Category: Review

January 31, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 4

January 31, 2025 /

We are literally mid-winter around here. We are also supposed to be entering winter in the seasons of the saeculum. This chapter is all about the seasons. It covers the major categories of what defines and aligns the period. It also goes through all of the seasons and the transitions of the American focused period. There was a lot here, so let us get into it.

Remember in US history class, it always starts at the beginning? Same with this theory. In this book, it actually goes back further than most US history text. The point is to understand the cycle and subsequent turmoil to actually create the America that we know. Where US history classes focus on the what, this book makes a huge effort on the why.

Like the previous chapters, we ultimately have to add some more labels. Don’t get mad, I didn’t do this but be darn sure that you get this or you will get lost in all of the comparisons. Last week I talked about the generations and their nicknames. This week we get schooled in those time periods. The heroes are still the heroes no matter what stage of the saeculum we are in.

  • First Turning – High
    • 0-20 years old: Profit (Baby boomer) generation
    • 21-40 years old: Hero (GI) generation
    • 41-60 years old: Artist (Silent) generation
    • 60+ years old: Nomad (Lost) generation
  • Second Turning – Awakening
    • 0-20 years old: Nomad (GenX) generation
    • 21-40 years old: Profit (Baby boomer) generation
    • 41-60 years old: Hero (GI) generation
    • 60+ years old: Artist (Silent) generation
  • Third Turning – Unravelling
    • 0-20 years old: Artist (Millenial) generation
    • 21-40 years old: Nomad (GenX) generation
    • 41-60 years old: Profit (Baby boomer) generation
    • 60+ years old: Hero (GI) generation
  • Fourth Turning – Crisis
    • 0-20 years old: Hero (GenZ) generation
    • 21-40 years old: Artist (Millenial) generation
    • 41-60 years old: Nomad (GenX) generation
    • 60+ years old: Profit (Baby boomer) generation

The list above highlights the generations and their positions during each turning. The thing that sticks out in my mind is that Gen Z is the hero generation. This means we need to pay particular attention to that generation because they will be the precedent setters for the next High and unity period. In this theory, the Nomad generation should be solidly in charge by this point but given the size of the Baby Boomers versus GenX, I still do not see that to be universally true.

This chapter also goes into the factors that comprise the individual turnings. Those would be things such as politics, foreign affairs, economy, family and society, population, social disorder and culture. All are fascinating and seem to hold true thirty years after the book was written. I cannot write about all of that, it is too much detail for a weekly summary so I encourage you to read for yourself.

One thing I can say for sure is that each of those factors has a high and a corresponding low. Generally speaking, that is a unifying period in a high to a completely decentralized period in the unraveling. This is to say that the opposite of the hero generation is the nomad generation and so tastes and expectations will keep riding this circle as the saeculum moves on. The same is true with the profits and the artists. The profits start the descent from the unity until the nomads complete it. Then the artist generation starts the unification until the heroes complete it (that is if the Millenials survived the ‘Tide Pod Challenge’).

But that is just it. Social media is unifying the culture in ways that we can even imagine. Yes the Tide Pod challenge was highly stupid. In my opinion so were flash mobs, Ice Bucket challenge and likewise VSCO girls and Tik Tok dancing. It is not the activity nor the platform but the desire to ‘go viral’ that seems to live inside of everyone. It the reason nobody cares people spew opinions to their circle of fiends. I guess that includes myself in that statement.

The thing that this book has really impressed on me is that I used to believe that generations rebelled from rebellion sake. When a society is in a high, what is the purpose of rebellion and destroying that? What I have come to understand is that the cycle is unavoidable. It is the destiny of each generation to fulfill their position in the respective saeculum.

I never expected to get this perspective realignment from this book. It has actually opened my eyes to be more accepting to all of these new ideas and practices that the new generations adopt. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t plan to embrace or even adopt most these new ideas but I can understand where they are coming from and will temper my tendency to denigrate them.

End Your Programming Routine: Next week you will get a break, the chapter is only a couple of pages long. Expect that I will be briefer than normal. Following that we will be reading and talking about the seasons in our current saeculum. That should be interesting to do a deep dive. If you are reading along with me, I am sure that you will agree that mastering the vocabulary is the critical step to really getting enriched by this though provoking theory.

January 24, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 3

January 24, 2025 /

What can I say, there is a lot here. As I read further, I get a little more confused or muddled because of the context switching and lack of total command of the subject matter. This is one of those books I should probably read more than once to get the best value from it. But, never fear. I am doing my best to get an accurate explanation out.

Generations I get. Seasons I get. Architypes I get. Moving from architype to season to generation, not so much. Let me try to use an example. I am Generation X. At the time the book was written, it was called Generation 13, Gen-X had yet to be universally adopted as Gen-X was used to describe the very latest Baby Boomers (more on that in a bit).

Based on my current age, my season is Fall. Zero to 20 is Spring, 21-40 is Summer, 41-60 is Fall and 60+ is winter. When the book was written, I was in Summer so you have to keep remembering the context of theory and not trying to tie in current day which is somewhat confusing.

Now this is where things get kind of confusing. My architype is nomad. This has to do with the characteristics of my generation. One word to describe that would be alienated. In contrast, the GI generation was the Hero – heroic generation, the Korean war vets (Silent) were the Artist – sensitive and the Baby boomers were the Profit – narcissistic generation.

Imagine the confusion when the book bounces between 13ers/Gen-X/Summer/Nomad. Not only do you need to master time context but also the terms. As I am reading I have to keep recalibrating that calculus to follow along. But it is all good.

This chapter is all about seasons, so hopefully we have all the basic vocabulary down finally. The point is that as the generations move through time, they have roles to play. As an example Fall is the season that generation assumes power or control. In theory, at this time Generation X should be becoming the predominant generation for power.

We should all know from national politics that Trump is a Boomer and Biden is the Silent Generation. As far as VPs go Harris is Generation X and Vance is a Millennial. I think the fundamental question is will Generation X ever assume control? This chapter answered one of my fundamental generation questions. There is a hard line in terms of generation inclusion based on birthdate. But, the reproductive cycle is unpredictable.

For this reason, Boomers and Gen-X have had children that fall into the Millennial generation. The generation that is the most powerful (usually the largest) will have undue influence over the new generation. For this reason, we are seeing the Boomers still hanging on in politics and business leadership. But it goes much farther and deeper than that.

It has to do with societal group think. What are the school board policies? How should the public react to untested vaccines? Gay marriage? Marijuana? Even though a generation might universally agree with positions, it wasn’t until the Boomers were solidly in power that we saw those changes come into effect.

For that reason, I suspect that the Millennials will shortly grab the torch from the Boomers. We will likely see adoption of Trans rights when that generation is solidly in power. Where do those ideas come from? Their spring season of course. Remember which generation had undue influence, the Boomers. See, it is not that hard.

Given that Boomers were born all the way to 1964, that puts the very youngest at 61. It is very likely that Trump will be the last Boomer president. Though not impossible to have one last Baby Boomer president, are we ready for a Gen-X or Millennial president? Ready or not, here it comes and all that goes with it.

End Your Programming Routine: I definitely could have written a lot more today. I feel like I have a much better handle on generations and what there are influences and why. If you are not reading with me, then you are definitely missing some stuff. As an example, the book uses famous names to the generations as well as more than a one word definition to the Archetype. That also helps with context.

January 22, 2025 – Hot Dish Confidential

January 22, 2025 /

Hot Dish Confidential: That Year My Friends Taught Me to Cook by George Sorensen was the Left Coast Culinary book club selection for January. As it turns out, one of our club members has a shirt tail connection to the author and apparently he lives locally even though the story largely takes place in Minneapolis.

I am just going to have to play the hand that I am dealt. The book starts out really promising with a description of a family dinner at a restaurant that no longer exists about a hour from me. I couldn’t follow exactly but somehow George feels guilty about the fact that he cannot cook and starts what could best be described a dinner club.

According to the book, the author takes the lead in organizing themed dinners where each of the participants contributes something to the effort. There are a some differences between what they do and what we do. Ours is a dinner theme based on a book. It seemed like many people were actually cooking immediately before the meal in most months of the book. They sometimes incorporated costumes and there was one person in charge of wine.

The theory is that this is a story of a year learning how to cook. Therefore, each chapter is a month to make up that year. My criticism is that he never really talked about learning to cook. The way that I read it, George organized each dinner an nearest I can tell he learned by being there. On top of that, I would guess that at least a third of the book is him travelling to other countries and at least one section he talks about how he was suckered into an Amway meeting.

To be blunt, the book is poorly written and would benefit from some serious structural editing. Late in the book, he starts talking about Susan as someone special like it was obvious to the reader. I inferred that this was to be his eventual spouse but there was no mention prior and I even went back to re-read the previous chapter to see if I missed something. I got the feeling that most of the book were events in his life that were thrown into a blender and reordered to fit into the idea of the book.

I definitely understand that travel and culture can relate to appreciation of food and by proxy recipes and technique but I have never learned anything about cooking by going to a restaurant. Given that was such a prominent proportion of the book, I have to call bull on the premise in the first place. The book would have been so much better if it had just been anecdotes of a year of this supper club.

Even the title is misleading. There is a small definition of Hot Dish in the beginning. For those of you that don’t know, Hot Dish is midwestern term for casserole. It is what it is, not fine dining but as much as I like good food, I don’t turn up my nose at casserole. Other than a couple of pages, Hot Dish played no role in the book at all. Just based on title, I am disappointed that the book wasn’t more relatable or down to earth.

It was not one hundred percent bad, I enjoyed learning about how they ran their club. There were some recipes in the book. I made the Asparagus quiche for the meeting and it turned out well. There was a number of ideas and pairings as a result the monthly menus that I think were inspirational.

End Your Programming Routine: It is not a cookbook, it is not even a cohesive story. Because this book club is a voluntary event that I enjoy, I do not regret reading the book but I cannot recommend it given so many other choices out there. If I had one piece of advice for George, the author I would say rework this thing so he could make a much more compelling argument for reading.

January 17, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 2

January 17, 2025 /

In my exuberance to keep reading, I forgot some of the facts. I definitely got the main points but I wanted to make sure that I got the important things in detail since I have a whole day to write for. So, I had to kind of re-read the chapter to refresh myself on the details. This is the whole definition of saeculum.

The word saeculum is of Latin origin. The actual etymology is unknown but the term is attributed to the Roman Censorinus. He essentially codified or named the belief that the Roman competitors called the Etruscans believed. The way it worked was when the last living person that remembered a particular event died, then time started over.

It would be interesting to figure out what that actual thing was, but certainly we have had some galvanizing events in our history, say 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. This saeculum is deemed a human century. But, circular time is not unique to European culture for good reason. The Mayans and Hindus also had circular time because it was natural, following the seasons.

If time was circular, then certainly halfway between where you start and where you end is another significant event. This is the concept of Yin and Yang, something I have talked a little about with the Art of War. This is the reason for the balance between the two like Summer and Winter. I would be remised to not mention that others put a little more granularity into the circle. This is where we have Spring juxtaposed against fall.

As of 1997, American history perfectly followed a 80-100 year cycle. I am going to summarize the author’s analysis of American history.

  • Medevil
    • Crisis: War of the Roses (1459-7)
  • Reformation (103 years)
    • Climax: Protestant Reformation (1517 – 42)
    • Crisis: Armada Crisis (1569-94)
  • New World (101 years)
    • Climax: Puritan Awakening (1621-49)
    • Crisis: Glorious Revolution (1675-1704)
  • Revolutionary (92 years)
    • Climax: Great Awakening (1727-46)
    • Crisis: American Revolution (1773-1794)
  • Civil War (82 years)
    • Climax: Transcendental Awakening (1822-44)
    • Crisis: Civil War (1860-5)
  • Great Power (81 years)
    • Climax: Third Great Awakening (1886-1908)
    • Crisis: Great Depression and World War II (1929-46)
  • Millennial
    • Climax: Consciousness Revolution (1964-1984)
    • Crisis: 2025?

There are some of us that are wondering when the next crisis is due. By the math it would be this year. Something to note is that puts us at 81 years past the last cycle. Some cycles are 100 years while others are only 80 and therefore, it could be that the Consciousness Revolution is not at the climax at only 30 years beyond WWII.

However, having lived through most of it, I cannot see any other climax in that time frame. Generation X fits the prototype of the Fall generation with Millennials as the Crisis generation. We just don’t know.

One thing I find extremely interesting is every single climax is religious based. I have to wonder about our perceptive shift away from religion since the last Crisis. As such, has there been a true or detectable climax in this cycle? It was probably easier to say that the Consciousness Revolution in 1997 was the climax and add fifty years.

But what if the climax was secular? I would probably pick the late 1990s to early 2000s as the Internet revolution. The economy was the new God. If that were true then that puts the next crisis at 2030-2045. I would certainly argue that today’s political climate seems more like the 1850s with talk of succession and very clearly disgruntled constituents. The other thing to consider is that if Strauss and Howe are correct, we are due for some pain very shortly.

End Your Programming Routine: Hopefully you got the gist of saeculum. I find it fascinating that history has tracked so tightly to these timelines it gives a lot of credibility to the theory actually being true. It looks like the next chapter is about more granularity in that cycle. Think Spring and Fall.

January 10, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 1

January 10, 2025 /

Finally, it seems like a book that I can get into. I have already read beyond the required chapter as I am writing this. This book seems like one of those that I could read a couple of times because it is pretty deep. Not only is it filled with history and facts but it is deep as well.

I will cover a little more than Chapter One today because the preface is relevant to the whole story of the book. The preface is an update on the span of things that have taken place since the book was written. Unfortunately Strauss has passed away but the book was published in 1997. For you math challenged, that is over 25 years ago. And if you follow the book, that is an entire generation.

I talk about the nineties a lot but it is helpful for perspective. 1997 was squarely in the heyday of Generation X. The oldest Xers were in their early thirties and the youngest were in their mid teens. Not only has twenty-five years of history past but so has the perspective of what those events meant. I will extend some grace to the book as result, but any good and valid theory should be able to stand the test of time.

The key concept in this chapter is the measurements of time. According to the authors, there are three measurements of time. They are described chaotic, linear and circular. Let me give a brief definition of each.

  • Chaotic – Random or unrelated
  • Linear – Continually evolving or not repeating
  • Circular – Repeating

Let me try to explain a little more behind these three from the perspective of Strauss and Howe. It is widely held that Chaotic time is pre-recorded history. What they are saying is that there was no record of events beyond the living. As a result, everything seemed random or unrelated. The hundred year flood probably occurred before the last living soul and therefore it seems cataclymic.

Linear time came into being largely as a result of religion. I am most familiar with Christianity so I can speak to that. When Christ was born, the Jewish belief of the coming of God was fulfilled. As we sit, we are waiting for the rapture or the second coming in 2025 Anno Domini. Once that occurs, life as we know it will no longer exist. Therefore, as far as Christian history is concerned this is a linear pattern.

Many ancient cultures actually believe in circular time. There is much more about this next chapter so I don’t really want to spoil next week. Regardless of religion, the earth has a cycle, seasons have a cycle so why not time? This belief was superseded after the fall of Rome and the heavy dominance of the church but was rediscovered in the Renaissance in the western world.

It should be no surprise that I think the truth is somewhere between the Vin diagram of the three. There has to be some random events, Those would have to lead to linear time but in turn, common existence is circular. Lets go back in time to a controversial or unproven history. What if the meteor had not hit the earth and created a global cloud that killed the dinosaurs? That is random and linear. While the earth’s celestial travel is circular, the chances of a collision again have not been mathematically determined. The odds of it happening again are not known but it at least seems chaotic.

I don’t think that it is foreshadowing or even a spoiler to say that Strauss and Howe believe in circular time. For that matter, I believe I do as well. It is their contention that cycles have highs and lows but that means that we as a society are bound to experience both. When you look at their perspective and timing of the book, they were in the midst of a huge economic boom and the fall of the Soviet Union. The US was unstoppable in the late 1990s. Uh Oh, trouble is bound to follow, but where? Hence the name of the chapter “Winter Comes Again”.

End Your Programming Routine: OK, so we are off to a good start. Next week is going to be all about the origin and particulars of circular time. This is the setup for the whole premise theory so we have to restrain ourselves just a little bit. Let us enjoy the journey a little bit since last year was a difficult one on Friday.

January 8, 2025 – Flavor: The Science of Our Most Forgotten Sense

January 8, 2025 /

Flavor was going to be an LCCBC selection for November. That is until circumstances changed but I had bought the book already. It is not a terribly long book. Even so, it took me quite a while to read with all of the interruptions of the holidays. I started it over the Thanksgiving week but finished it only a couple days ago.

The book is a combination of the fascination and the mundane. For instance, flavor is the combination of taste and scent and memory. I had never considered it before, I thought flavor and taste were actually the same thing. Memory had nothing to do with it. How fascinating.

On the contrary, some of the stories and anecdotes are repetitive in certain chapters. About two thirds of the way through the book, I was ready to give it a thumbs down due to just not enough content. But, I kept going and was rewarded with theories on developing flavor in meat and steaks.

What I learned about flavor was definitely interesting. First of all, a lot of flavor is scent. People that lose scent for whatever reason also tend to lose the ability to taste. From that point, eating is only a matter of survival and that can be a push. The author also proclaims that humans ability to detect scent is just as good as other animals (including dogs). The difference is that because we are upright, we are much farther away from most scents on the ground.

Taste is much more of a mystery. Apparently, there are 400 some taste receptors. They are specifically oriented toward specific compounds. Because there are millions of compounds, receptors have to do multiple duty or work in some sort of combination. In addition, some receptors commonly die as we age. For that reason, our preference/tolerance for certain compounds change over time. All of this work is incredibly speculative given the sensitive location of the receptors.

Flavor is the money. We all at least know somebody that cannot stand tequila or gin. The memory of the experience is a survival mechanism to keep us from accidentally poisoning ourselves. Extremely positive and negative memories from certain foods are built into our genetic responses.

It took me years to be able to smell let alone eat the Olive Garden salad dressing. When we arrived from our honeymoon in Mexico we went out to Olive Garden for dinner. I picked up a bug in Mexico that led to 105 degree temperatures amongst the polite symptoms. It was that strong vinegar component. I still loved all other high acid, vinegar forward foods but it was that particular combination (and probably setting). That memory has waned into a laugh now, but the flavor was real.

The other thing this book gets into is artificial flavoring. I am always into learning the dirty little secrets of the food industry. The biggest takeaway I got was that most real foods are way more complicated than what can be duplicated. It is not price competitive. The more a company wants to pay for flavor, the more things that can be put in to get closer to a natural flavor.

Since artificial flavoring is a compromise (even using the real chemicals we taste) there are also doppelgangers. Some flavors mimic or are similar too the real ones. This is the reason artificial grape tastes like artificial grape. The real compounds oxidize instantly and cannot be used realistically.

The most interesting and now defunct element of the book is that IBM developed artificial intelligence for food called Chef Watson. You could add an ingredient and get a suggested pairing or a couple of ingredients and get some recipes. IBM shut down Watson in 2021 but I suspect that newer technologies like Chat GPT has the same capabilities. This opens a whole new world to AI skeptics such as myself.

End Your Programming Routine: Let’s bottom line this. If you accept that there is going to be some repetition it is definitely worth the rest. As a chemist that has spent a large percentage of my career working with the food industry, I didn’t find the science overwhelming. I did find myself trying to visualize the chemical structure rather than accepting the name and moving on. Given my distance from chemical structures, I sometimes wandered off in the weeds. I don’t think a typical reader would have the same problem.

December 6, 2024 – The Art of War, Conclusion

December 6, 2024 /

If you were reading along with me, then you as well have now read another ‘classic’. This is definitely the first time for me reading the Art of War. I have heard a whole lot of references to the book over the years. Now I can contribute my own opinion on it is worth to the average person.

I am kind of a funny guy. I have extreme reverence for some old things. Architecture is an example of that. But when it comes to books and media, it turns out that I am a skeptic.

Throughout my academic life, I can remember reading things like The Iliad, Shakespeare and Moby Dick. I would say that they have an important role in literature because of their existence. As far as being great works, that is definitely debatable in my opinion. Each surviving work provided a framework and story lines to supplement new work.

Sticking closer to the subject, I see Art of War as a similar comparison. If you were studying military history then this is a very important work. It has shaped military tactics and thoughts for thousands of years. But, aside from that I really don’t see a lot of value to the non-military, non-historian, modern man.

I read that there have been attempts to turn the study of Art of War into some sort of business philosophy. I fail to see the connection unless you are going to make metaphors for terrain and feudal leadership to other situations. Certain authors like Ayn Rand and George Orwell clearly are using innuendo to make a point. I really don’t believe that Sun Tzu was using military terms for guiding the modern business man, especially because this incarnation did not really exist.

Was the book worth reading? From a standpoint of checking a classic off of the list, yes. From the standpoint of getting a lot of insight from the book, no. This book is for military historians and the Sinophile. It doesn’t hurt to read these short chapters and try to rationalize what is written as a thought exercise. I wouldn’t expect it to change your life in any meaningful way however.

I know that when I started this, I talked about how this was a book of several. I heard a conflicting version that Art of War was an amalgamation of different authors. This was pieced together from oral legend and ancient text fragments. Sawyer goes through a lot of effort to justify credit of Sun Tzu to the work. You can make similar claims about the Bible whereas the difference is the application. It is the subject and not the author that makes the book valuable.

End Your Programming Routine: I was listening to the Art of Manliness podcast and I heard this statement “negative people are perceived as smarter”. I don’t think of myself as negative. But, if you are skeptical and open minded then you are much more likely to keep searching for the truth. Whereas if you just accept something at face value then you are susceptible to any rumor that you run across. Read Art of War and decide for yourself. You got my opinion.

November 29, 2024 – The Art of War, Employing Spies

November 29, 2024 /

We have reached the end of another classic tome. You will get my full opinion on the overall book next week. If you have been following along, then you probably can guess where I am going to go with this. But for now, we have one more chapter to get through.

I get the sense that what Sun Tzu is implying is that the use of spies will help shorten the war. But it is the beginning of the chapter that caught my eye. Continuous fighting is extremely costly. First and foremost, it effects the men that are fighting. That is obvious. But, then it effects the families and the economy and the morale and the country overall.

Let us just look at things for a minute. Who benefits from twenty years of war? Was it the soldiers? No. Was it the families? No. Was it society? No. So I ask again, who benefits from the twenty years of war in Afghanistan? Was it freedom? No, we have less than ever. Was it the Afghans/Iraqis? No, they are right back where they started.

Remember when I talked about right for the wrong reasons? Here we are. This is not hindsight. It was less than four years ago that the US withdrew from Afghanistan and the writing was on the wall years before that. Sun Tzu wants spies to shorten war. For some reason, others do not want the war to end.

Who might that be? If it is not good for the people or society then who could possibly want it to continue? The only answer is the people that profit from war. That would be first and foremost the military industrial complex enabled and sustained by politicians. Such an insidious relationship where they wrap themselves in an American flag. They are there for the soldier and freedom.

The politicians use their Newspeak to point fingers at the other political side and the fictitious enemy. You know that it cannot be true when all the news stories cover children following soldiers around asking for candy and the people are so warm and welcoming. The perception given is that people are liberated and happy when inexplicitly the war continues.

There is certainly a time to fight. The very best reason is when you are invaded and you definitely don’t want it. So Poland in 1939 is a pretty good reason. Sometimes getting provoked is a pretty good reason. But like I was taught in Sunday school, do unto others that you would have done onto you. Or how about grade school? Two wrongs don’t make a right.

What amazes me is the approval rating of congress has been perennially less than 30%. And yet the re-election rate of incumbents is over 80% for all positions (house and senate). So let us say that I disapprove of the job the senate has done but yet I have sent my same senator for six straight terms. Is it always someone else’s fault? Logic would have to say no. Maybe, just maybe I shouldn’t keep re-electing the problem.

Unfortunately, when military actions are taken without a declaration of war, the system is broken. And when the system is broken, nothing can be trusted. You cant actually expect someone to change a system when all involved ignore the rules.

I am not going argue that intelligence is key to making the best decisions. It is really hard to say that Sun Tzu includes that vast topic under the umbrella of spies or not. It doesn’t really seem written that way. So again, if we stay myopically under spies, I cant think of relevance in the civilian world.

End Your Programming Routine: I should talk that that I am advocating for power to the people. I don’t even believe that we can vote our way out of this. At the same time, I cannot agree with Sun Tzu more that war is costly. It is why it should not be entered lightly and should end as quickly as possible. We absolutely get caught up in taking sides on a conflict where we are always the losers.

November 22, 2024 – The Art of War, Incendiary Attacks

November 22, 2024 /

This is chapter twelve and after today, one more to go. If you wanted to learn how to attack with fire, today is your day. This chapter is all about when and how to do so. Once again, good leaders will use this tactic prudently and appropriately.

To tell you the truth, I cannot think of anything relevant about the philosophy of attacking with fire outside of a military realm. I remember in the early 1990s the movie Backdraft when sometimes fighting a fire requires setting another fire to deplete the oxygen out of the main fire. So, I guess there is a counter tactic to using fire as a weapon. But that is not what this chapter is about.

If we look at fire as a weapon and its effective use requires specific tactics then maybe we can look at things in a different light. Said more generally, use certain techniques to get the results you want with a particular tool or weapon. OK, what does that really mean.

I remember that as a kid, I used to love to go to the used bookstore. It was one of the few places that my mom would let us spend money and sometimes she would pay for books too. Sometimes I would go to the military non-fiction section. I was looking for encyclopedia like references of equipment and other things to dream about being deadly awesome.

I remember one time I found the Army Survival Guide. I read that thing cover to cover. I learned that I could take a parachute and make a shelter as well as weave twigs together to make a fish trap. There was lots of information about snares and traps included.

Around the same time, I was taking the Wilderness Survival merit badge in Boy Scouts. I built a survival kit and spent the night in a shelter that I built in the woods. I thought that I knew a whole lot about wilderness survival. But, the truth is I had a lot of resources for a short duration (overnight) and a lot of useless knowledge.

The army survival guide was helpful from a stimulant standpoint. But, lets be honest I wont have a parachute with me. This was long before shows like Dual Survival came along. Have you seen how effective their traps and snares are? These are essentially professional survivalists barely surviving. Clearly, man evolved from living entirely off of the land so I know that it is possible but there is a huge disconnect from that civilization to ours.

My whole point of this is that it is helpful to have a reference as a starting point. That is The Art of War or FM 21-76 Army Survival Guide. But practice and living it are the only way to become proficient. We can read all we want about the best fire to beat our enemies but it oversimplifies things tremendously. Good luck starting a fire outside today in my neck of the woods, we have the bomb cyclone going on.

End Your Programming Routine: Each week I am trying to find a way to say the same thing over and over again. The right tactics used properly will yield better results. As I stated in the beginning, I honestly don’t know what the value of this chapter is. I could think of some things that I want to burn down, but that is not really appropriate. Why don’t we leave it at that.

November 15, 2024 – The Art of War, Nine Terrains

November 15, 2024 /

Another chapter on terrain. This leaves us with two more reading chapters until we are done with this book. I will wrap it up with one more opinion on the whole book and then moving on to something else. I am thinking that I might give book reviews a rest until the new year since we are so close to the end of the year. Don’t worry I will announce what it is to give you a chance to start.

The thing that makes this different the last chapter is that this one talks about the tactics on the different types of terrain. I am not going to rehash the types and responses, you can read that for yourselves. But the general idea is the deeper the army goes into enemy territory the different name it has. As a result, the different strategy and tactics to put to use.

I have to say that I am struggling with relating this outside of war again. I mean, I suppose that you can change tactics on any campaign when the situation dictates it. There is a time in a business when even though things seem like they are going well, trouble is just around the corner despite things look rosy right now.

There was a time that I was working at a small company. The company was making money hand over fist. We, the workers were killing ourselves working 80 hour work weeks. I am not begrudging the owners by any means, this is a story about tactics. The company scored a huge job and they pulled out all the stops to make it worth the effort.

But, something was not quite right underneath. Even though the owners were buying boats and vacation homes, deep down they were worried that this couldn’t be repeated or sustained. It was part that they had gotten what they wanted from the business, but they also knew that there were responsible for thirty some mouths now. So we ended up merging with a larger company.

The point is that things never looked better from a financial standpoint but a change of tactics was called for. I will never know if that was the right decision but I think this falls right into Sun Tzu’s advice. We need to keep our eyes open in all situations despite what it seems like.

There is more jibber jabber about leaders and treating the group as one. If the group is one then they will work with predictive results and in a more cohesive fashion. I say it in that tone because I think we have had some of this beat in chapter after chapter. There is nothing like repetition to emphasize the point.

End Your Programming Routine: If I was going to summarize this chapter, I would have to say that tactics are situational. Do different things depending on the situation for the best chance for success. I can’t say that is a revolutionary idea, it seems like a common sense one. The real trick is knowing accurately what part of the situation you are actually in.