If you’ve seen the amazing HBO show Band of Brothers you may recall the scene, that I will link at the bottom of this post, where Lieutenant Ronald Speirs (a cold, quiet, fearless soldier) is talking to a nervous and scared Private Albert Blithe. Blithe says that when they landed on the shores of Normandy on D-Day he hid in a ditch after the dust settled, and didn’t go to find his unit or help continue the fight because he was scared. What Speirs says next can tell us a lot about what it takes to perform like we are capable of.
We are all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier’s supposed to function.
Lieutenant Ronald Speirs
Lieutenant Speirs is describing the concept of Fatalism.
Fatalism is a submissive attitude that accepts the low odds of success and lets go of the self preservation default all people have. It allows you to take massive risk, because what is risk to a dead man?
Sometimes this disregard for “logic” or “hope” actually allows you to find the one positive outcome needle in the negative outcomes haystack. You begin to think outside of the box, because you realize the common solutions have such low probabilities of success. You are able to search for alternative solutions that aren’t readily apparent, apply first principles thinking, and possibly stumble on a solution no one could have seen otherwise.
You are free to act freely, untethered to the brakes of vain hope.
Braden Bristo’s - The Journeyman’s Path 