Initative 2  -  Calm /Assertive

 After you smell vomit for a few decades, stupid no longer makes you sick. But please don't take my word for anything. After all I am a white male, university educated, and a capitalist - to the core. That is because I earned my way, stole my way, lied my way, cheated my way, out of what you all might call hell - I have few regrets. I owe my escape from the hell that was my youth to lots of fiction and lack of adult supervison.

               We are in a hell of a mess, and if you read the first paragraph, I think you might understand that I know what a mess is, and coming from where I do, I  beleive that I am not overstating the size of mess we are in.

               Having danced, fought, debated, lived, worked, and played with this thing we are up against, I know that we cannot simply burn it at the stake, or push it off a cliff, because it is in us, and we in it.

               Denial, anger, depression, defeat - where ever you may be in your understanding of where our culture is, and where it will go, one will not grow unless one first accepts  the nature , mortality, and universal interconnectedness of all things. Placed on a scale opposite nature, our silly problems are not worth a panic or even fear. Life is short - and our problems will not be solved by anger or agression, in fact once we make celebration a priority, half of our problems  disappear.

                The other half  of our problems can be solved, and will only be solved if we stay clam and enjoy life as we work together to solve them. What  we have been conditioned to believe  enjoyment is, and is not, cannot be undone in a moment.  Each of us must learn to weigh truth and nature against cultural constructs in our own minds. This requires calmness, a state of mind the enemy opposes with all its might.

                I am not a shrink, guru or shaman - at best I am a historian, and not a good one - but I know that if I can not calm myself, how can I calm anyone else ? The enemy counts on our fear, anxiety, and panic. I am alive now because I did not run, resist, or strike - most of the time. I have paid a heavy price when I  failed to stay calm. I still struggle with it. My first instinctual response is defensive, and that is a tell, a fatal flaw in some situations. Who is perfect?

                 But once we have learned to clam oursleves, when can then learn, like the dog whisperer to become assertive. We can then lead, or not lead as we decide,  once we learn how to be assertive, following is not a natural response in any situation, it is a choice. I choose not to lead or be lead. I place my body where I want to place it, and there are very few places that I have not been able to get to, after making the decision. Of course I paid for this too.

                 Calm - Assertive, if we can learn this - if we all learn this - we can simply choose to calmly do nothing at the same time, and the status quo will implode. I calmly do nothing all the time. I am happy. I love, more than any thing to look at the ocean. Friday we saw whales at sunset. Then I had a beer.

Sub Commander Snowden