Indigenous Ability

[For the mindset behind the following see Part 1 .] The car plunges through the guard rail into the river below… The recreational boat sinks from beneath you at 2AM… The bridge long overdue for inspection fails beneath you… The proverbial “100-year flood” occurs and that formerly high and dry street becomes a strictured fast-water nozzle strong enough to sweep cars and humans… The non-swimming loved one is thrashing and flailing mid-water… Your “unsinkable” luxury liner sinks beneath as you sip brandy in the smoking-room… The ability to swim and maneuver well in water, or as the old-timers called it, being possessed of good watermanship, is of ultimate importance at these times. But…again we often fail to consider that even if we possess the vital skill of swimming, like all other endeavors, it is subject to state-dependent learning. That is, if we learn our combat skills in a nice, calm, no-worries zone that is in no way reflective of th...

There is not a Warrior culture, a “preppers” blog, a survival account, or an archetype of intrepid explorers that does not tout and shout the ideal of preparation.  No one doubts the value of this advice. Preparation is no guarantee of survival, but also, no one doubts that odds increase for the prepared soul. “ Chance favors the prepared mind .”-Louis Pasteur But, to quibble with the illustrious Dr. Pasteur, that quote is only partially true. Case in point, we all know [ ALL know ] that one vital aspect of the road to good health is moderated food intake, meals that are more wise than not, and getting in a good level of physical activity that robustifies the myriad physical processes that make up our physical self. These choices go a long way towards making the day to day less grumbling, and in hard times give us a higher baseline to work from towards recovery. Again, we all “know” this advice to be true, our minds are prepared but…have a look a round y...

Are you, or are you not a coward? That is a question that we would all love to answer with a hale and hearty “ Of course, I’m no coward!”  But…the answer is often less confident than that, despite whatever boasts we may make to the contrary.  At our core, in the very construct of our physiology we are seeming binary creatures. We are fight or flight, approach or avoid in our behaviors. There is wisdom in this binary schema in times of stress. As options multiply, the ability to choose wisely and well begins to confound and overload the system, slowing down vital decisions at the worst possible moment. Chances are our early ancestors had less confounding multipliers to add to the choice mix. At times of peril it might be best to return to binary simplicity as other species do.  When a loud unfamiliar noise occurs my dog either growls and investigates based on the timbre or caliber of the noise, or bolts immediately. She [my dog Tu’Sarri] is not ...

As we so often do, let’s start with a quote: “Chance favors the trained mind.”-Louis Pasteur Oh, that’s a good one, one so worthy of repeating that we all have heard/encountered some version or variation of it in this or that business office or sundry Facebook status update. The truth of it is so obvious that it needs no explaining, but…I’m going to all the same; let’s make sure we make a distinction here, one that adheres to what Dr. Pasteur intended. In his domain(s) of chemistry and bacteriology his “training” was not simply his “book learning” so to speak. His training was his use of the experimental method to continually refine, confirm, and most importantly disconfirm any and all ideas pertinent to his field of study Pasteur’s training lies in what he did via experiment and experience (mighty close words, huh?) and not what was read or pontificated upon in the classroom or textbook. Yes, book learning and lectures can act as aids/assists but if we do not act upon...