The Day of One's Death

Last week, on the evening of December 27, NBC's Nightly News listed 58 notable people who have died in the past year.  (See the list at the end of this blog entry.)

I would have included two more names:  Earl Scruggs (musician) and Doc Watson (guitarist, songwriter & singer).

The next morning NBC's Today Show reported that two more influential people had died:  Norman Schwarztopf (Gulf War commander) and Fontella Bass (singer).

It is good to reflect on the deaths of people who have somehow touched our lives  It forces us to think about the qualities that we want to see live on.  The world is constantly changing.  The direction of world events is determined entirely by the living…whoever they are, and whatever values they hold.

According to the Bible, Israel's King Solomon wrote that "the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth."  (Ecclesiastes 7:1, New American Standard Bible © 1995)

I believe that.  Because, in 100 years, it will not matter when I was born, or when I died.  No matter what those dates were, I will be long gone.  What will matter will be any way that I have touched or inspired someone who is then alive.  That makes me think about what is really important in my life.

What do I want to leave behind?

Eventually, that is the only question that matters.

In Chuck Palahniuk's dark-humor novel, Diary, one character said, "We all die.  The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

I haven't read that book, but maybe I should.  Quotes that I have read make me realize that, in my own life, I have often feared the wrong things:

• “You have endless ways you can commit suicide without dying dying.”

It seems to me that sometimes people become so hurt that they stop living, and choose to simply exist.  Fear of pain ends their life...sometimes decades before they stop breathing.

For others, living is delayed until they find the courage to allow themselves to live:

• “Many people have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.”

I want to live until the day that I stop breathing.  And, when that day comes, I hope I will somehow have inspired someone to keep important values alive.

Immigration

The land from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic―the Rockies, the Great Plains, the Smokies, and everything else―is a great land. Some say "blessed"; they believe that God has given special attention to this land.

Indeed, for whatever reason, we have lived in abundance for a very long time.

But, that is changing. There are immigrants here.

Some of us vehemently resist immigration. Most of us, though, are content to "live and let live".

The majority of the immigrants are here simply seeking a better life. They see opportunity.

However, as is human nature, some capitalize, and advance themselves at the expense of others. Those will take what they want whenever we allow it.

In many ways, we enable them. Thus, some of them feel entitled to our prosperity.

Of course, most immigrants don't feel that way. But, the actions of those who would greedily take more than they need―those who seek to amass fortunes in our land, often transferring our wealth to their homeland―because of them, more and more of us are beginning to hate the immigrants.

We will fight when necessary; some of us are fighting already. Make no mistake about it: The fighting will continue, and it will erupt into outright war.

The immigrants will win. They will keep us in submission...probably for all time.

Many of them will believe that their God gave them our land. Eventually (although not overnight), many of us will simply adopt their God.

If history has taught us anything, it is that change is inevitable.

If you believe that I am wrong, you are simply choosing to ignore the facts.

I haven't "foretold" future events.

I have simply described the past five hundred years.

Learning Curve

I was living in North Carolina in May of 1996 when ValuJet Flight 592, a DC-9 flying form Miami to Atlanta, plunged into the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 persons on board.



ValuJet had only existed for 2 1/2 years, and made a profit faster than any other airline in the history of American aviation.  How did they do that?

• By buying old used aircraft from around the world. (Their fleet was among the oldest in the United States, averaging 26 years.)

• And, by scrimping on maintenance and training.  Nine months before the crash of Flight 592, the Department of Defense issued a scathing report, citing serious deficiencies in ValuJet's quality assurance procedures.  Three months before the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration wanted them grounded.  ValuJet's accident rate was one one of the highest among the low-fare airlines…14 times that of the big carriers!

The crash of Flight 592 was caused by an on-board fire triggered by expired chemical oxygen generators that were illegally stowed in the cargo hold.

ValuJet was finally grounded by the FAA...a month after the crash.
In three months, they were flying again.

Then, a year after the crash of Flight 592, ValuJet disappeared.

Kind of.

Actually, they bought a smaller carrier, and took that carrier's name.

Within another year:

• The flight crew of a DC-9 chose to fly into a thunderstorm.  A flight attendant and a passenger were seriously injured when the flight encountered turbulence.  (May 1998)

• A 737 lost control and skidded off of the runway while landing.  Thirteen passengers received minor injuries.  (November 1998)

Is that scary?  It bothered me a little when I booked a flight from Greensboro to Orlando in 2000, then discovered that I was flying on ValuJet (but, of course, under their new name).

Good people and organizations acknowledge their mistakes and improve.  Sometimes that learning curve leaves a wake of destruction.

So far as I know, after the two 1998 incidents the airline never had another injury.

That, of course, probably means very little to the family of the crew and passengers of Flight 592.

But, 13 years of safe flying is a big improvement.  So, last year Southwest Airlines bought the airline...which had been known as AirTran since 1997.

The End of the World

I grew up believing that the end of the world (as we know it) was imminent. In fact, I was raised to believe that it would be foolish to pursue a higher education, or to try to create anything that would last. The reasoning was that it would all be gone soon, anyway.

Doomsday thinking is not new; it has been around for millennia. Societies (religious, political, scientific) use it to keep people focused on common goals. Such thinking stifles pursuit of goals outside the society...regardless of whether or not those pursuits would be beneficial.

When it was common to believe that natural phenomena were caused by angry gods, some believed that wars between gods (or between God and humans) would bring about the end of the world.

In fact we have the description of a global God-given flood that was used to cleanse the entire earth of wickedness.

The Bible describes a flood whose waters "rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered." (NIV) At one time I bought the fundamentalist explanation that the mountains must have been much lower at that time; that pressure from the flood waters must have caused the mountains to rise. The undeniable geologic facts say otherwise.

The Bible also says that "every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind." (NIV) Once upon a time, I accepted that all the diversity that exists on land today had to spring from one single ark-load of DNA that was preserved less than 5,000 years ago. Today, I do not believe there is a shred of evidence to support that claim.

Right now a lot of attention is being given to the Mayan Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Why? Because unlike our Gregorian calendar, which is based on a very short cycle (one solar year), the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is based on a much longer astronomical cycle, which will end December 21, 2012. That Gregorian calendar date falls at the end of a Mayan "great cycle" of thirteen b'ak'tuns, which are each a little over 394 years long. (To be very specific, a b'ak'tun is exactly 144,000 days. Now, that intrigues me...but just a little.) Some people look at the Mayan calendar and see the "end of the world". The Mayans simply saw the ending of one "great cycle", and the beginning of the next...just as you and I see December 31 and January 1, every single year.

Today (as always) there are plenty of doomsday prophets. Among other things, they point out threats from nuclear war, climate change, and meteor impact.

Imagine this scenario:

The world has become very violent. For many, every single day from birth to death is a fight for survival.

However, even worse than the danger to individuals, there is a much greater threat to the inhabitants as a whole:

An undetected asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. When it strikes, millions are obliterated. But, the worst of the death toll happens over years as the debris from the impact causes extreme climate change. Many entire populations, whole species even, become extinct.

But...not humans.

Will this scenario happen to our Earth? Some intelligent people would say that it is likely. Others, equally intelligent, claim that it never will happen.

But...unless you simply choose to be ignorant, you must accept that what I have just described―a world far more violent than anything we have ever known, annihilated by the impact of one or more asteroids―is absolutely, 100% certain.

I said that humans aren't wiped out. That is because humans weren't there when all this happened...sixty-five million years ago.

Meteor Crater, Arizona

Impact: about 50,000 years ago

Diameter: less than 1 mile

(too small to affect the global environment)

Teamwork

This morning I had an interesting conversation with a man from Ecuador who lives in the U.S. Like most of the world, he sees the U.S. as a land of opportunity. (Which, of course, it still is in many ways.)

But, the man I spoke to, like many people, thinks that the way to success is to be a "lone ranger". He pointed out many examples: Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, etc.

I think he needs to take another look at history. None of those men made their great accomplishments alone.

We know their names because they created and led great teams. Had any of them tried to go it alone, we would not remember them. Someone else would have led the teams that built the empires of their industries.

I was born the same year as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Jobs started working for Atari when he was 19. Gates was 20 when he founded Microsoft. (I didn't own a computer until I was 25...which was still before the IBM PC existed.)

To be sure, Jobs and Gates were geniuses. But, they weren't alone. They may not even have been the brightest or the best programmers. But, both did something that most of their contemporaries did not do: They built teams to turn their visions into reality.

If Bill Gates had tried to build Microsoft alone, you and I would never have heard of either him or his company. Someone else would have developed the PC operating system.

Ditto for Jobs.

His Apple ][ (yes, that is the correct "spelling"), introduced in 1977, was the second "microcomputer". Commodore's PET arrived five months earlier, and Radio Shack's TRS-80 was released a month after the Apple ][. Two years later, you could buy an Atari 400/800. In 1981, IBM introduced the PC. From 1982 until 1994, 17 million Commodore 64s sold.

So, Jobs had a lot of competition.

But today you basically have two choices: PC or Mac.

If Steve Jobs hadn't been a team player, there would be no Mac.

Habits 1 - 3 of Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are all about becoming independent. Habits 4 - 6 are about interdependence.

You cannot be very good at interdependence until you have learned to be independent.

Independence is necessary if you want to be effective. But, you cannot be highly effective without interdependence.

A person who is independent but not interdependent is a "lone ranger". He might be very good at what he does. But, he will always measure his success by comparing it to the success of others. He may have a very satisfying career, but he limits himself to what he can accomplish alone. He will never create a "Microsoft" or an "Apple Computer". Or a "United States of America". His interests will pretty much begin and end with himself. He will view those who accomplish less as "losers", and those who accomplish more as "lucky".

The same "team" attitude that builds strong businesses is also necessary for other successful organizations (including marriages and families).

Just as a "lone ranger" might have a career that satisfies him, he might also enjoy a long association with family, friends, and other associates.

But, the relationships of an independent person can never match those of the interdependent.

I see "lone rangers" all around me. They're not bad people to be around. Some have had fairly successful lives. But, they're not team players.

They will never be highly effective.

Unconditional Love

For most of my life, I have loved conditionally; I would sometimes withdraw my love from someone "for their own good".

I've since learned how wrong I was. Love allows growth. Encourages it, even. Genuine love accepts someone for not only who they are, but also for who they will grow to be. It is genuine trust. It is unconditional.

Bob Marley once described what a soul mate can be. I've never experienced it, mostly because I was never willing to love unconditionally. I was on a mission to "fix" things.

I don't know if I will ever find what Marley described. I hope I never settle for anything less:

‎"Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around.

"You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you.

"When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement.

"They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful.

"There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are.

"The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever.

"Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all.

"A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face.

"In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon.

"You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you.

"You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life."