"When you begin to think outside the box, you often become some other "leaders" lousy follower. That usually costs something" (Andy Rayner)

"Our guardian angels are bored." (Mike Foster)

It's where I feel I'm at these days. “In the second half of life, it is good just to be a part of the general dance. We do not have to stand out, make defining moves, or be better than anyone else on the dance floor. Life is more participatory than assertive, and there is no need for strong or further self-definition” (Falling Upward. Richard Rohr.120).

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

What Shoulder Boards Can Do To Character

"They sewed me a map case out of German hide - not human, but from a car seat. But I didn't have a strap for it, and I was on happy about that. Then all of a sudden they saw some partisan commissar, from The Local District Party Committee, wearing just the right kind of strap -  and they took it away from him: we are the army; we have seniority! (Remember Senchenko, the Security officer, who stole a map case and a dispatch case?) Finally, I coveted that scarlet box, and I remember how they took it away and got it for me. That's what shoulder boards do to a human being."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. 

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