Many of us lack the drive to lead.
I always have.
Yet, sometimes in my life I have been chosen by circumstances, by others, perhaps by The Other, to fill a leadership role despite my natural aversion and lack of innate leadership qualities.
In the real world we must roleplay.
Under the glare of the System Eye we must wear our masks and play our roles or face ostracism and worse.
Why do men of success in war such as Ernst Junger remain sorrowful after their survival or even triumph?
In part because they all know that they will stepping up to fill the role opened for them by Fate, very often at another man’s expense.
Weak men fail.
That task whispers to us.
Strong men falter.
That task hisses at us.
Great men fall.
That task glares balefire at us.
A good man moves on.
That task gives us a call.
Recently the man who ran a gym where I sometimes served as a visiting coach was called upon to move his family to a better state, a better job.
At his announcement I wondered if the training group would scatter and dissolve as most such lapses of leadership tend to in the combat arts fraternity.
But another man, Erique, who had recently stepped up to fill my cornering role, had moved to that state, from a much worse place and was starting a family of his own, had other ideas.
He didn’t have a facility.
He does know how to network and negotiate. So he found a training space at low cost and good terms, so that the men in his training group wouldn’t have to cease their association. In that way, in this one small instance where the combative training of a half-dozen men are concerned, one man stepped up and made a play for the survival of a tiny knucklehead fraternity.
Talking to both men, I am glad for and proud of them.
