Courage is in the face of uncertainty.. that fear will strike a blow in our subconscious.. that we may fear what's coming next. And that, regardless of the fear, we choose to live our lives as they were, as they've been, as they'll always be.
There's no other way of living it up this moment, leisure all over the place now that we can afford a day off, and still procrastinate some more afterwards. Nothing defeats the purpose of not aiming always for the higher ground, and not necessarily pursuing an end; we sit idly and our collective minds come up with adventures that materialize, if the effort is put in place, at the right time, under the right conditions, a bit of luck provided.
It's what makes these terrorists so menacing: they're wrong but they're purposeful. To exemplify, I once met a man in a bar that always wore the same pair of shoes, drank one cheap pitcher of beer and went to sleep in a room with no more space than a bed. No one is likely to adopt such hermit. Yet he worked everyday, saved every dime earned and, in time, amassed a small fortune and a few years later left to his homeland to never again come back. Simple as it may seem, his actions were aimed at an endgame, and that, for him, made it all worthwhile. Terrorists dream too, not about things we dream of, but absurd fantasies of doomsday, seeing those who they most hate suffer in unimaginable ways.
Let's put things in perspective: sad as they may be, terrorist events are desperate attempts to disrupt the lives of those they despise bitterly; it is abhorrent our way of life, to them it is appalling the freedoms we enjoy. It is an exercise in futility, the inevitable outcome of waging a war that has already been lost. The enemy does not compete; it runs, it hides, it's barbaric and should be destroyed. The way you deal in fear is by dealing them the same hand. An eye for an eye, it is not enough: we have inflicted far worse on them. And the enemy has endured far more punishment than it can deliver in a lifetime; those slates aren't even. We just see that our way of life is far more precious than theirs, and, in some ways, it is. We have a better system in place, better weapons, more fun and sense.
There's no other way of living it up this moment, leisure all over the place now that we can afford a day off, and still procrastinate some more afterwards. Nothing defeats the purpose of not aiming always for the higher ground, and not necessarily pursuing an end; we sit idly and our collective minds come up with adventures that materialize, if the effort is put in place, at the right time, under the right conditions, a bit of luck provided.
It's what makes these terrorists so menacing: they're wrong but they're purposeful. To exemplify, I once met a man in a bar that always wore the same pair of shoes, drank one cheap pitcher of beer and went to sleep in a room with no more space than a bed. No one is likely to adopt such hermit. Yet he worked everyday, saved every dime earned and, in time, amassed a small fortune and a few years later left to his homeland to never again come back. Simple as it may seem, his actions were aimed at an endgame, and that, for him, made it all worthwhile. Terrorists dream too, not about things we dream of, but absurd fantasies of doomsday, seeing those who they most hate suffer in unimaginable ways.
Let's put things in perspective: sad as they may be, terrorist events are desperate attempts to disrupt the lives of those they despise bitterly; it is abhorrent our way of life, to them it is appalling the freedoms we enjoy. It is an exercise in futility, the inevitable outcome of waging a war that has already been lost. The enemy does not compete; it runs, it hides, it's barbaric and should be destroyed. The way you deal in fear is by dealing them the same hand. An eye for an eye, it is not enough: we have inflicted far worse on them. And the enemy has endured far more punishment than it can deliver in a lifetime; those slates aren't even. We just see that our way of life is far more precious than theirs, and, in some ways, it is. We have a better system in place, better weapons, more fun and sense.
The Western governments value human life, as is the case with everything political, to an extent. That's why they do not engage in indiscriminate bombings; though sometimes it's unavoidable, usually they try to minimize civilian casualties. The enemy doesn't play by these rules. So, in dealing with them, we should judge them with the same disregard. Our laws restrict us, it is as if we were fighting with one hand tied behind our back. The rules of engagement should be reserved for more fair adversaries. We shouldn't degrade ourselves, by lowering ourselves to their level; we should continue to take every precaution to avoid unnecessary loss of innocent lives, but in taking them out, in rooting them out, we cannot stop short of brutality. A barbaric force can only be defeated if similar tactics are taken. Think of the infamous worldwide leader of the Cali cartel in the 90's, Pablo Escobar: it wasn't until the Colombian people began to employ his unscrupulous methods that they eventually got him. The Spaniard conquistador Hernan Cortez landed in Mexico with just a few more than five hundred men soldiers (and one hundred sailors), but saw in the ships used to sail into the New World also the possibility that many among his men had of leaving that unknown and scary land behind, and not have to face a million Aztecs. How resolute and determined was Cortez to usurp the Aztec riches? He sank them. In battling the Aztecs, that ambition was foremost the precursor of his great success. But what also contributed to their ultimate demise was the Aztec ritual of having to capture their rivals in combat, tie them up and execute them later on at a special ceremony, where everyone in their society would finally see the fate of those who dared cross them. While that may be an allusion to a stale political process in which we find ourselves in order to deal with people, as in the case of the Spaniard conquistadors against the Aztecs, only out to kill you. See, the Spaniards did not require to extend the same courtesy. They had a take-no-hostages policy that, in the end, helped their cause and spelled the Aztecs' demise.
Nonetheless, it's not necessary to use a cannon to kill a mosquito, as Confucius said. More than a military effort, it is first and foremost an intelligence and humanitarian effort. We can both target the enemy and come up with solutions to those in need. How these people fair out is going to determine the world our kids will inherit. Human decency doesn't grant anything less.
Nonetheless, it's not necessary to use a cannon to kill a mosquito, as Confucius said. More than a military effort, it is first and foremost an intelligence and humanitarian effort. We can both target the enemy and come up with solutions to those in need. How these people fair out is going to determine the world our kids will inherit. Human decency doesn't grant anything less.
A terrorist attack is a rare event; there are greater demands. But when it does happen, it spreads fear, like rabies. Let's not make things more than they need to be. Propaganda is one sure way for tyrants and corrupt politicians to implement their stark agendas. The public is emotionally engaged by the atrocity, and laws that do not take into consideration how good we've had it so far and just how lucky we are, are enacted. In Rome, because of a terrorist attack by pirates, laws were enacted that allowed safe passage for dictators, men the likes of Pompey and Julius Cesar, who would ultimately deal the final blow in cementing a legacy of warmongering and expansionism.
These men would've never climbed through the social ranks in the hierarchy of power as absolutely and unabashedly as they did had it not be by the fear that those pirates who sacked the ancient city of Rome, sealing their fate and the fate of the empire along with them.
In France and Belgium, for example, these things are happening, and far from helping defeat their foe, it is hurting the people who want to enjoy their life, no fear for what's next. Of course, the government wrestles with keeping us safe. But our liberties shouldn't be sacrificed in the process.
We can live in obscurity only for so long before we revert to medieval means, dark age ways, do away with all that we hold dear and make life worth: freedom of choice to be out there, happily living our lives. Sure, we can do without a few protests, and no one advocates for anarchy and debauchery, living the quiet life that better suits this period of mourning, it kind of makes sense. I, too, am sick of our lust and narcissism, but it looks better than turbans and burqas. That's freedom, too: tolerating the tastes we found most appalling of other cultures. Ridicule is psychological rape. As a society, we may not easily choose to wear a suicide vest and blow ourselves up, killing scores of innocent people in the act. But how many lives do we destroy by ostracizing an individual or a particular group of people? In fact, we're fueling those same vengeful feelings. Instead, aim at educating them otherwise; I know, it sounds like a horrendous idea, but education takes less of a considerable effort than unemployment or delinquency. It's rare to see an educated person go down that downward spiral path.
More than a cultural event, it's a personality trait that we all share. In Muslim extremists, it is taken to its highest expression: the cult of the martyr, the scripture, mosques and spiritual leaders, media, press. We can see the influence religious groups have. Take the church, for instance; Christians, in general. In a theocracy, difference is, one religion overrules all others. In many instances, one faith trumps all others. And just in Islam, there are oh so many varieties, tribal leaders have slaughter one another throughout the ages because of obscure, ancient texts that promote genocide, infanticide, plagues, all in the name of a hypothetical being that is either too self-absorbed to see its own narcissistic spectrum or just blatant mambo jumbo. At the core of the very proverbial heart of the essence in matter of fact of the jihadist complex lies ignorance.
Let's just say it out loud, "Our enemy is ignorance."
Sure, we can play nice and toy around with a vicious predator, pretend it's our pet, keep it chained and hesitate to give it the final blow. That ISIS has be destroyed or incapacitated to the degree that it no longer poses a global menace, it goes without saying. But let's use some mystical antics, some religious analogies here, starting with the following:
What if ISIS weren't the problem? What if it wasn't even one of the bigger problems? Our leaders make it seem more formidable than it is. How hard is it to find a few cowards among thousands of refugees?How cowardly of the Republican front to fear such a minor possibility. If they haven't tried anything yet, it is because they have it in store? No, actually, as soon as they can, they strike, and they take pride in their savagery. If it's up to our leaders, fearsome doctrines are upheld, we must be in a state of alert, we are at war; let's be wary of these people. It's the same rhetoric on the right.
Beware, the voices of doom. We must not lower ourselves to their standards. We must not cave in to the fear they're trying to inflict. These are the arguments we hear from the left.
In fact, ISIS thrived in the lawlessness that followed the Iraq invasion but its seeds had long ago been sawed and sponsored in theory, backed by an abundance of riches, as only major key players can afford through anti-US propaganda, by building mosques where anti-Western semantics are the norm, in order to distract their own people as to what the cause of their misery is: their failed theocratic systems which foment ignorance and preach intolerance towards other religious minorities, instead of implementing actual social reform which would prove to be sacrilegious to even consider. ISIS wouldn't be ISIS if it weren't for all billions of dollars that big players in the Middle East put forth towards an ideology rooted in hatred, bigotry and injustice. It dictates the way of life in the Muslim world, it is their daily bread, it breeds and shelters the very notions that one day, just like that other day in Paris or that almost faded memory of 911.
Our fears made us give in too much political sway that eventually led to the invasion of Iraq. But they also made us wary of a more effective way of dealing with its transgressions and leftovers, among those ISIS the latest. What good is it to eradicate ISIS, if the Saudis are still pumping their oil might into breeding the next generation of jihadists? The same goes for Iran. Even among themselves, Muslim nations cannot agree (Sunnis and Shiites, the two major branches of Islam, are still engaged in an age-old battle that began since the very foundation of Islam over who's cousin adviser will be the caliph). They do, however, coincide in one final delusional truth: their problem lays not in their faulty ways, but in the West. The US is the Great Satan. And so forth.
Beware, the voices of doom. We must not lower ourselves to their standards. We must not cave in to the fear they're trying to inflict. These are the arguments we hear from the left.
In fact, ISIS thrived in the lawlessness that followed the Iraq invasion but its seeds had long ago been sawed and sponsored in theory, backed by an abundance of riches, as only major key players can afford through anti-US propaganda, by building mosques where anti-Western semantics are the norm, in order to distract their own people as to what the cause of their misery is: their failed theocratic systems which foment ignorance and preach intolerance towards other religious minorities, instead of implementing actual social reform which would prove to be sacrilegious to even consider. ISIS wouldn't be ISIS if it weren't for all billions of dollars that big players in the Middle East put forth towards an ideology rooted in hatred, bigotry and injustice. It dictates the way of life in the Muslim world, it is their daily bread, it breeds and shelters the very notions that one day, just like that other day in Paris or that almost faded memory of 911.
Our fears made us give in too much political sway that eventually led to the invasion of Iraq. But they also made us wary of a more effective way of dealing with its transgressions and leftovers, among those ISIS the latest. What good is it to eradicate ISIS, if the Saudis are still pumping their oil might into breeding the next generation of jihadists? The same goes for Iran. Even among themselves, Muslim nations cannot agree (Sunnis and Shiites, the two major branches of Islam, are still engaged in an age-old battle that began since the very foundation of Islam over who's cousin adviser will be the caliph). They do, however, coincide in one final delusional truth: their problem lays not in their faulty ways, but in the West. The US is the Great Satan. And so forth.
That people should submit their will to a few fanatical spiritual leaders who will somehow deliver them in the after life. What if a week passes by and you don't get pay, you go and find out why. If they tell you that you should work for free in order to enjoy life after you die, what would you say? Yet the same principle is expected of us under some religions: don't question dogma, submit to God's will whatever that might be, and then you'll be rewarded in the afterlife. Some of us, however, can't spare that much. Consider, if only for a moment, what if this very life is all that we got? In that case, we have two choices: either get depressed or make the best of it. In that whole parallel religiosity dimension, things are governed by nonsensical plots, excessive uses of forces, in essence, fear.
We believe because we're afraid of the consequences of the non-believer, of the nihilist, of the infidel: the wrath of God. Things had theologically simmered down from the murky biblical passages with the introduction of the New Testament. In many ways, the Old Testament has little, if anything, to do with it. Christianity isn't the faith professed in the Bible; Jesus himself was a Jew.
After all, the adage that Exodus 21:34 asserts in the Bible, it is rebuked in the New Testament by Mathew 5:38-42. In the latter, cruelty was paid with cruelty. But we don't circumvent the law in order to bring some outlaws into justice; we don't rape rapists; we don't kill innocents just because they do not share our believe system.
Buddhism talks of a middle path, a middle ground, neither abnegation nor indulgence, all in moderation: the middle path can be applied here. Usually, you find people on the extreme side; some people engage in workouts daily, chronicle their progress, eat, drink, live all centered around their physique routines, measured in sets and repetitions, all they talk about is how much are they benching, a fitness jargon that it is new, but you can't help learn a few gimmicks and have mixed results and adopt only what makes sense to you. A sense that can be gradually upgraded, bettered. The minute you read about the different types of bodybuilding are really out there, the more immersed you are with that which you desire to achieve, the more likely that you'll find ways to incorporate working out into your daily routine. Exercise should be like taking a shower, going to work, being in a relationship. It pays off big time. You may feel bored or uninspired at work, but you'll never have a really bad day at the gym. And how your day goes, when you're walking around in a strong and built body, then it fills you not just with confidence but the actual strength to take on anything and everything that stumbles down your path. It's a lazy thought that separates us from taking action. In taking action, we put in motion this fine machinery of dreams. Nothing looks and feels quite as good as being fit. It feels good and it looks even better knowing that such a good feeling can be translated to looks; in essence, you always look the way you feel.
You can take a day off, a month in the summer max. Now I don't like going to the gym. I take the gym with me wherever I go. At work, I have a simple tool: a 40-pound dumbbell; at home, a pull-up/chin-up bar. At varying intervals, I run for a block or two, then slow down to almost walk; then sprint for a block if there aren't too many pedestrians, the earlier in the morning, the better, more than forty blocks before I go to work. From 86th street in Lexington to 42nd and 2nd, it usually takes me fifteen minutes or so. My point is, my life doesn't revolve around terrorism. I deal with it like everything else; I don't have time to spend more than a few minutes ushering about human injustice.
My workout routines are not the same. If I expect results, I crack at it throughout the course of a day. At home, I do pull-up/chin-ups, three sets, ten to fifteen reps each. The key factor is to push your limits in substantial ways, to be consistent, drink plenty of water, sleep enough, eat well. Sleep, in particular; some of us don't make it a habit, the good sleeper takes just some planning and life is always so much better when you rise with the sun and go to sleep not too long after it sets. Usually by ten I am asleep, and I wake up at 5AM every morning, except on days when I'm off, I'd get up at 6AM. I'm sort of a morning person, and if I can put in a few dozen of blocks run, then I feel elated and energized to take on the world. Except, I meditate too. Meditation is the only time I spend physically inactive. I immerse into quietude, mute the world around out with earplugs, silence is the best therapy for the mind.
It's nice to be nice, but some prefer harsher ways of dealing with them. And if some of those fellows decide that any day is a good day to go and kill some innocent civilians, then it is not up to us to concern ourselves with the potential of their innocent in turn; after all, they hide among civilians with the purpose of avoiding being taken out on an airstrike. They should not use human shields, but they do; we all heard how it was a woman who covered Osama Bin Laden before he was killed. That's just as much cowardice as the biblical Adam defending himself by pointing the finger at Eve when God finally decided to show up in the Garden after the fact.
You can take a day off, a month in the summer max. Now I don't like going to the gym. I take the gym with me wherever I go. At work, I have a simple tool: a 40-pound dumbbell; at home, a pull-up/chin-up bar. At varying intervals, I run for a block or two, then slow down to almost walk; then sprint for a block if there aren't too many pedestrians, the earlier in the morning, the better, more than forty blocks before I go to work. From 86th street in Lexington to 42nd and 2nd, it usually takes me fifteen minutes or so. My point is, my life doesn't revolve around terrorism. I deal with it like everything else; I don't have time to spend more than a few minutes ushering about human injustice.
My workout routines are not the same. If I expect results, I crack at it throughout the course of a day. At home, I do pull-up/chin-ups, three sets, ten to fifteen reps each. The key factor is to push your limits in substantial ways, to be consistent, drink plenty of water, sleep enough, eat well. Sleep, in particular; some of us don't make it a habit, the good sleeper takes just some planning and life is always so much better when you rise with the sun and go to sleep not too long after it sets. Usually by ten I am asleep, and I wake up at 5AM every morning, except on days when I'm off, I'd get up at 6AM. I'm sort of a morning person, and if I can put in a few dozen of blocks run, then I feel elated and energized to take on the world. Except, I meditate too. Meditation is the only time I spend physically inactive. I immerse into quietude, mute the world around out with earplugs, silence is the best therapy for the mind.
It's nice to be nice, but some prefer harsher ways of dealing with them. And if some of those fellows decide that any day is a good day to go and kill some innocent civilians, then it is not up to us to concern ourselves with the potential of their innocent in turn; after all, they hide among civilians with the purpose of avoiding being taken out on an airstrike. They should not use human shields, but they do; we all heard how it was a woman who covered Osama Bin Laden before he was killed. That's just as much cowardice as the biblical Adam defending himself by pointing the finger at Eve when God finally decided to show up in the Garden after the fact.
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