MOTIVATED LIFE: FEAR, ANGER, BIG FINISH

From day one America grew an attitude of the picked on little brother.

Instead of walking the plank of tradition and custom in the old country, early explorers took off for the new to live a motivated life.

I hear Monty Python’s French accented, “Weee, doon’t neeeed yoooou.”

That’s the enduring American story, frightened to death of looking needy, going as far as rejecting the idea of need as a ‘state of mind.’

For every advance and land grab across the North American continent, the U.S. finally won their seat at the Big Table of Nations after defeating former world power Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

To be the best you need to beat the best?

It was an April to August two ocean effort from the Caribbean to the Pacific.

That’s a world stage on the big side against a colonial power, sort of setting the stage for later.

Move over little dog, the big dog’s moving in, with fear and anger in their baggage. Like Spain wasn’t an adequate adversary?

Ever since then the funny game is watching self-conscious Americans slip on a steep learning curve.

Fear

The biggest mistake in polite company isn’t stepping on toes. It’s stepping on the same toes more than once. It’s a painful dance to watch.

Who doesn’t want to show they’re still a fast learner? Remember, if you leave town, leave the block, you represent whether you want to or not.

People judge on everything, most of all when they say they’re not.

I come from an Oregon town, North Bend, small enough for a Louisiana city man to call ‘auto-hillbilly’, as in anyplace that small must be a swampy inbred hell hole.

Then I met a man from Coquille who called me a ‘city boy’ from North Bend. Perfect symmetry.

Anger

If you fear your roots, you’re normal. When someone else makes you fear your roots? Them’s fightin’ words, son.

Living a motivated life of fear and anger is the engine that moves the world.

Fear of falling behind, fear of winning too big, fear of failure.

Cower in fear long enough and you get angry. It might not feel like anger, but it is.

This is tricky ground, the stuff of legend and evolution, depending on your science.

You live a motivated life, a good life, tending to the needs, representing your people.

Weak link you’re not, but still the fear. So why not over-compensate?

Big Finish

I blame Portland State University for this: Unless you know your place in the your personal historical time-line, you are susceptible to a tsunami of bullshit.

Education, for no other possible reason, shields you against the bullshit bullets fired your direction.

Real news? Fake news? Real people? Fake people? Truth? Lies? Shades of gray?

You don’t need X-Man powers to detect and protect, so don’t count on mutant intervention.

Read books. Read. Books. If you can read books, then you train your mind to focus. Call it concentration.

While you read you interpret ideas and time. Everyone things it’s all about words. But words take time.

We love sports because of the excitement, and time is a huge part. You can’t get a last second finish without the clock.

Writing and reading is more open ended. You can do it on a time frame, but you’d miss the freedom.

The Big Finish?

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, and nothing don’t mean nothing if it ain’t free.