Category: Inspiration

We are in deep, deep trouble!

A fire engine never stops to respond to the yapping dogs. It stays the course regardless of their number or the loudness of their yapping. The driver does not even look at them, for to do so would be a distraction which may cause an accident.

It takes a lot of your attention to respond to criticism. Attention that does not yield a productive result but takes your attention away from your goals.

The worst among us do not produce, they seek to destroy and take as many down as they self-destruct.

One characteristic of them is that they are constantly involved in warfare of one sort or another.

So if you take up cudgels against each and every critic or attacker you are not only diverting your attention away from you own goals but you are by your actions, consigning yourself to that group of people from whom you would most like to stay separate.

I read recently that nobody ever wins an argument. By arguing with someone it just causes his viewpoint to become more fixed.

I looked back on my time involved in discussions with people and realised the author spoke sooth. I had never ‘won’ an argument. I had never changed someone’s mind by presenting ideas and data contrary to their position.

I, too, have fallen victim to the desire to ‘set the record straight’, to engage in communication with the person themselves to correct perceived inaccuracies, or worse, lies. I have also, like you, told my circle of the lies in an endeavour to keep them accurately informed.

One of your most powerful assets is your communication lines. Whenever you forward a lie, untruth or false data on your comm lines you are using those comm lines to forward your detractor/enemy’s message. In other words you are empowering their communication. You should not do this.

By all means advise your good works on your comm lines, inform your circle of the truths that will counter the enemy’s lies, but don’t put the enemy’s communications on your lines.

The other factor is that the opinions people form are just as much a result of where they are ‘at’, maybe much more so, than the data to which they are exposed. So if someone goes through life choosing the believe every false report and malicious rumour, any rebuttal from you will be disregarded by them.

In short, the best advice I can give is, for each area of your life, to work out what the product is you are most desirous of producing then align your activities with the production of that product.

By all means respond to an enemy campaign but mainly by the production of PR (Public Relations) pieces that dispel lies and demonstrate your effective cause, your good works.

As an example of purposes and products:

My purpose in life is to understand.

My secondary purpose is to raise others to a higher level of awareness, ability, intelligence and competence.

My two purposes with social media are
“To broadly disseminate truth and wisdom.”
“To brace, inform, arm and reassure the Remnant.”

So my product in life is is an individual who is more aware, more intelligent and more competent.

Appealing to the Remnant Rather Than The Masses

This is a resoundingly good listen for those who are aware and who despair of the masses. I see no indication you fall into that category nevertheless you too may get something from it but even more likely, you will come across people for whom it is very relevant.

https://mises.org/library/isaiahs-job-0

Danny Kaye was one of the most successful actors and comedians of his time, and a genuine polymath. He once said “Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can at it.” And that’s precisely what he did.

He was almost entirely self-taught in a number of complex disciplines to the point where, if he had actually wanted to formally pursue any of them as a career, he could have done so.

At a young age he became fascinated by medicine and surgery. He grew up poor, and when his mother died when he was a young teen, Danny (born David Daniel Kaminsky) had to quit high school to get a job, so going to college and medical school was out of the question. But he read medical books, and as his success and fame in the entertainment world grew, he befriended a great many doctors, including one of the preeminent heart surgeons of the day, Dr. Michael DeBakey, whom he would pepper with well-informed questions.

Kaye would often go to hospitals to observe surgeries from the viewing gallery, and on a number of occasions, he would be allowed to stand amongst the doctors and nurses as they performed the procedures, and at least a few times he was allowed to help sew the sutures into the patients! He spoke with such knowledge about medical science, many doctors invariably asked him which medical school he had attended. Ultimately, Kaye was given honorary memberships in both the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

He took up golf for relaxation and exercise, and became so good at it, many professionals said he could have gone pro and won big prize money. He eventually gave up playing because it wasn’t enough of a challenge for him, and thus was not the diversion from other cares that he sought.

He became interested in flying, got his pilot’s license, and proceeded to master flying virtually every type of plane available, up to and including jumbo passenger jetliners.

Although he never completed high school, he was self-taught in business, and personally oversaw a number of highly lucrative investments, including radio stations, a recording studio, and part ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.

He had a lifelong interest in cooking, and later in his life he studied the art of Chinese cooking. I don’t mean the Chinese you get at your local carryout, but rather genuine traditional cuisine. He trained under professional Mandarin chefs in San Francisco, and was so enthusiastic about his cooking, he had elaborate Chinese kitchens built into his home in California, and another in his apartment in New York City.

Additionally, in his California home, he had built, adjacent to the kitchen, a complete Chinese restaurant, and he would invite guests over for dinners which he would prepare himself from scratch, served by Chinese waitresses hired for the evening. He became so well versed in the art that eventually he was sought out to teach others how to properly prepare traditional dishes. Kaye’s cooking was so highly regarded, he remains to this day the only non-professional chef to receive the prestigious Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France honor.

His longtime charitable work with UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) was very nearly as well known in the 1950s and 1960s as his entertainment successes. He wasn’t simply the celebrity face of the organization…he threw himself into the work, traveled the world, helped raise millions of dollars in donations, and intimately educated himself about just about every facet of the organization and its mission.

When UNICEF received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United Nations asked Kaye to be the one to accept it and make the formal speech.

Danny Kaye tends to be a forgotten figure today, a hazily-remembered movie comic at most, recalled best when White Christmas comes on TV. But he was without a doubt one of the most fascinating individuals of his time.