35\u00a0 54%\u00a0 34%\u00a0 7mph\u00a0 windroseENE bar rises dewpoint20 First Quarter of the Snow Moon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Holiseason<\/p>\n
Thomas H. Huxley (1825 – 1895)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/dd>\n Whenever I read something about war, especially from a general staff perspective, this observation comes up:\u00a0 “A battle plan never survives contact with the enemy.”\u00a0 This represents several attitudes at once.\u00a0 Humility, in that no plan can entertain every contingency created by others with free will opposed to it.\u00a0 CYA, in that it provides cover for even the bad plan, for it too will not survive contact with the enemy.\u00a0\u00a0 Hopefulness, in that it apparently assumes that despite this problem, somehow, things will come out ok.\u00a0<\/p>\n A paraphrase might be, no plan survives contact with reality.\u00a0 That is to say, no intellectual effort, a non-dimensional rendering of a complex, 4-D world, can guide us unerringly in the nitty gritty of daily life.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs. All this explains why I’m not done with my tour.\u00a0 The cursed enemy of groceries and filing and e-mails were ugly facts, real obstacles that rose up and overwhelmed my plan.\u00a0 In days gone by I would become anxious about this, troubled.\u00a0 Now, I’m merely frantic.\u00a0 I have all the stuff out, I’ve done most of the objects before, and I’m bound to know more than the high school students.\u00a0 This all provides me with the long ago experience of college when a report or test was imminent and other ugly facts like beer and women and politics had crossed my path and torn up my plans.<\/p>\n At some point in all this mental\u00a0milling around, I come back to this, “This is why you’ve not done more with your life.\u00a0 You bum.”\u00a0 This occurs especially when I read about someone like Jacque Barzun who, at age 100, just published his 38th book.\u00a0\u00a0 If I publish one a year from now till my 100th birthday, I could just catch him.\u00a0 Well, I guess there is still time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Next comes:\u00a0 Oh, geez.\u00a0 Come on now.\u00a0 You love your life and realize how lucky you are.\u00a0 How grateful you are for what you have and for what you’ve been able to do with your life.\u00a0 Then, I nod, get up and go work out.\u00a0 Out, out, damned fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 35\u00a0 54%\u00a0 34%\u00a0 7mph\u00a0 windroseENE bar rises dewpoint20 First Quarter of the Snow Moon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Holiseason The great tragedy of Science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. Thomas H. Huxley (1825 – 1895) Whenever I read something about war, especially from a general staff perspective, this observation comes up:\u00a0 “A battle … Continue reading The Fog of Everyday Life<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0– Lily Tomlin<\/p>\n