Most people who would have interest in reading this blogpost are already geocachers. Some might be new to the activity, from which they’ll peer into it like a voyeur or a student. This is just a description of what a day out geocaching is like for me and my family.

First we prepare. It usually starts when I get up and my wife asks what I want to do today. I answer “Geocache” almost as instantly as a teen girl from the 80′s would say “Go to the Mall”. Then the scrambling begins.

Children and adults get dressed and help others get dressed, then eat breakfast.

I usually grab a flashlight, pocket knife, iPhone and wallet. Then we get our swag box. It’s a child’s toy fishing tackle box filled with trinkets we swap for those we like in caches we find. I usually stuff a few trinkets in my pockets because we inevitably come across a tough terrain where nobody wants to carry around a tackle box.

Usually without much planning we decide on an area of town to try as we gather in the family minivan. There are no printed maps. There are no goals other than finding a few caches with trinkets for the kids to trade and having fun. So the iPhone is pulled out since it’s our only GPS and we travel around to an area and start hunting for caches.

My ratio of finds, with or without my family, is about four out of five. When we hit those 80%, the kids are excited and having fun. Usually my wife or I find them first and we encourage the kids to look for signs… “do you see something that doesn’t look like it belongs?” we usually say. Then when the kids find it they’re cheering and shouting even if it’s a microcache. My wife and I feed off the energy and can’t help but smile. Some caches are cleverly hidden and disguised, but most are not. We then sign the log and leave talking about it, peaked enough by the excitement to motivate us to the next cache no matter how tired and hungry we are.

When we hit upon that 20% that is usually not found, I search it out hard. If I’m with others (namely children), they find their patience pushed to the limit while I stumble through juniper bushes (I hate juniper bushes – nasty bushessessess), wade through mud and get my face poked by tree branches. If someone posted a note or comment that the cache was easy to find that only adds to everyone’s frustration and my deliberation of dragging them through the junipers (nasty busshessessess), mud and trees with me.

It’s usually at this point that I realize it’s past noon, the family is tired, hungry and irritated and I reluctantly herd them home, leaving the DNF behind.

We log our finds and non-finds (DNFs) along the way. Sometimes if the network is sketchy we keep them in queue and sync up our logs when we get into a location with WiFi. On that note, we’re pretty good about logging DNFs. It’s embarrassing at times, but on that same 80/20 rule, 20% of our DNFs occur because the cache was removed (taken/destroyed/muggled/etc) and our part in logging the DNF helps the cache owner make that determination.

Only once were we the first to find a cache and it was our youngest, the four-year-old, who pointed out where it was. Finding a cache for the first time is like exploring through virgin territory. You don’t know what you’ll find there but you know it will be great. Nicer swag, bragging rights, but more importantly, an unadulterated theme that the cache owner wanted to present. Some caches are filled with theme based swag. Over time that personality becomes erased with the homogenization of cachers’ individual interests as they trade swag.

Eventually only the happier memories remain. I spent time with my kids. They learned something new. My wife and I had some bonding time. But late at night … in the buzzing stillness that sometimes tickles the mind and keeps me awake … that DNF in the junipers continues to haunt me back to restless sleep.

Lindsey from “A Design So Vast” wrote a very succinct post on the early years of parenting after reading another inspiring post from Amy at “Never True Tales”.

In a strange way this echos for me as well. I say “strange” because the posts epitomize womanhood, yet I’m a man.

There were long nights that felt like those that fall on the arctic where I would hover over the crib to soothe the baby, swaying like a drunk man from the lack of sleep. From her post I remember the same sand burnt eyes, the same smells and how that baby smell is like no other. I even recall the same confidence and fear that somehow intermingle at that time in life.

There was a tenderness both in me and in others that eroded over time. People seemed kinder and gentler then, and even euphonised their snide and hurtful remarks about our already large family (if you call two children a large family) if not withheld them altogether.

A little older, there’s already a longing for those times. I play with thoughts and memories like a young boy’s wish to travel back in time or to another world altogether, but unlike that boy I know each moment is different and there’s no return. My children are a little older now, so there’s still some magic left in my house, but at my age – at their ages – the end of that tunnel is blinding; it strikes me with a disquieted remorse that only comes out in deep quivering sighs.

As a man there’s supposed to be a hardened-steel strength that masks these emotions in some supernatural science-fiction Spock-like manner… but it still shows. Our wrinkled and melancholy eyes from the years of laughter and tears betray us to those who look deeply. Other men, thinking they were wild and free, were blindly shackled to a hard loneliness that comes from being childless, or shirking their children, and hardens even more with age until all that’s left is bitterness or, if they’re fortunate enough to possess a kind heart, remorse.

And now for some uplifting, once famous, quotes brought about by and for the educational system of a world superpower.
These are core values and morals that should be clearly taught in all schools.

“Live Faithfully, Fight Bravely…”

“Be Faithful, Be Pure…”

“He who serves … [their country] … serves God.”

“[To] my magnificent youngsters! Are there any finer ones in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them, I can make a new world. This is the heroic stage of youth. Out of it will come the creative man…”

“…youth must be slender and supple, fast as a greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel. He must learn to do without, to endure criticism and injustice, to be reliable, discreet, decent, and loyal.”

What happened to faithfulness, bravery, purity, grace, dependability, responsibility and loyalty? They should certainly be taught, but parents are mistaken if they think the school, typical Sunday school or material synagogue/schule takes this effort. Let me shed some light to the aforementioned quotes by filling in their ellipses.

“Live Faithfully, Fight Bravely, and Die Laughing! We were born to die for Germany!”

“Be Faithful, Be Pure, Be German!”

“He who serves Adolf Hitler, the Führer, serves Germany, and whoever serves Germany, serves God.”

“I begin with the young. We older ones are used up. We are rotten to the marrow. We are cowardly and sentimental. We are bearing the burden of a humiliating past, and have in our blood the dull recollection of serfdom and servility. But my magnificent youngsters! Are there any finer ones in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them, I can make a new world. This is the heroic stage of youth. Out of it will come the creative man, the man-god.”

“The German youth must be slender and supple, fast as a greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel. He must learn to do without, to endure criticism and injustice, to be reliable, discreet, decent, and loyal.”

Oops! Doesn’t sound so Utopian, anymore, now that we know the source of the statements.

Hitler certainly had a masterful influence over people. He convinced them through his charisma, education, grace, talent and diplomacy to unite and wreak havoc on the world, not excluding attempted genocide. Many politicians looked to him, his influence and his failures as examples of how to control the masses. People were dazzled and blinded by the hateful intent and destructive force this leader was spewing… not least of them were teachers.

So what makes teachers, or anyone for that matter, think they are impervious to the same forces taking power in America and across other world power governments today? All adults from the past three generations have been raised and educated in such a way that it systematically strips our independence and self-sufficiency, making us dependent on the government. Furthermore, it’s been done in a way that, for the most part, we don’t know what we’re missing.

Education – TRUE education – isn’t about reading or writing or arithmetic. Those aren’t goals. Those are tools and we should think of them as such. True education is about exploring, experimenting on our own, making mistakes and learning from them. It’s about acknowledging the individuality of people, respecting them and respectfully disagreeing with eloquence. It’s about mastering graceful behavior on our own bodies as an outward expression that we are elite creatures by creation and can master other things as well. It’s about knowing your ground, debating civilly, and assisting others gallantly. It’s about becoming the best person you can be.

The government thinks the best you can be, in the government’s system’s point of view, is a resource … a tool. If the government needs more waiters and waitresses in the future, guess what kind of education you’re children are going to be given. I heard of an interesting society – another experimental system – that molded the western culture. But this system had real education as its underpinnings. They would drop the names of all civilians in a bowl and have lottery-esque drawings for careers. This was not a lottery of children to determine what career to train them for, as the Soviet Union’s communistic government donned out, but a lottery of adults. It was expected of all adults to be completely capable and self sufficient of any task that if the city needed a new army captain or master chef any adult had already risen to that capability and only needed to exercise it. This was ancient Greece.

Hitler, as much a beast as he was, was right about the power of government managed education. If you send your child to Caeser, Kaiser, or der Führer… don’t be surprised when they come home as Romans, Germans or Nazis. Start by being surprised at what the leaders are saying.

Look through history at all the greatest inventors … even at the wealthiest people today … they either didn’t finish public school or they didn’t go to public school at all. Schooling does not equate to education. It is mostly for government indoctrination. Teachers have been used as pawns and most don’t recognize it. The same could be said for any American (or anyone raised under a Prussian-inspired school system).

What should you do to break away from this indoctrination? Put yourself through the type of elite schooling that our politicians and other powerful world leaders receive:

Hone your skills and learn skills that really matter:

• Educate yourself by reading classic literature, philosophy, poetry.
• Exercise yourself through puzzles.
• Expand what you’ve learned through practicing debate, reason and logic.
• Execute your skills by critical examination of the media (they’re mostly wrong … and on purpose, too) and by listening carefully to what world leaders are saying.
• Know what makes people tick.
  • For those who want to learn, show them the way.
  • For those who don’t want to learn, know how to control/seduce/entice their desires to direct them to do justice and righteousness.
  • You’ll find more people want to learn as the unrest continues.

Prepare for the worst, but work for the best:

• Just like the boy scout motto.
• Prepare your hearts – Master your world view. Get right with God
• Prepare your mind – learn survival skills … at least learn to milk a cow
• Prepare your pantry – store food for yourself and others
• Prepare your arsenal – get ready to hunt for and defend your family
• Prepare your finances – save and invest in hard goods and precious metals

Start now. Time is running out. If you have these skills then you can question the world around you to recognize the signs. The red stallion is ready.