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Running to the Roar
I watched Matt Taibbi’s livestream on Substack yesterday. I like that guy. Who wouldn’t? He’s so normal. Lots of “Um’s” and looking off into space for a moment as he searches for words, sometimes stammering at the beginning of a sentence, but always pushing through to make his point. The way he talks is a reflection of how his mind works. You can see him traveling multiple paths of complexity and nuance, making choices along the way, ensuring that what he has to say comes out just the way it should. All unrehearsed. Or seemingly so.
He’s actually a relaxing kind of bloke. And seems totally unimpressed with his own celebrity.
The most important reason I like him is this: he works his ass off, is beholden to no one, is relentless and unapologetic in pursuing the truth, and he’s not afraid to call baloney. I’ve starting listening to his weekly chat with Walter Kirn … what a treat it has been. Their relationship is wonderful. Two likeable guys talking about daily life incidents to warm up, and then really drilling into the most difficult topics of our current day. They hold nothing back. And I love it.
Walter has lived long enough to have garnered great wisdom and developed brilliant insights … resonating insights that surprise and move me down the path of understanding. If he were a filmmaker, I’d compare him to Woody Allen, except the topics are different and the implications of Walter’s brilliant observations are far more serious in a society that aims to remain civil.
Now, all compliments and sycophantic accolades aside, it’s important to notice a few things. Matt Taibbi is seemingly impervious to intimidation. Yes, he spontaneously displays annoyance and irritation at times, but it’s usually about journalists not doing their actual jobs, or government officials spewing lies and propaganda for some perceived political advantage that will undoubtedly end up hurting Americans. So, this makes him something like a lightning rod.
I used to be a lightning rod; calling out the stuff getting in the way of true and honest progress in solving real problems for the greater good. Or so I told myself. I look back and wonder where the chutzpah came from … and where it went … because there remains no sign of it now.
And that is a sad statement for me. I suppose there may be others like me.
So … I’m making a pre-New Year resolution. Forgive me for stating it in the negative, but for me, it works better that way.
“Don’t be a coward!”
1 When I say those words to myself, the Almighty immediately shows me what I’m afraid of, and, hence, my specific duty to be performed. There is nothing more to do but run to the roar.
Thanks Matt. You’re a good example. And a nice guy.
1 In other words, I don’t have to sit around contemplating my navel trying to figure out what great act of bravery I might engage in. I’d naturally gravitate to things that are easy for me. But not the real things. The real thing is right there in front of me, and it’s always something I’m afraid of.
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Who coined the statement “Run to the roar”? I first heard it many years ago. The scriptural context is that Satan is like a roaring lion. The teaching was that in a pride of lions, the oldest most feeble lion roared to frighten the prey into running away from the roar and into the clutches of the young, strong lions who were waiting in ambush. If you run to the roar, you are actually running in the direction of least danger and possible escape. At least, that’s the way I recall it. I haven’t heard it for years.
Be sober! Be on the alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.
— 1 Peter 5:8
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose missapplication of the word.”
You are exactly right. Ill get the reference and post another comment. I referenced the story in a book on leadership i wrote in 2019. Love it.
I’ve never attributed it to a Biblical reference at all. I interpreted it as a person who responds to danger – that is, the soldier, the firefighter, the policeman who, when everybody else is running away, instead moves toward the place where he is needed. It seems to me that Matt Tiabbi fits that mold pretty well, as a journalist. Think of it, then, as running toward the roar – of battle.
Well … here is the quote I started with in researching the story further.
“Run to the roar,” say the elders to the young. When faced with great dangers in this world, run toward the roaring, go where you fear to go, for only there will you find some safety and a way through danger. Trouble that is faced when it first appears can be the roar that awakens a person’s deepest resources. In times of trouble or tragedy, a person either steps into life more fully or else slips into a diminished life characterized by fear and anxiety.
― Michael Meade, Why the World Doesn’t End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss
I recall doing a good bit of research to uncover the story of the prides and how they would set up their prey. It goes like this …. set up one of the old toothless lions on a high up knoll. Send the young lions to hiding in the brush opposite the knoll. When the herds come to graze on the savanna, the old lion roars, causing the herd to run in the opposite direction … and right into the dining room of the young lions waiting in the brush. An inelegant way to describe it, but you get the picture.
The point is to run to the thing that frightens you, and step into your life more fully.