In the historic episode in the life of humanity, that was just covered, I see simple but extremely valuable illustrations of success principles. The herd mindset was that flight was primarily associated with brute power and the ‘multi-systems with interconnected details’ involved in the total success package were not appreciated. It was obvious that birds existed and that birds could fly and also obvious that men should be able to master the capability of their earth-based associates, but prior to 1903, the complex combination of principles involved was not appreciated.
Wilbur Wright, the main brain of the success duo, was inspired by and assisted by the legacy of Otto Lilienthal, but he was at the same time, shackled by Lilienthal’s aura of total authority. That aura had infected the establishment herd and Wilbur was a member of the herd. It is a vital observation and clue, that no one seems to be devoid of cards nor does anyone have all the cards, in the complex and interconnected ‘game of life’. Wilbur got his hands dirty and his nose up against the experience of reality and when theory and reality clashed, the air pockets in the Lilienthal dogma were exposed. Wilbur dug for bedrock and once he connected, he had a solid foundation to rebuild on. And he systematically did rebuilt and his theoretic and practical structure soon towered over the achievements of all other flight aficionados. Wing details, propeller details, weight distribution details, control details, airflow details, airframe structural details – all areas were interconnected knowledge zones that Wilbur explored and innovated in.
So let’s analyze the historic story. In order to understand how to ‘fly’, Wright had to use accurate knowledge and he had to eradicate non-factual information. First, he had a clear goal that he was striving for. He was honest in his quest. He wasn’t motivated by a grandstander personality that wants attention more than it wants solid results. He did envision fame and wealth from his successful battle, but like Ken Roger’s gambler, he wasn’t worried about counting his money until the dealing was done! His goal orientation and honesty allowed him to focus on and detect solid information both from his own experimental discovery as well as from past experience (his own and of others), reading, observation, and discussion with other flight enthusiasts.
Wilbur was constantly generating theories and then testing them. He was a bloodhound on the trail. He was enthusiastically chasing reality. He was digging for bedrock. He was searching for correction. He knew there was an ‘answer’ but that he didn’t have that ‘answer’ figured out, yet. He knew the herd was wrong. He wasn’t out to shore up the status quo. He wasn’t on defense and trying to secure and justify his current position of obvious ignorance.
Wilbur, like everyone else, had strengths and failings. Once the brothers won the battle to be the first to fly, their shortcomings arguably lead to Wilbur’s early death and Orville’s rather unhappy life in his later years. But their positive traits made them certified winners and for a period of time, they held a unique position in the world. And their victories quickly became the valuable property of everyone who lived after them.
In 1905 they stored their impressive, one of a kind aircraft and waited for finances to fall into place before they presented the details of their achievements to the world. In 1908 they dropped the hammer and astonished both Europe and North America with simultaneous displays on both continents. In that 3 year period of inaction the brothers knew that they had assembled the true flight formula and they were able to watch others struggling to get there but they were in a position to see that the attempts of others showed that the basic principles were not yet appreciated. They had achieved high ground from which to watch the circus acts of others.
During the three years of financially motivated stalling, the brothers experienced a high level of ridicule for being fakers, especially in Europe, but they had impressive resolve, supported by their solid confidence in the correctness of their theories and supporting experience. They knew that they were anchored on proven bedrock. And eventually, the whiplash caused by the ‘fakers’ suddenly showing their full hand, likely helped to catapult the Wrights to amplified international fame over night. The American image received a dramatic boost with the quiet, purposeful, modest Wilbur Wright becoming a poster boy to Europeans as the United States began its roll as a growing world power.
Wilbur Wright, in part due to circumstance, got off to a good start in his flight quest. He and Orville were into riding and manufacturing bicycles and the concept of control and banking on corners was clear in his mind and he was able to translate that thinking to control in the air. Perhaps even a sensitivity to air flow went along with his experience. Living in Dayton, Ohio was also a plus. The area was prosperous, well connected to the world, and was full of capable people and manufacturing capacity. The tools to build with were there. It was basic theory that needed to be perfected and refined. Once a solid foundation was established, Wright, with his abilities and connections, had what it took to build the tower!
The gem of the story was Wilbur Wright’s push for excellence, getting in there and ‘doing’ the job, constantly comparing theory and reality, and reacting to clashes. It may be significant that the Dayton area was a hotbed of successful innovation. John Henry Patterson was a child of Dayton and started the trend setting National Cash Register Company, which was at full steam during Wright’s youth and life. Wright was seven years older than Charles Kettering who brought Dayton additional fame with his innovations in the auto industry. The following quote by Kettering not only says much for his own career but is also totally applicable to the style exhibited by Wilbur Wright, and perhaps a reflection on the positive thought environment of the Dayton region, a geographic area that produced a stream of innovative ideas that impact all of us to this day.
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The Wright Flyer at Huffman Pasture in 1904. The Wrights, ignored by the world, due to their own choosing, quietly perfecting the complex system of manned flight.
During his day, Boss Ket was a fountain of creativity and inspiration for others. He, like the Wrights, was a child of Dayton, Ohio. His style was very similar to that of Wilbur Wright who was 9 years older than Ket.
Wilbur appreciated the principle that it is vital to stay alive (and active) and to gain experience that comes with age, if you want to learn how things really are.
Ket illustrated that 'doing' is closely connected to learning and in order to 'do' effectively, you need to maintain a healthy brain and productive body so that you are in a position to combine experience with capacity for wise and effective action - action not being associated with 'sitting down'. The two men provided a great take on the 'too soon old, too late wise' lament!
History and experience are so valuable. As a university student taking commerce, I was inspired greatly by Alfred Sloan, of General Motors fame, and through reading about his management experiences, I learned about Charles Kettering. Both men were highly capable and respected during their lives and even for years after and both men could be accused, in hindsight, of steering the world onto a high speed road leading to an unmarked cliff. Truly, no one holds all the cards in the game of Sustainable Life!
Sidebar:
Back to the flow;
So, is it possible that the covid chaos is useful as a thought provoker and a test of the health of the herd’s closely held theories? As with trust in Lilienthal’s data, is reality strongly hinting that some miscalculations have occurred somewhere in past and have become accepted as fact? Have there been historic incidents similar to the Wright / Langley clash where the wrong party gained the upper hand?
Earlier, I illustrated how the Agassiz / Darwin clash was ‘resolved’ over time with the victory of the man who contemporary Rudolf Virchow, the ‘father of modern pathology’ labeled an ‘ignoramus’. My ‘little kid and a kitchen table’ illustration adds obvious weight to Virchow’s opinion and hopefully makes some readers more appreciative of the hypocrisy of any ‘science’ that is purely faith based on the flight of fantasy that a ‘zero mind power / zero production capacity’ vacuum can produce complex and interconnected working systems, be they dead or alive. How can a rational person respect a so called ‘science’ that goes out of its way to jamb thought channels with miracle based fairy dust such that the 'Obvious' is obscured and then bombarded with egotistic ridicule and self serving control tactics?
In the middle 1800s, about the same time Agassiz and Darwin were active, Louis Pasteur and Antoine Bechamp, both Frenchmen, were also rolling. Bechamp was a bit like Wilbur Wright. Louis Pasteur was a bit like Samuel Langley. Bechamp was a brilliant and dedicated scientist looking for bedrock. Pasteur was a brilliant showman and self promoter and profit oriented businessman. There is no doubt that Pasteur plagiarized the work of Bechamp and jealously worked at up staging and demeaning the quiet gentleman. The religious and political powers of the day in concert with Pasteur’s motivational efforts effectively sidelined Bechamp. Pasteur's effective boot licking and snuggling up to the Emperor and Empress of France was very effective at elevating his reputation. Bechamp’s publications were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum – why, I am not really sure, but Galileo, had he been on the scene would likely have strongly sympathized with Antoine’s persecution! To illustrate the total effect, check out the Wikipedia coverage of Bechamp and notice the comment from the British Medical Journal at the time of Bechamp’s death. “His name was associated with bygone controversies as to the priority which it would be unprofitable to recall.”
Bechamp may have had flaws in this theories. The development of technologies such as electron microscopes have revealed flaws in many 1850ish theories. But Bechamp knew that the issue of disease and immunity was dramatically more complex than the simplistic proposals being grandstand promoted and marketed by Pasteur. And Bechamp’s opinion of the current medical world mindset, were he still alive and active, would likely be equally as jaded.
Sidebar:
No fool and no stranger to hands-on achievement, Virchow was able to react to a living Darwin. No doubt it would shock him to learn how the object of his scorn has been elevated to god-like respect by current men who claim the title of 'scientist'.
The kitchen table item discussed earlier; Ask the little kid some simple questions about it and see if you get support for a 'theory of a blind watchmaker' or for an 'unbelievably creative vacuum of nothingness'. Will 'hell', if such exists, freeze over before our pictured object self generates? Well, time would seem to be on the side of the theory that 'hell' has got to run out of fuel eventually!
Louis Pasteur: Would you buy a used car from this man? Many of his contemporaries would have tried another carriage lot.
But like the 'ignoramus' Darwin, he has emerged from a shady past to become the patron saint of the current medical establishment.
Beauchamp was eclipsed by Pasteur. Agassiz was eclipsed by Darwin. The Wrights managed to overcome efforts to eclipse their thinking and contributions.
Consider the implications of the herd making patron saints out of two personalities who were very human and who drifted into the present with very questionable credentials in their forgotten past.
Emma (Wedgwood) Darwin, Charles Darwin's wife and first cousin, was a very religious person. She supported the common party line that you either got on board the train or burned in hell. Charles seemed to unthinkingly buy the theory but rather than questioning the accuracy of such a bizarre concept, he went about achieving mental peace another way. IF God is such an ogre, well, let's get rid of God - poof - natural selection solves the 'problem'!
A bit of family trivia; John Maynard Keynes is a descendant of the Darwin / Wedgewood family. Keynes and Charles Darwin arguably are major influencers of current society and a cynical observer might look at the situation and describe the prevailing mental outlook as being associate with a herd of Godless Spendthrifts. Life is a free-for-all crap shoot. Money is the solution to all problems. And we have a printing press! Let the good times roll!
Florence Nightingale, a contemporary of Bechamp and Pasteur and a bit younger than Charles Darwin, was more favourable to Bechamp's thinking and sceptical of Pasteur. Also, she was a free thinker and did not buy the 'burn in hell' concept, which, for good reason, she saw as faulted theory.
Back to the flow;
There are two stories / jokes that I feel illustrate a huge swath of human effort and reasoning and ultimate results.
The first is a Bill Pete child’s book incident where a group of monkeys escape from a zoo and are determined to climb to the moon, via a tall tree standing just outside their previous enclosure. The wise elephant sees the proceedings and say “I don’t think this is going to work.” The lead monkey retorts “Well, we are making progress, aren’t we?”
The second example is the joke where a pedestrian is run over by an ambulance. The driver and attendant point out how lucky the man is that help arrived so quickly.
I had a shirt tail aunt who through her marriage to one of my uncles was brought into contact with my uncle’s first cousin. The cousin was a simple blue collar type who was pleasant and thought in very black and white terms. My aunt was likely more intelligent and certainly better educated and experienced. She had been a Chautauqua girl – not an easy summer job to secure and wonderful experience for those who did land the gem position. She told me once that she envied Cousin Alfred’s thinking processes because for him, decisions were so simple. There were no shades of grey! She struggled with many decisions. In hindsight, both individuals died years ago, my aunt likely had a much more interesting, complex, and successful kick at life than Cousin Alf. Alf was much more likely to opt for climbing a tree to the moon and more at risk of being run over by the ambulance!
Failure to dig for bedrock reality, opting for disastrous ‘one, two, three, blastoff’ detective style, opting for short term strategies like climbing a tree to reach the moon, opting for ‘immediate’ solutions that kick you in the teeth in the longer run, setting yourself up to be struck by the ambulance; all are large in the story of the human experience. John Lincoln had long range foresight! His call that fools learn via suffering and that humanity appears to tilt to the foolish position, seems to be supported by reality.
When you see current society so universally fixated on the theory that something like the covid virus can be combated by subjecting the individual living units of human existence to an imposed slow motion limp or crawl, surely some thinking minds will ask ‘where did that thinking come from?’ How can so much peripheral social and economic damage take place without triggering widespread wonder and questioning of the broad scenario? The reaction to the disease has been the damage agent. The disease is linked to previous underlying blunders and judgments. Why are people so generally blind to these possibilities and so accepting of the herd supported ‘panic line’ that a totally new disease monster has been born and is on the loose and that everyone needs to turn off their brain and run for cover.
A rewind of history certainly let’s one see the progression of thinking. I view the current covid mindset as a mental virus that is amazingly contagious due to the immunity deficient ‘mental terrain’ – a bit of terminology that Antoine Bechamp as well as Sir Alfred Howard would be comfortable with. Bedrock grounded minds would be immune to this ‘dumb before obvious’ affliction. A combination of the (1) Charles Darwin chaos/evolution mental virus with (2) Louis Pasteur’s dollar driven, simplistic, ‘we are at the mercy of the terrorist microbe’ mental virus, goes a long way to explain the ‘covid – put the brakes on living’ mental virus.
Consider the associated viral bits; *Humans are a generic entity, each possessing a single level of natural immunity. *We are all sitting ducks before the indiscriminate killer virus. *Vaccines are a wonderful non judgmental profit and marketing bonanza essential to our mass survival. *No fault insurance is what everyone needs for healthful living and governments should supply it. *Natural immunity with its associated causal factors has been pushed into an ignored and forgotten land protected by a tall wall posted with abundant signage stating, ‘Caution - Entering Dingbat Territory’!
Unfortunately, the departure from bedrock reality will make the list of woke illusions take on an increasing stink as humanity suffers the eventual results of the faulted theories. The Darwin / Pasteur theory pack that has been so universally opted for has not only put the mass of humanity on a faulted path but it has also stifled progress at developing a broad life style that would provide stable and long term success.
Humans always have a goal, be it climbing to the moon, or prosperity, or health, or extended life. The crunch is the faulted choice of attack. And the ‘obvious quick progress’ tree climbing route to the moon is ‘not very wise’. Once things get so bad that we are dodging speeding ambulances constantly, a reset, likely rather painful, is on the horizon. But the aging society of planet earth has developed so many amazing ‘capacities to be dangerous’ that we are on the edge where one more major slipup may kick us all over the big cliff!
The covid experience has the potential to be a great teacher for anyone with an open mind. It is a ‘Very Strong Hint’ that bedrock needs to be hunted for. It is a story that cries out for real detective work. Sherlock, let’s see some ‘elementary thinking’! The ‘Super Tanker’ Big Society is not going to change. Thankfully every living person has their own private world and the capacity to be a free thinker.
Life is not simplistic. Each life is built up with multiple stacked bricks of understanding and development, just as Wilbur Wright put one part of the puzzle together after another in order to build his total ‘flight’ package. But the starting point for ultimate success is a bedrock foundation – that is vital. The moon can be achieved but the tree climbing approach does not qualify as a bedrock anchored starting point!
Bechamp knew that the iceberg was bigger than the tip. Pasteur only publicized the tip. He was a marketing genius. Just as religion of that age could sell forgiveness of sins, Pasteur realized the sales potential of vaccines. "Come one and all and no matter your past actions, simply pay the price I ask and all will be well! We will get out a flame thrower and melt that tiny sucker."
Wilbur Wright appreciated that in order to 'fly' you have to work with an entire system. The concept of a 'one trick pony' approach or 'one dimensional' magic is not going to cut it. So with physical and mental health. So with LIFE. So with Sustainable LIFE.
You must build on bedrock reality. Once you start climbing the tree to the moon, you are headed for eventual failure. Goals tend to be universal - everyone wants to 'reach the moon'. Goals are good. The method chosen is where the mistakes occur.
Sidebar:
Alfred Sloan's career got rolling with the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company around 1900. The bearing design fitted the early automotive industry well due to its capacity to work along with rather crude machining, a characteristic of the early attempts at mass production. Sloan was a brilliant man, learned quickly, and was instrumental at propelling Hyatt to success on the coat tail of the auto boom. Hyatt was purchased by General Motors, and that development opened the way for Sloan to climb the industry ladder, to be the leader of GMC.
I discovered an old Hyatt bearing in my father's farm shop and it has been my desk pen holder for close to 50 years, as a tribute to my respect for Sloan.
Sloan lived in a different world - a world that seemed to be on an open ended roll. Could he have foreseen that the mega industrial machine he was helping to build would propel the world to the equivalent of a cancer death? Systemic growth, resource depletion, pollution, and dependency on a huge, unsustainable approach has put us all into a box canyon with no easy way out. So easy to be a winner and a loser!
The Bible really has nothing bad to say about the positive marvels of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, apart from the warning that eating from it will eventually lead to death. There is an opinion, that I fully support, that the mentioned "tree" is basically "laws". But a bit of additional guidance, compliments of the Boss Designer, needs to be added to off-set a major problem with that huge and vital tree. Everything we touch and do involves laws, and true science is an accurate view of laws. The problem is that 'laws' are so complex and intertwined and numerous that they form a knowledge jungle, and limited human capacity, along with a proclivity to adopt immature screwed up theory, assures that many human initiatives are going to get lost in the maze. The path to 'flight' or 'to the moon' or whatever laudable goal, is not a straight "one, two, three" line.
Charles Kettering made the statement that "If we had to run ourselves on what we know about ourselves, we couldn't do it". When human mechanics find inspiration in an amateur showman like Louis Pasteur and lay into the mass production of a 'product' as did Alfred Sloan, personally, I am a bit uneasy about the long term results.
The Bible is not an inconsequential product and the obvious applicability of its load of brilliant analogies to the realities that are under our noses gives it remarkable credibility. Ignoring all the screaming major and micro clues that an altruistic but firm Boss Designer is behind every tree leaf and blade of grass is a really dumb mistake!
How the natural immune system can operate so effectively is hard, no, impossible to comprehend. Screwing with it, when you don't know your way around all the multi-system physical laws involved, may well produce another killer 'ambulance'. Saved from Covid 19 - knocked flat by disease X or Y or Z due to a broken natural immune system? The MRNA vaccine push was huge! The next few years may be exciting!
The immune system we each have, under normal and positive conditions, is remarkable, and crazy complex with all sorts of interactions with our "around"! It has delivered impressively for a LONG time! You don't let a pliers and hammer mechanic work on your Ferrari nor your Swiss watch. Those mechanical items are rather low level efforts and lack self preservation and self healing performance, unlike the human body. I think I will opt to ride with the Designer and related 'product care advice' rather than patronizing amateur tinkerers who are into knee jerk snake oil marketing gimmicks! I wouldn't buy a used car from Louis Pasteur!
