On Greg

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Greg recently. This came about from listening to the Bob Seger song "Like a Rock," which whenever I really listen to it I can't help but think of Greg. It's been playing on repeat in my car at full volume, because the song kicks ass. If you're reading and don't know the song it's the one from about half the Chevy truck commercials of the last fifteen years (evidently, Seger, who's from Michigan, offered its use at length to Chevy to aid the then-struggling Detroit auto workers...whatever). To some extent, the commercials have cheapened the song because casual listeners (namely ones too young to remember the song on the radio before it was used for the ads, like myself) might have a really hard time hearing the song and not dismissing it as a lame marketing tool, but if you can put aside that initial kneejerk reaction to it, it's really pretty good.

Anyways, I always wish I had more of Greg's strengths. Here's a guy who really knows what he's about. He doesn't seem like he ever has moral crises, he just sees what's right and does it, quickly and with everything he's got. He knows his priorities and his values without even thinking about them, just sees the right in them and has the unwavering integrity to pursue them without self-doubt. I feel like I have too hard a time deciding what's right for me, what way I want to go with my life and all that to do the big things, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for Greg at all. He's got all the defining qualities that come to mind when I think of a real man. To top it all off, he's tough as nails too, man, he's a real steel horseman. He's wanted: dead or alive. What a badass.

Here's the first half of the song's lyrics, the parts that make me think of Greg, for your consideration:

Stood there boldly, sweatin' in the sun
Felt like a million, felt like number one
The height of summer, I'd never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen, didn't have a care
Workin' for peanuts, not a dime to spare
But I was lean and solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady, my eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose, my steps were quick and light
And I held firmly to what I felt was right
Like a rock

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothing ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock

And I stood arrow-straight, unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams

Tribes

This is actually a comment I was about to make on my last post, but it grew too long and too important to be just a comment. It was in response to Bill Whittle's "Tribes" on the same site as the article from my last post. Here it is:

One last comment from me on this post, as my justification for not just starting a new post will have run out...and this one's for Dad.

I have now read "Tribes" as well, and at the risk of soliciting your disagreement since I'm such a wonderful and courageous young lad and whatnot, having served my country in Iraq with the mighty United States Marines, I'm prone to call myself the pink-leaning sort of grey tribe, and essentially a sheep in sheepdog's clothing. Any given day, I've got a better than average chance of feeling more the sheep than sheepdog, but in my Young, Dumb, and Full of...Whatever moments, I fancy myself a hard-line sheepdog. Frankly, I figure at my very best I'm Bill Whittle's kind of amateur, stand-by sheepdog.

I figure I'm too inclined towards the artistic in my writing, too bad at practical productivity to call myself truly grey. You might say I'm like New York in that I can turn deep grey in a might hurry when it's called for, but civilian complacency has great power over me, and the idealistic college attitude still has a great deal of control over me as well.

The biggest point he made about being a sheepdog that makes me feel like I must be one, though, was this: "...all I can say is that I believe in my heart that I would rather die for something bigger than myself than lead a life where nothing is more important than me." That is one of my most important ideals...if I die peacefully in my sleep as an old, old man, I feel like I will have been robbed. If there's one way that I really want to be "special," it's that I want to die a death that means something profound. There are too many interesting and powerful ways to die for me to die an average, peaceful death. I would be much happier to die on the field of battle, not only defending but proactively asserting the freedoms and ideals not even of my countrymen but by god of my own self. And that's something that this article may have helped redefine for me; I don't want to die for the bland idea of my countrymen, as there are too many in this country who don't deserve it and don't appreciate what I'd be buying for them. I'll be damned if I'm thought to be so generous as to give my very life for somebody else's prosperity. I would be giving my life in assertion that these ideals that I hold so high, this country system that I value above all others, are righteous and true and leaps above all others in virtue and worth. I don't fight to secure the rights of simply others in my country, I fight to secure the rights of my Tribe. I love my Tribe, I love those who mean so much to me not because of a shared geopolitical origin but because they have found the same ideals to be true and worthy of high sacrifice to secure them. I do not care for those in my same system with diametrically opposed priorities to my own, and I would not give my life to see that they are afforded the opportunity to topple my beliefs. I think it's important that as many ideas and as many options as possible are brought to the table, so that we may evaluate them, laugh at the stupid ones, and strengthen ourselves, strengthen our other ideals and our other crops through synergy. Make no mistake that I have any intention other than to topple those who oppose my beliefs through the success of my system over theirs, and through the butterfly effect of conviction and commitment to what we have found to be right. We have found it to be so thoroughly right and righteous that our conviction knows no bounds; the things we know to be true are worth so much to us that their continuation is profoundly more important than our own.

Okay, so maybe I am a sheepdog.