#infinity journal

[foodforworm]

I tend to keep very detailed journals of quotes/lines/paragraphs from books (and all media, really) that I really enjoy, but I don't always have them physically on me when I want to look things up, so I've decided I'm also going to start keeping a detailed digital journal here! This likely just means if I finish a book and really enjoyed it it'll foster the need for me to create a long post of every quote or part that was notable to me and that I knew I'd want to be able to access easily if necessary. (you would not believe how often I deem it necessary to look up the precise phrasing and wording of quotes such as this).

it'll be under the tag #infinity journal because that is the name of one of my other personal online databases of things such as this. That being said:

I just finished Vicious and I'm going to pull out some of the quotes I really liked and put them here so that they are easily accessible to me and perhaps that will make me feel a modicum less insane.

This feels obvious but Spoilers for Vicious by V. E. Schwab under the cut!

"By the time the first bell rang, signaling the end of Victor's art elective, he'd turned his parents' lectures on how to start the day into: 'Be lost. Give up. give In. In the end It would be better to surrender before you begin. be lost. Be lost And then you will not care if you are ever found.' / He'd had to strike through entire paragraphs to make the sentence perfect after he accidentally marked out ever and had to go on until he found another instance of the word. But it was worth it. The pages of black that stretched between if you are and ever and found gave the words just the right sense of abandonment."

"But what fascinated Victor most was the fact that something about Eli was decidedly wrong."

"Did you know," said Victor, skimming a book from the prison library on anatomy (he thought it particularly foolish to endow inmates with a detailed sense of the positions of vital organs, but there you go), "that when you take away a person's fear of pain, you take away their fear of death? You make them, in their own eyes, immortal. Which of course they're not, but what's the saying? We are all immortal until proven otherwise?"

"He was wearing the same kind of smile that made Victor nervous. Eli had as many different smiles as ice cream shops had flavors, and this one said he had a secret."

"The moments that define lives aren't always obvious. They don't always scream LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there's no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren't always protracted, heavy with meaning. Between one sip and the next, Victor made the biggest mistake of his life, and it was made of nothing more than one line. Three small words. / 'I'll go first.'"

"Victor knew he was praying. It perplexed him, how someone about to play God could pray to Him, but it clearly didn't bother his friend."

"The paper called Eli a hero. The word made Victor laugh. Not just because it was absurd, but because it posed a question. If Eli was a hero, and Victor meant to stop him, did that make him a villain? / He took a long sip of his drink, tipped his head back against the couch, and decided he could live with that.

"Not God. This isn't divinity, Eli. It's science and chance." / "Maybe to a point, but when I climbed into that water, I put myself in His hands—" / "No," snapped Victor. "You put yourself in mine."

"a note for your thesis," he said as his friend lay there, gasping. "You thought our powers were somehow a reflection of our nature. God playing with mirrors, but you're wrong. It's not about God. It's about us. The way we think. The thought that's strong enough to keep us alive. To bring us back. You want to know how I know?" / He turned his attention to the table, looking for something new and sharp. "Because all I could think about when I was dying was the pain." He cranked the dial up in his mind, and let the room fill with Eli's scream. "And how badly I wanted to make it stop."

"It had started raining the day she'd been shot, and hadn't stopped since."

"She kept sinking, and kept reaching, and all she could think as she sank farther and farther away from her sister was come back come back come back. And then the world began to freeze around her, and there was so much cold, and that began to vanish, too, leaving only darkness. / Sydney later learned that Serena had come back, and that she pulled her up through the freezing water and onto the freezing lake before collapsing beside her."

'"Then tell them to let me go, too." / Serena stood beside the hospital bed, and ran her hand over Sydney's hair. "You need to stay a little longer." / The fight bled out of Sydney, and she found herself nodding, even as tears slid down her cheeks. Serena brushed them away with her thumb, and said, "I'm not gone." It reminded Sydney if sinking beneath the surface, of wanting her sister so badly to come back.'

"She felt like Alice in Wonderland. Like the soda must have had a little drink me tag and now the room was shrinking, or she was growing, or either way there wasn't enough space. Enough air."

"Back out front, Victor considered the storefront window, but he feared the Sharpies weren't big enough and besides, he didn't intend to get picked up for vandalism or all things, so he was forced to leave the window untouched. It was a shame, he thought, as they walked on. There had been an excerpt, blown up large and pasted on the window, and in a passage studded with overwrought gems—his favorite being 'out of the ruins of our self-made jails...'—he had seen the perfect opportunity to spell out a simple but effective 'we...ruin..all... we touch."

"No, Sydney," he said. "I need you to stay here." / "Why?" She asked. / "Because you don't think I'm a bad person," he said. "And I don't want to prove you wrong."

"Mitchell Turner was cursed. / Always had been. / Trouble followed him like a shadow, clinging to him no matter how much good light he tried to stand in. In his hands, good things broke and bad things grew."

"Mitch's curse, his maldición, as a Spanish foster mother had called it, was that bad things had a way of happening around him."

"Look, Sydney, there's something you need to understand about Victor—" / "He's not a bad man," she said. / "There are no good men in this game," said Mitch. / But Sydney didn't care about good. She wasn't sure she believed in it. "I'm not afraid of Victor." / "I know." He sounded sad when he said it.

"But these words people threw around—humans, monsters, heroes, villains—to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human. The difference between Victor and Eli, he suspected, wasn't their opinion on EOs. It was their reaction to them. Eli seemed intent to slaughter them, but Victor didn't see why a useful skill should be destroyed, just because of its origin."

"And what happens when we're dead?" / "We won't die, then." / "You make cheating death sound so simple." / "We do seem awfully good at it," said Victor cheerfully. He lifted his glass. "To never dying." / "To being remembered." / Their glasses clinked as Eli added, "Forever."

"For and Ever. / The words were several pages apart, separated and surrounded by a sea of black. Not only that, but the word ever had been altered, part of a larger word, the for- preceding it blotted carefully out, which meant Victor was not trying to piece together the word forever from the text. / He clearly wanted it to be two separate words. Distinct. / For. / Ever."

"And Ulysses stopped up his ears against the siren's song," recited Victor, pulling the plugs from his own ears as Serena collapsed to the dirt lot, "for it was death."

"I watch you, and it's like watching two people." ... "It's why I let you stay," said Victor. "Why I liked you. All that charm outside, all that evil inside. There was a monster under there, long before you died."

"Enough," said Victor. Behind his eyes, the dial turned up. Eli screamed. "You aren't some avenging angel, Eli," he said. "You're not blessed, or divine, or burdened. You're a science experiment."

"You don't understand," gasped Eli. "No one understands." / "When no one understands, that's usually a good sign that you're wrong."

"Some hero," he heard Victor whisper with his two last, labored breaths.

[maga-sn]

🎆 Carnival of Fireworks 🎆

[theladyinfinity]

losing the self

hello welcome you are so silly to have come here lets dive on in and see what we can learn about each other as we learn about ourselves, it's really quite simple but awesomely complex you are me and we are totally cool with that, even if at first we seem a little shaken by the revelation, curling in on ourselves to protect the projection, the outer layers that have hardened into armor, the only way we're comfortable being seen, even though there's far more to gleam when you look a bit deeper into what is offered at first glance, but we'll never know until you slip into that trance

[ceruleanbluecolor]

Heart Wide Open Journal by curiouserdesign on Flickr.

[barefootstrategist]

Quantity Over Quality

Many of you who know me are aware that I’m a huge proponent (and member of) the strategy publication Infinity Journal.  The two main reasons for this are that 1) I generally agree with their vision of strategy and their mission of making strategy more widely understood, and 2) the quality of the articles and caliber of people they publish are astounding.  This month’s unveiling on the new edition (Volume 3, Issue 1) once again reaffirms my reasons for supporting this publication.

            This edition is particularly topical, given many recent conversations on strategy I’ve encountered.  From the applicability of Clausewitz in contemporary war to “complexity” and the practice of strategy to the debate over “grand” strategy, this edition hits the hotspots – and with particular academic (and pop cultural) wit.

            To be perfectly honest, the kick-off article by David Betz, “Clausewitz and Connectivity”, is one of the best I’ve read in IJ, due in equal parts to its understanding and presentation of core Clausewitzian concepts, its connection of the same to modern arguments of connectivity, and its use of witty pop culture allusions.  Not many articles can come off as both academic and colloquial, but Betz pulls it off.  I won’t belabor his points or give away his pop culture references, but his handling of recent critiques of those that still believe Clausewitz has something applicable to war today (particularly how they miss the keys points in CvC’s core concepts inherent in his trinity) and how technology, while specifically not covered in On War, are inherent in his larger concepts…primarily those of chance and friction to push back on such concepts as ‘total information awareness’ put forward by those completely inured in the omniscient power of modern ISR.

            The best argument I found in the article against those that believe the only way to progress in strategic understanding is to immolate the theorists of the past was a gem:

It is not the fault of Clausewitz or a flaw in his theory that governments are attempting to make war ‘work’ as a tool of policy against threats that are difficult to permanently staunch with the kinetic blows that armed forces are generally designed to deliver. Indeed, it rather confirms the continuing salience of another aspect of the trinity: reason, or political purpose.

Additionally, in reference to the above and as an argument against the religion of the new over logic of the right, Betz touches on the continuity of Clausewitzian concepts even into our technologically connected world:

The late 20th century burgeoning of connectivity is historically unparalleled and the pace of the ‘wiring up’ the world is still sharply increasing. It is long past argument that this is causing us to do all sorts of things differently, whether that is how we engage in commerce and organise our economies, educate and entertain ourselves, maintain our social lives, and even attend to our spiritual affairs. But these are not different things: we still buy and sell, teach and learn, and talk and argue—things that as human beings we have always done…The trinity is not a device for fixing the meaning of war for all time. On the contrary, the simile of war as a ‘chameleon’ rests upon the essential mutability of these ‘tendencies’ within the trinity, their constant variance in strength and respective influence.

These are just a few passages that struck me as particularly poignant.  I highly recommend you swing by IJ to pick up the entire article and enjoy it in its entirety.

            In addition to David Betz’s article, the US military is well represented by a Marine pilot, Robert Boyles, and a fellow Army Strategist, Robert Mihara.  Boyles’ article, “A U.S. Military Force-Political Objective Disconnect: Assessments and Assumptions Matter”, was interesting; particularly his assessment that, much like Betz, he believes our military has focused too much on the technological advancement of our adversaries and ourselves and too little on the political effect desired…especially by any adversary we are trying to dissuade.

            Mihara’s article, “Strategy: How to Make it Work”, was not a checklist of how to “do” strategy, but rather a very well-reasoned rebuttal to the US Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff’s recent article and further discussion on how the US should better utilize the ends-ways-means model, particularly given the future austere fiscal environment.  His conclusion is one I personally believe rings true: “the real test of strategic planning is not in implementation but in the fidelity that one’s choices keep to the vital and important interests of the nation.”

            Finally, two well-known IJ alumni, Adam Elkus and Lukas Milevski, finish the edition off with two great articles on “grand” strategy.  Elkus, in “Must American Strategy be Grand?”, tries to reconcile “grand” strategy in an American context, determining that it would not have much in common with classical strategy, but instead would be built around the ways and means necessary to support America’s ideological consensus.  Finally, Milevski’s “The Mythology of Grand Strategy”, sets out to describe the historical and theoretical antecedents of the term “grand strategy” and the myths that have sprung up over the years.  Both these articles are worth a detailed read, and I recommend readers think on them.  “Grand Strategy” is a term that, while frequently pops up in our business, is rarely understood.

            Each of these articles is well placed in Infinity Journal, but as the letter from the editor in this edition elucidates, such articles are in short supply.  As I stated at the beginning of this screed, one of the core reasons I support IJ is its focus on quality articles pertinent to strategy.  We need more people interested in this topic to write – not just to fill the pages of IJ with quality pieces – but also to continue the robust discussion strategy deserves.  If we are not critically analyzing our mental models and theoretical knowledge, we are failing as strategists.

            Write something for IJ, send it to me or to the journal, and join the discussion.  Now.

[barefootstrategist]

Back to Basics: Advanced Edition

Before I hit my narrative stride, know up front that the new edition of the Journal of Military Operations comes out on Monday.  Swing by the site to pick it up and do yourself an intellectual favor…your brain will thank you.

As a young Army Strategist, most of my time over the last few years has been focused on all things strategy; Thucydides, Clausewitz, Gray, Kennan, Kissinger, Marshall, etc.  These studies drew me to the relatively new resource on strategy, the Infinity Journal, which drew in a lot of big names, even more “newbies”, and nothing but great content.

When the guys and gals at IJ began a new journal dedicated to warfare, The Journal of Military Operations, I was immediately interested at the prospect of this aspect of my craft.  I was impressed with the first edition, which I reviewed here, and included topics across the vast spectrum that is warfare.  More than anything, I felt that MilOps was a great balancing part of my reading diet heavily skewed toward strategic theory.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget that strategy is an action that is brought to fruition through technical, tactical means; too large a focus on strategic theory and one’s knowledge and skills at the art and science of warfare atrophy.  MilOps is perfectly positioned to supplement a strategist’s intellectual diet.

MilOps is poised to post another great edition this coming week, and its co-founder and publisher, A.E. Stahl, was kind enough to throw me an advance copy to peruse.  The line up is as diverse as the last edition, though with a very focused theme: aspects of modern warfare: where we are and where we are headed.  The articles cover armored warfare, artillery, amphibious operations, lightly armored vehicular movement, dismounted infantry, and how historical conventional wisdom on predicting the next war may be right in the short term, but wrong in the longer term.

The three articles that struck me in this edition (though they are all worth a read) were:

·      “Whither Armor?” by Clint Ancker (full disclosure: I worked for retired Colonel Ancker while at the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate…and let me tell you, this guy KNOWS his doctrine),

·      “Blood and Water: The Present and Future of Amphibious Operations” by Marine Captain Brett Friedman (full disclosure: I’ve had the pleasure of become friends with Brett over many conversations and projects…another example how Twitter is great at bringing like-minded young minds together), and

·      “Lessons from the Last War – Predicting the Next War” by Dr. Eado Hecht (who I have not met…more’s the pity).

Clint’s article on armor struck me as valuable in that it took a theme I’ve lived with over the last decade as one of God’s chosen creatures, the tanker, and reframed it in a more conceptual context.  Combined arms warfare, symbolized by the mobility, firepower, and protection a tank provides, is the preeminent form of warfare in modern times.  While specific platforms may come and go as the character of warfare changes, the power that is inherent in combined arms warfare will remain.

Brett’s article on amphibious warfare is a great highlight to a theme I know the US Marine Corps is struggling with after the last decade fighting alongside the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not only is amphibious warfare the heart and soul of the Corps, it is an invaluable tool that will be needed on many battlefields of the future.  Given the growing importance anti-access and area-denial operations seem to be playing in defense circles as we come out of Iraq and Afghanistan, similar importance should be placed in the amphibious and ground capabilities that are the inevitable end game of naval blockades and strategic bombing when a real “hot war” kicks off.

Finally, Eado’s article on prediction is a great read to intellectually check your own math on historical conventional wisdom.  Did Germany learn the right lessons from the War to End All Wars, or did France and its allies?  What about Egypt and Israel from the Six Day War?  His conclusions may surprise you…

Congratulations to A.E. and his folks at MilOps; they continue to put out a great product that incorporates many career-long great minds and newbies alike.  Now go pick it up and enjoy.

[pampong]

Heart Wide Open Journal by curiouserdesign on Flickr.