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I love history. It can tell us so much. While others in my school were falling asleep during class, I was getting in and diving deep. I spent my time learning, and researching and enjoying everything that history could tell us. I just loved it.
Alas, it’s not a great way to “put food on the table”. So I migrated to other classes and other studies. Yet, still, history remains a great love of mine.
In particular, the history of “empires before the fall” is of great interest.
I love to read about peoples who blindly “walked” into their very own destruction. Sometimes it was a cocky group of 20,000 knights in state-of-the-art shiny metal armor riding horses to meet 750,000 battle-trained, aggressive Mongol warriors. (Hint: It was a slaughter.) While at other times, it was the corrupt elites living high and well, inside their palaces while unease murmured in the poorer strata of society. (Hint: it did involve death and torture.)
Here we look at ancient Syria.
In a “blink of an eye” the major cities of Syria went from highly developed and prosperous communities, with art and literature, and sustained profitable commerce…
… to a land without written language, epic buildings, or any levels of prosperity. It went feral. The society turned to fallow.
What happened?
This is a reprint of an article titled “The Elites Were Living High. Then Came the Fall.” written on May 11, 2020 in dunyu News, Opinion . Annalee Newitz (@annaleen), a science journalist and contributing opinion writer, is the author of the forthcoming “Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age.” This article was edited to fit this venue, and all credit to the original authors.
About 3,190 years ago, a merchant in Emar, a trading outpost in what is now northern Syria, sent a desperate letter to his boss, Urtenu, who lived in the rich metropolis of Ugarit, a city-state on the coast of Syria. “There is famine,” he wrote. “If you do not quickly arrive here, we ourselves will die of hunger.”
The city Ugarit is shown with a yellow arrow pointing to it. It the city on the blue territory of the Hittite Empire, on the coast. It was one of the major cities of the time. All indicated by yellow arrows. (Troy, in Greece. Ur, in Babylon, and Mari.)
A long drought had left the hinterlands around Ugarit in a state of famine, wars were brewing, and there were likely plagues as well. Urtenu may not have realized it, but he was living through the last years of two wealthy cities, Ugarit and Mycenae, that dominated the eastern Mediterranean Sea during what historians call the Bronze Age, from roughly 3000 to 1200 B.C.E.
More than a thousand years before the Greeks invented democracy and the Romans undermined it with imperialism, these city-states of the Bronze Age laid the foundations for what is often called Western civilization. Homer recorded the myths of the Bronze Age in “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” and carved stone inscriptions of the pharaohs Hatshepsut and Thutmose III record the machinations of the Bronze Age elites. Although the rulers of the Bronze Age sometimes went to war, the true source of their power, like that of today’s biggest cities, was economic power secured through trade. The final decades of Ugarit and Mycenae tell us a lot about why cities fail — and who survives amid the ashes.
The “Bronze Age” lasted from around 3000 BC to around 1200 BC. Those cities that profited during this period experienced a long series of wars, upsets and famines at this time.
Ugarit and the Greek city-state of Mycenae were two of the most prosperous kingdoms in a thriving international economy that grew along coastal trade routes linking today’s Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Their markets sold everything from imported olive oil to local grain, while artisans crafted sculptures and weapons from the metal alloy that gave this period its name. Made with tin from Afghanistan and copper from Crete, bronze was the ultimate achievement of long-distance trade as well as technical know-how.
Temple of Baal in Ugarit.
But the Bronze Age was also a time of extreme inequality.
Cities were ruled by wealthy urban aristocrats who controlled trade, relied on various kinds of forced labor, and placed heavy tax burdens on their client states and agricultural villages. When times got hard, the commoners in Ugarit and Mycenae felt the squeeze.
Historians and archaeologists don’t know all the reasons these cities collapsed. But there is evidence that both burned to the ground in the 1100s B.C.E., their sumptuous palaces toppled and abandoned. (There are signs of earthquakes, too.)
For centuries after these events, there are almost no written records. It was as if literacy and culture evaporated along with the kingdoms themselves.
The Spearmen of the Hittite Army.
Until recently, historians blamed this collapse on marauders known as the Sea People. Supposedly these Sea People sacked the cities, leaving the once-great kingdoms of the Mediterranean to be menaced by pirates or worse.
New research has challenged this whole story.
Eric Cline, a classicist at George Washington University and author of “1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed,” explained that there’s no evidence of invaders coming from the outside at Mycenae, so violence must have come from within.
If revolution came from within the cities, then we can well expect the military and the police to round up dissidents and provide hefty fees and punishments.
Given what’s known about these societies, he concludes that the city’s lower classes may have gotten fed up and just burned it all down.
Josephine Quinn, an archaeologist at University of Oxford, agrees. “The whole Bronze Age system produces a lot of discontent,” she told me.
Mr. Cline and Ms. Quinn’s work puts the achievements of the Bronze Age in a new light. The kings of Mycenae and Ugarit worked hand-in-hand with the wealthiest merchants to get rich. They consolidated economic and political power, to stamp out competition from smaller city-states or independent merchants.
Mr. Cline described a letter from an Ugarit merchant named Sinaranu, who reported that he didn’t have to pay any import tax when his boats returned from Crete loaded up with grain, beer and olive oil. Apparently, tax breaks for the rich are one of the oldest tricks ever invented by the ruling class.
We know what went on in the region by the written records left behind prior to the fall of the empire.
When their cities were swallowed by fire, the Bronze Age ruling classes lost everything, including the subjects they once controlled.
Greece’s population dropped by roughly 50 percent during this time, probably because of a combination of war, drought and migration, according to Sarah Murray, a classics professor at the University of Toronto and author of “The Collapse of the Mycenaean Economy.” Mr. Cline believes that plagues may have driven people into the hinterlands, too.
Still, it’s unlikely that many of these people missed the old ways. “Were they ever concerned about whether the king was adequately supplied with fancy jewelry and ostrich eggs from Egypt?” Ms. Murray asked. “I’d bet that they were not. If anything, the demise of the palaces could have made life easier for them.”
After the uprisings, the Mediterranean was no longer dominated by cities like Ugarit and Mycenae.
Things were different during the Bronze Age. The earth was greener, the air purer, and people lived a pleasant pastoral life.
Smaller cities such as Tyre and Sidon, which still stand in Lebanon today, emerged from the Bronze Age unscathed and became centers of culture in the region. It was as if the fall of New York and San Francisco left room for Philadelphia and Oakland to take up the slack.
The merchants of Tyre and Sidon thrived in this new world. They were local business owners with no formal affiliations or political ties. With the collapse of the old kingdoms, they had the freedom to sail unknown seas. Tyre’s traders ventured much further than the representatives of Ugarit ever had, and settled in the territory that became Spain, Morocco and Tunisia.
During the Bronze Age, cities grew. People became prosperous. Rich people emerged and they became powerful. They eventually used their power and wealth to control others.
In other words, the demise of Bronze Age civilization was not an all-out collapse. More accurately, it transformed the nature of political power in cities. Instead of a rigid, international power structure that controlled the whole eastern Mediterranean, there were local governments for each city-state.
One of the reasons historians call this transition period a “collapse” is that writing all but disappeared.
Ms. Quinn said that may have been another sign of the anti-state protests. The kings of Ugarit and Mycenae kept a tight leash on their client states by using written records to track their wealth and levy taxes. Farmers and merchants, she said, might have stopped writing things down to evade the kings’ control.
Writing was important for commerce. How could you conduct trade or commerce over multiple borders? The collapse of all writing implies a collapse of cities, as well as education, and of course, commerce.
Writing returned to the region a few centuries after the fall of Ugarit, thanks to traders from Tyre and other independent cities. They used a form of writing that was phonetic, based on sounds rather than logographs like Egyptian hieroglyphs. This script, dubbed Phoenician, was easy to learn, easy to adapt to local languages, and became the basis for the modern Roman alphabet we use today.
As we live through what could be the first big cataclysm of the third millennium, the people of the late Bronze Age have something to teach us.
“Invest in the local community, because no matter who is in charge at the top, local business are likely to survive,” said Ms. Quinn.
Of course, she added, the ultrarich companies will survive, too.
The biggest traders of Ugarit didn’t disappear, because they had political connections in the surviving cities like Tyre. Their fancy homes may have burned down, but they could afford to buy new ones.
Typical Bronze Age farming community in the region.
Will we face a violent uprising in the wake of economic collapse?
Perhaps, but today’s 1 percent might not suffer the way Bronze Age kings did. For one thing, local trade networks are no longer as robust as the ones that existed in 1000 B.C.E., when merchants from Tyre traded with nearby villages, who then traded with other neighboring towns.
“We really have demolished local manufacturing and supply systems,” Ms. Murray said. “It is a bit sad to reflect on the contrast between the Bronze Age case, in which a few elites bore the brunt of the suffering.”
During the collapse of the Bronze Age, those with strong local connections and relationships survived. It is those that made things, or provided a tangible service that survived the complete collapse of civilization during the Bronze Age.
These days, local traders and small towns depend on international supply chains as much as the kings of Ugarit did. One thing remains certain. Our survival still depends on sustainable local networks, and not tax breaks granted by kings.
Conclusion
The collapse of the Bronze Age was a significant collapse of society. It had many contributors. Much of which was apparently instigated by the wealthiest and most powerful of the day. The end result was a collapse of society on all levels.
This included a collapse of commerce, city and urban life, writing and education. What followed was a quiet time that was not recorded. Whether this was a dangerous and barbaric time, or something more peaceful, we do not know.
These kinds of events happen throughout history. We owe it to ourselves to strengthen our local regional relationships, and become skilled in practical physical construction, farming or services. Just because societal collapse is an infrequent event, does not mean that it does not happen. It does.
Be alert and know your neighbors.
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I have more, similar articles, along this line in my SHTF Index, here…
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Here is the advice that I would give myself when I turned 25 years of age. It is the advice I would give my younger self after attending the school of “hard knocks” for around four decades or so. Back then, I had just got married to my first wife. The world was wide open to me. I was poor, but very hopeful. As were both of us.
Now, in my 60’s, I look back at my life. I look at the mistakes that I made, I look at the assumptions that I had, and I see how they affected the life that lived. If I had a time machine, and go back four or so decades, what would I tell myself?
What would I tell myself to do differently in the early years of the Ronald Reagan administration? What would I advise myself to do, and not to do?
Would I tell myself “buy as much Microsoft, McDonalds stock as you possibly can”? Or, would I advise something different? Would I concentrate on obtaining huge sums of money or would I concentrate on happiness?
Truthfully. I think that I would advise happiness over money.
Ah… Back then…
Well, like most people of the “boomer” generation, we were taught that if you applied yourself that you would get a “great job”, and the company would take care of you for the rest of your life. We believed then, laughingly so, that we would get a pension. And, that our retirement years would be fully funded by both the social security system and the pensions from our employer(s).
What a laugh!
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Here is the Career Advice that I would give my 25 year old self. And, for starters, the very first and most important lesson that I would give would be this…
[1] Be your own boss. Working for someone else sucks.
All my life, at home, at school, in the boy-scouts, and at the jobs that I worked, I was constantly told that I must “work hard”, so that I can reap the rewards of being a loyal employee. I could get all the “perks” of management. I could get bonuses, extra vacation time. I could get a generous pension, and the pride that is instilled by being a “loyal” worker.
Nonsense. Not one employer valued my labors appropriately. Not one.
Hey! That E-ETRESS device in every single General Motors vehicle, you know the one… this disables the car by remote control via satellite. Yeah, well I was the fella what designed it. I was the project manager and that little baby was mine.
This little puppy was easily worth millions to GM, and I am sure helped them get millions of dollars in military and government contracts as well. Don’t tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I was also involved in contract negotiations regarding it.
Hey! What did I get?
What did I get for all the long nights, and working “unpaid overtime”? What did I get for my innovations, my organization, my contribution? What did the company reward me with?
I got a ball-point pen that said “Success is a way of life”.
Here’s some inspirational ball-point pens. The one that I got from GM was similar to this, only with a different saying and color scheme. And, I only received one pen. American companies will prefer to give out cheap gifts than to pay for innovation and effort.
Once the program was finished, I was let go.
This is what many companies do with their high-end technical experts. They "pull a NASA". (Referring to the mass layoff of about 90% of the "Rocket Scientists" by Tricky Dickie when he killed the Apollo Moon Exploration Program in the early 1970's.)
It happened on a Friday, about five minutes after I had my coat on and walking out the door. My manager ran up after me and asked me to walk with him to the HR office. I was told to hand in my badge. I wasn’t even permitted to go up and clean out my desk. The security staff did it for me.
I didn’t even get a severance package.
I was given a piece of paper that simply said that they would not contest my unemployment benefits.
(I had unknowingly trained my replacement(s). These were cheaper foreign H1B visa engineers out of India.)
This would of course ONLY happen as long as I agreed to leave quietly and not divulge anything that I knew to a competitor (for five years).
The NDA (Non-Disclosure / Compete Agreement) is a staple in the industry. It is used to silence employees and control what they do once they leave a company.
Living paycheck to paycheck sucks. You take what you need to take.
Working for someone during this time was one of scrambling to find a new job while your saving depletes. Then scurrying to learn the new job requirements, doing your best, and completing your project. Then, rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Different companies, same story. In one, I was given an award for the “Most Valuable Employee” and had my picture taken and put into the newspaper. The day the paper hit the streets, I was let go. In another, while everyone gathering the pot-luck lunch for Christmas eve, my boss took me to his office and let me go. I didn’t even get a chance to eat with everyone else, and the dish that the tuna casserole that I brought in was never returned.
This was my story from the 1980’s into the first decade of this new century. It wasn’t until I started working for companies based outside of America did I start being treated like a valuable human again. In the USA, there are no employee protections. No matter what the law says. Functionally there are no protections.
Your experience might be different. I hear that companies in California care about their employees. They give them all kinds of "perks" to show their affection towards the staff. Like ping-pong tables, free sodas, and caramel latte coffees every morning with whole-wheat buttered toast with vegetarian spreads and guacamole.
Meanwhile, outside the USA, it is quite different.
Here is how Chinese companies reward high performers. They give them cold hard cash as tax-free bonuses. Those little bundles that she is handling out is around $12,000 USD to each person. The last time I received a bonus was when I was working in the coal mines. At that time it was equal to two weeks salary. Today, I never hear of American companies giving out year-end bonuses.
Watch. You’ll see the Chinese companies eat American companies alive. You can’t compete when you treat your star performers as disposable fast food containers.
The lesson here is simple. The only way that you can control your life is by yourself. Never. Never. NEVER expect a boss to give a rat’s ass about your life, your efforts, or your contributions. Be the boss or be a worker. There is no in-between.
Working for someone else is what losers do. A real man is his own boss. For it is better to be the boss of your tiny $5 empire, than to prostitute yourself for table scraps.
[1.5] Don’t expect to become rich overnight.
It’s not going to happen. Here’s a great article on this subject. Read it, but don’t get discouraged.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you. They are deceiving you for their very own personal gain. You will need to learn and experience some failures first. It’s how the system works.
So…
[2] Have Patience.
You need to go at your speed to achieve your goals. That is, more often nothing approaching “light-speed”.
Do not let your perceptions about the lifestyles of others force you to speed up or rush. It does not matter is people are getting rich off of “junk bonds” or “bit coin”. It’s none of your business if the Savings and Loans are making money hand over fist. Nor it it your business if your neighbor bought a new pick-up. Life is not a competition against others.
Life is not a competition.
All through school you are educated to compete against your classmates. Grades are put on a bell-shaped curve, and you need to be on the top of the curve to make a great life for yourself.
Nonsense.
Your life is controlled by your thoughts, actions and deeds. Be yourself, exactly as you are, and let the rest of the world burn in flames. It’s none of your business.
You be true to yourself, your family and your friends. The rest of the world can worry about the boy-scouts becoming the queer scouts. The rest of the world can worry about pleasing the boss. You have more important things on your mind. You have a life, live it well.
You have a life. It’s a short one. Live it well.
[3] When an Opportunity Comes – Take it, and don’t look back.
Opportunities do not come often, and yet when they do come, we find ourselves questioning ourselves. Don’t.
Stop. Make a full stop right here and right now. Listen to me. The best things that I have ever experienced in my life came when I took the opportunity that was presented to me.
Don’t be the old man who wishes that he would have gone out with the pretty girl who desperately wanted to eat pizza with him. Don’t be the sad loser who complains about the time when he should have invested in the “Cracker Barrel” restaurant chain or “Apple computers” when he had the chance. Don’t be the old man still talking about the “good old days” when he was the star quarterback in High School.
The difference between you and everyone else; the difference between a magnificent man, and an “average Joe” is one of degree. If you always take the safe road, the road that everyone else travels, then you will be…
Well, you will be just like everyone else.
When an opportunity comes, take it! Don’t look back. Grab it by the horns and give it every single ounce of energy that you have. Fight for your dream. Fight for the opportunity. Make your dreams happen. The spotlight is on you. Take the opportunity and ride it to personal perfection.
[4] Most success is through constant dedication and repetition.
You need to get good at something first, then expand on it. You just can’t go jumping from one project to the next. Pick ONE. Pick only one project and work at it. Work at it every day, constantly and tirelessly. Maybe your initial tries will be failures, but eventually you will become good enough at it.
This might mean long days, and long nights.
If you happen to have a “green thumb”, then keep at it. Learn about plants. Enjoy the soil, the nutrients and the joys of harvesting. If you happen to be employed flipping burgers, then be the best Gawd darn burger flipper in the industry. Flip those burgers over and over.
It doesn’t matter if your are making furniture in your home shop, or designing a computer system for the next stellar probe. Be the best at what you do. Keep at it, and don’t jump around. Many times you will be alone. Many times you will live a life that you “didn’t sign up for”. It doesn’t matter.
Plow forward. Never give up.
[5] Don’t get all caught up in having a “career”
Once you are fresh out of the military or out of school, you start to work “on your career”. Trust me, there’s nothing all that great about having a career.
Yes, there is a difference between a “career” and a “job”. A career is more like a ladder that you build upon, year after year. A job is a one-shot deal for exchanging your time for money.
The problem is that 90% of the managers and bosses in the United States will treat you as an employee working at a job (for them). While there will be some lip service given to “educational advancement”, it’s for the most part, just lip-service. What they really care about is whether or not you can provide a service for them at the lowest price possible. If they can get it done cheaper, without too much risk, they will replace you.
Thus, in the big picture, a career is just another word for a job.
The end game isn’t about all the degrees you have; all the certifications you carry, the patents you have or the papers your wrote. It doesn’t matter if you have twenty five years experience in designing windshield wipers for automobiles, or being an expert in the setting up of strip malls.
None of that matters.
What does matter is YOU. What does matter is your family. What does matter are your friends.
Never neglect your family, your friends, and most importantly, your health for a job, a career or a boss.
I had my first (and hopefully my last) heart attack when I was 35 years old. I worked in Shreveport, Louisiana for a tyrannical manager who placed impossible goals on all of us. His belief (quite popular at the time, and well-promoted in the professional media) was if you place an impossible goal, the workers will strive to attain it.
The only thing is, the goals really were physically impossible. And failure meant being fired.
You can scream and moan. You can threaten and cajole. You can throw chairs around in the conference room, and demand that people work until 10pm at night. None of that is going to change the fact that it physically takes a finite amount of time to hog out a plastic injection tool made out of P3 steel. Machines can only run so fast.
Now, here’s my little story.
At the time I was rushing, like everyone else to make the end of week mandatory meeting at 6pm. (These things lasted from one to three hours long, and were every Friday. We would finish the meeting, and then we would drag our asses back home at 9pm or so to our families. We would eat reheated supper plates in the microwave and then turn in from exhaustion.)
The manager insisted that the door to the meeting room be locked, and if you can’t make the meeting, a black mark was placed near your name. You didn’t want a black mark. Bad things happened to people with black marks.
At that time, I was involved a a pretty tricky reverse engineering of an electric powdered chainsaw, with an impossible implementation time line. As I was scrambling to leave the machine shop after working on a prototype, I suddenly felt like some giant pulled a string out of my heart. I collapsed on the floor and could not get my breath. I’ll never forget that feeling, and it scared the living shit out of me.
I went home. Went to the hospital during the weekend, and discovered that my heart was damaged by the attack. The doctor gave me some pills, and told me to take it easier, and do all the rest. yada yada yada. I rested up and then showed up for work on Monday as usual.
On Monday, when I came into work, the manager called me in his office and reamed me up and down. He even called in other co-workers to agree with him and this party of four people belittled me for hours. A weaker man would have given up. He would have said “Fuck it!”, and left.
But I had a sick wife. I could not afford to quit the job. So I stuck on.
All this being said. It was my fault for walking into this situation and dealing with it. There were other options that I could, and maybe should, have taken. But I didn’t take the alternatives. I thought that I could persevere and work everything out. I was wrong.
Don’t be like me. Prioritize you life, and no not allow anything to distract from your priorities.
You come first. Be healthy. You need to be physically, emotional, socially, and spiritually fit.
Family comes next. Take care of your immediate family, and then make sure that your secondary family members are not neglected.
Friends come after that. We are not lone wolves. We need community, church and friends. Cherish and cultivate these relationships. They are more important than we tend to realize.
Never forget what friends are for…
Never Forget What Friends are For.
Prioritize the people in your life. Cherish and respect their importance. Take care of them, and they, in turn, will take care of you. We are not alone in the wilderness, we are part of a community. Take on and fulfill that role.
[6] Lunches are your time. Make them count.
Over the years, I have eaten a lifetime supply of fast food for lunch and then would sit in the car listening to the EIB network on the radio. I would drive the car to a shady spot, Eat my burger and fries. I would drink my cola and chill out.
I was wasting my time.
Life is too short to waste on fast food, or sub-standard meals. This is true whether it is a bag lunch made out of baloney sandwiches, or a fast food meal. Don’t skimp on YOUR time.
For lunch is YOUR time. Yes, I know that there are companies that insist that you “train” during lunches (like a few that I worked in while I lived in Boston), but this time is yours. Use it wisely.
Life is too short to eat substandard food.
One thing that I have learned over the years is that other nations don’t rush and wolf down fast food in order to come back after lunch on time. They take their time. They spend time with friends, co-workers or family. They take naps, and even drink and smoke during lunch.
Yeah. Imagine that!
Enjoy life more.
Up until the 1970’s many American companies provided a free lunch to their workers. The workers could either eat at the company cafeteria or go out and get a bite at a local restaurant or bar. This was very common at the steel mills in Pittsburgh.
Then during the 1980’s many companies shut down or relocated to the Southern states. When they relocated, they cut out or severely curtailed the lunches that they provided. Additionally, they cut down the length of time for lunch. It went from two hours to one hour, and in many cases to a half an hour. It is no surprise that as companies reduced their lunch breaks, that there was a corresponding rise in the popularity of fast food establishments.
And, with the increase in fast food restaurants, and their diets, came an increase in national obesity. I guess that you could easily show a link between American’s diet and health problems and the degradation of the way workers were treated by companies
So, now you know.
Take care of yourself. Lunch is your time. Make it count. Have a good healthy meal, relax and rest. Instead of rushing about… Go to a restaurant. Order the special. Sit down. Relax. The food will be delivered to you and savor it. Then once you are finished, go to your car and take a nap for the remainder of your lunch break. Rest. This is your time. Never forget that.
[7] Things will always end
My father tried to tell me this when I was enduring a particularly bad low point in my life. Yet, it is true. No matter how bad things are, they will eventually change around. Yes, it might take years, and for some…decades, but they will turn around. The most important thing to realize is that you, as a man, must keep slugging though the storm.
This can mean a difficult day at the office, or a marriage that is on a bumpy road down hill. It can mean anything, but it is true. Our thoughts and our actions will eventually reach a point where they will say “enough is enough!”, and it will start to dissipate. Oh, maybe you the reader don’t know the connection that I am referring to. But, it is the truth. All things eventually end.
All things eventually end. That means the good and the bad.
Change is a staple of our life. Embrace it and learn that life is not static trench warfare with red and blue lines advancing and moving slowly over battle field maps. No. It is a a dynamic and constantly changing mish-mash of confusion, and it is your responsibility to keep your head level and above the fray.
Just remember that it will, some day, eventually end. It really will. Whether by exhaustion or you taking action to remove yourself from the situation. All things do end.
Keep in mind that maybe Forrest Gump was right that “Life is like a box of chocolates, you’ll never know what you’ll get”. You can change the box.
YOU can change THE box.
[8] When a friend offers you advice, take it.
I was once dating a phlebotomist in Boston. This gal collected the blood from people all over the area and sent it to the labs for testing. It’s a job, and she did it well.
Well, one day, for fun she was showing me how to sample and take blood. We sampled from her arm and then we sampled from my arm. The thing is, that when we sampled from my arm, the blood (once it settled out) was not all red with a little bit of white at the bottom. No. It was about 75% white with about 25% red.
She looked at it. And, again. She looked at it and studied it. She said that in all the years of her sampling blood, she had never seen that happen.
She thought about it, and said “this isn’t right“.
So she sampled again, and then a third time. In all cases, my blood would be mostly white with only a smaller portion that would be red. She kept on saying…”this isn’t right.“.
She told me that I should see a doctor. I said, “Hey I feel fine.” and left it at that.
The next day after work she asked me if I saw a doctor, and I told her that I didn’t need to see one. So, she huffed and told me to get into the car, and she drove me to the emergency room, and told the doctor what was going on and showed them the tube with the blood sample.
They set me down and drew some blood, and then after looking at the results, immediately took more samples. They moved me to a room off the ICU and put me on emergency medicines and I had to spend three days in observation.
It turned out that I had a rare condition. (Who’d figure?) I had a thing called “hyperviscosity syndrome”. (One like THIS guy had.)
Yeah, I got all fixed up. I was told to severely change the way I ate, and to lower my stress levels. That eventually (with many starts and stops) set me down the road to “Fuck you! Take this job and shove it. Be a human or not, It’s not my problem anymore.”
Businessmen hire high-performers and demand 200% performance 100% of the time. But that is never realistic. I don't know what they are teaching at universities today, but the crop of MBA's out in the industry in the 1990's were really out of touch with human interaction.
Anyways…
When a friend tells you something important, then you have to listen to them. When someone you care about tells you that you need to change your hairstyle, appearance or clothing… listen. And, when a loved one wants you to go to the hospital…you friggin’ go!
[9] Don’t act you age
All my life, I was told to “act my age”. This was something that my father wanted to instill in me. He wanted me to be mature, serious and a “good young man”. Nonsense! He was wrong.
I did things his way for the longest time. What did I get out of it? Well, I got a heart attack, clogged arteries, a fine average life working for tyrannical bosses and being laid off suddenly every year or so.
Fuck. That.
So I leaned how to ballroom dance. I learned how to paint in oils and paint figurines and nudes. I learned how to write poetry. I learned how to enjoy and taste food. I learned that singing a song, drinking wine and just being playful was enormously attractive to beautiful women.
Smile and have fun.
Incorporate elements of play into everything that you do. Make your projects into “games”. Stop being so serious. Turn exercises into fun dance routines.
Have fun when you are doing things.
I started enjoying life more, and when I did so, my health got better. My enjoyment of life increased exponentially, and I became notable and (dare I say it) popular.
People want to be around happy, relaxed people. People want some sunshine in their lives. People need to feel connections with others. This is your life. Make it count.
If you are 40 years old and want to build a tree house. Do it! If you are lonely, and always wanted to meet women, learn how to dance. And… finally….
Don’t act your age. Act how you want to act, and to Hell with everyone else. If you want to play, then play. If you want to work and build up a life, then do so. If you want to sing, dance drink wine and carouse with girls, then have at it. And… If you want to succeed in business, act and behave like you are 35 and full of piss and vinegar.
[10] Learn to identify threats
When we are born and grow up in our own individual families we are taught that the way we live is “normal”. Anything outside of that is either abnormal, or an improvement of our accustomed norm. Later, when we attended school we were taught that everyone was different and that everyone had their own ways of doing things. Yet, there was always one “best way” to do something. And the school taught us that “best” way.
All of this is nonsense.
I think that we need to look at our life in a different way. We need to think in terms of a “starting place” that can be improved or subtracted from. What we want is for our life to constantly improve. What we want to avoid is having things subtracted from our life.
Anything that takes away from our life is a threat.
Looking at life like that is clearer and cleaner. There is no “absolute” best. There is only “your best” and “your ideal”, and you compare everything to your needs, your experiences, and your desires.
This way of looking at things enables us to divorce ourselves from the land of grey, and go into the cleaner black and white reality.
This way of looking at things enables us to divorce ourselves from the land of grey, and go into the cleaner black and white reality. As such we can identify threats and related problems before they become enormous problems that would eventually consume us and change us in ways that we do not want to have happen.
Look at things in stark black vs. white. If things are in shades of grey, you identify the dividing line, and keep everything simple on YOUR terms. As such, using this method you can easily identify friends and foes. It is absolutely critical that you master this. That way, you can avoid threats to your life, in every aspect. Make no exceptions.
Bonus Advice
The rest of the world is living life. They are growing. They are advancing and they are living life. We are all far too caught up in our “American bubble of reality” to see what it is like outside. We think the world is a dark and evil place. But that is not the case at all.
While the American news is all full of the (so called) “saber rattling” of China, and the terrible Tariffs that the great Russian spy – Donald J. Trump is, the rest of the world is just moving forward oblivious to the internal propaganda inside the USA.
The rest of the world is living life. They are growing. They are having fun. They are enjoying the nice blue skies and eating fine food. They are spending time with pretty girls and having a great time drinking wine and singing.
Life is not a prison.
Get out of the mainstream American news media narrative. Both liberal and conservative. Experience life on your terms.
Live life on your terms.
The rest of the world is living life. You should as well. This is your life. LIVE IT WELL.
Conclusion
Yes, if I had a time machine, I would NOT advise myself to get absolutely rich.
That is a direction for fools. If I went in that direction, I would have a “successful life, full of plenty“, but it would not be a “rich, colorful life”. You want a happy life. Who cares how you got there. All that matters is that you are enjoying life to it’s fullest.
I think that I am far happier as I am now. Now, that I have experienced the highs and lows of life.
A person who spends every day in paradise soon takes it for granted. While a person who visits it is enthralled by the scents, moments and elements that are present. The only way that we can appreciate the life that we have is to suffer from the highs and lows.
My advice to myself is pretty basic;
Eat delicious, high quality food.
Drink some wine while you are at it.
Take your time, enjoy the moments.
Sing, laugh, dance.
Surround yourself with friends, listen to them.
Bad times come and go.
Have patience and enjoy the “now”.
Look for opportunities and take them when they appear.
Get good at doing what you love.
Forget about having a career. It’s a big-assed lie.
Have fun and act however you want to.
Be your own boss and do things on your own terms.
Don’t be afraid of anything.
Stay away from threats and bad people.
Yeah, I know it sounds like a list that you would find on any of those click-bait sites. But it is all true.
So…
Why aren’t you out fishing right now? Why did you have a burger from the big fast food chain instead of one at the local diner? Why, in God’s name, did you even bother to check the news on the internet? Why didn’t you ask that pretty girl out for lunch? When was the last time you enjoyed a bottle of wine?
Life is too short. Don’t waste it.
We should appreciate that life that we are living now, and not wait for some “better time” to come along. Our life is the now. It is controlled by our thoughts and our actions.
.
.
Quick interlude about Huawei…
Oh, and by the way… while I am at it.
You know that stuff about Huawei, right? Canada arrested the boss of Huawei and carted them off to America for this reason or that. In return, China warned Canada that there would be consequences. And now American companies are going to show China. They are going to teach China a lesson. Right?
Well, watch out.
Not… “watch out” and see what happens. I mean (screaming) “WATCH OUT!!!!” as a cement truck comes barreling towards you.
The Chinese don’t mess around.
If you want to pick a fight then you had best be prepared. The Chinese plan for decades, while American companies plan on short term profits. While American trains are using 1950’s technology, the Chinese are using modern high-tech bullet trains. While American NASA is going to capture an asteroid the size of a dishwasher sometime before 2030, the Chinese are already building the components for their moon bases.
Heck! America can’t even build a wall on it’s own sovereign soil.
The companies that treat their workers as humans, instead of pawns in a huge money-making industry will ALWAYS win in the long run. That’s the secret of why Apple was able to recover when Steve Jobs was asked to return. The best companies to work for are also the ones that treat the workers as humans. Not as some kind of pawn, or mindless working drone.
If the USA wants to play a game using Huawei leadership as a political pawn, then Americans should expect the consequences. Listen to me. The Chinese do not mess around.
The Chinese do not mess around.
They are a serious and capable nation run by intelligent people who are not handicapped by socially progressive baggage or political infighting. While the American companies have meetings with “Diversity Managers” to plan how to advance their agenda in the next four months, the Chinese companies are working on another level entirely.
And now, America wants to mess around with Huawei, the current global leader in wireless telephony. All I can say is you have no idea what a shit-storm you have started. The top-line high-performers are taking this threat seriously, and they will not tire. They will not give up. They will be ruthless in their response.
China is always being under estimated. People laughed when they said that they would put a man in orbit. People laughed when they said that they would construct the “silk road”. People laughed when they said that they would convert all their passenger trains to bullet trains. People laughed when they said that they would dominate global electronics manufacture.
Oh look HERE, I’m right. China is going to construct a California-sized “Chinese Silicon Valley” in the Shenzhen – Guangdong region. How about that for a response?
I, for one, am not laughing. American T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon will all be a footnote in the annuals of market dominance. And, you can all thank the American Deep State for making it happen.
Anyways… sorry about that.
Final Comments – Private Responses
Since I posted this, I received a number of private messages that took offense to my digression about Huawei. They argue that Huawei was the global leader in wireless telephony because they stole from US industry.
Sigh. I feel like I am alone in the world trying to warn everyone about this. Heck! no one cares. It’s almost like the football team that is convinced that it will win the Superbowl because they were champions back in the 1970’s. It’s that silly.
Well, my comment on that is simple.
If your company is founded on the theft of technology, at best the most you can ever achieve is to match the capabilities of the company that you stole from. You would not exceed them unless you were doing something quite different.
Huawei is not the global leader in telephony because they copied. They are there because they innovated and did things differently. Though, the acquisition of American firms, I am certain, played a role. As well as hiring top American talent and paying them well.
But, that’s all specious.
American industry is failing. The American government is failing, and in the globe, the Chinese industry WILL dominate. Check out these two videos. You don’t have to like it. As I stated in this post. Change is natural. Accept it or not.
The rise of China over the last two decades…
The rise of China today leading into the next decade. But, not to worry. American industry is getting ready for this. They are hiring “diversity officers” and paying them enormous amounts to assure that racial quotas and progressive values will guide and lead American industry. Just like they lead the Former Soviet Union and make Soviet technology well-known the world over! Yessur!
The idea that Strength through diversity will radically transform American industry and make it…
"While we bicker over which pronouns to use, the Chinese are preparing to assume leadership of the world. As more and more technical and scientific literature is published in Chinese, this trend will accelerate. "
-3/9/2019, 10:39:54 PM by beef
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this
post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss
growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with
the society within communist China. As there are some really stark
differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified
about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that
are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a
personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome
to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
