Lakedaemons 4. #0674

--Habits might be viewed as something done regularly that is difficult to stop. But habits are the programs with which we set our machine-like minds. We make a habit of cleaning our teeth. We make habits in driving vehicles which at the nexus of an accident might be considered bad and dangerous, and we also train special drivers, such as police and bodyguards, in driving habits that might be considered good and life-saving. So depending very much on whether a habit is deliberately trained into one, or has come about from negligence and lazy thinking, a habit might be life-saving or life-endangering. And so, the habit is a self-responsible trained and regular response within the parameters of its practice. This below then is a view most dependent upon the use and practice of habits. Programs set for the fast response of mind to particular circumstances, and therefore - the commonplace, in uncommonplace conditions.
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--''Polynikes speaks :- 'Mankind as it is constituted is a boil and a canker. Observe the specimens in any nation other Lakedaemon. Man is weak, greedy, craven, lustful, prey to every species of vice and depravity. He will lie, steal, cheat, murder, melt down the very statues of the gods and coin their gold for whores. This is man. This is his nature, as all the poets attest. Fortunately God in His mercy has provided a counter-poise to our species' innate depravity. That gift, my young friend, is war.
--War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, calls forth all that is noble and honourable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honour before the gods. Do not despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to ~ andreia ~, to manly valour.'
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--'Remember what I told you about the house with many rooms. There are rooms we must not enter. Anger. Fear. Any passion which leads the mind towards that 'possession' which undoes men in war.
--Habit will be your champion. When you train the mind to think one way and one way only, when you refuse to allow it to think in another, that will produce great strength in battle.
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--'Did I ever tell you about the goose we had on my father's kleros? This bird had formed a habit, God knows why, of pecking three times at a certain patch of turf before she waddled into the water with her brothers and sisters. When I was a boy, I used to marvel at this. The goose did it every time. It was compelled to.
--One day I got it into my head to prevent her. Just to see what she would do. I took up station on that patch of superstitious turf -- I was no more than four or five years old at the time -- and refused to let that goose come near it. She became frantic. She rushed at me and beat me with her wings, pecking me bloody. I fled like a rat. At once the goose recovered composure. She pecked her little spot of turf three times and slid into the water, contented as could be.
--Habit is a mighty ally, my young friend. The habit of fear and anger, or the habit of self-composure and courage.'
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-- ~ eueidestatos ~ the soul of beauty.
-- ~ moira ~ fate.
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< excerts from The Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield. >
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--Your 'war' might be, 'forex', 'court soliciting', 'sales and marketing', 'art', 'practical engineering', or other almost obsessive career or life-path, but habit still applies. Are you sure your habits are self-trained, or have you allowed negligence and or lazy-thinking to create 'bad' habits? Those will be your undoing, maybe not so messily so as to a Spartiate, but how we train our minds will lead us to our successes and our faults.
--Keep on keeping on.

''Wit Is The Lightning Of The Mind.''