Head's I Win...

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Tails You Lose...

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You know that game? When someone plays it with you, it is obvious that the intent is not to distribute wins equally, but for the one who sets the rules to win every time, depending on what their definition of "win" is.

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Well, now that the Iraqi Prime Minister more or less agrees with a 16-Month withdrawal plan (while maintaining the right to adjust for conditions), it will be very interesting to see how this shakes out. I am more and more certain that the bundle of reasons for being there includes things that everyone knows and talks about (The War on Terror) and things that everyone knows, but fewer talk about (Our Energy Crisis). But one thing I am more certain of every day: when someone says: "if conditions on the ground are good, it means its all right to stay." And "if conditions are bad on the ground, that means we need to stay" the real truth is that they want to stay, and are looking for reasons to do so.

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In general, people have said "if the Iraqis want us to go, we will." Will 100% of Iraqis want us to go? Hell no. Never happen. There are undoubtedly Apaches who drooled at the thought of losing their land and being shut on wonderful, barren reservations. What becomes obvious is when some one desperately searches for the little group who wants us to stay, claiming that that's the real reason we're there: pure humanitarianism! Nothing to do with that ocean of oil, or the hope we can find a way to get back some of the 600-800 Billion dollars this whole thing has cost, let alone the after costs that could push this whole thing toward two trillion. The beauty of the honesty of the Bush "Time Horizon" concept is its unconscious precision: you cannot reach the horizon. No matter how fast or how long you run, you'll never get there.

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I think that Maliki is gaining courage now that Bush is almost out of office, and McCain looks like a loser. They want us out, and it's been hard to say that with American hardware in their streets. Obama's visit gave them hope, and leverage. It will be nine kinds of fun to watch and see how people try to twist this. The Iraqis want us OUT. They believe they can handle their own problems. The only possible reason to stay is that either we believe they cannot, or there is something there we want. But respectful altruism is out the fucking window.

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I'd like to repeat that, for experienced Kettlebellers, Maureen Martone's "Kettlebell Interval Training for Women" with the 78 randomly-selected exercises, is a fantastic resource, in some very interesting ways the single best KB video. You can take a peek at it at TacticalAthlete.com, or busywomansworkout.com

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Minimum workout time? Four minutes. No bullshit. But you'll need three kettlebells (two medium, one heavy) and be prepared to go all-out for 20-second sprints. Combine this with the Tibetans, and you actually have both health and fitness for fifteen minutes a day. Hell of a deal

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So there's no way to ensure positive results in relationships, fitness, or finance. But there are some pretty solid ways to avoid disaster. In general, I'll settle for that. One major point of having goals in all three arenas is that as you develop unconscious competence in one arena, the positive effects take hold in the others as well. As you grasp that lying is a critical flaw in a life partner, you can see it also in a business partner, or a training partner. The world can begin to look like an externalization of your inner being.

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There was a very reasonable question about martial arts: can you deceive an opponent without falling into the "lying" category I believe weakens our being? Yes...and no. I think a separate question begins to arise if one finds oneself in situations where we are attempting violence against others with regularity (not in a school context). I have known soldiers, police officers, bouncers, and security guards. Combat takes it out of you. The game is great fun, and the expression of a profound sense of responsibility to country, family, or God. But the maintenance of proper healthy balance in such situations...let's just say that the percentage of PTSD, divorce, alcoholism and suicide is way above normal. And these are in many ways our very best and brightest. It is not a flaw in the individuals. It is the difficulty of killing and hurting other human beings while keeping your own humanity.

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It can be done. I know those who have. But they are extraordinary, and by definition, the average person is average. There is real moral peril lurking here. There is something I call "Brown Belt Syndrome" where someone standing at the threshold of sophistication NEEDS to test their chops. They just "happen" to get into fights in bars, parking lots, whatever. They become magnets for it, can't avoid it, but rarely actually directly instigate it. There is a creature inside us that ordinarily emerges only in dire circumstances.

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But if it ONLY emerges then, you'll lose to someone who has been selectively bringing it out and polishing it over the years. So while we can turn farmers into soldiers, we need a warrior class--people who actually maintain that fire and can pass it on to others in emergency. They are career officers and NCOs, for instance.

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That creature within us (I call mine "the wolf") has to be nurtured and controlled very carefully. It is a fire that can cook your eggs or burn your house down. Cultures that don't have much of it must either be protected by natural boundaries (mountains, seas) or live somewhere that no one wants (Kalihari hunter-gatherers, anyone?). But if you have ANYTHING that others want, and you don't have that killing spark, and those who keep it alive...your children will be slaves, and your women bear the children of the warriors who slaughtered your men. That's not 100% true, but we see the pattern repeated over and over again.

What this means is that lying can be considered a kind of violence, an interruption in the natural flow, a mini-seizure. Clearly, lying is better (in most cases) than being mugged or killed. But the goal is to live a life where violence toward others is never needed. Wanted, perhaps--in the context of sport. I'm not sure I'd want to live in a culture that had this all bred out of them. It is creativity and destruction together, in a dynamic whole, that create existence.

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Each, out of control, is disastrous. Each, in its proper place, allows life itself. The problem is keeping them balanced.

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