First essay written on deployment:
I sit here contemplating what to do with my future as I know that soon I will be out of the Navy. I struggle with not getting a short timers attitude, it is not good to begin with, but on deployment it is just plain dangerous. Short timers stop caring, stop paying attention to the detail, but while a ship is floating in the sea that lack of attention to detail could cost a life, including my own. I am not in a hurry to die. In fact, I am in something quite the opposite of a hurry to die; I am more lethargic to die. My state of lethargy in regards to my dying is one of the motivators for what I am now planning on embarking and am in fact, training for. My activeness in life stems from my lazy state towards death. The more I am active, the more I get out of my life, while taking the time to appreciate the finer things of life, the more I am, well, living!
And that is “why” the mountain, which is the first step to my goal. The mountain is a goal in itself that is true, but that goal out of necessity is the point from which I will launch an even more ambitious goal. But first, the mountain. My refuge from a world I am not quite sure I am ready to reenter, symbolic of all the things mountains have been symbolic for over the ages-change, dominant struggle against self and nature, life, death-all these things I seek in the mountain I am going to. I am not speaking figuratively either; I am going to a real mountain. Nestled in the lush green woods of Oregon, there is a small portion of land owned by a friend of the family who has agreed to let me stay at the A frame about a mile up its slope. There I will read, run, and grow. The challenge will be to spend the time alone, to allow as few distractions as possible to enter my life while there. I will run in that mountain, eat on it, bath on it, sleep on it, live off it. I do not seek out death, but more a change in myself, a dying to the bitter and cynical self that has grown inside me these past few years. I seek to a degree to kill off the ignorance that is inside me.
It is my intention here to grow the intellectual during this portion of my life. Too long I have filled it with trash. Not reading the classics because they were classics, they didn’t have the intense plot twists, of the crisp, sexy writing that the books today have, but also, to read the works of other religions, other beliefs. There is a lie in belief that states that only “MY” belief has something to offer, and so Christians will not read the Tao Te Ching because it is not Christian, nor will they read the Koran or depending on what denomination, the Catholic Apocrypha or the Book of Mormon. Simply because it is not Christian. And I know others of these faiths that feel the same. Why read the beliefs of others if you are certain of what you believe in? That seems to be the prevailing thought, one that reeks of willful ignorance. An ignorance I had once, and quite possibly still accept in myself. And so I will read.
What must be understood is all that I am doing is intended to build me up to be a better man, a better self. Through physical exertion of running sweating, and living off the kindness and cruelness of the land I will build a better physical self, from reading and studying and contemplating the questions of life I have long put off, I will build a better mental self, and by learning and knowing and speaking with God, by trusting Him to the physical and mental needs I will have, I will build a better spiritual self.
I can not be my best physically if I am not my best mentally or spiritually, inversely, I can not be my best spiritually if I am not my best physically and mentally. The same is true for being my best mentally. If I want anything to offer the world around me, I have to be the best in these three areas for me. It is not a contest; my goal is not to be better mentally, physically, and spiritually than someone else. It is to be the best that I, and only I, can be. We can not, we must not look to others for this standard, only we can find it and know it for ourselves. No standard that others put before us can possibly be accurate because outside of God, we are the only ones who truly know what we are capable of.
We must all strive, as the Greeks did, to be our best in all three areas of life, we must face the agon of life daily, but I believe, we must also face a challenge that will take all our wit, our strength, and our faith to overcome. This agon is the real test, the one that molds us and shapes us. The daily trials and tribulations sets up the minor details of a mold, our temperament, dispositions to certain things, and our habits, but the challenge that is so great if we are not at our best it will crush us, that is the agon that makes us who we are.
And so I rest, and wait, for my challenge is soon coming upon me, I wonder and contemplate whether I am ready, and I know, that the first test of this challenge will be a little mountain nestled in the trees and wine fields of western Oregon. With lush green fields to run in and meditate in, with cool winter mornings to awaken and chop wood in, with every winter storm that threatens to shut me in, I grow. The mountain will be a catalyst for me. It is there that I will go to begin to understand the man I really am.
And that is “why” the mountain, which is the first step to my goal. The mountain is a goal in itself that is true, but that goal out of necessity is the point from which I will launch an even more ambitious goal. But first, the mountain. My refuge from a world I am not quite sure I am ready to reenter, symbolic of all the things mountains have been symbolic for over the ages-change, dominant struggle against self and nature, life, death-all these things I seek in the mountain I am going to. I am not speaking figuratively either; I am going to a real mountain. Nestled in the lush green woods of Oregon, there is a small portion of land owned by a friend of the family who has agreed to let me stay at the A frame about a mile up its slope. There I will read, run, and grow. The challenge will be to spend the time alone, to allow as few distractions as possible to enter my life while there. I will run in that mountain, eat on it, bath on it, sleep on it, live off it. I do not seek out death, but more a change in myself, a dying to the bitter and cynical self that has grown inside me these past few years. I seek to a degree to kill off the ignorance that is inside me.
It is my intention here to grow the intellectual during this portion of my life. Too long I have filled it with trash. Not reading the classics because they were classics, they didn’t have the intense plot twists, of the crisp, sexy writing that the books today have, but also, to read the works of other religions, other beliefs. There is a lie in belief that states that only “MY” belief has something to offer, and so Christians will not read the Tao Te Ching because it is not Christian, nor will they read the Koran or depending on what denomination, the Catholic Apocrypha or the Book of Mormon. Simply because it is not Christian. And I know others of these faiths that feel the same. Why read the beliefs of others if you are certain of what you believe in? That seems to be the prevailing thought, one that reeks of willful ignorance. An ignorance I had once, and quite possibly still accept in myself. And so I will read.
What must be understood is all that I am doing is intended to build me up to be a better man, a better self. Through physical exertion of running sweating, and living off the kindness and cruelness of the land I will build a better physical self, from reading and studying and contemplating the questions of life I have long put off, I will build a better mental self, and by learning and knowing and speaking with God, by trusting Him to the physical and mental needs I will have, I will build a better spiritual self.
I can not be my best physically if I am not my best mentally or spiritually, inversely, I can not be my best spiritually if I am not my best physically and mentally. The same is true for being my best mentally. If I want anything to offer the world around me, I have to be the best in these three areas for me. It is not a contest; my goal is not to be better mentally, physically, and spiritually than someone else. It is to be the best that I, and only I, can be. We can not, we must not look to others for this standard, only we can find it and know it for ourselves. No standard that others put before us can possibly be accurate because outside of God, we are the only ones who truly know what we are capable of.
We must all strive, as the Greeks did, to be our best in all three areas of life, we must face the agon of life daily, but I believe, we must also face a challenge that will take all our wit, our strength, and our faith to overcome. This agon is the real test, the one that molds us and shapes us. The daily trials and tribulations sets up the minor details of a mold, our temperament, dispositions to certain things, and our habits, but the challenge that is so great if we are not at our best it will crush us, that is the agon that makes us who we are.
And so I rest, and wait, for my challenge is soon coming upon me, I wonder and contemplate whether I am ready, and I know, that the first test of this challenge will be a little mountain nestled in the trees and wine fields of western Oregon. With lush green fields to run in and meditate in, with cool winter mornings to awaken and chop wood in, with every winter storm that threatens to shut me in, I grow. The mountain will be a catalyst for me. It is there that I will go to begin to understand the man I really am.