CALL TO ARMS

A person who does not want to be struck by the enemy's arrows will have no divine protection. For a man who does not wish to be hit by the arrows of a common soldier, but rather by those of a warrior of fame, there will be the protection for which he has asked.

-Hagakure

A warrior lives for a second of brilliant action, a synthesis of body and spirit where he becomes lightning, an unstoppable bolt of focused energy. The conscious mind is an obstacle to this. He must act instinctually. Brutally. 

Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood. 

-Mishima 

This is why he trains so diligently. This is his discipline. This is his art, his ‘Do’ his way. Just as a musician must practice for hours, alone, suffering over scales and repetitions, so a warrior drills with his body and his mind. He takes what was conscious and makes it instinct.  

The world is full of distractions from the way, since most do not (and could not) live by it. Pay them as little mind as possible. The more time a warrior focuses on training his mind and body he finds deeper tranquility and harmony within himself and greater poetry in his life. 

Sharpening the mind, like a blade, takes many passes of the whetstone. Whenever you find a quiet moment, contemplate some aspect of your profession and your way. The values of visualization need not be given here, but the results will reveal themselves. 

This is a warrior’s meditation. Do not empty your mind, concentrate it on action. See yourself training with weapons in as much detail as you can. Repeat over and over the basic drills in your mind. Contemplate killing, contemplate death. 

You may only be able to focus for brief spurts at first, denizens as we all are to a world of constant distraction. It is no different from any other training, small incremental improvements will become massive in due time. Cultivate the garden of your discipline with patience and its flowers will bloom. 

Brutality. Violence. Blood and bile pouring from rent guts. Vile stink and looks of terror in the eyes of your enemy. A bullet or blade strikes you in turn and destroys your arm, blood and marrow spill out of your shattered bones. This must be faced without emotion, as if one were watching the water of a winding stream. 

There was a video going around of a Ukrainian soldier engaging a Siberian-Russian soldier in hand-to-hand fighting. This is a grave moment due the highest respect, which watching and discussing like a news piece feels shameful. All there is to be said is that they treat each other with honor once the fight is over, while one man lays dying. This is as integral to the warrior as his skill at arms and his readiness for death. Look for this in ancient writings and never forget the honor due a defeated foe. 

Think on this often. Seek out further examples, read ancient warrior texts. This is a warrior’s meditation.

How do you go on when you have so strayed from who you want to be. Where do you find worth when you have become worthless. Religion would be very convenient. The human soul cannot forgive betrayal. Maybe God can, but there is a point of no return with man.

“The Hour-Hand of Life --- Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance, and of innumerably many intervals, during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us. Love, springtime, every beautiful melody, mountains, the moon, the sea – all these speak completely to the heart but once, if in fact they ever do get a chance to speak completely. For many men do not have those moments at all, and are themselves intervals and intermissions in the symphony of real life.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, all too Human

These isolated moments define the lives of those who experience them. Moments of significance, critical decisions which will determine the trajectory of a life. Points of no return. There is nothing we can do once we have crossed the threshold of these decisions onto the new path, the way behind is shut forever. These moments cannot be avoided, putting them off only magnifies their magnitude.

So what can you do once you you’ve passed onto a path you didn’t want, or say you didn’t. “Say” here meaning that if you truly didn’t want it, you would have not made the decision that led there. So even if it is far from where you wished to go, you clearly did not hate it so much. Or merely lacked the strength to say so.

There is no coming back. This path is your life forever. You have to go on from here. To take one step after another as this person who you may hate. You can do everything in the world to change, to make right what you may have done, but you will never not be the person who made that choice. This weight is yours to bear forever.

We are teetering over a precipice. These significant moments may turn you into an interval at any time. An afterthought. A write-off. You have become someone without principle, without honor, no matter how much you change you will always be thus. You may keep secret your past doings, but once they are known their stain will return. To maintain significance requires constant struggle and the will to do what is right and be true to oneself always; this is what makes the heroic. To become an interval requires betrayal of oneself and the indulgence of the weakest parts, a grotesquely normal and easy thing to do. Regular. Unremarkable. Base. Crass.

Once this threshold is passed there is little hope of returning. Or is there? Feeling sorry for oneself is the lowest form of narcissism. But it may be that at a point all one can do is dedicate their life to helping others as their chance has passed them by. One may even metaphorically end their life, destroy their old self and begin anew. Possessions thrown out, working in isolation dedicated totally to improving the world, and yet always the mark of past deeds will remain.

What do you do when you’ve so betrayed yourself and those who you respect you see no way of regaining your honor? What do you do? What is there to do? Immolation, destruction, the Samurai’s method of retaining dignity through a supreme act of will, prayer, repentance?

Religion would be very convenient.

Forgiveness will not absolve you from the weight of your deeds.

There is only the terrible agony of life before you branded by the choices you’ve made. Step by step on the path you laid for yourself seeking to get back to where you want to be, to who you want to be. This may not be possible. There may be too much damage done. Never pity yourself. Man is the most foolish animal, for he wails and bemoans his lot, even when none but himself have led him there. He will curse himself for a liar and in the same breath lie, feeling sorry that he did so.

Regret too is foolish; the way back is shut. Wishing, hoping, and cursing are all wastes of time. Escapes from the brutal truth of reality. Only when we face the world truly as it is do we live bravely. Every hideous fact of life must be embraced like crawling over razor-wire. To look at what we’ve done with no attempt at rationalization or excuse, to see ourselves for the beasts that we are.

“We don’t live in a just world, we just live in a world.”

-Paul Waggener

Sometimes we are the agents of injustice in this world despite our opinions of ourselves. There can be no surprise, no asking how this could have happened, when the choice was made. That is how it happened.

March forward into the grim truth of the world without hope of forgiveness or wishing for change and perhaps the way will come back to you. Perhaps. You may even become something like who you once wished to be. But you will never be the person who did not make the choice. You have killed that version of yourself. You have no choice but to go on living, with not an ounce of sympathy for yourself. Only brutal acceptance and adherence to truth and honor. You may never be absolved, but you may yet impact the world. Even for good, if you have what it takes.

There is an empty pedestal in the park blocks of Portland, Oregon where a statue of Teddy Roosevelt once stood. On it is inscribed: “Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Rider”. There used to be an equestrian statue of Teddy on it, riding erect and proud in his uniform atop a noble steed. It was torn down in 2020, during the “Indigenous day of rage” protests. 

Why was it toppled? The easy answer is because it was there, and the mob needed something to destroy. Maybe it was his comments on and policies regarding natives, although the fact that “slave owner” has since been graffitied onto the pedestal calls their historical literacy into question. Maybe it was something deeper. 

Beneath the inscription of Teddy’s name there is a plaque which reads:

HE WAS FOUND FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS AND HE WAS MADE RULER OVER MANY. HE WAS FRAIL; HE MADE HIMSELF A TOWER OF STRENGTH. HE WAS TIMID; HE MADE HIMSELF A LION OF COURAGE. HE WAS A DREAMER; HE BECAME ONE OF THE GREAT DOERS OF ALL TIME. MEN PUT THEIR TRUST IN HIM; WOMEN FOUND A CHAMPION IN HIM; KINGS STOOD IN AWE OF HIM, BUT CHILDREN MADE HIM THEIR PLAYMATE. HE BROKE A NATION’S SLUMBER WITH HIS CRY, AND IT ROSE UP. SOULS BECAME SWORDS THROUGH HIM; SWORDS BECAME SERVANTS OF GOD. HE WAS LOYAL TO HIS COUNTRY, AND HE EXACTED LOYALTY; HE LOVED MANY LANDS, BUT HE LOVED HIS OWN LAND THE BEST. HE WAS TERRIBLE IN BATTLE, BUT TENDER TO THE WEAK; JOYOUS AND TIRELES,

Who can read this and not be humbled and inspired? Who can ask more of anyone than to realize their own faults and make it their life’s work to correct and overcome them? To face life head on with courage and honor? This is a brief biography of a complex man, but nevertheless an inspiring portrait. Statuary can only be partial, a single moment of a great life made eternal. 

The subject of their ire speaks volumes about those who defaced this monument. To hate that which is great, which asks, nay demands the best of you. That is the feeling of small, mean minds. Teddy on his horse soars with the triumph of the human soul, the potential to which we’re called, and which the protestors gave up on. 

Anything or anyone which puts the responsibility for their station in their hands is unacceptable, because it reminds them of what they could have been but chose not to be. They exist in a culture of ‘self love’ expressed as self acceptance. Not the harsh real love that Teddy had for his men or his country, a love that demands something of you. It is self neglect, self spoiling. A child who is never told “no”. 

It is too much then, to see an image of a man so proud, so noble, standing defiant against the challenges of life. For those who have surrendered hate nothing more than a reminder of their own capitulation. Why be strong when you can be weak? Why have courage when you can be timid? Why have virtue when you can have apathy? It is easy, and it is what they did. Living small lives, unworthy of remembrance. That is what they hate most of all. 

That anyone should be worthy of a monument is unacceptable, because they are not. So they search and seethe for any failure (by modern standards of course), any mistake, pulling down men who dwarf them in spirit and character and say “See! See! He was not perfect!” as if this is some major revelation. To have flaws is to be human, but to do great things in spite of mere humanity makes you a hero, and heroes deserve monuments. 

We should all aspire to be monumental. To live lives and do deeds worth commemoration. Life is not meant to be lived merely to “be”. We must become. Become who we can be, who we dream of being. We must strive to positively impact the world however we can, while making ourselves heroes of character and spirit. 

Mean souls will always seek to tear down those of stature, but if enough remain to imitate and admire the heroes who went before, we will build new heroes worthy of new monuments. 

Great souls build others up, they make others feel that they too can be great. 

Build!

ALONE

I am in the Zone all the time. 

There is no one coming to save you. 

In life we are ultimately alone. You are the only one who can act on your behalf. Social, familial and community ties provide encouragement and consequences for us to act a certain way. But in the end it is only us who can decide what we will do, and us alone who can do it. 

Free will exists, but some have more of it than others. That is to say that some have a more powerful grip on themselves or do not allow obligations or society to exercise such a strong grip over them. The temptation to allow the community to guide one’s life and actions is overwhelming for many, it is just so easy. Even those with a strong spirit often follow these paths out of convenience or personal weakness. 

The ability to rule oneself ennobles man above anything. No one is going to help you. You are in the Zone and only you decide how you will respond. “The Zone” refers to a colloquial name given by prisoners of the gulag system in the USSR to the area in which their brutal violent imprisonment occurred. I use this to refer to the modern world, more specifically the material world of the west. This “Zone” is much less violent and harsh, but it is infinitely more insidious and corrupting. 

Constantly whispering sweetly in your ear to take the easy path, to relax, to indulge. It is a vicious fight against the neverending encouragement to comfort. I have failed many times, and I know many great men who have failed too. No one is there to save you from slipping slowly into an easy doom. 

One can ward themselves, good friends of strong character can encourage, inspire, and even intervene when troubles come but they cannot do it for you. The individual acts alone of their own will. Good friends should be sought and kept to stoke the fire, a lone branch may be broken but a bundle is robust. Yet if you truly surrender to weakness and comfort they cannot save you. There is no one coming to save you. 

When you are alone. When there is no one watching and no obligation to resist the sweet gentle comfort. This is the Zone. Instead of violence and starvation it is a slow and easy descent into numb suffering. A constant agony kept dull with a trickle of pleasure. If the pain was too sharp or the pleasure too euphoric it might break the cycle and drive action. But with both just enough to drive the other, pain to seek the pleasure and pleasure to numb the pain, they can drag even the strongest down into desensitized despair. 

No amount of outside pressure can completely protect from this, the agency of the individual is supreme. There is no one else. There is nowhere else. The Zone is everywhere. It does not need walls because you build the walls yourself. Every instance of giving in adds another stone to keep you in. 

Resistance is possible. You have to resist. You must never surrender. There will be mistakes. Major failures, great pain and suffering and defeats but there is no other option than to keep fighting for yourself. There is no one coming to save you. Remember where you are and act accordingly. Lash out with rage and hatred, dig deep to find the strength to act. I am in the Zone all the time. Always weary, always ready. Rising from defeats with doubled efforts and determination. I will fail again, but I will never surrender.

Victory over this malaise of comfort-wrapped-despair is in extremes. Terrible highs and devastating lows. Real feeling, real life, in its raw and brutal reality. Seek out these extremes by any means necessary, and take heart in defeat knowing that you alone are responsible for your fate. No surrender, no quarter, no support. Victory lies within.