Many years ago, when I was a young teenager, my mother used to say to me, "Billy, there are some men too gentle to live among wolves" it stuck with me as a grew up and older and it rings in my ears often as I spend time in various forums of the sim racing and other kinds of communities...as I made my way into the Auto Parts industry I learned what this truly meant, I learned that sometimes you had to have at least a decent growl if not a real bite...otherwise the wolves of the world would devour you.
I also remember years before that lesson in life the day i realized that i was no longer an "innocent" that I saw behind the curtain of politeness and manners and honesty that I so believed the world was, it was when I became the first student school board member in California, reading the massive budget, seeing the waste, watching the greed, selfishness and ugliness of the "adult" board members, and learning of their corruption opened my eyes to a truth that i didn't want to see...
In college, I found the book that my Mother had quoted years earlier and read these words...
“I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.
We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.”
"There Are Men Too Gentle To Live Among Wolves" by James Kavanaugh
and then the poem of the same name by James Kavanaugh
There Are Men Too Gentle To Live Among Wolves
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant’s profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant’s world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant’s world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.
I mourn that loss of innocence so many years ago...to this day. When we have days like yesterday when one of the "wolves" of this world tear their teeth into good people that truly to bleed from the wounds inflicted, calling it "sarcasm", mocking the victims of their attacks, I get reminded of those words of James Kavanaugh. I can no longer cower as one of those "too gentle men" for I am so very sadly no longer one of them, though I long to be, so I feel it is my only course to stand up for those who truly are what I once was...
Often we elder folks in this community are frustrated by the younger folks that have found their way here and other places where we roam...So often they ask before they seek. They use less than humble, polite words at times in asking for something. They come off sounding impatient, unappreciative, and pushy. They have been brought up in a different world then the one we were...where they didn't get whooped by the neighbors for acting out, let alone their parents. Manners are seldom taught, respect seems a foreign idea to them. They demand rather than ask politely and on and on go our complaints of their online behavior...
We have to make choices...we have to judge intent, we have to assume the best from those who seem clueless of how they come off...
I'm preaching to myself here...please know that.
We have to be as a sheep herder, using the staff to gently guide out charges to the food and and water they need, and yes at times we have to use that other tool of the shepherd, the rod, to beat the wolves, to run them off, to defend the sheep.
Yesterday I had to use the rod. I am happy to report that it gave me no joy. I do see others that forgot they have a staff to guide with, they only know the rod, they only seem to beat their sheep, never to guide. Some of us have left other communities where that went on and continues to go on...God help us if that becomes Stunod Racing.
