases.
Authentic virtue is a difficult thing to determine, because many people do the right thing for the “wrong reasons.” They do the right thing because it’s easy to do, the safe thing to do. It’s easy to adhere to a religion or a ideology when it gains you acceptance and a sense of belonging.
Doing the right thing because you’re scared of the risks or loss of something important by doing the wrong thing doesn’t make you virtuous. But, it makes it hard for others to know for sure why you do the things you do, and vice versa.
Putting aside severe or grievous crimes, a man who does the wrong thing out of genuine courage is more virtuous than the man who does the right thing out of cowardice. That doesn’t mean what the coward does is detrimental to the collective good, nor is the brave man’s act beneficial. The issue is one of inner conscience, of true self. Both desire to do the same thing, but one at least is willing to risk loss to get it.
This matters because circumstances change, and a man’s cravenness can be exposed as much as a man’s bravery. When the man is a leader or someone with great power and responsibility, the consequences can be enormous.
This is why the mundane, riskless life produces insincere and disingenuous selves. For a man to truly know another, for him to know his own self, they must endure trials, crisis, and conflicts. He must face loss and perhaps even lose things that matter to him. Those hardships are a refining fire that consume falsities and pretenses so he cannot deceive others or himself.
There’s a time to fight for something, and then there’s a time to acknowledge the painful truth; it’s mortally wounded.
Just as people can’t recognize the difference between an opening skirmish and the final assault during a conflict, they can’t tell when an organization or institution is showing signs of initial illness or a fatal condition.
Most have an “iceberg” moment. Before it hit the iceberg, the Titanic was afloat and discussions about what to do could account for the ship remaining so. But once it hit the iceberg, it was over. It was going to sink no matter what. Discussions about why, and who was to blame, was irrelevant for anyone on board. The focus was on how to get on a lifeboat or survive without one.
A lot of organizations die because the captains ignore the iceberg and only begin to talk of how to save the ship when it’s tipping downward. The smart sailor doesn’t entertain those arguments; he gets on a lifeboat and finds another ship – ideally with a captain who won’t make the same mistake.
To continue with the analogy, the first (First Class) passengers to accept the boat was sinking survived. Third Class passengers got locked below decks, sentenced to go down with a ship whose fate they had no control over.
Know when an institution has hit its iceberg.
I discuss:
– The real story of Hugh Glass and why they should have stuck with the actual ending for the film The Revenant
– The concept of “Root hog or die,” and the idea of self reliance
– How the internet empowered losers
– Should men pursue women, or vice versa?
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