29th
2 words
occasionally something stirs me from my weekly week-long zombie walk to the paycheck line.
sometimes that something can be a mere 2 words. i’ve always known that words have power; but when you hear two words in combination and they pull meaning and context out of each other, it’s hard not to face it directly in plain consciousness and think.
today’s 2 words were “the heart and the fist”. ok, technicalities: we are talking about 5 words, but only 2 that are substantial enough to contain even part of an idea (forget multitudes).
today’s speaker touched on something that’s been lurking in my mind and body. am i willing to sacrifice career, money, leisure, comfort for something in which i truly believe?
ever since james gave up his lucrative attorney career and joined the army (despite having a toddler and a loving wife with a baby on the way), i’ve been forced to ask myself this.
it’s also made me face some uncomfortable thoughts. i’ve always known and preached that all motives are selfish, regardless of how sacrificial or saintly they seem. but it’s painful to look at that selfishness within one’s own heart without first surgically detaching it (which i have not attempted). i’m also disturbed by the childish thoughts that still run the hallways of my mind without a hallpass. i want to be a hero. i want to run an obstacle course. i want to shoot people with guns.
i think i’ve done a relatively thorough job of removing decades of brainwashing from my parents from my standard thought processes. sometimes i worry that the purge was too violent, and that some good things were actually baby, not bathwater. i attempt to be impartial and allow my parents to reteach me now so that i can reassess value on a case by case basis. however, i worry that some things are too ingrained in the safehouse of my very core.
i feel strong reluctance to join the military. i start analyzing this option logically, but i merely look at this path and my body seizes up and refuses to walk. logic, logic, logic. is this because a) this is a dumb idea, or b) i’ve been brainwashed? the problem with being brainwashed is you don’t know which of the strong feelings within yourself are your own or implanted there.
anyway, i doubt i will join the military, at least not with my current state of paralysis. for now, i will relish in the occasional jolt to my slumber. when i get those jolts, i feel an urge to come here, to my own little hideaway under the overgrowth and think. i feel a sense of loss when i think about all the ideas that died in my mind at the hands of normalcy; routine curbed my access to tumblr, and without tumblr, my words have outlets into only presentations and socialization.
