When In Doubt, Attack!

I've heard the phrase "When in doubt, attack" attributed to the US Army Special Forces as one of their SOPs. Apparently, they train themselves to default to attacking the enemy when they're unsure of what do to, because that way, there's never a doubt about what the other guys in the team are going to do, nor will they ever accidentally break at the first sign of the enemy.

I could be wrong, of course, about whether or not the Special Forces actually operate this way as I know very little about how they do anything. I'm not sure that it's a particularly good idea for a 8-man team to always attack, but perhaps with their level of training, they're able to win firefights that most soldiers would lose, and their team leaders would know when to break contact.

SF: Supremely cool, but not the focus of this article.

What is the focus of this post is the concept of defaulting to attacking when confused. It's about moving forward when the path is uncertain, about not retreating just because you have no idea what is going on.

A couple months ago, I went on a field trip to a Muslim cultural center (AKA a mosque that wants to get around city zoning ordnances) and a Hare Krishna shrine. I went because it was part of orientation with a missions organization, and it was meant to get us some cross-cultural exposure.

As it happened I got the worst case of the heebie-jeebies I've ever gotten in my entire life. I've been less creeped out by haunted houses and scary movies. I literally felt unclean, like I'd been covered in motor oil and needed a shower, only worse and in a sinister manner (I'm a mechanic, motor oil doesn't bother me much). So in each case, as soon as I got the chance to do so without being socially offensive, I walked outside and sat down across the street.

If one thinks rationally about it, to a Christian, a shrine to a different religion is in effect a shrine to false gods, and at best can be considered blasphemous to God, and at worst (also in reality) is a shrine to evil. It's not simply false, it's actively anti-God, anti-Christian. So I don't mind that I felt unclean, that being inside those shrines to evil made me want to get out, immediately.

The organization I'm with didn't take that as a good sign. For reasons I don't actually understand, I was told that they thought it was a bad thing that I got creeped out. I was asked, several times, if perhaps I should forgo my internship and not go into missions after all.

I can't think of one bad experience as a particularly good reason to not move forward, so even though I was in doubt, I moved forward with the internship. After all, when in doubt, attack. And while very little of my internship has worked as it should, and in fact has gone mostly wrong, I'm still moving forward as long as I'm unsure of what to do. I'd rather wait for a clear sign to break contact than to wait for a clear sign to move forward.

See, combat's a simple thing, really: If the enemy retreats every time he's not sure what to do, then all I have to do to win is to keep him off his footing. Defense becomes a simple matter, because the enemy will break and run at the first opportunity. I won't need to actually defeat or destroy the enemy, I just need to keep his head down and wait for him to break.

If, however, every time he gets shot at he charges, if every time he's confused he moves forward, if every time he's scared he tries to kill me, if every time he's struggling he gets more pissed off at me, then I have a very serious problem. I can't rely on scaring him off, I need to kill him, immediately, otherwise he is going to waste me in short order.

Time and again, the Christian life is described as spiritual warfare. We're supposed to bring light to darkness, to cast out demons, to heal the sick, and to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is describe quite literally as a war against Satan, and small wonder that the Prince of Darkness would be fighting back.

So why on Earth would I run at the first sign of trouble? or the tenth sign of trouble, for that matter? Why on Earth would I say "Man, I don't know what to do and this is really hard, so I think I'll go home and sit on my couch"???

To Hell with that notion, I'm not going to do any such thing: When in doubt, I ATTACK!

The Mad Genius of Soren

A while back, I read an article that contained a brilliant explanation of the old phrase "There's a fine line between genius and insanity". 

"When your brain works more efficiently than everyone else's, that means it performs most mental tasks more efficiently than other people, including go crazy. Worse, because a smart person's brain is so good at running through hypotheses and rejecting them, it tends to come up with insanity that's more resistant to basic therapy, because the rationalizations are built to withstand the assault of a genius level intellect. When people say genius and insanity are close cousins, this is what they're talking about."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/22/i-was-adam-lanza-part-2.html

And while I don't actually claim to be a genius, I am a highly intelligent person, or so I'm told by the people who tested me once. The problem with being smart, like the author of that article stated, is that when normal people rationalize something, it only takes someone equally smart to talk them back out of it. I'd add that things like tradition and social pressures also work more effectively to keep people of normal intelligence from going too crazy, because most folks don't really bother to question everything and aren't willing to buck society in order to go their own way.

I did, though. I've spent most of my life asking the "Why X?" question, and for all the good it has done me, it's done an equal amount of damage. See, the problem is that there are very few people who can rationally talk me out of anything, and even fewer who are willing to try. I win most of the debates I get into, regardless of whether or not they turn into arguments, simply because I can recall more facts, lay down a stronger philosophical foundation, and rip the other guy's argument apart faster.

The problem with methodically doing this for the last decade or so (I don't actually remember at what point in life philosophy became an obsession) is that there are very few areas of my life that haven't been examined rather ruthlessly to see if they're acceptable. Which in turn means that there are very few areas in my life that anyone can, no matter their motives, actually change my opinions in. Trust me, I generally know why I do what I do, and I've thought it through several times...

...But I need to make some changes in my life, because as it turns out, some of my opinions are wrong, and some of the ways I do things are causing more trouble than they prevent. Surprising, right?

See, the thing about having a strong intellect is that it's like an oak tree. It only gets stronger and stronger as time goes on, but if it doesn't grow up straight, like if someone ties ropes around it as a sapling so that it grows up bent, then that incredibly-strong tree can't easily be straightened out.

I'm bent. I understand how I got bent, of course, not that it particularly matters. I can point to incidents I've been through that have caused damage in my life. Not all of them are my fault, but some of them are, not that "fault" matters at this point, either.

I still need to get unbent. Which means that something stronger (or more accurately smarter) than me needs to make a point of unbending me. It's going to hurt, and all of my bent strength is going to resist. Which is actually as it should be, because it's important to resist forces that threaten to change me, at least until I'm convinced they're positive changes, and not negative ones.

But I still need to make some changes, and it's not going to be pleasant. Anyone familiar with the concept of blacksmithing and metallurgy can understand that the strongest steel is made in the hottest fires, and that an item smithed out of steel has been heated red-hot and hammered on many, many times.

To quote the late author Robert Jordan; "A sword may be grateful to the fires that forged it, but never fond of them."

I have spent a good portion of my life striving to be the strongest, toughest, smartest person I could be. I still think that's a good goal, but what I didn't do when I started was to ensure that the person I was making myself into was going to be made on a firm foundation, with straight lines and a level head. So I became very smart, very tough, and very strong, but I didn't make sure I wasn't bent.

Umm, whoops. My bad.

Now, I'm not writing this to say that I've suddenly figured out how to unbend myself, I haven't. The real problem with being bent is that no matter how strong, tough, and smart I am, I can't be stronger than myself. I will always equal I, so I will never be able to apply enough force to straighten myself back out.

No, unfortunately I need to fine something stronger than me to do the hard work. Looking to other people won't work, if they were smarter than me, I'd not have gotten bent in the first place.

Thankfully, God is most certainly stronger than me, and although He cannot be rushed to straighten me out on my schedule, He is definitely willing to do it.

My head hits the pillow, and I'm sobbing.

My head hits the pillow, and I'm sobbing.

I just want to go Home, Father. I just want to wake up and be Home. I don't even know where or what that is, but I want to be Home.

I'm 30 years old, and I'm crying myself to sleep in Maseru, Lesotho. (For the record, when I write, I write what I feel. What gets posted on this blog is a question of quality, not whether or not it makes me look any certain way.)

I don't have a friend on the entire fucking continent, Father. I haven't known anyone here for even two weeks, I have no one to talk to that has any background or context for anything I'd say, any reference I'd make, any idioms or mannerisms. There's no one here I can trust to see Me.

I'm a broken person. I don't really try to hide it, and I'm not good at acting anyways.

I want off this ride. I don't want to be a missionary, I want to be the guy with the wife, the kids, the dog, the warm bed in a cozy house, the front lawn I'll bitch about mowing. Send somebody else, I just don't want to do this anymore.

It wasn't my thought that came next, it was a line of Scripture. "Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." I think it's from Matthew. One of the Gospels, memorization isn't my strong suit, never has been.

The book of Hebrews, says that Christ was tempted in every way that we are tempted. That was the next thing through my head.

Every. Way.

The Son of the Almighty God, tempted in Every. Way. I've ever been, and ever will be, tempted.

I can barely, barely comprehend it. The text is simple enough, of course, it's just that the reality...

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, The Word become Flesh...was at some point so down that he was tempted with suicide, like I was two years ago? (TWO YEARS AGO, NOT NOW, DO NOT CALL THE COPS ON ME (AGAIN))

Jesus at some point felt so alone, so broken, that He just wanted to set His cross down and be a normal person, forsaking whatever good He knew God would work out of His obedience?

Every way? Jesus was tempted to take over the family carpentry business, instead of being about His Father's work? He was tempted to settle down with a wife and kids, to live a calm, quiet life where He would be left alone, instead of preaching to thousands of people?

Every way? Does that really mean Jesus at times just wanted to sit down, get a loving hug from somebody that knew Him, and let the world handle its own problems? To quit and be a normal guy?

I mean yeah, there's that bit in the Garden, where He asked the Father to take the cup from him, but I mean that's always kinda brushed over. Jesus wasn't actually discouraged, He couldn't have been. He was perfect, we're broken, so He didn't get discouraged.

Because right now, I'm in Maseru. There are dried tears on my cheeks, and I just want to go home. I want to go home tomorrow, to find a nice girl, settle down and not leave town except for leisurely vacations. No more Calling into missions, no more food poisoning from third-world restaurants, no more being unable to sleep because hard beds aggravate my bad shoulder, no more being lonely and alone, no more looking ahead to being broke, homeless, and unemployed the day I get back.

It's tempting. The Bible says Christ was tempted in every way I am. So I'm not alone, and if I struggle with this, so did He.  Christ was where I am, calling out to the Father in tears, asking for another way. And when the Father said "No", Christ obeyed.

I'm not perfect, but I have been as obedient to the calling I've received as I could be. I'm in Maseru, where I was sent, I'm doing the job I was sent to do (well, the food poisoning bit notwithstanding), and I haven't let things like "I would rather not be doing this with my life" stop me.

Maybe I'm not as broken as I think I am. Maybe I'm just human, and struggling with temptation.

Maybe, just maybe, Christ struggled with the temptation to lose hope, to say "Even with God's help, I can't do this, I'm too pathetic, too weak, too alone, too broken."

It does say "every" in that verse.

What do I want to do in life?

Sometimes, the easiest questions to ask are the ones with the most complicated answers, and of all of life's questions, "What do I want to do in life?" is probably the simplest question a person can ask, and yet it generally takes a lifetime to truly figure the answer out.

Of course, for Christians, there's the nickel answer "I want to serve God", that if true, simply begs the second question "How?". Serving God isn't an 8-5 gig, it's a lifestyle, and it's definitely not limited to any one thing. Many people spend their lives serving God, and quite faithfully, yet never go overseas and do missions work, nor do they ever stand in front of a church and preach.

Besides, being a philosopher (especially one that has a blog), I *hate* nickel answers. They're boring, and intellectually speaking, they're a cop-out. Nickel answers are given when people don't want to give the real answer, and are trying to dodge the question.

What do I want to do in life?

I suppose the question requires looking back in life to when I was a child. What did I want then, and what of those things still applies?

I never wanted to be President, and I stopped wanting to be a fireman when I realized that 90% of their calls are for car wrecks, not burning houses. Studying dinosaurs isn't nearly as cool as Jurassic Park makes it seem, and astronauts don't go to other planets, so those faded. Being a pilot was my first dream anyways, long before the others.

I've wanted to be a pilot since I knew what an airplane was. There was never a time that I can recall that I didn't want to be a pilot, I fondly remember playing flight simulators when I was six, turning paper airplanes into a science when I was 7. Anything that resembled flying, I was into.

Of course, the FAA won't let me get a private pilot's license because I'm bipolar. So...childhood dream, meet the US Government. Wave goodbye, childhood dream.

Granted, I'm an aircraft mechanic instead, and I love it. I don't think I've ever had a job that I've been more passionate about than I am about fixing airplanes. It still stings on occasion (read: most days, but not every day) that I'm not allowed to have the chance to be a pilot, but I still love fixing planes. It's better than working on cars, anyways, if for no other reason that airplanes are frikkin' cool, and always will be.

What do I want to do in life?

The other thing I've always wanted in some fashion was a family. There was of course that period when I was a kid when I didn't really know what to do with the strange and beautiful creatures called "girls", but I still knew that at some point, I needed to get one and start a family. The older I get, the stranger and more beautiful girls are, and I still want to get one and start a family.

But I'm 30 now, and that hasn't happened. Gotta find a nice girl to start a family with, and while I've met a lot of nice girls, it seems like half of them don't want kids these days. Three-quarters of the remainder simply aren't worth marrying. The rest got picked up years ago, it seems. It seems, of course, just means that's my perception, obviously there are still worthwhile, marriageable ladies out there that want kids, I just haven't met any.

What do I want to do in life?

Neither of my dreams are reality, neither of them seem likely to become reality any time soon, so I'm back to square one, with that same question.

What do I want to do in life?

Most days I just want to serve God. It's back to that nickel answer, and I hate it, but I don't know what else to say. I never really had any other dreams, and neither of them are reality. I'm surrounded by airplanes I'm not allowed to fly, and never will be, and I keep meeting families with kids, but while kids are fun, they're not my kids.

I feel like I'm being ripped in half most days. I'm surrounded by the two things I want most, but they're not for me.

People, being hypocrites, keep throwing this dilemma back in my face with a "you just need to trust God more." Because apparently, trusting God enough to drop my own plans to go into missions (I really wanted to be a gunsmith, and was a few months away from applying for a patent on a rifle design) nearly four years ago wasn't actually trust, neither is sacrificing everything that got in the way of that, and neither is getting on a plane to fly to Africa (and Haiti, for that matter) and actually going into the mission field. None of that is trust because if it was actually trust, I wouldn't be struggling.

Honestly, I'm quite sorry that I ever spent so many years hoping that someday, somehow, I'd end up a pilot or a father. Shattered dreams suck, and I'm living with two of them. False hope is poison to the soul, and every time I meet a nice girl, only for it to fall apart, it gets harder and harder to not drown in bitterness. Every time I hear pilots bitch about having to fly somewhere, I want to scream.

What do I want to do in life?

I don't know anymore. I'm am aircraft mechanic, I like being a missionary, but putting those two together means I will spend the rest of my career surrounded by pilots with families, and that's a miserable thought. I could console myself with dreams that some day I'll meet a nice girl and start a family, but that's what I've been doing for most of my life, and obviously that hasn't worked yet.

What do I want to do in life?

I don't know. The thing I want to do most in life, serve God as a missions mechanic is also the option that promises the most unhappiness.

What do I want to do in life?

To serve God and be happy.

I have no clue how to go about that. I hate the idea of doing what I truthfully want to do most in life. I hate that I look forward to missions and see valuable, rewarding work keeping the birds in the air, yet at the same time I see that it doesn't come close to resembling happiness. It means being "Uncle Soren" but not "Dad", and spending a lifetime trying not to be bitter when pilots complain.

What do I want to do in life?

Keep moving forward, because in spite of the misery, despair, loneliness, and bitterness, I still trust God more than I trust anything else, even my own emotions. Besides, if there's anything I know in life, it's that meaningful misery is better than the pointless bliss most of the world seems to be chasing. If nothing else, some day I will die, the misery will end, and I will go to Heaven, where God will wipe away all the tears from my eyes, and there will be no more death, nor crying, nor sorrow, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away.

What do I want to do in life?

Fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith. Between now and then, there are things I would absolutely love to do, and have spent my life hoping that God would allow me to do, but the only thing that really matters is to keep the faith and keep moving forward. The Bible never promised me happiness, but it does promise an unbeatable retirement package. While it's not all of what I want in life, that's certainly more than enough.

Benefits of Classless Education

One of the side benefits of having seen a lot of action movies is that I've got a wealth of one-line quotes memorized. I don't know what it is about action movies that requires the hero and/or the supporting characters to have one-liners for every situation, but it's an old tradition, and I like it.

For this quote, the heroine (a law enforcement commando-type) has just shot her way out of a drug bust gone wrong, and she's smoking a cigarette on a dock, waiting for the rest of the department to clean up the mess. Her boss sits down next to her, and after a short back-and-forth, says "You're so full of piss and vinegar that if you keep going the way you're going, you run the risk of becoming one seriously fucked-up individual."

The line has stuck with me ever since I first saw the movie. It's a good line. She's the type that responds to every challenge with an even higher level of intensity, even the ones that should be solved with smooth words and diplomacy. So while she's very good at shooting her way out of drug busts gone bad, she's slowly becoming a very, very damaged individual, and eventually she'll be dangerous to everyone around her.

That quote might as well have been delivered to me.

It's been nearly four years since God tapped me on the shoulder and directed me into missions. I still think it's a good career path for me, I've never really been one to chase satisfaction in the form of a big paycheck, but I realize now that I've been going about it the wrong way.

When I first told my family about it, they said I'd fail to make it through school. I've never asked why they said that, it hurt too much at the time to consider their warnings rationally, so I just upped my intensity and kept going forward. My pastor said the same thing, but instead of asking why, I responded by being more intense, and running at higher speeds.

By the time I got to that school, I had a pretty massive chip on my shoulder, and I was there to conquer my major, not simply study hard. I was going to do everything really, really hard, because nobody was going to make me quit. While this had benefits (I had every single assignment done 24 hours before the due date except for a group project), it also had some predictable and bad results, and in the end I cracked and ended up in the hospital on suicide watch.

That definitely served as a wakeup call, but at the time I didn't realize all of the problem. Granted, I'll never try being unmedicated again, but what I really should have learned was to slow down and not be so intense all the time. But I didn't, and I kept charging forward towards being a missionary.

Granted, that was the right move, but it's not just about having a list of credentials, it's about having a certain personality. One has to be able to deal with any situation that comes up, and in the appropriate manner. Some situations require delicacy, some intensity, and others probably other things.

I've pretty much only had one response to any challenge that's come up in the last decade: Intensity. While this really helps when the challenge is a construction job in Haiti, it's really, really unhelpful when the challenge is waiting for several weeks to finally be assigned to a program for my internship.

I am not good at waiting, nor am I good with uncertainty, because neither of those can be dealt with by simply working harder, which is the only way I ever do anything, but being a missionary in third-world countries is going to require a LOT of waiting and dealing with a LOT of uncertainty. That isn't going to change, so I need to if I want to have a chance in this field.

Operation Chill Out is going to be tough. I have literally no idea how to chill out, it's not something I ever try to do. I can be calm, but I'm always in motion, either mentally or physically. I tend to stop only when I'm exhausted, not when I'm relaxed. I have no idea how to relax, I never really saw the point. Why would anyone want to relax when they could be getting things done?

But if I keep going the way I'm going, I'm going to end up a seriously fucked-up individual, and I realize that now. Time to make changes.