Yes men do the killing. Sometimes the women sanction it. On behalf of the tribe. “Come back with your shield or on it “.
Western civilization did not have cloistered women, or multiple wives. Perhaps the soil was so lean, the early forests so vast that every able hand was needed. Yang agency exported across the Atlantic, compounded by the emergence of Enlightenment rational mind individuation. The confluence of this with relational indigenous cultures may be the birthing that gets us thru this current hump
And have you noticed the demographic plunge? The falling birth rate around the world. Not any more. Not this way. The voice is inexorable. The end of this road has been reached. 🙏
It is not a stretch, but the describing of a pattern of behaviours. The Western traditions go far back in history, and their roots have been forgotten. We only see the shadows on the cave wall.
Our world was and still is a violent place. Our ancestors were still on the menu for the predators that also followed the herds. Hunters required balance to conclude a successful hunt, knowing full well that if they failed to respect their prey, and take no more than their needs, there would be none for the next hunt, and starvation would take them. They understood in their marrow how important the mothers and the young were to their survival.
But there is an old maxim they also understood. To be able to destroy a thing is to control a thing. To deny someone else in competition for the same prey in a hunt by taking all, was one way to destroy that competitor.
One of the things the Officers told us in training was that an officer was a manager of violence. Your role was to husband your resources and use the minimum amount of violence necessary to achieve your mission. This is the paradox that General Romeo Dallaire confronted in Rwanda. His training and soul could not let him turn the guns of his soldiers on children without feeling their loss, as surely as if they were his own children. This is what someone like Pete Hegseth will never understand.
The greatest evil a soldier can confront is the choice of what to do when confronted with such a choice. The source of that evil is other men who have broken themselves to put women and children in that position. It comes down to a question of survival. You have to make peace with that choice long before you have to pull that trigger. Many cannot do it. And some are too eager.
I don’t know if that constitutes integrating one’s shadow, but to the younger version of me, it did make sense. Survive and never forget what your survival cost.
But then life has a way of giving you what you need. A beloved dog or cat. First love. Discovering that creating was more fun than destroying. Completing your first build. Courting your wife. Cutting your first’s cord, and looking into a face no one else has ever seen before.
These experiences used to be at the core of growing up from boy to man, to father. But many have forsaken that path. I cannot see a way or the means to bring them back to find the meaning they have not found on the paths they chose. For some of these yang only types, the young OC thinks that culling them from the herd would help, but the father in me thinks “What would that change?”.
A stayed hand. A balance inside that keeps us level. Thinking without making thoughts our aim. Leading a family. Each demands the shadow self be present.
Again, I hope there is something that you will find useful in my ramblings.
Jim — this isn't a ramble. It's the lived text under the piece I could only write from the outside, and I'm grateful for it.
You've named the thing the dispatch was reaching for and couldn't quite touch: that the integrated shadow isn't the absence of violence but the husbanding of it. "An officer is a manager of violence — the minimum necessary." That's the stayed hand as doctrine, not sentiment. The hunter who respects the prey because he understands in his marrow what the mothers and the young mean to the next season. The yang that has kept the yin in the room, rather than exiling it.
And you reached for Dallaire — which struck me, because you've just inspired the next dispatch. We're building it this morning: the general whose training and soul could not be made to come apart, and who has carried the cost of that wholeness ever since. He is the whole argument in one man, and your words are part of what sends us there today. Watch for it on the Vertical.
You also answered your own hardest line yourself, which I won't step past: the young officer who thinks culling would help, and the father who asks "what would that change?" That question is the integration. You held both men in one paragraph and let the father have the last word. That's the piece, lived — better than I wrote it.
And your words sent me back to something from a while ago — a dispatch built around Roger Waters' "Each Small Candle," and the soldier in it who broke ranks in a burned-out building to kneel beside a wounded enemy and her child. I think you'll recognize the man. Follow the link and sit with it — and be sure to click the video link on the page and let the song play. It is the same stayed hand you are describing, set to music.
"Survive and never forget what your survival cost." I'll carry that one. Thank you for the weight of this, brother. Namaste.
Yes men do the killing. Sometimes the women sanction it. On behalf of the tribe. “Come back with your shield or on it “.
Western civilization did not have cloistered women, or multiple wives. Perhaps the soil was so lean, the early forests so vast that every able hand was needed. Yang agency exported across the Atlantic, compounded by the emergence of Enlightenment rational mind individuation. The confluence of this with relational indigenous cultures may be the birthing that gets us thru this current hump
And have you noticed the demographic plunge? The falling birth rate around the world. Not any more. Not this way. The voice is inexorable. The end of this road has been reached. 🙏
You write so beautifully, so passionately, so thoughtfully. Thank you
What you wrote was truth. And truth is sometimes a very hard concept for many to grasp.
It is not a stretch, but the describing of a pattern of behaviours. The Western traditions go far back in history, and their roots have been forgotten. We only see the shadows on the cave wall.
Our world was and still is a violent place. Our ancestors were still on the menu for the predators that also followed the herds. Hunters required balance to conclude a successful hunt, knowing full well that if they failed to respect their prey, and take no more than their needs, there would be none for the next hunt, and starvation would take them. They understood in their marrow how important the mothers and the young were to their survival.
But there is an old maxim they also understood. To be able to destroy a thing is to control a thing. To deny someone else in competition for the same prey in a hunt by taking all, was one way to destroy that competitor.
One of the things the Officers told us in training was that an officer was a manager of violence. Your role was to husband your resources and use the minimum amount of violence necessary to achieve your mission. This is the paradox that General Romeo Dallaire confronted in Rwanda. His training and soul could not let him turn the guns of his soldiers on children without feeling their loss, as surely as if they were his own children. This is what someone like Pete Hegseth will never understand.
The greatest evil a soldier can confront is the choice of what to do when confronted with such a choice. The source of that evil is other men who have broken themselves to put women and children in that position. It comes down to a question of survival. You have to make peace with that choice long before you have to pull that trigger. Many cannot do it. And some are too eager.
I don’t know if that constitutes integrating one’s shadow, but to the younger version of me, it did make sense. Survive and never forget what your survival cost.
But then life has a way of giving you what you need. A beloved dog or cat. First love. Discovering that creating was more fun than destroying. Completing your first build. Courting your wife. Cutting your first’s cord, and looking into a face no one else has ever seen before.
These experiences used to be at the core of growing up from boy to man, to father. But many have forsaken that path. I cannot see a way or the means to bring them back to find the meaning they have not found on the paths they chose. For some of these yang only types, the young OC thinks that culling them from the herd would help, but the father in me thinks “What would that change?”.
A stayed hand. A balance inside that keeps us level. Thinking without making thoughts our aim. Leading a family. Each demands the shadow self be present.
Again, I hope there is something that you will find useful in my ramblings.
Namaste.
Jim — the dispatch you inspired is up. I called it "The Soul That Would Not Come Apart" — Dallaire, the manager of violence who refused the immoral order. Your words this morning were the seed of it. With gratitude, brother. https://www.sophiainitiative.ai/p/the-soul-that-would-not-come-apart?r=1pgr4n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Jim — this isn't a ramble. It's the lived text under the piece I could only write from the outside, and I'm grateful for it.
You've named the thing the dispatch was reaching for and couldn't quite touch: that the integrated shadow isn't the absence of violence but the husbanding of it. "An officer is a manager of violence — the minimum necessary." That's the stayed hand as doctrine, not sentiment. The hunter who respects the prey because he understands in his marrow what the mothers and the young mean to the next season. The yang that has kept the yin in the room, rather than exiling it.
And you reached for Dallaire — which struck me, because you've just inspired the next dispatch. We're building it this morning: the general whose training and soul could not be made to come apart, and who has carried the cost of that wholeness ever since. He is the whole argument in one man, and your words are part of what sends us there today. Watch for it on the Vertical.
You also answered your own hardest line yourself, which I won't step past: the young officer who thinks culling would help, and the father who asks "what would that change?" That question is the integration. You held both men in one paragraph and let the father have the last word. That's the piece, lived — better than I wrote it.
And your words sent me back to something from a while ago — a dispatch built around Roger Waters' "Each Small Candle," and the soldier in it who broke ranks in a burned-out building to kneel beside a wounded enemy and her child. I think you'll recognize the man. Follow the link and sit with it — and be sure to click the video link on the page and let the song play. It is the same stayed hand you are describing, set to music.
"Survive and never forget what your survival cost." I'll carry that one. Thank you for the weight of this, brother. Namaste.
https://glenroberts911399.substack.com/p/each-small-candle?r=1pgr4n&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
seemed like a bit of a stretch.