Equanimity?

Equanimity. What's that?

Yesterday I and some others were watching a racquetball match. I observed to a successful lawyer that one of the reasons Jim was so good at the game was how equanimously he took both good shots and bad ones. He doesn't admire his great shots and he doesn't grouse over his poor ones. The most he does is go "oh!" after a losing shot and then he goes right back into a ready stance awaiting the next serve.

Nick asked "what was that word?"  I repeated the adjective equanimous and pulled it up on my smart phone. Equanimity is the noun. Nick liked that. It fit the case we were watching, and Nick already was thinking beyond the one man to others to whom the term fit. A successful lawyer enlightened on language by a retired engineer.

So the preceding events got me to thinking. If a lawyer wasn't familiar with the word, what are the chances that many more living in this media driven and poorly educated world would not recognize equanimity and its value to their lives?

In the current GOP field of candidates, the only anti-establishment candidate for whom this fits is Ted Cruz. The last candidate in my lifetime to display equanimity better was Ronald Reagan.

Cruz has come under relentless attack by the SSM, radical Leftist hacks (Google Robert Reich on Ted Cruz) by the GOPe (see the latest outrage by the idiot senator Lindsey Graham), and by both allegedly anti-Establishment candidates Trump and Rubio.

The abuse have come in many forms.

• He has been called a liar by proven liars who desperately need to engage in the fallacious argumentation  known as Tu Quoque -- "you also" -- to take the spotlight off their own lies.
• Indirect lies have been used too. Disingenuousness. The "news" that Ben Carson was leaving after Iowa that had been tweeted by a Cruz staffer was started by SSM outlet CNN which "reporters" mingled in blatant speculation about what the news item meant -- and their baiting snagged the Cruz staff tweeter.  The charges leveled at Cruz after this were disingenuous at best because the entire timeline indicates it was all about baiting and trolling. And Cruz's opponents capitalized upon it. If Cruz' opponents really are anti-establishment they'd be unanimously pillorying CNN and Jake Tapper for their biased reportage. 
• Trump lumping Cruz in as part of the establishment simply because he's a member of Congress -- as if Cruz has not consistently been under attack for behaving as the TEA Party rebel we all wish far more other "TEA Party" candidates would have proven to be.

Look my friends. I really don't like Cruz all that much for reasons I've mentioned elsewhere. I wish he'd embody some more humility -- indeed much as Reagan did.

Here's how I look at a Cruz presidency. A Reagan Presidency today would stand a far better chance of disestablishing awful Leftist advances because this time both houses of congress and many state houses across the country are in right of center hands.

• Ted Cruz could deliver on many more Reagan promises than Reagan could.
• Donald Trump would not do this because he's all about doing deals with the Left from which he has historically been much more connected. 
• Cruz is the candidate closest to Reagan and nobody is calling him a dumb actor. Trump is the closest candidate to Michael Bloomberg -- the former Democrat who bought the NYC GOP nomination so that he could provide New Yorkers a non-radical choice to run their city.

One more thing about equanimity. You, my dear readers, need to practice it now more than ever. Because you will be speaking with others who are EMOTIONALLY caught up in the media circus. You be your friends' anchor.

Make your equanimity your friends most vital commodity.