great chain

There's something fundamentally repugnant about a life groomed for leadership. There's all that bullshit about having a higher responsibility and self-development, and there's that dialectic involved about leaders and followers and how it's nicely and cleverly demarcated for everyone in the military like it's the best system in the world. Plus, hearing "no one wants to be a lowly clerk" and "the life of men is hard" repeatedly during grating sessions of propaganda leaves one with a very bad taste in one's mouth. Also, success in the army is in no way indicative of success in other areas; to subscribe to that belief is to conflate military life with the rest of your life, which is, frankly, quite terrifying. The opposite is also true. I believe that disillusionment is often the first sign of a structure being deeply flawed. 

sufficiently negative

Or, honest things I would say about me in the army:

1. Contrary to popular bullshit, entering command school doesn't make you a worthier person. 
2. Sometimes during training I want to crawl into a small dusty corner, lose my sense of selfhood and become part of the wall.
3. Sometimes during training I want to accidentally and grievously injure some people because the world would then become a better place.
4. I wake up every morning feeling like slitting one's wrists would be an excellent way to start the day.
5. It's funny how I sometimes want to give my commanders a hug and tell them how wonderful they are, but that's so gayballs. 
6. Singaporean boys are whiny and they will stay whiny; get over it.
7. Deep inside we all know that we're wasting our time.

Love, Like Water

Love, like water
tumbling from some far-flung cloud
into your bathroom alone, to sleeve
a toe, five toes, a metatarsal arch,
it does its best to feign indifference
to the body, but will go on creeping
up to the neck till its reading the skin
like Braille, though you’re certain it sees
under the surface of things and knows
the routes your nerves take as they branch
from the mind, which lately has been curling
in on itself like the spine of a dog
as it circles a patch of ground to sleep.
Now through the dappled window,
propped open slightly for the heat,
a light rain is composing
the lake it falls into, the way a lover’s hand
composes the body it touches - Love,
like water! How it gives and gives,
wearing the deepest of grooves in our sides
and filling them up again, ever so gently
wounding us, making us whole.

— Julia Copus

Voyage

Water opens without end
At the bow of the ship
Rising to descend
Away from it
Days become one
I am who I was

— Samuel Menashe

"Bookhunting, like the sexual hunt, adds to the geography of pleasure — another reason for strolling about in the world." — Susan Sontag 

Body and Soul

Where do you think the soul is?
Do you think it looks like a small paper bag,

the kind that contains one item—
candy bar, liquid soap, pint bottle?

Is it crumpled up behind the heart?
Is it folded neatly, wedged between the ribs,

is it wrapped around the balls, is it damp
like a cunt, has it been torn?

The body isn't the house.
If the body is the house,

is the soul up late in the kitchen, sleepless,
standing before the open refrigerator,

is it tired of TV,
sickened by its own thoughts?

The body has no thoughts.
The body soaks up love like a paper towel

and is still dry.
The body shoots up some drugs,

sweats and weeps—
Sometimes the body

gets so quiet
it can hear the soul,

scratching like something trapped
inside the walls

and trying frantically
to get out.

— Kim Addonizio

from 'The Crossing'

I am looking for the same small room.
Perhaps you are in it waiting.
Would you take me in and feed me.
Whisper the talk of the river, babble tongue.

— Jackie Kay

a short unfinished note on the military as performance art

If it makes you ask, "but is it art?" then it already is. — Ai Weiwei

The army runs on a lifeblood of artifice — artifice permeates regimentation, hierarchy and order. Because, fundamentally, military life denies most expressions of our humanity (for example, there is no room for self expression, standardization is given top priority, emotion however natural is a sign of weakness, etc.) to partake in this enterprise is to assume a persona separate from the "civilian" self. This is not a way of "coping" with the shock of a new environment, but an ineluctable transition in light of the demands of a different environment. This persona, however, is neither just a hard shell or a depersonalized void; it is a persona that is self-reflexive, self-deprecating but ultimately fragile in its radical denial of its own absurdity.

Yet despite the fragility that accompanies artifice, the enterprise reveals the complex aesthetics of paranoia. What drives the military is the need to be defensive; this need to be defensive stems from an awareness of vulnerability and transience. Subsequently, in the dialectics of the Self and the Other, defense reveals a fear — a paranoia — that constantly frames the Other as an enemy with latent violence and destructive force. It is interesting that ordered regimentation, the neat rows of marching soldiers and immaculate white uniforms of officers can become suggestive of strength and power. It is in this surprising signification that the chaos of paranoia brings out something orderly, minimal, deliberate and even beautiful.

I don't know what to write about anymore... But this experience of disappointment (and coping with disappointment) has revealed and taught me so much more than any experience of success. I meant it when I said last year that even if my A level results were terrible, I'll always, always treasure the things I gained from my time in JC. And today I discovered that the statement is still true; if not, somewhat bittersweet on hindsight. 

(Now, if I could only feel the same way about NS. OK — BMT has been a mixture of good times and frustration. But given a choice, I would still choose not to serve in a combat vocation. Because it goes against my anarcho-pacifist values. In the words of Liz Lemon — I'm not stubborn, I'm principled.)