Over the years, I have come to think of myself as a warrior. Not because I served four years in the military. Truth be told, the Boy Scouts were a tough organization compared to the Air Force. I think of myself as a warrior because I have never walked away from a fight. Sure, I sometimes got my butt kicked but the other guy did not want to fight me again. Furthermore, we often had a greater amount of respect for each other after the fight was over. That is what it is like among warriors throughout the world. Not bullies mind you but warriors who do not shy from a fight or the draft. A warrior is not someone who loves fighting. A warrior is someone who accepts the burden of fighting when something worth defending is threatened. Bullies seek conflict. Warriors seek justice. I would rather defend someone else than defend myself.
Throughout history, from Alexander the Great to Audie Murphy, real fighters have always respected their opponents. My father was a professional boxer before he hung up his gloves. Never a great fighter but he had a pretty good win/loss ratio. My father taught me to box when I was young, and I later added Taekwondo to my repertoire. I could kick or punch with equal confidence. I was proud that I never picked a fight or started a fight. I once asked a good friend, why I had so many fights and he said, “Because you never walk away from one.”
I found it very difficult to ignore bullies or people picking on anyone. Most of my “disagreements” with others were over their mistreatment of someone. Like the time, I was in the pool hall on base, and an Army guy took the pool cue from a smaller soldier and said, “I am playing next.” I told him the little guy was next, and he told me, “Mind your own business.” My business continued with his friends pulling me off him as I was assaulting his head with my fists.
On the street corner where I hung around growing up in Rhode Island, I hardly ever got into any fights. People who hang in gangs learn to measure their opponents and learn where everyone stands in the pecking order. This is based on mutual respect learned sometimes the hard way. There were guys you would never get into a fight with because even if you won, they would get you back later. Like clocking you with a pipe wrench some night when you least expected it.
I think the same is true with warriors the world over. From Spartans to Trojans to Romans, to Gladiators, to Knights, to Indian Braves to Marines to Boxers, or to MMA fighters, the one thing all fighters respect is someone who will stand up for themselves and get back up when they are knocked down. That is the most difficult thing to do in a fight.
Watch the great boxers in history and every one of them is eventually knocked down but they almost always manage to get back up. Some of them don’t make the ten second count but it is not for trying. When someone puts up a clean fight or battle or contest, whether they win or lose it does not matter. Warriors respect courage, integrity and people willing to stand up for something.
A concept of respect among warriors does not mean that the great fighters in history did not also fight an intelligent fight. This means sizing up your opponent and looking at their strengths and weaknesses. Only a fool will fight a battle on someone else’s terms.
The most famous duel of the great Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi was against Sasaki Kojiro on Ganryū Island in 1612. Both men were renowned for their fighting prowess. Musashi deliberately arrived hours late, angering and unsettling Kojiro. He also fought with a wooden sword carved from an oar during his boat ride to the island.
Enraged and off balance, Kojiro attacked first. Musashi struck a decisive blow, winning one of history’s most legendary sword duels through both psychology and skill. Musashi realized that Kojiro was his equal as a swordsmen. Knowing this, he sought the edge that would help him to defeat Kojiro. Musashi understood something every warrior eventually learns: courage alone isn’t enough. Respect also means respecting your opponent’s ability. Only fools underestimate those they fight.
An aerial battle between a German Ace and a British Ace exemplifies the concept of respect. The fight involved Adolf Galland and Douglas Bader during the Battle of Britain. Bader, who flew despite having lost both legs, became one of Britain’s most admired pilots. Though they were enemies, Galland and Bader developed mutual respect. When Bader was shot down and captured, Galland arranged for the Luftwaffe to drop replacement prosthetic legs for him. This is remembered less for a single duel and more for the remarkable respect between adversaries.
The stories of warriors from the Spartans to Native American warriors are full of examples where respect developed from the bravery and integrity demonstrated during the heat of battle. The great conquerors in history led from the front ranks and not from an office or palace someplace thousands of miles away. Soldiers seldom respect people who eschew the conflicts that are part of their lives.
As I aged, my experiences with veterans working at the VA, working as a DVOP and now co-hosting a radio show for Veterans has taught me how much different it is being a Veteran versus being a civilian. As a Veteran, it does not matter what branch I served in or whether or not I saw combat. I am respected because I willingly served my country.
You never know when your number will be called up when you are in the military. A Veteran may never see combat, but we respect those Veterans who serve because of the service they were willing to give. We respect the thought that “All gave some, but some gave all.”
No one wants to die but as Caesar said, “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.” We respect men and women who are willing to put their lives on the line for a cause or an idea or their country. It is not the war or cause that leads to our respect for a warrior. It is because they are willing to concede their lives for something that they feel is more important than simply going on living.
Times have changed and I have grown older. I am still fighting. Age has changed the weapons I carry, but not the battles I choose. Today I fight with words. I fight for justice. I fight for equality. I fight for truth. Over the past ten or more years, I have called out the racists, the sexists, the war mongers, the crooked and the greedy. I have learned that moral courage is often harder than physical courage. A fistfight lasts minutes. Standing against popular opinion may require years. Standing against popular opinion may cost you friends and many of the things that you value in life.
I have written dozens of blogs to shed light on the injustices in our society today. Some have dealt with our prisons some with our military some with our health care systems and some with our education systems. I have not shied away from challenging accepted truths and venerated systems. More than once, I asked myself, “do I dare say this in print? Could it somehow come back to haunt me or damage what little financial security I have?”
My neighbor told me during one election that I should take my yard sign down as it would not go well in our neighborhood. Both Karen and I after some discussion decided to leave it up. A minor thing but when you look at the crazies in our society and the fanatics, it would have been easier to take it down and feel more secure. But that is not the way of being a warrior or a fighter. Warriors don’t take the safe way or the easy way.
Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Something inside of me calls forth a very similar sentiment. What would life be if we sold our soul for a job or for the favor of someone who had no morals or ethics? Jesus said “What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul.” Perhaps more of the people who claim to be Christians should heed the words of Jesus. Today our political houses across this nation, from sea to shining sea are full of men and women who sell their souls and integrity every day for another chance to curry favor, to support a lobbyist or simply to insure that they will be reelected.
What will it take to turn America away from greed and cowardice and back to a country where we can admire and respect courage and integrity?
Every generation must decide what kind of people it admires. If we admire wealth above character, comfort above courage, and popularity above integrity, then warriors disappear—not from the battlefield, but from everyday life. Nations do not become great because they produce more politicians. They become great because ordinary people refuse to surrender what they know is right
Perhaps we need more warriors and less politicians.
Compassion is the most important of the seven virtues. Compassion is just one stroke short of love. Compassion leads to love but it takes some doing to get there. The journey involves a number of steps each predicated on a trait or behavior that is uniquely human. In this blog, I want to describe the journey to compassion and beyond to love. Each step of the journey is a commitment to humanity. If you do not care about others, you will not be interested in the journey. Compassion is the opposite of narcissism. A narcissist loves them-self. A person with compassion loves others. With a narcissist, it is “all about me.” With a compassionate person, it is “all about them.”
The journey starts with sympathy. We think of sympathy as “feeling sorry for someone.” It is the ability to have feelings for another person. We see another person who looks hungry or unhappy or ill and we feel some sense of remorse or regret for the other person. We might be distressed for them or we might simply be glad that we are not in their shoes. A part of us hurts or aches for the other person, but we do not identify with them on a deeper level. Our sorrow goes no further than to perhaps wonder what had befallen them to bring such misery.
Our next step in our journey to compassion takes understanding. We need to try to understand others and to put ourselves in their shoes. We must avoid separation and thinking that we are so different from others. We must avoid judging others. When you couple understanding with sympathy, you have taken the next step. You have now arrived at empathy. To have empathy for others, is to combine sympathy and understanding. You are sorry for those who are less well-off then you are, but you do not separate yourself from them and instead you seek to find the common ground that links you to the other person. Sympathy involves the heart. Empathy involves both the heart and the mind.
The next step in our journey is action. All of the empathy in the world will not make a difference if we do not take action. Empathy + Action = Compassion. Compassion is the way we make a difference to others. Jesus said “Feed my sheep.” He did not say to just take pity on them or to simply have empathy for them. Empathy by itself does not clothe the poor, feed the hungry or help the weak. We must make action and doing a part of our empathy for others. This is true compassion.
Bob’s actions made a great impact on me, since I had seldom gone further in my life than either waiting to be asked for help or sometimes asking others if they needed help. It would never have occurred to me to just show up and help. Perhaps, you might think that simply showing up and helping someone is going too far. However, think about yourself. Would you really ask others for help? I know I probably would not. Pitching in to help when not asked may not always be warranted but I now see it as something worth endeavoring to do more often than not.
Compassion is a much more useful and practical virtue for my life. I can deal with compassion and I can be more compassionate if I really aspire to. I am not sure I can be more loving. I have a hard time “loving” others whom I dislike or who do unkind things to people I do like. I more often “love” others who think and act like I do. I may be taking the easy way out, but if I can be more compassionate to others and if someday I am thought of as a compassionate person, that will be enough for me. If you are further along in your journey through life, then you should consider including love as one of your “most” important virtues. No one will be a worse person for it. For me today, compassion for others is enough of an effort.
It’s not about racism or privilege but everyone should have a right to say who they have to live with and go to school with or church with. I am all for equal rights for everyone and that includes my right to stick to my own kind. Does that make me a racist because I like one group of people more than another? We all have our baseball and football team preferences. That is what makes sports so much fun. I don’t have to like your team and you don’t have to like my team. Teams stick together and play with their own kind. You don’t see football players playing against baseball players or lacrosse players playing against rugby players.
That is why I am not a racist because I believe in the beauty of all colors. I don’t think one color is more beautiful than another. I prefer blue while I think my wife likes pink or green more. I just think you don’t want to mix the colors too much or you lose the beauty. It is also easier to clean a paint brush when you just use it for the same colors. Have you ever tried to clean a paint brush that has been used on too many different colors?
Now I suppose some of you will still say that I am a racist or prejudiced and that nothing I can say will change your minds. But I don’t dislike those kind of people, I just want to live with my kind of people and those kind of people can live with their own kind of people.
At one of our mixed support group meetings, a gay man from our group challenged the rest of us, mostly the straight men to go out to a gay bar. A popular one was the Gay Nineties on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. We accepted the challenge and decided that after our next support group meeting, we would all (straight and gay men) go to the Gay Nineties for a drink. 
Thus, the question arose in my mind about the difference or relationship between appreciation and gratitude. Perhaps this is like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a needle, but I thought the question deserved some reflection. Is the relationship between gratitude and appreciation similar to the relationship between tolerance and respect?
If you do not like to try new things, you should not travel. One of my mottos is “I have never met a food I did not like.” Karen and I eat at street vendors. We often shop locally and pick out foods that we do not even know what they are. When we were on Naxos, we found a meat market. We entered and were greeted with a variety of skinned animals hanging from hooks. There were no labels on these various creatures. We assumed they sold the meat in kilos, so we asked for a ½ kilo of this and ½ kilo of that. We decided that we would take the meats or whatever they were back to our little apartment and cook them. We figured that once we did this, we might be able to guess what we were eating. This was many years ago and I do not think we ever figured out what we were eating. The food was good and twenty-five years later we are alive and kicking. It was a great adventure. One that we have replicated many times.
I was forty years old before I had my first trip out of the USA. I had always wanted to travel and my four years in the military had not provided me the opportunity to travel. Later on, I became so busy with school and work that traveling seemed like a remote luxury. One day I was on a plane coming back from Thompson, Manitoba. (Canada does not count as foreign travel.) I had been working with a mining client that week and was now headed home. Next to me sat a young woman holding a travel guide to Spain. It was May and schools were getting out for the summer. I remarked “Are you going to Spain?” “Yes,” she replied. “Oh”, I said, “you must be very excited.” She answered somewhat petulantly, “No, I went there last summer but my parents wanted me to go again since I am studying Spanish.”
I did not say anymore to the young woman, but I thought “My, would I love to go to Spain or anyplace for that matter.” Then and there in that moment, I made up my mind. Karen and I were going to travel. We were going to see the world. When I arrived home, I shared my decision and determination with Karen. She was delighted but wondered how we would manage it. We have since been to 33 countries for a total of about 25 or more trips. We like to go to one country and see various sections of it rather than trying to see the whole of Europe or Asia in one trip. Usually we go for three weeks or so. We are very budget oriented and try to behave like pilgrims rather than like tourists. Our trips are usually a balancing act between being a pilgrim and being a tourist.
I thought I would start the year of 2021 off with a positive slant. Namely, some things we can all do or practice to be better people. However, before anyone should pay any attention to what I am about to say, there are several questions they must ask themselves. I would advise you that the veracity and hence credibility of an author is critical to your acceptance of what the author is trying to sell you or convince you of. Do not buy an argument from someone who cannot be trusted. Think about the comment that “If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.” An uncritical acceptance of any idea is dangerous to your own integrity and responsibility. Hence, the questions I would want answered (If I were you) would be as follows: Who is this writer to say what the “greatest” virtues for a human are? How did he come up with these Seven Virtues? What is the difference between a virtue and a value? Is this an important difference or is he about to sell me another new religion?
I would like to answer that I am a seeker of truth and knowledge. I am very opinionated, often highly judgmental and have frequently been accused of being a “know it all.” Many people would write my opinions off as being too liberal while others would say that I am too rational. I place great value on being logical and trying to stay open to many possibilities. I have been studying philosophy and religion since I was eighteen. I have no degrees in either. But the number of books and articles and stories that I have read number in the hundreds. I have attended many different worship houses and types of religious services. I was brought up as a Catholic until I rejected its teachings at about the age of 10. When no one would give me a good answer for “Who made God?” I more or less decided that most religions were based on superstitions.
Given that one could easily comprise a list of ten or perhaps one hundred important virtues, why do I believe that my seven are the seven greatest and most important? How do I have the audacity to make such an assertion? I might have been sitting under an apple tree one day, or perhaps simply thinking about life at one of my yearly silent retreats at the Demontreville Retreat Center, when I compiled a list of seven virtues. While I truly “value” these ideas, I understand them more as virtues than values. I will address this difference later. I decided that I want to live by these virtues. Each day for the last fifteen or more years, I have selected one of these seven virtues to help guide me through the day. Whether it is patience, kindness or courage, each day I start by reflecting on this virtue and trying to make it a part of my life.
The danger in this discussion lies in your taking a sectarian or religious approach to my writings. I assure you that I am not a religious person. I may be a spiritual person but I do not think of myself in either of these categories. I am an agnostic who wants to live a better life and help build a world that is a better place to live for future generations. Living by these seven virtues is one way I believe I can contribute to this goal.
If I have satisfactorily answered the questions that I posed above respecting my integrity and credibility, I will now set off to address each of my Seven Virtues and explain why they are so important and the difference that I think they can make in our lives. Look for my virtues over the next several weeks in my blogs.
Aging Capriciously 