In wanton sport my Doris from her fair
And glossy tresses tore a straggling hair
And bound my hands as if of conquest vain
And I some Royal captive in her chain...
...I said but ah I had not learnd to prove
How strong the fetters that are forged by love
That little thread of gold I strive to sever
Is bound like steel about my heart for ever
And from that luckless hour my tyrant fair
Has led and turnd me by a single hair

"He said that war had destroyed the country and that men believe the cure for war is war as the curandero prescribes the serpent's flesh for its bite."
-ALL THE PRETTY HORSES
Cormac McCarthy

"They have a long life, dreams. I have dreams now which I had as a young girl. They have an odd durability for something not quite real."
-All the Pretty Horses

Thank God for their durability. I'm living most of mine now and I'm working towards the few that remain. When you marry, marry strong. Most of your dreams depend on it. Miss you Sheree Grondel.

"Most Whores are completely unaware of how important they are to society, and subsequently do not have the opportunity to learn how to be all-compassionate, all-loving, all-giving and all-receiving incarnations of the Goddess... Without honoring Whores, we cannot truly understand and transcend the dynamics of violence, destruction and ignorance fostered in our cuntfearing society."

What the hell am I reading?

A sentry collapses, streaming blood. Shot in the head...the stretcher-bearers come along, to carry him to the dressing-station...No sooner has the man disappeared then everything is back to the way it was before. Someone spreads a few shovelfuls of earth over the red puddle, and everyone goes back to whatever he was doing before. One has got to callous.

War is like life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of. In some ways 20 minutes of combat is more life than you could scrape together in a lifetime of doing something else. Combat isn't where you might die -though that does happen- it's where you find out whether you get to keep on living. Don't underestimate the power of that revelation. Don't underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time

Say that she rail why then I'll tell her plain she sings as sweetly as a nightingale
Say she frown I'll say she looks as clear as morning roses newly wash'd with dew
Say she be mute and will not speak a word Then I'll commend her volubility and say she uttereth piercing eloquence
If she do bid me pack I'll give her thanks as though she bid me stay by her a week
If she deny to wed I'll crave the day
When I shall as the banns and when be married.

This one line sums up Anna Karenina perfectly. All 830 pages of it expressed perfectly by one sentence in a l man's internal dialogue.

The Two Voices

...Again the voice spake unto me:
"Thou art so steep'd in misery,
Surely 't were better not to be.

"Thine anguish will not let the sleep,
Nor any train of reason keep;
Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep."

I said, "the years with change advance;
If I make dark my countenance,
I shut my life from happier chance....

Reading in anticipation for a certain character to die. Instead the HMMWV in front of us died. I am disappointed in both.

“In our element we were unstoppable. We owned the night, and the darkness could not hide our prey.”

“The romantic contrast between modern industry that “destroys nature” and our ancestors who “lived in harmony with nature” is groundless. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of life.”

We just adapt too quickly.

With what do we stock our attics?
TV shows and movies?
Sports stats and trends?
Celebrity gossip?
Video games and ballistic charts?
That which we stock is that which we love.

“The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

I liked this book. I loved this quote.

“When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: ‘Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.‘ It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.”

Yossarian was cold too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden‘s secret. Drop him out a window and he‘ll fall. Set fire to him and he‘ll burn. Bury him and he‘ll rot like other kinds of garbage. That was Snowden‘s secret. Ripeness was all.

What a bunch of trash. I get it. Materialism. Ugh. The belief that Culture is nothing more than a by-product of environmental factors is frustratingly dismissive of individuals and their ability to impact their society and change the course of history.

This book is an example of "new history" that is becoming so popular. It seeks to dismiss Great Man/Woman History and the pressures that come with it to perform and achieve. Ugh.

We've lost touch with the world. We've forgotten from whence we came. We no longer live in fear of violence and it has made us soft and ripe for servitude. "Choose ye this day... as for me and my house we will..." raise the Lance, we will sway the sword, we will stand behind the breast-defending shield.

When someone tells a man to be a man, they mean that there is a way to be a man. A man is not just a thing to be—it is also a way to be, a path to follow and a way to walk. Some try to make manhood mean everything. Others believe that it means nothing at all. Being good at being a man can‘t mean everything, and it has always meant something
Jack Donovan, The Way of Men

"'It doesn't get better.' To us, that phrase nailed one of the essential truths, maybe even the essential truth, about being stuck at an outpost whose strategic and tactical vulnerabilities were so glaringly obvious to every soldier who had ever set foot in that place that the name itself -- Keating -- had become a kind of backhanded joke."

No rhyme or reason. Just madness and chaos. Death at random. Have we changed since 1815? We have not changed. we have not learned. We have not become more civilized...we just kill from farther away...

"It‘s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people."

The Great Gatsby

"Might it be that the 'inquiring mind' was simply the human mind terrified by pessimism and trying to escape from it, a clever bulwark directed against the truth?"

-The Birth of Tragedy
Friedrich Nietzsche

The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

This paper Destruction and Creation by John R Boyd was mentioned in the book. it really is amazing. it's only 8 pages long but full of power and heavy information. It is free to download in PDF online. READ IT.

Gotta get it in where and when you can.
Pumping gas?
That's a page or two.
Sitting on the toilet?
That's 4-5 pages.
Waiting for the Armorer?
2-3 pages.
Early to formation?
3 pages.

Every page counts.

"It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death."
This booked f*cked my world up. Just a sudden revelation that I have three things in my life that I need to drop immediately: Complacency, contentment and mediocrity.
Got to go.
Have to move.
Need to climb.

"A book is a loaded gun in the house next door...Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

The Firearm is just a tool. The real power is in the books.

Tribe by Sebastian Junger
What a great read. I felt the urge to highlight something on almost every page. I like this one though. We are a nation of ignorant, disconnected people.

“The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.”
― Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness

There is nothing I value more than these girls. Love to see them play and learn. If the bath water isn't black they didn't play outside enough.

“The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.”
― Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness

There is nothing I value more than these girls. Love to see them play and learn. If the bath water isn't black they didn't play outside enough.

The battle was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him. Its complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him. He must go close and see it produce corpses.

Callie likes it when I read out loud and I love to oblige. A little light reading won't hurt any haha. (If you look real close you can see mud and dirt on Callie's face. The girl never stops but for snuggles with daddy to listen to me read.)

"The man who does not understand the construction of the machine cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which revolves quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine." Everyone takes the quiet professional for granted. They think loud=important...

50% off on all books at Goodwill this weekend... and look what diamond I find in the rough!

"It is not difficult to capture a fortress but it is difficult to win a campaign. For that, not storming and attacking but PATIENCE and TIME are wanted...I only employed these two things and took more fortresses than K and made the Turks eat horseflesh!"

Patience and time.

Found an old textbook my mom used in college 50 years ago. I love her notes and feelings in the margins. She loved Tennyson. She had good taste.

Heard a noise at 2am and hopped out of bed to investigate. Look what I found! Caught my little girl reading her new book! Start them young!

Found this at Goodwill in what appeared to be an UNOPENED copy of P&P. This is why young women today chase and settle for such losers. They don't know about the Mr Darcys in the world and spend their lives chasing Wickhams.
They should aspire to be Elizabeths but become nothing but Lydias.
So sad.

So it goes.

I love this line and all it stands for. I love it's finality.

One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, death. What is there? Who is there? There beyond that field, that tree, that roof lit up by the sun?No one knows, but one wants to know.You fear and yet long to cross that line.

"The normal way to rid a barrel of caked powder was to swill it out with hot water, but urine was almost as effective."
Hmmm. Learning something new everyday haha.

“I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Are you thinking that death and taxes are our only certainty, Mr. Rearden? ... if I lift the burden of the second ... They might learn to hold, not death and taxes, but life and production as their two absolutes and as the base of their moral code.” -Ragnar Danneskjöld

"Thy love afar is spite at home." You want to change the world? You want to make a difference? Start here and start now. Love thy neighbor. For real, your actual neighbor. Mow the elderly couples lawn. Bring the garbage can in for the pregnant women across the street. Make a difference here. Now.