If You Were Wondering...

In the event that anyone's unclear on this, I am in fact planning to lose my mind.

It's a survival mechanism, here. You become absolutely fantastic about parroting back information. You study leadership, electronics, naval history, military history, how to work out better without hurting yourself, how to eat properly when you've got limited variety in your grub, and on the side, perhaps a bit of fun literature just to work the kinks out of your brain. Sort of like going for an easy run after spending nine hours at the gym.

In addition to this, I try to find time to grab a bit of Scripture, and possibly a well-known Christian author that simply everyone is reading. Basic maintenance, you understand.

My responsibility is to take what I've read, be able to repeat it, and be able to put it into action. Very frequently, very quickly, and invention does me no favors here. We are training OUT of original thought. Original thought is wrong, it's how we make mistakes, we're not doing it right.

Now, this is not to say that servicemembers are stupid. If we were, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't make it. This environment is demanding to say the least, and I'm still only in my first school. The simple fact is that we're adaptable. We have to be. If the way to survive in this environment is to stuff in scads of information and regurgitate it rapid-fire, we'll learn that.

But prior to my enlisting, I had a theory about human nature, and it is what allows me to do this. I hold that, left to its own devices, as long as one is still alive and everything is relatively intact, the mind and the body can heal. Always. From anything. The extent of damage may take a very long time to heal in some cases, perhaps more time than any person has left in life, but there will still be change. This is my problem with suicide, really - that if a person had just waited, at some point, life would get better. The mind would get better, once removed from the nasty situation.

So I collect beauty. I'm not sure why, exactly, but there's something about beauty that heals the mind. Tonight I spent an hour listening to my sister's friend play acoustic guitar on his youtube videos. Not that his voice is remarkably lovely, but acoustic is quietly so. And it tells me that somewhere out there, there's a young man who has TIME to play his guitar. I haven't had time to play my saxophone in months. Now and again I find an unattended piano and can run over some well-rehearsed melodies, but that's rare. But somewhere is a person who isn't running for food, or shelter, or dashing to compete against other people who are just as deserving as he is for one isolated position that might elevate him to a higher level of responsibility in hopes of catching the eye of the leader who might get him a few points towards his next rank. Someone's free, somewhere back home.

And that's what I think about. I don't want to ditch my responsibilities. I want to serve, to do what I said I would, and do it well. And when it comes to after this, I talk about my plans for college, and work, and what else I hope to accomplish. But when I think on my own time about getting out, I'm reminded of a scene from Spitfire Grill, because all of my fantasies are just having some time alone in the woods, on the hills, sitting in the grass or the dirt, and just breathing. Just eyes closed, hearing the woods around me. Coming back to that same place for days, where I'm not imposing on it, and the world can forget I'm there. And hopefully, with enough time, I can forget I'm there, forget about me and where I hurt, and what I need to be doing, and just listen.

And then in time, a long time later, I might be okay around my sister's friend, and she might ask him to play guitar (because I think I'm going to be a very quiet person for a very long time), and I'll sit, and listen to the notes spill from the frets, and something else will unlock from between my shoulders, and more will seep away.

And after a long time, I might trust someone to go hiking the North Shore with me, when I'm not hiding the tension, but I can let it seep out of me, to be caught up by the wind off the lake and flung up into the clouds.

And someday, someday, I will laugh for sheer exuberance, the way I used to, when I suddenly take off running. And I'll be free.

I'm not PTSD. I haven't seen combat, and it's greater than a 99% probability that I never will. I'm not dealing with anything more than any other person on this base, likely. And I still have yet to hit the job I'm actually training for. But my sister worries sometimes, that her sister is getting lost. And I wanted to let you know that in some ways, I kind of am, but I'm on a long leash back to myself. I knew a little about this before I came in. And I'm going to be okay again.

People Who Should Not Summarize Shakespeare = Me.

One of my managers has informed me that I'll rot my brain from reading too much. He may be right, because today I read Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," and came away unimpressed.

Mostly with Venus.

A: *riding boldly through the fields*
V: "Oh la! A pretty boy!"
A: *takes no notice of goddess*
V: *flies to A's lap, twining her arms around his neck* "Won't you be my pretty boy?"
A: Away from me, woman! I have better things to do!
V: *pout*

V: *flings A from saddle, pins him to the ground* "Won't you be my pretty boy?"
A: "No. You're being a tart."
V: "Kiss me!"
A: "No! I belong to the god of war!"
V: "Kiss me! Kiss me!"
A: "No!"

At this point, the riderless horse observes a pretty mare off in the woods, and chases after her.

A: *leaping quickly to his feet* "------, woman! You made me lose my horse!"
V: "You should follow your horse's example. Kiss me!"
A: "No."
V: "Kiss me!"
A: "No."
V: "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!"
A: "Okay."

V: "This was fun! I love you! Can we do this again tomorrow night?"
A: "Can't. Going boar-hunting with the boys."
V: "A boar! Boars are so dangerous. You should hunt rabbits."
A: "I like boars."
V: "But you're so beautiful! And I love you! The boar won't see how beautiful you are."

Adonis extricates himself, goes off to meet his friends. Venus, no joke, spends the entire night weeping (very loudly) and singing to echoes.

Later that same day, she hears the sounds of the hunt.

V: "The beautiful boy is dead! Curse you, Death! You should not take pretty people!"

She hears his voice, calling to his dogs.

V: "Oh! He's not dead! Hail, Death, King of Graves, who is discerning for which people deserve to live!"

She finds him fallen and slain.

V: "What is this? He can't be dead! All the world loves him for his beauty - the birds, the wolves, the tigers - even the boar did not fight him, no, it tried to kiss him, it did! It was not the boar's fault that it had such sharp tusks!"

She throws herself on his body, mixing her tears with his blood. Adonis' body vaporizes into a flower. Venus picks the flower and tucks it in her shirt, flying away.

V: "Since I, the goddess of love, have so suffered in love, all mankind shall suffer whenever they love, and he that loves most will suffer most!"


Okay, I like Shakespeare, to be honest. But Venus' lack of modesty pretty much turned me off to her from about the sixth line, and it didn't get any better. Beautiful descriptions, but I've apparently been spoiled by Jane Austen on the notion that the hero and leading lady are going to have worthwhile personality traits. I realize this makes me rather unenlightened.

In OTHER news, a skeptic friend and I are wrestling with the veracity of the Bible. This is not the first time that this has happened, but it just occurred to me - if I was REALLY living as a Christian, like, you could see it as soon as you looked at me, would I keep finding myself in this situation? There's a repeating trend of one of my dear friends deciding that we need to be together, but 90% if the time it's a guy who believes in God and family values, but doesn't believe in the Bible. Is this what I look like and therefore attract all the time, or is that just 90% of the male population?