Grace Under Pressure

Grace Under Pressure

Hemingway spoke often of grace under pressure. You summoned everything you have to face adversity. You don't panic. You remain calm and maintain your dignity. You don't complain nor do you seek pity or even sympathy. You become reticent, stoic, and hard--very, very hard. You realize you have nobody to call for help. Only you against the world. Every step you take, every breath you inhale, every word you utter are all designed for survival, for getting out of the hole you dug yourself in. You played with fire. You got burned, but you didn't give up nor did you give in to defeatism. You will fight till you cannot fight anymore, all the while preserving your pride, dignity, and self-respect.

You constantly ask yourself where you fit in the hierarchy of men. How smart, sensitive, knowledgeable, responsible, and ethical are you in relation to other humans? Have you worked out the answers for yourself some basic questions such as:

1. What is life? What is the purpose of your life?
2. What is God? Is it a personhood or a concept such as a transcendent experience where you see harmony, grace, and purpose in the overall scheme of things?
3. What is Love? What is Lust? The function of sex.
4. Nature of duty and responsibility, and thus, by extension, patriotism?
5. Why some, scratch that, why most humans are still very much animalistic? Why are they hypocritical, lying, power hungry, cowardly, lazy, selfish, and unpatriotic?
6. Nature of religion. Nature and character of some founders of religion? Why there were serious attempts of opponents to kill Jesus, Muhammad, and Joseph Smith, and not Buddha?
7. Nature of thinking? Can you think and express yourself in a logical, facts-filled manner? Are you just an ordinary, average Joe or are you somebody special, part of the elite of men who seem to be in more in touch with reality while most humans are mired in ignorance and darkness?
8. Are you mere man or are you dynamite also, ready to go off in a big bang instead of going out in a whimper?
9. The bottom line is whether you are comfortable and truly proud of who you are and you are glad that you are not like a pebble lying by the roadside, or worse-- a piece of dry shit like some despicable simians that you know personally?
10. Somebody died today. Are you ready to go?