I enlisted in the Army in August of 2012.
April of 2012: As a lit major, I was sitting in a post-modern lit class listening to my peers talk about how nothing has meaning, and I reacted against this presentation of effete intellectual life that might have been my future. I just got this stifling feeling of my life was slipping away as I sat there, almost helplessly. I wanted the opposite, and the military quickly emerged as an option.
I realized, in the course of time, that what I was after was masculinity. I was out to remedy the weakness I'd allowed myself to cultivate my entire life, which had culminated with a philosophical dead end in a classroom. Is that an embarrassing thing to admit? I don't care, I have no shame. God was about to redefine a lot of concepts for me, though. I've since realized that masculinity is not putting on cammies and gear and toting a gun to look badass. It's what's inside the uniform that gives the uniform its power; there are a lot of hollow people walking around in our armed forces. One doesn't have to join the military to become a man, nor does joining the military necessarily make you one; this path is merely the one on which I have been lead. While I don't have a complete handle on true masculinity, I've learned that it requires the paradox of humble confidence that comes from knowing one's place before God, yet also having a firm faith in what he's doing in me and through me. That humble confidence enables a man to lead people on his team, whether that be his church or his family, to be upright in the sight of the Lord.
What is he doing through me? I don't know the full extent of it yet, but what he's doing in me has enabled what he's done so far, and I believe that trend will continue. Not only has God used the process of joining the Army to teach me about being a man, but he's been using that preparation to teach or further hone the traits and skills I will need to fulfill that role: Leadership by example; Discipline that enables devotion; A spirit of self-sacrifice. The list goes on. I've seen so many changes already, both physical and mental, and that has caused my faith to grow. The process can only intensify once I'm actually in, and that gets me excited for what God has in store.
In short, this Army adventure is about following hard after Jesus, trusting that he'll make me the man I need to be.
If anybody has questions, ask, and I'll do my best to answer.
martedì, aprile 30, 2013
sabato, aprile 13, 2013
An Old Letter I Wrote, Never Sent
Dear _____,
I admire you as more than a friend,
(The difference between a friend and a lover is less of type, more of degree. By varying degrees we interject into one another's lives, claiming by these acts that yes, our existences are mutually benefited.)
but I won't try to make us more than friends.
(You're better off with our friendship as is, and to take it to the that next level is probably not feasible or desirable. I have some growing to do, and who knows - you might just become even more amazing, in time! I would just hinder you from becoming a better you, in too close of proximity. At least right now.)
I figured... I just wanted to let you know that I like you, wanted to say it with no strings attached.
(Wait a couple years, see what happens. Maybe we'll be ready and right for one another by then, maybe not. But just know that I want the best for you, always.)
By the time you get this, I will probably be gone again. But I still want to watch Ponyo.
I admire you as more than a friend,
(The difference between a friend and a lover is less of type, more of degree. By varying degrees we interject into one another's lives, claiming by these acts that yes, our existences are mutually benefited.)
but I won't try to make us more than friends.
(You're better off with our friendship as is, and to take it to the that next level is probably not feasible or desirable. I have some growing to do, and who knows - you might just become even more amazing, in time! I would just hinder you from becoming a better you, in too close of proximity. At least right now.)
I figured... I just wanted to let you know that I like you, wanted to say it with no strings attached.
(Wait a couple years, see what happens. Maybe we'll be ready and right for one another by then, maybe not. But just know that I want the best for you, always.)
By the time you get this, I will probably be gone again. But I still want to watch Ponyo.
sabato, aprile 06, 2013
Why Writing Didn't Happen
I lost my desire to speak when I realized that talk is cheap. People have spewed mindless drivel right, left, and at me. I myself made empty promises and resolutions.
Around the time of my previous post about wanting to write again, I started really getting into my physical preparation for joining the military, and in that activity, that action, I found the solution to my malaise that my words had never been able to dissolve. I became a better man: a man of action whose actions alter reality.
Interestingly, all of my ideological questions and dilemmas have been answered. I have become truer to myself and everybody around me since joining the army. Even my words mean more, now. Training physically made me mentally stronger, and since then, I've written things that I'm ready now to release to the world.
I'm really back this time, laconic as ever, but back. Hi.
Around the time of my previous post about wanting to write again, I started really getting into my physical preparation for joining the military, and in that activity, that action, I found the solution to my malaise that my words had never been able to dissolve. I became a better man: a man of action whose actions alter reality.
Interestingly, all of my ideological questions and dilemmas have been answered. I have become truer to myself and everybody around me since joining the army. Even my words mean more, now. Training physically made me mentally stronger, and since then, I've written things that I'm ready now to release to the world.
I'm really back this time, laconic as ever, but back. Hi.
domenica, dicembre 23, 2012
On Writing
The written word, after all the research papers I have produced, has become for me a ruined thing. I haven't created a thing in so long, that I have had to read my past works to verify myself that yes, I did once write, and perhaps yes, I may yet write again.
Join me in my quest to rediscover my touch, my love, and my self.
Join me in my quest to rediscover my touch, my love, and my self.
giovedì, aprile 05, 2012
Traversing Social Distance
I’ve travelled between East and West perpetually with a rigidity of gait born of insecurity. At times accepted and at others rejected in both worlds, the cultures of my Chinese forefathers and my Mid-Western existence, I’ve been conditioned to tread hesitantly, feet shod in uncertainty. Memory flickers like a candle that illumines incidences in the dark archives of my history. As I examine the pages, I am made to relive events from my childhood.
One memory stands out from the few I have of kindergarten. I recall that a play-time was among the first activities, probably to get us used to each other. I spoke to the other kids at least partially in Mandarin; there was a slight gap in communication for a bit, and the world seemed to convulse. I think all of us, only recently removed from the womb, grappled to express and receive meaning however we could, so we recovered admirably—my peers picked up on what I meant and I adopted full use of English. I didn’t realize it then, but this event would be the first of the contractions that would deliver me from one world into the other.
The next contraction would occur a year later, in the first grade. I drew a self-portrait and chose peach for my hue. I considered peach “the” color of skin, and thought nothing of it until a classmate asked me, “Why are you using peach?” I must have given him an expression that showed I did not understand why he’d asked that question, so he persisted, saying, “Your skin color isn’t peach.” I was flabbergasted by this revelation—my eyes had been opened to race as a construct based on physical characteristics. Disappointment followed shock when I failed to find in the 24-color Crayola crayon set a color that better matched my hue than the color one of my peers had disallowed for me, the color I no longer was, the color he still was.
I was born, then, and like a babe, I came kicking and screaming. Over the next few years, each day of school was like travelling to hell and back—especially the third grade, when I had Mrs. D., who was a veritable witch. I knew, unarticulated, that I was ‘other’ to her: she’d often mix up me and my south Indian friend, Kushal. She’d call me “Kushal” and him “Ezra.” How one could fail to distinguish between East and South Asians, I’ll never know. That she did let me know that we were consigned to the out-group, lumped into a faceless group of the pigmented, and I felt that, deep down. I can’t ever remember a time she was happy with us or anything we did. The other children picked up on this general disapproval, and we were made pariahs. My kicks were feeble steps, and my screams miserable whimpers that died in my throat as I lay in my disheveled bed on lonely nights.
I was convinced then that I could never arrive. Every member of a minority group born in this country is born dangerously close to stillbirth, near death. To the extent his or her birth into wider society is handled with care, he or she will accept or “buy into” the ethos of this nation. In that era of my life, alienation characterized my social existence, and I marinated for years in a sorrowful rage that turned into a twisted ambivalence between a hunger to prove my worth and a thirst to avenge my wounds.
The words of my father rang ever in my ear, that I must work twice as hard to compensate for my ethnicity, yet the fruit of my labor weighed never sufficiently—by society’s standards or his. I shuffled about in limbo, unable to see any way to advance or to retreat. A part of me died then, and what was left was a shell of the boy I had been.
One memory stands out from the few I have of kindergarten. I recall that a play-time was among the first activities, probably to get us used to each other. I spoke to the other kids at least partially in Mandarin; there was a slight gap in communication for a bit, and the world seemed to convulse. I think all of us, only recently removed from the womb, grappled to express and receive meaning however we could, so we recovered admirably—my peers picked up on what I meant and I adopted full use of English. I didn’t realize it then, but this event would be the first of the contractions that would deliver me from one world into the other.
The next contraction would occur a year later, in the first grade. I drew a self-portrait and chose peach for my hue. I considered peach “the” color of skin, and thought nothing of it until a classmate asked me, “Why are you using peach?” I must have given him an expression that showed I did not understand why he’d asked that question, so he persisted, saying, “Your skin color isn’t peach.” I was flabbergasted by this revelation—my eyes had been opened to race as a construct based on physical characteristics. Disappointment followed shock when I failed to find in the 24-color Crayola crayon set a color that better matched my hue than the color one of my peers had disallowed for me, the color I no longer was, the color he still was.
I was born, then, and like a babe, I came kicking and screaming. Over the next few years, each day of school was like travelling to hell and back—especially the third grade, when I had Mrs. D., who was a veritable witch. I knew, unarticulated, that I was ‘other’ to her: she’d often mix up me and my south Indian friend, Kushal. She’d call me “Kushal” and him “Ezra.” How one could fail to distinguish between East and South Asians, I’ll never know. That she did let me know that we were consigned to the out-group, lumped into a faceless group of the pigmented, and I felt that, deep down. I can’t ever remember a time she was happy with us or anything we did. The other children picked up on this general disapproval, and we were made pariahs. My kicks were feeble steps, and my screams miserable whimpers that died in my throat as I lay in my disheveled bed on lonely nights.
I was convinced then that I could never arrive. Every member of a minority group born in this country is born dangerously close to stillbirth, near death. To the extent his or her birth into wider society is handled with care, he or she will accept or “buy into” the ethos of this nation. In that era of my life, alienation characterized my social existence, and I marinated for years in a sorrowful rage that turned into a twisted ambivalence between a hunger to prove my worth and a thirst to avenge my wounds.
The words of my father rang ever in my ear, that I must work twice as hard to compensate for my ethnicity, yet the fruit of my labor weighed never sufficiently—by society’s standards or his. I shuffled about in limbo, unable to see any way to advance or to retreat. A part of me died then, and what was left was a shell of the boy I had been.
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