Great piece Sam! I think the point is ensuring that, through our actions, we leave the world a little less fucked up. It’s about not giving a damn about our own fate but having a commitment to the nobler impulses and continuity of our great shared humanity. And I think that’s what’s missing from the drift that is today’s “I just don’t care” crowd.
"the point is ensuring that, through our actions, we leave the world a little less fucked up." That is an angle I did not explore and now wish I did. Thank you for the thinking material!
Sam, another good and tough exploration of life and death. Sometimes, it was for a principle of believing in something bigger than oneself. I think that the women in Iran are showing it to the world right now.
That is a stellar example. They are in the thick of a truly good fight. The nihilists are elsewhere while they are in the streets. It is beyond motivating.
Your reference to nihilists as evolutionary free riders is perfect. I consulted to a failing executive team, and my feedback to the CEO was “You have too many nihilists on your team”. Heads exploded, in a good way!
Your whole piece made me think of Joseph Campbell’s quote: “When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”. He also observed that “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” So I think you’re talking about those sublime moments when we give a damn about something even more important than our own existence. Transcendence is the thing.
Ha! I was fear-driven for much of my career. For the last third, I found my paradigm (evolutionary biology) and the courage to be more blunt about what was really happening. I’ve tried to put some of that in my Substack essays which has been fun, just as you’re having fun putting your own insights into words.
When you talked to the old timers who crossed the beaches in the Old Corps, in WWII, they said a couple of things. They were shit scared, and death and dying were for the “other guy.” I suspect you held a similar feeling when facing terrible odds. Thus, a torpedo bomber pilot flying through dense flak and automatic weapons fire figured the other guys may not make it, but my gunner and I will. Besides the difficulty of actually flying those old tubs kept them busy right to the end. At The Basic School, (charm school for USMC brand new second lieutenants) there was a large gathering space in the main entrance to the school. It was called Reasoner Hall. On one wall there photos of all the dead Lieutenants, killed in Vietnam. It was a big wall, there were a lot of photos. It was daunting to look at their faces, as they looked like us. Young, full of P and V and ready for action, serious scowls in their official photo for the school. Now gone. Luckily the TBS bar was around the corner in the great hall. But, you couldn’t miss it. They stared out at us, silent beacons, do your job and you will end up here with us….on this wall. But, certainly for many, for sure for myself, I figured the best place I could be was at TBS and then Infantry Officers Course and then the FMF, leading a rifle platoon. Everything else in the world was boring. My principal concern was to not do something stupid that would get my Marines killed. The cause would be notional, it was the potential fight and preparing for it that mattered. Never got shot at. So who knows, but living life with purpose and intent every day tends to leave little room for the spoiled rot of a nihilistic brain. Now that you have found my good buddy TS Eliot, please meet Hermann Hesse, and his selected Poems. One in particular may be topical “Denken a den Freud bei nacht.” Translated “thinking of a friend at night.” I suspect it will resonate. As usual, you ave delved into the deep end of the pool with this post, why am i not surprised.
It's a long lineage, Charles. Their memory is a profound motivator at all times. Hesse's Siddhartha is one of my favorite novels of all time, but I need to check out his poetry—I didn't even know he wrote poetry. Thank you for the recommendation.
Sam! I read Siddhartha about age 16 for the first time. What ever devils and demons resided in a 16 year old males head at the time went on sabbatical for several days! There is a good little compilation of translated poems published by Farrah, Strauss and Giroux as translated by a guy named James Wright. You should be able to find a copy online or have a local book store order a copy. I am pretty sure you’ll like all of the poems. Each different in their own way.
I'm on it! I believe I read Siddhartha at 16 as well, and I'm so glad I did. It shaped me considerably: I can think. I can wait. I can fast. I have an essay on standby about this though I have not released it yet because I'm afraid it doesn't do the power of these words justice.
“De l’audace, et encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!” “Audacity, more audacity, and always audacity!” I wouldn’t worry about the power of your words Frogman! I believe the operative phrase is “Send it.”
Another great piece Sam. I wonder at the mind that drives your pen. A great measure of your skill is the comments you evoke from your readers. Clearly you cause us, and I am the least with my creaky aging brain, to actually think, to absorb, expand on your thoughts, not merely skim and move on to some useless pap. I could read this and your other posts 100 times and still grab new meaning, new insights. You rock brother.
Careful, Marshall, I can feel my ego lifting itself off the floor bit by bit as I read your words. I have to beat it back into its habitual position of wondering if it is worth anything. I appreciate it.
Not giving a damn for their own individual lives because they have a damn about the cause and what it means. That's not "not giving a damn." That's personal sacrifices for the greater good. How many of us would sacrifies our selves for the greater good now?
This is it entirely Valentina. It is a question worth meditating on for quite some time. One of the best parts is it requires us to slow down, take a sabbath, shut down the phone for a while, and recenter.
I shared the story of our 10 and under ball team with you before, how we had a pre-game talk about the importance of giving a damn, how everything they do MATTERS, how they were locked in to the message, how they seemed to instinctually know it to be true.
How they changed.
They finished the season like the pilots you mentioned, unafraid to give all that they had for their parents, teammates and coaches, beating “superior” teams all the way to the championship game, a game we lost, but a game in which we showed the emperor that he is human, that he can bleed.
Those boys stuck around for an hour after the game, as a team, holding on as long as they could to something special, the bigger of the two awarded trophies replaced with something far more utile.
Every single one of them (AND their parents) showed up for an end-of-season celebration/ debrief.
Thank you for another stellar piece, and for sharing your perspectives in the name of all that matters.
We are born, and the only thing we are certain of is death.
A long time ago, in a desert cold as ice, I had a choice to make, and that choice led me to - almost - the middle-finger-I-don't-give-a-fuck situation that made me realize why we are what we are as a species. The choice was to fight and go far beyond what I thought would be possible, and yes, there was that "Shit, most likely I will die" part of it, but the alternative was "Yes, I will die", so I took the hard choice. I have the scar still, and the almost goofy left leg, but damn, I couldn't give a fuck.
It put a perpetual evil grin in my face. No, it's not a nice smile. It's the smile of my soul saying: fuck you, I don't care, try me....
What a thought-provoking and beautifully written piece. The idea that “not giving a damn,” rightly understood, is actually giving the greatest damn feels like a crucial insight for our moment.
Your contrast between heroic commitment and modern detachment makes clear how easily we confuse withdrawal with wisdom. Meaning doesn’t emerge from insulation from life, but from choosing something worth binding ourselves to, even at cost.
A powerful and unsettling reflection. Thank you for sharing it.
My give a damn has been busted for a while. I wrote about this a while ago. In that piece I shared sage wisdom from my dad:
“My dad once told me that when you’ve realized you’ve lived a rich and full life, and when you feel like you don’t belong anymore, and that popular culture has disappointed you so much, that popular culture has erased your generation’s morals and mores (the accepted traditional customs and usages of a particular age group), you’re at ease with being in God’s waiting room and you’re not afraid to die.
My dad passed away in 2016 at age 87.
He was a decorated WWII veteran.
He was a Reagan Conservative (good government comes through lower taxes, less government, few restrictions on individuals and businesses, and a strong military).
Hopefully, when your give a damn’s busted, you will have lived a rich full life.”
I'm not sure they assumed they were going die and so, didn't give a damn, I think they cared a very great deal but had that young man inclination to invincibility. They weren't guaranteed their death like a Kamikaze, and therefore, I think their heroism was through the beautiful hubris of thinking that they would be one of the two who came out.
That doesn't dismiss your point in that their insatiable zeal was fueled by meaning. In fact, it was a meaning so great that they did not consider death. What we need is for people to have so much meaning that they don't give a damn about the bullshit, stop thinking the world is going to kill them, and stand with that zeal that their meaning will allow them to be the survivor.
I wondered about this point myself. I got this point of view from James Jones, WWII veteran who was full of excellent stories from his time. I suppose it comes down to each individual. I can see them knowing they were going to die despite the evolutionary predisposition for young men to think themselves indestructible. Simply given the unbelievably high rates of death. It is riddled with paradox, probably why it is so fascinating.
That middle finger you noted is so powerful. It is a signal to the universe that we can go back to stardust in total equanimity, but first, we fight one more battle--whatever it is. Scale the mountain, do the hard thing, embrace life's untapped potentials fully. It's funny, I made your point exactly in class last night with my opening video clip from the checkpoint scene in Thirteen Hours in Benghazi. Not giving a fuck is part of what made the quiet, polite and laser focused Ty so damn powerful despite greater numbers and arms on the other side of the checkpoint. I use it as a lesson in improvised negotiation tactics, but it is also the lesson of how, when you frame yourself as being willing to risk it all, you can confront great challenges. Magnifique, monsieur.
Epic scene choice to make the point, and beautifully said. It sounds like 3D chess to be able to bring this mode of mind to negotiations. It must be supremely cognitively demanding. Your course must be a joy.
What it means to look beyond the grainy scope, to peer into the depths and distance of a larger image. I wonder if that is equally as coarse? To live fully is to be fearless, to have weighed the potential consequences and to know the decision is worth the risk. But then, is it a risk of giving a damn - to not give a damn, of course - that offers something better. I'm thinking greater good.
"O God, I have been sleep walking my entire life."
I have had these moments. In some ways I pray that I have more--not because I hope I have been sleepwalking, but because I want to see every stronghold of it exposed. Excellent piece, as usual.
Thank you, Kit. Virginian Woolf would talk about "moments of being" in a very smilier way to how you described this, when what we thought was reality is revealed to be something far deeper.
Great piece Sam! I think the point is ensuring that, through our actions, we leave the world a little less fucked up. It’s about not giving a damn about our own fate but having a commitment to the nobler impulses and continuity of our great shared humanity. And I think that’s what’s missing from the drift that is today’s “I just don’t care” crowd.
"the point is ensuring that, through our actions, we leave the world a little less fucked up." That is an angle I did not explore and now wish I did. Thank you for the thinking material!
Sam, another good and tough exploration of life and death. Sometimes, it was for a principle of believing in something bigger than oneself. I think that the women in Iran are showing it to the world right now.
That is a stellar example. They are in the thick of a truly good fight. The nihilists are elsewhere while they are in the streets. It is beyond motivating.
Brilliant, Sam!
Your reference to nihilists as evolutionary free riders is perfect. I consulted to a failing executive team, and my feedback to the CEO was “You have too many nihilists on your team”. Heads exploded, in a good way!
Your whole piece made me think of Joseph Campbell’s quote: “When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”. He also observed that “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” So I think you’re talking about those sublime moments when we give a damn about something even more important than our own existence. Transcendence is the thing.
Again, great writing. 👏👏
Thank you Baird! Your comment to the CEO is priceless—not many people have the eyes to see this, nor the balls to put it to words.
Ha! I was fear-driven for much of my career. For the last third, I found my paradigm (evolutionary biology) and the courage to be more blunt about what was really happening. I’ve tried to put some of that in my Substack essays which has been fun, just as you’re having fun putting your own insights into words.
I'm here for it!
When you talked to the old timers who crossed the beaches in the Old Corps, in WWII, they said a couple of things. They were shit scared, and death and dying were for the “other guy.” I suspect you held a similar feeling when facing terrible odds. Thus, a torpedo bomber pilot flying through dense flak and automatic weapons fire figured the other guys may not make it, but my gunner and I will. Besides the difficulty of actually flying those old tubs kept them busy right to the end. At The Basic School, (charm school for USMC brand new second lieutenants) there was a large gathering space in the main entrance to the school. It was called Reasoner Hall. On one wall there photos of all the dead Lieutenants, killed in Vietnam. It was a big wall, there were a lot of photos. It was daunting to look at their faces, as they looked like us. Young, full of P and V and ready for action, serious scowls in their official photo for the school. Now gone. Luckily the TBS bar was around the corner in the great hall. But, you couldn’t miss it. They stared out at us, silent beacons, do your job and you will end up here with us….on this wall. But, certainly for many, for sure for myself, I figured the best place I could be was at TBS and then Infantry Officers Course and then the FMF, leading a rifle platoon. Everything else in the world was boring. My principal concern was to not do something stupid that would get my Marines killed. The cause would be notional, it was the potential fight and preparing for it that mattered. Never got shot at. So who knows, but living life with purpose and intent every day tends to leave little room for the spoiled rot of a nihilistic brain. Now that you have found my good buddy TS Eliot, please meet Hermann Hesse, and his selected Poems. One in particular may be topical “Denken a den Freud bei nacht.” Translated “thinking of a friend at night.” I suspect it will resonate. As usual, you ave delved into the deep end of the pool with this post, why am i not surprised.
It's a long lineage, Charles. Their memory is a profound motivator at all times. Hesse's Siddhartha is one of my favorite novels of all time, but I need to check out his poetry—I didn't even know he wrote poetry. Thank you for the recommendation.
Sam! I read Siddhartha about age 16 for the first time. What ever devils and demons resided in a 16 year old males head at the time went on sabbatical for several days! There is a good little compilation of translated poems published by Farrah, Strauss and Giroux as translated by a guy named James Wright. You should be able to find a copy online or have a local book store order a copy. I am pretty sure you’ll like all of the poems. Each different in their own way.
I'm on it! I believe I read Siddhartha at 16 as well, and I'm so glad I did. It shaped me considerably: I can think. I can wait. I can fast. I have an essay on standby about this though I have not released it yet because I'm afraid it doesn't do the power of these words justice.
“De l’audace, et encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!” “Audacity, more audacity, and always audacity!” I wouldn’t worry about the power of your words Frogman! I believe the operative phrase is “Send it.”
Death is inevitably fatal.
I think that, ironically, the people who have never really lived are the most fearful of dying.
That is a profoundly powerful line, and covers so much wisdom it would be a pleasure to unpack it all.
Another great piece Sam. I wonder at the mind that drives your pen. A great measure of your skill is the comments you evoke from your readers. Clearly you cause us, and I am the least with my creaky aging brain, to actually think, to absorb, expand on your thoughts, not merely skim and move on to some useless pap. I could read this and your other posts 100 times and still grab new meaning, new insights. You rock brother.
Careful, Marshall, I can feel my ego lifting itself off the floor bit by bit as I read your words. I have to beat it back into its habitual position of wondering if it is worth anything. I appreciate it.
Suck it up Sam. You richly deserve the praise.
Not giving a damn for their own individual lives because they have a damn about the cause and what it means. That's not "not giving a damn." That's personal sacrifices for the greater good. How many of us would sacrifies our selves for the greater good now?
This is it entirely Valentina. It is a question worth meditating on for quite some time. One of the best parts is it requires us to slow down, take a sabbath, shut down the phone for a while, and recenter.
What is the point then? Exactly!
Yes!
I shared the story of our 10 and under ball team with you before, how we had a pre-game talk about the importance of giving a damn, how everything they do MATTERS, how they were locked in to the message, how they seemed to instinctually know it to be true.
How they changed.
They finished the season like the pilots you mentioned, unafraid to give all that they had for their parents, teammates and coaches, beating “superior” teams all the way to the championship game, a game we lost, but a game in which we showed the emperor that he is human, that he can bleed.
Those boys stuck around for an hour after the game, as a team, holding on as long as they could to something special, the bigger of the two awarded trophies replaced with something far more utile.
Every single one of them (AND their parents) showed up for an end-of-season celebration/ debrief.
Thank you for another stellar piece, and for sharing your perspectives in the name of all that matters.
Well done to your boy and his team. What a crowd to grow up with.
I appreciate it, Tim.
We are born, and the only thing we are certain of is death.
A long time ago, in a desert cold as ice, I had a choice to make, and that choice led me to - almost - the middle-finger-I-don't-give-a-fuck situation that made me realize why we are what we are as a species. The choice was to fight and go far beyond what I thought would be possible, and yes, there was that "Shit, most likely I will die" part of it, but the alternative was "Yes, I will die", so I took the hard choice. I have the scar still, and the almost goofy left leg, but damn, I couldn't give a fuck.
It put a perpetual evil grin in my face. No, it's not a nice smile. It's the smile of my soul saying: fuck you, I don't care, try me....
Great piece!
Let's go Uri. Absolutely love it. There are few greater expressions of authenticity than the decision you made.
What a thought-provoking and beautifully written piece. The idea that “not giving a damn,” rightly understood, is actually giving the greatest damn feels like a crucial insight for our moment.
Your contrast between heroic commitment and modern detachment makes clear how easily we confuse withdrawal with wisdom. Meaning doesn’t emerge from insulation from life, but from choosing something worth binding ourselves to, even at cost.
A powerful and unsettling reflection. Thank you for sharing it.
I appreciate the thoughts, Maninder.
My give a damn has been busted for a while. I wrote about this a while ago. In that piece I shared sage wisdom from my dad:
“My dad once told me that when you’ve realized you’ve lived a rich and full life, and when you feel like you don’t belong anymore, and that popular culture has disappointed you so much, that popular culture has erased your generation’s morals and mores (the accepted traditional customs and usages of a particular age group), you’re at ease with being in God’s waiting room and you’re not afraid to die.
My dad passed away in 2016 at age 87.
He was a decorated WWII veteran.
He was a Reagan Conservative (good government comes through lower taxes, less government, few restrictions on individuals and businesses, and a strong military).
Hopefully, when your give a damn’s busted, you will have lived a rich full life.”
https://collettegreystone.substack.com/p/my-give-a-damns-busted
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
I'm not sure they assumed they were going die and so, didn't give a damn, I think they cared a very great deal but had that young man inclination to invincibility. They weren't guaranteed their death like a Kamikaze, and therefore, I think their heroism was through the beautiful hubris of thinking that they would be one of the two who came out.
That doesn't dismiss your point in that their insatiable zeal was fueled by meaning. In fact, it was a meaning so great that they did not consider death. What we need is for people to have so much meaning that they don't give a damn about the bullshit, stop thinking the world is going to kill them, and stand with that zeal that their meaning will allow them to be the survivor.
I wondered about this point myself. I got this point of view from James Jones, WWII veteran who was full of excellent stories from his time. I suppose it comes down to each individual. I can see them knowing they were going to die despite the evolutionary predisposition for young men to think themselves indestructible. Simply given the unbelievably high rates of death. It is riddled with paradox, probably why it is so fascinating.
That middle finger you noted is so powerful. It is a signal to the universe that we can go back to stardust in total equanimity, but first, we fight one more battle--whatever it is. Scale the mountain, do the hard thing, embrace life's untapped potentials fully. It's funny, I made your point exactly in class last night with my opening video clip from the checkpoint scene in Thirteen Hours in Benghazi. Not giving a fuck is part of what made the quiet, polite and laser focused Ty so damn powerful despite greater numbers and arms on the other side of the checkpoint. I use it as a lesson in improvised negotiation tactics, but it is also the lesson of how, when you frame yourself as being willing to risk it all, you can confront great challenges. Magnifique, monsieur.
Epic scene choice to make the point, and beautifully said. It sounds like 3D chess to be able to bring this mode of mind to negotiations. It must be supremely cognitively demanding. Your course must be a joy.
Come as my guest sometime!
That would be amazing.
What it means to look beyond the grainy scope, to peer into the depths and distance of a larger image. I wonder if that is equally as coarse? To live fully is to be fearless, to have weighed the potential consequences and to know the decision is worth the risk. But then, is it a risk of giving a damn - to not give a damn, of course - that offers something better. I'm thinking greater good.
Stacy, this is a poetic riff that will stay with me. Thank you for dropping it here.
You are making me think, Sam. Thank you for stretching the current perspective.
"O God, I have been sleep walking my entire life."
I have had these moments. In some ways I pray that I have more--not because I hope I have been sleepwalking, but because I want to see every stronghold of it exposed. Excellent piece, as usual.
Thank you, Kit. Virginian Woolf would talk about "moments of being" in a very smilier way to how you described this, when what we thought was reality is revealed to be something far deeper.