I'd love to be able to spell every variation of the sizzling sound of cooling your jets, the sounds you hear when you're letting off steam, turning down the heat of a crackling skillet, or opening a suction door slowly, swwwwwitzzzzzz! But you can use your imagination, and imagine that as part of your own jets being cooled.
We need to be cool. Red hot in certain ways, but cool within. Stoked, of course, but with a cool outlook. And we'll have the greatest success, without overheating, without burn marks as a part of our makeup, especially if we slow down and take it easier.
I'm doing it myself. That's why I'm offering it up as advice. I've been ripping along red hot myself. Mass producin', struttin' my stuff, keepin' the lines cranked at a feverish pace, lovin' the interchangeable parts, always buildin' bigger warehouses... Then I'm down, a little, and have a nap ... and in the long run I'm ready to kick it in gear again, my jets steamin', spittin' out the flames... What a life!
Call it age, perhaps... I prefer to think of it as gaining wisdom in my ... old age. Thinking maybe I need to pace myself so I'm not burnt out. That's the key thing. Get more done in the shortest amount of time, or pace yourself so you can produce more reliably over the course of the foreseeable future? I think for me, it's probably best to cool my jets somewhat.
You know we've been red hot as well against the Major Industrial Powers (MIP). That's been an awesome ride, putting the clamps on those SOBs. But I had a great thought yesterday:
"Maybe we ought to be praising the MIP to high heaven instead of tearing them down all the time! Our tearing them down might actually be helping them!"
It doesn't really seem all that great to me this morning, but I have to remember the context, which was that humility is necessary to counter psychic inflation. And if we're always tearing down the MIP, conceivably that could be adding to their humility, therefore making them ultimately stronger. So, if I were to go with that, and it's still only in the theoretical stages, that would mean cooling our jets in that sense as well.
But we'll put that one on hold, and say that today we want to look out for ourselves first. This is our time. We don't need to be pushing ourselves non-stop. It's time to start looking our for number one, taking a breather in all our production. Ultimately our output will be better for it.
I know, I know, some of you will think I've gone soft. I've been out in nature a couple days, and obviously, like nature, you'll say I just want to lay around. And really, I guess that is the way of nature. It's always out there taking it easy. You never see any animals. They're in their nests or dens or dams or holes sleeping. Other than my dog, some fish, and birds, I haven't seen any animals. Oh yeah, that spider a couple days ago, I saw him. The trees are always in one place, too, never getting anything done. The sky just drifts by. Nothing seems to get anything excited. Either that or I just always happen to live in boring places, where nature goes to retire.
Be all that as it may, no, I have not gone soft. Maybe the contemplative life out in nature does tend to slow a guy down. But honestly, I've been scouting nature for new factory sites, so technically I've been working. Yes, maybe I did fall asleep by a big tree, cooling my jets a little. But I've been working hard, friends, and I'm tired. Other than that, I've been strictly busy, trying to formulate my letter to the governor and legislature about ceding some of this public land for additional industry. That's where my priorities are.
The thing is... Like I said, I'm old. And I'm getting the wisdom that comes with years, and I'm just thinking it would be good for us, once in a while, me anyway, to kick our shoes off and take it easy. That's all.
Hey, I think that's how the story of Rip Van Winkle goes, even though I haven't heard it for 30 years. He's out in nature, isn't he? And he's scouting locations for new factories. And formulating letters to the government. And he falls asleep by a big lazy tree. Then when he wakes up, he has a beard down to his knees, his pants are wet, and he's soiled himself, 40 years worth. He's got jock itch all the way up his neck. And enough bug bites to earn him the nickname Rip Van Pizza Face. He's cooling his jets.
Then he wakes up. And it's no longer five miles to the nearest factory, but it just so happens he's in some woods with a 35 foot buffer zone between it and the nearest tire factory someone's built. He goes back to his town and there's factories and smokestacks everywhere. He bathes in one of the runoff ditches and lives happily ever after. There's enough Social Security checks stacked up in his mailbox, he's able to.
Cool ... your ... jets! At least consider it as a possibility...
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