re. Zion, reading, and sheepdogs

Awe­some, I’m stoked to meet him.  I’m look­ing for­ward to the Zion trip, I’m going to have to break off from the Indoc course for a day or so but that should­n’t be a big deal.  I’m think­ing about build­ing an (ama­teur, I know) wood bed/rack for the truck until I fig­ure out exact­ly what I’m going to do.  Look­ing for­ward to talk­ing with **** both at the Games and in Zion.

I haven’t read “On Com­bat”, still fin­ish­ing Blood and Thun­der.  It’s my bed­time book, so I’m only knock­ing out a few pages a day.  Not sure what’s up next on the read­ing list, prob­a­bly a good trav­el book about a guy and his dog.

The Games are upon us, so next week is major cook­ie mak­ing time, then a long dri­ve up to Aromas.

Also, I think I told you already, when I get back from the Games I’m going to set a date to speak with some local SD SWAT guys re. Min­dEx stuff; I’ll talk to **** (do you know him) when I get back about squar­ing that away.  Very excit­ed about that, it will open up all kinds of doors.

Re. the sheep­dog stuff:  I like it and under­stand it, and I can real­ly see how it res­onates with many of the guys we both know.  I think there’s a cat­e­go­ry that’s miss­ing.  I don’t see myself (along with a few oth­er peo­ple) as a sheep, sheep­dog, or wolf.  I mean, is Bil­ly the Indi­an school guy a sheep?  A sheep­dog?  A wolf?

I’m not super inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing oth­er folks, but am very keen on being inde­pen­dent and ready for the wolf when he comes slip­ping past the wire, more with what’s at hand than any spe­cif­ic instru­ment.  Is that blind­ness or denial?  Are you real­ly a sheep when you don’t have a gun?

“if you want to be a sheep­dog and walk the war­rior’s path, then you must make a con­scious and moral deci­sion every day to ded­i­cate, equip and pre­pare your­self to thrive in that tox­ic, cor­ro­sive moment when the wolf comes knock­ing at the door.”  ‑DG

I’ll tell you this; I feel more like a loose­ly inde­pen­dent fer­al sono­fabitch that has friends in all tribes, and I’m real hap­py with how I live.  I’ve got a great wife and part­ner, two good dogs, and the means to always make a liv­ing with­in my head and my heart.  I don’t feel a need to car­ry a gun, and I don’t see the val­ue in pin­ning my iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (even in a small part) on being a pro­tec­tor.  Maybe I’ve been com­post­ing my own shit too long, but I’d like to see some more gar­den­ers, or shep­herds, or wild and kind humans.  Folks with­out maybe the agili­ty or nat­ur­al weapons of a sheep­dog or wolf, but who use their minds to do many more things than tend a flock of veg­e­tar­i­ans.  Was Gand­hi a sheep?  A sheep­dog?  Hell, he was a wolf to the Eng­lish, and a war­rior to his core, but not in a way that fits into Gross­man­’s categories.

“But if you are autho­rized to car­ry a weapon, and you walk out­side with­out it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself…

“Baa.” ‑DG

Maybe he meant a weapon beyond the sense of a gun, or knife, but I don’t think so.  I think this is the kind of think­ing that holds us in sta­sis; we move nei­ther for­ward nor back­ward.  We still have wolves and we still have bad ass sheep­dogs.  It is damnably excit­ing to be a sheep­dog (or a wolf), but it’s drain­ing too.  Even Gross­man says it; you can’t be a sheep­dog 24/7.  Well, then who the heck are you?

How do we move into a soci­ety where we don’t need as many sheep­dogs?  How do we cre­ate a soci­ety that is not one of sheep, or sheep­dogs, but maybe some­thing that wolves avoid…going with the ani­mal exam­ple, why not bears?  They keep them­selves to them­selves, they eat just about any­thing they can catch, and a sane wolf stays the hell away from them.

None of that is a judg­ment on how you live; I like what you do and I’m damn thank­ful for cops and sol­diers; being a sheep­dog is a good, hon­or­able, dif­fi­cult job where you have to make deci­sions every day about a line I’ll hope­ful­ly nev­er cross.

I just feel that we’ve got a lot more dis­cus­sion ahead of us before we make a 3 way split in what defines, even in a small way, a per­son.  I see such poten­tial for mak­ing shep­herds out of sheep­dogs, some­thing I thought of (although not by the sheep/dog/wolf def­i­n­i­tion) as a long-term goal for kyk13.

Hell, re-read­ing that I can see maybe I’m tak­ing it too lit­er­al­ly (or per­son­al­ly).  I do want to make clear that I like sheep, sheep­dogs, and even the occa­sion­al wolf, and I see a place for all of them as well as a few more ani­mals in a good and healthy eco-sys­tem.  Look­ing for­ward to more dis­cus­sion when we meet again in the flesh.

Ok for now,
Nik