Originally deployed on LiveJournal 16 Sept. 2007

It was another one of those nights. Mom was running off on one of her tangents about how I was getting fat working on my computer all the time and how I looked better between middle school and high school. I was already feeling dicey tonight from getting my butt handed to me at Halo during a clan match that I should have seen coming. I honestly can't stand losing, no matter how trivial it is in real life. I'm beginning to think that's my primary problem; the root of everything that I do and don't do. But just the same, I didn't want to deal with her patronizing and Godspeak.

After everyone had gone to bed, I was still fuming. So I decided to go for a run. Not just an ordinary run, a combat run. I gathered up my combat gear from airsoft, which was now beginning to gather dust because of school, and put everything on to go for a run. I think if anyone had actually caught me, I would have been in big trouble, but seeing as it was about midnight at the time, that wouldn't have been much of an issue. I finished assembling my gear and looked at myself in the mirror. "I look good," I thought. I stepped outside, slipped on my boots, and started running. I lasted about 90 seconds. I made it all the way up the big hill to the service road and about a third of the way up that before I hit the wall and couldn't make it any farther. I don't know if it was the cold air or the extra weight or the boots, but I just couldn't do it.

I was choking because I wasn't getting enough air. I had to stop. And stop I did, not just running, but thinking I was good enough to handle it. I realized that I wasn't. I looked like a professional. I acted like a professional. I trained with professionals. I even worked with professionals. But that didn't make me one. Deep down inside, I still didn't have what it took. I looked all awesome with the battle uniform on and carrying a replica of a rifle that could theoretically use to shoot you in the eye from 400 meters, but I couldn't even complete the mile run that night. I was beat. It was done. Fail.

I slowly worked my way back home, staying in the shadows to avoid drawing attention with noise, but about 50 meters out I just said screw it and broke out into a run, weapon down, boots to the ground. On the way in, both of my flashlights managed to weasel their way out of their holsters and clatter loudly to the pavement beneath me. I turned around and ran back for them, grabbing them with my free hand and taking my weapon out of firing position, holding it by the foregrip the rest of the way home. Had I actually been shot at, I wouldn't have been able to return fire, and probably wouldn't have made it. That hammered it home. I guess it is the inside that counts.

I got back in took a shower, finally got around to shaving after two weeks of unsightly stubble, and popped a coke (that's the soda, stupid) before sitting down at my desk with my laptop. My time is long, far longer than I really would have liked it to be. Trying to grow up sucks. There's a part of you that always wants to hold on to what you would have liked your childhood to be like. I've been tempted to blow all of my money on stuff like an Xbox 360, computers, guns, cars, cool toys, etc. After all, it's just money, right? But then there's the other part of you; the one that says "save it for a house, a family car, a wedding ring."

I never want to get married. I never want to have children. I never want to be absorbed into corporate monotony. I never want to live past 40; 30 is already pushing it. But is that right? Is that hanging on to a past that doesn't deserve to be? Or is that the last thing that's keeping me going in the midst of a world gone horribly wrong?

...the soldier who is going to die.
He smiles, and moves about in ways
his mother knows, habits of his.
The wires touch his face: I cry
NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears
and look, has made a man of dust
of a man of flesh...
- Keith Douglas

Can a weapon be beautiful? Can a device crafted for killing somehow titillate the aesthetic senses and garner a ready appreciation for itself despite its morbid purpose?

A fine sword is a work of art in and of itself. Blades and scabbards have been made that are ornate to the point of gratuity, perhaps serving better as household decoration or a symbol of status rather than the elegant device it was orginally made to be. Blades have also been made look the part of killing machine, but even in these brutish instruments there lies attention to form as well as function. Everything from the intricate hilt to the polished edge of the blade was handcrafted by master swordsmen who spent their entire lives forging these weapons. But somehow something as deadly as a sword serves as an accent to the home of someone who would not appreciate its significance, nor give it a second thought.

A firearm, on the other hand, places function above form in all respects. It can only be used for killing someone. With no inherent ornamental value, the only people who own rifles are those that truly appreciate their significance. A rifle was not made to be pretty, it was only made to be effective. Every spring, every cam, every screw, every pin, every rail, every component of the rifle was built with one purpose in mind: to put a bullet through someone or something at range. Every little piece was specifically engineered by its designer to kill. It is there that its true beauty lies. I know of no other device of this nature; few, if any at all, could claim this sort of exclusivity of purpose.

In spite of its ultimate purpose, the rifle is still a technological and engineering masterpiece, pure in form, strangely beautiful, second to none in its dedication to its intent of design...