Whether you skimmed through this book or gave it the full deep dive, thank you for considering both the stuff that may have been so obvious to you that you wondered why I pointed it out and the eccentric ideas that might have rubbed you the wrong way. I refer to this piece as an essay just others like Montagne and Gill have referred to similar pieces as essays — not matter how long — because they are just that, attempts. That’s what the word ‘essay’ means, ‘attempt’. And this is just that, my attempt to give back to a conversation that I’ve drawn from for so long.

What are you going to do now?

Please do not think of this text as anything like an owner’s manual for keeping yourself alive. Nothing like that exists, nothing so certain, at least. But there are a lot of ideas in here about how you could adjust your worldview, initiate some kind of training routine, find a community of practice to grow with, assess your approach to your current situation and your safety in general, all sorts of stuff.

But this isn’t like Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. These aren’t just cool, mind-expanding ideas to ponder. This is a set of things that you can do. None of it matters much at all if you don’t apply it.

At the same time, you’ve probably gotten the impression that applying any of this stuff will cost you something — if nothing else your time.

As I noted earlier, I do believe that a person who doesn’t attempt to pay forward what was done for them in this society is living a failed life. But even if you accept that premise it doesn’t necessarily imply doing any of this stuff. There are a thousand other ways to think about the world and create excellence for yourself, to give back and be a good ancestor.

Whatever you do, I truly hope that you do it on purpose. Please, use this as an inflection point to consider including the deliberate study and practice of strategy in your life. There is a much deeper well here. I hope that I’ve done a decent job of pointing the way to what will be a pursuit that preserves peace and and civility in your life and the lives of those around you.

But this moment isn’t about me or what I have or haven’t accomplished here. If you’ve reached this point having given the text a read, and for reasons that are pressing, the question is what are you going to do now?

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