A Long Winter’s Night — 2020 Edition Day 2: Position
Posted By Randy on December 22, 2020
Source: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.896051!/image/youarehere.jpg
Position (Oxford Languages)
verb
gerund or present participle: positioning
- put or arrange (someone or something) in a particular place or way.
- promote (a product, service, or business) within a particular sector of a market, or as the fulfillment of that sector’s specific requirements.
- portray or regard (someone) as a particular type of person.
You may have noticed, and quite possibly been reminded recently, that life is not always smooth sailing. If you are the sort to pay attention to such things you’ll have also noticed this —
Everything in Nature is about position and positioning on a level that matches, and then far transcends the anthropocentric definition cited above. This is because, as I have previously written — oddly on the subject of zombies and their proprietary apocalypse — the imperative drive for all living things is not merely to survive, but to thrive —
“I personally dislike the term “survivalism” just as much as that used to describe its adherents – “survivalist” – because they sloppily cloud the most important issue – the fact that in Nature there are only two cardinal points called “Life” and “Death”, and in between them lies a quality scale that runs from “thriving” on the one end and “better off dead” on the other. Therefore, until you reach the “Death” end of that scale, you are alive, and by definition “surviving”.
“As long as you are alive you will be subject to the vagaries of the universe, and no matter how well heeled, beautiful, or lucky you think you are, your life will always be as vulnerable to unforeseen influences, for good or for ill, as the ship of any ancient mariner. Ancestors with far simpler tools, but far more knowledge based fortitude. than most who think themselves entitled to whatever quality of life they have achieved as of today understood this – one does not aspire merely to survive; one aspires to LIVE to the best of one’s ability given the circumstances!
“Zombies bedamned, dead is dead, and there is no scale that defines the quality of death. Life, on the other hand, has flavours that we’re going to call the “quality” of life, so the higher the quality, the happier and better off you are.
“First, people routinely refer to the “will” or “desire” to live, and those who use such terms have clearly never observed Nature’s creatures as they go about their business. In Nature there is no such limp wristed concept as the “will” to live. There is only the intention to live. The fact that we are here tonight proves that to be a constant in the equation.
“So we have our constant, but every good equation needs an equally good variable if it’s going to yield any kind of meaningful result. We’re in luck, because there are two variables in this here case, defining the quality of life:
- the outcome of individual choices (the stupid factor); and
- the unexpected (the Murphy factor).
“If that’s too mathematical for you, look at it in light of the old story of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant was diligent in getting his shit together because he knew that, no matter how good things were now, they might unexpectedly get worse because, oh he seen fire an’ he seen rain.
“The dipshit grasshopper on the other hand, he pissed away his resources faster than he could get them, so that when the shit hit the fan, he was, to use the technical term employed by us professional emergency preparedness types, fucked …
“Whatever, an apocalypse, zombie or otherwise, isn’t going to be the end of anyone who:
- Is possessed of the intention to live; and
- Does everything in his or her power to mitigate their own personal stupid factor; unless
- Murphy declares otherwise with such speed and ferocity that the first two steps don’t matter.
“What it all comes down to then is realistic personal preparedness of mind, body, and spirit; as usual, but all too often forgotten. Beyond that, a few well chosen tools won’t hurt, but it’s no accident I list them as secondary here …
“At the end of the day, and with my utmost respects to The Most Interesting Man in the World, I don’t always fight zombies, but when I do, I prefer to be self reliant. Stay ready my friends.” ~ Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 21: The Intention to Live
Everything I spoke to there was about position which is the state you’ll be in when something happens that affects you, and this can be anything from life threatening; lost in a blizzard for example; to delightful; as in that first date with the one of your dreams. Career changing, perhaps in the form of a promotion bringing with it a raise in salary but with the requirement to relocate to another province or state; perhaps another country.
The question is, put to the test and on demand, what can you bring to the party, and will it be the best of yourself?
From these examples you can see that position can affect opportunity, but in the gravest extreme — the life threatening example — the question can be posed in the form of an unexpected pop quiz where wrong is the same as dead.
Right now, as the world grapples with the reality of a global pandemic, position comes into play on many levels. For a few that means holding, at the outset, of sufficient wealth and influence to sidestep the sharpest edges of the problem, and even become wealthier and more influential in the long term. For a few more, position born of skill, knowledge, and versatility has permitted life to move on relatively unaffected, and possibly in some ways improved. For most, nearly a year in, the deciding factor of where they are now was their position the day the virus dropped.
More on this on Long Winter’s Nights to come!
You mean things don’t generally work out the way you planned? Nonetheless, I am positioned to go and cone in perfect safety and without delay.Go and come in perfect safety and without delay; one of my best personal mantras. Use it all the time. Another is, My house is safe from strangers. That said, contrived position be damned
Not exactly. Planning is essential to success but success in the endeavour will always be a negotiation with unfolding realities built upon the strength of Position at the outset and Commitment going forward.The properly positioned Man understands that every plan will meet with unknowns, and the unavoidably trickiest of these is the unknown unknown because no one can know what he doesn’t know. As you have quoted Musashi, “If you know something, you know something. If you do not know something, it does not exist in your world.”
But what you don’t know you don’t know may soon come to be revealed as the action progresses.
There is also that line attributed to Erwin Rommel — “No plan ever survives contact with the enemy.”
In the end, and speaking for myself, things always go the way I planned because they spring from intended attainment of a desired end result and willingness to entertain risk. Not, “Where can we get from where we are now?” but rather, “Here’s where we are, and here’s where we need to be. How do we get there?” Everything in between is negotiable to one degree or another. It’s hard to argue with the river when it’s in flood and insists in getting in your way.