Neither Heaven Nor Hell

Know Thyself, Tame Thyself

Within each of us lies a shadow self, a dark side, a heaping serving of that which we don't really want to show the world and a small dose (or more) of the evil impulses which humanity has demonstrated since the beginning.  If we deny those aspects of our persona, if we attempt to ignore that they exist, we give those impulses power.  They lurk under the bed just waiting for an opportunity, when we are weak or afraid, to seize control of the narrative of our lives.

Instead we should each acknowledge that shadow self.  Name its characteristics.  Understand it.  In understanding our shadow selves, in understanding our personal capacity for evil, we tame them.  We gain control of them.  They may even be channeled toward a more full and virtuous life.

I don't believe in saints but I do think it is possible to live a good life characterized by virtue.  When we try to be a saints, if we try to be perfect, we are living in denial.  If there is a Holy Spirit, it is not in the business of cleansing the souls of homo sapiens.  Owning the "soul" that I do, it is best to make sure no part of it remains hidden from my controlling faculty, my mind.

As much as I can, I want none of my "soul" to remain feral and at risk of biting me on the hand, or worse.

I want to control who I am.
I want to be more a master than a slave of the narrative of my life.

Those require an understanding of the self followed by the taming of one's own monsters.

Improve your Argument

You can not change the other, but you can improve your self.

You may not convince the other, but members of the unseen audience may be swayed.  If they are swayed in your direction, how you argue is as important as what you argue.

Buy a Duck Stamp

Do you do your hunting with a camera or your eyes?  If the latter, you already buy a license.  If the former, you should do the same.  

North America's wild places are supported in part by fees and licenses paid by sportsmen.

If you love public land, if you support your state DNR, do your part to help keep North America the wild continent that it is.  Buy a fishing license, even if you don't know a walleye from a perch.  Buy a hunting license, even if the only hunting you do is with your senses.

We've got coyotes living in the city.  We've got wolves venturing out of their established habitat.  Those are the good problems to have.  They're not that lucky in Europe.  The difference is the North American model of wildlife conservation.

It's paid for by taxes on firearms, ammunition, and licenses charged to anglers and hunters.  The tax money is distributed to the states based on a formula dependent upon the number of licensed hunters in the state.  Even if you don't own a gun or a bow, you can still support wildlife by buying a license.

Be kind to your web-footed friends.  Buy a duck stamp.
Keep America wild.  Buy a hunting license.

Know Thyself: Poison, Place, and Recreation

I did a stint as a pastor.  I've yet to settle on a narrative to describe those years.  I was rolling down my path to atheism but it was still a good experience.  Unlike others, I didn't leave because I became disillusioned about people, I just woke up one day and realized I needed to accept that I'd stopped believing in the Judeo-Christian god.  Being a pastor was not a poison, but neither was it my place.

I do, however, enjoy telling a story.  I do enjoy the spoken word.  I don't miss my Christian faith but I do miss standing on a stage and talking, telling a story, making a point, hearing people laugh, drawing out a tear.  A few bad apples get off on controlling a room but I just loved having an opportunity to  practice the art of the spoken word.  It is the original radio.  It was podcasting thirty thousand years before the pod.

Among the highlights of those years as a preacher was the opportunity to get to know a professional dealer in the spoken and written word, Michael Perry, along with his wife, and children.

Michael Perry and friends.

He's huge up here and a genuinely good and decent guy.

If your local public radio station carries Tent Show Radio you should tune in and hear him host.  Whether it does or not, you can still binge on the podcast at that link too.

His books are well worth your time and should be available at your local library or you can help him feed his children and buy the set.

I think of the family regularly.  I miss them.  I hope they are well.

My oldest son shares my love for the spoken word.  This past Saturday he requested we turn on A Prairie Home Companion and you can be sure I gave permission.  I was glad I'd not yet mentioned the idea of watching Avengers: Age of Ultron to him.  He doesn't love the spoken word that much, at least not yet.

Big Top came on afterwards and, as the children were getting ready for bed, Mike started a song, one I'd not paid much attention to previously, when a line jumped out and grabbed my imagination.   "Motion is my morphine.  Let it roll."

Nietzsche expressed a similar sentiment, if in a slightly more negative way, when he wrote "Sitting still (is) the real sin against the Holy Spirit."

Motion, walking specifically, is my morphine.  Most of the time I use it responsibly but if I didn't have a job to keep or responsibilities to uphold, I could keep on using until I physically give out.  Maybe that makes me a functioning addict.  Maybe that just makes me a walking man.

There was another line from Mike that struck me that night.  Mike was paraphrasing from an interview with Sturgill Simpson.  I didn't write it down so I too will have to paraphrase his ad lib, so consider it doubly hacked, "life is mostly about finding your place and staying there."

Movement, always be changing and accepting of change.  Finding your place and staying there.  Together they are great metaphorical advice for the modern homo sapien.  Know thyself.  Know what is important and within your power and then refuse to budge from it.  Everything else? Experiment with something new, be changed, roll with it.

Walking's not my poison.  It is my place.  Writing or talking from a stage are great, but it didn't hurt much to give them up  More times than not the line between "addict" and "place in the universe" depends upon how you answer the question, "Does it help you be where you want to be, is it keeping you away from it, or is it just something you do to pass the time?"  Does it act as a medicine, a poison, or is it pure recreation?

Then there is that old saying, "the dose makes the poison."

Regardless, the words of Frank Sinatra are starting to resonate.

I think I can sum up my religious feelings in a couple of paragraphs. First: I believe in you and me. I’m like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life—in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don’t believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice. I’m not unmindful of man’s seeming need for faith; I’m for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line. Well, I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. It’s not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him. You can find Him anyplace. 

And when you do find "him," well, you've found your place and you should probably make an effort to stay there.  If you're getting poisoned, it is time to stop.  If you're just passing time, don't take it too seriously, eh?

So I guess I will keep on walking and I'll keep on working dogs.  Whenever I think I have a story to tell, I'll find an avenue to tell it.  My poisons, well I guess I'll address those too, not that I'll be writing about it.

Snoopy and the Red Baron: Virtue, Respect, and Nostalgia

I am told their is a new Peanuts movie out.  I guess at some point I will get around to watching it but I hadn't really paid that much attention.  It's not that I am not without nostalgia, it is just that I am not willing to pay for it.

Then I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal.  The Red Baron is remembered in America but after the legacy of World War II, which rendered the idea of a "war hero" oxymoronic, forgotten in Germany.

Dog lovers can visit Red Baron Beagles, a Danish kennel. And in the town where Von Richthofen grew up, now on Polish soil, there is a Red Baron Foundation, a Richthofen Museum and a Hotel Red Baron. 

Manfred von Richthofen was the most lethal airman in the Great War, with 80 confirmed downings over 20 months. America’s top ace, Eddie Rickenbacker, posted 26 aerial victories in nine months. 

The Baron

Von Richthofen and his Fighter Squadron 1 were so dominant in air combat that they brazenly painted their planes in yellow, purple and blue, largely for easy identification in combat. They became known as the Flying Circus. 

One of several planes Von Richthofen flew was a bright red Fokker DR.1 triplane that was highly maneuverable in dogfights. The aircraft and its hue became forever linked with the pilot, who wasn’t actually a baron. His German title, Freiherr, has no exact English translation.Von Richthofen’s skill and his decision on at least one occasion not to shoot an adversary whose gun had jammed earned him comparisons to chivalrous warriors of a bygone era and burnished his image. 

He “is very like an English public school boy of good family,” reads the introduction to the British translation of his autobiography, published shortly before he was shot down and killed in April 1918. British pilots, the foreword suggests, “would be quite pleased after the war to sit at a table with him and compare notes over cigarettes and liquors.” 

In 1965, cartoonist Charles Schulz brought the late ace back to life as Snoopy’s nemesis, immortalized by the phrase, “Curse you, Red Baron.”

All I had to do was see the headline and, while I had not heard the song since I last played the LP something like thirty-years ago, I could still sing every word and every note right up until the last half of the last verse.

Jesus called us to "love our enemies."  I am not sure that is possible.  I'd question whether or not it is good or a true virtue to love all enemies or at all times.  It is possible to respect them.  It is incumbent to treat them as human beings, fellow travelers, sisters and brothers imbued with the same spark of rationality and frailty.  Moreover, it is within our power to be the kind of a human being, marked by virtue and excellence, who is respected by other men and women striving for virtue, even by those who curse our success, even as Snoopy cursed the Red Baron.

I think my Grandma Nadine bought that Irish Rovers LP for me.  I wonder if my Mom still has it stored somewhere?  That would be some nostalgia that could hold my attention.

DB Cooper Day

Today is my birthday but the celebration is postponed until tomorrow.  It started as a compromise but it became something a little more serious.

My bride likes to celebrate birthdays and for the first twelve years of marriage she was content to make sure that I celebrated her's, and then the children's.  No harm there, all good fun.

As the kids got a little older, it wasn't enough to celebrate four birthdays however, she tried to rope me into the whole ordeal.  It was important for the kids, she thought, to learn to give through marking my birthday.

I don't want my birthday celebrated and I have to ask you, dear reader, to trust me when I say that it is not because I have a fear of growing older or having my life slip away unawares.  It just don't like arbitrary celebrations.

Today is the anniversary of my birth and, though I am an adult, there is cake a presents.  For what?  To commemorate the fact that I have not died yet?  What if I'd spent the last year lying in bed, eating Oreo cookies, and pleasuring myself?  Would we still celebrate that?

They love me.  I get it.  Can't we all just shut off the lights when we leave the house or close your bedroom door so the rescue terrier isn't tempted to turn your stuffed animal into his chew toy?

Add Facebook to the mix and I have maybe hundreds of people, prompted by algorithm to wish me a happy born day.  People I have not seen in twenty-five years or more wishing me a happy birthday.  Yes, their intentions are innocent.  They are, each and every one of them, more generous human beings than I.

There is no problem, really, but I have as much right to my curmudgeonly ways as everyone else has to their thoughtless traditions.  I merely need to remind myself, "There is no why" and move on.

When the wife and children have conspired together, one is compelled.  How does one react when faced with a meaningless exercise when participation is outside of one's own control?  Fill it with meaning.

Consequently, part of my annual "spiritual" practice has been the celebration of D.B. Cooper Day.

For those of you too young or too preoccupied to remember, DB Cooper was/is a criminal.  There is no legal excuse for his actions but, speaking of morals, his error was much smaller.  We he did he accomplished with a degree of excellence that few humans can ever hope to attain in their own vocations.  Despite his crime, this is what makes him worthy of reflection every November 24th.

The brief version from Wikipedia:

D. B. Cooper is a media epithet popularly used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, on November 24, 1971, extorted$200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,170,000 in 2015), and parachuted to an uncertain fate. Despite an extensive manhunt and an ongoing FBI investigation, the perpetrator has never been located or positively identified. The case remains the only unsolved air piracy in American aviation history.^[1][2][3]

The suspect purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper, but because of a ^[1][4] The discovery of a small cache of ransom bills in 1980 triggered renewed interest but ultimately only deepened the mystery, and the great majority of the ransom remains unrecovered.

news media miscommunication he became known in popular lore as "D. B. Cooper". Hundreds of leads have been pursued in the ensuing years, but no conclusive evidence has ever surfaced regarding Cooper's true identity or whereabouts. Numerous theories of widely varying plausibility have been proposed by experts, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts.

While FBI investigators have stated from the beginning that Cooper probably did not survive his risky jump,^[5] the agency maintains an active case file—which has grown to more than 60 volumes^[6]—and continues to solicit creative ideas and new leads from the public. "Maybe a hydrologist can use the latest technology to trace the $5,800 in ransom money found in 1980 to where Cooper landed upstream," suggested Special Agent Larry Carr, leader of the investigation team since 2006. "Or maybe someone just remembers that odd uncle."^[5]

As for me, I hope we never see Ol' D.B. Cooper again.

Here are the important parts.

• No one was ever put at risk except Cooper himself.  There was no real bomb.  He did not hit or abuse anyone.  He did what he felt he needed to do, and he was a gentleman about it.
• He kept his mouth shut.  Maybe this is because he died in the jump, but I am inclined to think he lived at least a bit longer.  As coach said about sportsmanship, "Win like it happens everyday."
• He was excellent.  His plan shows creativity and originality.  He was fit.  He was smart.  He did what he knew with professionalism and style.  He stuck it to the man without hurting a soul.

Could we all do what we believe needs to be done with such intelligence, daring, and, yes, virtue?  We should all try to be as excellent as Mr. D.B. Cooper.

Does it matter that his excellence was demonstrated through the breaking of the law?  Through stealing money from an airliner?  Through transgressing the property rights of Northwest Orient Airlines?

Not to me.  If you think you can become a better human being without transgressing some social norms, I'd wonder if you've put much critical thought into what it means to be an excellent human being and the limits of culture and civilization.  An excellent racehorse is not like every other race horse.  An excellent hunter is not like every other hunter.  An excellent homo sapiens is not just like every other homo sapiens.  Just don't put anyone else at risk in the process.

So on the 24th of every year, ,my family celebrates D.B. Cooper Day.  The month before the 24th of November is spent reflection upon what disciplines I might undertake in the next twelve months that would make me a more excellent human being, and only rarely things that I want to accomplish by those disciplines.  Embracing disciplines are within my grasp.  Knowing what will come out of them is not.  I write the goals down in a notebook, and tell no one.

The purpose of keeping my goals a secret is because it avoids the tenancy to seek praise for good intentions.  Don't praise me for committing to loose fifty pounds, but you might notice that I do not use the elevator on even numbered months, eat a simpler diet, and maybe have lost thirty.

Don't praise me for taking an aggressive stance toward improving my own mental health, but a careful observer might notice that I seem happier and more relaxed since I started journaling through Epictetus' Discourses or Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

Being honest, no one watches a man in his mid-forties that closely so most of the goals take place in blissful secrecy.  I've yet to decide a hard rule about sharing the discipline successess or failures after the year has passed.  Perhaps with friend who knows me well enough?  I've got one or two of those.

Yes, and the wife makes a cake for D.B. Cooper Day and this year it will have 42 candles on it.  The children will "Happy Birthday" (though soon maybe we can replace that with the DB Cooper song below... maybe I should learn the chords) but at least the celebration comes with some reflection and expectations for the months to come.  If one is going to bother being alive another year, might as well make good use of that year.

Natural Forces

Homo sapiens is as much a product of nature as the whitetail and the wolf.  Each of us is a natural force.

To the extent there is such a thing as human exceptionalism, it lies in the fact that human excellence is not a matter of genetics but rather it is fostered.  We're not born with it, we make movements towards it.  We can gain wisdom.  We can become courageous.  We can learn temperance.  We can become practiced in justice.

I've know some people born with two strikes against them who went on to be models of human excellence.

We each have the power to live according to human nature, we all have the potential to be excellent sapiens.

If change is called for,

• put down the Coors Lite,
• turn off the television,
• stop praying to be changed,
• bid your former life goodbye.

/sermon

Home is where my hunt is,

"Natural Forces"

I rode across the great high plain
Under the scorchin' sun and thru the drivin' rain
An' when I set my sights on the mountains high
I bid my former life goodbye.

An' so thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on my steed I will rely
An' I've learned to need the open sky
I'm subject to the natural forces
Home is where my horse is.

We loaded up in Buffalo
Took 90 South down to Ohio
On 80 West I'm Frisco-bound
An' when I get there I'll turn back around

An' so thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on these eighteen wheels I ride
An' I'm underneath the western sky
I'm subject to the natural forces
Home is where my horse is.

And ev'ry year they come to town
An' then drag em on right in the round
And Mr Bradley calls the score
And the cowboy there who tried for more

So thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on my three-year-old I ride
An' I've spin an' run an' stopped an' slide [?]
I'm subject to the natural forces
Home is where my horse is.

[Instrumental]

The Cherokee an' the Chickasaw
Creek Seminole an' the old Choctaw
"We volunteered to move!" they say
"And we'll understand, come Judgement Day".

An' so thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on this trail of tears I ride
An' I'm under Oklahoma skies
Sometimes at night I hear their voices
Home is where my horse is.

Now as I sit here safe at home
With a cold Coors Lite an' the TV on
All the sacrifice and the death and woe
Lord I pray that I'm worth fighting for

An' so thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on my RPG I ride
Till Earth an' hell are satisfied
I'm subject to the natural forces
Sometimes at night I hear their voices
Home is where my horse is.
Home is where my horse is.

Shooters, Hunters, and Moral Sentiments

An earnest young man called me earlier in the season to help with a track.

Hunting on family land twenty minutes from my house, he was in the midst of that awkward transition from gun hunter to bow hunter.

His bow was a newer compound, tricked out with stabilizer and sights; his arrows, quiver, and clothes were all top of the line.  He had more than enough gadgets to be successful at his current level of development.

I want him to be successful.  More than that, however, I hope he continues to develop and become ever less a gadget empowered harvester of meat and more and more a hunter.

Traditional bow hunting is like throwing a baseball.  It takes time.  Would we call him a ball player if he needed sights and a range-finder to throw out a runner on second?  It is experience which teaches the hunter to say, "I don't know how far away it is, but when something is that far away, I shoot like this" or "I should not take that shot."

Even with gadgets bow hunting is less precise than gun hunting.  And while our weapons, expertly used, are more lethal and less disturbing to the animal made dead, few of us are experts.  In the hands of a student, and I count myself a student, our weapons are less lethal than the gunpowder alternative.

Using his .22 my son gave me three chances to hit the dot once,
with a bow I could probably have hit the jug twice.

Thanks to hydrostatic shock, gun shot deer rarely survive even an imperfect shot from a hunter using an appropriate cartridge.  A hit yet unrecovered deer feels like a moral failure to the gun hunter, but moral sentiments honed as a gun-hunter do not always apply to the very different act of bow hunting.

It is the experience of bow hunting over gun hunting which teach the young man to recognize how many deer survive the imperfect shot.

  They can live just fine with one collapsed lung, especially if that lung is hit high, decreasing the amount of bleeding the deer experiences.

Deer might still be seen participating in the rut after an arrow passes through the dead zone of a high back shot (above the lungs/below the vertebrae).

Nearly every week I meet a hunter with a story of finding a broadhead inside a deer they kill or scar tissue on the pelt.

An imperfect release, wind, or a branch can throw off a bow shot.  The deer has more of an opportunity to move, even jumping or crouching at the sound of the bowstring.  This is what challenges us to know our prey better, to hone our craft.  This is what forces modern man to move from participating in the shooting sport, which is modern gun hunting, to become a hunter in tune with his prey.

The bow hunter does not have a dispensation to be reckless but must recognize and accept more things are outside of her control.  It means the individual is progressing from harvester of meat to hunter.  When you are a hunter, the prey often escape.  We serve the herd not because we intend to take the weakest and least fit but because the strongest and most fit escape our grasp.

If your interpretation is wrong, your moral sentiment will be flawed.

Far from a Cartesian when it comes to animal welfare, I am not so much of a narrow-minded ape as to think that animals experience pain in the same fashion as homo sapiens. Descartes was wrong, but he was not an idiot.  He merely misinterpreted certain observations of non-human animals.  Who isn't guilty of that mistake?

I have cleaned maggots out of the wounds of apparently calm bovine.  I have burned the horn buds of goats and watched them playfully skip away seconds later.  I have watched bow shot deer walk away with barely a flinch.If you have not been surprised at how different animals experience pain, I suspect you've not spent too much time around animals.

Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments wrote,

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but praiseworthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but blame-worthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame.

Bow hunting is a moral act and should be done in which a wise bow hunter would recognize as "lovely."

But like any virtue it is gained through time, experience, and failure.  We must first recognize what we do not know, cling tightly to what remains, then maybe we begin to recognize "the lovely," and finally to cultivate it within the self.  

Animals feel physical and emotional pain and we should seek to avoid inflicting it unnecessarily.  The bow hunter, once he has learned to recognize the avoid the irresponsible shot, need not feel guilty about the unrecovered deer.  It probably survived.  It suffered, but not in the fashion or to the degree we're inclined to think.

I regularly hear hunters say, "I respect the deer too much to let it go to waste."  That is a good start, but there is no waste.  If it did not survive, than it fed coyote, fox, raccoon, and any number of species of bird, including the proud bald eagle. There is no waste.  All flesh eats flesh.  We hunt because we are part of the biome, part of the ecological system, so are those coyotes.

We show it respect by what is in our control: making every effort to recover the deer we pursued.

An interview with the author

If we did not fail, we would not recognize the need to develop the resources to improve our character: to become more patient, more courageous, more wise.  Without falling short of our expectations we would not recognize the need to spend more time with our equipment; we would not recognize the need to practice the simple act of standing up in your stand, the mental toughness of waiting to begin a track, the courage to limit your hunting practice so that it is more challenging for you and improving the odds for your prey.

There is no fault in being human.  If hunters were always successful, we'd have destroyed the planet long ago.  I'm no longer a pastor but my contribution as a tracker often feels pastoral.  I meet people whose conscience, by my own flawed understanding, are just a little malformed.  I try to point them in a direction compatible with the human experience of a hunter, which is the experience of an imperfect, earthbound predator.

Working as a tracker has further challenged my ability to accept the things outside of my control (a blog post to come later), but more important than the unexpected challenges has been the unexpected joys.  I have learned from wiser and more experienced hunters, I have been a small part of the education of others.  

Hunters: Police Thyselves!

I get the sentiment.  I share the sentiment that motivates this kind of thinking, but this kind of thinking has some important faults.

The fact is we who know about hunting are the best informed to police hunting.

There are people who will, under the guise of hunting, who will engage in objectionable practices: the abuse of game animals or hunting dogs, damage relationships with landowners or others who use our public lands, or otherwise tread upon the best traditions of the American hunter.

Most hunters want to do what is best for the sport and the environment.  A few are assholes.

Mistakes can be made through ignorance, and we need to educate one another.  Assholes need to find themselves confronted and, if necessary, ostracized or, if the law has been violated, turned into the proper authorities.

I don't coon hunt, but I stand with the ethical coon hunter.

I don't predator hunt, but I stand with ethical predator hunters.

I don't trophy hunt, but I stand with ethical trophy hunters

You get the idea.

Train a child

More mornings than not my bride gets the kids off to school.  About eight mornings a month, I get the privilege.

After chores, breakfast, and piano practice we have about five minutes before the bus shows up.  I try to put that five minutes to good use.

Last year we spent time talking about the classical virtues and what it means to be "an excellent student, an excellent friend, and an excellent citizen."

This year we're talking about logical fallacies or, as we talk about it around the table, thinking mistakes.  I found a poster to help guide our discussion.  Print the free handout or buy your poster here.

To date the most interesting discussion surrounded the idea of "appeal to authority."  It brought up how a Christian might find the Bible personally authoritative, but it does no good to appeal to that authority to someone who does not share that personal commitment.  We also discussed that when Mom or Dad are handing out chores, we're not making a logical argument.

Last Thoughts on an Untamed Man

This month my family buried my grandfather.  I was honored with the task of giving the eulogy.

New York Times columnists David Brooks has written recently about the distinction between "resume virtues" and "eulogy virtues."  Resume virtues being those things that you do in order to become a member of the coastal elite.  Eulogy virtues being, well, those things recognized as virtuous across time and space.

I can agree with him that it is time to give more attention to eulogy virtues over the resume but I question the premise that an impressive curriculum vitae can be considered "virtuous" in any meaningful sense of the term.

At best resumes are a way to communicate your skills for a job.  Among the aspirational classes, however, they have become a way to demonstrate that you are willing to sacrifice a balanced life, to sell out a sense of self to conform to the management fad de jour, to ignore the existence of the eulogy virtues, for the sake of looking good on paper.

Maybe you would have volunteered for that reading program regardless, but your willingness to try to cash in on it leaves me skeptical.  It's not a virtue if you try to get paid for it.

They're not "resume virtues" it is called constructing a personal brand and I call it a vice.  "Know Thyself" the ancient Greeks counseled.  If you spend your life conforming yourself to someone else's expectations in return for money, acceptance or any other thing you're asking for sorrow.  It makes no substantive difference if the expectations your submitting to emerge from a boyfriend, your mother, or the human resources department at Goldman Sachs.

It is slavery without the whip.  It is the slavery of a civilization which substitutes conformity of outlook with ability, where the letters after one's name is valued above the character imbued in the person.  Resume virtues is just a euphemism for trading the birthright of being born free for a little porridge.


News flash: New York Times columnist out of touch with the human experience.  I know, I know #DogBitesMan

Early this month my family gathered to bury had a better understanding of virtue.  He never studied the subject.  He didn't know the difference between a Ionic or Doric column or between a Stoic and an Epicurean.

His virtues were not cut and pasted from a book.  They had not been modified by critical theory.

Formed and selected by their time and place through unreflective evolution, they were wild. He did not argue the nature of "the good" but sought to go out and be good.

Wild is not always better, ask him who has tried to eat a wild grape or compared wine made from it compared to its domesticated cousin.  But that untamed man never confused those skills by which he made his living for his sense of virtue, from a critical sense of good and ill from which an artful life is hew.

His faults were that of the wild vine.  Wildness may lack an element of discipline but has its own strength.  Thoreau was right when he observed,

The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.

His virtue was wild and it was the source of his strength.  That kind of man may not be advantaged in the present, but he will survive.  When civilization crumbles, it is that kind of untamed women and men who will rebuild it.

Last Thoughts on Daniel Lyndon Winings

1927-2015

A few years ago this family gathered together along with our friends to say goodbye to my cousin Jake.  It was an unexpected loss and soon after arriving I needed a few moments to myself. 

I found a quiet place and sat down in front of an elderly couple and closed my eyes.  A few moments later, in a voice much louder than he intended, the elderly man behind me said, "There he is!  That is Daniel Winings.  I worked with him at the Oliver plant.  Let me tell you, that man could work." 

Family, friends, let me tell you, this man Daniel Lyndon Winings, he could work.  But there was more to the man than just work. 

Raised on a farm when his father was still farming with horses and mules, his mother dried cheese curds on the clothes line, and the only refrigeration was well water, he left that farm and joined the war effort as soon as he was able. 

After preparing for an invasion of the home islands that never came, he was two ships over when the surrender treaty was signed.  He took part in the repatriation of Japanese soldiers from China.  This Westervelt farm boy walked the grounds of Tienanmen Square.

The author and his grandpa in the 20th century.

Let me tell you, Daniel Lyndon Winings knew how to stand up for what he believed in. 

Coming home, he won Grandma Jeans heart and even after they were married continued to woo her with nights out dancing at the Moose Lodge.  Let me tell you, the man Daniel Lyndon Winings knew how to love. 

Even after a Friday night out, if he'd made a commitment to one of his children, he'd be up early the next morning with them.  Daniel Lyndon Winings knew how to keep his word. 

Prior to the 1920's change was slow.  He would have been impressed by the quality but a rich farmer from the Middle Ages would have recognized most of the equipment on Great-Grandpa's farm.  In an age of Ipad's and GPS guided planters, that is not true today. 

Social scientists who study this kind of thing say that half of the technological change our species has experienced since it stepped off the savanna until the present has happened since the 1920's.  It happened in this man's lifetime.  He may have stopped being hip sometime in the Eisenhower administration but let me tell you, this man knew how to change. 

I was fortunate to know the man.  I am honored to me numbered among his descendants.  He had  as many faults as any other human being but let me tell you, 

This man knew how to work.

This man knew courage.

This man knew how to love.

This man knew how to keep his word.

This man knew how to change.

His life was a gift.  His memory is a blessing. 

The philosopher Epictetus in the second century AD wrote, "Never say, 'I have lost it' but rather, 'I have given it back.'" 

We have not lost Daniel Lyndon Winings.  We are giving him back. 

We give his flesh back to this black earth which nourished it.  We give his spirit back to the god who sparked it. 

This man knew how to work,but he left work for us to do.

This man knew courage, and we can face our own challenges with the same.

This man knew love, and we treat our loved ones the same.

We too can keep our word, even when it is difficult.

We too can learn to live in a world that is ever changing.

Yes, this man knew how to work and his legacy is not finished working in us.

Join me in a word of prayer.
Creating god,
This man's flesh came from the earth, 

we return it.

This man's spark sprang from the forging fire of the cosmos, 

we return it.
This man's flesh and spark walked among us and left a legacy; 

that legacy remains with us.   

It is ours.  We honor it.  We cling to it.   

We are strengthened by it.
In that legacy we find the peace to carry on.
Amen.

Grandpa's house is empty now.

The Apocalypse is Postponed

or at least one study suggests it may be.

As climate change accelerates ice melt in the Arctic, polar bears may find caribou and snow geese replacing seals as an important food source, shows a recent study published in the journal PLOS ONE. The research, by Linda Gormezano and Robert Rockwell at the American Museum of Natural History, is based on new computations incorporating caloric energy from terrestrial food sources and indicates that the bears' extended stays on land may not be as grim as previously suggested.

In other words, the polar bears probably won't starve to death.  You're fear and anxiety were so much wasted energy.

Everywhere I look I see contemporary man filled with fear and anxiety.  Hence my reticence to emulate to conform to what makes a man "contemporary."

I'd rather be a dinosaur at peace with himself and the world in it than to walk around on eggshells, always afraid to offend, always thinking what it means to be a classical human is offensive.

I kill to eat.
I am a tribal animal.
I am both an individual and member of a communtiy.

Honey badger don't care.  Polar bear don't care.  Wiscur don't care.

That doesn't mean I do not want to be the best human I am capable of being.  Race horses want to win.  Cats want to kill.  I want to emulate the best of what it is to be "man."  I want to embody the classical virtues: courage, temperence, justice, and prudence.

I don't count catastrophic thinking amongst the human virtues.

I don't care if the woman on TV is quoting Dick Cheny trying to make you afraid of Iraqi nuclear weapons, Barak Obama trying to make you afraid of global warming, or the cashier at Best Buy pushing the extended warrenty, they are using fear to sell you something.

Refuse to be sold.  Refuse to be afraid.

Repeat after me,

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

You should not be surprised when the fear peddled to the masses turns out to be 
overblown.  We should not be surprised when it turns out the world will keep on spinning even if the globe warms.



News Flash: Mass Marketing Lies

We will face obstacles in the future and global warming may well be one of them, but don't buy into the fear.  Yes, we will have to let go of some of the things we love, but who lied to you telling you the universe passed without change or loss?

Danger is real.  Fear is in your head. 

Fear is introduced in order to make you irrational, to make you act quickly so you will accept the choices as they are framed to you, so you will buy what is being sold.  Fear never solved a problem, fear never questioned the two false choices being offered.  Critical thought takes place in the absence of fear.

We are driving change on this planet.  That ship has long left the harbor.  It is time to own this fact rather than lament it, to own and adapt to change rather than fear it.  It is time to realize that while we are a key influence, there is much we can not control. 

Change the things we can.
Accept the things we cannot change. 
Wisdom to know the difference.

Homo Sapien: Tribal, Cosmopolitan, Realist, Unafraid

This is the Anthropocene, let's do it rationally and neither hyped up on fear or asleep in front of the television.

So I am glad it looks as if the polar bears will adapt to changes in their enviroment.  I am not surprised, they are survivors.  Just like their fellow apex predator: Homo sapien.

Edit: Oh yeah, and despite what Al Gore predicted, we are well into a period of low hurricane activity.  Though when it returns to normal or goes above (remember to get average will we have as many years with increased activity as subdued activity), I am sure you will hear about; and you will be told to be afraid.

Spare a coyote and...

My culture, that place where my assumptions meet my actions, has always included the readiness, at a second's notice, to destroy a coyote.

Since the crash which followed the "fur boom" I have only recently known anyone who actively hunted them.  You didn't so much as pursue them. They were more like the unexpected bonus that comes with spending time armed and in the field: always in season and always a possibility.

Now let me be honest, I have never killed one but not for lack of readiness. That I've only taken two shots at them in my life is due to the decades I spent living in cities. But they are the reason why, in my youth, men kept rifles behind the seat of their pickup truck, the reason I kept a broadhead I wasn't afraid to waste in my quiver. You always wanted to be ready to kill a coyote. When we first moved into the country, I was always ready to kill a coyote.

I received this behavior as a man-child from the men who raised me up and it was an expression of the times and assumptions of their ecological passions.   Coyotes will prey on young whitetail deer and the 1960's and 70's were a time when the whitetail deer were returning from the brink and restoring themselves to their natural range.  Coyotes did not appear to serve a purpose and hence to kill a coyote was to save a deer.

That reason to shoot coyotes on sight has outlived its usefulness.

In 2015 whitetail deer populations are more than recovered.  There are quite possibly more deer than is healthy for our natural areas or the long-term health of the species itself.  Coyote predation of young deer is minimal and whatever they do consume is a possible benefit to the population as a whole, not a cost. Some hunters are concerned at the amount of deer hair in coyote scat. Being twice as much the scavenger as the predator it is most likely that the hair came from a road kill or otherwise already dead or dying animal. It takes a lot of energy to take down a healthy deer, very little to kill a sick one, and no energy to eat something already dead. I know what the side of the road looks like around me and the math suggests coyotes are doing more cleaning up than killing.

Spare a coyote, kill a dozen cats, save a hundred birds, feed three foxes...

Secondly, numerous studies are reporting similar findings that the presence of coyotes reduces the feral cat population and restrains the predation of outdoor cats to the immediate vicinity around their homes. In other words, coyotes limit the damage done by outdoor cats.

Wisconsin hunters were right when they saw the threat of feral cats not only to wild bird species but to those native predators, fox, raptors, and owls, which compete with them for mice and voles.  
The feline fundamentalist successfully kept Wisconsin hunters from taking direction action on the threat but there is a backdoor approach open to Wisconsin hunters: promote healthy coyote numbers.

Of course my fur hunting friends should continue their pursuit of pelt and maybe when the winter coat is on, even I will take a shot and bringing home a 'yote, especially if the market value gets high enough. For most of us and the remainder of the year, however, the time has come to give that humble canine fill his own role in the ecosystem, the role of limiting damage done by an invasive species we continue to introduce and protect.

Improv as Virtue

I had planned on taking the kids to the movies.

It was humid, hot and getting hotter and the Shaun the Sheep movie had been out a week.  I'd talked the oldest into avoiding the Fantastic Four movie in favor of Ant Man.  The air conditioning would be nice.

The kids had worked well the week before and there was just one chore left to do before showering and lunch.

When it is time to move sheep from one paddock to another, the oldest, the sheep, and I have developed a rhythm.  Even managing two new ewes, the job was little more than a hassle, but one ram lamb, "Hurricane," refused to dance to the tune we were calling.  From where I stood, I could see he had a nasty limp.

Otto penned him up while we closed gates and counted heads but the bad news was waiting for me when I got there: his right rear foot was flopping as he hobbled.

The break was fresh.  The lamb voiced no distress and there was no infection yet but it was obvious and severe.  He had to be in pain.  Infection would be coming.  There would be no recovery.

He had been destined for the butcher's block in another two months anyway, but we had plans; but I had not mentally prepared myself to do *that* job on this day.

We were, in the end fortunate.  I did not have to lecture the children about the virtue of improv: my mother was up visiting and was happy to take them to the movies.  They all got some ice cream to boot.

Me, I had a beer for lunch and went to work.

Fair Chase is a Moving Target

I don't play a lot of video games but there is a basic virtue exhibited by those who do: the goal is always to attain to a more difficult level of play.

Many hunters remain quite satisfied to hunt with the methods and equipment that they have always used.  The average hunter might purchase a new piece of equipment to make the hunt more comfortable or easier but rarely will he buy something or adopt tactics to make the hunt more difficult.  

Over time he might become a more efficient killer of game animals but he does not become a more accomplished hunter.

At this age, hunting with a rifle is a challenge.

Gamers, however, seek to improve their knowledge, skill, and reaction time in order to advance in any given game or to play the game at a more challenging setting.  If it is our goal to become a better hunter, we need to adopt a similar mindset.

I have successfully hunted deer with rifle, shotgun, and bow.  It was fun, I enjoyed it and if my only goal was to put as much meat on the table as possible, I suppose I would seek to do those things as efficiently as possible.  Moreover, I wish these meat-hunters good fortune, but there is a risk they will

A challenge for the more experieced

become bored with the sport.

Many seek to relieve the boredom by purchasing additional equipment or undertaking tactics promising to increase the hunter’s efficiency.  This at least in part due to the fact that many hunting programs and magazines are supported by companies which are marketing their products to hunters.  They have a vested interest not in helping you become a better hunter but merely a more accessorized hunter.

If we hunt for enjoyment if we are hunting game and not just seeking to put meat on the table as efficiently as possible, then the mastery of basic hunting skills is the opportunity to hone those skills and add additional ones.  The definition of a bad hunt is not necessarily coming home empty-handed but, rather, rather growing bored with a sport that no longer offers a challenge.

Fred Bear understood that risk as did the hunter of the 1950's and 60's who were growing bored with killing game with high powered rifles.  Yes, he too was trying to sell something but he was selling challenge not ease.

If we desire to become better hunters, if we desire to gain the skills and the virtues of those engaged in the truly oldest occupation of human society, then our concept of "fair chase" cannot be a static set of principles.   “Fair chase” can not be just the use of any new toy allowable by the rules laid down by the state Department of Natural Resources.  Fair chase, rather, is about each hunter’s relationship to the animal pursued.

Is it fair chase if I shoot a whitetail deer from 150 yards with a modern rifle and eight power scope?  Not anymore.  What about the use of a crossbow or a compound bow tricked out with the sights and a trigger release?  I will not begrudge them to a hunter who needs them as either a place to begin their pursuit of virtue or due to age or infirmity.  But if any of us are able to pursue a more difficult task, is it to our credit if we exchange it for a simpler one?

As each of us become a more accomplished hunter “fair chase” requires increasing the level of challenge we experience.  I am better, therefore I must limit my advantage in some other way in order to keep the pursuit “fair.” Maybe it is time to learn to hunt from the ground?  Learn to shoot instinctually? Take up the recurve or a longbow? Step off your uncle's deer preserve and accept the challenge of public land hunting?  

If any of us wishes to become a better hunter we do so by making the task harder, by playing at a higher level of competition.  Every sportsman worth the name understands the concept.  If we won’t model this virtue for our children, perhaps it would be better for their character if we just let them play Mario Kart?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/what-science-knows-about-video-games-and-violence/