Very nice Grant. I was thinking of you yesterday while listening to a Jordan Peterson podcast. I took some notes, and these will likely be paraphrasing, but you have concisely elaborated on Jordan's thoughts of the current state of military, academia, medicine, etc.. I deeply the appreciate the tangential and direct relations to Mark's most recent offering.
From the podcast: Personality factors that predict military ranking and academic success are: general cognitive abilities, trait conscientiousness, or being orderly and industrious.
Openness and creativeness were negative correlates to success and promotion. Openness is a detriment from the bottom up - all you do is cause trouble - as people progress thru the ranks. All creatives are winnowed out. These creatives are absolutely vital at the top level of organization.
Colonel John Nagl said that he was in no danger from having written the book, "Eating Soup With A Knife," because no one in the military reads. I thought that was funny. I know Grant reads ;)
It is very worrisome that the creatives are leaving and or not going into any of these organizations.
Nov 5, 2022·edited Nov 5, 2022Liked by Grant Smith
Great post. The focus on an abstruse wellness looks like a cover for crony careerism. It guts the real organizational purpose and best serves people whose interests are not aligned with, e.g., fulfillment of an oath.
Purpose being inextricably linked to wellness should make it obvious to anyone touting the importance of wellness that it cannot be achieved without a purpose to achieve it, and so purpose must come first. Whew. That's a bit of a brain teaser. I think you do a nice job here of pointing out a catch that is unfortunately overlooked by decision makers.
Very interesting. The self-selection and amplification of specific personality types - or trauma survival styles - by our institutions is something I think about a lot. Have you read Heller's "Healing Developmental Trauma" - for me this is the best source of personality types we see being recruiting to various institutions? Indeed, I would be really be really interested to see if you identify his survival styles with particular roles in the military? ( I summarized Heller's 5 styles here https://garysharpe.substack.com/i/73709366/dr-laurence-heller-and-dr-aline-lapierre-and-narm )
The harder truth is almost so profound that it defies explanation and words can't even begin to describe what is going on right now.
Regarding the current leadership in this country, in all military, federal, state, or local authoritative positions, they have all turned into a rather authoritarian beast that is somehow able to snake its sneaky tentacle-like hands into every aspect of life right now.
The ones that want to be good and disregard all the nonsense going on right now but have something to lose (or something to gain), will quickly give up on all of their convictions, ideals, morals, and beliefs. Everybody has a price, and sometimes that price is to be avoid being socially rejected, fired, gain that promotion, etc.
And the other issue is, it's been going on so long, this social pressure and convincing people that believing a certain thing is trendy, that people can't even tell they're doing it anymore. Almost as if overnight, people became sinful, immoral, unintelligent, incapable of free-thought, brain-dead zombie. Some people might say that maybe it is me that changed, and maybe it is, but I don't think so. I feel like everybody around me changed, and if it was me, it was through the force of that same social pressure that finally broke me.
People literally have the audacity to disregard what's going on and still make comments about how somebody "Raised their right hand and swore an oath."
There is no mission anymore. The mission is the destruction of America and our way of life as we know it. They forced all the good people that would have fought for and saved this country out, but not before taking the last decade to brainwash the youth of the next military-aged males and females to make them dislike the army or have no desire to join. Make college free and you can kiss an "All-Volunteer Army" goodbye. But this is exactly what "they" wanted and have been working for.
The Army has never taken Spirituality seriously while I was in, and if you needed to go see somebody to try to get your mind right, you were considered weak. I don't know what this new "People First" nonsense in. I was starting to see a little bit of it on my way out the door. Something that caused them to take a Wednesday off and go spend time as a squad.... which seems like a great idea until next thing you know you're putting together CONOPs for what you and your squad will do next Wednesday. You better believe that this was not designed for "Wellness" and has something more sinister at play in the background...possibly like the weakening of our military's fitness and combat-strength/effectiveness right along with forcing all the good leaders out. Anytime the Army has a "mandatory fun day" it's not going to be fun.
I unfortunately was one of those people that had to leave for my own spiritual wellness. I felt guilty of course because I did swear an Oath and have taken multiple other Oaths as a leader. I am complaining about how everybody is always only looking out for themselves and don't care about anybody but themselves, but here I was, leaving the Army to look out for me. The difference is, I know I can still keep my Oath I swore out here on the outside, and I actually care about others. I'm not afraid to speak up and stand up for what's right and shut down what's wrong. My morals, beliefs, convictions, ideals haven't changed, and if anything, they are stronger than ever now that I am out. The process I went through to get out broke me down as a man, made me go through an existential crisis, I was in the darkest place I had ever been in my life and it's a place nobody should have to experience, and at the end, I came out with more spiritual strength than ever.
Don't be fooled by the chaos. See the truth for what it is. Stay true to yourself and others.
Very nice Grant. I was thinking of you yesterday while listening to a Jordan Peterson podcast. I took some notes, and these will likely be paraphrasing, but you have concisely elaborated on Jordan's thoughts of the current state of military, academia, medicine, etc.. I deeply the appreciate the tangential and direct relations to Mark's most recent offering.
From the podcast: Personality factors that predict military ranking and academic success are: general cognitive abilities, trait conscientiousness, or being orderly and industrious.
Openness and creativeness were negative correlates to success and promotion. Openness is a detriment from the bottom up - all you do is cause trouble - as people progress thru the ranks. All creatives are winnowed out. These creatives are absolutely vital at the top level of organization.
Colonel John Nagl said that he was in no danger from having written the book, "Eating Soup With A Knife," because no one in the military reads. I thought that was funny. I know Grant reads ;)
It is very worrisome that the creatives are leaving and or not going into any of these organizations.
Great post. The focus on an abstruse wellness looks like a cover for crony careerism. It guts the real organizational purpose and best serves people whose interests are not aligned with, e.g., fulfillment of an oath.
Purpose being inextricably linked to wellness should make it obvious to anyone touting the importance of wellness that it cannot be achieved without a purpose to achieve it, and so purpose must come first. Whew. That's a bit of a brain teaser. I think you do a nice job here of pointing out a catch that is unfortunately overlooked by decision makers.
Yes.
Very interesting. The self-selection and amplification of specific personality types - or trauma survival styles - by our institutions is something I think about a lot. Have you read Heller's "Healing Developmental Trauma" - for me this is the best source of personality types we see being recruiting to various institutions? Indeed, I would be really be really interested to see if you identify his survival styles with particular roles in the military? ( I summarized Heller's 5 styles here https://garysharpe.substack.com/i/73709366/dr-laurence-heller-and-dr-aline-lapierre-and-narm )
The harder truth is almost so profound that it defies explanation and words can't even begin to describe what is going on right now.
Regarding the current leadership in this country, in all military, federal, state, or local authoritative positions, they have all turned into a rather authoritarian beast that is somehow able to snake its sneaky tentacle-like hands into every aspect of life right now.
The ones that want to be good and disregard all the nonsense going on right now but have something to lose (or something to gain), will quickly give up on all of their convictions, ideals, morals, and beliefs. Everybody has a price, and sometimes that price is to be avoid being socially rejected, fired, gain that promotion, etc.
And the other issue is, it's been going on so long, this social pressure and convincing people that believing a certain thing is trendy, that people can't even tell they're doing it anymore. Almost as if overnight, people became sinful, immoral, unintelligent, incapable of free-thought, brain-dead zombie. Some people might say that maybe it is me that changed, and maybe it is, but I don't think so. I feel like everybody around me changed, and if it was me, it was through the force of that same social pressure that finally broke me.
People literally have the audacity to disregard what's going on and still make comments about how somebody "Raised their right hand and swore an oath."
There is no mission anymore. The mission is the destruction of America and our way of life as we know it. They forced all the good people that would have fought for and saved this country out, but not before taking the last decade to brainwash the youth of the next military-aged males and females to make them dislike the army or have no desire to join. Make college free and you can kiss an "All-Volunteer Army" goodbye. But this is exactly what "they" wanted and have been working for.
The Army has never taken Spirituality seriously while I was in, and if you needed to go see somebody to try to get your mind right, you were considered weak. I don't know what this new "People First" nonsense in. I was starting to see a little bit of it on my way out the door. Something that caused them to take a Wednesday off and go spend time as a squad.... which seems like a great idea until next thing you know you're putting together CONOPs for what you and your squad will do next Wednesday. You better believe that this was not designed for "Wellness" and has something more sinister at play in the background...possibly like the weakening of our military's fitness and combat-strength/effectiveness right along with forcing all the good leaders out. Anytime the Army has a "mandatory fun day" it's not going to be fun.
I unfortunately was one of those people that had to leave for my own spiritual wellness. I felt guilty of course because I did swear an Oath and have taken multiple other Oaths as a leader. I am complaining about how everybody is always only looking out for themselves and don't care about anybody but themselves, but here I was, leaving the Army to look out for me. The difference is, I know I can still keep my Oath I swore out here on the outside, and I actually care about others. I'm not afraid to speak up and stand up for what's right and shut down what's wrong. My morals, beliefs, convictions, ideals haven't changed, and if anything, they are stronger than ever now that I am out. The process I went through to get out broke me down as a man, made me go through an existential crisis, I was in the darkest place I had ever been in my life and it's a place nobody should have to experience, and at the end, I came out with more spiritual strength than ever.
Don't be fooled by the chaos. See the truth for what it is. Stay true to yourself and others.