Bryan Strawser

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Deep Thoughts

John Galt Speaking

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The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours. But to win it requires total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence, which is man, for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the morality of life and yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

– Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Merry Christmas

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Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter’s star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Published annually since 1949 in the Wall Street Journal.

Thirty-Eight

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We all have people who touch our lives in many ways. One of those folks was Mike Casalini, the first manager I had at Target that took me under his wing and mentored me professionally. When I was just an hourly employee, Mike saw in me some sort of future potential and helped me discover my path as a leader here at Target. He was instrumental in helping me realize that this could be a great place for career.

Sixteen years later, I’m still here plugging away – and having a great time. Mike had a lot to do with my decision to make Target my career coming out of Indiana University.

More than just my boss, Mike was my friend – and a friend of many others that he worked with here at Target.

I became Mike’s peer in 1995 and then moved away from Indiana in 1996 to the northeast. In 1997, Mike joined the team in New Jersey, and not long later, I was promoted and became his boss. In much the same way that Mike taught me as my leader, he taught me as a member of my team.

It wasn’t long that he was promoted again to be my peer – moved out to Pittsburgh, met his wife Lisa and had two children. Later, they relocated to Philadelphia and moved into the stores organization as a Store Team Leader.

We lost touch somewhere in there – we were in different organizations, and I had moved on to headquarters. We’d see each other at some meetings from time to time, but generally had not had much contact with each other in quite some time.

Just a few days ago, I picked up my phone to discover several text messages and a few voicemails. The first voicemail I listened to was from a peer on the east coast who told me that Mike had passed away suddenly on Saturday night.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few days since Mike’s passing, as old friends and co-workers have gotten back into touch, is that you should never let your friends fade away… I’m grateful that I’ve relearned that lesson, but ashamed that it took Mike’s unexpected death for me to realize it.

He was only 38 years old.

Remember

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I said everything that I think I will ever have to say about 9/11 four years ago:

In the end, I think we all have the responsibility to remember what happened that day – to us – to our fellow man – here in our own country.

A few weeks ago, while having coffee with a peer in Minneapolis, our conversation steered towards the impact of September 11th on our lives – both personally and professionally.

She pulled out her PDA – tapped on it a few times – and spun it around so that I could read it.

It was her calendar – turned to September 11th, 2004 – and it showed just one word:

Remember

Memorial Day 2009

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I’m a third generation Boy Scout. Like my father and grandfather before me, I chose to stay the course and complete the requirements to become an Eagle Scout. Each Eagle must complete, as a part of the requirements for the rank, a project involving community service and leadership of others. While my own project isn’t really worthy of mention this Memorial Day, the project of Michael Foor, the older brother of a classmate of mine is relevant today.

Michael, who was the first Eagle Scout in our new troop, endeavored to visit the various cemeteries throughout Fountain County, Indiana and map the location of every veteran’s graves. Annually, each weekend before Memorial Day, our scout troop received a large shipment of American flags from the government and proceeded to place a flag 12 inches in front of each veteran’s graves throughout our county.

memorialday2009

It remains one of the single most impressive Eagle Scout projects that I’ve come across. And it served to a young man like me as a poignant reminder of what many families have sacrificed – even then, half a lifetime ago, my thoughts were with them on Memorial Day.

Dear Dad, with love

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Over at Science Blogs, Abel reflects on the 12th anniversary of his father’s death:

It was out there, in the darkness between Denver and Albuquerque, that I believe we had our last discussion, maybe a year after you died. I was camping alone, without a tent, in the cool dry Western night marveling at the stars of the Milky Way and a nebula I could see with your old hunting binoculars.

In a dream of myself lying there in my sleeping bag, my sister’s princess phone appeared suddenly on the arid grassland beside me – the very same one with the headset I cracked when a chair fell onto it while I was trying to make time with that postdoc from Edinburgh (that’s a story we’ll exchange offline). They call it a “landline” these days – we now have these wireless phones people carry around everywhere.

The phone rang – I looked around bewildered, but I answered. It was you. You said that you were sorry you couldn’t be there and wished you could be, but you were happy that I was enjoying what you wish you had done yourself.

And you said you missed me.

And I said I missed you, too.