Friendly Revelation

The day I lost my first friends, the crushing feeling that I felt forever reverberated through my soul and heart. The crushing grip of certainty like a fist around my heart squeezed until I though I could walk no more. For one year I lived in this agony waiting, breathing, one slow breath. Just the hint of their return, just a moment of compassion of understanding that I had shown them time and time again. I had given everything to my friends; I had the ability to lie down in front of traffic for them. I remember the day I told my roommate after a late night phone call with my friend that I would leave school that very day to go to her if she had asked, thankfulness now rests with me that she did not. There was no obstacle I have not surmounted, no measure I have not met, and none that I would not have met for them had the need been there. The only time in my life I have been selfless and it is past and gone. The time that I needed something small, I was abandoned, and the time when I could have used all the support available I was alone. It was at this moment, that I solidified my past adventures and training into the completion of mind and body devoid of weakness. I stepped upon the plane with no regrets and a smile that can only come to those at peace.

For I recognized that though my view of whom my friends were had changed and though I had lost those that I loved unconditionally I had replaced them with a more powerful friends, those that loved me and I loved them not in unconditionally or out of some selfless infatuation but out of mutually achieved respect and desire. Out of a shared difficulties and trials. Out of pure ecstasy of the relationship, out of a sense of value that was worth my efforts. In the constant scales of balance their worth was more than I could pay at any time. These are the friends that would do anything for me, and in the end I watched some lay down their lives for others and me. Though this is not the true test of a mans worth in life, it sure can be used as a metric. In some form of irony fate has placed me face to face with a friend of my past, a friend that no longer recognizes me for I have changed so much. Though subconsciously I place my youthfulness out for her to see, so that she might be at ease, the man that I am now would not please those old friends, they would not approve. They would not like the horror that I have become, or what I am capable of. The process of my minds constant evaluation and adjustment, a constant analysis of the changing environment in which options are weighed and measured in a non-human way. The fact that once you have done things they become easier every time. Well damn it I want my sleeping bag back.

Something i should have never written (sorry!)

At a bar tonight talking to the local Alexandria regulars, I was confronted with my past. A girl that I would have laid down in front of traffic for, a woman I would have given up anything for to make her life right, smiled and waved me over. I went knowing that there was no good to be gained from this exchange, and hoped that our conversation would stay in the past, no matter how much I wanted to hear her lash out for the singular event that destroyed my only true friends love for me. Though I broke down and gave in some, I at least never apologized. It was her birthday and her ex continued to buy us drinks even as he realized that he had long out lived his usefulness in the conversation. His final departure marked the beginning of her drunken tirade against my person. Though I too feel that I have plenty to be mad about with her, I feel nothing. No serious emotional response at all was really available, if I had been able to respond I think if it was four years ago I would have felt something like this….

I could never tell you that I was furious with you. That you abandoned me when I needed you most. That I was at the point in my life for the second time where I would either be alone and start all over, or that the friends that I had would come and take me away. Yes, it sounds fairytale and ideological but damn it I had sacrificed so much for those friends. I had given up so much for their benefit and I was in need. Not only was I in need then but within a year I would be deployed and the first time in my life I would need my friends, and I had none except those I took with me. I was alone as I thought I had always been. That I had put so much into relationships that in the end proved to be fruitless, a reinforcement of my own self doubts, brought to life by the actions of the very people that said they loved me. Fuck them, fuck them then and fuck them all the way to now. Somewhere between there and here, the mask that I wore became real and they no longer mattered to me. How dare they presume that they know what was in my mind, how dare they presume with out asking how I felt. Well at the time fuck them, they say they feel sorry for me; I don’t want their pity. They hope that I have changed, well knowing the choice I made at the time; I know that I haven’t and am proud of it. As I sat down to write how I felt, thinking that I had so much emotion pent up and could write for hours on the exchange, it turns out that as I have trained myself to be, it meant nothing. I have felt almost nothing in the process of the night. I don’t even hope or wish for her. Then with a smile I think maybe I have become what she must have thought I was then.

It is funny, I have never apologized for that week of my life that caused my two best friends to stop talking to me. One for somewhat justifiable reasons, the other for no reason at all. It is a shame that I group them together, but they are not. They are completely different. One, was incredibly angry at my misinterpretation of the situation and my unwillingness to sacrifice for her on some small scale. It is funny that the small stuff will kill you. I would have given up my life for her, yet the three hours it would have taken to get her where she wanted to go and back, I couldn’t do. Obligations are funny that way, that when the small stuff cant out weigh the other stuff you will sacrifice. Yet had it not been that small, had it been a crunch or something more significant, I would have done anything. The other being so much more complicated but I will say that I have never been disloyal. I have never betrayed. And if she did not do that, then well I am completely wrong but that is how it felt. A girl that I loved and loved and loved hit just the right button. Its funny as well that most buttons can be ignored or argued about, but he combination of buttons that she choose, knocked me out. And that was it, I had been left alone again surrounded by what should have been my best friends. So, tonight I had the opportunity to say how furious I was with one of them and I couldn’t. She had been drinking and was again telling me how I should live and be so that I could grow and all of the abstract things that would make me a better person, when she looked at me and said, you know you have never apologized. My response was calm and soft, no, I have never apologized. Her response was what are you looking for from me, and in the same voice I responded, nothing, nothing at all. With a smile I tried to tell her happy birthday but it was lost as she came to grips with what she must have seen in my eyes.

I Wish I was There

The world spins around me as I continue to move through my life. I have woke again in self sadness that comes from the emotional high of victory. Only to find that it was a dream, that the victories were not mine at all. As the day grows cold and dark I know that I am walking in my footsteps again. That I am no longer pushing the world around but are instead moving in place. I dream the horrid dreams of war, and wish with every part of being that I was still there. For the news from the front is not what it should be, it is not filled with laughter and jokes of my friends. No, now I find it filled with sadness. I trained a platoon of forty men to be efficient and strong, and they were. The army took them away from me and sent them into harms way. And before they even loaded onto a plane and I lost a man. To call him a man might be an exaggeration at 17. Now they are in the midst of the toughest fight of their life, they have lost five to enemy fire, and have had over ten of them wounded. This time my platoon will return scar’d and changed for life, as I sit here and read about it. My dreams are tough, I have slain dragons and sieged castles, I have fought and stormed across Flanders fields, and I have wrestled Iraqis to the ground, only to wake and find that the life I have now pales in comparison to the sacrifice of those whom no longer dream of such heroics but rather live them. You ask me where I want to be today, I have only one answer “I want to be next to Verdeja, Boyd, Pulford, Watson, Salazar, and all the others that I have fought beside before, that is where I want to be.” I only hope is that one day I will be able to lie next to them forever and know that from then on I will always be with them.

Rest In Peace my friends

Arrogance

Lost in thought and study, I have found it hard to take pen to paper and scratch out some thoughts. The mysteries of life spread out before me to guess at the right and wrong, endless debates on the world as it exists, or for my not so cleaver friends, or does not exist. These ideas that I have pushed to paper for my new degree have left me with a notion that is so arrogant that only an American could have come up with it. The idea is that it might be our obligation in the world when asked to help, to help with the idea that the American way is the most efficient, and prosperous. That we know best, was the hall mark of the Marshall Plan and the New Deal, both to be considered successful reconstruction efforts. That the American values are good for all is not a new idea. In fact tried and tested in the cold war, winning us the final victory in the end. Well that motto became ashes on our tongues as we realized how arrogant we must have been, how un sophisticated we were. “Democracy and free markets are not for everyone… we shouldn’t force it upon them, might does not make right….” Well, those in the world that have preached this for the last twenty years have won, I will get in trouble for even thinking that we can teach Americanism, or re-educate another society, or reprogram a region of the world. What does that mean, that I cant even bring it up as a topic, even though it is the only strategy that has proven successful. The irony is that when another group of people need help it is usually their own practices and issues that have sunk them to the point of desperation. And, then they ask for help in the form of gifts and money, and say that you Americans are the only ones that can help us please show us how. Yet when we try to show them how, they say it is not our way, just please make the check out to so and so and we will be fine. Our response should be, because you have done such a good job so far with your own resources, so I am going to give you mine so that you may make an even bigger mess. Well screw that, maybe what we need is some mean spirited idealist, the revolutionary like Washington and his band of friends that terrorized and propagandized the rest of the colonies into war.

Irony vs. Karma

Today I woke to find that my favorite comedian had killed himself, Irony. The man responsible for the continual reminder of the direct relevance of the most common events, placing them into a useable perspective, the quintessential guide to understanding our own misunderstanding and the importance of little things the bother us the most. This man found that his own life was too hard and too much, too something to live and shot himself. Irony, the man responsible for keeping me from such a dramatic end decided that suck starting a pistol was the ultimate joke. Karma, would have been if he had shot me.

This particular incident had a much greater impact that originally thought. It forced me to evaluate two very different definitions that affect all of our lives. Even if you don’t buy into Karma, then change the word to fate, or god’s justice, whatever ill will you receive for actions of your past will work for me. Irony: the girl you want to date and marry is the girl that you best friend or dad just slept with. Karma that girl is your daughter. Irony: an Irish man getting crushed by a monstrous luck of the Irish sign. Karma, the sign lands on you. Clearly such a dramatic difference that I have found; that Irony is when the negative action happens near you, providing you with some insight into a glaring contradiction in life, where as Karma, you are the contradiction in life, and the negative action happens directly too you. Well as most are, I am racking up both negative and positive karma daily, though most days lately it would seem negative will win out in the end, leaving me to imagine how will it come back to me. With a little more uncertainty I travel each day evaluating and preparing for when I will get mine. I try to smile at least at one more person a day, say one more nice thing, help one more old lady across the street because what is my Irony is clearly someone else’s Karma. And I don’t need my new boat to sink to the bottom of the Chesapeake anytime soon.

Dreams

The deep blue water rises up and out of the ocean reaching for the sky in white foam only to be smashed back to earth by one of the few constants in the world, gravity. This rolling thunder crashes through the barrier and into the shore in a deafening roar. The sandy beaches smooth and soft from the pounding, poke-a-doted with footprints, some two by two, others in some random dance of the playful. Broad-leafed trees pushed back from the water leaning towards the ocean and sky as if bowing in acknowledgement of their weakness in the face of such awesome power. It is no wonder that when your mind sprints from where it is at, in hopes of redemption, most people find it on some beach in a tropical paradise. Those that work and suffer at the hands of others, the feeling of no control, the constant response to the whims of others or the necessities of life, long for the imaginary freedom that must exist in some base tropic existence. The fallacy is plain to see if you are willing to look, but most aren't.

So I too have trapped myself into the belief that the carefree existence is freedom; from the past and future, from needs and wants, and from loneliness. The irony is that the dream comes in single servings. So in response to a childhood dream of adventure still yet to be tamed I have set out in the first phase of some great sailing voyage yet to be. I have pushed a Sabre 28 through the shallow surf of the Chesapeake bay, starting to learn the skills necessary for bigger and grander adventure. With hope and patience I set out on the bay with the fall of the night clouds, and all the light of a moon and stars, I will my future on the sky and the winds.

The currents pull me in every direction; with limited patience it is amazing I have had any success at all. The great adventures to be had, the stories to be written, the academics to be studied, and the painting to be created all lie gathering dust on the shelves as my life stretches onward in a not so healthy mix of procrastination and military service. It is amazing to think that all men before they are soldiers dream of the battlefield, the comradeship, and hardships that will give them the title of Soldier. Yet; the irony is complete that from day one of basic to the cold nights on the Falluja peninsula we lie awake at night dreaming of all the other things in life we would rather be doing. In those cold nights, wiping the dust from our eyes and equipment, in whispers we talk about buying sailboats and cruising across oceans, or climbing mountains with a few friends.

These stories are the real dreams so fragile that they can only be told in whispers while lying still. They are as different for each soldier as possible and are all accepted, these are the stories told after the loud posturing and machismo subsides. The older among us talk about family and make futures for their children that are explained in detail. A younger man will talk of his new bride at home in infinite detail that would make him a poet if he was able. Some, the true loners with no solid grasp of the world describe the mountain range that they will conquer, where as I chose the sea to be my great glory. Maybe that is what it is, the attempt to find some glory in the dream of our youth, as we realize that war will not bring the glory that we had anticipated forcing us to find something else. Or maybe that reality of the situation requires such an escape that we create battles that are less real and more serene. In the end I do not know, but what I fail to understand as of yet, is the overwhelming feeling of not having accomplished anything, though I have meet more and more of my goals, I still feel as if the time is slipping away and I have almost nothing to show for it. I am not alone in these feeling, more and more professional soldiers with experience feel this way as well, that heir trade is so far removed from normalcy that they have nothing to show for their time.

Others around us try and remind us that it is just not so, that our stories are their favorite to hear, that they are envious of us, yet it is a hard fact to believe. How many times have I wished to have had the travels and successes of my friends? How many times have they looked back at me as if I had insulted their existence by wanting to shed mine to assume theirs. Their faces only remind me that as much as I have felt inadequate I would not change the life I have lived, the places I have been, or the people that I have known.

Boat Buying

What do I say to a world that has meant me no harm, or has it? The question still remains, what do I say? My own being cast before your judgment, and laid bare before your standards of perfection. Who are you? Whom do I refer when I say you? For some days it has been my own judgment and self-evaluation that has hurt the worst and then I remember my values are based off of You. What am I to do, thank god that I fall with in the acceptable norms that define the reality of life within the United States. So far from the mean of the world we live in a self-destructive paradise that makes us soft. Well I have taken the first step, I have done what I have demanded of myself for years and have bought a boat. Maybe now I can prepare for what is the eventuality that I have shared with anyone that would listen. I will go out to sea; I will let the ocean breath fresh life into my tired body and hope into my soul. Then in the not to distant future I will give myself to the ocean and let her claim me as her prize.

St. Elmo's

The small coffee shop sits on the corner of two small streets in an out of the way neighborhood called Del Ray, in Alexandria, Virginia. This coffee bar holds your usual collection of college students, elderly, and the outdoors-eco-kids that seem to always be displaced from Colorado. The constant sound of keys dancing on a laptop, the conversation’s politically loaded and rising in intensity, fill the air with the ambiance that you drive ten minutes out of the way for. Occasionally looking up you watch this twenty something woman-slash-girl, clearly marked as an American in her soft skin and gentle face of a life lived in the relative comfort of the States. She is setting up a small stand and mike, her guitar rests in the corner. The room waits in some anticipation for what must be another aspiring artist low paying Sunday gig. Oh, how wrong we were to place such insignificance in her. Pages turn in my book with the slight wisps and another paragraph of notes flow from my pen before the music starts. I am not even sure when it started but glancing up I saw her, eyes closed hunched over an instrument that was nearly as big as she was, power flowing from the rhythmic movements of her arm, chased by the softness of a voice that seemed to call out to the crowd for recognition. I look back down and continue through another page or two, and notice that some of the sounds that I had traveled for have stopped. Keyboards are silent; the conversations one at a time have stopped. My eyes again return to the woman, the softness of her voice echoed with the fierceness of the guitar she sings a story. The room is a washed in the rhythm that she he is making with the force of her very being. The past disappears, as years of conditioning and memories created by trauma and repetition are lost as we find ourselves entrapped in the cleansing of our very souls. For that is what the absent of a past or future feels like, the instant erasing of all possibilities leaving you there in that moment free to feel and explore the very sounds that are now echoing through the audience. We cannot move, we cannot think, we are just in jubilee. Her eyes open and the spell is broken, the music slows and stops, reality sets back in, she is human. She pushes back up her long sleeve t-shirt and runs her hand threw her short dark hair, the gentle slapping of her flip-flop on the stool even stops, she smiles and thanks the crowd.

The room returns to normal and the keyboards start to tap, and the conversations start up again, slowly with some hesitation. Everyone in the room knows that they were mistaken in their judgment of this women, though none have yet to realize the full impact of what just happened, it would come hours later, for most, when they were quietly preparing for bed and searching for the peace of mind that helps with sleep, when they will recognize the pure tranquility they had found for those few precious moments in the coffee shop in Del Ray that evening. No one had the chance to properly thank her.

I should not post this

I have found that the demons that I once thought conquered are still there waiting for me to slip. The same dark nights that used to haunt my nights are finally returning to haunt my days. Where has the resolve, the strength, the steadfastness that was my very trademark gone. Where will the life choices take me.

Haha almost eight months to the day I wrote a passage about a girl. Well I think it is about time to write another. This one is so different from anything I have tried before, and I am not sure what to do. I am just not sure. And it hurts to know that she might be absolutely sure and it is me that is screwing with her. The peace of the mountain air descends from the slopes down to my very balcony, breathing deep. Where will it go. So the girl, well for the first time in my life I am calm while I am around the girl, but the price I pay is domesticity, I am now staying in and running out of things to do as she does not share with me the same desires for drugs, sex, and rock and roll, a horribly missed used quote but the only way to describe her complete lack of a desire for a night life at all. (I write this knowing how shallow it sounds, but it is just the outward display of some inherent difference, the difference being some level of content that i am incapable of sharing.) Leaving me with the sense of missing out, of an incompleteness, yet at the same time when I am around her I do not desire any of those things that in the past would have had me moving so fast. I desire to go back to war, I desire to have an impact on the world or at least to have greater control and power than what I have now. I must harness all the energies that I have to continue down those paths, and how do you ask another to join you on paths that are and must be completely yours alone.

What scares me the most is that I will miss an opportunity for happiness and completeness because of my very fears. Because of all the training and conditioning that I have set in place just to survive will not allow me to feel the nessesary emotions that it will take to keep her. I am not quite certain which way it will end up but in the end I will be forced to make the decition and act it out in a manner that will be weak and childish to the nth degree.

Eulogy for Polo

I thought it would be different now; I thought it wouldn’t hurt as much. Half way around the globe men and women are pursuing our nations national interests, and implementing policy with a rifle. They are tired, worn, and most would rather be here; yet with a consistency that should make you cry, they will never leave, or quite. They are tough in ways that most will never truly understand.

Many psychologists would agree that distance and time can fix most things, as well as lessen the impact of almost any event. Last night, this abstract idea that I had held as fact, came crashing down around me. On a rooftop that overlooked most of downtown DC, two blocks from the Verizon center. I was having beers and bullshiting with the low-end political aids that scurry around the real administrators in the Old Executive Office Building, though most would just say they work at the White House. The irony was absolutely complete when my phone rang during a heated conversation of how much it would cost to build more F-22 or fund a new infantry battalion. How is anyone supposed to be prepared when the real cost is measured and paid.

My roommate called and my phone started up the annoying Gnarls Barkley song. Answering, I immediately started to tell him what the plan was for the next couple hours. When I was done speaking there was an awkward pause, nothing more, followed by “Polo is dead,” two breaths, “he was killed by an IED.”

The world stopped moving, people stopped talking, all actions and senses ceased. No more words were exchanged on the phone, just silence. The phone was still open and on when I stood up and walked away from the party on the rooftop. No one looked at me, no one noticed. The shock wears off much quicker than you want. In fact, I found myself trying to hold onto the void that shock can create; knowing that this is so much better than what comes next. My pace picks up as I move faster and faster across the roof and down a hallway of wooden fences towards a door. I do not know why I am headed this way but I need to leave. The anger builds with the pace and I am not sure why pain and anger come together but I do know that both demand that every part of my body feel the same pain in proportion to the rest. So I strike out at the wall, punching and punching. I kick in a portion of the wooden fence and slam the beer bottle that was still in my hands to the ground. Now I can feel the pain in my hand, the throb of the forming bruise, the emotional fury subsides and I regain composure now that I can feel the physical pain. As if the physical can and should overshadow the emotional screams that rushed through me.

I returned to the party, only partially aware at the stairs of confusion as I reached for ice to sooth my hand. My friend asked “what happened to your hand?” and in the only way I know how to deal with the absurdity of the situation, “It picked a fight that it couldn’t win with a brick wall, stupid eh?” As I wrapped the ice around my hand I went and found another beer, and rejoined the group, forcing myself into some pattern of normalcy before I could break away and be alone, as I wanted.

Polo, there can be no lasting tribute for you. A man, a child, a friend, an atheist Chaplin of the highest order. How do I write of a man that knew more about life than I do. How do I say some words that he would have accepted as just and honest, how do I make reconciliation with a man who was my better. There are no words, nor diction that can tell you of this boy-man. Life is meant to be tasted and enjoyed the invigoration of the living, this will be Polo’s testament, he truly drank from the well of life, where I, and most are but merely spectators of this cosmic play. The verse he added was much too short. The streets of paradise are lined with his friends, whom all remember the smile and charity of Polo.

May you rest in peace, we are coming, please wait for us, we will be along shortly, my friend.

The Class Room

Yesterday I sat in class and watched my hand start to shake… it has been almost a year since the last time I displayed any visible signs...

Had Dr. Hanle known that I might have issues with the class, he probably would have warned me of the content. Yet as strange as it was, I listened to the start of the class discussion and I could see where we were going, yet it was still the same as a surprise on my system when the nature of killing was being discussed in a room of people that had never done it.

“Men like to kill, violence is gratifying and empowering, murderers intoxicated by their deeds…”

Slides go by on the wall, a PowerPoint gallery of children and terrorists. The depiction of change that would bring a pee-wee soccer kid into the ranks of suicide bombers. Others in the class raise their hands and through out comments that I do not hear. The discussion is not wrong, it is merely academic, and the Doctors points are sound psychology. All I can do is hide my hand under my desk so that others wont notice, or more accurately so that I don’t have to notice. I do not have issues with what I have done. I have put to rest any of my concerns and regrets about situations that have occurred in my life. And the class moves on.

“As men draw… near it becomes extremely difficult to deny their humanity. Looking into a man’s face, seeing his eyes and his fear, eliminate denial. At this range the interpersonal nature of the killing has shifted. Instead of shooting at a uniform and killing a generalized enemy, now the killer must shoot at a person and kill a specific individual. Most simply cannot or will not do it.”

The visions and the memories come back to me. Oh the irony of the last sentence on this slide. The look of disgust on a Marine officers face when she hears the statistics of soldiers willing to fire their weapons at an enemy. Then the failure to understand the very nature of the training that has managed to raise those statistics from WWII levels of less than half to today at near 90%. The Air Force logisticians scoffing comments when he asks why wont they kill an enemy that they know is trying to kill you. I have never wanted to raise my voice more in my life and ask, had they ever looked into the eyes of a dying man… if the answer is no then sit down.

“With very few exceptions, everyone associated with killing in combat reaps a bitter harvest of guilt.”

Now this slide brings many more questions than I would have thought possible. My hand is shaking in the perfect understanding of what this slide means, and others are questioning the validity of the very statement. Anger rises to the surface and the only noticeable sign of my displeasure is that my hand has stopped shaking completely. Anger to calm the nerves, followed by some notes hastily scribbled on the handouts. Notes about my reaction to the statements on each slide, within minutes blacked out with marker, for fear that some other might read them and judge me.

I guess it is the judgment of others that keeps us quiet. Or is it the judgment that we have already passed on ourselves. You know that the actions that you have done in your life are wrong. And that their acceptability is based on circumstances alone. Years of second-guessing and reworking an incident until you can put it to rest. The real fear is that someone else might have a different assessment than the one you have chosen to live with.

Without measurement (January 2005)

I thought that I was tough. I knew that I was strong. There was nothing that could stop me, yet now I sit here in full kit with loaded weapon writing these words knowing that at any moment tears will come to my eyes, if only for a second, but I know that they are there. Every day passes I wait for the point in the day that someone will let me know that another friend, comrade in arms, brother will have died. I will see the death in my mind a thousand times before it becomes my death, then and only then do I become weak. So, the strength of the individual is a perpetual test of courage and resiliency that has no measurement. I do not know how this reaction is reflected to my peers and brothers. They say that I have changed the least. Well I can tell them that I have changed more than they will ever know, yet that can only mean that they too are experiencing the pain that floats through the air waiting for you to breath it in, hell some choke on it. We have sent people home now for suicide attempts, is that the loosing side, are those the weak ones. Where do I fall on this scale that cannot be measured. I read a story today about my hero, not Patton nor Eisenhower, rather Jimmy Buffet and his adventures. There is a man in pure paradise I would like to learn that it is not true and that it is only a myth because I have missed the boat. I am twenty-four and I have yet to taste the true love of another held in my arms, yet I have, only to watch him die from loss of blood. It is true, there are great tests for all men but being great is not something that is limited to a few. I have found now that plenty are great, plenty are strong, plenty are heroes, but it is the moment and the circumstances that will give them their greatness. I am a rich man, a hero, a leader, and great warrior, yet at the same time you must say that I am dead. For every time that I take myself outside the wire I am killing another part of myself. I am living on borrowed time. Roll the dice and find out today weather it is you or your friend. Well if the wheel was fixed I think I would still take the chance, if you are treading on thin ice I know that I have danced.

Letter to the Legislature

To the Honorable Senators and Congressmen of the United States of America,

Our founding fathers struggle in the misbegotten event that has transform the world is now on the precipice that will either enter in the American slow decline and fall from preeminence; or the rise, not of the last super power, but, of the rightful leader of the free world. Any status quo will bind us to the first no different that standing on Hadrian’s Wall, we will have failed, the price of our power measured and filled.

Unfortunately for us, our forefathers in all of their wisdom never wished or dreamt of a world where the United States would be hailed as the “great savior,” nor as the “great Satan.” Let alone the title of the executive becoming “the leader of the free world.” Never would the possibility of competing with France or England as a hegemony, let alone dominating over Europe in the world community have crossed their minds.

Well for 50 years we have grasped these titles as they have been handed to us. The lessons of both Great Wars constantly echoing in our psyche, proving the fallacy of isolationism, have ensured our involvement in the world. So freely, and with such hope, we joined the world; in no small fashion we led it. We reshaped the world, rebuilt the European landscape and added one hundred more democracies to the stage. We altered the world with a healthy mix of altruistic interest based needs and a general benevolent good will. Our intentions grand, the desire to share our inalienable rights that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were universal.

As our great enemy crumbled into mediocrity, plagued by every diseases of a crippled empire, transforming into a democracy. We have seemed to have a relapse in thought. The peace dividend has become the sale of our very soul. And we have shirked away from our worldly responsibilities under some false pretense that American interests can be affected only at home and that the world has a different set of unalienable rights, this is a fare cry from the Cold War slogan of democracy for everyone.

Why would I give this simplified narrative of American influence and responsibility? Well because I see the door we are crossing through, I see the interconnected globalized world, I see offshoring and energy issues, I see Africa sucking in its last breath, and the Middle East floundering and incapable of stability and market, I see the quiet rise of china buying real-estate from the Caribbean to the central African states. I see the painful struggle of Russia to regain a foothold of influence, I see the need for a great American leader to once again push the world forward.

Leadership is not pandering or committee it is the forceful will over the begrudging complaints of the led. It is both inspiring and insightful, but at the same time acts without hesitation and carries people forward with a stick if need be.

Ask any high school football coach what he does when the player don’t want to play because it is tough or wet and cold. America needs to stand up and tell congress what they want from their leadership. Then elect the man or woman best capable of carrying it out, then shut up. I am not talking strategy or operations, and definitely not tactics… but grand strategy. Decide how much influence we want to have in the world, and then allow the experts to execute. The American people should have no say in staying or leaving Iraq, they should have all the say in the world over whether they would like a president that will lead the international community or let it go, as long as they know the cost of both. Either lead the world forward into globalization and the future, forever securing our interests abroad and at home or let slip the control of destiny and enjoy the slow acquiescence of our preeminence and let go of whatever control we may have of our interests abroad and focus on the home front, dooming us to decline. Either way we must allow our leaders to lead. The first choice will force the future leaders of America to fundamentally change the way our legislative, executive and judicial branches interact with each other. Or we will just maintain the status quo.

Allow our leaders to do their job… now show me a leader. Show me a man willing to take the steps necessary to achieve a future that is better than today. Now is the time and opportunity for the next George C. Marshall, now is the time for the next Franklin Roosevelt. Now is the time for great leaders to immerge and create the future that they envision

I beg of you, our nations elected officials who have at least gained the vote of the people, do what is right. Either engage the world in a unified voice of commitment or leave the world alone, because we are doing more harm than good with what the rest of the world sees as complete incompetence. As I breath air right now, I am not concerned about anything more than 100 hears because I know that even if we choose not to lead the world into the future my grand children will still live a life that is relatively superior to anywhere else on the earth, however if I cared about the future of the world and humanity and if life everywhere is to improve then it will require a leader from the only country left on the earth capable of carrying out the works that we currently perform every day.

Where have all the leaders gone, all that I see on TV is the petty politics that have constituted only the notion of winning. Maybe they do get it and their problem is that they can’t sell it to the American people. The politics of the day is to do two things, making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character.” Or in the case of today you tell them that their children are dying for a cause that is someone else’s fault. Their share of the blame is prefaced with the quote “if… I knew then what I know now.” As an Infantry officer I would have been fired a dozen times, not for the mistakes of my past but for the excuses of the present.

This is my concern, this is my fear, and this is my anger. This is the fallacy of a system that even when our leaders want to do what’s right they cannot. That even if they see a better answer, if it is not absolutely perfect it will not stand up to the fight for the status quo. Working with the notion that you must use the system to change it; so they grow good at getting what they want and never achieve the dominance required to fix anything. They are trapped in the pre war Europe balance of power struggle that ended in ultimate failure.

I want to look at a leader and be inspired. I want to hear the voice of reason, I want to hear the voice of someone who can sell me a future worth fighting for and then execute it. I want governance that does not pander to the mob but dictates to the mob from some position of educated wisdom and enlightenment. Show me a warrior statesman, show me a philosopher businessman, and give me someone with experience and capability and a mind. Some one that is not afraid to go against the grain and not get elected, and I would make him king.

Thank you for your time

In the service of the United States of America.

Cold Morning

Again I find myself alone, watching the falling snow from my window. With out even the capability to reach and touch it, hold hit, and feel it melt against my skin. I open the window, and stand bare before the cool sharp breeze that breaks through the stale air of the room. I am alone. John Dunn wrote clearly what he thought but his logic was fowled by the irresistible flaw of some divine connection. Oh, I believe, the connection ever so much as he does, yet mine is dramatically less personal. You can be separate from the whole, look at my shining example. Everything that I have touched has slipped past my grasp and has moved on. There are no consolation letters written for those who just cannot seem to grasp what is out in front of them. This feeble and flawed desire to see what is next, what is greener, and constant need to push harder and harder against life. I have pushed and pushed, and I see myself in others that have pushed their youth into old age. They survived a self-imposed harshness leaving either a bitter broken man hunched under the weight of his own failings, or the wise, experienced character that everyone looks too with interest and intrigue. Yet, I see it, beneath the surface, that the very man that all others marvel at goes home and is alone. He has earned his place by pushing hard against life to come out the other side with the most incredible stories. The most wondrous adventures. How many stories will I collect until I realize that the answers I have found are to the wrong questions. How many lives must I lead before I find the one that can fulfill me as a person. I see what I will become, and yet part of me respects who they are. Part of me desires to be that person. Is this an enjoyment of self punishment or just the enjoyment of the idea, and the rest is just self fulfillment. The clock rolls to four A.M. and I am up in front of a computer in contemplation. Do not be confused, I am not saying that life is easier for everyone else, in fact most days others would look to me and say that I moved more gracefully through the day than others. That I have experienced less friction. What they don’t recognize is the direction of the grain that they are moving with. That the friction that kills lays on another level. Oh, if I could just name the rub. So this morning I press my hands against the chill glass and give my heart to those who have lived.

Arlington

Oh how fate plays tricks on even the most reverent of us all. Without warning, a day that should have had the sharp crisp feel of winter to it suddenly warmed up, yet graying the sky in such a way as to leave you with the impression that neither day nor night was fast approaching. I have driven fifteen minutes to visit my friend. I have not seen him in some time and felt the need today. I stopped by the convenient mart and grabbed a small gift for him. In this overcast warming day snow tried to flee as fast as possible, laying bare rows and rows of white stones. It is a short walk from where I parked over a single rise and part way down a slope. The first time I came here, I memorized how many stones past a certain tree laid my friend. But now, it is almost on instinct that I look for a small Government Issue stone. Short and white I kneel before it. For the most part I am alone today and those others moving through the thin layer of snow and ice are being quiet. They do not seem to have the purpose that I have in my walk. Pulling from my bag a small flower that I hastily bought from the store and pull a bottle of Canadian Club that I brought from home. Laying the flower down I sipped my whiskey and as the sharp painful taste bit me the memories came flooding back. Images etched in time forever engraved on me. Trying as hard as I could to control my emotions with the waves of images; I close my eyes and clench my fist around the neck of the bottle. Another drink. This time the emotions surged through my body though no tears would come. None had come for years. Something much worse than tears, the reworking of the days events, looking for changes that could have been made, differences that should have happened. Each critical moment that could have changed the outcome of that days tragic events rolls through my mind. Painful and sharp the bitter taste in my mouth as I recognize all of the things that could have been done differently. What was I supposed to do, I was helpless. How was I supposed to change it, how was I supposed to make It different? Would it be better to have it been someone else or would it have been better if it was me? Another helping of whisky, and another; distant whisperings float down to where I am, others are starting to stair. They know why I am here and give me room. I push aside the memories, I am being too hard on myself or not hard enough. Either way it does not mater. The events took place so long ago that the world has moved on as I have. Except on those frost bitten days that I think back to the smiles and laughter that my friend and I shared for some lonely months in a desolate land.

Legion Lost

I am just another of the Legion Lost, my future sealed in the stones of the Fates, cast in their indifference to my pleasure. I smile at the thought of such haphazardness in which I feel my life has taken, knowing that the choices have all been mine. Knowing that if I did not tire of the things that are, and stopped the wanting of the strange and new. Then the world would be exactly as I design. Yet I do not fit in, and I cannot stay still. The ocean calls, the mountains beckon, and the skies scream their welcome. I must go, I must continue on. With a more and more frantic pace I reach forward as youth leaves me behind. Oh, how life has been a good joke on me. Oh; I am, one of the Legion Lost.

I am just another of the Legion Lost, my course is set and the fates have cast their stones. The glory of battle will be the last of my dreams as i dream no more. At war with more than my nations enemies i have killed in the name of countries and faiths. I have been the profits own sword from which he has wielded me forth in a fiery vengeance; not seen since the days of David. Well let it be known that the uncrowned king is still at large. His ego and dominance still in shrined in the ideals of Charlemagne and Caesar. Come hear my tales of camp, and i will fill your cup with blood and rage. The great tribes of the past chant out their eerie beats accompanied by their ghostly wails. Only the dead have seen the end of war and strife and only the living desire to see it.

Welcome to DC

A life of disordered thoughts in backlash from that of a disordered mind. Oh, how the Buddhist priests in New York are screaming, their lessons slowly erased from my mind as i struggle to move against the rising surf. Fear, frustration, anger, the natural progression from passive to aggressive in response. Each stage taking a clear measure of my capabilities and thoughts. The worlds own disorder has finally permeated through what i had unfortunately assumed was an impenetrable wall of self justification and purpose.

The DC area has taken its toll on my intellectual faculties. Knowing as a fact, of both education and experience, that the decisions made within the belt-way have direct impact on the rest of the world; unfortunately left me blind to the decision making process itself. Now living with in the confines of the center of world politics in both study and application; i find myself more afraid now than i did when pursuing military aims in foreign lands. 'Leader of the Free World' is my most favorite title placed on the Executive Branch's head. The implications of what this mean are so astounding that the world should have thought long and hard before this became vernacular, and before we unassumingly accepted. Titles and definitions, phrases and statements, legal and political, professional language is a necessity in the world at large to ensure the quality of goods. We should have known that a title explicitly implies compliance and acceptance of the role. So here is the rub, a nation based on laws, formed and executed by the dictates of the Constitution, has no strict or loose interpretation, implied or enumerated dictates of how to fulfill this new found roll. In fact the basic framework of a state for, of, and by the people was designed to never allow the fulfillment of this roll. Checks and balances and the idea that we just wanted to be left alone to trade with whom ever choose, laid the groundwork for an executive branch with almost no capabilities to lead the whole of the country let alone a host of nations.

This rant of governmental capabilities is my lesson learned as i now get a front row seat in watching the fall from grace of the American Statesmen, the politicization of the military, the end game justification in political maneuvering. At first i became afraid finding that this was the process that has sacrificed numerous lives on the alter of national interests, an alter that i stepped up to more than once and rested my hands upon. From fear, to frustration that there was no way that i could impact this process in a manner that would change anything more different than a butterfly landing on a tank. Frustration turning to anger in the realization that the best course is to maintain my position as an executer of policy, that our wrongs are the lesser of wrongs; even though i will loose my soul when i am no longer able to explain to others why i have laid another body upon our self built alter. Anger that the argument of the bureaucrats, will become mine, that the game must be played until you can make a difference. That to leave may do more harm than good, that my obligations have trapped me to this irreverent course. Anger of having to chew on pride, under the name 'good faith;' anger at the disappointment i feel to those whom the people of America have elected to lead them, not just to pander to them. Anger, that the voices that are heard are in no position to comment, and the voices that are hidden from the masses are the ones that should be discussed and listened to attentively.

So, i sit again at night in front of a computer, reading the emails from friends around the globe. They talk in clear, black and white statements of successes and failures according to measurements. Then they discuss in theory reasons and options, capabilities and intentions, reaching out to those who might posses an insight that will help them take another step forward. Theirs is a life that is content with the execution of policy, with out the entangling process of making the policy. For them and me, it is not the policy or justification, but how we get to the justification, the process. And here in this city of marble monuments dedicated to those whom have lead the unleadable through every hardship imaginable, i have found a body of politic incapable of leading.

Chasm

Sitting, waiting, unengaged, hoping for that moment that pure attentiveness will awaken with in me, setting free those lost souls that are stretched out behind me in a sea of misery that defines the mediocrity of life in choice. Defining what is the nature of life, and why does it always seem to echo across a chasm that has stretched too far out of my reach. The bridges are all gone and a man in size and shape only sits on the far side, contemplating the voices that shout resoundingly through his mind to stand, walk, run, blindly towards the undefined here and now. To only press towards today, and leave the past with the future. It is not so much that the answers are not there, carved into mountains of granite and clay to marvel at in completion. The true and real challenge being that the questions are not there waiting for you, placed down by some cosmic divinity; rather you are left to hear the echo’s of his laughter as you struggle to comprehend this true mistake of human nature.

The chasm widens the future catches back up to you bringing the past in tow. You cannot escape any of the moments that come crashing down on you. Silent screams fill your lungs as you buckle under the weight of choice. Free will forever rationalized behind obligation and place. Again your mind screams back against the flood. Stand! It yells, quoting Whitman, demanding from you the manuscript of your epitaph. Stand! Tall and blind. Stand, arms stretched out trying to bridge the very chasm that you have stared out across. Stand! And rage against the natural laws of earth.

What more can be asked of you, turn this small insignificant form of human quality into a man. Into a person, of perception and depth, of understanding. There are no more spaces unexplored as those precious few move away from the masses of ghosts waiting to suckle off of your own intentions. Walk with the confidence awarded to the few who have finally found today and allowed for the past and future to wait patiently for you to visit them. Finding all the answers right in front of you only because you choose to ask the right questions. There are no contradictions in life, you must always reevaluate your premise…

Sunset (July 2005)

What the hell is a BLOG, and who the hell am I writing it for. I have no one that actually reads this crap and in all honesty that is what this is going to be, crap. I am writing for my own amusement, on to a computer web page done out of complete boredom. Hey who knows, as my friend commented, it might get me laid. Hahah, anyways so, this is my first BLOG and I want to talk about the ocean because it is the farthest thing from life here in Iraq. I would give anything to see the ocean rise and fall with the crash of the tide. Feel the rhythmic power of the surf and feel the wind sweep across the waves, leaving behind the tell tail sparkles of a gust gone by. Feel the surge of the boat under you as the wind fills the sails with a sharp crack, lifting the hull from the water, and plaining across the bright blue liquid glass. The sharp taste of sea spray slapping you in the face, as you hike out on the rail trying to maintain control of the wind and the boat, steering toward some predetermined point in front of you. Feeling the sudden shift in the winds, making the corrections to the sails with the skill and efficiency of a professional, almost feeling the whims of the water and the wind driving your boat faster and faster along the line. Oh what I would give to be there now! Barefoot walking the beach, with a drink in hand, with friends, waiting for the steel drums to start playing for the nightly Sunset Festival, the party that is special every night. Oh to see the stars dance above the ocean again, putting your self to bed with the warmth of Rum. Waking in the arms of a beautiful girl, with the brightest smile that will wake you with warmth that no amount of coffee could compete with. So maybe it is a fantasy, well its my fantasy and when I get back from this desolate place that has taken friends from me with out reason, I will forget an entire year, in a bottle of rum on the beach starring out at the moon and stars.

Girls (November 2005)

To say I have no clue would be an absolute lie, after 20 some odd years I know exactly what I look for in a woman, the hard part is to put it to pen. Fun and excited, free and stable, a strong sense of independence, a brain to match the look, a self-made concept of virtue and honor, classy with a wild side, and the strength to smile against all odds. Not asking for much, eh. Well there is an easier list to make, the one of issues that has turned me away from a person. Whether it was because they were too clingy or needy, or to bitter and angry, or tried to turn me into a personal project of salvation, they taught me to recognize the small things that would be for sure a deal breaker. haha. Am I supposed to include physical features like our profile collects, well I am athletic I would like an athletic person; well there is the statement of the day.

Peace at last, drained (July 2005)

The big move is at hand; a full year spent in a god-forsaken stretch of land beside the Euphrates River is at an end. I can see every street and house, corner and shop, school and mosque in my mind from Fallluja to Ramadi. I can picture with the clarity of reality the men moving with their heads down against the rising sand and the women in groups moving down the streets in a hurried motion that in the untied states would show a purpose but here it is in subjugation. There is no life left on the streets where I have walked. Each family living day-to-day listening to the tanks and soldiers racing back and forth across their lands. Business as usual until the first roadside bomb, leaving wounded locals and hurt soldiers, followed by the main tank rounds impacting on structures to week from the wind and the sand to support themselves, collapsing on the street. Every face in the street knows what evil lies in wait at the bend of the road, every man knows where the attack will come from but they are dead. There is no life left so no will to fight, or to help. They are just existing in the loosest sense of the word. My friends and I have walked each street looking for the face of someone that still breaths the air of life. We have found such precious jewels in the beige sand blown backdrop. That is what they are jewels, precious children of war. They are the ones that you fight for everyday; they are the ones that in one smile will make you forget the bombs, RPG’s, and the assholes shooting at you. There have only been two types of dreams I have had about this place, the ones the revolve around the future of bright children who will grow up in the darkness of this world, with out education, without freedom. With only the will to live each day. This strip of land will have American boots leaving prints in the mud for years to come, but alas they will no longer be my concern, I am going back to the world of the living, where everyone is breathing deep the joys of this earth. For the United States is clearly blessed and I want to drink my fill.

Running

We find our selves running and running in no particular direction. The steady and rhythmic sound of shoes slapping the asphalt, remind us us of every blow. The world spins almost as if we were pushing it with our own feet against the road. Where are we going? A question I have asked repeatedly in my quarter century of life. Well for some of us we will just keep running. Most of us will walk through life along the paths in the woods or the concrete of sidewalks lining third avenue, while some of us will run the roads or down Frost’s trail that clearly diverged, none of us knowing where we are going, just racing to see who can get there faster. Well if it is the moments in life that we are supposed to enjoy then why run at all, why not just stop, quit, go on strike, anything but continue to push the earth along its next rotation. Well I don’t know if this is realistic or not, most likely the earth will continue to spin, and each of use will undoubtedly get up from whatever grassy field we stopped at to enjoy the sun of a cool autumn afternoon and continue on our way. Each step bringing us back to the pain of life. How many stops are we allotted, what is the ratio of good to bad moments that allow us to be happy, I have met those who are perpetually happy, for I am such a man, and the question is why, what happened to allow this to be, it is much easier to understand their opposites, those who are consistently depressed and angry. They are everywhere and tell all everything. They refuse to stop at all for fear that the stopping will be worse than their dreary march. Well I believe that each day we make our own fate, and that our decisions in life determine our own moments and that no mater how bad they can be they are your moments and you made them, so run along to the next field and find a new set of enjoyments and create your positive spirit that will allow you to walk unafraid along the road that you have chosen, who knows maybe we will bump into each other.

Soon, but not yet.... (September 2005)

So the song another one bites the dust comes to mind even though it is so not fair to anyone. I have lost another friend, another brother, another lost soul, another kid trying to earn himself a place in a world that doesn’t deal kindly with the undereducated. The soldiers of today are the smartest of the uneducated and they are also the ones that are dying the fastest. How was I supposed to know, how was I supposed to care and live. You cant, you lose focus and you lose perspective and you leave each day with each night and wake to find the new light just as bright and strong. Or you let the day own the night and the sun will eventually stop moving around and the moons and stars will abandon you to your self-desolation. Where will it end? Were does it begin? These I am sure are questions asked a hundred times in as many languages, many days wasted in the hot sun that beats its tireless hammer against all who dare cross this cursed country. The beauty is there in its own quiet way yet always slowed and hunted by the relentless power of the sun. So where are the answers to these questions, Virgil never found them and neither did Homer. They just tried to relay to us the immortality that others try to grasp when they are given these situations. There is no fitting tribute or memorial other than the words, ‘he is my friend.’ There is no greater glory or greatness reserved for his soul except for the shallow phrase, ‘we shall endure and continue.’ There is only the absolute truth that comes with the absolute end. My friend has found peace, and is finally at rest, for his great verse that he has added to the cosmic song is finally at an end.

I am coming, don’t wait for me, for I will be along shortly, my friend, my brother……

Shakespearian Tragedy (October 2005)

The hardest day of my life.

I was standing still next to a small set of bleachers with my hands behind my back, watching a crowd of people, in the cool clear Colorado morning, approach in anguish, stone slabs that are engraved with simple names.

Through the crowd, a grief stricken mother doing everything in her power to maintain her composure just until she can be alone again, pushed her small daughter forward. The little girl slightly confused about what is going on, having just a limited understanding of the of the elaborate ceremony and its importance, yet even in the small child’s eyes there is the glimmer of understanding that this is solemn occasion. She is basking in the glow of the attention given by all that see her, for they see the star in the greatest tragedy they know. Playing with the golden curls of hair that her mother had spent hours working on in the morning, she smiles and wonders why every one else is smiling with just their mouths and not their eyes. With her mother’s hand on her back and a yellow rose in her right hand she breaks free of the crowd and stares at a rock slab jutting out the grass, she knows this is not natural and that someone must have placed it there. Then seeing the names on the polished stone she attempts to read what is written, however the sounds do not make sense and the abbreviations that are laid out in front of the confusing sounds are unreadable at best. In a confused look back at her mother, who is remaining strong and impassive, she is told to lay the rose at the base of the stone. When she turns back to the slab and bends over to put the rose down as only a child can do, by bending the knees, squatting and looking up all at once, she notices one word that she can read. Her name. Right there with all the other confusing words close to the bottom is her name. Then terror comes across her face as the rising storm of grief washes over her, she knows that it is not her name but the name of her Dad that someone has etched into the slab of rock before her. Breaking the rose, she spins back to her mother screaming. Even to this child with no more than five years behind her she knows that she is looking at the lasting tribute to her dead father. And the understanding that he is never coming home sinks in for the second time in her young life. With barely shedding a tear and sucking in a deep breath she forces her daughter to complete the task and lay the rose at the base of the stone with everyone else’s.

Standing next to the mother is a smartly dressed Lieutenant. Barely 25 years old and only a child in the eyes of the woman that he is escorting. His tears shed months ago for the loss of his comrade, his Platoon Sergeant, his mentor and friend, and none are coming today because he must be strong for the wife and child of his fallen brother. His composure is solid as he stands there in his uniform. He helps get the mother daughter combination through the crowd, with some anticipation he too wants to see the slab and ensure that his friend’s life is marked on the rock for all to see and know. Being strong and compassionate is easy in uniform, the shiny buttons and tabs and badges give you a false sense of security and an added strength. It is not until he watched the little girls face light up with final understanding of what the meaning and reason of this whole elaborate game she had been playing all day was. At the moment the girl spun he could see the look in her eyes and it brought him to his knee and unleashed emotions that had been buried for over ten months.

I stood no more than ten feet away from this Shakespearean tragedy, watching the final tribute of a family that I did not know except from stories and smiles, and the tinny pictures that my friend loved to show to all of us that were so new to life and love. I watched as my friend had to endure the pain of escorting the family to the monument, as well as watch the crowd of people grief stricken and sad. All I felt was complete sorrow toped with a not so health proportion of anger. The contemplation of the sacrifice made by men for other men, is too much for anyone to truly appreciate until they have seen it in person. That man whose name is forever etched as a hero in the a marble slab on the west entrance to Fort Carson Colorado, would probably tell you he would do it all over again knowing the outcome.

“Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Cold

I am so lost.. Buried emotions clawing their way to the surface through self imposed barricades and walls while I watch the snow swirling around in the fridged cold that frosts up against my windows. Family, friends, all disappearing in a mass of whiteness that can blind the very heart from the emotions that it should bring. The season of good cheer and tidings, the celebrations of a man that died over two thousand years ago, all lost on me. I must be blind, for no man can walk this alone in a world with so many people. How many years of self-imposed conditioning did it take to imprison myself with these blinders? How can one drink from the river of life and never taste the joy of the living. I look around me at the local pub for some small reflection of my life and yet I find none, it is as if I am merely a spectator in the great cosmic play. Yet there is a serene beauty that comes with this detachment, the serenity of the snow as it falls slowly to my out stretched hand, glistening and pure. There is impartialness to my judgment of absolutes that can only come with this conditioned detachment. Where is the great awaking promised to me by my forefathers. Where is greatness and heroics of a person’s interaction with the world. Where does the sea end and the land begin. As I stumble through this life of mine I have recently been left with the eerie feeling of being separated in the woods at night from the man in front of me, and knowing that I should run blindly forward in hopes of catching him, yet instead I just stand their and let the night close in around me knowing that to run is dangerous.

New Years (December 2005)

Another chapter complete another verse finished and a new page freshly opened waiting for the crisp flow of ink onto its parched and ancient pages. What great adventures the pages wait for. In my own existence there is nothing but opportunities and possibilities, slowly narrowed by the choices and responsibilities of our yesterday. What blind serenity waits for me at the next bend, alas I know better, the serenity that I speak of is just like the New Year, always in the future, and just beyond my grasp. At least the sharp taste of wine that fills my glass is within my reach, the dinner that I have created tastes like success in my own gullet.

Why is it only the hollowness that seems to fill me? What paradox exists with the fact that emptiness is the life that I have embraced. With what would seem a success already, I seem to have found that I am missing everything. I am reaching an age that if greatness is what I desire, to be elevated from the successful mediocrity to something of substantial power, I must act now, the decision point is at hand. What is next on my list of things to do, where should I go from here? My future is left to the imagination and as always the life that I have barely clung onto for a quarter century is lacking the sweet taste of fulfillment.

As I find my own peace just beyond my grasp I have realized the hardened truth, a truth I have chewed on time and time again, that I will always feel this way, that it is a predisposition that will leave me alone and wrestles for the rest of my life. Continually chocking back the tears that as of late have surfaced so fast and so often. Left with only my thoughts and ramblings.

Frustration (January 2006)

The perfection of man is there in our hands yet we refuse to see it. We are blind to the basic necessities of life. There is no great flaw there is only great regret in not understanding that even if there was a great and powerful being, a god, then why would he give us a goal so far above possibility that we never even come close. No, that is not the case, he showed us with examples that you can be flawed and yet perfect our definition of perfect is skewed by years of fundamental misunderstandings contrived and pushed on us like some drug to keep us in subjection to those who would have you beg for your very existence. They themselves unable to embody their own principles, they relentless refuse to give up their moral high ground under the false pretenses that their understanding of the universe is infinitely more clear than yours. This my friends is the same line of thought that the heroin dealer peddles to his clients. The greatness of humanity is not found in god, yet the opposite is more to be true and that god is found in the greatness of humanity. The highest ideal is that of Man, for in our short and frail existence all the possibilities exist for one to raise themselves to the highest ideal, to perfection. Perfection needs a new definition, it should not be based on a two thousand year old model that tried to show us that it is not the high priest who have dedicated their whole lives and all of their existence to the perfection of gods laws as written in the Torah, for they are not good enough, yet they are the best that society had to offer. So clearly we are so far removed from perfection that hope only lies in the begging of forgiveness, this is the same fucked up view peddled on all of us in society that refuse to take our own actions into our own hands and claim ownership and responsibility for choices that are made. Yet we forget to see that where the same man that destroyed the temple alters went to a fisherman and said you are perfect the way you are, travel and spread my message. He said the weak will inherit the earth. These are the statements of a man trying hard to redefine perfection. That is because perfection can be found in the man and not the ideals, in his actions, not his words, and we should embrace once again the greatness of our ownership of the kingdom of heaven in Humanity.

Response to a letter (March 2006)

The rhyme of a rolling stone.......

There are some that are just meant to wonder, theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, and they dont know how to rest, ..... so they break the hearts of kith and kin, and they roam the world at will, forced to be alone in a choice that doesnt quite seem of their own choosing. The legions lost wait for your soul to collect the years of torment it took to wonder that far. And all that is left is the quiet mantra of "one day, someday i will be complete"

Oh, how i have heard this tale before, yet i will listen every time knowing that each cord pulled, and each sound echoed will be revibrated across my very being. So sit back i say, relax i say, know that you are tossing in a sea that has no friends and remember that at least you are willing to make the choices that others will never attempt, as they sit comfortable in port waiting for the right time and winds. Just lift your head and smile for their is no greater philosophy than to bluff, and grin.