Border Die
Posted in Arts and Crafts on 11/23/2009 02:47 am by adminBorder Die
“Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” People throw that catch phrase around like it’s a biblical passage. After spending the past 10 years working with homeless people as a Life Skills teacher, I can say with clear conviction, that statement is not true.
When I was younger, I was told that wisdom comes with age. The longer I lived, I started to realize that is not a guarantee. I know plenty of old fools. The same is true about trial by fire. Working with homeless people made it abundantly clear to me that which doesn’t kill you doesn’t necessarily make you stronger. That statement originated with German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. So how did that philosophy work out for him? Well, he faced a number of life challenges of his own. Nietzsche’s challenges didn’t kill him, but he did eventually die insane.
That which doesn’t kill you can make you weaker and more vulnerable.
What I have discovered along the way is what people believe about what they experience will eventually determine if it becomes something that can strengthen their life’s journey or make it more challenging. In my classes, I have often quoted the Observer Effect as a scientific foundation: the observed is affected by the observer.
To illustrate this idea, I draw a circle on the board. I ask the class what it is. Out of 50 people, I’ll get 15 to 20 different answers, from a pizza to a zero to a hole to the Sun and so on. How can there be so many different interpretations of the same thing? Simple-our life experiences and beliefs will give us an interpretation that is unique to each of us.
Two people are involved in a car accident. One person says it was the worst experience of her life. Another says it was a doorway that opened up life for him. For one person, it was an experience that didn’t make her stronger, but more sad, depressed and despondent. For the other, it’s a new lease. That which doesn’t kill us does not guarantee that we will become stronger. We would have to choose strength. In other words, our decision about what the experience will be in the world will determine what it will be, not the experience by itself.
I always admired how many Continental Africans thought about death. Their perspective made death not the fearful monster that we don’t talk about here in the West. They seemed to take the bite out of it by their casualness toward it. I was in the Kalahari Desert near the Botswana border recently to do some research on a film I was helping to produce. It was 4 in the afternoon and my driver and my interpreter told me we needed to leave to get back into town now since we were at least 4 hours away. I told them I needed just a little more time to get more information. They both smiled at each other, then smiled at me. I asked, “What’s up?” My interpreter said in a calm, peaceful voice: “We could stay a little longer, but we run the risk of being trampled to death by black elephants, killed by hordes of Kudu or mauled by wild boar.” I laughed because I thought they just wanted to get back to civilization. They smiled, took out a press clipping about four people who were killed the previous week when black elephants trampled their truck.
My reply: “What are we all standing around for? Let’s get the hell out of here!”
My driver and interpreter made death real, but not beyond us. The more I thought about it, the more their belief helped me start to pay attention to my long-held ideas about something that is as natural as birth. These two guys made a decision about death that allowed them to live.
The key to navigating through challenging times is not to put ourselves in harm’s way, thinking that this will make us stronger, but to proactively turn each event into a conscious decision that can help avoid crazy situations in the future.
I won’t be driving through the Kalahari at night anytime soon.
Chet W. Sisk
Chet W. Sisk is a thought leader in Sustainable Society Leadership and the author of the new book “Think This, Not That: It’s Time To Update Your Conventional Wisdom”.
Can a dog die from playing?
Can my border collie die from after running at night and going to sleep without any water? What are the chances of that and what are the % of it happening? How much water do they need to survive until morning? For ex. I play catch with my dog inside the house, about 20-30 feet run every run for 5-10 minutes. Then I don’t feed it water, can they die the next day?
no, not from the circumstances you described. It could die if it had a heart condition, or the weather was really hot & it went into heat stroke, or some other scenarios. But not from not having water overnight. Although you should not withhold the water, how would you feel if you exercised & weren’t allowed to drink any water? If you are doing that, the dog won’t DIE but it sure is crummy of you.
DDR border at Marienborn – Die Grenze von der DDR an Marienborn
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