Steppenwolf

Author: Herman Hesse
Rating: 10/10
Last Read: October 2016

Quick Summary:

I started this book three times, but always failed to get past the same spot every time (Magic theater – entrance not for everybody). However, finally I managed to make it past that section to the treatise on the Steppenwolf, and holy shit. What a book.

In short summary, the book is simply about this:

There was once a man, Harry, called the Steppenwolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good deal of all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life. The cause of this apparently was that at the bottom of his heart he knew all the time (or thought he knew) that he was in reality not a man, but a wolf of the Steppes.

This man is trapped between two ideals for what life entails. But he learns that perhaps there are more aspects than the ones he understands.

Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two. His life oscillates, as everyone’s does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousand and thousands.

I hate to think that this is the book that makes me say, “Here I am! Here are the things I learned! Steppenwolf is about me!” I even only just learned to love dancing! What does that say? That I am just one of the many who belongs in the counterculture movement? Perhaps my friends would not be so surprised, but I am!

For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.

No prospect was more hateful and distasteful to him than that he should have to go to an office and conform to daily and yearly routine and obey others.

My Highlights

A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. –loc 37

For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity. –loc 40

At every other step were placards and posters with their various attractions, Ladies’ Orchestra, Variété, Cinema, Ball. But none of these was for me. They were for “everybody,” for those normal persons whom I saw crowding every entrance. –loc 130

It is remarkable, all that men can swallow. For a good ten minutes I read a newspaper. I allowed the spirit of an irresponsible man who chews and munches another’s words in his mouth, and gives them out again undigested, to enter into me through my eyes. I absorbed a whole column of it. And then I devoured a large piece cut from the liver of a slaughtered calf. Odd indeed! –loc 146

Who read by night above the Rhine the cloudscript of the drifting mists? It was the Steppenwolf. And who over the ruins of his life pursued its fleeting, fluttering significance, while he suffered its seeming meaninglessness and lived its seeming madness, and who hoped in secret at the last turn of the labyrinth of Chaos for revelation and God’s presence? –loc 173

How foolish to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve. –loc 192

There was once a man, Harry, called the Steppenwolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good deal of all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life. The cause of this apparently was that at the bottom of his heart he knew all the time (or thought he knew) that he was in reality not a man, but a wolf of the Steppes. –loc 257

But it was exactly the same when Harry felt and behaved as a wolf and showed others his teeth and felt hatred and enmity against all human beings and their lying and degenerate manners and customs. For then the human part of him lay in ambush and watched the wolf, called him brute and beast, and spoiled and embittered for him all pleasure in his simple and healthy and wild wolf’s being. –loc 283

Thus it was then with the Steppenwolf, and one may well imagine that Harry did not have an exactly pleasant and happy life of it. This does not mean, however, that he was unhappy in any extraordinary degree (although it may have seemed so to himself all the same, inasmuch as every man takes the sufferings that fall to his share as the greatest). –loc 286

even the unhappiest life has its sunny moments and its little flowers of happiness between sand and stone. –loc 289

There are a good many people of the same kind as Harry. Many artists are of his kind. These persons all have two souls, two beings within them. There is God and the devil in them; the mother’s blood and the father’s; the capacity for happiness and the capacity for suffering; and in just such a state of enmity and entanglement towards and within each other as were the wolf and man in Harry. And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment’s happiness is flung so high and dazzlingly over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment. –loc 310

All these men, whatever their deeds and works may be, have really no life; that is to say, their lives are not their own and have no form. They are not heroes, artists or thinkers in the same way that other men are judges, doctors, shoemakers, or schoolmasters. Their life consists of a perpetual tide, unhappy and torn with pain, terrible and meaningless, unless one is ready to see its meaning in just those rare experiences, acts, thoughts and works that shine out above the chaos of such a life. To such men the desperate and horrible thought has come that perhaps the whole of human life is but a bad joke, a violent and ill-fated abortion of the primal mother, a savage and dismal catastrophe of nature. To them, too, however, the other thought has come that man is perhaps not merely a half-rational animal but a child of the gods and destined to immortality. –loc 317

No prospect was more hateful and distasteful to him than that he should have to go to an office and conform to daily and yearly routine and obey others. –loc 332

In the beginning his dream and his happiness, in the end it was his bitter fate. The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure. He achieved his aim. He was ever more independent. He took orders from no man and ordered his ways to suit no man. –loc 337

“I am curious to see all the same just how much a man can endure. If the limit of what is bearable is reached, I have only to open the door to escape.” There are a great many suicides to whom this thought imparts an uncommon strength. –loc 378

Now what we call “bourgeois,” when regarded as an element always to be found in human life, is nothing else than the search for a balance. It is the striving after a mean between the countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct. –loc 419

Now it is between the two, in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism. He will never be a martyr or agree to his own destruction. On the contrary, his ideal is not to give up but to maintain his own identity. –loc 425

In short, his aim is to make a home for himself between two extremes in a temperate zone without violent storms and tempests; and in this he succeeds though it be at the cost of that intensity of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. –loc 428

A man cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. –loc 430

The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility. –loc 433

Neither the great numbers of the herd, nor virtue, nor common sense, nor organization could avail to save it from destruction. No medicine in the world can keep a pulse beating that from the outset was so weak. Nevertheless the bourgeoisie prospers. Why? –loc 438

There is always a large number of strong and wild natures who share the life of the fold. –loc 443

And so all through the mass of the real bourgeoisie are interposed numerous layers of humanity, many thousands of lives and minds, every one of whom, it is true, would have outgrown it and have obeyed the call to unconditioned life, were they not fastened to it by sentiments of their childhood and infected for the most part with its less intense life; and so they are kept lingering, obedient and bound by obligation and service. –loc 446

Most intellectuals and most artists belong to the same type. Only the strongest of them force their way through the atmosphere of the bourgeois earth and attain to the cosmic. The others all resign themselves or make compromises. Despising the bourgeoisie, and yet belonging to it, they add to its strength and glory; for in the last resort they have to share their beliefs in order to live. –loc 454

Humor alone, that magnificent discovery of those who are cut short in their calling to highest endeavor, those who falling short of tragedy are yet as rich in gifts as in affliction, humor alone (perhaps the most inborn and brilliant achievement of the spirit) attains to the impossible and brings every aspect of human existence within the rays of its prism. To live in the world as though it were not the world, to respect the law and yet to stand above it, to have possessions as though “one possessed nothing,” to renounce as though it were no renunciation, all these favorite and often formulated propositions of an exalted worldly wisdom, it is in the power of humor alone to make efficacious. –loc 467

So too, to come to the point, is the Steppenwolf a fiction. When Harry feels himself to be a were-wolf, and chooses to consist of two hostile and opposed beings, he is merely availing himself of a mythological simplification. –loc 500

Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two. His life oscillates, as everyone’s does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousand and thousands. –loc 515

Man is not capable of thought in any high degree, and even the most spiritual and highly cultivated of men habitually sees the world and himself through the lenses of delusive formulas and artless simplifications–and most of all himself. –loc 519

For it appears to be an inborn and imperative need of all men to regard the self as a unit. However often and however grievously this illusion is shattered, it always mends again. –loc 520

A man, therefore, who gets so far as making the supposed unity of the self two-fold is already almost a genius, in any case a most exceptional and interesting person. –loc 528

In reality, however, every ego, so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though it were a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us shares the delusion. –loc 530

But things are not so simple in life as in our thoughts, nor so rough and ready as in our poor idiotic language –loc 561

That man is not yet a finished creation but rather a challenge of the spirit; a distant possibility dreaded as much as it is desired; that the way towards it has only been covered for a very short distance and with terrible agonies and ecstasies even by those few for whom it is the scaffold today and the monument tomorrow–all –loc 576

Even the wolf has two, and more than two, souls in his wolf’s breast, and he who desires to be a wolf falls into the same forgetfulness as the man who sings: “If I could be a child once more!” He who sentimentally sings of blessed childhood is thinking of the return to nature and innocence and the origin of things, and has quite forgotten that these blessed children are beset with conflict and complexities and capable of all suffering. –loc 599

Instead of narrowing your world and simplifying your soul, you will have to absorb more and more of the world and at last take all of it up in your painfully expanded soul, if you are ever to find peace. –loc 608

We are not dealing here with man as he is known to economics and statistics, as he is seen thronging the streets by the million, and of whom no more account can be made than of the sand of the sea or the spray of its waves. We are not concerned with the few millions less or more. They are a stock-in-trade, nothing else. No, we are speaking of man in the highest sense, of the end of the long road to true manhood, of kingly men, of the immortals. Genius is not so rare as we sometimes think; nor, certainly, so frequent as may appear from history books or, indeed, from the newspapers. –loc 614

A man who can understand Buddha and has an intuition of the heaven and hell of humanity ought not to live in a world ruled by “common sense” and democracy and bourgeois standards. –loc 621

It is true that every time my life was shattered in this way I had in the end gained something, some increase in liberty and in spiritual growth and depth, but with it went an increased loneliness, an increasing chill of severance and estrangement. –loc 693

so it is with the majority of men day by day and hour by hour in their daily lives and affairs. Without really wanting to at all, they pay calls and carry on conversations, sit out their hours at desks and on office chairs; and it is all compulsory, mechanical and against the grain, and it could all be done or left undone just as well by machines; and indeed it is this never-ceasing machinery that prevents their being, like me, the critics of their own lives and recognizing the stupidity and shallowness, the hopeless tragedy and waste of the lives they lead, and the awful ambiguity grinning over it all. –loc 837

Obeying is like eating and drinking. There’s nothing like it if you’ve been without it too long. Isn’t it so, you’re glad to do as I tell you?” –loc 985

How can you say that you’ve taken any trouble to live when you won’t even dance? –loc 1006

“Fine views of life, you have. You have always done the difficult and complicated things and the simple ones you haven’t even learned. No time, of course. More amusing things to do. Well, thank God, I’m not your mother. But to do as you do and then say you’ve tested life to the bottom and found nothing in it is going a bit too far.” –loc 1024

Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don’t mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.” –loc 1189

To be religious you must have time and, even more, independence of time. You can’t be religious in earnest and at the same time live in actual things and still take them seriously, time and money and the Odéon Bar and all that.” –loc 1252

But it’s a poor fellow who can’t take his pleasure without asking other people’s permission. –loc 1457

Any one could comprehend it and reach the same conclusion after a moment’s reflection. But nobody wants to. Nobody wants to avoid the next war, nobody wants to spare himself and his children the next holocaust if this be the cost. To reflect for one moment, to examine himself for a while and ask what share he has in the world’s confusion and wickedness–look you, nobody wants to do that. And so there’s no stopping it, and the next war is being pushed on with enthusiasm by thousands upon thousands day by day. –loc 1557

There are always a few such people who demand the utmost of life and yet cannot come to terms with its stupidity and crudeness.” –loc 1707

“In your case, for example, the spiritual part is very highly developed, and so you are very backward in all the little arts of living. Harry, the thinker, is a hundred years old, but Harry, the dancer, is scarcely half a day old. It’s he we want to bring on, and all his little brothers who are just as little and stupid and stunted as he is.” –loc 1723

“You’re a child. You were too lazy to learn to dance till it was nearly too late, and in the same way you were too lazy to learn to love. As for ideal and tragic love, that, I don’t doubt, you can do marvellously–and all honor to you. –loc 1749

“Well,” he said with equanimity, “you see, in my opinion there is no point at all in talking about music. I never talk about music. What reply, then, was I to make to your very able and just remarks? You were perfectly right in all you said. But, you see, I am a musician, not a professor, and I don’t believe that, as regards music, there is the least point in being right. Music does not depend on being right, on having good taste and education and all that.” –loc 1818

Then what does it depend on?”
“On making music, Herr Haller, on making music as well and as much as possible and with all the intensity of which one is capable. That is the point, Monsieur. Though I carried the complete works of Bach and Haydn in my head and could say the cleverest things about them, not a soul would be the better for it. But when I take hold of my mouthpiece and play a lively shimmy, whether the shimmy be good or bad, it will give people pleasure. It gets into their legs and into their blood. That’s the point and that alone. Look at the faces in a dance hall at the moment when the music strikes up after a longish pause, how eyes sparkle, legs twitch and faces begin to laugh. That is why one makes music.” –loc 1823

None of us intellectuals is at home in reality. We are strange to it and hostile. That is why the part played by intellect even in our own German reality, in our history and politics and public opinion, has been so lamentable a one. –loc 1878

The unhappiness that I need and long for is different. It is of the kind that will let me suffer with eagerness and lust after death. That is the unhappiness, or happiness, that I am waiting for.” –loc 2104

But sometimes when happiness leaves a moment’s leisure to look about me and long for things, the longing I have is not to keep this happiness forever, but to suffer once again, only more beautifully and less meanly than before. I long for the sufferings that make me ready and willing to die.” –loc 2114

You, Harry, have been an artist and a thinker, a man full of joy and faith, always on the track of what is great and eternal, never content with the trivial and petty. But the more life has awakened you and brought you back to yourself, the greater has your need been and the deeper the sufferings and dread and despair that have overtaken you, till you were up to your neck in them. And all that you once knew and loved and revered as beautiful and sacred, all the belief you once had in mankind and our high destiny, has been of no avail and has lost its worth and gone to pieces. Your faith found no more air to breathe. And suffocation is a hard death. –loc 2122

“You have a picture of life within you, a faith, a challenge, and you were ready for deeds and sufferings and sacrifices, and then you became aware by degrees that the world asked no deeds and no sacrifices of you whatever, and that life is no poem of heroism with heroic parts to play and so on, but a comfortable room where people are quite content with eating and drinking, coffee and knitting, cards and wireless. And whoever wants more and has got it in him–the heroic and the beautiful, and the reverence for the great poets or for the saints–is a fool and a Don Quixote. –loc 2129

And I knew that my dreams had been right a thousand times over, just as yours had been. It was life and reality that were wrong. –loc 2139

You are right, Steppenwolf, right a thousand times over, and yet you must go to the wall. You are much too exacting and hungry for this simple, easygoing and easily contented world of today. –loc 2146

You have a dimension too many. Whoever wants to live and enjoy his life today must not be like you and me. Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours–” –loc 2148

Time and the world, money and power belong to the small people and the shallow people. To the rest, to the real men belongs nothing. Nothing but death.” –loc 2167

“It is a pleasure to me, my dear Harry, to have the privilege of being your host in a small way on this occasion. You have often been sorely weary of your life. You were striving, were you not, for escape? You have a longing to forsake this world and its reality and to penetrate to a reality more native to you, to a world beyond time. You know, of course, where this other world lies hidden. It is the world of your own soul that you seek. Only within yourself exists that other reality for which you long. I can give you nothing that has not already its being within yourself. I can throw open to you no picture gallery but your own soul. All I can give you is the opportunity, the impulse, the key. I can help you to make your own world visible. That is all.” –loc 2570

true humor begins when a man ceases to take himself seriously. –loc 2618

“Yes, there are indeed too many men in the world. In earlier days it wasn’t so noticeable. But now that everyone wants air to breathe, and a car to drive as well, one does notice it. –loc 2827

It is not a good thing when man overstrains his reason and tries to reduce to rational order matters that are not susceptible of rational treatment. Then there arise ideals such as those of the Americans or of the Bolsheviks. Both are extraordinarily rational, and both lead to a frightful oppression and impoverishment of life, because they simplify it so crudely. The likeness of man, once a high ideal, is in process of becoming a machine-made article. It is for madmen like us, perhaps, to ennoble it again.” –loc 2832

“This is the art of life,” he said dreamily. “You may yourself as an artist develop the game of your life and lend it animation. You may complicate and enrich it as you please. It lies in your hands. Just as madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizomania the beginning of all art and all fantasy. –loc 2946

Life is always frightful. We cannot help it and we are responsible all the same. One’s born and at once one is guilty. You must have had a remarkable sort of religious education if you did not know that.” –loc 3173

All life is so, my child, and we must let it be so; and, if we are not asses, laugh at it. It little becomes people like you to be critics of radio or of life either. Better learn to listen first! Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest. Or is it that you have done better yourself, more nobly and fitly and with better taste? Oh, no, Mr. Harry, you have not. You have made a frightful history of disease out of your life, and a misfortune of your gifts. And you have, as I see, found no better use for so pretty, so enchanting a young lady than to stick a knife into her body and destroy her. Was that right, do you think?” –loc 3290

November 8, 2016

Conversations with Kafka

Author: Gustav Janouch
Rating: 8/10
Last Read: August 2016

Quick Summary:

Conversations with Kafka has been recommended to me numerous times. The Kafka presented here is thoughtful, troubled, and philosophical. The young narrator has many wide-ranging conversations with Kafka, covering topics such as religion, politics, communism, photography, and Chinese philosophy. There are many beautiful phrases and chunks of wisdom to be found in this book.

As the forward says:

Rereading Janouch, I thought: If Kafka didn’t say all these things, he said some of them and should have said the rest.

Favorite Quotes:

Life is as infinitely great and profound as the immensity of the stars above us. One can only look at it through the narrow keyhole of one’s personal existence. But through it one perceives more than one can see. So above all one must keep the keyhole clean.

One cannot break one’s chains when there are no chains to be seen. One’s imprisonment is therefore organized as a perfectly ordinary, not over-comfortable form of daily life. Everything looks as if it were made of solid, lasting stuff. But on the contrary it is a life in which one is falling towards an abyss. It isn’t visible. But if one closes one’s eyes, one can hear its rush and roar.’

Joy is food to the human soul. Without it, life is only a form of dying.

My Highlights

“Art like prayer is a hand outstretched in the darkness, seeking for some touch of grace which will transform it into a hand that bestows gifts. Prayer means casting oneself into the miraculous rainbow that stretches between becoming and dying, to be utterly consumed in it, in order to bring its infinite radiance to bed in the frail little cradle of one’s own existence.” –loc 45

Rereading Janouch, I thought: If Kafka didn’t say all these things, he said some of them and should have said the rest. –loc 70

There is nothing more beautiful than some straightforward, concrete, generally useful trade. –loc 151

Apart from carpentry, I have also worked at farming and gardening. It was all much better and worth more than forced labour in the office. There one appears to be something superior, better; but it is only appearance. In reality one is only lonelier and therefore unhappier. That is all. Intellectual labour tears a man out of human society. A craft, on the other hand, leads him towards men. What a pity I can no longer work in the workshop or in the garden.’ –loc 152

‘You would leave everything here behind?’
‘Everything, if I could make a life that had meaning, stability, and beauty.’ –loc 157

His entire figure seemed to say, ‘I am, forgive me, quite unimportant. You do me a great pleasure, if you overlook me.’ –loc 186

He gave me the book and said: ‘Every man lives behind bars, which he carries within him. That is why people write so much about animals now. It’s an expression of longing for a free natural life. But for human beings the natural life is a human life. But men don’t always realize that. They refuse to realize it. Human existence is a burden to them, so they dispose of it in fantasies.’ –loc 273

It’s like the narrowly confined life of the office. There are no longer any marvels, only regulations, prescriptions, directives. Men are afraid of freedom and responsibility. So they prefer to hide behind the prison bars which they build around themselves. –loc 279

Fundamentally, it is only a special situation. Wealth implies dependence on things which one possesses and which have to be safeguarded from dwindling away by new possessions and a further dependence. It is merely materialized insecurity. –loc 295

Love often wears the face of violence. –loc 301

‘So you too are a lunatic about books, with a head that wags from too much reading?’
‘That’s right. I don’t think I could exist without books. To me, they’re the whole world.’
Kafka’s eyebrows narrowed. ‘That’s a mistake. A book cannot take the place of the world. –loc 308

That is impossible. In life, everything has its own meaning and its own purpose, for which there cannot be any permanent substitute. A man can’t, for instance, master his own experience through the medium of another personality. That is how the world is in relation to books. One tries to imprison life in a book, like a songbird in a cage, but It’s no good. On the contrary! Out of the abstractions one finds in books, one can only construct systems that are cages for oneself. Philosophers are only brightly clad Papagenos with their own different cages.’ –loc 311

‘Work is a release from the longings of our dreams, which often only blind us and flatter us to death.’ –loc 385

‘Youth is full of sunshine and love. Youth is happy, because it has the ability to see beauty. When this ability is lost, wretched old age begins, decay, unhappiness.’
‘So age excludes the possibility of happiness?’
‘No, happiness excludes age.’ Smiling, he bent his head forward, as if to hide it between his hunched shoulders. ‘Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.’ –loc 390

One reads in order to ask questions. –loc 414

‘From life one can extract comparatively so many books, but from books so little, so very little, life.’
‘So literature is a bad preservative?’
He laughed and nodded.
–loc 435

‘The false illusion of a freedom achieved by external means is an error, a confusion, a desert in which nothing flourishes except the two herbs of fear and despair. That is inevitable, because anything which has a real and lasting value is always a gift from within. Man doesn’t grow from below upwards but from within outwards. That is the fundamental condition of all freedom in life. It is not an artificially constructed social environment but an attitude to oneself and to the world which it is a perpetual struggle to maintain. It’s the condition of man’s freedom.’ –loc 485

‘What is the matter? Your face is quite grey.’
‘That will soon be over,’ I managed to say, and tried to smile. ‘People think I’m something that I’m not.’
‘That’s not unusual,’ declared Kafka, with a slightly contemptuous curl of the lip. ‘It’s an old failing of human communication. The only thing that’s always new about it is the pain it causes.’ –loc 510

‘Don’t say that! You don’t realize how much strength there is in silence. Aggression is usually only a disguise which conceals one’s weakness from oneself and from the world. Genuine and lasting strength consists in bearing things. Only weaklings react quickly and brutally. And in doing so, they sacrifice their manhood.’ –loc 528

‘the road from appearance to reality is often very hard and long, and many people make only very poor travellers. We must forgive them when they stagger against us as if against a brick wall.’ –loc 546

The majority of modern books are merely wavering reflections of the present. They disappear very quickly. You should read more old books. The classics. Goethe. What is old reveals its deepest value – lastingness. What is merely new is the most transitory of all things. It is beautiful today, and tomorrow merely ludicrous. That is the way of literature.’ –loc 564

‘To be disturbed by an unexpected visit is a weakness, an avoidance of the unexpected. One huddles into one’s so-called private life, because one lacks the strength to master the world. One flies from the miraculous into one’s own limited self. That is a withdrawal. Being is most of all a being-with-things, a dialogue. One mustn’t shrink from that. You can always call on me as and when you please.’ –loc 574

The suicide only kills himself out of impotence. Because he cannot do anything else. So he takes the last course left open to him. For this, he does not require any strength. All that’s required is despair, the abandonment of all hope. No risk is involved. To dare is to endure, to give oneself to life, to carry on as if untroubled from one day to another.’ –loc 637

But – these are only words. Art is always a matter of the entire personality. For that reason it is fundamentally tragic.’ –loc 651

‘It is literature,’ said Kafka smiling. ‘Flight from reality.’
‘So poetry is lies?’
‘No. Poetry is a condensate, an essence. Literature, on the other hand, is a relaxation, a means of pleasure which alleviates the unconscious life, a narcotic.’
‘And poetry?’
‘Poetry is exactly the opposite. Poetry is an awakening.’
‘So poetry tends towards religion.’
‘I would not say that. But certainly to prayer.’ –loc 675

One cannot break one’s chains when there are no chains to be seen. One’s imprisonment is therefore organized as a perfectly ordinary, not over-comfortable form of daily life. Everything looks as if it were made of solid, lasting stuff. But on the contrary it is a life in which one is falling towards an abyss. It isn’t visible. But if one closes one’s eyes, one can hear its rush and roar.’ –loc 777

Literature strives to present things in pleasing, attractive light. But the poet is forced to elevate things into the realm of truth, clarity, and permanence. Literature aims at comfort. But the poet is a seeker after happiness, and that is everything rather than comfortable.’ –loc 794

‘It’s a betrayal,’ I burst out. ‘These people pretend to be something that they’re not.’
‘And so? What’s unusual in that?’ – His face had a fascinating look of pity, patience and forgiveness. – ‘How often is injustice committed in the name of justice? How often does damnation fly the flag of enlightenment? How often does a fall disguise itself as a rise? We can see it all now quite properly. The war didn’t only burn and tear the world, but also lit it up. We can see that it is a labyrinth built by men themselves, an icy machine world, whose comforts and apparent purposefulness increasingly emasculate and dishonour us. –loc 814

Yet this particularly is the most striking expression of the hunger for truth. Men only discover themselves in the dark mirror of tragedy. But by then It’s already over.’ –loc 834

‘How could that be? Dying is an exclusively human affair. For that reason, all men die. But the monkey continues to live on in the whole human race. The “I” is nothing else except a cage from the past, its bars entwined with perpetual dreams of the future.’ –loc 836

‘What impertinence!’ I said angrily.
‘He’s not impertinent,’ Kafka said gently, and looked at me with dark, sad eyes. ‘He’s only afraid. So he’s unjust. Fear for one’s daily bread destroys one’s character. That’s what life is like.’ –loc 883

‘Most men indeed don’t really live at all,’ said Kafka, in a strangely soft voice. ‘They cling to life like little polyps to a coral reef. But in doing so men are far worse off than those primitive organisms. For them, there’s no firm barrier reef to ward off the breakers. They haven’t even a shell of their own to live in. All they can do is to emit an acid stream of bile, which leaves them even weaker and more helpless, because it divides them from their fellows. But what can they do about it?’ –loc 886

‘By the rubbish of worn-out words and ideas. They’re stronger than thick armour plate. Men hide behind them from Time’s whirligigs. For that reason, words are evil’s strongest buttress. They are the most reliable preservatives of every passion and every stupidity.’ –loc 922

A young man who doesn’t believe in tomorrow morning is a traitor to himself. If one wishes to live, one must believe.’
‘In what?’
‘In the significant interrelation of all things and all moments, in the external existence of life as a single whole, in what is nearest and what is farthest.’
–loc 1001

‘For me you are a young man,’ said Franz Kafka. ‘You have future possibilities which others have already lost. People mean so much to you that you have to watch yourself very closely, in order not to lose yourself. Certainly I am more friendly to you than to Klaus. After all, I speak to my own past when I speak to you. One cannot help being friendly. And then; you are younger than Klaus, and so you need more understanding and love.’ –loc 1229

you know him well?’ ‘Well?’ said Kafka, and shrugged his shoulders in denial. ‘One never knows the living. The present is change and transformation. Albert Ehrenstein is one of today’s generation. He is a child lost and crying in the night.’ –loc 1255

‘On the contrary I’ Kafka gave a painful smile. ‘Nothing sticks so fast in the mind as a groundless sense of guilt, because – since it has no real foundation – one cannot eliminate it by any form of repentance or redemption. –loc 1359

‘So you are disappointed in Döblin?’
‘As a matter of fact, I am only disappointed in myself. I expected from him something different from what he perhaps wished to give. But the stubbornness of my expectation blinded me so that I skipped pages and sentences and finally the whole book.
–loc 1404

‘Most men are not wicked,’ said Franz Kafka, talking of Leonhard Frank’s book Man is Good. ‘Men become bad and guilty because they speak and act without foreseeing the results of their words and their deeds. They are sleepwalkers, not evildoers.’ –loc 1486

Kafka interrupted me. ‘The factories are merely organizations for increasing financial profit. In such a matter, we all have a merely subordinate function. Man is today only an old-fashioned instrument of economic growth, a hangover from history, whose economically inadequate skills will soon be displaced by frictionless thinking machines.’
I sighed disdainfully: ‘Oh yes, that’s a favourite Utopia of H. G. Wells.’
‘No,’ said Kafka in a hard voice, ‘that’s no Utopia, but only the future which already looms before us.’
–loc 1581

To impose an armistice on the enemy is the greatest victory one can achieve. But the final destruction of evil? One can’t expect that. That’s a lunatic dream by which evil is not weakened but – quite the contrary – is strengthened and its effect accelerated, because one overlooks its real nature and distorts reality into an illusion founded on one’s own misleading wishes.’ –loc 1623

he studied the picture of the seated Moses. ‘That is not a leader,’ he said. ‘He is a judge, a stern judge. In the end men can only lead by means of harsh, inexorable judgement.’ –loc 1674

‘You are undisciplined,’ he said reproachfully after we had exchanged greetings. ‘Your illness was a warning. You must take better care of yourself. Good health is not a personal possession, to do what one likes with. It is property on loan, a grace. Most people do not realize this. So they have no hygienic economy.’ –loc 1678

‘As a flood spreads wider and wider, the water becomes shallower and dirtier. The Revolution evaporates, and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. The chains of tormented mankind are made out of red tape.’ –loc 1847

Lying is an act and – like every other act – demands all a man’s skill. One must give up everything to it, one must first believe in the lie oneself, because only then can one convince other people. Lying demands the heat of passion. For that reason, it reveals more than it conceals. I am not capable of that. So for me there is only one hiding-place – the truth.’ –loc 1860

I no longer know how I stammered my way out of my shameful confusion, I only know that from then on I took greater care of what I was saying. Not only in conversation with Kafka, but in my contacts with everyone. That heightened my powers of perception. I learned to observe and to listen better. Thereby my life became deeper and more complicated but without becoming more cold and detached. On the contrary; the almost infinite complexity of things and people, which never failed to astonish me, made my existence richer and more meaningful. I was carried through time on a wave of feeling that was bliss. I was no longer a bureaucrat’s small, insignificant son, but one who struggled to take the measure of the world and of himself, a little champion of God and man. And all this I owed to Kafka. –loc 1866

‘Joy is food to the human soul. Without it, life is only a form of dying.’ –loc 1889

Happiness does not depend on possessions. Happiness is a matter of attitude. That is to say: a happy man does not see the dark side of reality. His sense of life suppresses the gnawing woodworm of the consciousness of death. One forgets that instead of walking, one is falling. It’s as if one were drugged. So It’s a direct offence to be asked after one’s health. It’s as if one apple asked another apple: “How are the worms which the insect bites gave you?” Or as if one blade of grass asked another: “How are you withering? How goes your esteemed decomposition?” What would you think of that?’ –loc 1919

Anyone who grasps life completely has no fear of dying. The fear of death is merely the result of an unfulfilled life. It is a symptom of betrayal. –loc 1975

‘Truth, which is one of the few really great and precious things in life, cannot be bought. Man receives it as a gift, like love or beauty. But a newspaper is a commodity, which is bought and sold.’ –loc 1981

‘In the end the problem is quite simple. The only really difficult and insoluble problems are those which we cannot formulate, because they have the difficulties of life itself as their content.’ –loc 2020

History is made out of the failures and heroism of each insignificant moment. If one throws a stone into a river, it produces a succession of ripples. But most men live without being conscious of a responsibility which extends beyond themselves. And that – I think – is at the root of our misery.’ –loc 2025

the luxury of the rich is paid for by the misery of the poor.’ –loc 2034

How can one find outside oneself something which ought to come from within?’ –loc 2143

Kafka said, ‘that is perfectly reasonable. Poets try to give men a different vision, in order to change reality. For that reason they are politically dangerous elements, because they want to make a change. For the state, and all its devoted servants, want only one thing, to persist.’ –loc 2181

Deceivers always try to solve difficult problems on the cheap. –loc 2201

Goethe’s view is the right one. One must, with quiet respect for the unknowable, accept the order of everything that is knowable. The smallest thing, like the greatest, must be close and precious to one.’ –loc 2203

‘All my friends have wonderful eyes,’ he said. ‘The light of their eyes is the only illumination of the dark dungeon in which I live. And even that is only artificial light.’ –loc 2220

‘Perhaps my insomnia only conceals a great fear of death. Perhaps I am afraid that the soul – which in sleep leaves me – will never return. Perhaps insomnia is only an all too vivid sense of sin, which is afraid of the possibility of a sudden judgement. Perhaps insomnia is itself a sin. Perhaps it is a rejection of the natural.’ –loc 2224

‘Photography concentrates one’s eye on the superficial. For that reason it obscures the hidden life which glimmers through the outlines of things like a play of light and shade. One can’t catch that even with the sharpest lens. One has to grope for it by feeling. Or do you think that one can successfully apprehend the profound depths of this ever-returning reality, before which, through all former ages, whole legions of poets, artists, scientists and other miracle workers have stood in trembling longing and hope, by pressing the knob of a cheap machine? – I doubt it. This automatic camera doesn’t multiply men’s eyes but only gives a fantastically simplified fly’s eye view.’ –loc 2237

For instance: Death is not brought to life by life; Life is not killed by dying. Life and death are conditioned; they are contained within a great coherence. This is, I think, the fundamental and central problem of all religions and of wisdom about life. It’s a question of grasping the coherence of things and time, of deciphering oneself, and of penetrating one’s own becoming and dying. –loc 2398

There’s only one thing certain. That is one’s own inadequacy. One must start from that.’ –loc 2436

Truth is what every man needs in order to live, but can obtain or purchase from no one. Each man must reproduce it for himself from within, otherwise he must perish. Life without truth is not possible. Truth is perhaps life itself.’ –loc 2608

Yet Walt Whitman’s significance lies elsewhere. He combined the contemplation of nature and of civilization, which are apparently entirely contradictory, into a single intoxicating vision of life, because he always had sight of the transitoriness of all phenomena. –loc 2617

‘A lie is often an expression of the fear that one may be crushed by the truth. It is a projection of one’s own littleness, of the sin of which one is afraid.’ –loc 2633

The masses hurry, run, march in thunder through our era. Where to? Where have they come from? No one knows. The more they march, the less they achieve their goal. They use their strength to no purpose. They think they are on the move. And thus, marking time, they fall into the void. That is all. Mankind has lost its home.’ –loc 2710

‘One cannot escape oneself. That is fate. The only possibility is to look on and forget that a game is being played with us.’ –loc 2738

But Kafka gives, really gives, in such a way that It’s a pleasure. For instance, a bunch of grapes which he has not eaten that morning. They are left-overs. You know what they usually look like – with most people. But Kafka never leaves them looking like a tasteless lump. He leaves the grapes or the fruit nicely arranged on the plate. –loc 2744

Wherever one goes, one only travels towards one’s own misunderstood nature. –loc 2763

‘That is precisely what is irritating and difficult. Life has so many possibilities, and each one only mirrors the inescapable impossibility of one’s own existence.’ His voice broke into a dry convulsive cough, which he quickly mastered. We smiled at each other. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘everything will soon be all right.’ ‘It is already all right,’ Franz Kafka said slowly. ‘I have said yes to everything. In that way suffering becomes an enchantment, and death – it is only an ingredient in the sweetness of life.’ –loc 2771

But so called reasonable people are usually those who have been disabled by life. And they are the dominant majority, and do not tolerate examples which reflect unfavourably on themselves.’ –loc 2866

‘Do not excite yourself. Be calm. Quietness is indeed a sign of strength. But quietness may also help one to achieve strength. That is the law of opposites. So be quiet. Calmness and quietness make one free – even on the scaffold.’ –loc 2869

‘Life is as infinitely great and profound as the immensity of the stars above us. One can only look at it through the narrow keyhole of one’s own personal existence. But through it one perceives more than one can see. So above all one must keep the keyhole clean.’ –loc 2985

November 1, 2016

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

Author: Jocko Willink, Leif Babin
Rating: 9/10
Last Read: September 2016

Quick Summary: This book is absolutely packed with actionable advice for leading teams and improving yourself. While the book does include war stories to illustrate the authors’ points, the principles are timeless and worth reading even for those who aren’t interested in military subject matters.

The core of the book: take ownership of yourself and the success of your team. Detach, kill your ego, and don’t blame others for failure. Instead, look at how you can improve the situation, communicate better, and clearly prioritize goals so your team members up and down the chain of command fully understand the situation.

This book made me take a hard look at myself and identified ways that I need to improve, especially in communicating up the chain to make sure my leaders understand the situation on the ground. I will be revisiting this book again and again.

Also, I highly recommend checking out the Jocko Podcast, as well as the Tim Ferris Interview with Jocko.

Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.

My Highlights

Who are we to write such a book? It may seem that anyone who believes they can write a book on leadership must think themselves the epitome of what every leader should aspire to be. But we are far from perfect. We continue to learn and grow as leaders every day, just as any leaders who are truly honest with themselves must. We were simply fortunate enough to experience an array of leadership challenges that taught us valuable lessons. This book is our best effort to pass those lessons on, not from a pedestal or a position of superiority, but from a humble place, where the scars of our failings still show. –loc 73

We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible. –loc 81

“Relax. Look around. Make a call.” –loc 164

Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command. –loc 166

The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterizations of leaders, there are only two that matter: effective and ineffective. Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not. –loc 213

The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it. –loc 220

The greatest of these was the recognition that leadership is the most important factor on the battlefield, the single greatest reason behind the success of any team. –loc 256

We encourage leaders to do the things they know they probably should be doing but aren’t. By not doing those things, they are failing as leaders and failing their teams. –loc 288

Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame. –loc 298

These weaker commanders would get a solid explanation about the burden of command and the deep meaning of responsibility: the leader is truly and ultimately responsible for everything. –loc 496

On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win. –loc 499

When subordinates aren’t doing what they should, leaders that exercise Extreme Ownership cannot blame the subordinates. They must first look in the mirror at themselves. The leader bears full responsibility for explaining the strategic mission, developing the tactics, and securing the training and resources to enable the team to properly and successfully execute. –loc 505

If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises Extreme Ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done. It is all on the leader. –loc 508

Total responsibility for failure is a difficult thing to accept, and taking ownership when things go wrong requires extraordinary humility and courage. But doing just that is an absolute necessity to learning, growing as a leader, and improving a team’s performance. –loc 513

“So, you’re here to help me, right?” the VP inquired. Knowing that, due to ego, some people bristle at the idea of criticism and coaching no matter how constructive, I chose to take a more indirect approach. “Maybe not so much here to help you, but here to help the situation,” –loc 533

When a bad SEAL leader walked into a debrief and blamed everyone else, that attitude was picked up by subordinates and team members, who then followed suit. They all blamed everyone else, and inevitably the team was ineffective and unable to properly execute a plan. –loc 610

The answer: leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance. Whether a team succeeds or fails is all up to the leader. The leader’s attitude sets the tone for the entire team. The leader drives performance—or doesn’t. And this applies not just to the most senior leader of an overall team, but to the junior leaders of teams within the team. –loc 758

When leaders who epitomize Extreme Ownership drive their teams to achieve a higher standard of performance, they must recognize that when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. –loc 833

Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. –loc 847

If I expressed doubts or openly questioned the wisdom of this plan in front of the troops, their derision toward the mission would increase exponentially. They would never believe in it. As a result, they would never commit to it, and it would fail. But once I understood and believed, I then passed that understanding and belief on, clearly and succinctly, to my troops so that they believed in it themselves. When they understood why, they would commit to the mission, persevere through the inevitable challenges in store, and accomplish the task set before us. –loc 1096

In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Even when others doubt and question the amount of risk, asking, “Is it worth it?” the leader must believe in the greater cause. If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win. –loc 1127

Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests. –loc 1131

Every leader must be able to detach from the immediate tactical mission and understand how it fits into strategic goals. –loc 1138

When leaders receive an order that they themselves question and do not understand, they must ask the question: why? Why are we being asked to do this? Those leaders must take a step back, deconstruct the situation, analyze the strategic picture, and then come to a conclusion. If they cannot determine a satisfactory answer themselves, they must ask questions up the chain of command until they understand why. –loc 1138

In business just as in the military, no senior executive team would knowingly choose a course of action or issue an order that would purposely result in failure. But a subordinate may not understand a certain strategy and thus not believe in it. Junior leaders must ask questions and also provide feedback up the chain so that senior leaders can fully understand the ramifications of how strategic plans affect execution on the ground. –loc 1147

A common misperception among military leaders or corporate senior executives, this was an example of a boss who didn’t fully comprehend the weight of her position. In her mind, she was fairly laid back, open to questions, comments, and suggestions from people. She talked about maintaining an “open-door policy.” But in the minds of her sales managers, she was still The Boss: experienced, smart, and most important, powerful. That position demanded a high level of reverence—so high, in fact, that for an employee to question her ideas seemed disrespectful. None of them were comfortable questioning her, even though none of the midlevel managers actually worried about losing their jobs because they asked a question. But they were certainly worried about looking bad in front of The Boss. –loc 1193

Often, my subordinate leadership would pick up the slack for me. And they wouldn’t hold it against me, nor did I think they were infringing on my ‘leadership turf.’ On the contrary, I would thank them for covering for me. Leadership isn’t one person leading a team. It is a group of leaders working together, up and down the chain of command, to lead. If you are on your own, I don’t care how good you are, you won’t be able to handle it.” –loc 1253

Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism. It can even stifle someone’s sense of self-preservation. Often, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own. –loc 1453

“If you approached it as he did something wrong, and he needs to fix something, and he is at fault, it becomes a clash of egos and you two will be at odds. That’s human nature. But, if you put your own ego in check, meaning you take the blame, that will allow him to actually see the problem without his vision clouded by ego. Then you both can make sure that your team’s standard operating procedures—when to communicate, what is and isn’t within his decision-making authority—are clearly understood. –loc 1520

We utilized the principle of Cover and Move on every operation: all teams working together in support of one another. –loc 1716

“The enemy is out there,” I said, pointing out the window to the world beyond. “The enemy is all the other competing companies in your industry that are vying for your customers. The enemy is not in here, inside the walls of this corporation. The departments within and the subsidiary companies that all fall under the same leadership structure—you are all on the same team. You have to overcome the ‘us versus them’ mentality and work together, mutually supporting one another. –loc 1761

Simplifying as much as possible is crucial to success. When plans and orders are too complicated, people may not understand them. And when things go wrong, and they inevitably do go wrong, complexity compounds issues that can spiral out of control into total disaster. Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise. Everyone that is part of the mission must know and understand his or her role in the mission and what to do in the event of likely contingencies. As a leader, it doesn’t matter how well you feel you have presented the information or communicated an order, plan, tactic, or strategy. If your team doesn’t get it, you have not kept things simple and you have failed. You must brief to ensure the lowest common denominator on the team understands. –loc 1951

the enemy gets a vote.–loc 2033

“The enemy gets a vote?” the plant manager repeated, questioning what that meant. “Yes. Regardless of how you think an operation is going to unfold,” I answered, “the enemy gets their say as well—and they are going to do something to disrupt it. When something goes wrong—and it eventually does—complex plans add to confusion, which can compound into disaster. Almost no mission ever goes according to plan. There are simply too many variables to deal with. This is where simplicity is key. If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.” –loc 2034

Prioritize and Execute. Even the greatest of battlefield leaders could not handle an array of challenges simultaneously without being overwhelmed. That risked failing at them all. I had to remain calm, step back from my immediate emotional reaction, and determine the greatest priority for the team. Then, rapidly direct the team to attack that priority. Once the wheels were in motion and the full resources of the team were engaged in that highest priority effort, I could then determine the next priority, focus the team’s effort there, and then move on to the next priority. I could not allow myself to be overwhelmed. I had to relax, look around, and make a call. –loc 2197

Even the most competent of leaders can be overwhelmed if they try to tackle multiple problems or a number of tasks simultaneously. The team will likely fail at each of those tasks. Instead, leaders must determine the highest priority task and execute. When overwhelmed, fall back upon this principle: Prioritize and Execute. –loc 2240

Just as in combat, priorities can rapidly shift and change. When this happens, communication of that shift to the rest of the team, both up and down the chain of command, is critical. Teams must be careful to avoid target fixation on a single issue. They cannot fail to recognize when the highest priority task shifts to something else. The team must maintain the ability to quickly reprioritize efforts and rapidly adapt to a constantly changing battlefield. –loc 2258

To implement Prioritize and Execute in any business, team, or organization, a leader must:
• evaluate the highest priority problem.
• lay out in simple, clear, and concise terms the highest priority effort for your team.
• develop and determine a solution, seek input from key leaders and from the team where possible.
• direct the execution of that solution, focusing all efforts and resources toward this priority task.
• move on to the next highest priority problem. Repeat.
• when priorities shift within the team, pass situational awareness both up and down the chain.
• don’t let the focus on one priority cause target fixation. Maintain the ability to see other problems developing and rapidly shift as needed. –loc 2261

Human beings are generally not capable of managing more than six to ten people, particularly when things go sideways and inevitable contingencies arise. No one senior leader can be expected to manage dozens of individuals, much less hundreds. –loc 2529

Decentralized Command does not mean junior leaders or team members operate on their own program; that results in chaos. Instead, junior leaders must fully understand what is within their decision-making authority—the “left and right limits” of their responsibility. Additionally, they must communicate with senior leaders to recommend decisions outside their authority and pass critical information up the chain so the senior leadership can make informed strategic decisions. –loc 2536

Junior leaders must be proactive rather than reactive. –loc 2540

Tactical leaders must be confident that they clearly understand the strategic mission and Commander’s Intent. They must have implicit trust that their senior leaders will back their decisions. Without this trust, junior leaders cannot confidently execute, which means they cannot exercise effective Decentralized Command. To ensure this is the case, senior leaders must constantly communicate and push information—what we call in the military “situational awareness”—to their subordinate leaders. Likewise, junior leaders must push situational awareness up the chain to their senior leaders to keep them informed, particularly of crucial information that affects strategic decision making. –loc 2542

Contrary to a common misconception, leaders are not stuck in any particular position. Leaders must be free to move to where they are most needed, which changes throughout the course of an operation. Understanding proper positioning as a leader is a key component of effective Decentralized Command, not just on the battlefield. –loc 2564

“Junior leaders must know that the boss will back them up even if they make a decision that may not result in the best outcome, as long as the decision was made in an effort to achieve the strategic objective” –loc 2645

The mission must explain the overall purpose and desired result, or “end state,” of the operation. The frontline troops tasked with executing the mission must understand the deeper purpose behind the mission. –loc 2784

Leaders must delegate the planning process down the chain as much as possible to key subordinate leaders. Team leaders within the greater team and frontline, tactical-level leaders must have ownership of their tasks within the overall plan and mission. Team participation—even from the most junior personnel—is critical in developing bold, innovative solutions to problem sets. –loc 2791

The test for a successful brief is simple: Do the team and the supporting elements understand it? –loc 2807

The plan must mitigate identified risks where possible. SEALs are known for taking significant risk, but in reality SEALs calculate risk very carefully. A good plan must enable the highest chance of mission success while mitigating as much risk as possible. –loc 2808

The best teams employ constant analysis of their tactics and measure their effectiveness so that they can adapt their methods and implement lessons learned for future missions. Often business teams claim there isn’t time for such analysis. But one must make time. –loc 2815

A post-operational debrief examines all phases of an operation from planning through execution, in a concise format. It addresses the following for the combat mission just completed: What went right? What went wrong? How can we adapt our tactics to make us even more effective and increase our advantage over the enemy? –loc 2818

If your boss isn’t making a decision in a timely manner or providing necessary support for you and your team, don’t blame the boss. First, blame yourself. Examine what you can do to better convey the critical information for decisions to be made and support allocated. –loc 3226

Leading up the chain takes much more savvy and skill than leading down the chain. Leading up, the leader cannot fall back on his or her positional authority. Instead, the subordinate leader must use influence, experience, knowledge, communication, and maintain the highest professionalism. –loc 3230

While pushing to make your superior understand what you need, you must also realize that your boss must allocate limited assets and make decisions with the bigger picture in mind. You and your team may not represent the priority effort at that particular time. Or perhaps the senior leadership has chosen a different direction. Have the humility to understand and accept this. –loc 3233

A public display of discontent or disagreement with the chain of command undermines the authority of leaders at all levels. This is catastrophic to the performance of any organization. –loc 3237

But at the end of the day, once the debate on a particular course of action is over and the boss has made a decision—even if that decision is one you argued against—you must execute the plan as if it were your own. –loc 3240

The major factors to be aware of when leading up and down the chain of command are these:
• Take responsibility for leading everyone in your world, subordinates and superiors alike.
• If someone isn’t doing what you want or need them to do, look in the mirror first and determine what you can do to better enable this.
• Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.
–loc 3244

They just don’t get what we are dealing with, and their questions and second-guessing prevents me and my team from getting the job done.” The infamous they. –loc 3251

Intelligence gathering and research are important, but they must be employed with realistic expectations and must not impede swift decision making that is often the difference between victory and defeat. Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute. Leaders must be prepared to make an educated guess based on previous experience, knowledge of how the enemy operates, likely outcomes, and whatever intelligence is available in the immediate moment. –loc 3452

In the SEAL Teams, we taught our leaders to act decisively amid chaos. Jocko had taught me that, as a leader, my default setting should be aggressive—proactive rather than reactive. This was critical to the success of any team. Instead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation. But for many leaders, this mind-set was not intuitive. Many operated with a “wait and see” approach. But experience had taught me that the picture could never be complete. There was always some element of risk. There was no 100-percent right solution. –loc 3506

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life. –loc 3648

The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team. –loc 3668

Although discipline demands control and asceticism, it actually results in freedom. When you have the discipline to get up early, you are rewarded with more free time. When you have the discipline to keep your helmet and body armor on in the field, you become accustomed to it and can move freely in it. The more discipline you have to work out, train your body physically and become stronger, the lighter your gear feels and the easier you can move around in it. –loc 3669

A leader must be calm but not robotic. It is normal—and necessary—to show emotion. The team must understand that their leader cares about them and their well-being. But, a leader must control his or her emotions. If not, how can they expect to control anything else? Leaders who lose their temper also lose respect. But, at the same time, to never show any sense of anger, sadness, or frustration would make that leader appear void of any emotion at all—a robot. People do not follow robots. –loc 3714

a leader must be confident but never cocky. Confidence is contagious, a great attribute for a leader and a team. But when it goes too far, overconfidence causes complacency and arrogance, which ultimately set the team up for failure. –loc 3716

A leader must be brave but not foolhardy. He or she must be willing to accept risk and act courageously, but must never be reckless. It is a leader’s job to always mitigate as much as possible those risks that can be controlled to accomplish the mission without sacrificing the team or excessively expending critical resources. –loc 3718

Leaders must have a competitive spirit but also be gracious losers. They must drive competition and push themselves and their teams to perform at the highest level. But they must never put their own drive for personal success ahead of overall mission success for the greater team. Leaders must act with professionalism and recognize others for their contributions. –loc 3720

A leader must be attentive to details but not obsessed by them. A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success. He or she must monitor and check the team’s progress in the most critical tasks. But that leader cannot get sucked into the details and lose track of the bigger picture. –loc 3723

A leader must be strong but likewise have endurance, not only physically but mentally. He or she must maintain the ability to perform at the highest level and sustain that level for the long term. Leaders must recognize limitations and know to pace themselves and their teams so that they can maintain a solid performance indefinitely. –loc 3725

Leaders must be humble but not passive; quiet but not silent. They must possess humility and the ability to control their ego and listen to others. They must admit mistakes and failures, take ownership of them, and figure out a way to prevent them from happening again. But a leader must be able to speak up when it matters. They must be able to stand up for the team and respectfully push back against a decision, order, or direction that could negatively impact overall mission success. –loc 3728

A leader must be close with subordinates but not too close. The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people—their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself. Leaders must never get so close that the team forgets who is in charge. –loc 3731

A good leader does not gloat or revel in his or her position. To take charge of minute details just to demonstrate and reinforce to the team a leader’s authority is the mark of poor, inexperienced leadership lacking in confidence. –loc 3737

Generally, when a leader struggles, the root cause behind the problem is that the leader has leaned too far in one direction and steered off course. Awareness of the dichotomies in leadership allows this discovery, and thereby enables the correction. –loc 3743

October 25, 2016

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Author: John le Carré
Rating: 7/10
Last Read: September 2016

Quick Summary: I’m not normally one for spy or mystery novels. The spy I read about and liked was Jason Bourne. I shared this and received a recommendation to read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, claiming it would get me hooked.

I can safely say after finishing the book that I didn’t really feel the pull. The book was slow-paced and sometimes the writing left me confused as to what had transpired (mostly in the beginning). There was so much slow buildup, and the book just ended in a quick manner without much fuss.

I do think that George Smiley is a very interesting character, so I can see how one would want to read more about him. However, I won’t be continuing on.

My Highlights

Well, you can’t blame him, can you? You can’t blame a man for wanting a drop of peace in the evening of his life. I can’t.” –loc 425

“Living off the wits of his subordinates—well, maybe that’s leadership these days.” –loc 443

And now it was pouring with rain, Smiley was soaked to the skin, and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London. –loc 468

But Smiley had a second reason, which was fear, the secret fear that follows every professional to his grave. Namely, that one day, out of a past so complex that he himself could not remember all the enemies he might have made, one of them would find him and demand the reckoning. –loc 495

‘To possess another language is to possess another soul.’ –loc 927

That a man’s wealth should be counted by the number of his names! –loc 961

After a lifetime of living by his wits and his considerable memory, he had given himself full time to the profession of forgetting. –loc 1202

Patiently Smiley waited for the speck of gold, for Connie was of an age where the only thing a man could give her was time. –loc 1574

“An artist is a bloke who can hold two fundamentally opposing views and still function: who dreamed that one up?” –loc 2290

Sitting is an eloquent business; any actor will tell you that. We sit according to our natures. We sprawl and straddle, we rest like boxers between rounds, we fidget, perch, cross and uncross our legs, lose patience, lose endurance. Gerstmann did none of those things. His posture was finite and irreducible, his little jagged body was like a promontory of rock; he could have sat that way all day, without stirring a muscle. –loc 3068

“I often thought that. I even put it to Control: we should take the opposition’s cover stories more seriously, I said. The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.” The fifty-year-old who knocks five years off his age. The married man who calls himself a bachelor; the fatherless man who gives himself two children . . . Or the interrogator who projects himself into the life of a man who does not speak. Few men can resist expressing their appetites when they are making a fantasy about themselves.” –loc 3089

Survival, as Jim Prideaux liked to recall, is an infinite capacity for suspicion. –loc 4812

he wondered whether there was any love between human beings that did not rest upon some sort of self-delusion –loc 4985

He thought about treason and wondered whether there was mindless treason in the same way, supposedly, as there was mindless violence. –loc 4988

As an artist he had said all he had to say at the age of seventeen, and one had to do something with one’s later years. –loc 5319

October 18, 2016

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday machine

Author: Michael Lewis
Rating: 9/10
Last Read: September 2016

Quick Summary: I was inspired to read this book after seeing the movie and I wasn’t disappointed. The movie provides a concise summary of the events in the book, so if you’re just looking for the cliff notes version you can safely stop there. However, the book is worth reading as much for the basic financial background as for the insights into human nature. There are many examples of how ego and greed prevented people from recognizing the danger of the situation they were creating.

Lewis provides for the layman much needed insight into the market crash of 2007-2008. The short summary is: greed, shortsightedness, and trust in the ratings agencies lead everyone to believe that they were making boatloads of money on mortgage-backed securities. In reality, everyone was giving out shitty loans that were bound to default, nobody was doing their due diligence, and only a few people recognized and capitalized on the situation.

They actually spent time wondering how people who had been so sensationally right (i.e., they themselves) could preserve the capacity for diffidence and doubt and uncertainty that had enabled them to be right. The more sure you were of yourself and your judgment, the harder it was to find opportunities premised on the notion that you were, in the end, probably wrong.

One of the most illuminating quotes from this book refers to a talk given by Charlie Munger on incentives:

Back in 1995, Munger had given a talk at Harvard Business School called “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment.” If you wanted to predict how people would behave, Munger said, you only had to look at their incentives. FedEx couldn’t get its night shift to finish on time; they tried everything to speed it up but nothing worked—until they stopped paying night shift workers by the hour and started to pay them by the shift. Xerox created a new, better machine only to have it sell less well than the inferior older ones—until they figured out the salesmen got a bigger commission for selling the older one. “Well, you can say, ‘Everybody knows that,’” said Munger. “I think I’ve been in the top five percent of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther.”

My Highlights

A thought crossed his mind: How do you make poor people feel wealthy when wages are stagnant? You give them cheap loans. –loc 328

“Someone asked him if he believed in the free checking model,” recalls Eisman. “And he said, ‘Turn off your tape recorders.’ Everyone turned off their tape recorders. And he explained that they avoided free checking because it was really a tax on poor people—in the form of fines for overdrawing their checking accounts. And that banks that used it were really just banking on being able to rip off poor people even more than they could if they charged them for their checks.”
Eisman asked, “Are any regulators interested in this?”
“No,” said Sandler.
“That’s when I decided the system was really, ‘Fuck the poor.’” –loc 405

When a Wall Street firm helped him to get into a trade that seemed perfect in every way, he asked the salesman, “I appreciate this, but I just want to know one thing: How are you going to fuck me?” –loc 445

They measured risk by volatility: how much a stock or bond happened to have jumped around in the past few years. Real risk was not volatility; real risk was stupid investment decisions. –loc 721

Back in 1995, Munger had given a talk at Harvard Business School called “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment.” If you wanted to predict how people would behave, Munger said, you only had to look at their incentives. FedEx couldn’t get its night shift to finish on time; they tried everything to speed it up but nothing worked—until they stopped paying night shift workers by the hour and started to pay them by the shift. Xerox created a new, better machine only to have it sell less well than the inferior older ones—until they figured out the salesmen got a bigger commission for selling the older one. “Well, you can say, ‘Everybody knows that,’” said Munger. “I think I’ve been in the top five percent of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther.” –loc 742

He didn’t know exactly why all these banks were suddenly so keen to buy insurance on subprime mortgage bonds, but there was one obvious reason: The loans suddenly were going bad at an alarming rate. Back in May, Mike Burry was betting on his theory of human behavior: The loans were structured to go bad. Now, in November, they were actually going bad. –loc 975

Here was a strange but true fact: The closer you were to the market, the harder it was to perceive its folly. –loc 1399

He was surprised that Charlie and Jamie, both now so alive to the possibility of dramatic change in the financial markets, were less alert and responsive to the possibilities outside those markets. “I’m trying to prepare myself and my children for an environment that is unpredictable,” Ben said. –loc 1814

“I realized, I have to sell my house. Right now.” His house was worth a million dollars and maybe more yet would rent for no more than $2,500 a month. “It was trading more than thirty times gross rental,” said Ben. “The rule of thumb is that you buy at ten and sell at twenty.” In October 2005 he moved his family into a rental unit, away from the fault. –loc 1823

They actually spent time wondering how people who had been so sensationally right (i.e., they themselves) could preserve the capacity for diffidence and doubt and uncertainty that had enabled them to be right. The more sure you were of yourself and your judgment, the harder it was to find opportunities premised on the notion that you were, in the end, probably wrong. –loc 3512

“I think there is something fundamentally scary about our democracy,” said Charlie. “Because I think people have a sense that the system is rigged, and it’s hard to argue that it isn’t.” –loc 3516

The main effect of turning a partnership into a corporation was to transfer the financial risk to the shareholders. –loc 3808

October 6, 2016

Walking

Author: Henry David Thoreau
Rating: 8/10
Last Read: August 2016

Quick Summary: Thoreau’s essay on the joys and virtues of the walking man is an enjoyable read if you like to walk (as I do). Your head will become inflated and you will feel better than all those around you who are in their cars or at their homes sitting idly. The real crown jewel of the essay, however, is his departure into discussion of the wild. It is true, still in this day, that the wild calls to us.

I did not expect to find a timeless piece like this one calling through the ages. Take Thoreau’s advice. Go outside. Turn off your phone. Be in the world with body and spirit. Find something wild.

Nowadays almost all man’s improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.

My Highlights

For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. –loc 11

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. –loc 15

No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. –loc 25

Ambulator nascitur, non fit. –loc 27

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. –loc 33

When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them—as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon—I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago. –loc 35

When a traveler asked Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered, “Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.” –loc 57

Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a certain roughness of character—will cause a thicker cuticle to grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy of touch. –loc 58

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. –loc 70

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is—I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? –loc 71

Nowadays almost all man’s improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. –loc 79

To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come. –loc 129

Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a West as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. –loc 162

Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. –loc 220

Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. –loc 242

In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all the scriptures and mythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us. –loc 290

In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the human voice—take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for instance—which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet. –loc 325

By long years of patient industry and reading of the newspapers—for what are the libraries of science but files of newspapers—a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad into the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like a horse and leaves all his harness behind in the stable. –loc 382

My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. –loc 390

There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law. –loc 395

It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound. –loc 396

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. –loc 452

October 4, 2016

The Lion’s Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War

Author: Steven Pressfield
Rating: 8/10
Last Read: September 2016

Quick Summary: I would classify this book as a “written oral history”. Pressfield interviewed many participants of Israel’s Six Day War, putting together a compelling picture of the state of Israel and the mindset of its inhabitants and warriors during this challenging time. From the interweaving of the various narratives, one gets a sense of the fog of war, the pain of combat, and the heartbreak of losing friends. And even with all the talk of war, I learned much about the early history of Israel, a region I have not spent much time focusing on.

My Highlights

Memory, we know, is notoriously unreliable. Memory can be self-serving, self-glorifying, self-exonerating. Memory fades. People forget. Memory contains gaps and blank spots. –loc 73

We are being bullied, my father said, and the only way to handle a bully is to punch him in the face. –loc 291

Second: Whatever you do, do it to your utmost. The way you tie your shoes. The way you navigate at night. Nothing is academic. –loc 335

If you had screwed up, you admitted it and took your medicine. Ego meant nothing. Improvement was everything. –loc 345

Voice is everything when you command. As a company commander in a tank battalion, you have fourteen four-man crews listening to you through their headsets. Many times in combat, when I have been frightened or unsure, I have deliberately paused to be certain that I had my voice under control. You don’t want your men to hear that chicken voice. –loc 633

I could see the sergeant’s eyes settle on the line on the enlistment form that said, “Religion.” On it, I had written, “Jewish.” All of a sudden the sergeant looked up. He hadn’t looked up for any of these Catholics, but he looked up for me. He eyed me up and down. “The Marine Corps is a tough outfit,” he said. “Are you sure you can make it?” I was so furious I wanted to tear this sergeant’s throat out. I knew the only reason he would ask that question was because my enlistment form said I was a Jew. But I also knew that I couldn’t get mad or shoot my mouth off or he might not let me join. So I stared him in the eye, as directly and as hard as I could. “If you made it, I can make it.” That was it. He stamped my form and I moved on. –loc 741

“Complexity at the top, simplicity at the bottom,” Arik declares, defining in a nutshell his philosophy of command. “A commander,” Sharon says, “may keep complicated schemes of battle in his head and among his staff, but when the orders reach the operational units, they must be so simple that a child can understand them. ‘Go here, do this.’ Nothing more complex.” –loc 1016

came to despise the idea of parade ground order. Wingate felt the same. “Keep your rifle clean and kill your man before he kills you.” That was all he wanted of discipline. –loc 1235

The principles Wingate espoused—fighting at night, the employment of stealth and surprise, taking the battle to the enemy, the use of unconventional tactics, timing, and weaponry—became the core precepts of the Haganah and later the IDF. –loc 1246

It is a terrible thing to shoot a man and see him die. A pilot does most of his killing at altitude; he can report later in the briefing room that he destroyed this many tanks or that many trucks. But down at eye level it’s another story. I did not feel so sure, anymore, about my resolve to slay the enemy without conscience. No one who has killed face-to-face will ever sleep the same again. –loc 1364

It is an inviolable principle in the Israel Air Force that one must speak the truth in a debriefing session, even if—particularly if—it reflects negatively on himself. –loc 1383

Dayan reserved time to think, and he did his thinking alone. When he had arrived at a plan or an idea, the door to his office would open. “What do you think of this?” –loc 1544

Once he asked my opinion and I hesitated. “The moment you think twice before answering,” he said, “our work together is over.” He liked it when people contested him. He listened. “Only a donkey,” he would say, “never changes his mind.” –loc 1546

Why do we train? To perfect our flying skills, yes. But far more important, we practice to elevate our threshold of emotional detachment, to inculcate that state of preparedness and equilibrium that enables a pilot to function effectively under conditions of peril, urgency, and confusion. –loc 2080

pull the crew out of a burning tank, a man must go in face-first. He reaches in with his hands and arms. The tank crewmen are screaming in pain and out of their minds with fear. The interior burns like a furnace. High-explosive shells are cooking, half a meter from their face. When you witness this, when you do it yourself, you cannot believe it. In war soldiers perform feats of valor of which they never, before they do them, believed themselves capable. –loc 3265

Improvisation is not a wild scramble at the last minute. You are not pulling plans out of thin air. Improvisation is the payoff of scrupulous preparation and drill. –loc 3302

Why am I still above the earth when so many friends, who are better men than I, have been taken beneath it? Why them? Why not me? I am not religious. I don’t think the way a religious person thinks. But now, driving across these ten kilometers of hell, I feel the presence of the Angel of Death. “You,” he says to one man. “I shall take you now.” To another: “You wait. I will come for you later.” It is a terrible feeling. –loc 3512

In the academies of war, students are instructed in the tactical level, the operational level, and the strategic level. Beyond these, ministers manipulate the political level, the diplomatic level, the international level. –loc 3849

In combat there is no time for grief. A commander must act. He must project decisiveness and certainty. No matter how grim the situation, he must act as if it is under control. If your soldiers read fear on your face or discern irresolution in your posture, you have failed them. –loc 4097

Time always works against the defender. The enemy is waiting to be killed and he knows it. –loc 4114

I have learned one thing from this, my first experience of war: Leaders are everything. Individually, we soldiers may be brave. Collectively, we may make up a skilled, well-trained unit. But without a strong hand to guide us, we balk and freeze. We become confused and surrender initiative. –loc 4198

I believe in being stupid. You have to be stupid in war because if you were smart you would never do what you need to do to survive. That’s why being young is so important in soldiers. When you’re young, you don’t know the horrible things that can happen to the human body and the human mind. –loc 4226

In war, the wish to believe the best can be overwhelming. –loc 4851

you. Why? Because you cannot let them. I ask myself sometimes, “Ori, are you afraid?” The answer is, “I have no time to be afraid.” The commander bears responsibility not just for the completion of the mission, but also for the lives of his men. A military unit, particularly a reconnaissance company, is like a street gang. You are closer than brothers. Each life is precious to you. For every man under my responsibility, I see in my mind’s eye his mother and father, his girlfriend or wife, his children, even if he has none yet—his children-to-be, and their children as well. All will suffer if he dies. Such a weight makes concerns such as personal fear, loss, even one’s own death seem trivial. War –loc 5004

My position denies me the luxury of doubt or hesitation or fear. –loc 5011

If there is a universal disease of the modern era, I believe it is the malady of exile. This affliction is experienced on the individual level as well as on the national and the racial—the agony of feeling that one is a part of nothing, that he belongs nowhere and to no one. –loc 5445

The primal Jewish issue is justice. Judaism is a religion of the law, and the seminal concept of the law is that the minority must be protected. –loc 5584

In the Jewish faith, you study. You wrestle with issues. You are a scholar. You deliberate, you dispute. A Jew asks over and over, “What is fair? What is just? Who is a good man, and why?” –loc 5585

Who among us is not in exile? Is not exile the spiritual condition of the human race? Isn’t that what we share, when all differences of language, tribe, and history have been stripped away: the sense that we are estranged at our core from—what? From God? From our higher nature? From who we might be or become, from who we truly are? What, then, does the exile desire beyond all other boons? Home. To come home. To set his feet upon those stones that are his, which belong to him and to which he belongs. –loc 5616

English soldiers captured this first Dov Gruner and put him on trial for participating in an assault on the police station at Ramat Gan. He was sentenced to death by hanging. At the final hour he was offered a reprieve, if he would admit his guilt. Dov Gruner would not. He refused to defend himself, standing upon the principle that to do so would be to acknowledge the legitimacy of the British court. –loc 5627

September 29, 2016

Rules for a Knight

Author: Ethan Hawke (yes, the actor)
Rating: 7/10
Last Read: September 2016

Quick Summary: Rules for a Knight is a short book is a collection of “knightly wisdom” told in short stories. The overall book is framed as a letter from a knight to his children, sent on the eve of a battle from which he expects not to return. The book is full of lessons from the Buddhist cannon – if you are familiar with other philosophical works, the stories will likely be very familiar to you.

When I re-read the passages I have highlighted, I realize that Rules for a Knight repeatedly speaks to the very things I am seeking. There is much wisdom contained in these pages – it is a shame to realize I have blown through this book and have not spent time to reflect upon it. How many other lessons have been ignored?

Pay attention: what you need to know is usually in front of you. There are no secrets, just things people choose not to notice.

My Highlights

For this I am most sad, but none of you children yet know me as anything but the tall person who scolds or encourages you, or as a voice talking to your mother as you fall asleep. I have worked too hard in the last ten years and traveled too much, and now it seems I may miss your childhoods entirely. This comes as a blow. I have been looking forward to your growing up and hoped that we could, over time, know one another in a more meaningful way. –loc 100

My grandfather set down two blue cups and poured some tea into the first, but he did not stop when the cup was full. He kept pouring and pouring until the hot tea spilled all over the table and splattered onto the floor.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, jumping up, hot tea scalding my legs.
“You are like that cup spilling over,” said my grandfather. “You cannot retain anything. There is too much going on and you are splashing everywhere, burning what you touch.”
–loc 125

Answers to your questions will come, but if you are not still and empty, you will never be able to retain anything. –loc 132

But the first thing you must understand is that you need not have gone anywhere. You are always in the right place at exactly the right time, and you always have been.” –loc 138

CREATE time alone with yourself. When seeking the wisdom and clarity of your own mind, silence is a helpful tool. The voice of our spirit is gentle and cannot be heard when it has to compete with others. Just as it is impossible to see your reflection in troubled water, so too is it with the soul. In silence, we can sense eternity sleeping inside us. –loc 151

Humility is the ability to see yourself in the context of a much larger world. –loc 184

The stars are magnificent. They are always there whether you see them or not. –loc 185

Aspire to be like the soil after the March rains, wet, open, and receptive. –loc 185

“When people speak, listen.” This was a point he would consistently stress. “As much as you like to be heard and understood, so does everyone else.” –loc 188

THE only intelligent response to the ongoing gift of life is gratitude. For all that has been, a knight says, “Thank you.” For all that is to come, a knight says, “Yes!” –loc 229

The quiet of each morning, the tangible bond of friendship, a snowball fight, warm water on your skin, laughing until your stomach hurts, a job well done, a shooting star that you witness alone; the simple joys are the great ones. Pleasure is not complicated. –loc 243

Constant awareness of even the smallest detail trains your mind to be observant and conscientious. –loc 264

Responsibility, awareness, and self-knowledge are his allies. Forgetfulness is his enemy. His mind is not in the future. He is fully engaged in what he is doing. –loc 265

I learned that evening that rain falls equally on all things. Jealousy, fear, and anger are obstacles to a knight’s first goal: a clear mind. Through his practice a knight should cultivate an open, unclouded mind, so that his instincts will guide him and he is free to act spontaneously. Understanding that our “talents” are simply gifts we have received brings humility to our actions. It also allows us to appreciate the “talents” we see in others as expressions from the same universal source. There are only two possible outcomes whenever you compare yourself to another, vanity or bitterness, and both are without value. –loc 310

THE quality of your life will, to a large extent, be decided by with whom you elect to spend your time. –loc 330

The skeptic shouted out, mocking the knight for believing that his ancient whispers and primitive style of healing could have any power. In front of all the townspeople, Sir Richard answered, “You are an ignorant fool.” The skeptic’s derision became angry. His face reddened, and his hands began to shake with humiliation and rage. Before the skeptic could gather himself to shout back or raise his fist in violence, Sir Richard spoke again. “When a few words have the power to make you so angry, why would others not have the power to heal?” –loc 342

Remember, a friend does not need you to impress him. A friend loves you because you are true to yourself, not because you agree with him. Beware of grand gestures; the real mettle of friendship is forged in life’s daily workings. –loc 350

A DISHONEST tongue and a dishonest mind waste time, and therefore waste our lives. We are here to grow, and the truth is the water, the light, and the soil from which we rise. The armor of falsehood is subtly wrought out of the darkness and hides us not only from others but from our own soul. –loc 389

Don’t fear suffering. The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire. The facts are always friendly. Without a little agony, none of us would bother to learn a thing. The earth has to be tilled before the seeds can be planted. In much the same way, sometimes we have to be stirred and ripped apart so that the seeds of compassion, wisdom, and understanding can be firmly planted in us. –loc 407

Pay attention: what you need to know is usually in front of you. There are no secrets, just things people choose not to notice. –loc 427

Later he told me when he was younger he learned the secret to performing under pressure: don’t do it for yourself. Do it for someone else. “I know your grandfather always tells us to think of nothing. But when I get scared I just think of someone I love.” –loc 460

GRACE is the ability to accept change. Be open and supple; the brittle break. –loc 482

Young people, women and men, often use the possession of beauty or wealth as permission to be uninteresting, undisciplined, and ill-informed. If they are fortunate enough to reach the age of twenty-eight or so, they become like coddled coyotes. Cute when little, but, upon adulthood, nasty, fearful, and living off the scraps of others. –loc 497

All of us are asked to surrender the superficial beauty of youth and step towards something greater. We are being made ready for the spirit world. Each wrinkle is a crack in the shell of our conceit. Our conceit must be pulverized for the soul to fly. –loc 511

YOU were born owning nothing and with nothing you will pass out of this life. Be frugal and you can be generous. –loc 586

There have always been two ways to be rich: by accumulating vast sums or by needing very little. –loc 591

Often we imagine that we will work hard until we arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, and an activity. It arises from curiosity and discovery. Seek pleasure and you will quickly discover the shortest path to suffering. Other people, friends, brothers, sisters, neighbors, spouses, even your mother and I are not responsible for your happiness. Your life is your responsibility, and you always have the choice to do your best. Doing your best will bring happiness. Do not be overconcerned with avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. If you are concentrating on the results of your actions, you are not dedicated to your task. –loc 645

Be resolute in your beliefs, my children. Your friendship cannot be bought. –loc 673

Be cautious when anyone, even family, has too extreme an expectation from your behavior. Under the guise of love or loyalty, people can use guilt or fear to manipulate. A healthy conscience should be used like an internal compass: it is yours, not an instrument for others to play. –loc 673

A knight does not whine. He concerns himself with affecting change, not burdening the world with his grievances. –loc 716

In courtship, honesty is the first requisite. To achieve honesty, a knight must first be intimate with his own soul. This is difficult and takes time. Just as we all have secret thoughts and concerns inside ourselves, which we would share only with a person we value, respect, and trust, so too is it with the body. There are secret places that we need not share, which need not to be shared. –loc 866

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Rules for a Knight

By Ethan Hawke

September 27, 2016

Enchiridion

Author: Epictetus
Rating: 9/10
Last Read: August 2016

Quick Summary: This book has been on my reading list for years – and I’m sorry that I put it off so long. I love the stoics, and have read Meditations and Seneca multiple times. The Enchiridion is a short work, mostly full of short precepts instructing readers in the stoic style. This book contains lots of useful thoughts to mull over and revisit throughout your life.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

My Highlights

In the Stoic view, our capacity to be happy is completely dependent on ourselves—how we treat ourselves, how we relate to others, and how we react to events in general. Events are good or bad only in terms of our reaction to them. –loc 30

The only thing we control is our will, and God has given us a will that cannot be influenced or thwarted by external events—unless we allow it. We are not responsible for the ideas or events that present themselves to us, but only for the ways in which we act on them. –loc 32

Of things some are in our power, and others are not. In our power are opinion, movement toward a thing, desire, aversion (turning from a thing); and in a word, whatever are our own acts: not in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices (magisterial power), and in a word, whatever are not our own acts. –loc 45

Straightway then practice saying to every harsh appearance,1 You are an appearance, and in no manner what you appear to be. –loc 56

But destroy desire completely for the present. For if you desire anything which is not in our power, you must be unfortunate: but of the things in our power, and which it would be good to desire, nothing yet is before you. –loc 64

Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things –loc 77

When then we are impeded or disturbed or grieved, let us never blame others, but ourselves, that is, our opinions. –loc 78

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself. –loc 79

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life. –loc 91

Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will. And add this reflection on the occasion of everything that happens; for you will find it an impediment to something else, but not to yourself. –loc 93

On the occasion of every accident (event) that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use. –loc 95

For it is better to die of hunger and so to be released from grief and fear than to live in abundance with perturbation; and it is better for your slave to be bad than for you to be unhappy. –loc 104

If you would have your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, you are silly; for you would have the things which are not in your power to be in your power, and the things which belong to others to be yours. –loc 114

He is the master of every man who has the power over the things, which another person wishes or does not wish, the power to confer them on him or to take them away. Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave. –loc 117

Remember that in life you ought to behave as at a banquet. Suppose that something is carried round and is opposite to you. Stretch out your hand and take a portion with decency. Suppose that it passes by you. Do not detain it. Suppose that it is not yet come to you. Do not send your desire forward to it, but wait till it is opposite to you. –loc 120

But you yourself will not wish to be a general or senator or consul, but a free man: and there is only one way to this, to despise (care not for) the things which are not in our power. –loc 141

Remember that it is not he who reviles you or strikes you, who insults you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting. When then a man irritates you, you must know that it is your own opinion which has irritated you. Therefore especially try not to be carried away by the appearance. For if you once gain time and delay, you will more easily master yourself. –loc 143

Let death and exile and every other thing which appears dreadful be daily before your eyes; but most of all death: and you will never think of anything mean nor will you desire anything extravagantly. –loc 147

If it should ever happen to you to be turned to externals in order to please some person, you must know that you have lost your purpose in life. Be satisfied then in everything with being a philosopher; and if you wish to seem also to any person to be a philosopher, appear so to yourself, and you will be able to do this. –loc 153

how will you be nobody nowhere, when you ought to be somebody in those things only which are in your power, in which indeed it is permitted to you to be a man of the greatest worth? –loc 159

If I can acquire money and also keep myself modest, and faithful and magnanimous, point out the way, and I will acquire it. But if you ask me to lose the things which are good and my own, in order that you may gain the things which are not good, see how unfair and silly you are. –loc 163

Besides, which would you rather have, money or a faithful and modest friend? For this end then rather help me to be such a man, and do not ask me to do this by which I shall lose that character. –loc 165

You must be one man, either good or bad. You must either cultivate your own ruling faculty, or external things; you must either exercise your skill on internal things or on external things; that is you must either maintain the position of a philosopher or that of a common person. –loc 213

Immediately prescribe some character and some form to yourself, which you shall observe both when you are alone and when you meet with –loc 250

And let silence be the general rule, or let only what is necessary be said, and in few words. And rarely and when the occasion calls we shall say something; but about none of the common subjects, nor about gladiators, nor horse-races, nor about athletes, nor about eating or drinking, which are the usual subjects; and especially not about men, as blaming them or praising them, or comparing them. If then you are able, bring over by your conversation the conversation of your associates to that which is proper; but if you should happen to be confined to the company of strangers, be silent. –loc 251

a man has reported to you, that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make any defense (answer) to what has been told you: but reply, The man did not know the rest of my faults, for he would not have mentioned these only. –loc 263

When you have decided that a thing ought to be done and are doing it, never avoid being seen doing it, though the many shall form an unfavorable opinion about it. For if it is not right to do it, avoid doing the thing; but if it is right, why are you afraid of those who shall find fault wrongly? –loc 288

In walking about as you take care not to step on a nail or to sprain your foot, so take care not to damage your own ruling faculty: and if we observe this rule in every act, we shall undertake the act with more security. –loc 297

When any person treats you ill or speaks ill of you, remember that he does this or says this because he thinks that it is his duty. It is not possible then for him to follow that which seems right to you, but that which seems right to himself. Accordingly if he is wrong in his opinion, he is the person who is hurt, for he is the person who has been deceived; for if a man shall suppose the true conjunction to be false, it is not the conjunction which is hindered, but the man who has been deceived about it. If you proceed then from these opinions, you will be mild in temper to him who reviles you: for say on each occasion, It seemed so to him. –loc 309

These reasonings do not cohere: I am richer than you, therefore I am better than you; I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better than you. On the contrary these rather cohere, I am richer than you, therefore my possessions are greater than yours: I am more eloquent than you, therefore my speech is superior to yours. But you are neither possession nor speech. –loc 317

For even sheep do not vomit up their grass and show to the shepherds how much they have eaten; but when they have internally digested the pasture, they produce externally wool and milk. Do you also show not your theorems to the uninstructed, but show the acts which come from their digestion. –loc 330

But when I shall have found the interpreter, the thing that remains is to use the precepts (the lessons). This itself is the only thing to be proud of. –loc 349

If you wish to be well spoken of, learn to speak well (of others): and when you have learned to speak well of them, try to act well, and so you will reap the fruit of being well spoken of. –loc 396

For no man is a slave who is free in his will. –loc 400

If you wish to live without perturbation and with pleasure, try to have all who dwell with you good. And you will have them good, if you instruct the willing, and dismiss those who are unwilling (to be taught): for there will fly away together with those who have fled away both wickedness and slavery; and there will be left with those who remain with you goodness and liberty. –loc 406

No man who loves money, and loves pleasure, and loves fame, also loves mankind, but only he who loves virtue. –loc 410

Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy. If you wish to be rich, you should know that it is neither a good thing nor at all in your power: but if you wish to be happy, you should know that it is both a good thing and in your power, for the one is a temporary loan of fortune, and happiness comes from the will. –loc 427

It is not poverty which produces sorrow, but desire; nor does wealth release from fear, but reason (the power of reasoning). If then you acquire this power of reasoning, you will neither desire wealth nor complain of poverty. –loc 445

In banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul: and whatever you shall have given to the body you soon eject: but what you shall have given to the soul, you keep always. –loc 463

It is better to live with one free man and to be without fear and free, than to be a slave with many. –loc 491

What you avoid suffering, do not attempt to make others suffer. You avoid slavery: take care that others are not your slaves. For if you endure to have a slave, you appear to be a slave yourself first. For vice has no community with virtue, nor freedom with slavery. –loc 492

As he who is in health would not choose to be served (ministered to) by the sick, nor for those who dwell with him to be sick, so neither would a free man endure to be served by slaves, or for those who live with him to be slaves. –loc 494

Instead of a herd of oxen, endeavor to assemble herds of friends in your house. –loc 506

As a wolf resembles a dog, so both a flatterer, and an adulterer and a parasite, resemble a friend. Take care then that instead of watch-dogs you do not without knowing it let in mischievous wolves. –loc 508

Do not give judgment in one court (of justice) before you have been tried yourself before justice. –loc 538

A man ought to know that it is not easy for him to have an opinion (or fixed principle), if he does not daily say the same things, and hear the same things, and at the same time apply them to life. –loc 562

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope. –loc 601

When Thales was asked what is most universal, he answered, Hope, for hope stays with those who have nothing else. –loc 603

It is more necessary to heal the soul than the body, for to die is better than to live a bad life. –loc 605

When a man dies young, he blames the gods. When he is old and does not die, he blames the gods because he suffers when he ought to have already ceased from suffering. And nevertheless, when death approaches, he wishes to live, and sends to the physician and entreats him to omit no care or trouble. Wonderful, he said, are men, who are neither willing to live nor to die. –loc 616

Listen to those who wish to advise what is useful, but not to those who are eager to flatter on all occasions; for the first really see what is useful, but the second look to that which agrees with the opinion of those who possess power, and imitating the shadows of bodies they assent to what is said by the powerful. –loc 634

To admonish is better than to reproach: for admonition is mild and friendly, but reproach is harsh and insulting; and admonition corrects those who are doing wrong, but reproach only convicts them. –loc 639

A pirate had been cast on the land and was perishing through the tempest. A man took clothing and gave it to him, and brought the pirate into his house, and supplied him with everything else that was necessary. When the man was reproached by a person for doing kindness to the bad, he replied, I have shown this regard not to the man, but to mankind.43 –loc 642

No man is free who is not master of himself. –loc 651

As it is pleasant to see the sea from the land, so it is pleasant for him who has escaped from troubles to think of them. –loc 661

In prosperity it is very easy to find a friend; but in adversity it is most difficult of all things. –loc 669

Epictetus being asked how a man should give pain to his enemy answered, By preparing himself to live the best life that he can. –loc 673

Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress. –loc 699

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant. –loc 710

You ought to choose both physician and friend not the most agreeable, but the most useful. –loc 725

If you wish to live a life free from sorrow, think of what is going to happen as if it had already happened. –loc 727

When a young man was boasting in the theater and saying, I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men; Epictetus said, I also have conversed with many rich men, but I am not rich. –loc 749

Epictetus being asked, What man is rich, answered, He who is content (who has enough). –loc 753

Xanthippe was blaming Socrates, because he was making small preparation for receiving his friends: but Socrates said, If they are our friends, they will not care about it; and if they are not, we shall care nothing about them. –loc 754

September 20, 2016

The Afghan Campaign: A Novel

Author: Steven Pressfield
Rating: 8/10
Last Read: August 2016

Quick Summary: This novel lies in the same vein as Pressfield’s other historical novels – the narrator is a minor character following a famous historical figure. The narrator joins up with a band of mercenaries who are leaving to fight alongside Alexander in Afghanistan. However, this novel spends significantly more time focusing on the horror of war and the acts of atrocities enacted by Alexander’s troops. It is a stark picture of human nature, but the descriptions ring true to the stories of war shared by my friends.

I think it is an important thing to remember that war is not full of glory – only death, loss, and destruction.

“What’s wrong, you fuck,” answers Lucas, “is that words have meanings. People believe the bucketwash you put out. They think that’s how it is, particularly young men, who are suckers for tales of glamour and glory. You have an obligation to tell them the truth.”

My Highlights

Why do soldiers drink? To keep from thinking, says Flag. If you think, you start to fear. –loc 505

It is simultaneously extraordinary and appalling to see how efficiently our Macks work this. They slaughter an entire male household with barely a sound, so swiftly that the wives and infants are cast into dumbstruck shock. It is the kill of wolves or lions, the cold kill of predation. It is work. –loc 575

A soldier who cannot be counted on by his mates is more dangerous than an enemy. –loc 601

When a new man is initiated into the confederacy of murderers, his seniors make him commit the same crime they have. Now he is as guilty as they. He cannot turn on them. He is one of them. –loc 659

Fear, men say, is the most primal emotion. I don’t believe it. Shame is. My feeling as Tollo bolts past after the foe is one of joy and relief, that my senior sergeant has seen me take down my man, however clumsily, and profound release that my humiliation from the village has been at least partly effaced. –loc 687

“Perhaps, Matthias,” Stephanos says, “you and I might profit, in an alien land, by suspension of judgment.” –loc 1157

“Each precept of wisdom you gain,” says Ash, “bears you farther from God.” –loc 1163

“Take a war-name, Matthias. It solves a lot of problems.” –loc 1180

“You know,” Stephanos says, “I’ve taken to you from the start, Matthias. Shall I tell you why?”
“Because,” says Flag, “he never shuts up.”
“Because he asks questions.”
“That’s his problem.”
“And one day he might get answers.”
–loc 1203

The view of life is that of a noble resignation to fate. God determines all, the Afghan believes. One can do nothing except be a man and bear up. –loc 1354

Stephanos cheers the men by predicting victory in Bactria. We’ll catch Bessus and Spitamenes, he swears, with their bollocks in the breeze. Why? “Because they’re men of intelligence. It’s beyond their imagination to believe that anyone in their right salt-sucking mind would cross these mountains at this season.” –loc 1409

We hear no more talk of mutiny. Porters trek tight beside us. We will live or die together. This is the way peril overhauls you. One hand’s-breadth at a time. Suddenly you’re in it. –loc 1447

It takes Flag pummeling me with both elbows (he can no longer feel his hands) before I understand our Color Sergeant is dead. “He was croaked at the bottom,” Flag declares. I’m furious. Why didn’t Flag tell me? He has made us break our backs. But I am in awe of him too. My God, what a soldier! What a friend. –loc 1569

The crime I have committed, Elihu explains, is called in Dari al satwa. The Hebrews have a term for it, too—tol davi. It means to bring shame upon someone by performing an act of responsibility that they have failed to perform themselves. –loc 1703

“Why can’t you tell it straight?” Lucas demands.
Costas replies that the public only wants certain kinds of stories. There’s no demand for the other kind.
“You mean the true kind,” says Lucas.
–loc 1904

Costas defends himself. What does he, or any correspondent, want? “Just to acquire a modest name, sail home bearing tales of distant lands, and offer them for readings and recitals. What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong, you fuck,” answers Lucas, “is that words have meanings. People believe the bucketwash you put out. They think that’s how it is, particularly young men, who are suckers for tales of glamour and glory. You have an obligation to tell them the truth.” –loc 1908

God, what a stench when a man’s guts are opened to the air. That doesn’t go into your dispatches, does it? We read nothing about the sound the ‘follow-on’ makes, going down the line of throat-slit men with a club, bashing skulls like walnuts, while the still-living men pray without voices or curse us in gurgling blood or plead for their lives. The silent ones are the scariest. Men with guts. Better men than we are.” –loc 1926

Can you defend the massacres we enact, Flag? Is this Macedonian honor?”
Our sergeant’s lips decline into a dark smile. “There is no honor in war, my friend. Only in poems of war.”
–loc 1933

“Does a lion hesitate? Does an eagle hold back? What is the call of a gallant heart, except to aspire to mighty deeds? –loc 1946

The fellow possessed that quality, innate to all born commanders, of focused and dominating intention. –loc 2245

And, for both of us, the terror of death. “If I die,” he tells me when we stop the first night, “don’t let the army cook up some phony story. Tell my people what really happened.”
As for my own end, I make no such scruple. “Tell ’em the biggest-balled lie you can think of.”
–loc 2305

hear that the solitudes of the Scythians are made fun of in Greek proverbs, but we seek after places that are desert rather than cities and rich fields. Why? For freedom! Rather would we dine on coarse meal at liberty than feast on honeyed cakes in chains.” –loc 2457

“Great trees are long in growing but fall in a single hour. Even the lion has been made food for the smallest of birds, and rust consumes iron. Therefore tell your king to hold his fortune with tight hands; she is slippery and cannot be confined against her will. –loc 2469

But if he is a mortal man, let him remember his place in the scheme of the Almighty. For what indeed is madness, save to recall those things that make one forget himself?” –loc 2472

“I always imagined that hard experience would make you stronger and less afraid. But it’s the opposite. It undermines you because you know how vulnerable you are and how bad things can get.” –loc 2617

The instrument of counterguerrilla warfare is the massacre. Its object is terror, to make oneself an object of such dread that the foe fears to face you ever. This practice has worked for the army of Macedon across all Asia. It does not work here. The Afghan is so proud, so inured to privation, and so in love with liberty that he prefers death to capitulation. –loc 2943

“They say a man becomes old,” he says, “when more of his friends reside beneath the earth than above it.” –loc 3175

“To be a soldier,” he says, “is no lofty calling. Who acts as a brute is a brute.” –loc 3179

“This is what war is,” says Alexander. “Glory has fled. One searches in vain for honor. We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of. Even victory, as Aeschylus says, in whose august glow all felonies are effaced, is not the same in this war. What remains? To prevent the needless waste of lives. Too many good men have perished without cause. More will join them if we don’t make this peace now.” –loc 3661

“I know, dear child, that you believe heaven has turned its back on you. Perhaps that was so, once. But all things turn in their season. Not even as cruel a deity as that of this pitiless land can remain unmoved forever by his people’s affliction. The proof grows now in your belly. Your suffering has redeemed you, Shinar. God holds out his hand. Take it, I beg you. Can any act be more impious than to spurn the clemency of heaven?” –loc 3854

What is money for anyway? Only to get what you need—or keep away what you dread. –loc 4004