“ … he took to business as if it were war.”
Cornelius Vanderbilt: Bare-Knuckled Capitalism
Cornelius Vanderbilt: Bare-Knuckled Capitalism
The Economist (London, UK) Apr 16, 2009
In the unperturbed moment, it’s easy to lose focus … to take your eyes off the goal … to let things slide … to become caught up in trivia and machinations … to lose traction … to lose points … to lose a game. Nothing focuses our attention like confronting an overt threat to our wellbeing! Unfortunately, many are not sufficiently aware or close enough to the action to visualize the risk and never see it coming.
Point to Ponder
If you don’t understand or accept a “War” metaphor for life,
you may not have been to the front lines or anywhere near the mainstream.
Alternative Views
If you understand “Capitalism” and the importance of being “competitive”, you may prefer a sports metaphor.
If you subscribe to more nouveau corporate templates, you may prefer to think in terms of “teamwork”; but someone has to lead, and one of any account at all can’t forever be a “follower”.
If you prefer the sports metaphor, consider what the end-game score might have to be if you are to win. The difference between that score and where you are nowis the number of points DOWN you are … never mind what the other team has on the board. To get to the endpoint on your ledger, you only have whatever time there is left in the game to make up the difference; and you have only the skills and experience now to do what you can do NOW. The only things standing between you and the goal are the opposition, your own limitations and the clock.
Can you compete? Are YOU a worthy competitor? What is your “Edge”?
“Life is a game, and if you aren’t in it to win, what the heck are you still doing here?”
Linus Torvalds
Finally, it helps to know what “league” you’re in. One can’t forever be a “sandlot” player. Civilization has tried to equip you to achieve your full potential. One dares to ask: “What did I do with the awesome opportunities I’ve had to this point?”
But the WAR metaphor for life becomes more compelling as the stakes get higher, as we move beyond our cocooned beginnings into the mainstream, and as we strive or are pushed closer to the edge. There IS an EDGE!
To be sure, the war metaphor has its dark side and encrypted limitations:
“War makes the world understandable, a black and white tableau of ‘them’ and ‘us’. It suspends thought, especially self-critical thought. All bow before the supreme effort. We are one. Most of us willingly accept war as long as we can fold it into a belief system that paints the ensuing suffering as necessary for a higher good, for human beings seek not only happiness but meaning. And, tragically, war [i.e., winning and/or sacrificing all for a perceived “greater good”] is sometimes the most powerful way in human society to achieve meaning.”
Chris Hedges
in
Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence
Karen Armstrong, Alfred Knopf, 2014
But let’s turn the kaleidoscope ever so deliberately upward until, first, we find something tied to a legitimate belief system with tractionable meaning – e.g., a mission … a passion … a Dream – and then declare war on whatever stands in the way of making it happen. That includes injustice, prejudice, small-mindedness, parochialism, excuses, rationalizations and blind obeisance. It also includes our own frailties, flusterings, blusterings and bullheadedness!
Then, and only then, can we become a Top Dog warrior in the most positive and life-affirming sense. The fight for our truest Destiny is one we can’t afford to lose. Let’s DOIT! Quartermaster
[Precipitating reference: Take Command Lessons in Leadership by Jake Wood (former member of the elite Marine Scout Sniper Platoon) Crown Business, October 14, 2014]
