Advice for the War Torn and Lovelorn, 9.15.12
Ranger's advice column is back and open for your general queries, insights, theories and griping.
What's on your mind?
Labels: advice for the war torn and lovelorn, car talk, dear abby, out on the OP LP, out on the outpost listening post
posted by Lisa at 9:55 PM
8 Comments:
Dear Ask Ranger,
A shocking state of affairs. Angry people climbing over walls to torch flags, bust windows, and murder people and stuff.
Carpenters don't generally inspire that level of rage in others(exception: my first wife), so I have to wonder about the things that do: Religion, Government, Sports. They all seem to involve a belief in something that can't be proven, but the belief is held unshakably, nonetheless.
What? Are you casting asparagus at my invisible cloud being, my political party, or my bowling team? Them's fightin' words!
The belly growls, the belly purrs, but reason can only happen when it isn't occluded by emotion.
So how do you talk to the angry people, the stone throwers and flag burners?
Jesus was pretty good at saying the right little thing, causing the raging crowd to grow quiet, look at their shoes and drop their rocks. But he's been gone a while now, and things look bad for civilization.
Dave
Truth: "reason can only happen when it isn't occluded by emotion.
People do embrace their unshakeable beliefs in things which can't be proven. They choose what they will, and make the leap of faith. Cognitive dissonance can help keep them there a long time.
Love, like any passion, Barrett-Browing wrote, "... to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight ..."
Faith, love ... these are exalted things that we choose, and not on the basis of any particularly good intel. Hence why people marry such abysmally poor marriage choices, for instance.
So it is with any object of faith. Oh, I don't s'pose Jesus would sooth the breast of an angry Muslim, but he did (somewhat) well with those who made the choice to follow him.
It comes down to, "Who will you serve", and I or anyone else hasn't much bearing on the choices made by a particularly unreasonable species called H. sapien.
Like the Southerners say, don't bark up the wrong tree.
Shocking behavior all 'round, but hardly unexpected, no?
Speaking of barking up wrong trees....midlife crisis and the Peace Corps are on my mind.
We weary of the game and we will never enjoy a future where we are golfers or bermuda shorts wearing shuffle board players. That's for a different kind of person.
Nor do we give give a hoot about security and career, having worn too many a diverse hat to have become a this or that. Our friends have fallen by the wayside over the years as they have settled into defining themselves by their chosen career paths and by golf and other life style hobbies.
Mrs A hit on the idea of the Peace Corps post horse farming (1 - 2 years out). She looked into it and it seems a viable option; offering the kind of care free adventure that makes us both feel alive.
Mr A has always had secret hippy-ish leanings, but he had never considered this option. Why not though? Three hots and a cot, travel and a chance to help out our fellow earthlings. Probably meet some good folks and make some new friends. Some how Mr A associates traveling to foreign lands with a mission to kill people. He has been an armed and potentially dangerous closet hippy. This is a soul sickness and he wonders why he cannot get past it. It's time he did. Maybe the Peace Corps will be good for Mr A in many ways.
Any how, the Peace Corps is looking like the future for us.
avedis
Also on our mind is the piss poor state of media reporting on the afghan war. We get our news direct from the front. The sh!t has hit the fan there. Everyone is on high alert and everyone is assigned to a quick reaction team. In Paktika province ANA compounds are burning. ANA are turning their weapons on ISAF troops at alarmig and increasing rates. Rocket/mortar attacks from across the Pak border are intense (our son received a Purple Heart when he was blown off his feet by one of these, was bleeding from the ears and suffered a severe concussion - thrown back on the line after two days in a field hospital).
WHY ARE WE NOT HEARING ABOUT THIS IN THE NEWS? WHY ARE CANDIDATES NOT TALKING ABOUT IT? WHY ARE WE NOT DEMANDING THEY TALK ABOUT IT?
avedis
Avedis; probably because the inevitable question would arise; why are we still there trying to Hustle the East? Where is the sturdy "host nation government" we are providing Military Assistance to?
Compare the overall performance of the ANA to the ARVN. At least many ARVN units fought well all the way up to the end; as shitty as their government was, the army we trained did their best in a lot of cases.
Yeah, some were shit, but some of them - the Rangers, the Airborne, the 5th Division at An Loc in '72, the 3rd ACR...fought damn well.
Where's the ANA equivalent? Ten years after the fall of the Taliban and they've got diddly-squat. What the hell does that say for the average Afghan's affection for the Kabul government?
So the elites that rule inside the Beltway and the punditry that serves them can't afford an in-depth discussion of what's happening in central Asia, because it would indict the fucktards that started the occupation as well as the idiots that continue it.
The peasants might become unruly, and - since this is all about domestic politics and not foreign policy - we can't possibly have that.
Mr. A,
What you call "sickness of soul" I would call, a sensitivity to your spiritual longings. You have enjoyed several incarnations here, and there are more in store for you! Madras pants with pink Izod on the links would definitely make your unique soul sad.
I love the Peace Corps idea and working with animals. There are also many other such programs abroad, once you start looking, though the Corps offers certain basic protections.
Thanks Lisa, the idea is really growing me quite a lot. It's always good to have options.
Chief, some of the ANA units are squared away and very combat effective. I don't know about the ARVN, everything I have ever heard is extremely negative, but, again, I'm not going to pretend to real knowledge on that topic.
avedis
BTW, I've had one cocktail this evening and the captcha pass words are making me wonder if someone dropped a roofie in it. Would learning about Russian brides really be worse? Some of those Russian girls are fine.....
Mr. A.,
It's very good both to have options, and to bounce them off of concerned others. I feel you + the Peace Corps would be a great fit for your peripatetic soul.
p.s. -- the Captcha codes are psychedelic, no? Once I go through the herculean effort of converting to the updated template, I'll take the verification off again. I'm spooked now b/c the last time I removed it, I lost use of the blog altogether, and forfend, I'll not risk that again.
Sorry.
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