Ways of Fighting

STRATEGY FOR LIFE

Few things are as paradoxical as planning, and nothing as crucial in action.

Strategy makes the best plans, but the battle makes a mess of it.

You train hard for that title—and no one's surprised when you get the prize, only you know with every part of you it was yet another fluke!

WAR works as a dream, in reverse: you never know what's keeping you alive. A good plan will have you win the war, and lose history. And as in a dream, you couldn't tell what the sense of loss were about...

CRIME is even better: you plan the perfect murder and for all your troubles, you get to be forgotten. A petty thief scores publicity for much less—and the rascal never knows where he's gonna be! Strategic planning works best of all with RAPISTS—it's a success, almost every time. Only, it's wasted on them. They can't tell a good thing when they see it. Normal fellows at least appreciate they aren't good enough to get that girl—you sleep on another failure, that's what! get her to smile for you in your dreams, in case you die overnight—you wouldn't want it to be your last day, and not have come as close as this to the woman you like... None of this is good enough to a rapist, though—and these fellows get what they want, so good are they at planning. Many never get caught, for that reason. Still, after a lifetime of "feminine conquests", these fools have yet to realise that, (1) there is no such thing as a cheap victory. (2) "Getting a Woman" has been poetically likened to plucking the choicest fruit in the garden—or finding a rare orchid in your backyard, all of a sudden! But it's more. A girl is the fruit of the earth.

In the final analysis, it's best to be rejected—fail every time, even—than lay a foot near such fruit. Mass-murderers cop less KARMA, they spend all their days in hell on earth—caught or still at large. Whereas rapists are condemned to eat dejection from the ground, everyday for 106 years. Apparently, this is how long it takes to appreciate that Girls PREFER to be shown a good time.

PLANNING is a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" proposition. You can't take two steps without a plan—it's a fact. Yet planning every move is the surest way of growing morose, which opens the way to maniacal behaviour.

Extreme maniacs are another matter, of course. Still, as an example, every movie with a serial killer in it is based on this theme: a diabolical fellow who is able to keep a clean agenda, every move being accounted for.

AS GOOD AS IT GETS would be an example of extreme benign mania. No one could portray this as good as Jack Nicholson. Few could put up with him as good as Helen Hunt. This excellent production well illustrates the neurotic side-effects of social securisation. CHILDREN need to see bread on the table and a Christmas Tree at the end of the year. However, ADULTS who expects this Political Party or that Government to provide air without microbes, and spiritual enlightenment as well, could be unwittingly encouraging the likes of Nicholson's character. He doesn't make trouble, only wants to help, he has qualities; he is sensitive, intelligent & sensible, apart from being rather clean. But he expects his relationship to the waitress to hit home as Questions & Answers in a Job-Interview Form.

Life would perish, if it sat on a schedule for ½ hour. Continuous planning is indispensable in Nature. As a human habit, however, few things would be as detrimental—it decreases joy by increasing insecurity.

We think of evolution in terms of our ability to stay alive, but EARTH wouldn't have survived a million years, had it not kept adapting its natural programs to a greater environment, space all around.

Life keeps existing by adaptation to cosmic imperatives.
What would Order & Maintenance entail on a Cosmic Scale?...
If YOU were the total universe, you'd have to compute trillions of logistics each ticking second, just to survive another day. This kind of Software would have to work it all out at the speed of light, too... In fact, it all happens in God's Time, which may be a tad faster. Existing as a person at that rate of survival would be as mentally febrile as changing Tariffs & Codes, Air-Grids & Waterworks, every 5 minutes, worldwide... Yet, the cosmos does it!... Call it Big Bang or God's Design, the whole thing happened in one brief moment, NOT in 6 days... BIG BANG is worth a fraction of a second—something with about 13 noughts past the decimal... The CREATION exploded at that kind of speed. As an example, particles that move at this speed "die, before they come into being"... Our esteemed scientists have photographed this process. Just thinking of it in the first place is a credit. Modern Physicists might be the next best thing to God, actually...

As to God, we call Him Our Maker because He made us—but really, it's that it must take quite an architect to even sit down before such a plan.

In plain living terms, STRATEGY is a consideration of all options. This is as concise a definition as you can get. ALL OPTIONS means just that. Problem is, we can't work out the imponderable. Planning seldom turns out as good as it looks on paper, thanks to an unexpected turn. The unpredictable rates as the chief cause of human despair. A silly surprise will make a king out of a village-lad, by Noon—or demolish an Empire, by Sundown. DESPAIR? Is anything more aggravating than having it all worked out, only to stumble on the last lap of the race?

You can't predict what YOU CAN DO, that's what it is—we hardly know our potential, bet on our weaknesses too much... We could get a better deal—anytime!—by counting our blessings; but we only reckon with our sins...

Don't panic if you've never quite heard it this way.

The very Holy Book would lose significance, were it not a total reminder of what that one single item does to human life, SIN. It's not that we're sinners—we were redeemed, weren't we?—it's that we won't accept redemption; we must keep punishing ourselves. We get up in the morning, not in order to fulfill the prospect of a new day—but so as to feel the pain of sin. We exist to punish ourselves.

We don't want to be happy, really; FREUD was right! The cause of human suffering is based on a rehearsal of every reason to be unhappy. Not accepting redemption is akin to rejecting the essence of Christianity. It feels good to read it, because we want joy, deep down, though we accept suffering, knowing only life.

We aren't God, we tell ourselves. This always works fine, as a perfect alibi to our ineptitudes. At the end of the day, however, growing in His image is less of a moralistic affair and more of a lightening of mind.

This is ultimately hopeful in that a Bully could aspire to Paradise, if he weren't a procrastinating maniac as well. The bad news is, while no one ever goes to Hell for being a moral pedant, no one ever gets to see what Paradise might look like, for being that kind of a person.