Damn the torpedoes

wil

wil

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Full speed ahead.


What do we do when we have a goal and we encounter obstacles...

How about in a high hurdle dash? We jump over them.

How about in a slalom course? We go around them.

How about kayaking in a river? We avoid them.

In any of these cases do we stop and confront them? Do we stop and argue with the hurdle, the gate or the rock? Do we try to present them with logic and reasoning? Allow them to get our goat and deter us from our goal?

No...we acknowledge that they exist, and then we look beyond them to see opportunities to have them not affect our path, not interrupt our progress, and we go for our goal.

So in life, when someone counters our beliefs, when someone questions our goal, when someone says something negative about our being....

Well you get the idea.....why do we not simply focus on our goals...

Damn the torpedoes.....full speed ahead.... Much love fellow travelers!
 
From my point of view, one of my favorite all time proverbs "Smooth seas to not make skillful sailors".

From which my inference is that it may be a mistake to avoid what appears to affect our path. Because do we really know if avoiding the 'obstacle' is interrupting our progress?

No. We really can not know. And the opposite is also true of course. We can not know if dealing with the 'obstacle' will interrupt our progress either.

So what's a person to do? Maybe it is the wisdom to view obstructions on our path not as obstacles but as opportunities? Maybe it is the wisdom to be able to separate those obstacles that are not worth our effort versus those obstacles that are.

Best answer for me - Understand that there is no 'right' decision, nor no 'wrong' decision. One of the great truths that religion and spirituality teach us is that we mortals do not have the ability to know the eventual outcome of an event. Can a seemingly good event turn out to have terrible consequences? Can a terrible event turn out to have wonderful consequences.

And how long must we wait until we find out what those consequences eventually turn out to be?????

The more short term we view life, the more we are likely to make immediate decisions on whether something that happens is good or bad. The more we focus on a longer view the less likely we are to put a label one of those conditions on any single event.

Every decision we make has consequences. Instead of labeling the consequences in the short term as better or worse, how much better to view each decision as leading to a different set of results. Hit an obstacle? Decide to tackle it will lead to a set of results. Decide to avoid it will lead to a different set of results.

Neither set of results is better or worse than the other, though they may appear that way in the short term. We humans are too quick to judge our choices.

If the consequences do indeed turn out to be worse for our path. Did we survive the results? Congratulations that is one more storm survived, and what you learned from it improves your skills as a sailor on the ocean of life.
 
I agree with every word, I even feel like I wrote that logic down somewhere a long time a go.
 
Message to Garcia? I've never come across it before. At first I thought it was typical of the conservatism of the late 19th century ... the author has a very low opinion of the average working man, doesn't he?

Can someone explain him to me?

I wonder, does: "the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it" include the campaigner for civil rights, for female equality, for safety in the workplace in his diatribe against "the imbecility of the average man"?

Like the mate on the Titanic who suggested to the captain it might be wiser to slow down? Or the mate in the British Navy who suggested to his admiral that the fleet might be a lot closer to a reef than they supposed, and was hung for his temerity, just before most of the ships ran aground on the rocks?

Looking round, it seems Hubbard's 'enlightened socialism' later evolved, or grew exhausted and gave way, to an ardent defence of 'free enterprise and American know-how' – capitalism, which has evolved into corporatism.

"Prison is a Socialist's Paradise, where equality prevails, everything is supplied and competition is eliminated" :eek:
But I think he would have been pleased that the prison system continued the practice of slavery, in another guise. (Without it, the US economy would be in great peril.)

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne'er-do-wells to do intelligent work ... It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best—those who can carry a message to Garcia.
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Employers = saints,
Employees = sinners.

... and there one can perceive the roots of the eugenics programme that was taken up in America as a solution to the problem of 'the imbecility of the average man' ...

Oh, and another thing:
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" (Letter to Garcia)
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No, he didn't. Why? Because according to Colonel Andrew Summers Rowan, to whom the message was entrusted, he was briefed as to where Garcia 'was at', and how to get there, and who would meet him ...

And, as for Rowan himself:
In instances of this kind, where one's reputation, as well as his life, is at stake, it is usual to ask for written instructions. In military service the life of the man is at the disposal of his country, but his reputation is his own and it ought not be placed in the hands of anyone with power to destroy it, either by neglect or otherwise...
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Ooh, I doubt Hubbard would approve of that sentiment!

And without written orders, as he was expressly informed, the Government can deny all knowledge if he's captured...

My journey to General Garcia had been fraught with many dangers, but it was, compared with my trip back to the United States, by far the more important, an innocent ramble through a fair country. Going in there had been little to contend with, for the voyage from Jamaica had been on pleasant waters, while on the way to the Cuban commander I had been well guarded and well guided.
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No provision made for his return. I suppose Hubbard would regard Rowan as dispensable, once the message was delivered?

+++

Captain Spiers sets the example for me.
 
Always interesting the interpretation of stories, of metaphors... our interpretation obviously has to do with the tint of our glasses, our past experiences, our mood in the moment....
 
Absolutely, Wil. In order to attempt any kind of clarity one has to constantly be aware of one's own inherent biases. And to attempt as best one can to understand how those biases are affecting your ultimate judgement.

In my world experience, all too many people sift a theory, metaphor, story through their own biases and spit out the result. They either do not want, or do not care, to measure the effect their biases have on their conclusion.
 
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