{"id":3911,"date":"2003-03-11T14:11:18","date_gmt":"2003-03-11T19:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3911"},"modified":"2003-03-11T14:11:18","modified_gmt":"2003-03-11T19:11:18","slug":"fear_and_trembl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/11\/fear_and_trembl.html","title":{"rendered":"Fear and trembling"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t if it’s because I’m sick, or tired, or sick and tired. The whole Iraq thing has been depressing me of late. (Nor, and perhaps by no coincidence, am I the <\/a>only <\/a>one<\/a> finding the waiting, the fear, the uncertainties so wearing.)<\/p>\n

I know a lot of people — people who I respect — are opposed to the war. And others, who I also respect, favor it. I stand with the latter, but that doesn’t mean my mind and heart are so certain that the longer things stand still, the longer people have to natter and equivocate and call for delay and call for patience and call for more and more of the same … It wears at me. And it makes me wonder. <\/p>\n

It makes me wonder if I should be completely <\/i>certainly, 100% dedicated the cause, in order to legitimately suggest we go to war.<\/p>\n

The more it makes me wonder whether being so certain is, on the other hand, a sign of fanaticism (no matter which direction it points).<\/p>\n

The more it gives me time to worry. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe only thinking about the impending conflict can lead you to actually think of how horrible a war could be. Is that a good thing? Does contemplating the little picture distract you from the big one? Or can the big picture be a distraction from the little one?<\/p>\n

Nothing would be done at all if a man waited until he could do something so well that no one could find fault with it.
\n    — Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
\nMany risks fail because they were not taken in time. Too many risks are postponed until unnecessarily elaborate preparations are made. This does not mean that one should say, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” That is foolish and self-destructive. … But don’t sit back waiting for the perfect moment. It almost never comes.
\n    — David S. Viscott (b. 1928)
\nWe should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
\n    — Frank Tibolt
\nThis is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.
\n    — Omar Bradley (1893-1981)
\nESTRAGON: I can’t go on like this.
\nVLADIMIR: That’s what you think.
\n    — Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), Waiting for Godot<\/i> (1952)<\/p>\n

Or maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about all this stuff when I’m sick. Or tired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t if it’s because I’m sick, or tired, or sick and tired. The whole Iraq thing has been depressing me of late. (Nor, and perhaps by no coincidence, am…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133613,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/05\/wonder-woman-and-the-war-to-end-all-wars.html","url_meta":{"origin":3911,"position":0},"title":"Wonder Woman and the War to End All Wars","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Jun-17 4:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"In retrospect, realigning Wonder Woman in the DCEU to come into Man's World during World War I, rather than World War II, makes a huge of sense, not least of which is avoiding (some) obvious comparisons to Captain America. 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