20100220

Saturday, February 20, 2010

School is great. I could live in school. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up doing something like that, turning into one of those lifelong academics. I wish I could do more now, but soon I’ll be able to. I go to shore duty and that should free up some more time for study. It’s not like I’m not studying a ridiculous amount as it is, I’m just not doing it in any particularly organized manner, and not for college credit. It’s all good, though. It seems like most of the classes I’ve taken, I’ve already been prepared for. Hopefully I can keep that going, at least to some extent. I suspect that there’s virtually no way that could be for medical school, but at least I can prepare as much as possible. Right now, philosophy is dominating my life, but I don’t see any reason why I’d have a problem shifting gears. In fact, philosophy is giving me a better faculty with which to understand everything else. It really is the paradigm for everything else—the philosophy behind it. The threads in the blanket of philosophy stretch out to every possible space they can reach, like life itself expands to the extremes of its own ability to survive.

I’ve been listening to Richard Dawkin’s The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. It’s very well put together, and the way it presents arguments is much more sophisticated and well put together than those in The God Delusion. I want to go back and revisit that one again as well. I’m planning on setting up another blog for book/literary reviews here: http://literaphile.blogspot.com/. And I’ll pour out some extensive thoughts on those book there, but The Greatest Show on Earth gave me a couple ideas I wanted to mention, because they tie in to a couple subjects I have been thinking about quite a lot lately. The first one came to me during a treatment of DNA, and how it is self-replicating. Mr. Dawkins talks about how someone being eaten by a tiger might at least feel some solace in the idea that they were being sacrificed to one of nature’s great beasts, and similarly with an anaconda. He even quotes Blake’s Tiger, Tiger during this segment. But, the he says that dying from the common cold just seems so “futile.” “But, it’s all futile,” he says, because DNA just has to replicate. It doesn’t care if it does it by the tiger eating you or the cold-virus making you sneeze. I don’t want to delve into evolution and DNA. I rather think Dr. Dawkins does a fine job of it in his book. But, I do want to compare the idea of DNA being a self-replicating chemical machine to the idea of nanobots. I am sure that this is not a new analogy, but, when listening to the audiobook, that was the first time it had crossed my mind.

A self-replicating nanobot world might end up being something very like a DNA world, as nanobots found better ways to carry out their replication and provide themselves with the resources they needed to replicate. I don’t think there’s much probability to the fear that self replicating nanobots could devour the entire world because they would be quite limited in their functionality. I really haven’t done the research or have the knowledge that I should on nanotechnology, especially since it’s an emerging industry and shows promise in being such an integral part of the future, and the futurist movement. But, that’s a subject I’ll have to elaborate on later.

Another idea I want to use in my political writing concerns Mr. Dawkin’s discussion of the reason why trees grow so tall—because they have had to compete against one another for sunlight in the forests. He talks about how growing taller costs the trees more valuable energy and resources, and that it would just be better if the trees could settle on a rule to grow to a certain height, and not grow any higher, they would save themselves from wasting a lot of energy. This would make a great analogy for the way our society works, and how, if we could just agree not to take advantage of each-other in competition, we’d save a lot of energy, and prevent a lot of suffering. More elaboration on that to come as well.

I really need to get working on writing these books, and I think I will be able to do that during the deployment. I hope I am not on the watch-bill for deployment, but it doesn’t look too promising. I’ve just been too excited to get back and get off of the USS VANDEGRIFT, finally. It’s been a long time and I’ve been through too much bullshit there, too much time spinning my wheels and not moving nearly as fast as I should have, thanks especially to several people who just can’t bear to see someone else do well because it would make them feel worse about their position in life. But enough with that negativity…

It’s time to reorganize, refocus, and make another push.

20080206

Last year I made a concerted effort to demonstrate my aptitude through numerous contributions and accomplishments. I jumped on responsibilities and jobs where others shied away. I took on POIC for every deck evolution on board, took on the job of RPPO and designed a system that saved 100s of man-hours, took charge of the CFL program and personally designed the command fitness training regimen, qualified up to locker leader in DC, qualified officer of the deck (in port) as well as duty gunner’s mate, became a member of the FPTT, passed SAR school and trained two additional SAR swimmers, joined the VBSS training team and took on the responsibility of POIC of training for the VBSS teams, qualified as enlisted surface warfare specialist, as well as stepped up to be the flight deck phone talker which was requested by the CDR Rinko. I felt that, through my efforts, not only deck division, but the entire command had greatly benefited.

However idealistic it may sound, my enthusiasm stems from a self-chosen, profound commitment to improvement for humankind. One avenue through which I intend to carry this out is through medicine. I’ve laid out some loose plans to achieve the necessary education and requirements to provide this kind of contribution, with some specific measurable results. One of those results was the award for junior sailor of the year, 2007. I felt that this award would significantly improve my chances of acceptance into the STA21 program, which would greatly accelerate my ability to practice and research medicine. I do want it to be clear that, while I was aiming for the award, it was not my prime goal. I did, however, have it listed as a goal of mine, and I did make my best attempt to achieve it. I thought that through my many accomplishments as far as qualifications, collateral duties, and most importantly, my contributions to individuals on a personal level, were far more than enough to clarify to every single person who was present on board Vandegrift in 2007, that there was no better candidate for the award. In fact, when I was selected as junior sailor of the quarter, second quarter of 2007, Senior Chief Jeff Baldie spoke to me at the awards ceremony and said, “You had several other candidates up against you, but you just blew them all out of the water.” I said thank you, and told him that I intended on keeping it up and going all the way to JSOY. Then he told me, “You know what you’ll have to do…” and ran his finger above the U.S. NAVY on my uniform. Even though I had considered waiting until deployment to allow time for more CLEP exams and college courses, I made an especially dedicated effort to qualify as an ESWS before the end of the year, specifically to put me over the top as a shoe in for the award.

When I heard the news that I was not selected, I was confused and upset. I felt that I had wasted the time and effort that I had put in specifically for that reason. To this day I don’t understand how anyone in the command could have stood out before me as a candidate, or even compared to my seemingly ridiculous level of performance. I may just have a skewed idea of my accomplishments, and am being arrogant. But I truly believe that if the accomplishments of all had been weighed, mine would have ultimately outweighed the others. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I worked harder, longer, smarter, and more constructively than I ever have in my life, and more than I believe most people ever will. It is not that I resent anyone in particular, but, in my ignorance of the process, I have searching for possible explanations. I felt that I was wronged by the command itself. I felt betrayed and unappreciated. I wanted closure, but wasn’t sure how to approach that appropriately.

I considered a range of possible “solutions”, including total abandonment, cross-rating, e-mailing the captain requesting an explanation, becoming withdrawn and inactive, etc. Ultimately, experiencing the respect that the seamen have for me, and seeing the source of inspiration I had provided for some of them had me reconsider those options and realize where my motivations truly lied. I came to the conclusion that personal contributions and the respect of others is a far greater honor than any award can express, and that awards and recognition are not something for which to work or by which to be motivated. Awards are insignificant in comparison to the scale of my ambitions. And fortunately, other than a night of drinking, I didn’t act on any self-destructive ideas. After some long deliberation, I came up with the attached document.

I want nothing more than to continue on with the same level of productivity and contribution that I had last year. However I desire to be a contribution, I have some inhibitions about putting myself on the line where I may not be appreciated or even acknowledged for that. But perhaps it’s just a life lesson to be learned. I can understand that some people will be unappreciative, resentful, or apathetic about what I do, and simply stay focused on my definitive goals, without being indignant with those people. After all, those are the very people to whom I seek to contribute and to inspire.