Gradually, Then Suddenly

“‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked.

‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually, then suddenly.’”

These lines from Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises, reveal a lot about the human experience when it comes to success and failure.

A puff here, a puff there, and all of a sudden we have lung cancer! A heavy meal here, a rich dessert there, and we suddenly find ourselves obese and prone to heart attack. Heated arguments with our spouse over that which is essentially nothing leads to one day coming back to an empty house greeted by a note that says “it's over.”

Decades before the Surfside Condominium Tower in Florida “suddenly” collapsed, killing 98 of its residences, foundation cracks had been gradually and silently developing alongside the rusting structural steel.  

We readily see it, especially in others, at the personal level. Will Smith’s three decades of gradual commercial success were lost in an instant. The Devil, indeed, seems to get us at our heights, when we crave yet more.   

Now comes Vladimir Putin strutting on the world stage trying to unravel President Woodrow Wilson’s 75-year “rules-based world order” by invading Ukraine. A cunning 5’ 7” tall KGB agent with a Napoleonic complex who acts like he is 5’ 8”, Putin, as Russia’s new dictator – err, President-for-life, knows that to survive, he must not only be seen as the most powerful but also be the strongest, richest, the most famous, and constantly on the march.

The upside of Ukraine’s downside is that the Western world finally seems to have been awakened from its slumber, with Europe acting united, Germany and Japan substantially increasing their military budget, and causing President Biden to finally morph from a diplomat into a leader, stiffening his backbone, and declaring “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

The outcome of the Ukraine war will determine China’s approach to Taiwan, and the new world order for the next 75 years. We must continue to arm Ukraine to defend itself, defeat Russia, and depose Putin. If Japan could do it in 1895 against long odds, causing the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ukraine can do it in 2022.

— Sina.

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