Knowledge, learning new things, is like heroin. Or at least as close to a heroin addiction as I can extrapolate from movies and pop culture. Gaining knowledge makes the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stand up. It’s like my soul trying to leap out of my body; like my brain refusing to wait for my physical body to keep up with chasing the answers to all the world’s problems.

Then there’s the Army — the antithesis of knowledge and unbridled progress. In the modern world of light speed communication and a war based on unpredictability and chaos, it seems that protocol is a road block set up by the enemy’s double agents to undermine ourselves from within.

Not much going on besides feeling under-utilized for my talents and ambitions. Some may need 18 months to be a second lieutenant, but I don’t think I do. Hell, some need 36 months. I’d like to think I evolve in my new environments faster than most. I grow to the size of the pond I’m thrown in to. But lately I feel like I’m being asked to shrink. Going home at the end of a day and being able to look back and confidently conclude that I accomplished absolutely nothing feels akin to slitting my own wrist. I’m huffing the noxious fumes of inefficiency to purposefully retard my performance to fill the spot of a warm body. And it’s only been 10 months!

Now it seems every empty moment I get is used to wistfully dream of future challenges.

“It’ll be better when I make captain,” I tell myself. Or, “It’ll be better when I’m in a different battalion/branch/etc.”

The happiest I get is when I think of where I could be in ten years. Do most people have a ten year plan? I don’t know. But it seems the ten-year mark is my short term goal lately. Reading books and the news about the strategy our generals have for the war, and reading about the grand-scale problems that face the middle east regions we’re involved in right now, captures my imagination and stokes my intellectual curiosity. Being required to regurgitate information in differing forms of PowerPoint does not. After almost a year in an active duty unit, almost zero professional development. I actually feel much less motivated and much less utilized than when I was a cadet.

When left unconstrained I can see myself in graduate school and writing stories and papers for professional publications. Or at least going out every day and trying to make something happen. I dream of the day I may end up in law school and push my intellectual capacity past the red line. Maybe I could work for a non-profit agency that works on international security policy issues that can pressure corrupt and oppressive regimes into modernity. Maybe I could consult members of Congress on energy policies that would solidify the United States as the shining beacon of innovation and leadership in the next century. Maybe I could clean up Illinois politics?

Popularity: 71% [?]