Back in sage and tan and...

Well,

I've been a long time gone. Definitely too long. Honestly, maintaining a blog is a very difficult thing for me. One of the primary reasons is I always feel like I need to have something extremely meaningful or profound to say. I would hate for any of you (if anybody actually reads all this anyway) to waste your time on fluff.

Anyway, for any who are wondering, the title is a reference to the wonderful digitally pixelized colors of the Army Combat Uniform, which I have the privilege to wear daily over here. I am not really sure what color it actually is but...

Anyway, not much is going on over here. Well, I am sure a lot is going on over here, but not much is really going on in my little sphere of operation. I am going pretty much stir crazy. I feel like I am in a cage. It may come as a surprise to some out there but I really like people and I enjoy working with people. I think my pessimism might be occasionally confused for misanthropy. Oh well. Just shows that people are more complex than they appear. Layers. Onions... parfaits... I am probably an onion but that is alright. We all add our unique flavour to the human experience. Anyway, back to the tracks (another issue with blogging is I have an awful habit of becoming derailed). I absolutely hate Bagram because most of us are detached from the reality of Afghanistan. We will never see what it is about the people of Afghanistan that makes them worth saving. They will never see the children. They will never see the crouching cowering of blue-burqa-ed women, backs turned to the road, escaping the gaze of strangers.

Anyway, there is that saying that "a mind is a terrible thing to waste." I am discovering that a mind is a terrible thing. I have been lost in mine for the last month and a half or so and that is the reason for my silence. I have discovered that when I am able to lose myself in some sort of cause or service, when I am able subvert the ego, I am a much happier person. My greatest struggle with my mission here is most of my work goes on inside my head. I am unable to escape. The walls of my mind are in many ways more confining than the walls of the facility I work in, or even the Hesco/Concertina wire barriers that keep the bogeymen out. With my mind, the bogeymen are on the inside.

Anyway. Just some thoughts. None of them are complete. Some will likely be revisited. Some should probably be completely discarded.

More forthcoming.

Peace.