Draw Breath from Your Heels

This essay is dedicated to Wing-Tsit Chan, author of A Source Book of Chinese Philosophy, who has
been a continuing infuence in the creation of it...

The pure man of old slept without dreams and awoke without anxiety.
He ate without indulging in sweet tastes and breathed deep breaths.
The pure man draws breaths from the great depths of his heels,
the multitude only from their throats.
People defeated (in argument) utter words as if to vomit,
and those who indulge in many desires have very little of the secret of Nature.

Chuang Tzu (369-286 BC ?)

The whirlwind of whole number data collecting, voice transmissions, digital

entertainment, and bona fde and spurious research that has led to
bewildering millions of people throughout the world, for now rules
supremely and probably will continue to do so still when the estimated
population of the world in 2025 is 8.1 billion. (At this writing, 26 December
2018, the world's population is 7,672,760,300 people; for those of us living
in racist and xenophobic Europe, the population of Africa today is
1,287,920,516 individuals; by 2050, 1,300,000,000 Africans will be added to
that number.) So many people being offered fame, fortune, and friendship
on social media—mercantile establishments reaping billions of proft for
themselves, but not even offering one fshing pole to one poverty-stricken
individual who might want to go to the Harvard Business School and
become a successful billionaire such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

Some scientists think the Earth can accommodate about 10,000,000,000

people without stressing our environment beyond its own limits. Yet, the
parameters of the Earth do not take into account the propensity of human
nature to be greedy, corrupt, incompetent, and ignorant. Already, almost
two billion people around the world are destitute. This fact seldom
infuences political and economic agendas. If another 2,400,000,000 are
added to today's aggregation, how many of them will be prone to undergo
further desperation and violence which already threatens the stability of
their lives and even our own lives? Will we be able to survive amongst
ourselves when we are already so inclined to violence and injustice? The
Earth is sure to survive us—“surface nuisances” as George Carlin once
remarked—but we will not survive the Earth! The United Nations reports
that the world's population in 2100 will be 11.2 billion. And they talk about
rats and rabbits producing themselves excessively! (In 1960, the population
of the world was about 3,000,000,000 human beings.) Dystopia, dystopia,
dystopia! Necessity is the mother of invention? Imagine 11 billion people
seeking employment and having to contend with Artifcial Intelligence and
exceptionally brilliant robots; 11 billion people wanting a beautiful home
and an automobile, too; millions of these 11 billion individuals vying to be
accepted by the Harvard Business School to keep capitalism alive and
sturdy; and, 11 billion kinfolk watching football games and glued to their
video games and smartphones! (Are smartphones sterilizing the human race
—or at least trying to do so?)

What if push comes to shove? Where would you want to be—to survive—
my dear reader? Think of where people do not want to live. Most do not
want to live in the cold. Russia, the largest nation in the world, has an
average of 9 people living in every kilometer square; and, Canada, the
second largest country on the planet, has 4 people each kilometer square.
Each of these two sovereign states possesses enormous sources of fuel and
mineral deposits. Even water! The Blue Liquid Gold of the future. (Will
Californians depend one day on Siberian water supplies?) Think of
Australia if you don't like the cold. For every kilometer square, there are 3
people, on average, residing in Australia. So big, yetso vulnerable to heat.

Do you think you will have to survive?

Are you confdent you will not have to survive?

Here is some food for thought:

The Art of Survival

The imperative to survive is confronting us more than at any other time in
human history. There are very many more people; a haunting vulnerability
pervades the air. An unmatched surge in the world’s population is
guesstimated to propel humanity to the inconceivable head-count of
8,000,000,000 in 2025 and 10,000,000,000 in 2050. There is the never-
ending desire for decent lodging, prosperous employment, low-cost
mobility and lifelong well-being. Nevertheless, it has been by now
substantiated that the Earth’s resources cannot gratify, even partially, the
unrelenting yearnings of all of us. Multiplying social, political and
economic disproportions are certain to instigate further discontent that in
turn will egg on more conficts and more dislocations upsetting whatever
hopes of tranquility we may have aspired to.
Not all people care to survive. Many others care only that they themselves
should survive. Individuals might concern themselves about living on and
that others belonging to the very same global community of which they are
a part will also live on. Although not necessarily infrm, people who are not
particularly interested in enduring will do little to allow themselves to
endure and generally are not vexed about the continuation of their fellows.
They might not look properly after their health, they might “vegetate” their
lives away in a slothful passivity, and they are baffing not only in their
intimate social circles, they cause diffculties for their superiors and co-
workers where they are engaged. They do not have to be criminals. These
someones have no zest for life, sound off frequently, and are miserable and
apathetic. They merely exist and at length become burdens on society
which has to ante up for their untrustworthiness and refusal to exist for the
betterment of their confrères. Most people who hate others frst loathed
themselves.
Then there are those whose individual self-interest is the actual motive of
all conscious action, the valid end of their human activity. These types
might dominate a close-knit grouping or even an establishment, and they
must hold control of the system they superintend manipulating the
network's subordinates to satisfy their cravings for power. Their sphere of
activity is often constrictive and it is of course based on experience,
tradition and more often than not family linkups. These swellheads thrive
on what is determinate, and theirs is the exclusive mode to perform during
whatever exigence that might emerge. Superfcially, these egocentrics
induce us to believe that their often sadistic modi operandi serve in fact the
methodicalness of the governing body they and their underlings are ranked
under, and so doing, their “benefcial” actions come to serve all, are for
everyone's gain. They are not.
The third category is that to which this essay is directed, and it is the one
from which we may derive a sense of hope—hopefully, too, the means to
attain the expectations we are seeking. There are those causal agents to
whom we may ascribe attributes unbeknown to the majority of society at
large. These subjects need to make a contribution on behalf of others by
caring for themselves foremost and subsequently reaching out to assist
those with whom they subsist. All sound, forward-looking societies have
had these characters to set the stage to set in motion an epoch of progress.
These members of society are at the ready to take part, to contribute to the
welfare of themselves and those in their company. They understand what it
means to survive.
I am a survivor—so far! I have outlasted three 122mm Chinese rocket
attacks, three or four mortar blasts, four months with an infantry company
in the jungles bordering Laos and Cambodia, a plane crash, two robberies
at gunpoint.... Still, I do not consider myself an expert. But I do recognize
that I had something to do with my endurance. I have followed defnite
precepts that were taught to me. Notwithstanding, I have always been
gifted with the will to enjoy life. Scito te ipsum!
My introduction to the theory of survival happed upon me when I entered
the US Army on active duty as an artillery lieutenant in September 1966.
Until that time I had drifted along in life not even thinking I might have to
come through one day. In the artillery I was made to make myself self-
suffcient and more important, careful. Discipline and anticipation of
events were emphasized over and over and over in my training. In
Vietnam, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, our 105mm howitzer artillery
batteries could be hoisted into the air by Chinook helicopters, and then
planted into some different point many kilometers distant. The routine for
us was identical after each and every insertion. We followed the same
rules, we erected the indistinguishable battery emplacement, we checked
our instruments, secured the area, and were ready to shoot and
communicate after being dropped into an often unknown, unfriendly
environment. Above all, we could think that we might be transferred again
in a matter of hours, or remain fxed in our new location for weeks or
months. Maintenance was obligatory although not much appreciated, but it
kept disgruntled unit members alert.
Parenthetically, the US Army was not up to sustaining itself in Vietnam,
nor did it give its soldiers the motive, and the means, to create a new,
propitious set of events. Soldiers were ill-equipped. Undisciplined.
Apathetic. Many of them, lacking any hint of patriotism, shot themselves in
the calf (The Million Dollar Wound), neglected to take their anti-malaria
medication and then winded up in bathtubs flled with chunks of ice, and
some even sought to kill themselves by volunteering—deriving pleasure or
death from undergoing pain, abuse and cruelty—for hazardous missions:
“Lieutenant, I'm not returning home.” The US Army accentuated, very
stridently, that they had prepared us to fght in combat. This is not so.
Most soldiers refused to trust anyone ranked above them. Disobedience
was the norm in Vietnam where I had to hold up against both the “enemy,”
whoever and whatever that was, and my own fellow combatants! In
Vietnam, the US Army was a contradiction of its own terms and
consequently doomed to failure.
My military experience, however insufferable, did inculcate in me a respect
for life—my life! It made me appreciate the gift of being alive. That life
had almost been taken away from me. Today, I am content to be alive.
And I continue to follow the basic rules for survival many of which I
learned in the US Army and employ even when I write this essay.
If you have set your heart on surviving, please listen to me. You cannot
remain alive more than your family members, friends and colleagues by just
wishing to. You must do your utmost to make it become a reality. Above
all, you have to respect yourself before you can go on to esteem others. In
fact, you are obliged to study, contemplate and seek responses to the
uncertainties, about yourself and others, which haunt you.
One of the actions of great consequence to be taken is that one we are
already familiar with: anticipation. Think before you act, and refect
habitually. Plan your days, weeks, months.... Set an endpoint you are
inclined towards. Understand that victory comes hesitantly and has to be
tracked down unswervingly and with adroitness. Do routine tasks as soon
as possible to get them out of the way. With the time left over, concentrate
on the various more pressing undertakings before you. Always endeavor to
judge what is coming next. When you exit a bus, look to the left/right for
oncoming vehicles. (I remember when the plane I was in was about to
crash about an hour's fight from Caracas, I grabbed to my chest the four-
year-old next to me, and realized that in four seconds we might be dead.
My body was shaking with fear but I knew we all had to escape immediately
when the twin-engine hit the water. In Vietnam, when 122mm rockets
were incoming, my body shook convulsively but my voice was steady as a
rock on my telephone operator's PRC-9 radio.) Do not go very fast—speed
kills and not just on the highway. Sleep enough to be effcient. Eat
correctly and be healthy. Without exception imagine that by not doing
what is right for yourself and your body and mind, future complications
will be caused by your negligence and stupidity.
It is accurate to say that preparedness is crucial to the prolongation of life
or existence. In Vietnam, for every soldier on the battlefeld, seven were
backing him up. Helicopters had to be serviced, admin clerks typed
reports, cooks prepared meals, doctors cared for the sick and wounded....
In our ordinary daily lives we must wash, clean our teeth, water the lawn
and plants, iron our clothes for work on Monday.... We hold
responsibilities that require us to react, and the realization of their success
depends on our effciency and enthusiasm. Being primed in advance is an
enormous asset for achieving prosperity and living longer than most others.
To accomplish our mission (survival) we must cultivate the skill of self-
discipline. To be in a state of readiness for whatever which might turn up,
our attitude has to be set to change state to suit the challenge at hand.
Repetition is an ugly word. So is routine. But these two sober-minded
“axioms” must be complied with. We cannot secure anything worthwhile
without being zealous and steadfast while doing our best to substantiate the
meaning of our lives. If we fail to discipline ourselves when we forge ahead
on the way to our last stop, we will ripen into very discomfted and
discontented individuals.
Learn the meaning of the words “hard” and “strong.” We cannot be hard
on ourselves unremittingly while being fervent about getting to our target.
This is not clever. A person is strong when he or she knows when to be
tenacious and when to be toned down. You ease up to be ft for the next
bothersome occasion.

Authored by Anthony St. John

1 May 2009
Calenzano, Italia
www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior

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