Let me write this before I forget to include it. (Welcome to the world of a writer who sometimes runs at a topic without going back to rearrange things.)

I have tried to live by the rules.
Yet, I am surprised by how many times
I’ve survived through defiance.

And another one.

Persistence enables Resilience
and can require
Defiance against convention.

I hadn’t expected to write about that. I expected to take a few days to write for my self, writing about things that are so personal that I won’t share them, but things that are so important that I needed them said – or at least written and read by me.

So much for a mindless and semi-indulgent mini-detox and vacation.

I spent five days, which was better measured as four nights, in one of Washington State Parks’ vacation houses, the historic 1900 hospital stewards’s house at Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island. Quiet. Authentically antique. Simple and elegant. And cheap (~$450 for four nights for a two-story house). 

I’d just taken a similar trip to the Washington coast at LaPush, but enough is going on in my life and in the world that I wanted/needed some time to relax, but also to sit and think, and write.

In the midst of chaos, the best response can be to be still and observe before reacting.

In karate, “Do not move unless it is to your benefit to do so.” That’s why some parring matches start with two martial arts seemingly doing nothing. What they are really doing is observing themself and their opponent before moving.

It was a time to let myself settle away from the chaos and decide what is best and healthiest for me. You may find a different answer.

No internet. A blessing. I did have a mobile hotspot, but I only used it intermittently. No music. Turned off the TV. Quiet. It was the quiet of a 120-year-old house that has far fewer of the hums and beeps of a modern-day house. The windows and walls would creak in the gusts. Things would ping as the air warmed and cooled through the day. 

It was a welcome challenge to sit and be still. 

It was also impossible to ignore the realities around me of political turmoil, crumbling markets, (space hardware that fell over), and all the rest.

But take it back to the basic basics: me, walking or sitting and thinking.

Skip the details. What’s the over-arching theme? 

I’ve been through turmoil. I’ll spare you the list, but this blog is more than a thousand posts of celebrations and disasters if you want details.

Decades prove that I am persistent. I have perseverance. The Great Recession was bad, but personally, My Triple Whammy was far worse. I persisted. Medical issues, relationship issues, business difficulties, etc., have been survivable because I persisted. I persevered.

And lately, the term Resilience began to pop up. To me, resilience is the foundation that is touched and that supports whatever persistence requires. Persistence is the continual motion forward. Resilience is the base from which it is possible to bounce back. I couldn’t be where I am without that forward motion and the support that kept me from sinking too low.

I was thinking about me, and realized it can apply to society as well. 

So, I wrote. I wrote paragraphs on pages. I also wrote lists: lists of positives and negatives, hurdles cleared, challenges remaining. 

I also noticed that the worst times were met with a defiance I didn’t recognize at the time. Do you think that’s going to stop me? Let’s test that. Charge! Painful, but productive. 

Most of my anecdotes are private, but I’ll share this one because it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s privacy.

I collapsed a disk in my back. It was hard to affix blame because within the month of July 1988, I was dropped on my head in karate (straight down, almost rigid), ran a marathon without sufficient fluids in 90-degree heat, and had a jarring fall while climbing Mt. Rainier that almost dropped me into a crevasse. I was young. Duh. 

For whatever reason, I developed sciatica, with the attendant shooting pains down my legs, muscle spasms that made sleep difficult, and a leg that locked up to the point that I had to drag it around for a few weeks. The doctors and therapists prescribed drugs, exercise, and therapy. Nothing much was working beyond my body healing itself.

I was frustrated in not being able to walk, hike, or run. Life didn’t have to be that way. I biked. I struggled to get on my bike, then commuted to work that way. As I did more, I could stretch more. As the mobility improved, I tried walking, and hiking, and  – let’s try running. Naturally, this all took months, which was enough time to realize that my therapies were working better than the therapist’s and doctor’s remedies. 

The climax of the story was that, by persisting and persevering, I eventually ran a marathon again – and surprised an incredulous doctor. I had to defy conventional wisdom and approaches to find my own answer.

That defiance of convention, coupled with perseverance and persistence, has been a process that had unconsciously gotten me through chaos and turmoil.

Ironically (or not), while I was away, one of my largest stocks (LUNR) fell 40% because their spacecraft fell over. Someone lost a few hundreds of millions of dollars, I am guessing. But. They almost got it right. They have a backlog. Aerospace, especially innovations in aerospace, are known to be risky. I’ll hold the stock rather than sell because they can probably persist. The very act of innovation is a defiance of convention. I wish it had worked, but I’ll stick with them to see if they persist and profit.

On a grander scale, our society is in turmoil and chaos. I can’t blame a friend who sold everything. There’s wisdom there. I didn’t because I know that even in down times, some things go up, and that most of my companies are making progress regardless of the headlines.

What I’m taking from my trip are some of those insights into defiance; but I’m also taking the basic reality and truth behind the quiet and persistence of the world that exists beyond the distractions of audio and video and ads and pundits.