Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Worthless

This morning I have to get myself in gear and head out to the flying field.

The Anaconda is already loaded in the van and the Twin motor Beechcraft is waiting in the garage.

Yesterday I was under the weather. I had some kind of stomach virus. This morning when I got up and weighed the scale showed 173. I haven't weighed that in a long while.

Last night I was plagued by bad dreams. In one I was strapped into the Electric Chair and given the juice. It didn't kill me and I remember thinking, I should be dead but I'm not. Then I heard my executioners talking and one said to the other. "He must be an electrician and developed an immunity to the amperage." So go my dreams.... sometimes they really suck. I try and be more upbeat when I'm awake and enjoy life. At dusk however, all bets are off. As likely as not the Demons show up and I'm in for another restless night.

Sometimes I dream about my RC flying models and how to build one better. I get a flow of ideas about how to make them lighter and stronger, and others regarding what power system to use. There is a broad range of internal combustion engines available as well as electric motors. These dreams are not so bad and if I think about them they give me ideas for my daytime building activities. So I guess you have to take the good with the bad and make the most of it.

I wonder why somebody hasn't come up with a hybrid model airplane. You know one that uses a gas engine for propulsion and generating electricity and an electric motor for sustaining and extending flight times. Like is the case with Toyota's Prius. I had one and really liked it.

Sometimes I text someone and they respond asking for clarification. I give it and ask a question in turn... and that's the last I hear from them. It makes me wonder if its me or they're just being obtuse. I don't think those I correspond with are being deliberately rude but when I get a text, respond and thats the last I hear, I find that bothersome. Is there a protocol out there on answering texts or is this just a fact of life?

In ancient Greece there was this contemporary of Homer, known as Hesiod. Hesiod had this to say about the types of people you are likely to meet.

There are those, he pointed out, who can conjure up excellence from the fonts of their minds. This is an extremely rare quality and you won't meet many people with this ability.

A more common quality is knowing best when we see it. This is more present in the population at large but not overwhelming so. It's something worth striving for and being attentive to. It gives hope to to think we can sometimes recognize it when it slaps us in the face.

For example, a few years back, there were all these scientists trying to figure out the structure of DNA when Crick and Watson stumbled on the answer by shifting a model of chemical components around until one fit all the available facts. Their approach was radically different from how other researchers were struggling with the problem, however, even though their fellows were disappointed that somebody else found the answer, nobody questioned that the findings represented the optimal solution to the problem.

The teaching point here is that you don't always have to figure out what best is. That's why scientists do research. You don't have to be the "Einstein." All it takes is knowing what he's talking about.

In my definition of "Leadership" I say Leadership is "Knowing Best and Getting Others to Do it." The Knowing Best part is realizing the optimal solution or the best way of doing something. This is also a laudatory talent, and a commodity in short supply. Having the ability to know BEST when you see it is a huge part of the the Leadership equation. Getting people to do things is the second half. Hillary Clinton's a good example of how to not to go about it.

The last category Hesiod identified are those who can neither "Think Best Up" or know it when they see it. He concluded this to be the most common state of nature and called it, "Worthless." It's here you'll find the Democratic Presidential Candidate.