Fortitude : book review part 1
Dan Crenshaw, a republican congressman from Texas’s book, Fortitude is easily one of the no-brainer recommends I have had the pleasure of coming across recently. I got acquainted with the former marine first via
the controversy generated when Pete Davidson of SNL fame mocked the congressman in very poor taste. In a rare admittance of wrong doing SNL apologized to Dan and got him on show to roast Pete in reverse, and boy did Dan
spare no punches when lighting Pete up. But while the counter punch delivered with a helping of Arianna was memorable, what truly stuck with me was the personality and character that the congressman exuded and the message
he drove home which was we as mankind should consciously pivot away from the outrage culture we’re besieged in to one that is based on stillness and resilience which brings me to the subtitle in his book —
American resilience in the era of outrage.
We all know it, feel it and experience it in-front of our very own eyes at an alarming rate. From the SJW’s on twitter, to the trigger inducing click-bait headlines, our voracious appetite for being on a high fueled
by ever increasing sophisticated machinery which is incentivized to keep making us feel so. Grabbing eyeballs, click conversion ratio the list goes on and on. Without further ado let’s dive into the mindscape of
a stoic saint living amongst us, a beacon of resistance to the cancerous spread of toxic traits in our society.
The key message I absorbed from the preface was if you’re triggered, it is because you allowed someone else to dictate your emotional state; if you’re outraged it’s because you lack discipline and self-control. Dan’s emphasis on introspection through the prism of self-critique is wonderful and strikes a chord. The ends the introduction stating — a culture characterized by grit, discipline and self-reliance is a culture that survives and one that is instead characterized by self-pity, indulgence and outrage is one that falls apart.
The second chapter embarks with our hero’s seminal incident in Afghanistan where he had an IED take out his eye and traces his process of fighting for his life and recovery in hospital while grappling with permanent blindness.
tbc…
