Here Comes the Watchman: Book 1—Getting Started

By Hamid Rafizadeh

Dr. B is a business professor working in the middle of a war zone. Everyone around him seems concerned as explosions surround his location on a military base, but Dr. B remains calm. He is also a CIA expert who understands how brute force is used against humans and, more importantly, how it can be countered and neutralized.

While Dr. B secretly manages warring Iraqi tribes and rebel groups, a close friend and professor, Nora Darcy, partners with him to teach management fundamentals to a CEO of a large corporation. When by accident Dr. B is caught by the rebels, he must decide if killing his best student is the only way to manage force. But as soon as his path unexpectedly crosses with that of a little girl who sees him as father, the connection forces him to reexamine every truth he has known, taught, and practiced about the constructive and heartening ways of human life.

In this complex psychological thriller, a professor turned CIA expert and surprising young heroine must grapple with rebel forces as brute force, emotions, and love emerge and transform everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781480862340

Hamid Rafizadeh

Hamid Rafizadeh has conducted forty years of intense research into understanding the interplay of human life, the earth, and the cosmic neighborhood. He holds a PhD from MIT, a master of humanities degree, and an MBA. Hamid has worked within a wide array of fields and is also the author of The Choice Maker, The Sucker Punch of Sharing, The First Rung, and Here Comes the Watchman.

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Copyright © 2018 Hamid Rafizadeh.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6235-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6234-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905004

Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/17/2018

Contents

Chapter 1     Slapping, the Face

Chapter 2     Screw Learning

Chapter 3     It’s Just a Liver

Chapter 4     The Distant Specter

Chapter 5     Words, Can You Use?

Chapter 6     Visiting the Half-Baked

Chapter 7     The Plight of the Innocent

1

Slapping, the Face

H ave you ever thought about not knowing?

Not knowing, so easy. Wonderful.

Here I was, a business professor, in the middle of a war zone. What was I doing in the basement of a building in the middle of a military base listening to explosions? Around me everyone seemed concerned, but I remained calm. I had to remain calm. I was the CIA expert on brute force situations. I was the one that understood and explained how brute force gets concentrated and used against humans, but perhaps of greater significance, how it can be countered and neutralized.

A loud explosion was really close to the building. It reminded me that I often do not succeed in what I do.

I have this habit of returning to the classroom when under the threat of brute force, unable to do anything about it. Imagine running a class in one’s mind; boring as hell, but for me, the only way to counter the life-threatening brute force outside.

When it comes to brute force, humans are deficient. They lack understanding. How ironic. They stand on the planet earth, yet never realize they do so because of the brute force the earth’s gravity exerts on their bodies. They look at themselves in the mirror yet never note the body parts held together and made functional through nuclear, electromagnetic, and chemical brute force.

Humans possess only partial familiarity. Everyone is aware of the direct use of brute force on self and others, whether slapping the face or a clinched fist hitting the nose. But from day one they have never been satisfied with the brute force of bare hands. They have always sought ways of amplifying it, especially when used against others.

In its most elemental form, brute force is amplified by picking a rock off the ground and hitting the other with it or throwing it at the human. Such a simple concept: hit the human with something hard. The amplified force will harm more than the bare hands.

It is the millennia-old lesson that humans have learned well.

The hardness has improved, replacing the rock with metal. The gun really amplifies what the human throws at another.

The human existence … mesmerized with hitting … hitting hard.

Brute force amplification has become a constant presence as humans perpetually seek better ways of amplifying the brute force that gets directed at other humans. Everyone wants the best amplified force.

I abandoned my thoughts and walked out of my mind’s classroom.

I felt the human touch on my shoulder, turning to find a smiling face. I heard him say, This should be their last hurrah. We’ve taken out most of their launchers. Only one remains. We’ll get that in no time. He straightened his body and in assurance gently patted me on the shoulder.

Here was the parade of daily contradictions—so often unnoticeable.

One concerned about the well-being of people on the base. Concerned about getting them out of harm’s way, the way of brute force. At the same time, the same one was concerned in exactly the opposite direction, concerned with killing as many as he could. They were not his people. They were outsiders. He had to harm them with the highest brute force intensity possible.

Domains delineated. Inside and outside the base.

Both sides had every intention of not being harmed by brute force while their brute force centered on harming the other.

The parade of daily contrasts. No one noticed. The everyday dilemma plaguing humankind since the dawn of existence, accenting the continuous struggle of the two-sided human coin of life—to kill and to evade being killed.

Suddenly, another loud explosion. The corner of the basement collapsed. Dust and debris fell everywhere. I crawled under a desk and ignored the cries of the injured. I returned to the refuge of my own thoughts to keep the fear away.

I bet you have not noticed another treacherous side of brute force: the individual and group aspects of applying brute force. In all your real and imagined experiences of brute force you have missed the significance of the individual and the group in relation to the brute force. The base bombing was not the amplified brute force of an individual applied on other humans. It was one group facing another. The individual was simply a minor, replaceable component. Over millennia humans continuously organized into bigger and bigger groups. This concentrated the amplified brute force beyond anything the lone individual could have ever dreamed of and done. The group concentrated the brute force far beyond the possibilities of the lone individual.

The base was a concentrated brute force. It organized many humans and many weapons into a life-complex. It excelled in using amplified, concentrated brute force against others. The humans, combined with guns, tanks, and rockets, created the life-complex that concentrated the amplified force. The army that used many bases was even more concentrated—a center of force designed to face other centers of force.

Each base was a small center of force. Each tribe was a small center of force. Each terrorist group was a small center of force. They all faced each other in a dance of destruction. They collectively reflected the human way of managing brute force.

Therein laid my expertise.

I was good at understanding the centers of force. What made each tick? I assessed their ways of interaction. I found ways to make their brute force beneficial to US interests. Of course, speaking Farsi, Kurdish, Waziristani and three different Arabic dialects was a plus the CIA could not ignore. They saw me invaluable regardless of how often I failed in my assignments knowing they would fail even worse without me.

Those around me, hiding in the basement … the tribe leadership. I had brought them to the base. I had negotiated an understanding to align their centers of force with ours. They were there, negotiating, even though they had already pledged their allegiance to another center of force, a major terrorist group. The terrorist group had learned of my intentions to switch tribal alliances and was sending a signal. It would apply brute force against anyone daring to switch allegiances.

Managing multiple centers of force was hard work. Organizing their brute force required agreements. I hated calling the arrangement an agreement. I preferred force extension. The force extension is a device to define and set the direction of brute force application on humans. That is what I was trying to do. Construct a force extension that directed the tribes’ brute force at others, not at US interests.

Would I eventually succeed at developing and establishing the desired force extensions? I did not know. But I hoped. I definitely pretended that it would be so. My appearance, my words, my body language, all implied that the tribes would be aligned with the United States. They would support the US interests. They would direct their brute force at the terrorist center of force.

Does any of this seem out of the ordinary? Do you find it rare and applicable only to places like the confused and chaotic battlefields of the Middle East?

Not the case.

What you see is done by humans, all the time.

Humans constantly seek to convert brute force into force extensions. They endeavor to deal with one another through force extensions. They want mutual force extensions so no two humans would need or feel compelled to apply brute force on each other.

You wonder if I am right.

You ask, If everyone is so accustomed to using it that often, why can’t they see it being done in their own daily lives?

Fascinating question.

When you go to work, why do you think an unemployed person does not show up to kick you out of your job and take your place? When you go home, why is it that you do not find another family having moved in and put all your belongings in the yard? When you go to the parking lot to get your car, you do not find another person waiting to get your keys, telling you, he needs the car more than you do. In all those situations, your brute force would have had to go against that of the others. Why doesn’t that happen? In your corner of the world, why does life seem to be devoid of brute force?

Brute force confrontations do not happen because society’s members have aligned their individual brute force to create the societal concentrated force. All members of a society share their brute force to create this societal concentrated force that backs the force extensions. They do not need to deal with one another through brute force. Instead they rely on agreements—force extensions. You know them more commonly as rules, laws, and regulations. But it is better if you know them as force extensions. The societal concentrated force is the protector of all. No one has to use brute force. Everyone uses force extensions.

Why the switch? Why not stay with words we already know? We already know about rules, laws, and regulations. Why switch to force extensions and concentrated force? Because so long as you stay with neutered words like rules, laws, and regulations, you miss a key fact of life. You miss force. You miss force management. You become ignorant of a key aspect of life. Sooner or later, that deficiency will ruin your life as you have ceased to remain a force manager in a world built and operated on force.

Every force extension originates at the societal center of force. Humans create it through sharing their brute force. The societal center of force applies brute force to those that violate the force extensions. So long as no one violates the force extensions, no one goes against the agreements that manifest as society’s rules, laws, and regulations, no one gets exposed to the brute force of others. That’s wonderful.

It makes brute force recede into the background of human life.

This method of force management is ingenious. The collective of force extensions turns into a receded force network in which humans live as if there is no brute force in life.

Obviously, that was not what I did.

I did not work on developing two-sided force extensions to prevent everyone’s exposure to brute force. My job was one-sided force extensions. I only wanted no brute force on my people, none on the US interests. On all others, the brute force had a free rein. It could destroy as much as it wished.

The wonderful thing about two-sided force extensions is that no one gets exposed to the brute force of others.

Applying brute force on anyone causes harm.

Hit someone in the face, bash in someone’s head with a rock, or point and shoot a gun at someone—using brute force against others, you will be harming them. The force extension, the receded force, commonly known as rules, laws, and regulations, prevents such harm. This is the best human invention for managing brute force.

Two-sided force extensions are used heavily in the US.

Not in Iraq.

I had to stop. I had to move out of the classroom and back into the basement. The cries of the injured had turned into moans. Were they dead or had they received help? I did not know. Nor did I want to know.

Again, that face. The one that promised the end of the enemy’s rocket launchers.

Two hurt, he said mournfully, the worst one, just a broken leg. We’ll take care of it.

I only nodded.

The clearest sign of one-sided force extensions? Someone with a broken leg because of a rocket. Someone like me, hiding in the basement as rockets fall and explode. I managed brute force. I managed one-sided force extensions. This time I was at the receiving end. But often, I was doing things that killed humans. I argued it was justified. I told myself, the Iraqis were incapable of managing the two-sided force extensions. All they could do was one-sided force extensions. For them, the brute force exposure seemed almost eternally natural.

Here is the truth, for all humans.

In life, not being exposed to the brute force of others comes off as a great advantage. The force extensions do it. But there is another big advantage with the force extensions. When protected from the harm of the brute force exposure, humans become most productive in the creation and distribution of goods and services for themselves and others. In other words, markets thrive in an environment of extended force. They shrivel and die in an environment governed by brute force.

You could see the evidence all around me. In Iraq no one was investing in production and distribution of goods and services. Why? Because anyone putting resources into the creation of goods and services would tomorrow lose it to the gunmen that show up and take over the whole thing, or bomb it into pieces. The Iraqi markets exist at the minimum size—the level at which the individuals meet their own survival.

As business professor, I know the CEOs totally miss this aspect of the business world. They are naïve and uneducated about brute force. They do not see the brute force as market destroyer.

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Of course, one can argue. A small segment of the business world produces guns and tanks. It prospers in brute force confrontations. But the majority of markets, the ones producing goods and services for daily human needs, suffer in brute force confrontations.

Assume the CEOs know of the relationship between the brute force and the market. Would they be the first opposing brute force application on humans? As the CIA expert, my answer, a big No. As business professor, I would pause, give a moment to search for possibilities, then give up and side with the CIA expert.

The CEOs were ignorant of how the markets relate to brute force. They were most aware of the inherent deficiencies in design and use of the force extensions because they had to deal with the rules, laws, and regulations on a daily basis. They felt the design deficiencies.

All force extensions are human-made things.

All force extensions