Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
Mark Twain Explains —
Chuck Norris Fixes It
The saloon was the sort of place where the floor complained, the mirror lied, and the sarsaparilla was poured with all the solemnity of a church sacrament. Behind the bar stood bottles enough to ruin a town, though on this evening only the respectable ones were in use.
Mark Twain sat on a stool near the end of the counter, white suit wrinkled in a scholarly fashion, mustache cocked like it had already heard the joke before anyone told it. He was nursing a glass of sarsaparilla and studying the room the way a preacher studies sinners—professionally, and with no expectation of surprise.
Then the batwing doors swung open.
In walked Chuck Norris.
He did not so much enter as arrive. The piano missed a note. A card player in the corner reconsidered his whole philosophy. Even the dust in the air seemed to move aside out of courtesy.
Twain lifted his glass.
“Well now,” he said, “if it ain’t the only man I ever heard of who could intimidate a doorway into opening faster.”
Chuck gave him a nod.
“Evenin’.”
It was a small word, but it landed on the bar with enough force to count as a paragraph.
Twain smiled.
“Welcome, sir. Pull up a stool. We were just maintaining civilization by the narrowest of margins.”
Chuck sat.
For a moment he looked around the room, then at Mark.
“What am I doing here?”
Mark took a slow sip, as though considering whether the truth would improve by being delayed.
“The same thing you always do,” he said. “Keeping people honest and grounded. Mostly grounded.”
Chuck nodded once.
“Fair.”
Then Chuck looked at Twain again.
“What are you doing here?”
Mark adjusted himself on the stool and set down his glass with the gravity of a judge about to pardon a fool.
“I,” he said, “am giving perspective. The Lord made the world, and since then I have been explaining to it what went wrong.”
Chuck almost smiled, which on him was the equivalent of another man falling out of a wagon laughing.
Mark leaned in a little.
“Now then. Since you’re here, I’ll tell you the twelve rules for heaven.”
Chuck folded his hands.
“Heaven has rules?”
“My dear fellow,” said Twain, “heaven must have rules. Otherwise it would fill up with the sort of people who clap when the train is late.”
Chuck grunted.
“Go on.”
Mark raised one finger.
“First: stand up straight and face the world as it is, not as fools advertise it.
Second: tell the truth, especially when a lie would be more profitable.
Third: do the hard thing first, before cowardice has time to hold a caucus.
Fourth: keep your word. It is the cheapest thing to give and the hardest thing to repair.
Fifth: protect the weak, because the world has never lacked for bullies.
Sixth: master your temper, for an angry man is often a hired carriage driven by an idiot.
Seventh: train your body, so idleness does not turn you into furniture.
Eighth: train your mind, so ignorance does not appoint itself your guardian.
Ninth: stay humble. Pride is merely ignorance with good tailoring.
Tenth: finish what you begin. Half-done work is the signature of a half-made character.
Eleventh: endure pain without demanding an audience.
Twelfth: when life knocks you down, rise again with more sense and less noise.”
Chuck listened like a man inspecting a fence—quietly, seriously, and with an eye toward whether it would hold.
When Mark finished, Chuck took a sip of sarsaparilla.
“All right,” he said. “Here’s how I’d say it.”
Twain spread his hand grandly.
“The floor is yours, though I caution you, it has low standards.”
Chuck began.
“One: stand up. If you stay down, you voted for the ground.
Two: tell the truth. Lies are what weak people use when they’re out of ammo.
Three: do the hard job first. Fear gets stronger if you feed it breakfast.
Four: your word ought to be tougher than your fist.
Five: if somebody weak needs help, help them. Don’t hold a committee meeting.
Six: if your temper runs you, you’re already whipped.
Seven: train your body till pain gets bored visiting.
Eight: train your mind so you know the difference between danger and drama.
Nine: if you’re strong, stay humble. Thunder talks loud; lightning gets the work done.
Ten: if you start something, finish it. Halfway is where excuses go to breed.
Eleven: pain isn’t a speech. It’s a bill. Pay it.
Twelve: when life knocks you flat, get up calmer, smarter, and harder to knock down again.”
The room had gone still.
Twain stared into his glass, then at Chuck, then back into his glass, as if consulting a higher authority that had taken the shape of bubbles.
At last he said, “Sir, that is barbaric, overdirect, suspiciously efficient, and vastly superior for anyone with fewer than three college degrees.”
Chuck lifted his glass.
“Means the same thing.”
“Indeed,” said Twain. “Mine is what a man writes after studying human nature for forty years. Yours is what a man says after punching it in the mouth.”
A few men at the bar laughed nervously, the way people laugh when they are not entirely certain the joke has been cleared for public use.
Twain raised his glass.
“Well then. Between your grounding and my perspective, perhaps mankind may yet be dragged into decency.”
Chuck clinked his glass against Twain’s.
“Good enough.”
They drank their sarsaparilla.
After a moment Twain said, “You know, most of the trouble in life comes from men refusing to admit they are fools.”
Chuck looked straight ahead.
“The rest comes from fools thinking they’re philosophers.”
Twain barked a laugh so sharp it startled the barkeep.
“My friend,” he said, “if you keep talking like that, I shall be forced to improve my opinion of the century.”
Chuck took another sip.
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
Twain sighed contentedly.
“No danger of that. I have spent my whole life in the company of humanity. Nothing inflates a man less.”
And there they sat, Mark Twain giving perspective, Chuck Norris keeping people honest and grounded, and both of them drinking sarsaparilla as if it were the last respectable habit left in a collapsing republic.
EPILOGUE
When I was a kid, at least once a week I’d head to the movies with my friends, and for about two dollars we got an entire afternoon’s worth of entertainment: a Three Stooges short, a cartoon, one movie, then another movie—plus a hot dog, nachos, and a Coke. The first feature was usually something wholesome like Huckleberry Finn, Swiss Family Robinson, or some other Disney flick. The second was almost always a shorter Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris film, or some wonderfully awful Japanese monster movie. The theater was smart enough to time the whole thing so they could get us out before we tore the place apart. Anyway, remembering those days, this is my little tribute to Chuck Norris—because it’s hard to make it 86 years without somebody having something bad to say about you.
