Welcome to the “WORLD IS MADE OF FIRE” online club. The club is a place for you to come and talk about your own experience with struggling for truth, art and love. The idea for this club came to me after reading Mark Helprin’s, “A Soldier in the Great War.”
A Soldier in the Great War, by Mark Helprin
“THE FIRST thing you have to do,” Alessandro told him, “is take inventory and make a plan.”
“What inventory, what plan?” Nicoló asked dismissively. “We have nothing and we’re going to Sant’ Angelo.”
The old man was silent. They walked about a hundred steps.
“What do you mean, inventory?” Nicoló wanted to know. When he received no answer, he looked straight ahead and decided that if the old man chose not to talk, he wouldn’t talk either. That lasted, as Alessandro knew it would, for no more than ten steps.
“I thought inventory was what they did in a store.”
“It is what the do in a store.”
“Where’s the store?” Nicoló asked.
“Merchants take inventory,” Alessandro stated, “so that, knowing what they have, they can plan ahead. We can do the same. We can list in our brains of what we have, and what obstacles are in front of us to be overcome.”
“What for?”
“Anticipation is the heart of wisdom. If you are going to cross a desert, you anticipate that you will be thirsty, and you take water.”
“But this is the road to Monte Prato, and there are towns along the way. We don’t need water.”
“Did you ever walk seventy kilometers?”
“No.”
“It may be difficult for you. It will be very difficult for me. I’m somewhat older than you, and as you can see, I’m half lame. If I’m to succeed, it will be by a narrow margin, and, therefore, I must court precision. It’s always been that way for me. What do you have with you?”
“I don’t have anything.”
“You have no food?”
“Food?” The boy jumped in the air and whirled around, turning in a full circle to show he wasn’t concealing anything. “I don’t carry around food. Do you?” he asked.
The old man went to one side of the road and sat on a rock.
“Yes,” he answered, opening his briefcase. “Bread, and a half a kilo each of prosciutto, dried fruit, and semi-sweet chocolate. We’ll need lots of water. It’s hot.”
“In the towns,” Nicoló volunteered.
“Only a few towns line the route, but between them are springs. As soon as it gets hilly, you’ll see, we’ll have plenty of water.”
“We don’t need food. When we get to a village, we can eat there.”
“The next village is fifteen kilometers away,” the old man said, “and I walk slowly. When we arrive the stars will be halfway across the sky and every window will be shut tight. Though we won’t be able to eat in the towns, this food will see us through. You’d be surprised at how much you burn up on a march.”
“Where will we sleep?” Nicoló asked.
“Sleep?” Alessandro repeated, with one bushy white eyebrow riding so far above the other that it looked for a moment as if he had been in an automobile accident and had not quite recovered.
“Aren’t we going to sleep at night?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“On a march of seventy kilometers you don’t need to sleep.”
“Yes, you don’t need to sleep,” the boy said, “but why not sleep? Who says you shouldn’t?”
“If you slept you wouldn’t be properly intent. You’d be swept away by dreams, and miss the waking dreams. And you would insult the road.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look,” Alessandro said, grabbing Nicoló’s wrist. “If I decide that I’m going to Monte Prato, seventy kilometers or not, I go to Monte Prato. You don’t do things by halves. If you love a woman, you love her entirely. You give everything. You don’t spend your time in cafes; you don’t make love to other women; you don’t take her for granted. Do you understand?”
Nicoló shook his head back and forth to expres that he did not. He expected that the old man might be more than he could handle and was perhaps an escapee from an asylum, or, worse, someone who had contrived to avoid asylums altogether.
“God gives gifts to all creatures,” Alessandro continued, “no matter what their station or condition. He may give innocence to a lunatic, or heaven to a thief. Contrary to most theologians, I have always believed that even worms and weasels have souls, and that they are capable of salvation.
“But one thing God does not give, something that must be earned, something that a lazy man can never know. Call it understanding, grace, the elevation of the spirit—call it what you will. It comes only of work, sacrifice, and suffering.
“You must give everything you have. You must love unto exhaustion, work unto exhaustion, and walk unto exhaustion.
“If I want to go to Monte Prato, I go to Monte Prato. I don’t hang around like an ass with half a dozen trunks who has gone to take the waters at Montecatini. People like that continually expose their souls to mortal danger in imagining they are free of it, when, indeed, the only mortal danger for the spirit is to remain too long without it. The world is made of fire.”
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Hey Tim, sounds great…living the dream! Nice one! I am stupidly busy but will check it out, if I don’t remind me! Good luck, man, stay safe, tap early and often in practice….
Hey Sam!
I read your book *A fighters Heart* a few months ago and i would just like to say thanks for writing about your fantastic adventure.
I had never watched any of Andre Wards fights and recently saw that Andre Ward is fighting Froch in the Super Six finals!
It was great for me too see the characters you written about and how far they have come since then including the MMA guys. I was wondering do you still keep in touch with Andre and Virgil.
I’m from the UK myself but after reading your book and what Inspiring people Andre and Virgil sound like i will be routing for Ward!
Thanks again Sam and all the best!
Dylan
Thanks Dylan…it is great to see how far Andre has come. I am still friends with Virgil and Dre, although we don’t talk much. I love Dre as a fighter, he really can do anything in a very old-school way.
So sam,
When do you start getting royalty checks from matthew polly’s new book?
Hahaha….yeah I saw that. Good for him.
Sam,
I have to say that I blindly grabbed your book Fighters Mind as I was boarding a plane..and could not put it down, which led me to a Fighters Heart. Although I am new to MMA, and when I read it I would have compared myself to the principal in “Warrior”. Fighters Mind was not only insight for MMA, but it is fantastic insight on drive, determination, and mindset for a person to mentally succeed. My question is what books led you to fighters mind? Or maybe a book that really changed your view or blew you away. Thanks, and can’t wait for the next book.
Thanks dhammet. The books that led me to “Mind?” Well, the problem was there wasn’t a book, really. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t, but I couldn’t really find one.
The book that really blew me away….sheesh, it’s been a while. Bowles “The Sheltering Sky,” maybe….wherein a character is going to write a book demonstrating that the difference between something and nothing is nothing. Maybe my favorite line of all time.
Hey Sam, your writing has had a profound impact on me, the last chapters of The Fighter’s Mind and A Fighters Heart specifically. When I was young I was very shy , insecure, and antisocial, I idolized ‘tough guys’ like Captain America, and Spiderman, and when I was 13 I started Wrestling. Wrestling was really the foundation of my entire life, It gave me something to do and it allowed me to hide from the world and never grew up, so, that when I graduated from high school I basically fell apart. I dove into MMA, which filled the void again, and I was comfortably numb for awhile, I wasnt happy, I still didnt know how to interact with other people outside of fighting. Then, I tore my ACL, and for a year I sat around reading and thinking. I read both of your books in this period and it made me realize how Fighting and Art are so similar, how its just our appeals to other people for love. Thats really why I started Wrestling, to feel a part of a team, to feel like what I did mattered. I got addicted to that. Im training MMA again, my knee is fine, and Im competing regularly and winning. I often times look back and wonder, what if I had just been normal, at least, interacted with people, if I had been an artist, if I learned how to create instead of destroy. I’m 20 now, I wish I could quit MMA, but the real world would have nothing for me at this point. I hope I’ll suceed enough in MMA that I will be able to be loved. Thank you for writing your books, they did not ‘cure’ me of my situation, but they at the allowed me to understand it, and that is something great indeed.
Robschach13—Dude, you’re 20, you’re writing like your life is over. 20 is nothing. I tell anyone who ever wants to do anything creative, whether it be write, paint, make movies, whatever, they’ve got AT LEAST ten years of being broke and feeling like a loser, and then maybe they start to get somewhere. 20 is just the beginning. When I was wandering, I thought “Hey, I should have a career at 30, if I don’t know what I’m doing at 30 then I’ll start to worry.” And I think I got my first book deal around then.
I’m really glad you enjoyed the books, that means a lot to me. I wrote them for us. But you can be in MMA and still create, not destroy. You can build a team, build fighters, build gyms….MMA is not about destruction, in the end, it’s about self-improvement.
And please, you’re 20. Don’t worry about it. If you hit 30 and still don’t know what you’re doing, then, and only then, can you BEGIN to worry about it.