4 ms·
Well, there are certainly two camps with regard to this. If you don't feel like going over to Alex's campfire, holding hands and singing Kumbaya - let me invit
by swamp40 13y ago
Well, there are certainly two camps with regard to this.
If you don't feel like going over to Alex's campfire, holding hands and singing Kumbaya - let me invite you over to the other fire for an inspirational moment before getting back to work:
"Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time." ~ George S. Patton's speech to the Third Army, just before the Normandy landings.
- tsunamifury 13y agoWork is not war. Not even close. Executives and wannabe clueless use war metaphors to try to rustle us up for what ends up being a trench digging operation that lasts 40+ years. I understand your naive enthusiasm but work is more of a marathon. Even doing the most glamorous part, founding a company, is an Iron Man race with many stages. Sprinting to the finish line with goofy motivational speeches when you are still 100 miles away is just bad strategy.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoWork is not war in any material sense, but it is war in almost every cultural sense. The cultural norms used by Anglo cultures to make sense of business, at the moment, are those of combat and war.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoOh, I do love a false dichotomy between a zero-sum contest to the death and a hippie commune. Real Americans apparently love the sting and clash of battle, which is why you have most of the rest of the world pissed-off at you.
- swamp40 13y ago...Sayeth the pot unto the kettle...
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoWe don't love battle, we just somehow wind up in them all the time!
- arethuza 13y agoInterestingly enough there was a famous study done by the American Army during WW2 that discovered just how reluctant most people are to kill others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Killing:_The_Psychological_Cost_of_Learning_to_Kill_in_War_and_Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Killing:_The_Psychological_C...
- swamp40 13y agoHere's another: "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." ~ Thomas A. Edison
- badman_ting 13y agoBlech, you all can keep it. Just let me do enough to be useful, but not too useful, give me my money, and go away. Feel free to bash each other's brains in for a chance at imaginary glory when I am at a safe remove. As an American, if I am in love with battle, then it would be the sort of battle where the guy makes a big blustery show, charges toward me, and trips over my foot.