As is the norm for many a writer at year’s end-I have been doing a lot of thinking about the year past-and since the coming year will celebrate the 55th anniversary of my birth ( God willing), a heck of a lot of time is also being devoted to the years ahead-which most probably do not outnumber the years behind. (In and of itself a cause for great depression and thought).
This past year has been a tumultuous one for me-what with observing up close the mean-spiritedness of a government agencies attempt to screw people in the guise of “saving money” ( when it was later admitted that no money was saved at all) to executing a move across the ocean from the New World to the Old World, and dragging a more than reluctant S.O. with me, from a warm house with a yard, to a not so warm house with very little yard-but a great view. Balanced out by slow reponse to the need for utilities and digging out from boxes and boxes and boxes.
I think most of us get to a certain point in life where we outgrow our ambition. I know I certainly have-and I cringe when I think back to my 38 and 39 year old self motivated by the desires to advance and compete. I knowingly smile now, as I work among a group of similar 38-45 year olds, some of whom are already “preferred customers” and others are striving to become one of them. Others still, have seen that any path to advancement is not going to come through their first chose of profession and will have to make the same transition as I did –in mid life-from a career they dearly loved to simply a career/income stream they dearly need.
Now mind you, I’m not whining. I made some choices and they are mine and mine alone. My current place of employ is actually very satisfying and the location where I am living is fascinating to be in and to observe. Symbolically it is a lot closer to where I wish to be, and it my days are not filled with hearing the futility and outright stupidity that constitutes the daily political news cycle of the land of my birth.
And yet-there are times I wonder if this really the best I can be doing. For myself and for my fellow humanity. I have been thinking a lot recently about the parade of history that is represented by the places I pass by each day now, and the parade of history represented by my current place of employ. I think a lot about the warning words from former President Eisenhower about the rise of the military industrial complex. He uttered those words when I was 4 years old. They appear to have become appallingly true in my life time. “Is the really the best I can do?”
I chose the military profession with the idealism of a 18 year old-without a long term vision, really. I simply wanted to fly and to see the world. The Navy made good on both promises I am proud to say, and the military has continued to be an enabler of the high flying lifestyle that I deeply enjoy. It’s enabled me to live overseas where I doubt any other profession would have-given my background and lack of commercial career skills. It also gave me a lifetime of vivid experiences that simple “office work” would never have provided. That alone made it worth the price of admission.
But at the same time-the passing of this last decade have started to give me pause. Because in the work that I and literally tens of thousands of others do-we produce nothing of value. Nothing of long term benefit to the human race as a whole. Do PowerPoint presentations on missile arcs of the missiles belonging to our adversaries do one thing towards providing a cure for cancer? Do they improve the lot in life of the 2/3 of the world’s population who live on less than $2100 dollars a year.
I can hear the response to that statement now-and the comments to come: “It prevents those missiles from being fired”, you may say, “we keep the peace through our strength.” Perhaps it does-but does that strength really come from a staff of over 1000 who do nothing in the way of maintaining or sailing with those weapons of deterrence? Just directing and coordinating their employment-and passing around taskers like so much toilet tissue. And for that matter-does deterrence really deter anymore?
Deterrence did not prevent the colossal waste of the Iraq War, where-as Thomas Ricks and Daniel Drezner have pointed out-we have precious little to show for our efforts.
The continent I am living on has a 2000 year violent and bloody history of fighting-imagine what could have been accomplished if they had fixed their borders and put the manpower and money to more productive pursuits. Imagine what the 600 billion the United States will spend on defense and defense related spending could accomplish if we did not live in such a violent and un-peaceful world. As I mentioned earlier-in this one week alone, I have three times stood in front of memorials to the Gefallene. Unlike our war memorials, German ones are not so pretentious as to state that they died "for humanity." I don't think so.
At least when I was on active duty and I had such thoughts-they could always be easily offset by the little victories one could accomplish for your Sailors. Helping someone get the orders they wanted, helping them get over a financial or emotional scrape-stretching the rules just enough to give them the time they needed to work things out themselves. Those things outweighed the inability to influence major decisions. At the time it seemed enough. Receiving the occasional “thank you’ from someone you helped, was worth more than all the gold in South Africa. Post retirement-those days don’t happen anymore. As a contractor, you are reviled for being greedy. ( Thank you for that Mr. O’Reilly) and as a government employee you are reviled for being a part of the national deficit-undeserving of more money, benefits or thanks. And you certainly don’t have the direct ability to impact the lives of others, even though you want to. The bureaucratic straight jacket sees to that.
There are times I envy doctors, or for that matter car designers. They at least get to see the product at the end of the line. Doctors get to help people feel better (I like to think their victories outnumber their defeats at the hands of the reaper). Car designers see their product take form and life. Even computer technicians get to make people happy for a short while-by fixing a hard problem. But purveyors of the Power Point? They have no such satisfaction.
“Its not about the what at this point-its about the where.”, I tell myself. And for the most part-at this point in my life-that statement sums up my view towards the professions anymore. Money is not the most important thing or even the second most important thing. To be able to live comfortably, in the place you want-seems sufficient.
Or it only seems to. What I would really like to see for the New Year is the end of the cycle of violence. The bitter hatreds and conflicts that are getting simple people killed for absolutely nothing. People who for the most part are pretty much the same-they want food on the table, a warm roof over their head and a warm attractive body to love them physically and emotionally. That’s a new year’s wish I am pretty certain will go unfulfilled this year.
But the bills are going to pay themselves you know. So off to work each morning I shall go. Ein Gluckliche Neues Jahr.
Maybe.