Time for a change of tone around here. Between Vonneguts, I recently finished reading Monty's memoirs. One excerpt struck me as being particularly applicable to life as a whole:
" To exercise high command successfully one has to have an infinite capacity for taking pains and for careful preparation; and one has also to have an inner conviction which at times will transcend reason. Having fought, possibly over a long period, for the advantage and gained it, there then comes the moment for boldness. When that moment comes, will you throw your bonnet over the mill and soar from the known to seize the unknown ? In the answer to this question lies the supreme test of generalship in high command. "
My friend Sherman's take on this is worth sharing:
" It's not just generalship. Let's say you're trying to prove a theorem. There can come a time when you have to commit a large block of effort to an approach which no logic can establish will work, or ought to work. You only have your intuition to go on, and that, in the teeth of the fact that others before you, and better than you, have not found a solution.
Let's say you're on a hike. There can be a point of no return. That is, if you go on past that point, there won't be time or strength to return the way you came. You will be committed to succeeding with your planned hike, even parts of it that for all you know may involve difficulties which your preparation and map study didn't reveal. If you go ahead, you're going ahead in part on faith.
And then there's getting married.
Even for ordinary life, and ordinary people, there come times when decisions of the greatest moment must be taken although the consequences are incalculable. Having done what one can to think things through, the day comes for throwing the bonnet over the mill. "
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