THE DEVIL IS REAL!!!

 
 I sat there, in the back of the English class where I usually try to sit, waiting for class to start and I noticed the teacher acting strangely. I looked around and no one else seemed to notice. Ms. Blume was one of the most laid back teachers who never even got mildy upset.  Ms Blume was just pacing back and forth in the front of the class. A real concentrated look on her usually jovial face. I had no idea what kind of mood this was. I again looked around and no one seemed to notice. Then I realize she had a very large book in her one hand and was moving it up and down in a weighing motion. As I thought to myself that the book must have some significance, she suddenly turns and slams that large book down on the table with a loud BOOM! and with a look of absolute sheer terror, eyes wide as they can go, she shouts “THE DEVIL IS REAL!”. Every head snapped to her. You could hear a pin drop. Everyone stood frozen waiting for what would happen next. Myself no less affected by this event though I had something of a warning. Ms Blume, who had been running her maniacal gaze across the room touching everyone like a good speaker can do, stood up straight and let her features return to normal and said,  “The extreme always makes an impression. So said Jeff Hardy. And he was right.” Yes, I thought, he was. I knew then that I would never forget this. That the imprint was already there.

  I have thought of that moment many times over the years and how it can be applied to the situation at hand. Her examples were of the literary kind, but as a concept it can be easily applied to anything. From military strategy to politics to music.  So lets apply this to combat. We want to create a reaction in them that will affect them psychologically so they will pause and/or react a certain way.  We need an edge. We need a way to make them play our tune and do what we want them to do. So do something extreme, make them not want that to happen again so they have that nervous tick.

 I was having a hard time deciding on an example I wanted to use for the article until I came across a video of Maestro Selberg discussing feints. And right there in the middle of the video was the concept of the extreme making an impression. Thank you Maestro. Please enjoy the video.

The Psychology of Feints