You’ve probably heard of Dieter Dengler, the subject of two Werner Herzog films, the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly and the Christian Bale-starring drama, Rescue Dawn.
Investors Business Daily (of all places) has a brief bio that reveals how Dengler’s incredible feats (he escaped from a POW camp in Laos and survived 23 days in a hostile jungle while suffering a host of debilitating diseases) can be traced to skills and personality traits he developed early in childhood.
Talk about the things you learn at your mother’s knee …
I hadn’t thought of Dengler in many years. Thanks for that.
Personalities like his are indeed formed early. Recently, I seized an opportunity with my 7-year-old son to discuss the importance of thinking for oneself over simply memorizing and regurgitating the “right” answers…
“Son, the most important thing I can teach you is that you should never believe anything that anyone tells you, just because they say it’s true.”
“Even what you just told me, Dad?”
(Move over, Kurt Godel…)
LOL — C.S., so how did you answer your son, without Godel, Escher, or Bach on hand to help out?
Never having had children myself, I’ve never had to answer that question. But I’ve wondered often how best to teach a child to question authority when, by definition, a parent is “an authority.” Yeah, mindbending …
I was always an undersized youth and street waif, so getting home through the raft of neighboring thugs honed my skills. Later in my military days I excelled at escape and evasion, and when my fellow soldiers were getting rolled, robbed and beat up in the rough neighborhoods of the various countries I was stationed in, I came through unscathed. The sixth sense of the little guy survived, although my stature grew.
These well publicized guys have more financial backing than skills. I never made any money being street smart or knowing how to grapple a catfish. But I did survive to work another day.