[redfreedom]

“Self-Reliance”

I had the misfortune of working for a bunch of lefties once. What a learning experience! Yes, I am a Rush listener, but his teachings never really hit home until a person lives the experience.

Things like “Self-Reliance”, “Rugged Individualism” are total taboo to them, let alone individual thought. I never fit, and only came close when I mended my ways towards theirs.

Simple tasks requiring only one individual was often done with two or more. Thinking of new ways at lower echelons was just unheard of. Micro management down to the simplest details were common place.

In a live or die scenario, this mentality will never survive. If they initiate CWII, they will not win.

[poconopundit]

Excellent. You learned "self-reliance" in spite of a work culture that discouraged it. As for me, 25 years of being self-employed (and seeing many ups and downs) taught me the necessity of thinking creatively and putting in the time.

This week I'm listening to a fabulous audiobook, The Wright Brothers. From the Amazon promo:

Orville and Wilbur Wright were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity. When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable.

Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education and little money never stopped them in their mission to take to the air.

I'm now on Chapter 3 or 4 where the Wright Brothers basically built a wind tunnel in their bicycle shop to test out different wing designs. And each design was formed of plain hacksaw blades.

As they discovered, the supposed "science" behind aviation was all wrong: they basically needed to understand flight theory from scratch.

This is one of the great stories of American exceptionalism and with David McCullough as author and reader, it's highly entertaining and inspiring.