There is, in my opinion, a common misperception that we fight to win.  Or that we should enter into a fight, whether a legal struggle or an interpersonal dispute, only if we have near certainty of winning the fight. We might define winning the fight, in the standard view, as achieving all of our objectives, gaining all our territory, so to speak, in the battle that ensues, and leaving our adversary with no gains.

​But, in fact, winning is not the true objective--or should not be the true objective--we have when engaging with the adversary. For we can never be certain of winning. That which we can hold onto, that which should be tangible when we engage, is the justice of the cause that motivates us to move forward. We fight because we believe we have just cause to do so and that through fighting we can bring about a positive outcome for ourselves or others. We fight because we believe our fighting will advance justice.

In my own life, I have entered into many fights where I may have been viewed as the losing party. But in each fight I achieved something.

My first fight involved something rather silly, a ban on sticker books at a small parochial school when I was in first grade. Do you remember sticker books? These were little books where you could collect and trade stickers with your friends. Well, the nun in charge of this parochial school took it upon herself to ban sticker books from the school. I was outraged.

My father suggested organizing a petition, so I did. During recess, I collected signatures and I brought the petition to the head nun in charge. Later, she entered the classroom and, "Mr. Sullivan, please stand up." I was terrified. This nun was known to have a paddle, a relic of her time presiding over the Baby Boom generation.

"Daniel," she said, "it was very ambitious of you to organize a petition about the sticker book ban. It took some initiative, and I admire that. However, I cannot allow sticker books on campus. You see, some of the children cannot afford sticker books, so they will feel left out. Don't you agree that we want all children to be equal at our school, that none should feel left out with there feelings hurt?"

"Yes, Sister," I said trembling. And the fact of the matter was that I agreed with her reasoning.

The sticker fight was not about winning or losing; it was about learning.

I did not win this fight, but engaging in it brought me the admiration of the school principal and forced her to articulate, for students, the reasoning behind the sticker book ban. Without the fight, the ban would have seemed arbitrary. So the fight was worth it; it achieved an objective, even if it was not a win. It moved us closer to justice.

And when we enter into a fight, I think we should remember this. We may not win, but chances are we help make things better, clearer, more just.

We fight because it is through the struggle itself that good things are born.

We are warriors in a dance, but the purpose of fighting is not to win or to lose; it is grand dance itself. So let us dance the dance, for this is our nature and our calling. 

There are many people who will tell you that what they desire for themselves, you, and others is peace. 

The expressed desire for peace is understandable, as the opposite of peace, war, offers unspeakable dangers and horrors. And yet how many of us are truly content in a state of peace? Another question we might reasonably ask ourselves: have we ever truly been in a state of peace?

Most of us are born onto the world's stage in a time of war or imminent war.  For example, when I was born, the Cold War was on. The Soviets were our adversaries, a threat to our freedoms, our way of life, a threat to humanity itself. After the Soviet Union fell, or perhaps after our first war with Iraq, there was a period of ten years or so which could be described as generally peaceful.

​This era of peace coincided with the Clinton administration. What happened to us during this time? We watched Seinfeld and to a large extent became ourselves a show about nothing. There was no more great adversary, no global ideological struggle. We became complacent and self-centered; many of us sought out pleasures to numb the boredom. As a nation, we went from being a pillar of freedom standing up against global tyranny to a nation focused on whether its President had received a blowjob from a White House Intern. We lost our sense of dignity.

Then the events of September 11, 2001 occurred, and everything changed. We had to stand for something again. We regained a sense of meaning and purpose. We were back in the struggle.

I think that we truly thrive only in struggle.

Struggle is central to human existence, to life itself. Struggle is at the core of existence. If we believe in the theories of Darwinian evolution, then the progression of life, the changing of species across time, is defined by the principle of the survival of the fittest. Thus, a kind of cosmic battle among life forms for survival produced the self-awareness and consciousness that make us unique among the species of the planet. This struggle for survival also made us the dominant life form of planet. As such, we are a species produced in struggle yet somehow deluded that we prefer peace to the fight. 

When we go to the movies, do we ever really want to see a movie about peace?

No. Peace is the end of the movie. Peace is when the credits roll. We go to see movies about struggle, because deep in our hearts we know that it is our truest nature to be always in struggle, always in the fight. And we know that the fight is central to existence, to the generation of new and better ways of living. We do not fight just for the sake of venting anger. We fight because struggle is itself the engine of change. It is the way our cultural systems, our technologies, and our minds change (evolve) for the better.

Struggle is the driving force of the universe and it our responsibility to be in the fight. 

In my opinion, the only way to achieve happiness and engagement in life, is to engage with life--and life, by nature, is struggle. To live is to fight. When we go to the movies, we go to see films like Star Wars. These films depict the epic struggle between light and dark forces which is central to the progression of the universe. We are by nature warriors, and, paradoxically, we are most at peace, internally, when we are engaged in a metaphorical lightsaber battle with our adversary. A world without adversaries is not a world in which we can be truly engaged, and, what's more, there is no such thing as such a utopian world. We always have been and always will be in struggle. We each have different roles to play, surely, in this cosmic struggle, but in our hearts, at our core, we are all Fighting Sullivans. 

Listen to the next episode of Fighting Sullivan: The Podcast. Hey! If you like the podcast, purchase a Fighting Sullivan Mug to support the projects, blog, and podcast of Fighting Sullivan.

The original Fighting Sullivan Blog began with a specific incident. I was walking down an alley to pick up a Zip Car and fell into a manhole. Not entirely into the manhole, to be honest. The manhole was leg sized, so my foot went down. But I must say the experience of having the ground beneath your feet (or, in this case, one foot) suddenly vanish is entirely disconcerting. I was MAD.

Who would leave an uncovered manhole in alley?

I was even madder because I was in the process of trying to do the right things in life-those socially acceptable things-and I had expected life to improve. The entirety of that story is for another day.  The bottom line is that when I walked down that alley I was trying to live up to certain social expectations and, quite literally, engage in a personal transformation that would make me less of a fighter and more of a cooperator. You see, for much of my life I had thrived in conflict. Now I thought it was time for peace, and I was becoming very peaceful, very serene really, as I walked down that alley to get the Zip Car. I needed the Zip Car to go and see my therapist, who was helping me on the path to serenity. He promised a life that could be joyful, happy, and free. It all sounded so nice.

I was pursuing serenity in life, but then I fell into a manhole.

I was not seriously injured, though I did pull a muscle. But more so the manhole taught me the  lesson: that, in the alleys and streets of the world, there will always be uncovered manholes. There will always be problems that need to be addressed. I took it upon myself to fight with the city (Washington, D.C.) to get that manhole covered. When I first called the non-emergency hotline, a representative of the city told me, "The city is not responsible for manholes in alleys. Those are private manholes." Private manholes? Who ever heard of such a thing? I had not. But I called each business abutting the manhole to tell them to cover it up. Each business declared it was the city's responsibility. I even tried Zip Car. At any rate, I began a fight, a struggle to cover up that manhole. It became an obsession, a singular purpose.

Tossing aside serenity, I fought the manhole and all it represented.

I even bought a cone and a hazard sign and put it next to the manhole. Every so often, someone would move the cone aside and I would go back into the alley and put it back. This went on for weeks. I should note that, at the time, I was unemployed, so I had the time and energy to devote myself to getting this manhole covered. Finally, one day, I returned to the alley to check on my cone and, indeed, someone, some entity, had repaired the manhole. It was no longer uncovered. It was no longer a hazard to others. To my mind, the fight to get that manhole covered was more worthwhile then any serenity I might have gained from, say, meditating on the nature of my navel, or doing deep breathing exercises. I fought the manhole and I won.

This was the beginning of Fighting Sullivan. 

This was a minor victory in my list of battles, but the battle with the manhole was the genesis of Fighting Sullivan. The manhole was a symbol of the adversary: the thing that will catch you if you lose yourself to pure serenity and but blinders on to keep the ills of the world invisible. Around every corner, down every street, in any path that lies ahead, whether to the left, or to the right, there is a manhole lurking. We must be ready for it and we must be ready to fight. Not just for ourselves, but for all who may be threatened by the metaphorical manhole. This is the Fighting Sullivan Spirit. We are not serene. We are vigilant. And with vigilance comes a truly powerful engagement in life.

We find that by cultivating an attitude of vigilance, by cultivating the fighting spirit, we are actually -- happier! For it is not our nature to sit quietly in strange yoga postures. By nature, we are warriors. 
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Fighting Sullivan now has a podcast, from A Bountiful Life's Smorgasbord. Listen for inspiration and guidance on how to fight the good fight. This episode includes the story of one of my first victorious fights, in middle school, against a particular injustice. The text of story appears below, should you prefer to read.  Warning! The language is explicit (but all true). 

“Now Alexander the Great,” said Mr. Duffy while inhaling a cigarette, “was a queer. But he was a good warrior. He united the infighting Macedonians, brought ‘em culture.”​

Mr. Duffy was our ancient history teacher. In his late fifties, bald, a retired Navy officer, he smoked while he instructed.

“Yo, Mr. Duffy,” said Mike Healy, a sort of round-faced kid with bushy black hair. “Are you like saying for real Alexander the Great liked sucking dick?”

Inspired by this remark, the class started making dick sucking noises.

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying you little shits,” said Mr. Duffy, thwacking Mike on the head with the blunt end of his Naval Academy Class ring.

But the dick sucking noises crescendoed anyway. Mine were particularly dramatic, and involved.

“Look,” said Mike, “Sullivan’s sucking dick like a pro!”

“Queer! Fag! Cock sucker!” the class started chanting. I kept going. I thought it was funny.

Mr. Duffy came and whispered in my ear, “Sullivan, you must BE a queer if you don’t fight back.”

I stopped my dick sucking routine. I looked out the classroom window into the courtyard, where a statue of the Virgin Mary stood, arms elevated in blessing. Beyond Mary was a valley of trees and fields, a wilderness campus. I began to sense there was something different, even wrong about me.

Mr. Duffy continued his lesson. “Now even if he was a queer,” continued Mr. Duffy to the class, “Alexander the Great knew how to fight like a man, so there’s that paradox. The key is in Alexander’s education, he experienced pain. Pain is essential for manhood.”

Mr. Duffy looked out across the courtyard, towards the Virgin and crossed himself.

“You must seek out pain,” he continued, “or you’ll be a wimp. Take for example John Softy.” John Softy, a skinny, pale, and quiet boy, was out sick that day. “John Softy hasn’t experienced a day of pain in his life. He’s coddled. He needs some PAIN to build his character, or else he’ll end up queer.”

When John Softy returned to school from his illness, Mike and some of the other boys started to beat him up regularly.

Mike had this trick he used for beatings called the Elbow of Fury. He’d come up from behind, crying, “The Elbow of Fury is At Hand!” then drive his elbow hard into your back. Thwack. It hurt. We all got it, but now there was a target.

This became the game at recess, which we took indoors in the classroom, unsupervised by teachers, even as the Virgin Mary seemed to watch us from the courtyard. The game was beating up John Softy.

One recess, Mike subjected John Softy to many of his famous elbow attacks. Again and again. The rest of us watched. John seemed to be taking it in stride. This was just the way things were. Then Mike charged at him another time, yelling, “THE ELBOW OF FURY IS AT HAND!” And John sprung to life, a fire in his eyes, grabbed Mike, pushing the elbow aside, put him in a headlock, and dragged him all across the classroom and smashed his head through the window looking out into the courtyard. Glass was everywhere.

John released Mike. They were both shocked. “Holy shit,” said Mike. There were only about twenty of us, thirteen year old boys in a classroom and things had gotten out of hand. Then in came Mr. Duffy. He looked at the broken window, and took a sip of his glass of red wine.

“You boys in the seventh grade are hereby banned from indoor recess. Now you boys get out of here while somebody cleans up.” And he left.

This was an outrage. I was furious. Outside in the courtyard, I felt inspired to make a speech. “This punishment is not fair. We didn’t DO anything except exactly what Mr. Duffy told us. He basically told the class to beat John up so that he would feel pain, and he should be proud that you bashed Mike’s head in the window.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said John.

“Fuck yeah,” said Mike, “that old fucking coot MADE me kick John around.”

The anger started building. “I’m sick and tired of us beating each other up when the real problem is the teachers.” I hatched a plan. At the class after lunch, we’d go on strike. It was math class.

Mr. Mac was the teacher, a tall, slim, dark haired man in his twenties. “Okay class, today we’re going to discuss fractions, mkay?” he said. “Open your books.”

Nobody opened. We sat quietly, hands folded.

“Mkay, now open your books, seventh grade, mkay?”

Nothing. This was the quietest we had ever been as a class. We were unified. Of single mind and purpose. We said NOTHING.

“Now class!” said Mr. Mac. “Now class! Open your books.” He looked helpless.

I stood up. “Mr. Mac,” I said. “We will only open our books if you get Mr. Duffy to come back in here and apologize to us for banning us from indoor recess. That is our demand and when that happens and only then we will open our books.”

And that was the beginning of the revolt of the seventh grade, and how I began to learn, in my own way, to fight back.

After this, I went home and I wrote a letter to the teachers. I explained how the they had encouraged us to abuse one another and this had caused us significant emotional and physical pain. The school had distributed a pamphlet recently on the danger of peer pressure, but I said the true danger was “teacher pressure.” I gave the letter to my faculty advisor, Mr. Uhen, and he posted it in the faculty lounge.

Shortly after, Mr. Duffy asked to see me. We sat on the couch in the hall between classrooms. “Sullivan,” he said. “I didn’t realize. I didn’t realize what I was doing. I am sorry. I’m sorry.”

This is when I first began to recognized that in my difference was a kind of strength. But it scared me a little. It scared me that I could win. But I could. I could fight with the best of them.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. After many years off, I have decided to bring back the Fighting Sullivan Blog. I initially started this blog in 2011 when entering into one of the greatest fights of my life. I was beginning a long and arduous journey to struggle against the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs for the poor healthcare and scant benefits these agencies provided to Veterans with environmental injuries. The fight was spurred on by the death of my brother, Tom, most likely from environmental injuries he sustained in his deployment to post-9/11 Iraq. But that story is for another day.

Fighting is an art form. That was the primary point of the original Fighting Sullivan Blog. Fighting is an art form to be celebrated, learned, implemented, used with precision and grace. It is a dance. Many shy away from the fight, seeking instead the establishment of a kind of peace that is the supposed preferred state of human affairs. But the truth of human affairs is much different. The truth is that we are always in struggle. There is always a fight. Peace is merely a punctuation mark, a break between fights. We are not truly happy, not truly engaged in life, unless we fully commit to the fight. It is the fight for our lives, the lives of others, for justice and equal treatment. It is the fight against discrimination, against the oppressive use of power.

Our nation, the United States of American, began with a fight. It was a fight for democracy and freedom against a tyrannical empire. We won this fight, and then, because we were born fighters, we fought and continue to fight amongst ourselves. Our entire system of government, our system of litigation to seek justice, is set up now so that we can fight without violence. But to take advantage of our freedoms, we indeed must fight. We must not seek peace at all costs; we must rebel against oppression at all costs and avail ourselves of the systems in our society that permit us to do so without bloodshed. The weapon we may hold in hand today is the pen, the typewriter, the word processor, the blog. Thomas Jefferson once said that the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with blood, and this may have been true in the days of the American Revolution. It may have been true in the days of the Civil War, when many of our citizens were held in the violent and unjust captivity of slavery. But today we can accomplish much merely with words, simple words, if we just have the courage to write and to say them. 

Life at its core is struggle. We must accept this. Life is struggle punctuated by moments of respite which we call peace. But it is not within our nature to stay in peace. To do so is mere cowardice. For there is always injustice. There is always oppression. There is always a system that must be changed. We are the dominant species of the planet. We have always fought and always will fight. To fight is our responsibility. If we choose not to fight, we are, in fact, choosing death. To live is to engage and to engage is to fight. We must simply find the fight most suited to us, our own particular quest or quests. Then we must take action. The world relies on us to do so.

I am currently working on a book that will be based on the original Fighting Sullivan Blog. It is called:Fighting SullivanThe Beginner’s Guide to Fighting the Good Fight. And the book begins with a simple principle. Rule number one. In order to fight the good fight, FIRST YOU'VE GOT TO GET MAD. Perhaps the video below, from the film Network, will help inspire you. 

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