Perfect Clarity: Dangerous Freedom

 “A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.”

--JRR Tolkien

Continuing on the theme of Perfect Clarity I realized that I would be remiss if I didn’t cover what I believe is also another important component of developing Perfect Clarity. And that is the concept of “Dangerous Freedom”.

Now, I’ve spoken about this before in other blog posts but I don’t quite think I explained it from the perspective of how it helps us towards the development of Perfect Clarity. (There’s another aspect of Perfect Clarity called Ruthless Intent that I’ve written about before and may elaborate on at a later time). Before I get too far down the Rabbit Hole on this I want to tell a story because I think that it sort of falls in line with the mentality at least on a moral and even spiritual level as to what I’m talking about so indulge me.

I’ll never forget when I was around the age of 15 and sitting in church and then Reverend McCrae while preaching a sermon slamming his fist as usual, and asked a question to the church as a whole. He said something like,

“Now, upon your death… if you had two doors to choose from and you open them and one in one door there was a raging storm, wind, rain, thunder, and lightning and along the path was a narrow jagged rocky climb up a mountain. Now, in the other door, it was sunny, bright, beautiful flowers, a nice breeze not too hot… nice wide flat road… Now just by a show of hands how many would pick the first door I described?”

At this point no one put their hand up he said,

“Okay, so how many of you would take the second door?”

At this point, everyone’s hand went up including mine.

He then smiled and said something like,

“Good, good… Okay, now I want you to open up your bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 and 14 and read along with me. So the bible tells up the following:

13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

At that moment you could see that everyone had that sinking feeling in their gut, lots of downcast heads, gone were all of the obligatory “amen” after his every word because we all knew that deep down we had stepped in it, and he went on to say something that has stayed with me throughout my life that I want to share here. Because this was some sermon at least to my young mind at the time because I had never heard anyone talk like this before.

“Now I set yawl up and I did so for a reason. You want to go to Heaven? You’ve got to ‘fight’ your way to Heaven. Now Hell? It takes nothing to get to Hell. Too many of yawl want it easy, too many of yawl think you’ve got it bad so you don’t want to fight. You want it easy but you know what? Satan is all too happy to give you easy. You know why? Because he knows, in the end, he’s going to collect on that down payment. He ain’t your friend, you’ve got to fight him and be willing to stand against him with the armor of God every day. And you know what? Sometimes you’re going to lose, sometimes it’s going to seem like it is more than you can bare. But be of good cheer for Christ Jesus will never leave nor forsake you. But you’ve got to be willing to do your part. You’ve got to be of good courage. You’ve got to fight! No lukewarm milk toast Christians here. If you’re not willing to take the first door if you’re not willing to fight. Then you’re neither worthy of this life you have or the one that is to come.”

Wow! Okay at this point people looked as if they had seen a ghost. Like, for real! I also notice there were fewer people in church the following Sunday. If it was his intent to weed out those who didn’t want to fight and take door number one well… mission accomplished. He would go on to have other sermons just as powerful but that one was really the first one where, a) I was actually paying attention in church as opposed to looking at my watch every 5-seconds waiting for it to be over and; b) probably the first time in my life I had enough maturity and brainpower to comprehend what he’d probably been saying all along.

Now, I’ve been to some of the most dangerous places on earth and I can tell you if you are risk-averse as the saying goes,

“If you can’t run with the big dogs don’t even get off the porch.”

A lot of people, a lot of them can’t run with the big dogs because they won’t let themselves. Fear has robbed them of life they seek, they want the safe and secure route, the wide path and not the narrow, dangerous path. You see in all that you do, there is an acceptable level of risk you must accept if you are to live a Dangerous Freedom!

Dangerous Freedom (Or Civilization is Bullshit - Part II)

“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

― Thomas Jefferson

This quote by Jefferson has also been translated as,

“I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude...”

In any event, I am so down with this way of thinking and I think it was also something that the good Reverend was trying to impart on us all those years ago. You see too many folks in life want to play it safe.

I stole this meme off of Facebook because it really sums up a fundamental aspect of what it means to live a Dangerous Freedom. Too many folks in life want a risk free life. But the truth is there are a million things in life you can control and there are a million you can’t and that’s the way it is. You see as I’ve said in other posts civilization and the whole construct of what we think it is, is well… “bullshit”. And the sooner in life, you get mugged by reality the better off you’ll be. The other point I want to make is once you know this at least from my experience, I find it liberating. You see when you can see your world with the perfect clarity and you know there are known dangers out there you can then learn to deal with them, prepare for them and anticipate them.  

Like is said, I’ve been to some of the most dangerous places in the world and I can tell you once you get your bearings even in a war-torn country as long as you keep your wits about you believe it or not you’ll be fine. I’ll tell you something here that very few people especially some senior officers in the military would tell you and that is for most of our young men and women in the military, for them combat is the “ultimate rush”.

The danger, the power of wielding a gun, the thrill of the hunt for bad guys. The revenge for what happened on 9/11 (oh yeah many of us are still far from all right with that shit) and the noble feeling you have for waging righteous battle. The cool stories and experiences, the drawing of fire together, and the bragging rights of surviving war. Are you kidding me? I still have Marines that I’m in touch with who served with me that talk about our experiences in battle. It’s literally like how guys who used to play high school football together still talk about the games they won 40 years ago like it was yesterday. Folks, I ain’t gonna lie here, we live for that shit and don’t let anyone bullshit you.

I remember during Fleet Week NY City right after the Gulf War. If you were a Marine or Sailor in uniform, you couldn’t buy a beer in Manhattan. But why were people so welcoming? Simple, because they knew we had experienced something and accepted a level of risk that is the path less traveled, we chose “the first door” and were “freed” by hat choice. For very few people whether in a war or as a cop on the beat or just someone trying to survive day to day in a gang-infested neighborhood has stood in that space. And every day we try to live up to that ideal that people have of us out of respect for a grateful nation.

Because our freedom isn’t free, that is it bought and paid for with the blood of patriots. “This” ideal this “thing” is what Dangerous Freedom is all about the willingness to risk all to remain free or die, to “return with our shields or on it!”  For surrender is not an option, surrender is “slavery”. For Dangerous Freedom, the acceptance of risk and the acceptance of risk “is” civilization.

I remember a friend of mine in the Marine Corps telling me about when he visited the cemetery at Normandy of those who died on D-Day, he said to me when you see all of the crosses, all of the graves. It is so overwhelming that he literally started to cry. He said,

“I couldn’t help it, I had no idea, I couldn’t believe it… so many guys… so many lives… I literally had to take a knee. I just couldn’t control myself.” 

Hell, before he was done talking he had me crying. Because I knew… because I understood… and because the last time I checked I wasn’t speaking German. I had an almost similar reaction when I was a 2^nd Lieutenant when me and a few buddies went to visit the Vietnam War Memorial. It’s one thing to see it in a picture it’s quite another to place your hand on that wall, touch those names and see your own reflection in the wall.

Very sobering…

Dangerous Freedom: The Warrior Flow Way

Dangerous Freedom and the very concept is in my view at the heart or at least one of the core philosophies of the Warrior Flow Way and what Warrior Flow is all about.

But, to me Dangerous Freedom isn’t just a philosophy, this whole idea of being willing to stand in that space, to give it all up to preserve your way of life to me is the “ultimate freedom” it needs to become a way of life. This unwillingness to bend and back down in the face of a threat and deal with it with common sense and confidence is the mindset I try to impart through my teachings. In other words, if I have to fight then I have to fight if I don’t it isn’t any harder to understand than that. To me, this idea of Dangerous Freedom and how we use it to develop Perfect Clarity is the at the heart of why people would want to train in a fighting art in the first place. For the ability to overcome the fear of death or at least manage it, is to not live in dread of it. That to me is the ultimate freedom. For it is the fear of death that ultimately controls men’s lives.

You see in Warrior Flow, we believe that you and I have a God-given right to protect our families and our loved ones and no law supersedes that. We believe people should know how to fight and have the confidence they have the ability to stand their ground if need be and that running should never be the first option. I have nothing against people beating feet out of an area when the situation permits but it should never be their first and only option.

You don’t train in a self-defense course to run away,  you train to fight for your life and crush the enemy. Besides how can people ever learn to stand in that space and hold their own if their fears are being reinforced by teaching them to run first?  I’m sorry but that does not compute. Such thinking is not “the Warrior Flow Way”!

However, we do not advocate that you go around starting trouble for no reason, this is not what we mean by Dangerous Freedom or standing in that space. In other words, walking into a group of guys and slapping one in the head in some gang-infested neighborhood is not Dangerous Freedom it’s just stupid! Hey anything can happen I get it, but unless you have a plan to kill them all there’s no need to slap that hornets’ nest.

Now, if they bring the hornets’ nest to you? That’s a different thing so you’re going to have to use your best judgment which leads me to the next thing. You need to build your judgment by proper training but also training that does not absolve you of using your God-given common sense. Well, I’m going to cut this off here and I’ll get into the other aspects of Dangerous Freedom from the perspective of how to go about building that judgment and level of awareness.