Large Fierce Mammal

“Everything in Nature is about efficiency and balance, which is why life is, first and foremost, an exercise in energy management. For example, the Way of the Wild demands of each parent that their offspring be made self-sufficient as quickly and efficiently as possible. A tool need not be a physical artifact – rest assured that skilled parenting is a Tool – but to be True it must help, not hinder, such processes, and must never represent a brilliant answer to a question that was never asked.” ~ Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Tools

There’s a very old word that sees little use today, but that I still persist in using – garniture. While it can refer to any item used to embellish or “garnish” something, I exclusively employ it in its other meaning – an assemblage of useful and related equipments, usually connected through common features of design, and representing key elements in accomplishment of goals considered important to the bearer. For example, there was a time when a well heeled gentleman might commission a serviceable garniture of accoutrements bearing designs, colours, and/or embellishments that made it obvious to the beholder that each item was part of a set, and in no doubt as to who owned it. In those days this might include arms and armour for the battlefield, items specific to hunting pursuits, clothing, and equestrian equipage. In my own small way, I adhere to these principles today, as do some of the people I know, whether they have a word for it or not.

It should come as no surprise, however, that because a Tool need not be an object you can hold in your hand, likewise a garniture need not be an assemblage of physical artifacts. In fact, the very best and most important garniture one can assemble isn’t made of matter at all. It exists purely in the mind in the form of knowledge, skills, wits, and personality. Properly crafted, honed, and maintained, they will comprise, just as described above, a serviceable garniture of accoutrements bearing designs, colours, and/or embellishments that make it obvious to the beholder that each item is part of a set, and in no doubt as to who owns it. I would posit then that the Way of the Wild demands acquisition and diligent maintenance of the Tools that will form your Garniture, Tools that can never be broken, worn out, stolen or legislated away. That are always with you even when standing naked as the day you were born.

Having said all this, I would now like to focus on one specific and fundamentally important Tool without which no endeavour can succeed – sound Judgement. Sound Judgement exists only when the wielder has first acquired that proper balance of Knowledge, Skills, and Training to permit confident assessment of the situation, weighing need against risk, benefit against resources expended. The Cougar does not chase. The Cougar stalks, and attacks at the last possible moment when surprise is on its side. It does not wear itself out beforehand so that it falls exhausted upon an alert and prepared adversary, and runs the risk of engaging in that thing most to be avoided – a fair contest – that may lead to its own injury and death.

In the world of Man, the laws of society are granted more respect than the Laws of Nature. In Nature, life’s problems are routinely observed being solved by disparate creatures in similar, if not identical, ways. This is because the Way of the Wild is not open to interpretation, and Nature, in Her efficiency, creates as few answers as possible to any given question. Man would do well to reexamine all self-imposed laws for conformity with the Way of the Wild, but alas, this has so far not occurred. And so, instead of devising laws that are based on resolving situations in which Sound Judgement was not exercised, we have laws devised on the premise that Sound Judgement can be reliably assumed not to exist anywhere. A subset of this is a generation that has now reached chronological adulthood and sexual viability that have never been imbued with Sound Judgement because they were reared in an atmosphere in which actions have no consequences, problems in life can always be blamed on someone else, and you will always be taken care of no matter how useless you are.

“We see a symptom of this in the fact that fast food counters are staffed by a seemingly endless succession of rude, listless, resentful children who, in spite of an exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement, can’t be relied upon to perform the simplest of tasks free from constant supervision because far too many of them are employed under protest against the unfairness of the world. Another is the commonly held view that spending money year after year on losing lottery tickets represents a valid expression of investment in one’s future, and still another, that the “reality show” genre is real entertainment instead of something to be ridiculed out of existence.” ~ Art, Science, Life, and Reality – Certified Organic

I’ll close today’s lesson with an example from recent history – today actually. Nova Scotia recently implemented a change in the rules of operation for motor vehicles traversing school zones. Previously, school zones were marked with a sign reading, “50 km per hour when children are present”. This was interpreted as meaning any time of the day or night, regardless of whether or not school was in session. It may seem a bit extreme to be on the lookout for free range infants headed to the nearest school playground at 02:00 in the morning, but they have been known to run away from home to join the circus so what the hell.

What recently came into effect is harder to fathom, and perfectly illustrates my point. Where the speed limit on a highway that passes through a  school zone is greater than 50 kilometers per hour, motor vehicles travelling on it must reduce speed to 50 kilometers per hour while they are inside the school zone boundaries – and in this nothing has really changed. However, where the speed limit on a highway that passes through a  school zone is 50 kilometers per hour, as will be the case when the school is located inside most town limits, motor vehicles travelling on it must reduce speed to 30 kilometers per hour while they are inside the school zone boundaries. Before you waste any of your valuable time thinking on that, I will provide you with a real world example from personal experience.

Yesterday Mrs. LFM and I drove through a nearby community called West Northfield in which lies the West Northfield Elementary School. The speed limit on the highway leading up to its school zone is 70 kilometers per hour, and so, in accordance with the law, we traversed the zone at 50 kilometers per hour. Today, I drove through the school zone of Park View Education Centre – a high school located inside the town limits of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. The speed limit being 50 kilometers per hour everywhere inside the town, I was required by the new regulations to reduce my speed to 30 kilometers per hour.

A new parking area was recently built at Park View Education Centre for all the students who drive their own cars to school so they no longer had to park them along the highway at risk to life and limb. As I entered the school zone, my manoeuvre was observed by three of the “children” I was slowing down to save – three males, each six feet in height or taller, and to my assessment each old enough to participate in consensual sex, for military service, or to vote, taking a smoke break under a tree at the edge of the school grounds. My admiration of their adherence to school rules forbidding smoking on school property was tempered by the fact that sale of tobacco products is restricted to persons 19 years of age and older.

My ire was such that, in a resolute demonstration of civil disobedience, I streaked past the trio at a blistering 35 kilometers per hour. As I continued on my way meditating on all this, I was acutely aware that only yesterday I legally travelled 20 kilometers per hour faster through the zone belonging to a school attended by actual children, while today I was required to coax my car at time lapse speeds past a school full of Canadian youth of an age that would have been eagerly shipping out in battledress a mere 70 years ago.