today

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

H.P. Lovecraft
The Call of Cthulu

The dark art of wasting time

There is a certain blessing that transcends all races, latitudes and eras of mankind and that is that men, at the prime of their youth hold a firm conviction that they may -one day- change the world. The military service aims exactly at smashing this wonderful -yet dangerous- aspitration.

There are various motives behind such hideous an operation. Superstition, Conservatism, Backwardness and pure, powerful Stupidity to name only a few. But even if one is to accept the inevitability of the nature of things and submit to the idea that his time in the army is to reduce him to a mindless, opinionless, frightened peon -and consequently a burden to society-, there still remain inherent difficulties in grapsing the way this transformation is to take place.

I am writing this on my small notebook, having completed three hours of sitting at an empty hospital waiting room, where I am supposed to stay guard. Gurad of what exactly I am unable to tell, given that it is only 5pm, all the doors are still open, the cleaning ladies have not yet left the building, not to mention my superior officer who is -rightfully?- browsing the net in the office right opposite my post. Over these last three hours, I have grown weary with reading and bored of strolling up and down. My mind has become numb in absence of any possible stimulus and I dread to think that two more 4-hour shifts of pointless guarding nothing await me before dawn breaks over this blessed, military hospital.

I know that people who have already served -or still serving- and are reading this post, will by now attempt to decide between a lawful scorn and an ironic grin. After all, I am -at the moment- serving in my hometown and under circumstances that for the bulk of the Greek Army dwellers would be considered comfortable beyond any possible hesitation.
But that is not the point I am trying to make here -if any point can be made or is worthy of making. What my desperate, silent, solitary cry is attesting is that there is one thing in stripping a man of all his vigour, energy, will and right to become a productive citizen and it's a completely different one amputating him in such a way by deliberately enforcing on him the practice of a deep, unjustified and meaningless nothing.

It's the passivity of this art of time-wasting, that kills all that is good in us. How many books can a man read before he decides to quit reading altogether? How many songs can a man listen before he grows tired of music? How many blog posts can a man draft while strolling up and down for half a day, before deciding to quit his stupid blog once and for all?

But then again, how much more time need be lost before he concludes that if this world was ever to change the military would be the first thing to wipe out?

at the wrong place, at the wrong time

As life in the Army is a constant exercise in the Art of the Redundant one gets used to facing the ancient dilemma. Get utterly bored with doing nothing or get overwhelmingly frustrated with doing something completely useless? Today I confronted secret option number three. Which is doing something that is both useful and not boring but which you would strongly prefer to avoid in its entirety.

While in the army I have been asked more than ten times to elaborate on my computing and language skills and provide additional details on my PhD thesis. After careful consideration of all my qualities my superiors decided that I should better indulge into any sort of possible drudgery, thus providing me with a variety of activities NOT to choose from, which include mopping floors in the barracks (rather dull since it is always dirty), washing dishes in the restaurant (personal favourite) , carry boxes in and out of army trucks (veeeeery dusty boxes) and -last but not least- today's (and tomorrow's and the day after's) task of reorganizing a huge pile of garbage.

The latter, highly demanding mission -therefore the fact that the select group of seven included three University Degree holders- consisted in sorting out a small hill of garbage that contained debris, used hospital material (mostly mattresses) and junk in general into smaller piles of the aforementioned categories. It lasted more than three hours until it was interrupted temporarily due to the unfortunate event of the discovery of two medium-sized wasp nests in the depths of the pile. It is to be continued tomorrow with slightly increased protection measures.

It looks like somewhere on the way, my eagerness to serve the country and my country's needs decided to follow different paths.

today

Through all he said, even though his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something - an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted, like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air.

But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable for ever.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby