"Will I succumb?
Will my heart grow numb?
Or will I save the world
By using my mind like a gun?"
Books of War

This article is a postscript to a postscript, the trailing, echoing afterthoughts of the 2nd half of my last article.  I didn't originally intend to write the "Confrontation Postscript," but it turned out to be longer than the article itself.  Since the U.S. (and indeed the world) is entering a time of unprecedented conflict, I'd like to expand on the idea of using the mind as a weapon, in the event anybody out there is indeed unarmed, not particularly skilled in the art of fisticuffs, and finds themselves in a dangerous, or potentially dangerous, situation.

De-escalation is always the goal.  I have not cut people down for the sake of cutting them down, I have cut them down to save my own skin, most of the time.  In a nutshell, my mind has always been my best weapon.

It's the best option, better than being dragged into a physical confrontation, which can escalate in ways that can never be recovered from.

Rambo agrees.

1.  Keep Your Pants On

So, how do you sharpen your mind for war?  While embracing a "today is a good day to die" attitude is fundamental, at the practical training level, it's necessary to begin by keeping your pants on.  If you're "in a relationship" outside of marriage, you are pouring acidic termites of compromise on your soul.  Male and female alike.  You are undermining the foundation of anything and everything that has ever made you strong.  Get out of the relationship now.  Now is not the time to get your dick wet.  You are bolting your feet to the floor of a spiritual concentration camp, every time you give into that temptation.  It weakens you, and turns you into an incontinent slave.  I haven't been laid in almost 7 years.  It should be 17.  In fact I wish I was a virgin.  It's not something to be ashamed of; it's a good thing.  It shows self-control, and strength.  Keep your pants on.

This includes porn.  Porn is worse than heroin.  It is the fentanyl of the soul.  It is at least as bad as any drug, and probably worse.  Stay away from any salacious images or videos of any kind.  This includes thumbnails.  Train your eyes to stay away from even a sexy thumbnail that only takes up one square inch of space on your computer screen.  That one square inch is all the devil needs to drag you down into the pit of weakness and compromise.  You can't avoid seeing something once, but once you see it, turn your eyes away from it like you'd turn your eyes away from staring directly into the sun.  It's sexy, but it will blind you.  Avoid it.  Never go there.

Ever.

2.  Keep Your Blood Clean

Which brings me to the next fundamental need, which is to keep your blood clean.  If you can have a drink or 2 without going overboard, I'm not going to judge you for doing so.  But I don't touch anything except coffee.  Not even weed.  An occasional cigarette in a moment of extreme duress is something I feel the need to repent from.  I haven't had a drink of alcohol in almost 9 years, and I'm at the point that even if it was tempting, I'm so far beyond it that I would never go back, even "if I wanted to."  Breaking a 9-year run of sobriety is never going to be worth it.  If you're in a band and find yourself getting bored after several hours of sitting in an alcohol bunker drinking nothing but soda, leave the room.  Those weak, hedonistic people might be your friends, but then again.... who knows.  There's no reason to beg the question, and if they're glad to be involved in your music in some way, whether as a band member or a fan, there's no reason to be rude to them.  But, depending on the situation, maybe keep one foot out the door, spiritually speaking.  In my experience, party people are all rats.  And anyway, if you're keeping your bloodstream clean, you're not going to be hanging out at length with party people anyway.  The only reason I'm in the bar at all is because I'm going to be playing in an hour or 2.  And in fact I don't think I have any business in them anymore at all, even as a sober entertainer.  But when I did, when I was alone in town, I often preferred to spend the pre-show hours sitting in the van by myself, listening to the radio.  What am I going to do in the alcohol bunker, anyway?  Ingratiate myself to a bunch of people who will withdraw their non-existent, conditional approval the moment it is convenient for them to do so?

If they like the music, great.  But I don't have to be their friend.  The chances they are warriors is low.  It depends on the show, of course.  If the bar is full of Marines, ranchers, cowboys, and people like that, maybe you can spend a little time sipping soda water in their midst, without worrying about when (not if) the devil will convince them it would be fun to turn on you.  If the room is full of wastoids, though, beware.  Personally, I stay away from them.

3.  Avoid Moral Relativism

Moral relativism is a trap.  While it is certainly important to maintain critical thinking faculties, and a healthy sense of skepticism and/or doubt when confronted with a dogmatic absolute, it is also important to avoid the other extreme, which is that "everything is true so therefore nothing is true."  This is a weak mindset, one which can be (and always is) easily controlled.  It creates a wishy-washy compromise in the heart of the believer.  Your heart, mind, and soul will be like watered-down fruit juice.  Don't fall into the trap of believing that everything is true.

If you believe that, you'll believe anything.

If you find yourself skipping from "truth to truth" in your search for truth, that's fine; some things are true and some are not.  At some point, any true seeker will find him- or herself believing a lie of one form or another.  But stay frosty.  If the guy is giving you Kool-Aid and telling you to cut your children's genitals off because everyone is doing it, or you're in a drug house with some guy flashing devil horns every 10 seconds and blasting NuMetal at 10am on a Tuesday in a cloud of tweek-smoke, it's not the end of the world.... if you don't stay there.  If you stay there, at some point you will get what you deserve.  Whether you believe you will, or not.

Best to just get out, before it gets you.

Anyway, a couple preliminary ideas.  If you're not physically armed, and/or a physical confrontation would be incredibly stupid at best, keep your mind sharp.  I have talked my way through many idiotic situations.  It's never an ego battle; if it is, indeed it's probably best to stand down.  But if you find yourself in a truly dangerous situation, and you're not trained in the arts of physical self-defense, a sharp mind is a powerful weapon to have at your disposal.

Of course, the most important thing is to be spiritually grounded in the truth.  By which I mean a savior/lordship relationship with Jesus Christ, who was (and is) the ultimate warrior.  He never "threw down" at all, and he never berated any idiots on the subway, but when the cops came to take him away to his final earthly destination, he was in fact in total control of the situation.  When Peter cut the cop's ear off, Jesus rebuked him and healed the guy.  He was not "arrested" in the sense we generally understand; Jesus allowed Himself to be taken away.  For our sakes.  

That's the fundamental ground upon which to build any- and everything else.  Without Him, we can only go so far.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends,
if ye do whatsoever I command you."
John 15:13-14

Friends.  Not subjects, or fellow gang members, or even partisans engaged in the worthwhile struggle.  Friends.

Think about it.

If anything else occurs to me, I'll write a postscript to the postscript of the postscript.  This is the song from which the lines at the beginning of this article are taken.  Apparently, they won't let me embed the video in this article; an edited version of the same song is pasted below.

Thanks for listening, and good luck.