How You Learn

essaysbysean.blogspot.com 

Have you seen JoJo Rabbit, the current Oscar-nominated movie about the boy in the Hitler Youth? Two men I knew separately here in town were in the Youth, and so was my favorite business writer—luckily he left Germany before the war broke out.

Hello Reader,

Got an idea how you learn?

Prologue 

As faithful readers know: Of course I like being self-indulgent by writing a post about me or my blog, but only after I have filled up a full page of 25 weekly essay titles. Well, today marks another 25.

How You Learn

So, how are you managing your life? Are you becoming ever better, ever learning more about yourself and your business or hobby? Let’s not expect too much. My old telephone answering machine went, “If you know what you are doing, leave a message. If not, join the club.” Every caller, laughing, was already in the club.

Originally, the word “managing” meant “coping.” If today the meaning has shifted, if today we instinctively put the word “business” in front of “management” then it’s because my favorite business writer of all time quit his job during the middle of the Great Depression. There he was, a successful Wall Street analyst, when he asked himself: “Do I want to be the richest man in the cemetery?” In other words, was he living his values? That man was Peter Drucker. 

He went on to make the “practise of management” something that could be learned and taught, and caused universities to start up a faculty of Commerce, (business) because his observations and writings fell between the domains of Economics and Sociology—a new faculty was needed. Drucker’s first book was The End of Economic Man, with a forward by a German friend who wanted to “burn his bridges” against the Nazis. Drucker’s first famous book was The Concept of the Corporation where he interpreted General Motors, with it’s separate divisions, as being unlike historical companies such as, say, Ford. (Apparently Henry Ford didn’t want maximum independence and leadership in his managers, instead seeing them as his helpers) 

I have read everything by Drucker I can get my hands on, including his memoirs. 

(Wherein I found a smoking gun from his compatriot Henry Kissinger documenting that the U.S. government was secretly causing inflation)

We can’t all be a Peter Drucker, but just as he did, each of us can live, look and learn.

If for today’s post I write about styles of learning then it’s not for my ego, but because I have something interesting things to say… and because, according to Drucker, I am learning the way Sir Winston Churchill did—I’ll get back to Churchill.

But first: Right now the local bookstore is carrying On Managing Yourself, as part of a Harvard Business School series of books, each book with ten top articles on a given topic. Unsurprisingly, the first article in the book was by Drucker, called—such a classic title—“Managing Oneself.” Everybody knows that a manager or Chief Executive Officer has to be—to quote a cliche—“a lifelong learner.” Where Drucker surprised me was when he said that many people “don’t know how they learn.”  But they should.

President John F. Kennedy learned by reading. He would have his agents prepare written reports for him: Think of the brilliant writers in Camelot, and of John Kenneth Galbraith writing letters (now published) back from foreign embassies to educate JFK. 

President Harry S Truman learned by hearing: Think of his cronies playing poker in the White House as part of his “kitchen cabinet.” 

Drucker reports about a CEO who “… was in the habit of calling his entire senior staff into his office once a week and then talking at them for two or three hours…he simply needed an audience to hear himself talk. That’s how he learned.” A successful CEO, I might add.

Reading Drucker, years ago, I wondered: Am I a reader or a listener? I only found out when I was middle aged at university. Around that time, my company Vice President told me I was an “oral learner.” One day in class it was my turn, for my small group, to teach us a seminar:  There I was, just talking away about Thomas Paine, when suddenly a lady burst out: “(I just realized) You’re an oral learner! My LD kids talk like you!” (Learning Disability) A useful mirror, since I can’t see myself. 

No wonder I would study in the student bar by "talking" to myself, pretending I was explaining something. I guess I’m like Drucker’s CEO. And of course my speeches for Toastmasters are composed not at a desk but while walking along talking. (silently) As I explained in my essay about Hacking Together a Speech, archived November 2018.

As for essays and speeches, Paul Graham, like me, enjoys doing both. Unlike me, he is a famous web essayist and keynote speaker. Graham believes a grown up’s essay, unlike the ones schoolboys write, does NOT start out with a topic sentence to be proved, but as something flowing along where you don’t know everything yet. You write the essay to find out something new.

I don’t know whether Winston Churchill composed his speeches by just flowing along the way I do. What I do know blows me away: According to Drucker, during his schoolboy days Winston got poor marks, as did others who shared his learning trait: Churchill learned in a way not recognized by the education system—not by reading, and not by listening in class. He learned by writing. And today? The boy who did so poorly in school now has his writing studied by students of composition. (I have yet to write as well as he)

Knowing this about Churchill sheds new light on some of my blog essays. For example, for my essay comparing Trust and Ugly Americans. (Archived September 2019) I didn’t realize how being an Ugly Americans meant not trusting the natives, (Such as Iraqis) nor truly understand the individual I wrote about, (even though I had worked with him) not until after I had left the job and then wrote my essay. How strange.

Epilogue: 

I see I have managed to work this essay around to me and my blog. How sweet.

During the next 25 weeks I’ll listen and read as always. And, if I truly want to learn, then I’ll also speak and write. At long last, after another 25 titles, I may be self indulgent by writing about me and my blog, reporting on what I’ve learned during those precious weeks.

Sean Crawford

Central London

February

2010

Note: 

My last meta-blog essay (following 25 posts) was Summer Blog Reflections, archived August 2019.

Reference:

On Managing Yourself, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston Massachusetts

The About the Contributors list has a line:

Peter Drucker was a professor of social science and management at Claremont Graduate University in California.

To my fellow writers: 

As a self-respecting adult, today I couldn’t bear to use a typical schoolboy “in conclusion” ending.

As for my seminar research about Thomas Paine, I repackaged it and sold it as a feature article to Falstaff's Table: We writers re-use everything we can. 

Paul Graham’s long list of essays includes three about writing essays.

The one I reference is Age of the Essay (link)

 (The other two are The list of n Things; Persuade xor Discover; plus one on Writing, briefly) 

For President Kennedy, his middle initial has a period because it stands for Fitzgerald.

For President Truman, his middle initial has no period because it doesn’t stand for anything.

I have copied a part of Churchill’s composition word for word, like an art student copying a master. Alas, I’m still a journeyman.

To my fellow readers:

I am so pleased to have collected various big volumes by Churchill from various antique stores. Not abridged! 

One of Churchill’s chapters is about his days among daring young men and their flying machines. Mechanical problems were common, forcing you to land at another aerodrome and motor your way back to the one where your young peers are wining and dining after their own harrowing flights. The best aviator of them all, one evening, wasn’t there. But there had been no reports of a crash on land. They waited, candles burned down, and at last they realized the truth… The abridged paperback ends: “He flew forever beyond mortal ken.”

How Humor Helps the Agenda

essaysbysean.blogspot.com …

September, Friday the 13th, 2019

Hello Reader,

Got humor, as a precision tool to help a formal meeting?

Prologue

Purpose

Humor concepts

During a convention

The Theory

In conclusion 

Prologue

It’s so nice to think I can help people laugh, as I used to be “humor challenged”: That’s what comes of being a child survivor. What I forget is that others can be challenged too.

I was reminded recently at a writer’s circle. A few of us were casually gathered on a Sunday afternoon. I read a bit from my blog (April 2019) about the humor background of abuse survivor Pat Conroy, (The Great Santini) saying that it’s normal to X, (I forget) Y, (I forget) and Z (save up a funny event from the morning to tell folks when when they come home at night).  A dear writer looked surprised, (maybe for X or Y, I forget) and exclaimed, “I never do that!” She wasn’t a nerd—she had a gorgeous personality and a pretty smile—but she was, I guessed, a survivor like me.

Purpose

For her and others, to express 

some concepts of group humor for helping a meeting agenda. 

In the spirit of My College Mentor (archived January 2019) who said he could find “teachable moments” from our behaviour—we were truly a class with much to learn—I could try to find specific lessons from our AGM for the AWCS, also known as, aka, Annual General Meeting for the Alexandra Writers Centre Society.

Fellow readers, I don’t necessarily expect you to care about my fellow artists having an AGM, but I expect to better express things by using real life examples.

Humor Concepts

I was almost the first to comment for our first agenda item: Turns out folks badly wanted an AWCS credit card, but our bylaws we aren’t allowed any debt. I stuck up my hand to say that a bank debit card would not be debt, since it only spends money in the account. Someone swiftly pointed out: The reason individual staff were resorting to using their personal credit cards was that you could buy stuff over the telephone, and so forth. 

To forestall lots of “and so forth” explanations, and yes, to salve my poor ego, I said in a penetrating voice, “I just want to say: ‘Oh. Now-w-w I get it.’” Laughter.

Note: Yes, I was talking for my own ego’s sake, but also to set an example of safe participation, and to prevent the group wasting time explaining the “and so forth,” AND to help the group laugh. After all, AGMs can be awfully cut and dried. 

Concept: Before you joke, or speak up in a meeting, apply Sean’s patented 50% rule. If your purpose is not “50% or more” to help the group… then don’t joke. 

Closely related: If you don’t know your purpose for speaking up, then STOP until you do. Taking a good full second to check your purpose can prevent a lot of empty words.

Fellow citizens, you may recall that in July I mentioned—or at least I meant to—some research from different corners of the world that showed that populist leaders such as Trump will get into power not because a given country is objectively rich or poor, but because of the “income disparity” within a country. 

(How President Reagan turned the key to start economic disparity in America is in Gwynne Dyer’s latest book, reviewed in my post An Experiment Called Civilization archived July 2019)

I mention economic disparity here because during our meeting we talked of building connections with the half-built grand edifice next door. Turns out we were approached by the future occupants. The new building will be for “active seniors” who are “very wealthy”: having walls of mahogany, and —say it with a hushed French accent— a concierge. 

Right before we talked of this, we had been talking about raising membership rates for all of us except our senior citizens, because, as a director said, “On a fixed income, it’s brutal out there.” As it happens, some of us writers are starving artists, AND let’s face it, “disparity,” since the Reagan years, can be “the elephant in the room” that everyone is pretending to ignore. And pretending not to be gritting their teeth about. 

So I spoke up with enthusiasm: “Well, I’m an active senior. After I cook a bowl of ramen noodles I’m going to actively take it over there and eat it.” Laughter, much laughter.

Concept: Taking up the group’s time with a quick reference to an “elephant” is never out of order. Come to think of it, that’s why society needs its artists. To put paint onto invisible elephants. Again, my joke was for others, not “about me.” (Although I pass for being a senior because my hair has gone white—also, I’m in my sixties, past the age of senior-hood in the UK)

Fellow rebels, you may like a reminder: The harshest truths, of course, can only be told with humor. In the court of the Red Queen, only the jester may tell the truth and keep his head on his shoulders… 

Again, the role of artists, including writers, is relevant here: I once saw a communist movie, with English subtitles, where a painter, devalued and scorned, yelled, “You (society) need me!” Even under godless communism, or an oppressive Muslim theocracy, there needs to be art. 

In talking about our AWCS membership rates, some folks compared them to various comparable artist organizations. Well. Can you name any? I hated to be harsh, but I spoke up, “(oh, I don’t know,) If I was a writer, I wouldn’t know that the Writers Guild of Alberta charged a fee, and (lowering my voice sheepishly) I wouldn’t care.” Much laughter. The executive director spoke up that we could inform folks about other organizations and…

Concept: A quick funny one-liner can be a catalyst. As in getting the director talking. Once something has been said, a perspective unblocked, or an elephant made real, then people can say more on the subject, or at least have it in their awareness. Laughter often comes from surprise, and surprise often comes from something new, something that needs to be added to the group’s vocabulary.

I believe humor is a precision tool: firstly as a practical means to help a meeting be more productive; then secondly as a means to quality of life. As when meeting 

during a convention.

Last month I attended a weekend for readers and writers, When Words Collide. Events started Friday at 1:00 p.m. On Saturday morning I attended the very earliest Words seminar of the day, where an author, Adam Dreece, stood at the front to share his hard-won wisdom about independent marketing and publicity. Some of us had staggered in hung over, some still waking up. Dreece was a conscientious fellow, who made reference to us meeting so early, and hoping he was teaching OK. Early in his lecture he paused to ask: “Any questions or comments so far?”

I decided to be supportive: My hand went up. “A comment. This is the best seminar I’ve attended all day!” Laughter.

Dreece said, “That’s the second best compliment I’ve had all day!” Laughter. Then he took time to inform us that he got that “second best” line from the old spy comedy Get Smart, adding that when he was with his kids driving past a tourist monument such as a Ukrainian giant Easter egg, he would exclaim, “Wow, that’s the second biggest Easter egg I’ve ever seen!”

Concept: Before you do an “increase our quality of life” joke take time to do my special check-for-time gut check, (not patented) asking yourself, “Is is OK to use the group’s time for this?” The fact that Dreece would ‘take my contribution and run with it’ is proof I had judged correctly. Come to think of it, if you don’t know, from doing your gut check, whether or not you are “grounded” and “centred” and “genuinely moved to speak” then you probably aren’t: Stay silent, there’ll be other chances to contribute.

The seminar rolled on. I was sitting beside Minkee Robinson, who has been published in the same British anthology as I, The Baby Shoes Project, (Named for the tragic Hemingway story) Late in the seminar Minkee was part of our “audience participation,” with something intelligent to say. Sometimes I can be intelligent too, so right after Minkee I shot up my hand again. “Yes?”

I grinned widely. “The lady beside me says, ‘This is still the best seminar she’s been to all day!’” Laughter and clapping. Yes!

“That is the third best compliment I’ve had all day.” Laughter.

Note: Saying indirectly, “The lady beside me says…” besides being funny in itself, allowed for a second of suspense; good jokes have suspense before the punchline.

Concept: Laughter is increased if there is repetition, or—and this is a form of repetition—if there is a reference to something said earlier in the meeting. You find this at events where there is a quick series of good humored speakers who keep spontaneously referring to something an earlier speaker had said. Sometimes successive speakers can really keep a theme going: The fact that all this wit is improvised, “live before their very eyes,” adds to the crowd’s enjoyment.

That’s all I have for recent concrete examples. Any nerd wishing to learn to do group humor would do well to start with the concrete, and then move to  

the theory 

I would remind you, dear reader, that my 50% rule applies to things such as venting your spleen, expressing your pet peeve and putting yourself into the spotlight. Don’t-don’t-don’t use up a whole formal group’s time for your own private purpose. Your spleen will still be there when you retire with informal friends to the bar. 

If, say, “getting attention” is only a minor part of your motivation then you will be forgiven: I always am. But if you’re being too egotistical, as the flip side of being too needy, then it’s like showing fear before a dog. Folks at a formal meeting or seminar will notice, and they won’t be charitable. So first do the gut check for time, and for the 50% thing too.

In conclusion, to review my points… Actually, the theory right above is your conclusion. And you can review each of my points by looking for words in bold. 

But if you still want a final word, then OK, this I believe: 

At the formal group level, properly and precisely employed, humor helps us all… and thereby helps world peace. 

Sean Crawford

September,

High River

2019

Footnotes:

~The theory of using humor to help a group advance against stormy winds of fear is in my essay Kubrick and Work or Fear archived December 2016.

~Today’s essay was held back from September to allow space for posting War of the Worlds poetry and essay re-runs, such as last weeks Sarah Connor one. Why? Because I am still trying to free up my time to maybe begin to start to attempt to tackle the writing of fiction.

~ The weekend convention title is a pun on the old Philip Wylie novel, later made into a 1950’s black and white movie.

~We liked hearing Adam Dreece. I haven’t read any of his fiction yet, but I enjoyed his book Five Critical Things for Successful Book Signings. It’s about far, far more than signings.

~Minkee Robinson has a story soon to be published in a school reader. Ca-ching! She only found her acceptance letter because she checked her spam folder. Close call!

~Sometimes I answer people: “My hobby? Writing essays.” As I see their eyes begin drooping from boredom, I hasten to say” Not academic ones, not like school kids write…” Then their eyes open again. But if, dear reader, you like academic writing, and you have some cash to spend, then here you go, here is your link to an article called Meeting Mirth… an article that I don’t ever plan to read myself.

Fear and War of the Worlds

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got fear?

Never have I been a stressed entrepreneur, never have I looked like that wide-eyed cartoon fellow in bed on those late night commercials: Debts keeping you awake at night? 

The most I knew of fear, as an older civilian, was being a student: Term papers coming due and final exams looming, during a time when, back before I had learned to do all my schoolwork on campus, I might find myself, while at home, walking through molasses like the soldiers in Rudyard Kiplings poem who were temporarily sheltered behind a hill: (from memory)

And now the hugely bullets,

Come pecking through the dust,

And no one wants to face them,

But every body must,

So like a man in irons, 

Who doesn’t want to go,

They move them off by companies,

Uncommon stiff and slow.

As a civilian, even when doing public speaking, I would guess I was not so much afraid as very anxious. I can say this because earlier still, as a soldier, I was partnered with the real thing: Mr. Fear. He wears a black robe with a hood… During World War II an officer who served almost alone behind enemy lines in the jungle—while his father, a senior officer, was a Prisoner Of War of the Japanese—reflected on why his army training had been so scary. Simple: So that when you are in combat, the intense feelings will be familiar, rather than a complete surprise. Incidentally, he survived the war, and then found that his father, who used to bizarrely disrespect him, had to stop doing so.

By the way, my army buddies were not like Ernest Hemingway: We thought Earnest was a tad unreal. And hey, I fished in Hemingway’s river, in Europe! (We were forbidden to use our leave to go fishing back in North America, for obvious reasons)

I see I’m avoiding, looping around the topic of fear, like roaring PT boats on a looping approach to a battleship: (with a complete circle near the end) Forgive me, for as a true product of our society, this topic isn’t easy for me to come at directly. 

Years ago, standing in a campus library, too busy to sign the book out, I once opened the Pulitzer Prize winning book Tales of the South Pacific. I found, I imperfectly recall, a scene on the beach, in broad daylight, with young men who crew Patrol Torpedo boats. 

The young men—boys to us oldsters—are going out at night into harms way, crewing boats where the hull was not naval armour-grade steel, nor simple freighter steel, but only wood—nothing to protect them but their speed, using motors that run on extremely flammable aviation fuel. On the beach, a much older man, a respected construction worker, keeps saying how he wouldn’t like to be going out in those flimsy boats, not him, too scary, “you guys are crazy.” The young men don’t get angry—of course not. They laugh, and laugh hysterically, and bring him lots of beer. Because he is saying what society cannot say, what they cannot say. For they are young and life is sweet, but the night sea is vast.

What I want to say, however hard to admit, is this: Fear exists, and it has an effect. 

(For me, as a high metabolism skinny artistic guy, I know fear makes my brain confused—Hence the armed forces use highly repetitive training—not at all boring, not when you realize the alternative) 

I say this because as a society we don’t understand fear—we minimize it. But we shouldn’t.

In denying fear, we may also minimize lesser things like anxiety.

I was standing in a “special needs” home one Saturday, on a day when I was not working there; I had merely popped in for some reason. Virginia was an experienced worker at the home. That day she wanted to get her difficult client the heck out of the house, but—to where? She was stuck as to where he could safely go. So I suggested an appropriate idea. Then another. And another. Abruptly, poor Virginia looked so despairing, saying that I could come up with ideas, but she couldn’t. I remonstrated with her: “Vir-gin-ia, it’s not my shift! My brain is not squished down with responsibility like yours is.” 

I have no shame in saying “stress” or “pressure” or “discomfort” or “squished” when that is more helpful to my listener than saying “fear,” a word our society is just not ready for. But once I connect my “pressure” to, er, my “functioning level” at sports or work or everyday living, then I am able to cope much better. (Such as when taking penalty shots) As a manager I keep fear in mind. As a chairman in a big meeting, I will keep scanning the group for anxiety and fear—realizing that surely the group is not as conscious as I am, surely no one is going to say the F-word—and then I will take whatever measures are needed. (If only the group’s tasks were easy, then someone else could be the chairman) 

Back in college, I learned how to chair from My College Mentor (archived January 2019) And in college theatre class, we learned what it felt like to be relaxed on stage. How? By truly tensing our muscles to discern what the opposite of relaxation felt like. Of course, learning about the world’s stage, and gaining wisdom, is a process that takes time. My essay today is to remind myself and my readers that coming to appreciate fear is a process. I trust Virginia is more aware now.

This poem is when the narrator, who has joined up with his sisters, Janet and Susan, is commenting on life in the shadow of the Martians.

After the Martians Used Alien Warfare

Black Smoke,

left a dead and desolate land.

When Martian missiles arced overhead,

the birds were the first to fall.

Near the end,

the Martians had worked in the next valley.

At night we had often seen a fearsome glow.

One evening I saw their machines prowling on the ridgeline.

We lived in fear.

Death has passed us.

Now we putter around the old farmhouse.

In the drizzle this is truly November country,

leafless trees all wet and grey and black,

ground all wet and muddy with dead grass.

I’m cold and glum.

My soul is chill.

Janet’s lungs are wet,

and she sees glints like phantom mica.

Susan limps without complaint.

They enjoy the clouds and sunsets.

No birds to be seen.

No morning songs.

Janet coughs, “I miss the birds.”

Susan totters by without complaint.

She croaks that even before the Martians,

“The birds were doomed.”

Sean Crawford

Calgary

July

2019

Alienation and Isolation

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Can you keep a straight face?

As, with a fool’s overlarge smile, I proclaim, “I”m proud to be a member of society!” ?

Me neither.

Sometimes, out on the open highway, among fields or in mountain valleys, I have an interpretation: I sense a cluster of cars far ahead of me, a cluster far behind me, and here I am, no cluster, alone in my big bubble. Maybe it’s even true, I don’t know.

What I know is that at work or play, in various parts of society, my default is to see myself in a bubble of one: There’s everybody else, and then there’s me, different. And I know this default interpretation of mine is wrong. To reduce this concept to simple high school terms: Even the most popular cheerleader or confident student council member would nevertheless, on occasion be binary: “There’s all the other students, and there’s me, different.”

I only clued in when I was in high school myself, in tenth grade. That’s when my English teacher, Mr. Wong, one the very few teachers I still remember, had a semester long theme: Alienation and Isolation. Words that apply to not just hermits, but to all of us. I finished his class knowing that for years to come my temptation to lapse into my default of “Alienation and Isolation,” would remain, always and forever. All I can do is make such lapses fewer and fewer, by using my intellect and fierce self discipline: I will tell myself, “Don’t be silly,” as often as necessary.

Because Alienation and Isolation are a natural universal things, it is easy to write poems and popular songs around them, and these we took in Mr. Wong’s class. As for songs, Sounds of Silence was one. I am a rock was another. Both are by Simon and Garfunckle. Average people who never abuse alcohol could relate to Johnny Cash as the alcoholic singing Sunday Morning Coming Down. As for poems, from Mr. Wong we took a poem about being in fog, another about a boy amongst conformity who committed suicide, and another about a citizen with a number for a name, which ended, 

“Was he happy?

The question is absurd.

Had anything been wrong,

we most certainly would have heard.”

What we can never hear is the sound of folks collapsing into their default.

For me, the default seems to click in when I am Hungry, “Angsty,” Lonely or Tired. HALT. Self-discipline helps, as does a sense of humor. I suppose typical student angst (unfocused fear of the state of the world) is first cousin to Alienation. As it happens, the “A” in HALT commonly stands for Angry. (HALT can be a warning signal for misuse of gambling, a substance or sex)

How silly I was as I first arrived, alone in Calgary, when I viewed the glass elevators and futuristic elevated glass tunnels as being only for “those real Calgarians,” not me, as I humbly stayed down on the sidewalk. I think if I was a “new Canadian,” then it would be easy to see the community as {(real immigrants + real natives) and little old me.}

That sort of thinking would be both normal and silly. Better to do whatever it takes: Play music, read poems, volunteer with high school students, anything, rather than be so mistaken.

Sean Crawford

Spring

2019

Footnotes:

~The Calgary tunnels, like so many gerbil tubes, are to beat the cold. Called the “plus 15” (elevation) system. In Edmonton they have the “pedway.” In Houston, someone told me, they put their tunnels underground to beat their fierce heat.

~I’m thinking today of “social isolates”: Surely they are conflicted between wanting community and wanting to be alone. Here is a passage about the hero in Lee Child’s mystery-thriller The Hard Way, page 2:

QUOTE

 That put him against the cafe’s outside wall and left him looking east, across the sidewalk and the width of the avenue. He liked to sit outside in the summer, in New York City. Especially at night. He liked the electric darkness and the hot dirty air and the blasts of noisy traffic and the manic barking sirens and the crush of people. It helped a lonely man feel connected and isolated both at the same time.

UNQUOTE 

~Here’s a link to a warm fuzzy story behind that unhappy Sunday sidewalk song.

~Here’s a link to a fan video for the song I Am a Rock on Youtube.

~Here’s a link to a nice post, inviting the reader to feel “yes” and a sense of community, from February 2019 about how writing on her blog would “hold memories” and “change perception of time” and “extend time.” Well expressed. I couldn’t comment on it myself, because the comment thingy would not take my URL, but you may have better luck.

Update: I FOUND A QUOTE, from the Wall Street Journal bestseller by Cait Flanders, The Year of Less, page 82, regarding the first staff Christmas party she had attended while into sobriety:

QUOTE

I bought a new turquoise dress and a pair of black patent leather heels. This is what twenty-eight-year old women should wear at parties, I thought when I tried the dress on in the store. When I walked into the party, however, I felt like I was the only person pretending to be a grown-up in a room of actual grown-ups. Everyone was drinking and laughing and falling over, and yet looked beautifully put together. I wasn’t drinking and I didn’t feel at all like myself in that outfit. I knew then that I did not fit in here anymore. I spent the majority of the party hanging out in the kitchen with a few friends, looking over their shoulders and feeling jealous about how much fun everyone was having without me.

UNQUOTE

One might tell me she was perfectly correct that year to feel like a minority one, yet the very next year…

QUOTE

…I wasn’t exactly thrilled about being the only sober person in the room, but I was excited to spend time with everyone, especially the core six. I tried to mingle with some of the new members of the team, but it was not my strong suit anymore…

UNQUOTE

My conclusion, dear reader, is that what had changed in the year between the two parties, was not outer reality but her inner attitude at feeling equal and the same… an attitude within everyone’s control. 

Brave Reservists and Martians

essaysbysean.blogspot.com 

Headnote: I meant this piece to follow right after my Korean War post in March, called Christmas and Brine, but Brexit overtook me.

Hello Reader,

Got reservists?

Last week I sympathized with soldiers, so let’s keep to that theme. The young man I knew, in the background when I visited his parents, was a reservist, K.I.A.: I grieved hard for his folks. 

To me, the special thing about reservists is no one is truly forcing them to be there; That, and how as volunteers they are “bright eyed and bushy tailed,” uncynical, not merely doing “a job.”  To my knowledge, this is true for the UK, Canada and the Commonwealth ANZAC nations, but maybe not for the modern USA. Of the latter, I only know that I once spent a long desperate night with a US major (story for another time) who told me it took months to get his reservists up to a good standard. Then again, this was back in the 1970’s and his guys were not lily-white volunteers: By being reservists, they were exempt from going to Vietnam. 

Is reserve training too hard? Put it this way: I once knew a long haired teenager, in a legion marching band, who complained about having to hold his instrument up to his chin before they marched off. I was trying to understand such people during a thoughtful conversation with my base chaplain, an older man with a buzz cut. First thought: Both my chaplain and I mused: “He was only there because the band was going to go to Germany.”

Second thought: The chaplain asked, “What instrument did he play?” 

“The cymbals.”

The older soldier gave me a serious look and said, “There’s the answer: He wasn’t motivated. If he had been, then the discipline would not have seemed too hard.” 

So now that’s my answer as to whether the reserves are too hard too hard: If you are motivated, and see the training as part of carrying out the mission, then it will feel appropriate.

… In the novel War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, the casualty rate among the regular units who face the Martians is nearly 100 per cent. In my poems the situation is like the Jurassic Park movies: You survive by not encountering the dinosaurs. 

On my blog, I am reprinting my poetry manuscript out of order. These next two poems are from when the Martians have passed on leaving the land depopulated, the economy in shambles. The narrator has two sisters, Janet and Susan.

Spotless Equipment

Make sure your equipment is spotless

said the middle aged dentist,

the stout factory foreman,

and the eager young postal clerk.

Make sure your equipment is spotless

said the colonel, 

the sergeant-major, 

and the corporal.

As civilians and reservists,

for the duration of these strange times, 

their old jobs had swirled away like dead leaves.

In civilian jobs folks can be slack: Not now.

These leaders wanted clean equipment

for a sharp mind 

in a sound body.

Their brothers in arms 

had been burned up,

gassed down, 

blasted to bits.

Their own survival was chance, 

nothing more than chance.

Comrades once on the dole, 

comrades once with grunt-jobs,

had a sharp role in this gasping world.

Now they lived with utter commitment.

Feed the wretched,

bridge the rivers, 

clear the roads.

Keep your equipment spotless.

They remember their old life 

like Tarzan remembers Lord Greystoke,

a life of gentleness and goals.

Now they live in the rough present,

surrounded by khaki,

half crude soldier and half Boy Scout.

And if

perchance

the Martians advance again,

run like hell

in an orderly fashion.

There’s no chance for slackers or heroes

When the Martians come.

At the Crossroads

At a crossroads stands the ruins

of a former general store and post office.

Here, the brush and bracken 

are being cleared by “the Tommies.”

Mostly the soldiers are young.

Some are old,

and all were cheerful reservists, together.

Now they don’t have much of a life,

 living here are at the crossroads. 

Now their days are spent handing out warehouse food,

and digging latrines and drainage ditches in the rain.

In ponchos of grey they dig and dig,

complain and joke,

and dig their ditches straight and true.

When Janet and Susan smile,

the Tommies feel warmer and dryer.

Says the ginger haired one, 

“I keep getting letters from a Las Vegas showgirl;

I told her to come here and meet you ladies.”

The royal mail had ended long ago.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

2019

Footnote: Ah, the “manpower-firepower ratio.” 

If I was a time traveler, and came across a moustachioed serviceman, from the days of horses, arguing about whether modern weapons would ruin the spirit of war, I would tell him this ratio is eternal. An Australian history professor who’s name escapes me found the ratio is 20%  no matter if the casualties come machine-swift or bayonet slow. At “20% casualty rate” defending troops will be broken in spirit; on open ground they will break and run… Homer, at the walls of Troy, described runners being mown down “like sheep before wolves.”