Medium Is Beautiful

It is no easy task to find the middle in everything... but to do this to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy.

ARISTOTLE

You can be two sizes: You can be big, or you can be small. It's very hard to be medium.

JEFF BEZOS

The title of this post is a variation on the title of E.F. Schumacher's book, Small Is Beautiful. I really like that book and agree with many of its arguments and conclusions. Size does matter, but I find you can be too big but also be too small. No one really praises the virtues of the medium size. It is seen as the compromise. In a culture that loves extremes, medium is the red headed stepchild that gets no love. I love medium.

A great example of medium is beautiful is the United States Marine Corps. The US Army has almost 500,000 active personnel. It is the behemoth of the armed forces. The Air Force and the Navy have similar sizes. The Navy SEALs are approximately a little less than 3000 active personnel and represents less than 1% of the US Navy. Between these extremes is the Marine Corps with a little less than 200,000 active personnel. The Marines would be the medium sized force between the behemoth Army and the tiny SEAL force. Both SEALs and Marines belong to the US Navy, but they are their own things. Their respective sizes are assets for their respective missions.

I am fond of the Marine Corps precisely because they are not as big as the other branches. Consequently, they eschew attrition warfare in favor of maneuver warfare. The Marines punch above their weight class and give opposing forces major headaches. I like that sort of thing. Because they are medium, they are the tip of the spear. They can move rapidly into a combat situation while the Army is still putting on its boots. Unlike the SEALs with their surgical strike missions, the Marines just maul the hell out of the enemy. They have enough size to get the job done.

A similar example of medium is the caliber debate. 9 mm is the small caliber. It is easy to shoot and increases magazine capacity. It is not effective as a bullet as I've watched videos of police officers trying to take out perps with this round, and it didn't go well. The 10mm is the big caliber and will take down a grizzly bear. The problem is that it is so big that the recoil is difficult to manage and the penetration may extend beyond the body to an innocent bystander. You want that penetration for a large animal but not for a human being. The compromise round is the 40 S&W. It gets no love but occupies the sweet spot between small and big. It was popular for a time with the FBI, the US Marshals, and other law enforcement agencies but has lost that popularity. I think this is a real shame. It's not easy being medium.

The real estate market is another area where I see the same thing taking place. At the large end of the spectrum, you have McMansions that are between 3000 and 5000 square feet. On the small end of the spectrum, you have tiny homes that are 100 to 400 square feet. The tiny home movement was a response to the McMansion craze and skyrocketing housing prices. The medium size would be the ranch style homes they built in the 1980s that are between 1000 and 2500 square feet typically. I believe those medium sized homes are awesome. They are not too big and not too small. They are just right. Goldilocks would be happy in a ranch house.

I remember trying to sell the wife on the idea of living in a tiny home, and she impolitely informed me that she was not shitting in a bucket. (Tiny homes generally use a composting toilet design which is a bucket full of sawdust and poop.) Her telling me this put me on the path to medium sized living. She didn't need to live in a palace, but she did insist on living in the first world not the third world.

I go for the medium size on everything now. When I get a drink from Taco Bell, I pick the medium size cup. We own medium sized vehicles not tiny bubble cars or Sherman tank SUVs and trucks. We don't watch movies on large screen TV sets or on the small screen of a smartphone. We have medium sized screens on our portable DVD player, the PC, and our Chromebooks. My portion size for food is enough to cure my hunger but not more than that. I am not into feasting anymore. My wardrobe is neither minimalist nor maximalist.

I am not sure where the extremist impulse comes from. My wife and I both agree that this extremism is a very American phenomenon. I confess to being an extremist on various things at certain points in my life. Now, I strive to be as boring as I can which means going for the medium size in everything. In this way, I am living the Golden Mean of Aristotle and Aquinas. The hardest part of this lifestyle is having to think about it. The luxury of extremism is that you don't have to think about it at all. More is more. Less is more. Medium is something else.

UPDATE: I remember geeking out a bit on the topic of body type. What is the ideal type of body for a man? Is it the skeletal frame of a marathoner or the bulked out wall of meat of a bodybuilder? Plus, I don't see being excessively tall as being an asset anywhere outside of the NBA. Some douchebag corporate types might use height as some kind of intimidation strategy, but that psychology doesn't work on me.

I concluded that the ideal body type for a man is between 5 foot 5 inches to 6 foot tall on the height thing and between 180 to 220 for the weight thing. A guy shouldn't be a midget or a giant. He shouldn't be skinny or fat. He needs to be solid in the muscle department. Guys like Joe Rogan, Mike Tyson, and Jack LaLanne have that ideal body type in my estimation. I was inclined to include rugby players, but they are on the tall side.

What hit me is that these guys are medium. They are in the middle when it comes to height, weight, and muscle composition. There are some things you can't change in life like your height. But you can change your weight and muscle composition to a certain extent. To that extent, I think men should aim to be medium. Medium is beautiful.

Charlie's Three Recurring Themes

Obviously I have one theme, and it's even in the book I'm working on right now. It's not that I have such original ideas, just that I'm good at doing variations on the same idea over and over again.

JONATHAN COTT

I write about many and various topics here at the C-Blog. This comes from a decision many years ago to not confine myself to one of those single topic type blogs. For instance, I could have wrote about minimalism or politics or religion. Why not write about all of these things? Why live in service to a single thing? Obviously, there is more to life than a single topic, so I write about anything and everything. Along the way, I noticed three recurring themes in my writing, and I share them here.

1. Overrated/Underrated

A good portion of my life and thinking is spent separating hype from reality. I'm not sure when or where this began, but my life is a story of being fooled by the overrated thing until I discover the underrated thing. The most recent example I can give is my evolved understanding of fitness. I will share the story.

I took up running for fitness in college and continued it into my twenties until my 12 hour work days put an end to that madness. In my late thirties, I flirted with taking it up again, but I had a Haglund's deformity on my right heel that put the brake on that project. I still have that deformity today, but my walking routine has caused zero aggravation there. I would prefer to not get the required surgery for that thing. But I digress. . .

As a Knight of Columbus, I volunteered to help out on a color run for the pro-life cause. It was a run/walk thing, and I think it was just a 5K. I remember running 5Ks in my twenties, and I felt bad for being fat and out of shape. I envied the runners in the event while being amused by the housewife walkers wearing FitBits and pushing baby strollers. In my mind, the ones who were running were the real athletes while the walkers were just pretenders. It was OK because it was all for a good cause. Today, I think running is overrated while walking is underrated. The walkers had it right while the runners were idiots. How did I get here?

After my accident and TBI, I had to learn how to walk again. I still have trouble in this area, but I am committed to walking as my primary fitness activity. In doing this, I did some research on walking and accidentally came across the profound benefits of a simple walk. I never knew them. I regret that it took a TBI to make me appreciate the value of walking, and I wish I had spent my running years dedicated to walking for fitness. I would have stuck with that because I enjoy it more.

My advice to people is to switch from reading Runner's World and pick up Prevention magazine instead. There is no dedicated walking magazine, but Prevention comes closest. The irony is that both magazines were published by Rodale who later sold to Hearst. Runner's World is the hype man for running which is how you get so many people doing this overrated activity. I now think running is generally bad for you, and you are better off with walking.

That story is emblematic of so many things I changed my mind about in life. I took the bait of the hype until I wised up. Consequently, I question everything from conventional wisdom to consumer products to lifestyle choices to see what other overrated things I have swallowed in my ignorance. Then, they become material for my blog posts.

2. Confidence/Unintimidation

As I studied up on overrated things, I noticed a certain pattern emerging among men. I noticed guys would go for some hyped overrated thing not based on facts but on how it made them feel as men. Lacking a better term, I chose "confidence" as my descriptor for this. For instance, a man wearing a leather biker jacket is going to feel more confidence in a bar than if he entered the same establishment wearing a Mr. Rodgers sweater. Nevermind that he might feel a bit colder and chillier in the process. If you dress like a bad ass, you will feel like a bad ass. But are you really a bad ass? That's where unintimidation comes in. A bad ass knows he is a bad ass and has no problems wearing the sweater because he knows what he knows. The jacket does not make you a bad ass, and the sweater does not change that you are a bad ass.

Men with an unintimidation mindset don't care about such silly things. Men with a confidence mindset do care about those silly things. My best example of confidence versus unintimidation is the Jeep versus the old pickup truck. Men desperate to feel confidence will buy an expensive Jeep with all of the accoutrements for offroading except they probably never leave the pavement. When they do leave the pavement, they tend to flip these things over in the backcountry on group rides and whine about the damage to their overpriced vehicles. I despise Jeeps and the idiocy of the Jeep subculture. But confidence comes from a place of desperation. They blow a lot of money on this vanity because it makes them feel good as men.

I am down with a good old fashioned pickup truck. I like seeing an old square body Dodge truck from the 1970s at Lowe's or Home Depot. That is a real man's truck. The real man is usually an old man with gray hair, but he doesn't care what you think about him. He knows what he is and doesn't need to pretend or try to impress other people. He is just a blue collar working man who uses his truck for work and not play. Those types of men have my undying respect and admiration, and I aspire to be just like them. They are my heroes in life. If Saint Joseph was here with us, he would be driving that old Dodge. He certainly wouldn't be in an impractical Jeep.

3. The G.U.T.

My Grand Unifying Theory is my belief that every endeavor in life has a simple and effective strategy. It could be a plan of action or a useful tool or whatnot. What makes men embrace these simple strategies is unintimidation. What makes them reject these strategies is a loss of confidence usually from falling prey to some hype.

My best example I can give of the G.U.T. is my style of writing. I write simple sentences. I know big words and adjectives, but I choose not to use them. I am influenced by Strunk and White and the writing style of Ernest Hemingway. Ultimately, writing is communication. Simple writing is effective writing. If you keep it simple, you will communicate better. To me, it is a no-brainer.

I had a friend in college who was struggling to pass his English class. He was a pharmacy major, and this English class was one of those classes that everyone had to pass to get the degree. He was great at subjects like chemistry, but he couldn't write well at all. He made F's on his English papers and papers for other classes because he couldn't write.

I agreed to tutor him at no charge because he was a friend. His problem was that he was trying to sound brilliant in his papers, but he didn't have the skill set to pull it off. He was trying to do literary acrobatics, but he couldn't stand on one foot without falling over. I pointed out to him that he only needed to stand on the one foot. Leave the acrobatics to the circus performers.

I had my friend simplify his writing to the most extreme level possible. The sentences sounded like something from Dick and Jane. But I knew what I was doing. His next paper got an A. The professor was so impressed by the paper that she had him read it aloud to the class. His classmates gave him the nickname "Hemingway." He made A's on every paper after that until the end of the semester. Then, he got stupid. He went back to writing in his old way because that felt "smarter" or whatever. He got a big fat F on that paper. The A's on the previous papers gave him a C average for the semester allowing him to move on in his academic career towards a pharmacy degree.

When I give someone a strategy, I know they will get the same results that I do. I took an F student to an A student. His desire for confidence took him from an A back to an F. It's the same way that Wilt Chamberlain became a good free throw shooter with the granny shot but went back to being an awful free throw shooter because he didn't want to use a "sissy" technique that was an effective strategy. I can't help men like this. They are too stupid to be reached.

I am always finding things that follow my Grand Unifying Theory. One of those is lasagna gardening. Another is index fund investing. Another is Krav Maga. I can usually find the G.U.T. strategy in an endeavor or create one. There may be better ways, but I am no good at sophisticated strategies. It has to be simple for me. Being a TBI survivor has made that even more important for me. I am never going to win at chess. I can win at checkers.

Conclusion

These three themes go together in a sort of package deal. That was not my intention, but I find myself going through these things over and over again in a mutually reinforcing pattern. Ultimately, I rejected overrated things that seek confidence in favor of underrated things based in unintimidation which yields a solution that fits into my Grand Unifying Theory. This is my whole life in a nutshell. When these themes recur in future posts, you will know my way of thinking. My way and thinking is not for everyone, and I don't really care. I just stick with honesty, simplicity, and humility. I am too old and damaged now to change my path on this.

Schism Is Not An Option

It is well known that I am ready to obey apostolical commands with filial affection, and all devotion and reverence, but to those things which are opposed to apostolical commands I, in my zeal for the honor of my parent, am also opposed… In a filial and obedient spirit I disobey, I refuse, I rebel.

BISHOP GROSSETESTE

This post is in response to this Sensus Fidelium homily:

Can Catholics Reject the Pope? SSPX, Schism & Catholic Unity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZst5oPSBI4

I agree with what the priest said regarding the SSPX being in schism along with the sedevacantists and anyone else who goes down that road. For these people, schism is an option. Schismatics are always looking for the exit. They are not looking to remain in the Roman Catholic Church but to find their way out. The reasons for their exit are irrelevant. What they forget is that schism is not an option. Once you have that truth placed firmly in your mind, it clears up a great deal of controversy and confusion.

Where I disagree with the priest is him equating the position of Athanasius Schneider known as "recognize and resist" to be schismatic. I am fully on board with recognizing and resisting. This is not schism. Was Saint Paul in schism when he recognized Peter as the Vicar of Christ but resisted him to the face? Clearly, we have had bad popes, and it is not schism to point out that they were bad popes. To deny they are bad is to do damage to common sense and reason.

This priest is afflicted with hyperpapalism. Like the sedevacantists, he concludes that a pope can never err. For the sedes, this means the erring bishop in white is not truly the Pope. For idiots like this priest, he concludes that the pope never errs, so the error must be in one's personal judgments and observations. This know-nothing papal maximalism is why so many scoff at the idiocy and lack of common sense of certain Catholics.

Folks, when Francis declared the death penalty to be inadmissible, he was wrong. When he worshiped the Pachamama demon, he was wrong. When he opened communion to adulterers, he was wrong. No leap of logic can make him right. When a pope differs from his predecessors and Catholic teaching, he is in error. I don't know how else to put it.

The options put before us are to be either schismatics or blockheads. This is what this blockhead priest is preaching in this homily. I reject both of these options. I will continue to remain Roman Catholic and continue to recognize and resist.

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Can Catholics “Recognize and Resist”?

https://onepeterfive.com/can-catholics-recognize-and-resist/

Archbishop Lefebvre, SSPX & Church Unity | Can Tradition Justify Disobedience?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEhm8J3NOQg