It Matters...

[DoubleTap]

I was in a bit of a mood a little earlier over some aggravating non-sense involving paperwork, or it's online equivalent, which I damn well truly hate. I then stopped over at the forums and continued to try to catch up with things as I have been absent for a long while. Of course, what I find are posts from some fellow dogz dealing with some truly difficult things in their lives, hitting with me with a nice icy cold slab of ol' perspective. That's a good thing to get whacked with once in a while.

Made me think about what what the Dogz mean; what we do here and why we do it; what BG wrought when he created this group; what Roger has done creating and maintaining the site, and the myriad different things people have done to make it what it is, even those who have come and gone.

It means something, guys, it really does.

Even if it just means somewhere where someone can unload a bit about the craziness of their life, or the sorrow in it, it means something.

Even if it just means somewhere some can escape to for a dirty laugh, or to take to the skies high above their troubles, or more satisfyingly blow them all to shit, even for a little while, it means something.

Even if it just means you can work on something like a mission or campaign or skin or utility that most of the damn world does not give a fig about, but a select group looks at and says, "Damn cool", it means something.

And, having gone to another site right after getting my little dose of perspective, I found a little more which may suggest in some way what we are doing matters in a larger sense:

"Steven Pressfield in his novel Gates of Fire captures the danger of this information loss in his classic opening paragraph, which describes the dead of Thermopylae on their way to oblivion when one of them is recalled to life by the duty to give witness to the past.

'That state which we call life was over.

I was dead.

And yet, titanic as was that sense of loss, there existed a keener one which I now experienced and felt my brothers-in-arms feeling with me. It was this.

That our story would perish with us.

That no one would ever know.

I cared not for myself, for my own selfish or vainglorious purposes, but for them. For Leonidas, for Alexandros and Polynikes, for Arete bereft by her hearth and, most of all, for Dienekes. That his valor, his wit, his private thoughts that I alone was privileged to share, that these and all that he and his companions had achieved and suffered would simply vanish, drift away like smoke from a woodland fire, this was unbearable. …

Then from behind me, if there can be such a thing as “behind” in that world where all directions are as one, came a glow of such sublimity that I knew, we all knew at once, it could be nothing but a god.

Phoebus Far Darter, Apollo himself in war armor, moved there among the Spartiates and Thespaians… so quickly that surprise was impossible I felt his eye turn toward me, me the last and least who could expect it, and then Dienekes himself was beside me, my master in life.

I would be the one. The one to go back and speak.'

Apollo, Far-darter had chosen someone to go back to speak. And this is what history does in its various forms. But while not everything the past has to say would agree with us moderns, nor would even be comprehensible to us, it is what it is, as we are what we are. Our deeds are ultimately judged by posterity..."

Some may think I am reaching here, but while fun is and should always be the focus here, I really think that in some small way we keep alive one part of the story from our collective past. Sacrifices made, costs paid, and just a glimpse into the skills and ingenuity it took to fight and survive among the clouds. Scoff if you like, but how much collective information, both facts and numbers but also some glimmer of the actual experience have we pulled forward for both ourselves to understand, and maybe to enlighten others. History often suffers packet loss; in it's way, the DD's help rescue that past.

Keep the flame. It warms the heart and lights the way.

DT

[Jabo]

Nice work DT

[BadAim]

Indeed. It's funny, I've been thinking about how history illiterate most people are these days, and what a damn shame it is that they don't appreciate what those who have gone before have done for them, and what price they paid. Perhaps if we can share what we've learned with just a few, then our little dissipation here can be a worthwhile thing. Perspective. Funny thing, ain't it? "Thanks awfully, old chap".

[B16Enk]

DT is so back and again my grey matter is being exercised, enlightened, embarrased and entertained!

Nice one Glenn.