I learned my favorite aphorism from Theodore Sturgeon, in a short story about a man who was almost certainly, from Sturgeon’s description, an Aspie. This fellow’s name was Wolf Reger, and the story’s name is “Extrapolation”. I’m about to completely spoil the story for you, so skip the next graf if you want to read it and be surprised. [You can find it with the search terms I’ve given you here. It’s worth the read, even without the surprise; Sturgeon and Pratchett are the two authors who taught me how to write — and how to teach. With a noble assist from one John Dann MacDonald. And I shall be grateful to all three of them for as long as there is an “I” to feel gratitude.]
In the story, Reger, who is career military, ends up abducted by would-be alien invaders [who capture several others along with him]. He is accused of collaboration with the invaders by one of his comrades in arms. What he actually does, however, is manage to persuade the aliens that he is on their side, then bring their entire fleet into Earth’s atmosphere for their invasive landing at just the right airspeed to completely destroy their ships. Heat and shockwaves. Their own atmosphere has a different composition, so they never see this coming. To frost the cake, Reger happens to have a wife, and he brings the aliens in to their destruction using a strange flight formation. Which turns out to be Morse code, using the different sizes of their ships. A message to his wife: Love and Kisses thats all I have for you. Reger survives and his real intentions are understood soon enough to save him from destruction by hominid rage; he doesn’t get any ticker tape parades, but he also doesn’t become the usual martyr to human stupidity. [Fiction is nice that way, isn’t it.] And yes, this would make one hell of a movie, now that we have the tech to do the special effects justice. Another majority Black cast, please? Just to balance the scales of the Universe a teeny bit more. Ted would approve.
So what’s the aphorism?
Beware the fury of a patient man.
I really like that. It’s concise and complete. And you need to think just a little, just enough, in order to understand it. What would be different about the fury of a patient man?
Well, for one thing: it will have been earned. Patient people don’t tend to pop their* corks over every little thing, or even every big thing. It takes some doing. Provocateurs have to earn it.
For another thing: patient people tend to be thinkers, and a bit more self-aware than average as a result. That, in fact, is largely responsible for their* patience.
On the plus side, that means they’re less likely — not totally unlikely, but a lot less likely — to scapegoat people, or displace their anger onto safer targets out of cowardice, or be fundamentally mistaken about the motives of anyone who has finally managed to provoke them.
On the minus side, since that provocation comes with a lot of activation energy, patient people once provoked tend to remain that way until something real is done about the provocation.
Something real. Maybe even something lasting. But, given their patience, virtually always something positive.
So maybe not so much on the minus side after all. The earned fury of patient people may be one of the strongest, most useful forces for good, once awakened.
It drives planning.
It drives action.
It thinks before it acts.
And it persists.
It can persist long enough to actually implement lasting constructive change. Maybe even debug it after the initial rollout.
And that’s the point.
We are seeing, at last, the fury of a patient man. Several patient men. And patient women. And patient nonbinary and genderfluid people, out there beyond the footlights, but THERE.
Their fury has been earned. And it is well and properly directed.
Ours can add to their impact.
So gather your patience. Use it well. Fury is fuel; don’t squander it pointlessly hating your own.
We have an historic chance to stoke the flame of Justice.
The one that burns brightly but does not consume, the one that produces as much light as heat, the one that will fuel lasting and positive change.
Hold fast.
Persist.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
We can do this.
This diary has been in the works, at least in my head, for awhile. I will be elsewhere when it publishes, offline, unavoidably and possibly for the entire day. Apologies in advance if I don’t show up until early evening; I am dealing with serious issues and they have priority.
*Also, I said “their” for a reason. Patience is a virtue I admire but cannot claim, much as I would love to. I’m able to manage a bit of longsuffering, likewise forbearance; but only a bit. True patience is sadly beyond my reach.
Edit in: I am in a semi-mad semi-scramble with a lot at stake cleaning up a mess that someone else made and presented to me as a gift, and the blasted thing is ticking. So I just dipped in and have to run again. But thank you all who commented and all who read and recced and tipped even if you only tipped your hats ;-), god willing and the creek don’t rise I should be back again in a few hours and able to linger. Sorry about mystifying you, I will demystify you once I’ve solved this. Which won’t be today, alas.
Thanks again all.
...aaaaaand another edit, because I’m sitting here SMDH [that’s the final step before Headdesk] just a bit.
Yeah, yeah, guys? Relax, guys? The three hundred or so who felt compelled to by God make me acknowledge Dryden as the author of that pithy phrase I like?
Duuuuuuudes.
Take a closer look at the essay above and note please that *I did not attribute the aphorism to Sturgeon*.
I learned it from him.
Because it was
in this story,
that he wrote,
that I read,
where I saw it,
for the first time.
That *I learned it from him* is an incontrovertible fact and not open to debate.
Who authored it was never in contention because it was never part of this essay in any way, shape, or form. I also don’t remember who wrote “a stitch in time saves nine” [Franklin maybe] and I never knew who came up with “if they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you” [speaking of backstabbers. Probably not Einstein, though, no matter what Goggle tells you.]
Please, relax.
I admit to not knowing the source. I also admit to never having claimed that I did. At the age at which I first read his short story, thirteen or thereabouts, I wasn’t sure of the sources of a lot of other aphorisms, either. Some I know now, some I don’t, but my final grade doesn’t depend on that. Thank God.
The deficit has now been corrected. Enough energy has been expended on doing so to power a small city for a year. It will suffice.
[I learned the Maxwell equations from Tom Murphy, Ph.D., Professor of Physical Chemistry, at UMD College Park, too. Never in my life have I thought that Dr. Murphy, much as I enjoyed his class, came up with them. Really, it’s OK.]
[Yes, yes, I just admitted to all and sundry that I like P-Chem. And that I still remember my favorite college professors [shout out to Henry Heikkinen, Wilkins Reeve, Calvin Stuntz, Isidore Adler, Elena Kornetchuk, Galina Barmina, John Benedetto, Michael Gardner, Lindley Darden, Bruce Jarvis, and about 24 others. And that’s only uni, I won’t even start with grad school. Except that my current kitty, Emily, is named after Emily Dudek, at Brandeis. All of you were memorable. Wonderfully so. And I still remember you. Gratefully.]]
As you were, folks…
And I am scampering off to continue Fighting The Good Fight today. I’ll be offline all day, I suspect. No worries, I’m far more amused and bemused than annoyed, I just wish we could harness all that power and use it to defeat Republicans, rather than pursuing imaginary triumphs over people on our side, whom we profess to admire…. errgh, yarrrgh.
Later!