Sometimes being away from the fray and the fracases of life can allow us to compose our thoughts and regenerate our spirits. This has the effect of spurring the creative soul on to higher amplitudes of output. We forget just how distracting it is for the mind to be bombarded with invasive stimuli; and while periods of withdrawal from the fray should not be permanent, they can, in the right doses, provide just that right proportion of flint and steel to spark great works.
I am on a ship that will transit through the Panama Canal tomorrow. For me this is a big moment: to be able to see one of the great engineering marvels of the world; to experience the incarnate will of one of my idols, President Theodore Roosevelt; and finally, to see the natural tropical beauty of the Canal Zone. All these things are on my mind as I write these words.
A couple days ago I had a chance to tour the vacation retreat of former president Harry S Truman. The experience prompted some thoughts and observations on the value system of our current political elites.
Today Mr. Andrew Vittoria released a very detailed and cogent You Tube video review of my On Duties. Readers seeking an in-depth and reasoned commentary will no doubt find this video useful. I have embedded the video below.
The biographer Ibn Khallikan relates the following anecdote about a man named Abu Amir Orwa Ibn Uzaina, a scholar and poet who died around A.D. 736. Not much is known of his life except that he was a member of the Iraqi tribe of al-Laith. It illustrates the importance of not chasing things in life too much. From personal experience I can attest to this principle’s soundness. When I was younger, there were times when I would try too much to chase things or control events.
In life and in history, there are a great many things we do not know, and will never know. Corporeal images recede slowly into the mist: some to return, some to glimmer faintly without revealing tangible form, and some never to be seen again. It is the way with things.
If you find yourself with free time on your hands during the next few days, you might want to check out a few of these titles. As always, I try to focus on the films that get little mainstream attention. You can decide whether you want to see them.
One of the great things about history, literature, and philosophy is that these subjects have the ability to take us down dark rabbit-holes every now and then. I think H.P. Lovecraft once said something like “seekers after knowledge haunt strange and dark places.” I can’t remember the exact quote, but it was along these lines. I was reminded of just how dark these can be last night as I was going through Procopius’s History of the Wars (a regular companion of mine for some months now). Anthony Kaldellis’s wonderful edition of this neglected work proves once again that the right translation of a work can make all the difference in whether a book blossoms into life or falls flat.
Captain Adolf Von Schell was a veteran German officer of the First World War. In 1914 he first served in Belgium, then saw extensive action on the eastern front in both Romania and the Russian border. After the end of the conflict in 1918, he stayed in the army; he was even sent to one of the US Army’s military schools in Fort Benning in 1930. He delivered many lectures to American officers on his combat lessons of the Great War; these were later collected and published under the title Battle Leadership.
From the years 540 to 562, the Eastern Roman Empire under Justinian was engaged in a drawn out struggle against the Sassanid Persians under Chosroes (Khosrow). This contest is usually called the “Persian War.” Many illuminating incidents that happened during this conflict I have used in previous articles here. Another one highlights the need for redundancy and “back-up” systems as security in times of trouble. We are aware of this principle when it comes to computing and software, but it can be applied to many other fields of activity. The following story demonstrates this principle.
Quintus Curtius 
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