salience
October 28, 2002
Yeah, I'm getting tired. The euphoric rush from earlier is fading fast. I wanted to post something here I thought of earlier, before I am caught up in my life again.
After rappelling today, my first real mid-air experience, I had a good four minutes to myself to reflect. :) (Gotta love the military, right?) I was thinking about how we all take life at such a fast pace. I remember looking over the edge of the 60 ft wall, and suddenly I was reminded of what was important to me, what I could not live without. Everything is about me and how the world relates to me: when MSG Carter pushed me over the edge to 'get the full experience' my first reaction was to think of myself: what if I die right now? how would I feel right before I died? I wasn't thinking about how my death would affect anyone else, just the thoughts that would be running through my mind at the end of my life. What justifications would I come up with?
Our society has such a selfish outlook. Why is that?
When we were out in the field doing our land navigation course, I was in heaven. The cadre threw us out in the field, in the middle of nowhere with a map, a compass and a protractor. They told us where we had to meet them in four hours and then left us to find our way out. Camp Edwards is in Cape Cod (aka the Cape for Mass natives) and the whole time, I would every now and then check my compass, but for the most part, I just took in the scenery. The Cape was beautiful. The vegetation was vivid golds, reds, and oranges. It was freezing cold and pouring rain. But, I did not want to be anywhere else than in the middle of all of the hills and huge depressions of Mass, with people I had known for all of 36 hours, trusting them to help me help them complete our mission.
Everything was so simple, so clear cut. I got a taste of what my life can be like: how grounded I can be. ::sigh::
After being at Camp Edwards for two nights, I realized how exhausted I am normally. There is always something else I want to do, something else I can just fit in and still get my four hours of sleep. There are so many distractions from myself: tv, computer, stereo, phone... These are all things that are supposed to help us get things done. And they do, sometimes. But more often than not, they are a hindrance. It's like Pascal says, we will do anything to keep ourselves from looking inward.
My second night in the barracks was the most peaceful sleep I've had in a long time. I can't even remember when I've slept that well, not even in my own bed at home. It was a striking epiphany to think I could sleep better in a generic bed, in a generic sleeping bag, with a generic pillow, in a barracks void of any personality, than in a place where everything was familiar. A place where I had a say in all of the items around me, where I had made a place for myself.
There is something eerie about the peaceful security one assumes in a uniform crowd. Something sterile, something pure.
I wish I could translate that purity into my own life: my trivial day to day existence as a materialistic college student.
After rappelling today, my first real mid-air experience, I had a good four minutes to myself to reflect. :) (Gotta love the military, right?) I was thinking about how we all take life at such a fast pace. I remember looking over the edge of the 60 ft wall, and suddenly I was reminded of what was important to me, what I could not live without. Everything is about me and how the world relates to me: when MSG Carter pushed me over the edge to 'get the full experience' my first reaction was to think of myself: what if I die right now? how would I feel right before I died? I wasn't thinking about how my death would affect anyone else, just the thoughts that would be running through my mind at the end of my life. What justifications would I come up with?
Our society has such a selfish outlook. Why is that?
When we were out in the field doing our land navigation course, I was in heaven. The cadre threw us out in the field, in the middle of nowhere with a map, a compass and a protractor. They told us where we had to meet them in four hours and then left us to find our way out. Camp Edwards is in Cape Cod (aka the Cape for Mass natives) and the whole time, I would every now and then check my compass, but for the most part, I just took in the scenery. The Cape was beautiful. The vegetation was vivid golds, reds, and oranges. It was freezing cold and pouring rain. But, I did not want to be anywhere else than in the middle of all of the hills and huge depressions of Mass, with people I had known for all of 36 hours, trusting them to help me help them complete our mission.
Everything was so simple, so clear cut. I got a taste of what my life can be like: how grounded I can be. ::sigh::
After being at Camp Edwards for two nights, I realized how exhausted I am normally. There is always something else I want to do, something else I can just fit in and still get my four hours of sleep. There are so many distractions from myself: tv, computer, stereo, phone... These are all things that are supposed to help us get things done. And they do, sometimes. But more often than not, they are a hindrance. It's like Pascal says, we will do anything to keep ourselves from looking inward.
My second night in the barracks was the most peaceful sleep I've had in a long time. I can't even remember when I've slept that well, not even in my own bed at home. It was a striking epiphany to think I could sleep better in a generic bed, in a generic sleeping bag, with a generic pillow, in a barracks void of any personality, than in a place where everything was familiar. A place where I had a say in all of the items around me, where I had made a place for myself.
There is something eerie about the peaceful security one assumes in a uniform crowd. Something sterile, something pure.
I wish I could translate that purity into my own life: my trivial day to day existence as a materialistic college student.
lasaliente, 00:33
