Author Chris Brady's Blog

Tell Me If Anything Was Ever Done

 It at first seems odd that Leonardo da Vinci is so revered today. None of his sculptured works have survived, and only around a grand total of fifteen of his paintings are known. Although he wrote a lot about architecture, no buildings anywhere are credited to his name. Dispassionate scientists have long debated the originality of his many inventions found only in his sketchbooks – little evidence exists that he ever actually built or tested any of these ideas.

 

Yet Leonardo is heralded as a universal genius, the ideal of the Renaissance in which artists were not only proficient but expected to be masters in many fields. He is shrouded in mystery and myth, movies and books being written about his sensational secret codes, mischievous messages, and secret handwriting (which was actually just backwards).

 

As with most post-modern heroes, however, closer inspection reveals a somewhat smaller man. Although unarguably monumentally talented, Leonardo suffered from what art historian Ken Clark called his “constitutional dilatoriness.” Pope Leo X said, “Alas! This man will never do anything!” Leonardo often accepted commissions for works he never finished, in many cases, works he never even began. Of the paintings we know of, such as the Mona Lisa, he worked on them off and on for years, most experts agreeing that the art itself shows the weaknesses of such a lackadaisical methodology. Perhaps authors D’Epiro and Pinkowish asked it best: “Why did the man who was arguably the greatest painter who ever lived dissipate his energies, often quite carelessly, among so many other fields?”

 

Let’s address his current mass media popularity first: In our post-modern times, which seek any source of credibility against God and ultimate truth, Leonardo is a ready poster child for the Godless – possessing abundant talent and shrouded in sufficient mystery to speculate about alternate truths. In short, from a world-view that disdains accomplishment and merit (what one accomplishes and earns) and instead focuses upon position and power and prestige (who one is and who one knows), heroes are made out of those who seem to succeed despite the rules of effort, contribution, and earning it. Leonardo didn’t have to accomplish much (in proportion to his gargantuan talent, that is) to be revered by those who don’t really want to accomplish much themselves.  Additionally, his atheism is seen as reassurance, as if to say, “If the great man didn’t believe, then I can make myself great by being a disbeliever too.”

 

But all that is really beside the point. There is absolutely no denying the fact that Leonardo da Vinci was an extremely gifted man, one of the towering giants of the Renaissance. The question that carries the most meaning for those of us on our own journeys of life accomplishment is “Why so little output?” I am reminded of the Stephen King quote concerning the author of Gone With the Wind: “Why didn’t she ever write another book?”

 

Success is the product of many components, of which one of the most prominent is focus. We can do many things in our lives, but we can’t do everything. We can have wide interests, and to a certain extent that is good and healthy, but we shouldn’t dissipate our true well of talent on too many endeavors. If genius like that of a Leonardo is wasted by too broad a stroke, then what happens to those of us who are less well endowed?  As Leonardo himself wrote, “As a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, so every mind divided among different studies is confused and weakened.”

 

I would posit that the less talented we are, the more focused we must be. Even the least talented can accomplish grandiose achievements if applying themelves ferociously, consistently, and with enough focus over time. In fact, it seems that often the greatest accomplishments go to those who actually aren’t all that talented, but retain just this one last shred of talent: the ability to focus intensely and over the long term.

 

Sadly, we will never know what wonders of painted masterpieces Leonardo may have produced for the enjoyment of the world. He spent too much of his time elsewhere, on areas other than his gifting. While in many cases he was still better in these areas than most of the rest of us, the loss still stings. One is left wanting more, but time answers back a heartless “too late.” This brings us to the saddest consideration of the squandered gifts of life: What could have been?

 

Do not squander what you’ve been given, no matter how much or little, rather, harness it, develop it, hone it, and focus it, bring it to bear on a daily basis and letting the world see what you were given. It is a duty to return our gifts of talent totally spent and depleted in worthy use. Or, if not, one may join the great Leonardo da Vinci himself, who wrote toward the end of his life, “Di mi se mai fu fatta alcuna cosa (Tell me if anything was ever done.)”

 

 

Siena by Car - "You Idiot"

Siena is an old city. The world-famous Palio horse race held in the large central square, Piazza del Campo, officially dates back to 1283, though many think its origins go back to Roman military training.

  

One can learn many things in Siena, like the fact that its main bell tower, Torre del Mangia, is named after the lazy bell-ringer who was “eating” up the profits, or that you can’t just drive your clunky mini-bus smack dab into the city center.

 

It’s hard to believe the amount of adventure one can have with a mini-bus in Italy. In fact, I’ve grown so fond of mine that I’m trying to figure out how to buy it and have it shipped back to the states.  The darn thing is practically a magic carpet, going anywhere and everywhere as though it weren’t a hundred feet long and fourteen wide.

 

These old medieval towns throughout Tuscany, many having origins predating the Roman era, are built atop hills. You can see their old buildings jutting up into the sky from miles away, crowded inside a city wall. The hot setup for a tourist is to drive to a parking area just outside the city walls, then walk inside for peaceful sightseeing, largely free from cars and traffic.

 

Until the Bradys come along. Upon arriving in Siena I thought I saw a sign for parking just beyond the arched entry. Sure enough, there were at least four ample parking spaces provided, which were filled by seventy-six midget cars. The GPS confidently led me onward and I confidently complied. The roads got narrower and narrower and the crowds of people thicker and thicker. Those pesky pedestrians were really clogging up our path and making it hard to get through. But the mini-bus was having a powerful effect on those folks, parting them like the Red Sea. At one point while we were annoyingly at a standstill, a couple of nice ladies attempted to explain something to me. With my ever-increasing ability to speak and understand Italian, I got the following out of what they were saying: “You idiot.”

   

Being the experienced world travelers we are came in extremely handy at this moment. Terri and the kids jumped out and we made arrangements to meet up in the main city square. This was possible because I very skillfully kept the conversation going with the vigilante ladies long enough to buy time for Terri and the kids to make their escape. Things were working out swimmingly. As my five and six year old can only handle so many steps taken in the name of tourism, and since their appreciation for Gothic architecture and the history of Tuscany’s artists hasn’t quite reached full maturity, conserving their travel distance is a great strategy for extending the potential time for touring. This latest maneuver of ours would shave off literally HALF of their required steps. It was going to be a great day.

 

With all the helpful instruction I’d received, snaking my way out of town proved to be no problem at all.  Finding a parking space was a bit more challenging, but eventually I procured one in Minnesota.

 

I have read about walking tours through Siena, and how serene and educational they can be. But for my money, I’d rather take the driving tour. Trust me, there’s nothing quite like Siena by car, or, um, mini-bus.

 

       

Leaders Travel Light

I learned it the hard way, really, by dragging bulky bags through crowded bus terminals, onto packed trains, and up stairs at a five-hundred year-old hotel. I will never forget slugging two huge suitcases through Narita station in Tokyo, stopping at a trash can and throwing a way a bunch of stuff to lighten my load.

My wife and children have bought into this dogma unbelievably well, packing for a month in Italy and needing only one suitcase amongst the five of them! Running shoes and a miscount of pull-ups (we've got enough with us to make a raft and float back home across the Atlantic) took us up to a total of two. 

Traveling light is not only a necessity for anyone wanting to do some serious traipsing around the globe, but it serves as a valid metaphor for life, as well. Let's face it, there are those who just cut a large swath through their life, traveling heavy and weighing things down. While there are others who seem to flit from episode to episode without exacting a heavy toll on those around them.

Leadership is a lot like taking a trip. Leaders often go into unfamiliar territory, influencing others to follow them there. Leaders must provision themselves and their people for the journey. Leaders must be ready for and respond properly to the obstacles and challenges that inevitably come. The best leaders are the most agile, the most able to adjust and course-correct, the most rock-solid on commitment to a vision but the most flexible on the route. Leaders build trust and develop networks, alliances, and deep relationships. And of course, the best leaders have character and integrity.

All of these can be seen as features of traveling light through life. Though leaders may carry heavy and often unfair burdens, they do so with grace and fidelity to a worthy cause, which means that they have to carry little else. Here are some areas to consider when seeking to increase your leadership ability by traveling light:

1. Relationships - heavy is the burden of broken and un-repaired relationships. Light is the load of tight friendships, deep bonds, and heart-felt trust.

2. Commitments - heavy is the burden of too many commitments or casual ones made without thought or conviction. Light is the load of commitments to God-given principles and worthy goals. While some of the heaviest loads of all are those made up of shards and splinters from commitments we've broken in life.

3. Focus - heavy is the load for the leader who is unable to focus and prioritize accordingly. Light is the load of a leader who understands that almost anything can be accomplished if enough focus of energy, desire, concentration, talent, effort, perseverance, time, and toil is applied. You can accomplish almost anything you truly commit to, but you can't accomplish everything. You must choose, and then attack with everything you've got.

4. Honor - heavy is the load of the person who cannot be trusted, breaks promises, fails to keep confidences, and cannot be relied upon. Such a person will find life getting tougher and tougher as the accumulation of those who know them for what they are grows. Worse than the accumulated opinion of those let down is the searing pain of a burned conscience within. Perhaps the heaviest load to carry is one of guilt and regret.

5. Principles - heavy is the life that doesn't stand for anything except selfishness, self-aggrandizement, and personal glory. Light is the life given over to the glory of God, service to others, and the fight for good.

The best of leaders are like the best of travelers; they travel light. Like the good traveler who takes nothing but pictures and leaves nothing but tracks, the best leaders take nothing but responsibility and leave nothing but love and example. Become the best leader you can be: travel light.

  

   

  

Herculaneum - "Are We There Yet?"

 I had what might be called a conversation with the steward of our cliffside villa, inquiring about the limited routes over or around the mountain range behind us and back over to Naples (Napoli). He spoke some English, he thought, and I some Italian, I think. It seems there are as many as three routes, though wrong turns are easy to make. No problem, I thought, we've got all day, and I've got my new GPS (purchased in Salerno as a replacement for the shattered one we brought with us). Well, the GPS was no help at all, as lost in the terrain as I was in the language. So we soldiered on bravely through the tight, winding, tight (did I mention tight?) mountain roads, feeling like mountain goats and passing a herd of actual ones along the way. All the while our GPS was telling us to "turn around when possible." It's request was laughable, given the dimensions of our clunky mini-bus and the (did I mention?) tight roadway. But we made it, finding the Autostrada and zipping along like natives (in my element once again). 

 But then the exit was entirely nonexistent due to construction. Being the experienced world travelers we are, we simply took the next exit and navigated according to the sometimes visible bay of Naples in the distance, in combination with our ever-so-helpful GPS. What eventuated would be hard to depict without videographers, but it certainly would have made good comedy. Somehow, trusting our good ol' GPS, we found ourselves stuck at a tight (have I used that adjective before?) turn between buildings, parked cars, zipping scooters, pedestrians, a big delivery truck, and yep, shirts for sale on a portable display. I pulled in my mirrors, snuggled up as close as I could to a parked Smart car, the clothing rack was quickly removed, and the delivery truck passed. Then the GPS told us to turn right, but alas, the entire road (a complimentary term I now use to refer to anything as wide as a footpath that could at least be traversed by a soldier from the 10th Mountain Division) was nonexistent due to construction. I will never know exactly how we got our clunky mini-bus out of there, but am quite sure I violated a few laws of geometry along the way. 

 By this point we disabled the GPS and went it alone. What could possibly happen without it? I guess we could get lost or something, or maybe even end up at the end of some tight (there's that word again) dead-end street with clothes for sale at the curb. We quickly found our own way back to the Autostrada, but unbelievably, the entrance too was totally nonexistent due to construction. These Neapolitans are serious about their road repair (we, for one, think they ought to widen them). Looping back around to the sound of the ever helpful voices from our children offering encouraging rejoinders such as, "Are we there yet?" and "I'm hungry" and "I have to go to the bathroom," we soldiered on. It was at that point Terri somehow spotted a sign for Ercolano, and almost immediately we were there. 

That wasn't so bad. 

Ercolano is the Italian name for the Roman city of Herculaneum, the thriving coastal town that was buried beneath the blast from Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Because of the nature of how it was covered, the city beneath was captured in an instant and preserved as it was on that day.  

Walking through the ancient city, which is even better preserved than the more famous Pompeii, hits the lover of history in many ways. Surprisingly, the first impact I felt was just how similar their life was to ours. Floor patterns of tile and stone were very much the same as we have today. Wall paintings and barreled ceilings felt familiar. Even much of the architecture was similar. Of course, part of the reason for this is the tremendous impact the Roman civilization had upon the known world at the time and the amazing lasting impression it continues to make upon artists, designers, and architects - meaning much of what I saw in its original form has been copied again and again right down to our very time. But still, there was something eerily familiar in the walking of their streets. They had taverns for lunches located on street corners, indoor latrines, second floor living quarters, shop fronts along the street level, boat niches at the wharf, monuments to their heroes in the town square, and of course, the richest homes were along the sea coast. I was not able to verify, however, if they sold shirts at the curb of their tightest streets. Much of these features (and many more) are nearly no different than any modern city. They even had lead pipes and, in some cases, hot water.  

Now, cult worship temples and altars for sacrifice hit the modern tourist as not only unfamiliar but shockingly ancient. Class stratification and slavery evident in the many artifacts recovered still seem unbelievable to our modern sensibilities (though not as far removed nor obliterated as we would wish). So they were similar, but still different.

I will leave the profound questions all this raises to the reader's consideration. I will also leave out the details of our return trip, which was much less eventful but still filled with "are we there yet," and "I'm thirsty." I can only wonder if the ancient Roman children were similarly impacted by the majesty of their own history lessons. 

Musings from the Mediterranean

 He and his family are occupying the space above ours in this unique, cliff-side perch above the Mediterranean. In a short conversation by the cliff platforms for sea diving, Alan made a simple yet profound statement. His words carry the weight of a man older than me in years and twenty visits to Italy or so more experienced. Alan said, “Italy is the best kept secret – an open air museum for the entire world.”

 

Traveling through southern Italy in a clunky “mini-bus” that makes our family look like an advertisement for breeding, we have only just begun our journey of many weeks, but already have had our breath taken away by mountain vistas and calm seas, finding proof enough already of Alan’s observation. Sunlight bathes everything here, including ruins from Magna Grecia, the ancient Greek colony that once flourished throughout southern Italy. The three Doric temples stand in Poseidonia (the Greek name) or Paestum (the later Roman name) in stolid witness to the passage of time and the inevitability of change, while at the same time evoking the grandeur of art and architecture. If this sounds a bit fanciful, it’s because I can’t help getting arrested by the beauty of the mosaic of art, architecture, topography, and history in which we’ve emerged ourselves.

 

Which is just as well, because I am certainly in no danger of arrest for my driving. I am home among crazies here, driving the tight and unbelievably twisty Amalfi coastline in my clunky mini-bus (pronounced “mini-boos”, but made by Mercedes, nonetheless) and finding the kid in me rushing to the daredevil surface. If it weren’t for having the entire family on board, I’d be even more tempted than I am to split the miniscule gaps between bikers, scooters, motorcycles, Smart cars, tour buses, stone walls, cliff’s edges, buildings, and guard rails at full speed (whatever that is). As it is, I am only average on the scale of drivers here, bowing humbly to the crazier and giving them the respect (and space) they deserve. Happily as well, I can report that not once have I encountered even a momentary display of left-lane driving. I am pretty sure the traffic enforcement agencies from the great slow-driving-or-we’ll-kill-you state of Ohio would have a heart attack if they were tasked with making the Amalfi coast more of a safe driving experience. Thankfully, that should never happen, and one of Italy’s more enjoyable attractions should stand the test of time as well as have its Greek Doric temples.

 

How’s that for mixed metaphors?

 

Oh well, I don’t have to write well, I’m on vacation. 

Featured Rascals: Ed Freeman and Bruce Crandall

 The United States government was still calling the involvement of U.S. military personnel in Viet Nam a "police action," but from the intensity of the fighting in the la Drang Valley that day of November 14, 1965, it certainly looked like a war.  Especially to the battalion of American soldiers pinned down by so much enemy fire that the medical evacuation helicopters refused to fly to their aid.  Without supplies and the evacuation of the many wounded, the Americans stood the chance of being completely wiped out.

            At that point, helicopter pilot Ed Freeman and his commander Bruce Crandall together decided to volunteer to fly their unarmed Hueys into Landing Zone X-Ray, a mere hundred meters or so from the perimeter of the fighting.  Time after time the two men flew directly through enemy gunfire to the imperiled American soldiers.  They brought water, ammunition, and medical supplies, and returned with the severely wounded.  From the time the medical evacuation was halted, Freeman and Crandall made fourteen more trips into the beleaguered zone.  Many on hand that day were quick to say that the entire unit might have been eliminated if not for the heroics of those two men, and the thirty wounded soldiers rescued that day most certainly would have perished.

            Freeman and Crandall were considered crazy for flying again and again directly into the face of overwhelming enemy fire.  But, like true Rascals, they did it anyway for the sake of their brothers in arms.  Men were counting on them and they refused to let them down, no matter the risk to them personally.  In the service of others they risked it all.  For their uncommon valor, extraordinary heroism, and dedication to duty, Freeman and Crandall were awarded the U.S. military's highest recognition, the Medal of Honor.