Journal: - The US Army Signal Corps -

I joined the service, the US Army, in 1987. Around that time, I don't recall having a better reason for enlisting other than seeking a serious change in lifestyle. Somehow along the way, my timeline slowed down and seemed like I was headed nowhere, just drifting towards a paltry existence of mediocrity. I didn't lose my ambition but having it was like "being dressed up with nowhere to go" - I was overloaded with ambition and nowhere near the "good life" it promises. My earlier dreams seemed very blurred. Devoid of certain pleasantries, I realized that my life was at a dead-end; still worst, this crisis didn't just show up, it was there for quite sometime, just that I was fast asleep all along.

Naturally, I stumbled upon the crossroads of change, choice, and above all, adventure! The question then was - am I ready?

It looked like the path before me lay paved with the tarnished stones of mediocrity. My immediate destiny was undoubtedly empty and thoroughly dim, somewhat dark, and on the whole, very depressing. I was not living the life I wanted or needed. Without the expressed ownership of it, I thought: “what in the world happened to the goals I was carrying around, and when did they evaporate or flew out of my head … and if so where did they go?” Some other life was living me and I just couldn’t put my finger on it. It seemed like my life, for all the foolhardy and aimless happenstance things that were going on in it, was a big joke. Unfortunately, I lost the sense of humor which I needed for a good laugh.

I was living a selfless life, and my dreams were not just broken, but were dying a selfless death. I needed to rediscover myself, find my dreams, pick them up and get to a place far away from the mess I found myself in whilst living in New York City. There is a time for everything; for me, it was a reckoning and time for repair. I yearned to leave the City to get it behind me and to stay away for a while and perhaps a very long while indeed. Things with me were just that bad and a change is long overdue. There is a happy world out there and I was not a part of it neither spiritually, mentally, nor emotionally, and I needed to find it and live in it.

In essence, this was not a joking matter, and very far from being funny. It was serious, so serious, that my reluctant permission, disguised as helplessness, rendered me with a lifestyle struck with a paralysis mired in boredom. Except for being an avid reader, listening to music - mild entertainment, eating well, and getting plenty of rest, life didn't seem to have anything to do with my real meaningful goals and the things I really wanted to accomplish. So much so, it seemed that I even forgot what it is I really wanted, and anything my dreams demanded. They were just as much broken as almost forgotten. In all eventuality, I had allowed my ambitions to become suffocated by the dust of time and circumstances; they laid bare and dormant dying a selfless senseless death of inertia. Something has to give. This cycle has to be broken. Something has to be done for the better; I got a wake-up call and a very real rude awakening indeed.

Thus, permit me to present a relevant notion and aesthetic application of Newton’s first Law of motion -

- An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force - compelled me to take action.

..."If you don't like something change it, if you can't change it then change your attitude towards it, don't complain." - Maya Angelou

Since I was in a dire need of rediscovery, hoping for complete renewal along the lines of self reinvention, I embarked upon this vital project as if my breath of life was in danger. In all likelihood my life was in jeopardy, and even though not in the physical sense, all the same, nevertheless, just as much in danger otherwise. A personal catastrophe of this kind demanded serious introspection and examination of self. I must not only find myself, but find it, renew it and append it with constructive meaning. In other words, Knight-18 was in need of an overhaul for , upgrade, and refinement. In such desperation and bold intent, I really didn’t care about the hesitation of pondering, or pandering, whether it should have been the “old” me or an improvised version of a brand new me. I toyed with the idea briefly, but couldn’t afford the baggage of posturing. I craved wholeheartedly at putting my project in motion, to leave some ugliness sour grapes behind. Color was returning to my life.

Quite remarkably, having identified the culprits and other elements of the problems - real and imagined - and that I was actually going about doing something about it, filled me with a sense of justice and enthusiasm. I was overcome with a yen for adventure; it grabbed me and I ran with it. And guess what, can you imagine what dawned on me? That revised self, the very one that will host the hopes and aspirations of a refreshed and invigorating personality was actually beckoning me, and not from afar. It was right up front calling out to me. I realized that I needed to correct certain things in my life, within my control but which somehow went astray. It looked like the easy part - which at first appeared difficult - was already worked out. All I needed to do was to figure out which were the things in my world that were making me miserable and unhappy. Additionally, I needed to identify the crap and useless baggage in my entourage, and weed them out completely.

Having hacked into my soul, a light came on and a new direction emerged, and by the grace of God, hope came alive. For this thing to work, as the proverbial saying goes, I needed to get out of “Dodge”; and I needed not tarry. I saw then that I better get going, and that some bridges ought to be burnt; no looking back save to making sure that I was heading in the right direction.

With this resolution in mind, I saw it was inevitable and necessary that I extract myself from my overall environment. I had to leave the people, places, and things which where the framework of my sad circumstances. I observed that I could not identify any one or more of the individual elements in this setting that was contributing to the grief I was experiencing. Rather, it was the unique combination of these same people, places, and things – including my own bent-out-of-shape disposition – that were to blame.

I soul searched and thought long and hard about matters. I finally resolved myself to a paradigm shift. It turned out to be a drastic one indeed!

Much thanks to Newtown’s Law, I reached a new plateau of self-confidence which provided me with a reinvigorating sense of challenge, and a yearning for travel, adventure, and discovery. Naturally, I decided to leave New York City, actually New York on the whole, and possibly the USA.

This made quite a bit of sense in the light of a wise man’s saying:
“Forgive your country every once in a while …. If that is not possible, go to another one.”

My dreams and correct my life, to pick them up and put them in perspective, Then I needed to work on Me, find that place to do just this thing, Where? How far or near, very likely far away from home - New York City - to repair. In order to see things clearly, I needed to withdraw, pull away and step back a bit to assess at my situation and circumstances objectively, I yearned to leave the City to get it behind me and stay away for a while, perhaps quite a while indeed.

I needed a clearer perception of myself, my dilemma, my goals, and my options, to come up with a resolution based on "thinking outside of the box". I thought about a paradigm shift towards a meaningful resolution. I meditated quite a lot and this took me places spiritually and for the most part was soothing and refreshing. Consequently, I moved myself out of my own way, and quite surprisingly, I began to see my circumstances in better light. I began to see with much better clarity and depth, exactly what needed be done to fix my situation.

Lo and behold! I enlisted in The US Army Signal Corps in November of 1987; shortly thereafter - still in November 1987 - I was heading to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina.

For example, let's say that I don't know from whence I arose - my real origin in humanity - and that for all I know I was probably hatched by a snake and didn't know my true purpose in life and all that good ole philosophical metaphysical stuff. But I arrived in the here-and-now all filled to the brim with human obsessions just like the next guy. Imbued with an obscene degree of self-worth and entitlement, I overdrawn my human account for living life to the fullest in "The Here and Now" while it lasts. Or better yet, always squeezing every last drop of juice out of the "moment". This was never me and not how I was living; it definitely wasn't the type of modesty I would associate with my character. Therefore, I saw no justification for the punishment which I was experiencing. In fact, I often try to live each day in moderation.

Army life changed my world-view; it took me to several different places in the world...

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude." -
- Thomas Jefferson.