Deliriously happy men, and miserable bastards

Deliriously happy men, and miserable bastards, should realize that both feelings fade, and in both states, men are as miserable or as happy as they choose to be. I believe that.

I discovered what I wanted to do while sketching in my sketch diary. You can get one of those cheap sketchbooks in the Walmart art aisle. The cover had a drawn hand holding a pencil. I had brought it to my second tour in Al'Qaime, Iraq. We were getting our asses handed to us, as I remember it. 

Operations were limited; every time we got hit or someone from our AO, the BC would lock down all area operations for 24 to 48 hours. No one was allowed to leave the FOB; I would sketch or write during these times. 

I wanted to create my own brand; this was 2005. I had imagined it, and I started visualizing it back then. I used it as an escape, a break, something for my mind to retreat to that gave me a vision for living for something outside of family and friends, outside the Marines, outside of war.

I wanted to be Magua, and I wanted revenge so profoundly; I desired to find my enemy and scalp him. It was the worst thing I could imagine doing to a living man at the time. On these days, I understood real deep hate. I was 20 years old and lived, saw, and tasted so many truths that men can read about, but if you did not experience them, their knowledge of them is incomplete. 

Learning hate was not nothing; I knew loss as well. I learned about real commitment, absolute fear, courage, and fear walking side by side with one another. Fear is indecision, courage is action, and indecision kills, as does complacency. In the chaos, speed, and violence of action defeat most things.

I learned hate is a choice and one that is a leach, a fat thirsty thick leach. Feed it, and it grows fatter, heavier to carry; mine was the size of a Cadillac Eldorado. Half of knowing how to live well is knowing what living miserably is. Know both; both are choices. Think and choose wisely. 

Nosce Te Ipsum.