Tag: book report

Book Review: Left Of Bang

This is one of those books that is on nearly every self defense instructor’s must read list. And for good reason. The book was written for Marines to detail the principles of the Combat Hunter Program. It is essentially a step by step manual on how to characterize a location, and notice patterns in the people so  you can quickly determine when something or someone is out of place. It is essentially a ‘situational awareness’ manual for combat. Being Left Of Bang simply means having the information necessary to be able to act before (left-side on a timeline) the *bang* of an attack.

Buy Left Of Bang: How the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life
In both personal protection and combat (so I read) we have to make decisions with less-than-perfect and incomplete information.

It is necessary to have heuristics to allow us to make good-enough decisions more rapidly. Sometimes ‘good-enough’ right now beats ‘perfect’ too late. This book details these methods for Marines. With some adaptation, we can use them when at the mall or shopping for groceries.

This book is critical for a war-fighter or police officer. If you work (or live) in the same area/neighborhood/block for an extended period of time, you can fully implement the author’s suggestions.  The authors primarily use military situations and anecdotes to relay the principles. If you personally like the military tone and that appeals to you, then you’ll have no issue translating the lessons to civilian life.

I personally wouldn’t give this book to a teenager or 20-something university student who is living alone in the city . The military stories might seem too alien and it might not hold their interest. A better book for that audience with more visceral day-to-day anecdotes would be The Gift of Fear.

The Principles

  • A summary of Cooper’s color codes, the limbic response to stimuli, avoiding ‘right of bang’ reactionary living.
  • Establishing a baseline in an area allows us to recognize anomalies, which should warrant attention.
  • Using “human universals” which are common features of culture, society, language, behavior, and mind that span all ethnography and history.
  • Kinesics – Conscious and subconscious body language. Posture, gestures, and expressions that indicate inner emotional state. None of which rely on seeing the face. The body betrays the conscious mind and facial expressions aren’t as important. Dominant vs. Submissive, uncomfortable vs. comfortable, interested vs. uninterested. Very useful for personal protection and reading people in general.
  • Biometric Cues – The uncontrollable outward expression of stress. Skin flush, pupil dilation, blinking, dry mouth, pacifying behaviors, etc.
  • Proxemics – The study of distance and movement. How certain people and places either attract or repel people. e.g. a person changing their speed or altering their course to follow you in a parking lot.
  • Geographics – How people act in certain areas. Whether they are familiar, comfortable, and how they interact with the area. For us, think malls/restaurants/amusement parks/shops. Home field advantage is a real thing and people act differently where they are comfortable.
  • Iconography – Colors, symbols, graffiti, flags, bumper stickers.
  • Atmospherics – The ‘vibe’ of an area. For instance, the feeling at the DMV is frustrated and anxious. The feeling at a carnival is joy and excitement. A sudden change in the vibe of an area, or a person or group not fitting with the vibe warrant attention.

The Take Aways

  • People often override the ‘something wasn’t right’ feeling they get before something bad happens. By understanding what you’re seeing, it allows us to trust intuition and avoid a problem.
  • Humans are universally creatures of habit, lazy, poor liars, will run/fight/freeze, telegraph their intentions, predictable, poor multitaskers. This is exploitable.
  • Everything a person does is created twice – once in the mind and once in its execution – ideas and impulses are pre-incident indicators for action
  • Look for the indicators in ‘clusters’. One gesture indicating unease might be a fluke. A cluster of 3 cues that indicate unease are worthy of attention.
  • The Submissive Cluster of kinesics gives us some ideas on how to appear submissive, possibly to de-escalate and avoid unnecessary conflict.
  • Be aware that your personal iconography gives away information about you. Gun guy stickers and shirts, etc. It is also easy to remove these indicators. Why advertise?
  • Combat Rule of Three – when you observe three anomalies against a baseline, you must make a decision. e.g. At a mall, the seemingly nervous kid, in a black trenchcoat, is fidgeting with his backpack and red faced and sweating. It’s time to leave, or whatever your plan is.

    Conclusion

    This is a good book to have in the collection. It would give a person a clear picture of the broad indicators of identifying things that are out of place. Even if you only use that information to decide to leave, the book has proved useful.

    Here is the website that the authors created to further your studies. http://www.cp-journal.com/

Mark

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Book Review: A Guide To The Good Life (Practical Stoic Philosophy)

This is a book review of A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.

Let me start by saying that I am a blank slate when it comes to philosophy. When I was a younger man in my twenties studying engineering, philosophy always seemed like a strange thing to pursue as a hobby or education path. Philosophy was the joke major for people who couldn’t do physics and math. As I’ve added another decade of life and experienced times of helplessness, rage, sadness, joy, and ‘life’ in general, I’ve changed my thoughts on philosophy’s utility.

The need for a frame-work of living, interpreting, and perceiving the world was something that I had always simply invented as needed. I often fell short. I am analytical, so faith-based systems have been a hard sell. Based on recommendations from friends and inspired by the cool quotes I read from famous Stoics, I purchased this book shortly after my disease recurrence in 2014.

If you don’t want to read further, my conclusion is that this book is worth your time and is easy to digest. It is an introduction to Stoicism, and contains practical guidelines to applying it to modern life.

The first few chapters simply give an overview of the history of Stoicism, the major cultures and players involved in its development, as well as its philosophical lineage. That’s all well and good, but I like actionable information. So instead of running down the book’s contents, I’ll list several passages that resonated strongly with me. If they make sense to you as well, then you might enjoy this book.

Excerpts

“we should periodically pause to reflect on the fact that we will not live forever and therefore that this day could be our last…[which will] make us appreciate how wonderful it is that we are alive and have the opportunity to fill this day with activity”

This is called ‘negative visualization’ and revolves around contemplating, but not dwelling on, bad things or the loss of things we hold dear. This serves to weaken the blows of bad news when we get it, and allows us to cherish the things we already have by stepping back to consider how it would feel if we suddenly lost them. It’s a way to keep from taking things for granted.

“Trichotomy of control:

  • Things over which we have complete control (such as goals we set for ourselves)
  • Things over which we have NO CONTROL AT ALL
  • Things over which we have SOME but not complete control”

The next concept of use is the Dichotomy of Control (Which the author breaks into a trichotomy). It’s simply the understanding and acceptance that some things are simply outside of our control. As someone dealing with a major illness, you can imagine why this one is important for me to learn and embrace. Worrying about things that we have no control over is futile and a waste of energy.

“be very careful about the goals he sets for himself. In particular, he will be careful to set internal rather than external goals…his goal in playing…will not be to win a match…but to play to the best of his ability”

It is about the process and self-improvement, NOT about winning the game.

“We refuse to compare our situation with alternative, preferable situations in which we might have found or might now find ourselves. By doing this, the Stoics think, we will make our current situation, whatever it may be, more tolerable”

Fatalism. Things that have happened or are happening are beyond our control, as it was fate. Accept that. You can’t be anywhere but where you are right now.

“We should periodically cause ourselves to experience discomfort that would could easily have avoided…We harden ourselves against misfortunes that might befall us in the future.”

Self Denial. Anyone who has ever studied Jiu Jitsu or any other combat sports understands the value in this idea. Same goes with intense exercise, or even not turning your A/C on for a week in the height of summer. Putting yourself willingly into a crucible to be tested, though it’s not required of you. Shut down facebook for a month. Go a few days without eating. Sleep in your car. Doing something uncomfortable makes the comfortable thing special again.

“What ailment of yours have you cured today? What failing have you resisted? Where can you show improvement?”

Meditation. Reflect on your successes and failures in your personal philosophy regularly and adjust course as needed.

In Summary

Those are the basic ideas behind Stoicism as outlined in the book. I feel that the author simplifies them and explains them in a way that makes sense to a modern person. He also addresses the counterpoints and holes in the philosophy. I appreciate that. The remaining half of the book contains advice on social relations, grief, anger, personal values, becoming a modern stoic, and a good bit more.

I realize this isn’t a standard ‘gun blog’ post. But ultimately we are all humans on the same ball of dirt and will have similar struggles and questions. If you’ve ever felt lost for a way to navigate this life, and if you want a place to start looking, this is a good book. I don’t expect that I can implement all of the Stoic beliefs, but I know I can work on some of them.

Mark

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