Once a Soldier...always a Soldier

It's been more than 16 months since I last put on my uniform. Everyday I go through photographs and think about days gone by. Everytime I try and talk to someone about this, I hear the same thing: being a soldier is an ugly, dirty and wrong job. It consists of killing people, training to kill people, or assisting others in killing people. I've been told that the work of a soldier (to protect his country) is just a bullshit excuse governments use to push us into fighting wars for them that will bring them more money and power. They tell us we're not noble...we're not courageous...

Here's my response - I'm a soldier. I did not join to fight wars. I did not join to be perceived as noble by anyone but myself. Until I joined, I had never fired a gun. Until I joined, I never trained in hand-to-hand combat. I never did want to kill a person, but one-day, I had to - not out of personal necessity, but from an order from some old guy sitting in New Delhi. And that scares the shit out of me. But I'm in the United Nations International Guard. And when that day came, for better or worse I did my duty. I did whatever it took. Does that not make me courageous, even noble? The army, soldiers, me - we protect you. We fight for you. I have had to kill someone I don't know - for you. I live with that - for you. Whether you appreciate it, whether you realize you need it, whether you think you'd rather not need us, we are YOUR army. Tell me you don't need me. Tell me I'm a stupid gun-touting fool. But don't say I'm not noble.

I've seen the pain, I've seen the suffering, I've lost brothers, I've lost friends - now go f**k yourself.

How blogging is like fishing

You might be wondering, how in the world can blogging possibly have anything to do with fishing? Well I have done both, and here I describe my view of each of these things, and perhaps even a basic philosophy of life and patience.

I love fishing, many of my best memories are with my friends fishing around the lagoons in the lowlands of Lagos, Nigeria.

If you like sport fishing, you learn that fishing is all about being patient. Sure you need the right bait, you need a good deep hole, you need to know your “secret” fishing places. But in the end you cast your line out there and wait, and wait some more… and some more….

For me the fishing trip was never really about the actual fishing. The first part of fishing is the adventure of “getting there”. There is also the enjoyment of learning to navigate your way through bush, and water and everything else for hours on end just to try and find a spot in the middle of nowhere but that only a few people have probably ever seen in their life.

Then there is the actual fishing itself. Sitting in quiet solitude, with nothing but your thoughts in your head, watching your fishing line, wondering if you will get any bites. Perhaps, pondering the meaning of life sitting in soaking rain...This is what fishing is like for me, and why I enjoy it.

I’ve been blogging for a few months now, and I think there are several similarities. Sometimes, I feel like each blog I write is like selecting the bait I will pick (the proverbial worm). I have no idea who will take the “bite” and start to read what I have written. It all depends on how you define a “bite” I guess.

But again, blogging, for me, is mostly about the “joy of getting there”. I already have a lot of funky thoughts and ideas that I have been writing for years. Writing what is on my mind is a great stress reliever for me. There are no deadlines or assignments, it’s all about the fun of chatting to myself. If no one else is reading it, oh well. I’ve never been the kind of person that takes others opinions to heart anyway.

Maybe, some day, someone will take a bite, and maybe there will be a payoff, but for now, I just sit patiently with my fishing rod cast into the pond, and wait to see what will happen.

For the record - I'd ALWAYS let my fish free.

Thunderstorms & lightning bolts

It rained today. It wasn’t the clean kind of rain you hear about in stories. It was dirty. The sky slowly changed from a grey blue, to yellow, and finally to brown. The light reflecting off the dirt particles in the water turned it brown.

It was an interesting sky to say the least. It’s hard to say what kind of feelings this sky invoked. To just hear about it, one might assume disgust…. But that wasn’t it. I felt romantic and alive as I sat out in the thunderstorm. This wasn’t fake rain. It was real rain.

This was real life.

I sat for several minutes in the thunderstorm, listening to the rain. It’s strange how heavy rain can lull me to sleep. But just as I was drifting off, a loud crack shook me awake.

No, a lightning bolt didn’t strike us…a few 100 feet away from us. I had my eyes closed, so I didn’t see the flash, but my friend did. We sat in silence as we felt a change in the air. It became dangerous.

But still we sat, facing the storm, waiting it out.

I sit here now, with my friends in the same rain, though the sky has since gone dark. Now it’s time for the calmer rain, the rain that gently washes away the damage of the earlier thunderstorm. The sky will be blue again tomorrow.

King for the day

Hard drive clutter. This dates back to school.

8th Jan, 2005

As I woke up people loving me
Really gold crown and robes to my feet
Hopping out of bed looking really cool
Just knowing what its like not going to school

Walking down the hallway pictures of my self
I'm the one that has the best health
People bowing down
Kissing my feet, giving me food
I have all the beef.

Day is almost over
Its time to go to bed
Now its time to rest my royal head

Voices

Voices ongoing in my head
Can’t seem too stop them
Thoughts as thick as lead
Thinking so much my brain bled
Stress struggles and shit just shed
Voices in my head leave and be led
Every day is new so do not dread
Get an education is what you read
Rip up the pages from the book
Have you glance and take a look
Voices tell me to rap like I'm a crook
Stealing the show and I ain't even booked
Have all amateurs scared and shook
Got all the people in the world hooked
Wondering what the next line is

Have them singing along like their mine

It’s all good, all fine
I kill it on every line
Rhyming fast rhyming blind
Rhymes hardcore leave you in a bind
Confused dazed voices rap for days
Lyrics come easy I must says

Ramblings of a "gifted" mind

• The gibberish I speak is like no other.
• Closed minds can not conceive my train of thought.
• I speak of old days and new, of pleasure and pain, of passion and discontent. I speak volumes not yet written.
• No one knows my struggle to spit these words that appear in my head. Every chance I get, I embrace the inspiration and let the words flow...like the waters of a raging river.
• My words don’t fall - they rise...even the deaf can hear me speak. The power of my pen is mighty; I conquer enemies and uplift souls with my gospel.
• My words are my freedom, my words make me whole.They take me to other times in the fabric of existence. I've got a gift that enables me to see beyond the borders of reality and outside the box of oppression.
• My words stick in your mind and control your every move...impacting your mind, body and soul...and putting your person in perfect harmony. They take you to another level of emotions and warp your state of mind at my beckoning.
• I control your attention and I demand respect! My words can lift you higher than the tallest mountain, or send you tumbling back down in despair. My concept of reality is whatever I imagine; I make words that influence...like drugs affect your hormones, my words leave you like a fiend wanting more.
• My words are a gift to mankind, my gift to the seeds of future generations. Take heed my brothas and sistas, for I stand with you in the fight against injustice, hatred and greed...like my forefathers fought for my generation to live free.
• I set the standard for my deeds. I’m with you through thick and thin, blood is thicker than water and all the people of the world are my blood and I am theirs.
• Accomplish, achieve, succeed and remember these ramblings of a "gifted" mind!

For the record - I in know way think too much of myself. This post is all a happy bored me =)

Searching for what?

Was cleaning up my hard drive when I came across this short write-up...written during my freshman year in college when I was trying to figure out a new major. Maybe it can help someone to see how lost I was, because it did get better.

23rd October, 2005

I’m searching. I don’t even really know for what at this point, but I need to find it. Am I making the right moves? I know some aren’t right, but I’m working on those. The ones that bother me are just so up in the air.

My time: Is this worth it? Am I making the best use of it?

I thought it was homesickness, and I’ll admit that is a large part even still, but now there seems to be so much more to it. This has been keeping me up at nights. Upsetting my stomach. Drawing me into seclusion. I’m pushing away any form of “solid ground” here because (I think) I seem to not see myself staying here. Or something.

Do what makes you happy. That’s a fine phrase. Until someone doesn’t honestly know anymore what makes them “happy.” That’s where I am I guess. Ultimately that’s what I’m searching for, right? Why is it so difficult for me to do that? I thought I had found it, but that seems so impure and jaded now. At least I think it does. Anyway, I spent a solid two hours tonight walking and thinking about what truly would make me happy. Nothing. I drew a blank. All I ended up doing was exhausting my mind even more. Am I supposed to search for it? Or will it just come to me? I am so lost right now!

More than anything I’m frustrated with myself. I’ve always said (at the risk of sounding “cocky”), “I’m good at everything and great at nothing.” My problem is, I want to be great at something! I want to excel at something because it is when I excel that I am happy. That’s part of the reason I’m looking back at what I decided before, I’m not having as much fun with it as I was. Maybe that sounds selfish, but I don’t care. I thought I was picking something I could excel at, and all I do now is see how middle-of-the pack I feel.

In my head!

Have you ever wanted to scream everything you had locked up in your head?

Have you ever been so angry that you just wanted to burst out and tell everyone exactly what you think? I've been known to do this every now and then, but of late the urge has been constant. Socially it's not acceptable. I sit and watch as people live trying to change the world to their liking and how angry they get to see there's nothing they can really about it. Sometimes I want to just be able to say what I want without censoring myself.

I would like to tell people how wrong they can be for the things they say. I want to yell at my friends for constantly telling me to fix my life by their mistakes, just because they messed up does not mean I am messing up. I want to tell people that they have to live with change - it is a part of life. People grow, make mistakes, and they pass on. Life changes, life goes on and people should not be the way they are.

I want to tell the ignorant people that there is no room for them in this world. Everyone is so up in everyone else's business to even stop and realize how messed up their own life is. People are too busy trying to impress everyone around them...what they should be doing is trying to please themselves. We are in debt because of everyone wanting to have what they can not afford. Our world is in danger and people think it is everyone else's fault.

I do not want to be forced to make decisions that everyone else wants. I am sick to death of people trying to control me, they can all go to hell, they can all just leave me alone. I want to tell everyone to back off and a few other choice words that I can not say right now.

But I sit quietly and I do not say anything. I smile politely and nod my head as I sit and listen to everyone tell me how to live my life. Truth is - most people out there just want to bring you down and never build you up. So I sit and block them out and smile because I know what I am going to do and I know who I am. I will not let them run my life, but raise above it. I can not scream so I sit here quietly and smile at the wisdom I have.

Wow! Now that felt good!