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.