Practices for Chaos

Understanding what threatens us is one thing. Developing the capacity to respond when it arrives is another. Daily disciplines form a man's first line of defense against Chaos and Apathy. Behind them stand the immediate-action drills and the prepared responses he carries into crisis. Frameworks teach us how to see. Constructs give us ground on which to stand and a place from which to operate on our own terms. Practices give us the actions to take, particularly when exhaustion or fear compromise our ability to think clearly, and doubt compromises our ability to act deliberately. Crisis arrives when judgment is at its weakest. We are taught to rely upon established systems when catastrophe comes, but those systems can fail or become inaccessible, and even when they reach us they can prove inadequate to our circumstances. As we are left without responses of our own we are left improvising while already overwhelmed, and that is the condition in which we are taken by despair and fall to Apathy. This is why I examined the situations that had previously laid me low. I wanted to identify the mentalities and patterns of reasoning that had led me into the same traps, then develop counters to prevent their repetition. I wanted to fight the factory settings with my own operating code: deliberate programs of thought and action that would govern my responses when my judgment was compromised. As for me and my Legions, we shall prepare before the crisis rather than improvise while already overwhelmed. The Practical Supports, guides through Failure, Recovery, Evidence (F.R.E.) and the HONEST Audit Systems (H.A.S.), are tools for the worst of it. They are designed to catch me when I drift and stabilize me when I become compromised. When I fall outright, they help me regain my footing. They account for the moments when ordinary procedure is insufficient and additional intervention is required. The Everyday Carry Quick Draws are the immediate disciplines and standard acting procedures governing my daily operations. They establish order and maintain direction, and they keep me moving when distraction, hesitation, Somnus, that terrible Sleep of The Mind, or that most foul Spirit of Apathy threaten to take hold. They reduce the distance between intention and execution, giving me reliable actions to perform without having to renegotiate every decision with myself. We all do this already. Every man has his routines, and every man has a way he answers when the ground gives out beneath him. I designed my Practices for Chaos to give name to all of it, and I believe I am better off for it, as I now can trace every action I take back to the doctrine that demanded it. An action with a traceable origin is an action that can be examined. We test our procedures against reality, observe where they fail, harvest the lessons, and make the necessary corrections. What worked yesterday may prove inadequate tomorrow. Our task is to shorten the distance between recognizing what must be done and doing it. We faithfully prepare before the crisis, dutifully act when it arrives to meet us, recover with grace when required, and refine our responses through every experience. Lector Carissime, do not wait for the darkness to arrive before deciding how you will answer it. ----- - Creator Captain TheIsaacLester w/ Quartermaster Bobert L'UnBending Lux Ex Tenebris Per Aspera Ad Astra Legio Sum