Burn Baby Burn

We adopted a kitty about 12 years ago that is now in marked decline ... with issues of hyperthyroidism, high blood pressure, a detached retina, arthritis, hypokalemia and kidney problems.  She is on six different medications, four of which are on an alternate delivery schedule twice a day. 

The hyperthyroidism, a “prime contributor” to the whole lot, had caused her to burn extra calories and lose half her weight over a period of six months.  To curb the weight loss, we quadrupled her thyroid meds, but that basically reduced her “quality of life” to merely sleeping 23 hours a day. 

This past week we backed off the thyroid meds, and – amazingly – got our kitty back … almost to her full 4 hours a day!  So we’ve decided to let her live full-out whatever time she’s got left while “burning herself up”, with medications backed off to minimal, behavior-maintenance levels. 

The experience with kitty underscored the fact that very little is permanent in life – especially dealing with life, itself.  And “Quality of Life” is much more important to most of us than our length of days. 

One learns some hard lessons about quality of life and length of days from cancer management, where treatment can, in many cases, at least seem to be “worse than the disease”.  Oncologists constantly ponder the question of whether or not they may be “killing the patient with kindness” by trying to preserve quality of life and not intervening with everything they’ve got so as to minimize side-effects. 

This sort of dance … between living life to the fullest in the present versus preserving what we can for the future … is now playing itself out much faster than we may realize, with major political, economic and social implications.  

The new Republican regime in U.S. political control has clearly declared NOW … and US … and prosperity at any cost … to be primary emphases for at least the next four years. 

Actually, this is not a new theme.  As individual citizens, we’ve been doing it for years.  We like to “LIVE LARGE” … getting OUR piece of the pie while we can, running up debt and paying as few taxes as we can get away with … and “letting the chips fall where they may” … hopefully, as far into the future as we can keep kicking the can down the road … for “somebody else” to pick up the pieces … if there are any pieces left to be picked up at all. 

So we’re rolling back regulations, reducing taxes for the wealthy, running up more debt, burning our fossil fuels, bleaching the corral, poisoning our air and water, over-fishing the seas, reducing wild habitat, opening up national preservation lands to get more fuel, getting rid of entitlements so that citizens can make their own free choices much more freely, etc., to “Make America Great Again” – while we can: 

BURN, BABY, BURN!

A compelling reason for such behavior in the mid-to-late 20^th Century was so that we might remain competitive with other major nations – particularly China and Russia, but also Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico – who were brutally savaging their own natural resources to compete with the U.S. 

And “burning the furniture” to fuel development of a higher quality of life and more profitable and sustainable framework for existence does have occasional merit. 

Richard Arkwright was a poor barber with a Dream and a Destiny to create a machine for carding, drawing, roving and spinning cotton goods.  At great sacrifice to his family, he acquired and applied raw materials for machinery to make his Dream a reality.  He was ridiculed by the townsfolk, toiling into the wee hours of morning seven days a week; his family often suffered for lack of food and clothing while he worked at his “machine”; and “he became so ragged that he could not go abroad in the daytime”.   [Portraits and Principles of the World’s Great Men and Women by William C. King 1897 (reprinted in 2015 by Forgotten Books, p. 216)]    

However, Arkwright eventually succeeded in developing his “machine” and became one of the foremost British inventors and entrepreneurs of the early 18^th Century.   [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Arkwright ]

Fortunately, very few in the 21^st century are compelled to forego such fundamental needs to significantly advance themselves and their families.  Unfortunately, so few feel compelled to advance themselves at all!  (Doesn’t life just keep getting better?) 

“Some day, my ship will surely come in and I will live happily ever after!”

LIKELY NOT!

The COST OF LIVING requires that we burn SOMETHING … time and energy, for sure!  But the highest quality of life – the cost of LIVING WELL – demands that we sacrificially “burn” a lot more – including fantasies, fiction, and a whole lot of “luxuries” – if we’re going to realize sustainable progression in the main. 

Choosing what to burn and what to preserve makes us or breaks us.  Burning our potential and possibilities in order to fuel immediate gratification is a practice destined for ultimate failure, no matter how “good” it might feel in the present. 

“We have to sacrifice ‘Good’ to get ‘Better’.”

Glen Campbell

Following a virtuoso violin performance at Carnegie Hall, an audience member gushed to Fritz Kreisler:

“Mr. Kriesler, I would give my very life to play the way you do!”

[Oh?  And what were you burning while he was honing his craft?]

Point to Ponder

The most indispensible, infinitely minable and non-consumable fuels one can acquire are

KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE.

“Consumable” resources of time and energy required to attain and apply knowledge and experience are well within reach of every person on the planet: Both time and energy can be conscripted from trivial pursuits, and energy can be almost limitlessly renewed and expanded.

Bottom Line: Use your unscheduled time and renewable energy to pile up KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE, and then create the most purposeful conflagration you can muster: BURN, BABY, BURN!  Unlikely Champions do it.  Elite athletes do it.  Astronauts do it.  [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_Stuff_(book) ]  Now YOU do it!  Quartermaster

Photo Attribution

By Fir0002 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons 

Cache On Hand

“Cache or caching  [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache ] refers to: 

·         … a food storing behavior of animals

·         … a collection of artifacts

·         [… a nest of duck’s eggs!]

Computing

·         Cache (computing), a collection of data duplicating original values stored elsewhere on a computer, usually for easier access

·         Cache memory, a small area of fast memory used by the central processing unit

______________________________________________

The question for today is this:  How much CACHE do you, personally, have on hand, and in what DENOMINATION(S)?  

The more operational question is:  How NEGOTIABLE is the CACHE you’ve got?

From birth to death, we are continuously building our CACHE of data, knowledge, information, and understanding of the world, as we encounter it.  Much of that CACHE comes to us through education rather than through experience.  But, with time, we gain experience and take increasing initiative to personalize and expand our cache in specific areas. 

Our CACHE ON HAND is what gives us our negotiability in the world.  We survive, thrive, succeed or fail, depending on what’s in our COH and how we use it.  Here’s the good news:

“Your success is guaranteed!

You will succeed best in the endeavor(s) to which you apply the most time and energy.”

Penny Halfmaster

You may become an EXPERT:

–        Eating junk food

–        Playing video games

–        Watching sports

–        Manipulating the SMART PHONE

–        Surfing the WEB

–        Or doing absolutely nothing …

… which begs the question of what you’re stashing in your CACHE?   What’s incubating in your CACHE? 

As you “Mine the Universe” to hash the stash in your CACHE, it’s important to understand that CACHE is not necessarily permanent or incorruptible.  Trash in your cache can be debilitating.  It can seriously slow down and/or misdirect otherwise productive engagement.  Wishes and Dreams built without the proper CACHE on hand will go wasted.  And non-nutritive, “low-hanging fruit” (like sports and entertainment statistics, video game prowess and social media navigation) takes up critical CACHE capacity that will remain essentially useless in the context of overall advancement. 

So here’s the challenge:  Go for the good stuff – the very BEST stuff you can get!  The certifiable “Blue Chip” holdings.  And stop piling trash in your CACHE!  Make a DASH to put FLASH in your STASH of CACHE!   Quartermaster

Punch List

Every construction project remains unfinished until the completion of a final sign-off “Punch List”: a list of final “finishing” details, as well as a list of mistakes and imperfections (things which fail to conform to the architect’s original specifications) that must be corrected.

Historically (before the invention of the iPad), major construction sites – where it’s easy for paper to get lost – would have the punch list fastened to a wooden post or “Punch Board” in a prominent, centralized location. As each item was completed, a worker responsible for each task would use a nail to “punch” a hole next to each completed item. Only after every item on the punch list was completed or corrected could the job supervisor truly declare, “It is finished.”

Life is like that.  Our “Punch List” of items to be certifiably completed according to specifications embedded in our specific genetic code (i.e., reflecting our true potential), and decreed by the society within which we aspire to gain entitlements and exercise our “inalienable rights”, is quite long. 

On our personal construction site, there are actually TWO “Punch Lists” … one that we administer personally and one administered externally.  The more closely the two lists agree, and the more efficiently the tasks are completed, the more manageable the overall passage tends to be – notwithstanding inherent difficulties of certain items populating the “Punch Lists”. 

A great many items that will eventually appear on the two Punch Lists are irrelevant early on and are not posted on our Personal Punch List until they ARE relevant.  One does not require certification in algebra, for example, for matriculation through kindergarten.  This is the good news and bad news.  While posting only items relevant to the present or near future minimizes undue angst, it gives one an artificially “low-balled” sense of indemnification for anything that may follow.  Consider Robert Fulghum’s assertion:    

“All I Really Need To Know
I Learned In Kindergarten.”

 

Unfortunately, this “Chicken Soup for the Soul” offering doesn’t quite cover the entire waterfront!

 

In fact, the “Need to Know” list is a continuously rolling scroll, and we need to keep getting our “Punch List” punched at every significant intersection of life, else the scroll goes off track. 

 

Some people are compulsive about “Needing to Know” and “roll the scroll” forward as far and as fast as they can to see what’s coming.  Alertness, awareness, planning, preparation and “tooling up” for what’s coming gives one a decided advantage – an “unfair” advantage, in fact, by “Standards of Mediocrity”. 

 

And just how do you “Roll the Scroll”?  By connecting with people who have “BEEN THERE” … who know the territory … who have been and seen and done … who have fallen and picked themselves up and moved on … who have encountered and overcome barriers …  Those who have completed more of the Punch Lists for life-tracks most similar to the one you’re on – or wannabe – will be most helpful. 

 

Be compulsive.  NEED TO KNOW, and GO GET WHAT YOU NEED!   And try to get as much of it “Right” as possible.  The Punch List is scrolling.  Quartermaster

 

 Paul Cézanne (at age 67) wrote to a younger friend, the painter Émile Bernard:

“Now it seems to me that I see better and that I think more correctly about the direction of my studies. Will I ever attain the end for which I have striven so much and so long? I hope so, but as long as it is not attained a vague state of uneasiness persists which will not disappear until I have reached port, that is until I have realized something which develops better than in the past,  … ; it is giving proof of what one thinks that raises serious obstacles. So I continue to study. ... “

 

 

[Acknowledgements: Shadia Hrichi http://www1.cbn.com/devotions/gods-punch-list?cpid=EU_BIAYDEVO  and delanceyplace.com http://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=3310&utm_source=Old+Masters+and+Young+Geniuses+4-10&utm_campaign=4%2F12%2F17&utm_medium=email ]

 

Let's Get Personal

We need to talk.  Seriously. 

In case you were looking for / hoping for / counting on your “ship” to come in or your Prince or Princess to ride by on a white horse or the “Dream Job Offer” to come to your door, I feel compelled to break the sobering news that the idyllic life involving any of these things does not exist!  

Life emerges from the transient safety of a tightly protected “cocoon” of infancy into a relatively protected experience of childhood into a vast, decreasingly protective universe of increasingly larger risks, barriers and hurdles to be overcome in the course of “Becoming” whoever it is we are to become … generally against a lot of very tough odds.  

For starters, at some point, we have to give up our beliefs in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the concept of “Trick-or-Treat” gleaning as cornerstones of a life well-lived.

In the parable “Life Is Like a Great Waterway”, we learn that advancement in the world requires us to move progressively from small pond wading and splashing into deeper and deeper waters – eventually “over our heads” – that may, in fact, require us to “swim with the sharks”. 

Our bodies grow and differentiate through a series of awkward and unfamiliar stages to which we have to adjust … even as we yearn to enjoy the benefits of maturation – like becoming stronger, becoming more independent, becoming more “respectable”, being able to go out with friends, dating, getting a driver’s license, etc. 

But reality is tough.  The world does NOT, sad and sobering as it may seem, revolve around US.  Yes, our parents are stupid and imperfect (up until we learn that at least they’re not stupid).  Our teachers are imperfect.  Our friends are imperfect.  And WE are imperfect.  We do stupid things and we make poor choices and we don’t always – if ever – totally “Get It Right”.  We have to DEAL with all of that, and still navigate off balance with some sense of “Right Reckoning”, progression and advancement.  

Reality includes the fact that we are incomplete for the duration … always “Becoming”.  It is not enough to get a high school diploma … or a college diploma … or to acquire physiologically mature bodily functions.   

It is not enough to finally “get a job” … and then stop “looking for work” (Zig Ziglar). 

Life’s demands continue to increase.  It is important to understand this:  The first $300,000 in financial-equivalency support required to get us from birth to age 18 is provided gratis by parents, the community and state and federal governments – with the expectation that, during that time, we will become more-or-less self-sufficient.  The final $1.4 million required to get us to and through retirement (averaging $35,000 per year for 40 years just for cost-of-living fundamentals) is all on US!  Savings for retirement is EXTRA!

Finally, the life force of the universe is not going to bend to accommodate our personal proclivities – no matter how earnestly we pursue those proclivities or seek to exercise our perceived entitlements.  The more closely our proclivities are aligned with those of the universe we choose to inhabit, the more we will be accommodated, but not until then.  

THE GOOD NEWS IS THIS  …

1.     We don’t have to do it all by ourselves!  The more capacitized we become, the more valuable we become to others, the more “useful” we become, the more RESPECT we engender, the more we will benefit from a “Bandwagon Effect” … in which significant others support our efforts, our development and our advancement. 

2.    WE get to define our own GOALS / PURPOSE / MISSION / PASSION in life.  We need to do this as early as possible, and make it BIG enough for a lifetime of unreserved effort.  VISIONING the farthest horizon that best fits, and persistently VECTORING toward that horizon with TOTAL INTENTIONALITY, will make all the other stuff irrelevant.  

3.    We need to become ENGAGED with significant other people.  Carefully cultivated ASSOCIATIONS and AFFILIATIONS will critically strengthen and solidify our passport to wherever it is we’re going. 

4.    Life’s formula is really quite simple:

“Do what you’re supposed to do,

And life will turn out the way it’s supposed to be.”

Proverb found on an old Farm House Calendar

Point to Ponder

“The upside of painful knowledge [and experience]

is so much greater

than the downside of blissful ignorance [and defiant disengagement].” 

Sheryl Sandberg

Life is personal.  Everything we deserve is going to take everything we’ve got – personally.  Life is OUR challenge, OUR opportunity, OUR problem … OURS to get right or suffer the consequences.  Let’s get as much “Right” as we possibly can, and suffer the BEST consequences we can muster!   Quartermaster

C Plan

I was impressed to hear that Alabama coach, Avery Johnson, has developed a “C-Plan” for his basketball team: 

“Compete on the Court

Compete in the Classroom”

This was a terrific concept, emblematic of a highly enlightened coach! 

However, I thought we might flesh it out a little for a really COMPREHENSIVE C-Plan. 

So I’m going to suggest we including the following:   

CAPITALIZE on every advancement opportunity

Own the CAREER you would like to pursue

Become CERTIFIED :: Get the GED, the BA/BS, the MA, the Ph.D., Electrician, etc.

CENSOR your behavior :: Become acutely self-aware

Accept CHALLENGE

CHANGE for the better

Develop CHARACTER

CHECK & DOUBLE CHECK (Start EARLY so you have time to EDIT)

CHOOSE wisely

 Put CIVILITY in CIVILIZATION

Seek CLARITY

CLIMB the heights

“The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.”

                        Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Be ever-vigilant = COGNIZANT

COLLABORATE & COOPERATE

COLLECT, COLATE and CURATE:  Knowledge, Resources, Treasures, Valued Associates

COMMIT … to your Dream … to your Goals … to Excellence … to Better …

COMMUNICATE

COMPLEMENT your team and associates / Fill in the gaps

COMPLETE your work

Be COMPULSIVE in Goal-Tending

Make excellence COMPULSORY

Be COMPREHENSIVE … leave no stone unturned

CONCENTRATE / Focus / Pay Attention / Be Attentive

CONCEIVE Excellence /\ The largest DREAM you can muster

Develop CONFIDENCE (Practice, Practice, Practice!)  

CONFIRM … your Purpose, your Mission, your Engagement

CONNECT

CONQUER … Fear, Doubt, Uncertainty, Mediocrity

Be CONSCIENTIOUS

CONSPIRE / CONTRIVE… to do Good … to do BETTER

CONTEST & CHALLENGE … assumptions, assertions, theories, postulations, innuendo

CONTRIBUTE :: Support Progress and the Betterment of Mankind

CONSTRUCT … be a “Builder”

CONTROL … everything you CAN control

Be CONVINCING … CARRY the water, Deliver the goods

COPE :: Be Resilient

CORRECT errors, wrong assumptions, unfounded expectations

Be CORRIGIBLE – moldable

Be COURAGIOUS

Value, Develop and Demonstrate exquisite CRAFTSMANSHIP

Be CREATIVE

Be both CREDIBLE and CREDITABLE :: TRUSTWORTHY

CRITIQUE each Failure /\ each Success

CROWN your work with excellence

CRUSH inanity, ignorance, folly

CULTIVATE sensibility, CHARACTER

Be ever CURIOUS

C<>Z every Moment of Unscheduled Time possible to build your Personal CAPITAL

 Quartermaster          

  

Copyright ©2017, ERTIA UNLIMITED

WILL Power

“ … (have you ever been running, and decided you need to run a little faster … and then you WILLED it and it happened; have you ever tried to open a jar of pickles and decided you need to squeeze or turn a little harder, but not until you WILLED it did it happen; etc.)  Our WILL is important in everything.......we just need to WILL ourselves more or harder.”  Darwin Allen   

**************************

Disclaimer:

This narrative is not about WILLPOWER … as in the ability to avoid eating donuts, fried mozzarella, double-fudge sundaes, etc.  WILLPOWER in this sense – as in stopping ourselves from doing self-indulgent but deleterious things – doesn’t work!  As long as we give ourselves unlimited choices, we will consistently choose what “pleases” us over that which is “good” for us. 

It’s about WILL POWER … the ability to WILL ourselves beyond our comfort zone and beyond just “letting life happen”.

***************************

Unfortunately, engaging the WILL is something we generally relegate

to when there are no options, like:

... when what we're doing isn't working
... when what we're doing doesn't "cut it"
... when our back is up against the wall

“Man is a strange animal:

He cannot read the handwriting on the wall

 until his back is up against it.”  

Adlai Stevenson

So, it seems we would be well served to get the WILL engaged more routinely and right up front ... part of Total Intentionality.  What if we could operate in WILL POWER MODE all the time? 

The Toyota Prius Hybrid has three different power modes available:

EV = Electric Vehicle (only the electric motor engaged)

Eco = Economy (electric motor predominant but gas engaged as needed)

Power = Full Engagement (Both electric and gas motors running full out)

Some perspective helps.  Nature has endowed us with the default wiring to conserve energy whenever and wherever possible (EV mode) – which, “only being ‘human’”, as we are – we are accustomed to taking to preposterous extremes.  Adrenalin is the antidote when emergencies emerge.  But adrenalin gets over-used when we take too much liberty on the energy-conserving side of the equation.  And then we get all stressed out trying to catch up!  At that point, our WILL is irrelevant.  We merely defer to survival instinct and have to burn the candle at both ends. 

Anecdotal reports of absolute and unbridled WILL Power applied in unusually emergent situations exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterical_strength 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/extreme-fear-superhuman/m

 By sheer FORCE OF WILL – or perhaps by SHEER FORCE OF WON’T … as in “failure is not an option!” – “nature” and “unusual circumstances” can bend and focus the power of WILL in awesome ways. 

It often happens in sports.  Some underdogs judiciously “prime” themselves to overcome even the longest odds.  So it happened that an unranked Florida team soundly and embarrassingly beat the number 4 ranked Kentucky Wildcats by 22 points in normal season play in early February, 2017.  [Twenty days later, Kentucky – WANTENLY and WILLFULLY looking for revenge, while defending their home territory – beat Florida by 10.]  

Unlikely Champions do it … rising from hopelessly dismal prospects to the top of a field or profession. 

So the reality is that we CAN rise if we have the WILL to rise, but more often than not we don’t WILL it.  We simply “take life as it comes”. 

Sometimes our WILL can be truncated by a sense of unworthiness or censure from the “tribe” for even giving the appearance of trying to stretch beyond our “Class”.  (Check out “Five Myths About Class in America”.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-class-in-america/2016/07/01/244ddb44-3e20-11e6-a66f-aa6c1883b6b1_story.html?utm_term=.eda0c999bcb7

Self-Talk can be important in getting WILL power engaged: Like … “Don’t be such a wimp”!  Or … “You CAN do it!”  Or … “I will not be denied achievement of this GOAL!”

Knowing what it takes, and having the tools and HOW-TO experience to do what needs to be done [otherwise called “Preparation”], provides a strong underpinning for successful … even indomitable … WILL Power engagement.  The rest is sheer determination not to fail or be left behind and perseverance to see it through.  [And don’t discount the “Bandwagon Effect” of significant others being drawn to support an all-out effort made toward an ascendant purpose.]  WILL it done – no excuses – and you will POWER through!   Quartermaster

Rule of Consequences

Why do we have persisting “Achievement Gaps” both in public schools and on the job … why do so many business owners complain that they can’t get “decent help” … and why do so many fail, personally, to achieve what they “reasonably” ought to achieve – never mind reaching their full “potential”? 

I submit that a lot of the answer has to do with inadequate application of – or sensitivity to – consequences of behavior. 

It’s particularly difficult to understand or appreciate the potential impact of long-term consequences.  Counting on delayed ramification is like counting on virtual fungible currency borrowed from the future; with any luck at all, there won’t be any consequences … at least of any consequence … even as the statute of limitations on “delays” progressively runs out and “ramifications” progressively pile up.     

We have heard much in the news recently about the “Rule of Law”.  But I think we have a much larger and more pernicious problem in the lack of a “Rule of Consequences”.  One shouldn’t have to wait until only the most offensive breach of accountability occurs (as when the “Rule of Law” has to be invoked) to hold a person accountable for less than “accountable” behavior.  Accountability (both to oneself and to civilization at large) is a citizen’s responsibility across the board – else one risks a loss of “enfranchisement”. 

While a loss of “enfranchisement” may be “no big deal” in the moment – and may even be perceived as a “badge of honor” to the more defiantly disposed – the collateral damage from losses of association, affiliation and indemnification (which translate to deficiencies in respect, legitimacy and trustworthiness) required to significantly advance in the universe represents a much larger and longer range liability.

Conservative psychologists and educators have long decried the emergence of permissiveness in parenting, combined with educationist innovations of the mid-20^th century, which shifted the focus of nurturing future generations from disciplined and “consequential” guidance of youth to the minimization of consequences, elimination of competition, inflation of grades and enhancement of self-esteem, with “Trophies for Everyone” ... thus, fairly convincingly foreshadowing the emergence of “Achievement Gaps” and regression of personal potential.  In fact, one might argue that “Achievement Gaps” only exist because the “overachievers” (both parents and youth who refused to give in – and who insisted in both getting and being the best) kept forging ahead, leaving the willful or baneful non-participants behind. 

One might also argue that such a state of affairs has given a “windfall” advantage to less talented individuals and “Unlikely Champions” who adamantly maintained an insistence on both getting and being the best, while the more savvy were seeing how much they could “get away with”,  “beating the system”, outsmarting the “authorities”, writing their own rules … beating their own drums … etc. – trying to force the world to meet them on their own terms and to compel the universe to bend to their personal will!      

From this perspective, the more consequences we minimize and/or eliminate, the more “equal opportunities” become available to those more goal-oriented and positively driven. 

The Urban County Council General Government and Social Services Committee of the Lexington Fayette UCG recently passed a proposed change to an ordinance that would expand the current city-wide curfew for youth 18 years of age and under from 11 pm to 1 pm on week nights. http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article131285794.html 

What a great way to “thin the competition”!  

[Unfortunately, it’s also a sure-fire way to “thin the herd” http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article124332179.html ]

For a similar reason, one might be inclined to support legislation legalizing the recreational use of marijuana; it would bring in massive amounts of tax revenue and open a lot more opportunities for the more disciplined and positive consequence-driven to rise uncontested.

The blossoming of craft beer and bourbon enterprises in the Bluegrass Region, combined with the change in curfew, will be expected to have similar impact … driving revenue and creating increasing numbers of job vacancies for the more soberly ambitious to fill. 

There are gut-level fundamentals of human psyche and physiology in play here.  Perhaps first and most of all, we’d simply rather NOT if we don’t HAVE to.  Thus, finding ourselves in a civilization where we’re as free to do ourselves harm as we are to chase our dreams, we have a sure-fire formula for degenerative regression, not progression.  Add to that our innate “Rogue”, defiant, self-serving nature, and we become extremely creative – even dedicated to a point of preoccupation – with “Beating the System”.  

It takes an extremely diligent application of discipline – and at least the awareness of potentially harsh consequences – to forge our way through, above and beyond the latitude we are given to do ourselves in. 

My short-lived and exhausting term of volunteering in the public school system during 2015-2016 left me with the unalterable conviction that a lack of interventional guidance is THE core element in the emergence of “Achievement Gaps”.  Not only are poverty-riddled parents unable to spend the time and energy necessary to supervise and mentor children toward productive citizenship, they are unable to get them engaged in positive community-supported activities where significant others [the "Village"] can have a positive impact and where they can gain a much broader and more global view of how the world works.  Personally, I was very lucky.  I was raised in a small community where noble role models dotted the landscape and strict behavioral expectations were de rigueur.  I was in Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, church choir, church youth groups, 4-H, the American Federation of Music Clubs, took piano lessons, was in band, had excellent coaching in baseball, football and basketball, and attended a college which had a 10 pm curfew. 

This brings us to our final, defining moment revelation:  Positive Consequences make Negative Consequences totally irrelevant and unnecessary!  Give a person a Vision, a Purpose, a Mission and possibilities large enough to capture their hunger-to-succeed in that Vision/Purpose/Mission for an entire lifetime, and all you have to do is stand back and watch miracles happen!  Except that you won’t be able to stand back at all; you’ll be itching to help!!  All we have to do is find the switch that turns it on.  How “turned on” are YOU?   Quartermaster