-- ~ moira ~ fate.
--It is our fate to die, our corporeal to stop. What do we recognize of ourselves?
--''Dianekes speaks :- 'All my life, one question has haunted me. What is the opposite of Fear?
--To call it 'aphobia', fearlessness, is without meaning. This is just a name, thesis expressed as antithesis. To call the opposite of fear fearlessness is to say nothing. I want to know it's true obverse, as day of night and heaven of earth. (Expressed as a positive.) How does one conquer fear of death, that most primordial of terrors, which resides in our very blood, as in all life, beasts as well as men?
--'Dogs in a pack find courage to take on a lion. Each hound knows his place. He fears the dog ranked above and feeds off the fear of the dog below. Fear conquers fear. This is how we Spartans do it, counterpoising to fear of death a greater fear : that of dishonour. Of exclusion from the pack.
--But is that courage? Is it not acting out of fear of dishonour still, in essence, acting out of fear?
--When asked what he was seeking, he answered :-
--'Something nobler. A higher form of the mystery. Pure. Infallible.'
--He declared that in all other questions one may look for wisdom to the gods. 'But not in matters of courage. What have the immortals to teach us? They cannot die. Their spirits are not housed, as ours, in this. ~ here he indicated the body, flesh. 'The Factory of Fear.'
--'You young men imagine that we veterans, with our long experience of war, have mastered fear. But we feel it as keenly as you. More keenly, for we have intimate experience of it. Fear lives within us twenty-four hours a day, in our sinews and our bones. Do I speak the truth, my friend?
--We cobble our courage together on the spot, of rags and remnants. The main we summon out of that which is base. Fear of disgracing the city, the king, the heroes of our lines. Fear of proving ourselves unworthy of our wives and children, our brothers, our conrades-in-arms. For myself I know all the tricks of the breath and of song, the pillars of the tetrathesis, the teachings of the ~ phobologia ~. I know how to close with my man, how to convince myself that his terror is greater than mine. Perhaps it is. I employ care for the men-at-arms serving beneath me and seek to forget my own fear in concern for their survival. But it's always there. The closest I've come is to act despite terror. But that's not it either. Not the kind of courage I'm talking about. Nor is beast-like fury or panic-spawned self-preservation. These are ~ katalepsis ~ possession. A rat owns as much of them as a man.''
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< excerts from : The Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield. >
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--'The students attending the school are privileged.
[They attend to the proposition that they are there to learn,]
the required curriculum to enter a University for Tertiary studies, or a Technical college for Trade studies, or one of the Military services. If they wish to not get an education, and work as labourers, then their parents may be Adviced that school fees are therefore wasted and this child would do better with the basics of a state school and the money saved.' ~ 'Lakedaemons 3. #0614'
'The role of an officer : to prevent those under his command at all stages of battle - before, during and after - from becoming 'possessed'. To fire their valour when it flagged and rein in their fury when it threatened to take them out of hand.' ~ 'Lakedaemons 2. #0606'
'Required to answer in the Spartan style, at once, with extreme brevity.
--Your eyes were horror-stricken, your heart aggrieved at the sight of the manslaughter. ANSWER this :
--What did you think a spear was for? A shield? A xiphos sword?' ~ Lakedaemons 3. #0614
--So we, ''attend to the proposition'', and are there, ''to prevent those under our command ~ at all stages of battle ~ '', are required to answer with extreme brevity, such questions as : if all social rules devolve to an 'or else' proposition based on a fundamental violence wrapped about 'the fear of death', which is the end of our corporeal existence as self, from where stems our courage ~ andreia ~ manly valour?
--(to be continued...)
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--To quote @cpnjacksparrow, from : How To Decrease Violence.
--Resteemed this blog, #0517
'Maybe you've never thought about this before. But, you are still responsible. Do you want to have Freedom? Or do you want to control other people? The bad thing about advocating any laws that control other people is that it can be turned against you. Do you think someone has the right to tell you that you can't do something that doesn't harm anyone else?'
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--To quote @luanne, from : It Can Happen to Anyone : Jail.
--Resteemed this blog, #0616.
'My experience was 3 days in holding at a county jail. I was picked up on a bench warrant executed by a judge in a town I used to live in, over debt. Yes. DEBT.'
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--To quote @lucyheartfilla, from @teardrops and @surpassinggoogle : When will this end?
--Resteemed this blog, #0603
'And now, they're showering me with painful words, they reminded me of all my mistakes, they reminded me that I wasn't enough - it wasn't enough, I was useless and worthless.'
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--Not all violence is corporeal! But the end of threats is. Keep on keeping on. May the blessings be.
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''Riches Are But The Baggage Of Fortune.''