jarhyn_flyght

Figuring Things Out

2009-10-30T21:15:29Z

So it took 9 years of not living there, one year of wandering around the United States, three years of goofing off in college, five years of failing in a relationship, three years in the military and more than a year in Iraq to figure it out. I know why people live in small towns like Ellsworth, WI or Oswego, NY.

At first I wanted to get out so badly. I guess part of that was because I wasn't a part of the community. I was an outsider... but another part is because that small town life was such an affront to my youthful ambition. The people there weren't going to produce the next Einstein, the jobs weren't going to ever make anyone rich, the school system wasn't the best place to raise a kid, and the morals of the town were about as old fashioned as the rest of the place.

Now, and only after I've seen what my life could have been and understand what's really important I think I know now why my parents moved there in the first place. Oswego and Ellsworth, and every other small town I've been in or near really, make for a simple life. It's a slower pace than a Minneapolis, or a Madison. For someone who is secure and content with "good enough", a small town is "good enough".

Homeward bound

2009-05-29T18:59:25Z

Well, I'm writing an entry, which probably means that I'm at yet another pivotal point in my life.

Iraq has been one long, draining experience. It's taught me exactly the meaning of hugging a loved one, talking on the phone to a friend, taking a walk in the park, and feeling the warm embrace of a lover.

It's taught me the value of being able to live without being under the specter of being in a war zone. It's taught me the value of life back home.

Strangely, it's also taught me to be happy on my own, without the medication, and how to live better without having to depend all the time on others. It's forced me to live alone and be alone and even isolated for a long period of time.

So, I look forward on my return to the good old USA, and see that I'm going home different, just as I knew I would.

I've also taken to writing short stories, some of which I hope to publish online soon, and possibly to anthologize and maybe even to sell.

One of the hardest parts about being in the military, though, especially being as I am, is being forced to deal with situations in which speaking out isn't really a possibility. Everyone will inevitably run into someone who lets their ignorance control them; someone who lets their beliefs open them to hate. For the most part they're the sort you can just pull out your flaming sword of logic and pierce their heart of ignorance until they shut up around you or avoid you. In the military it doesn't work that way... Especially if they outrank you. You can get them to stop talking like that around YOU, but you can't really rub their noses in their own hypocrisy and wrongness. Instead, they find ways to turn things back around on you until YOU'RE the bad guy, despite the fact that they're the ones who talk with hate and ignorance.

MEGAUPDATE OF DOOM

2009-03-28T00:37:44Z

Well, after a few months of letting my LJ stagnate, I figure I should probably post an update.

It's been a wierd tour all-in-all. With only a few months left, I'm glad to be going home soon.

Here's to a deployment that's made it 12 months so far without a single combat death. Of course, bullshit happens, but NOBODY can really stop that.

So I've seen my share of gruesomeness, and am none the worse for it... but when I go home I have this creeping suspicion that people will know I'm different than I was before. It really does shuck a layer of fatty innocence off a person, and put on about 10 layers of emotional muscle. My family, who I talk with already notices it.

So, like after basic, I find myself become a new person. Unlike a lot of my battle buddies, I won't be going home paranoid and skittish, I won't be watching roadsides for bombs or nervous when people get near. The powers that be sought to deliver me from that and for that I'm thankful; I didn't spend enough time on the routes to pick up that malign shadow. I spent most of it in an office, put there because people saw some potential for me to do better work there.

In the end I feel a little guilty for being fortunate to avoid some of the worst parts, but not really. I saw the world, and I managed to keep perspective. I also learned how not to hate myself. I learned that when I get out of the army I have a guaranteed job waiting for me if I want it where showing up and pissing clean is enough to be 95+% in the door.

So, I came, I saw, and I conquered, and soon I'm going to get the hell outta dodge.

TL;DR

2007-11-27T00:32:14Z

Well, I've been inactive for nearly 5 months. I guess it shows, but then again I only have one friend on livejournal, so I guess it doesn't make all that much difference, does it?

So far to date, I have been through 5 or 6 field problems, qualified twice with my weapon, learned many different ways of making large holes in the ground, and passed my APFT test 4 times. All in all, I love my job.

Friend-wise, I've finally started to reconnect myself. After 3 years of letting my friend list decay and wilt, I've finally started adding back the names of those who have meant the most to me through the years, and even taking those friendships to a much more personal level.

On the creativity front, I've started writing again, and even posted a chapter of a new story series that takes place in a completely original setting. Needless to say, I've been getting out of my comfort zone more and more to the point where I've started to have a chance at enjoying life again. Unfortunately, it's not really working.

So, next week I get pills that will make it work. I know it's not the best choice, and I'll do everything in my power to make the doctor give me something that won't limp-dick me, but I'm still nervous about the whole ordeal. Part of me is curious if this will stem the tide of what us therians call "the longing", a (spiritual?) depression arising from some degree of species dysphoria. Part of me hopes it doesn't, but another larger part hopes it does. What I hope more than ever though is that it doesn't alter that thing which I see as intrinsically "me".

Well, here's to change... and maybe some hard earned happiness, too.

Being me

2007-08-05T06:34:51Z

I had almost hoped that my first post to my newly revived livejournal wouldn't involve the influence of alcohol, but OH WELL.

To be completely fair, I am not a furry. I'm not even close; I don't particularly like anthropomorphic art, nor do I like most furries. I find the community completely drama-engorged and I would rather see most of them die in a fire. I am not saying there arn't furries who I count as friends, but as a community they are a worthless and rotting chunk of the internet I would like to see disappear.

I have a much deeper connection than even I want to admit to my particular animal, the bobcat. It's hard to explain to someone who has never felt the sensation of not having claws, when one feels like they should be having them, or running on 2 legs and feeling like it should be all 4's (though at the same time knowing that it wouldn't work if you did). Ofttimes it goes further, feeling a more-than-subdtle urge to bite or swipe, or swat instead of punch or twist.

While I know that I am crazy for feeling such I also know I am not the only one, not the only "Therian" out there. Unfortunately the community out there who may provide some solidarity is rife with the same problems as any other online community may be. Sometimes I feel somehow distant from the world and other living things in it, but then again that's how felines are. But then I remember I'm not feline, I'm human and I have to make a good go of it. Personally, I can't wait for the end of the age to come and bring about something different.

Every online community I've ever been a part of seems to be going to hell in a happy handbasket, if it wasn't already there. Worship of community figures, drama over bullshit, and outright crazy, and/or immature members... everything I found sacred, happy, enjoyable, or otherwise interresting has rotted and festered with insane and inane individuals taking the forefront and there's been nothing I would have done that would have stopped it; Thus is the nature of the internet as perhaps only Anonymous could (and did) forsee.

Sometimes I feel like a fool for digging further into who and why I was as I am, for exploring the deepest parts of my identity and personality and trying to identify what I found. Perhaps I can pray for the day that perhaps some of my community grows up into some degree of sanity and sees the world for what it is, instead of what they want it to be... though if they don't, it will at least make for lots of LULZ later in life.