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Capricorn: the art of delaying
Our soldiers are ready and eager for the battle.
Horses stamp their hooves with impatience. Runners are alert and
ready, eyes darting, watching.
The enemy is over the hill, coming. Coming. We hear the thunder
of them, see the darkness of them, feel our fear, taste our cowardice,
sense the tense ache of muscles that want to survive this day --
but we are here, ready to fight, to answer the call.
Why is it not given?
We watch the tent where the old man sits, our leader. The day hangs
heavy, gloomy, with no promise of victory. He emerges, climbs stiffly
up onto his horse, and rides slowly to the front where he will lead.
But the flag up there is not raised.
Why does he wait?
Still the enemy comes. Closer, closer. One of us breaks rank and
runs the other way, back down the hill – he has suffered enough!
The general sees him go and points a finger. A shot rings out. The
deserter falls and lies in the dust, dead.
No one follows. All wish they could. None wish to die.
Our general is old, old. He rarely heeds his aides with their Martian
opinions and young eyes and restless hearts aching for glory. He
has fought many such battles, won some, lost some. He has been promoted
and survived as those around left, or died.
So he waits, and watches.
When he senses the appropriate moment, he lifts his hand.
The flag goes up. The bugle blares.
Does he win or lose?
That depends as much on the strategy and nerve of the enemy as on
his own. But he is a general, not a god: he directs only his side,
requests obedience only from those under his command. He has a plan
to survive. If he miscalculates, he dies with the soldiers.
Who would be a general? It’s not exactly what most children
respond with when asked: "And what will you be when you grow
up?" But there is the rare one, a boy with flint in his eye,
a girl with a firm chin, born to authority over self and others.
Growing up means learning Saturn’s lesson: that generals –
whether military or high level administrators – are as necessary
to a functioning society as emperors and kings and oh yes, prime
ministers. Someone who knows and treasures “the system”
has to run it, keeping it intact from rot within – or rebels
without, those who would destroy this system in order to set up
another.
Growing up means learning the painful truth that what one does with
one's days is usually not the fulfillment of the airy dreams of
youth.
Growing up means finding out that people start to depend on you,
lean on you, ask for your strength, then demand it of you –
unless you early on calculate how to pass on your own desire for
that inner discipline which strengthens and toughens.
Growing up means learning how to decide to whom you will give your
strength – and to whom you will not. Who decides to hire must
also know how to fire.
Point a finger at one in your own ranks or at many of another general’s
– and sentence death.
But if death does stops defeat, it is the general who pays the price.
Sleepless nights with ghosts at the bedside torment the general
into evolving new strategies to strengthen his soldiers, to somehow
make of each one a warrior instead of a coward.
A good general wishes for the least number to die in order to save
“the system” on which each of them depend for livelihood.
Capricorn. Cold, aloof, lonely, old even when young. Destroyer of
daydreams.
Not a fun person. But a gruff grim chuckle escapes after a hard-won
victory. He is hero for a day. He can greet a new dawn and receive
accolades from his owners: the king, the people.
He does it for them. For who would choose to ride a horse with the
gout? Who'd ride a jeep with blazing sun and dust and thirst as
constant companions?
And fear rides with him also. Its adversity strengthens him. For
as long as his struggle and strategy hold fear at bay, his people
will survive.
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