There have been many times in history when the "tools" and "useful idiots" cheered the approach of war.
To a man, they always underestimated the pain and privation it would bring and they always grossly underestimated the duration of the conflict.
Endurance is the ability to withstand pain that cannot be avoided. Pain is a signal. Recognize and honor the signal when it is appropriate. Push through it when it cannot be avoided. Battleships cannot dodge every raindrop.
Stamina is the ability to work until the job is done. Life is full of tasks that unravel if they are not driven to completion...and then double-checked to ensure the doors are locked, the fires are banked and the pan is powdered and the frizzen is down.
The good news is that choosing the way of endurance and stamina will automatically keep you away from crowds. The road is not clogged with fellow travelers but your fellow-travelers will more than make up for it by their quality.
There are many Bible quotes about endurance, if that is a reference you value.
I might have twenty good years left in me. Looking at the previous post, there is a good chance that I will slip my mortal-coil before we see the end of these present hard-times. I suspect that most of my readers are of a similar age.
Look for "spiritual children". Just as some of our children have been seduced by the glitter, lures and snares of the current evil, there are other people's children who are searching for more than the false tinsel they are being force-fed.
Be cautious. Let them earn their way in. Leave a narrow-gate open.
The war will be over by Christmas..............
ReplyDeleteWhich Christmas might that be? Just asking, for a friend ...
DeletePhil B
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Endeavor+to+persevere&view=detail&mid=C211446656E6FC299250C211446656E6FC299250&FORM=VIRE
ReplyDeleteInteresting (if gloomy) take. Hadn't looked at it that way. I'm going to live forever dontchaknow?
ReplyDeleteIts funny though, you know, we all see this monster coming, some cheering, some fearing. Is it avoidable? I mean, at all, inevitability and all that, could it be avoided somehow?
Throw the bastards in jail. Enforce the laws that are written, to the letter of the law. THAT would fix it. The thieves would be hung, crooks in prison, and the rest of us get on as a lawful society. I ask myself why is this not happening, how is this not the way...? And then my head hurts.
Treason never prospers, if it does none dareth call it treason. The crooks have taken over the courts and the cops and the legislature, it’s all perfectly legal…..
DeleteI know I am nearing the end of the line . I suppose that is what makes me dangerous . Going out in a blaze of glory tempts me . 6 weeks ago my doc shot me up with a cocktail of drugs , threw me in a bag , threw the bag in a helicopter and flew me to the big hospital in the capital for a triple bypass . I walked out as soon as I came down from the drugs . I'm going to follow Dr Esselstyn's heart diet . Death don't skeer me anymore . Dying a coward does .
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/UMVjToYOjbM
ReplyDeleteGood word. Good advice
ReplyDeleteI understand robehr orinsky's position totally. He calls it like it is. He and I are about the same age, but I'm in better shape so I hope that I and my wife can get through the initial collapse and beginning tragedy and maybe still be here to help the survivors by passing on our farming, hunting, food storage, etc country skills as there are very few of us left that were raised on farms and taught by parents and grandparents from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This can't be learned by reading Mother Earth News and when my generation is gone it's gone.---ken
ReplyDeleteYou identified "Job #1" for many of us ; "...get through the initial collapse and beginning tragedy... " . As for "pass on our skills" ; we should already be doing that to any receptive and deserving folks we can find. Perhaps consider video recording of tasks? The diagrams and such that ERJ puts on this blog are a great example of the things we ought to be doing.
DeleteBoat Guy
ERJ, the older I get, the more I value endurance and stamina. Hiking has helped me to clarify this in my mind.
ReplyDeleteThis is a discussion I had with others before - the reality is, no matter how often it seems to the contrary, that there are those out there that want and need to learn but have no one in their "circle of trust (or people they know)" that has this information. Skills and knowledge used to be passed down not just to family, but to the tribe and the community as a whole (obviously, in this age, only those that want the information will take it in).
I will say this on the road less traveled, if hiking is any indication: anyone on that road is generally friendly and cheerful, because you both recognize what you ae doing and what it takes to do that.
Hiking is great for building endurance. Hiking under load (while protecting knees and back) is a way to exponentially increase endurance. Even a gallon of water (8lbs.) over your usual distance will help as much as increasing that distance.
DeleteBoat Guy
I expect many of us are indeed "of an age" and have the time and inclination to read, ponder and occasionally comment. Your blog (and published writing) ERJ; have provided a great education in many practical things, things I have passed on to other, younger folks who are more caught-up in earning a living and properly raising children. Heck, even properly raising a puppy is time consuming!
ReplyDeleteYour remarks on endurance are cogent. We are working on physical endurance and strength both; which at this age means we are both sore a goodly bit of the time now. It's slower going than we might wish, but go we must.
Mental endurance is nourished by faith; it's another important component.
Boat Guy
Before my lung damage, I figured I'd have the same longevity as my people 80-100 with a firm walk right to the end. Now, I really don't know. Which, is more accurate than my first estimate. Who really knows how long they have?
ReplyDeleteI've not found any willing to learn what I know, and BoatGuy's idea of recording tasks is pretty wizard. I'm looking into doing that. I need more light when I work now anyway, so a camera won't be blind.
Again, you give excellent information, and come at it from a way that is off axis to my normal lines of thinking. You have become a trusty waypoint.
I always remember a saying from Vince Lombardi that was tacked up on the wrestling room.
ReplyDeleteFatigue makes cowards of us all,
Don't be the first to quit, push thru.
Didn’t I already say “stay out of my head!”?
ReplyDeleteI’ve never been the fastest, but one thing I was always good at was endurance (be it running, yomping or … any job or task that needs doing), often leaving faster colleagues in my dust over the long-haul. As I become “more mature” (never older) I may be slowing, but I concentrate on maintaining that stamina (I see stamina as the tool ‘allowing’ endurance, and endurance as the ability which allows the persistence needed to succeed against, what may be, unsurmountable odds).
I’ve been wondering for a while what, exactly, I have been preparing ‘for’. I’m still capable (for another decade or so … maybe) of ‘doing my part’ but … I’m increasingly suspecting that most of what I’ve spent decades preparing is not actually ever going to be used ‘by me’, but is in fact ‘for those who come after’*.
Deciding how to ensure only ‘the right type’ have access has been ‘a concern’. I like your “spiritual children” (thanks for the, apparently much needed “smack upside the head”).
I find it ‘amusing’ that over the years, and increasingly so lately, whenever a ‘thorny issue’ has arisen for me, that a solution has arrived (been presented?), never directly, but always from some random, completely unconnected or related, direction - I admit I may just be noticing relevance because I’m considering an issue but … it always appears, at least, as if ‘someone’ is trying to get through to ‘dense’ me with an appropriate ‘hint’ (it's seems just a little too fortuitous at times to be pure chance).
Now? How exactly to identify those “spiritual children” locally – I expect I shall receive a ‘suggestion’ when I look up how best to use my new (Scythe Cymru) hand scythe and (Chillington) manual weed-Wacker, or possibly when I randomly visit someone's blog site.
[As a man I am constitutionally unable to 'read the manual' but ... just this once it would be 'nice' to have one, for this 'life thing', at least]
I'll do the best I can. All I can offer...
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It seems to me, that a surprising amount of this is really just about pain and the tolerance of it; about being calloused to it enough to stay calm, rational, and productive in it's presence. No matter it's amplitude. No trivial task.
ReplyDelete