The Bug

Unshakable. Insatiable.

It’s an itch and a thirst, a terminal infection. It’s travel.

Recently, I've come into a mild travel-kick. Beginning last spring, when I took a trip to the UK with my rugby team, I became enchanted with the freedoms of international exploration. Always being an avid backpacker and fisherman, I took every available moment during the next summer to explore a new corner of the state which I call home. This winter was highlighted by a trip to Ecuador to tune-up my Spanish abilities and tour the South American paradise. When every day for 2 weeks was characterized by new people, a new environment, new foods, and new culture I didn't want the excitement to stop.

It’s an addiction.

So now, sitting on a chair at my desk, I am left to dream of future travel and postulate why it’s such an important activity in which to engage. First, it is an opportunity to define ‘you’. Travel offers a blank slate. No one knows who you are, you are not bound by any agenda, and your limits are those which you set for yourself. How you handle yourself with such autonomy will define your character: how do you use your time? Will you step outside of your own comfort zone? Will you make the effort to meet new people? How do you decide with whom you share your experiences? How will you decide which experiences to have? Along with dozens of other questions, only you have the ability to provide an answer through your actions on the trip. Second, travel will widen your perspective on everything. What matters to you, needs vs. wants, and daily routines all have the potential to be challenged by any one of the experiences you will have while abroad. Hopefully you will uncover some of the trivial problems in your life which may be done away through minimization. Furthermore, it is easy to come to grateful conclusions about the place you call home. The value of the “little things” will probably increase after the trip. Lastly, I cannot omit the rejuvenating properties of travel. We have all heard of the importance of rewarding yourself for hard work,  meeting goals etc.,  and travel is (potentially arguable) THE best reward for such behavior. Mind at ease, any length of travel provides both a physical and mental separation between you and the problems of reality. Placing yourself in such pleasant situations has to be beneficial (I mean, mental health days are a thing, right?)and when I’m a doctor I’ll be sure to do the research that would allow me to prescribe patient with “x Mandatory days of travel” as a legitimate treatment.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe all it will take is your first trip abroad. Either way, I know that I cannot get enough of the adventure entailed in travelling. The sites, the people, the cuisine, all of it cumulates in an experience that is as much about the journey as it is the destination. We cannot afford to maintain such a narrow perspective as is developed by those who never leave their home state. Not in a time of interconnectedness, of globalization, were we must subscribe to a global rather than statial way of thought. Opportunity is there: the money, the methods, and the destinations. There is no excuse to not go out and experience the world, our world. Go out and gain the perspective, BE a cosmopolitanis, a citizen of the world. 

safe travels.

-Stephen

Rites of Passage, Part II

            It’s been almost a year since my original post about rites of passage (look, I used the proper form of the word, this time). In the time bygone, I have had a few experiences that I think allow me to now compose part two.

            I’ll start with this summer, when I was employed as a miner in a limestone quarry. Whilst working in this mine, I was subjected to not hazing or purposefully instituted rites of passage in so many words, but to the stereotypical blue-collar “Fucking New Guy” (FNG) stuff. Let me preface what I’m about to say; I don’t come from some posh white-collar upbringing, I was raised doing farm work, earning my keep at home, and hunting because we needed meat, not because I had a new $12,000 shotgun that daddy bought me – my point is that working in a blue-collar environment was nothing new to me. Back to the quarry; as the FNG, I unfailingly drew the most undesirable job: driving a haul truck. Don’t get me wrong, there aren’t too many engrossingly interesting jobs in a limestone quarry, but driving a haul truck in a half mile long semi-circle for ten hours straight for six days a week is the pinnacle or boredom. So, as the new guy, I was relegated to doing this for the duration of my employment (don’t mistake this for ingratitude, because I’m very grateful to have had the job, money, and experience). However, working in this quarry provided me with opportunities not only to learn how this industry operates, at least one a base level, it got me a lifelong certification as a miner in the state of Virginia, a basic knowledge of how to operate a few different pieces of equipment, improved my driving skills immensely, and provided me a chance to work with down to earth men. I was never made fun of or joked about any more than the new guy on any job site and I was never made to do anything dangerous or embarrassing (there isn’t any room for these types of fuck fuck games in a mine), but I knew that the jovial shit talking and joking radio transmissions were all part of being the new guy and earning a place on the quarry crew.

            On another level, I began this summer my second year at VMI. A 180 from last year, I found myself in a position of power and influence as a member of the cadre in charge of preparing and training the newly arrived rats. Firstly, let me say that the cadre with whom I worked displayed nothing but the utmost professionalism and expertise in their methods. As I went through the process of Hell Week, this time on the other side, I thought back to my own experience as a rat; methods I thought helped me learn, things that I thought were impractical, etc. and used this tool box I’d accrued over the past year to make my own training more effective. Now, my Hell Week was no walk in the park, by any means, but there was never a moment that was easy or even pleasant, and I made sure, as a member of cadre, that this year’s rat mass had the same experience of constant physical and mental strain while also achieving basic aptitude in the ways of a cadet. They were never hazed, they were never needlessly embarrassed, they were never made to do anything dangerous (these things are not the cadre’s job), but the whole ordeal represents one of the most rigorous rites of passage in the US higher education system.

            Now that I’ve been on the receiving and delivering ends of these rites of passage in several settings, I think that yes, society is certainly getting softer (something I think needs desperately to be remedied), but the fact that rites of passage still exist in mundane places like a work site, that young men still want to come to such a challenging place as this to test their mettle, and the fact that people like me continue to insure that the FNG’s get the same tough and testing experiences as we had says that rites of passage are not dead, they’re just sick, and society needs to provide the medicine.

-Sam

Modern Rights Of Passage - Part 1

Let me be the first to say that I am a proponent of the grandest sort of allowing each man to make his own way in this world. That being said, I will also be the first to point out that nobody may begin their own way in America without first following in the footsteps of those who have gone before. I speak of course of the concept of “rights of passage” in this, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

            Too often have I been disappointed by the incessant whining of the general populace around me as to the hardships of being a collegian, an athlete, fraternity brother, sorority sister, or human being in general. I find it, to be quite frank, disgusting that everybody thinks they should have their fortunes handed to them on a silver platter. As a student of the lowest order (Rat) at what is arguably the most rigorous military school in the nation, I feel that I am slightly more qualified to speak on the topic of earning one’s place than most.

            I am of the mind that American society today has projected a picture to the populace of everything being given when asked and nothing taking the least bit of blood, sweat, or tears. I feel that this is a result of the pacification of American society as a whole and the growing idea that we needn’t work for what we want or out place in society or, indeed, the world. If one were to ask me where I stand on the concept of hazing, I would likely respond that I am a proponent of it. I know, I know, you’re thinking ‘how can you say something like that?’ It’s simple, really, it’s my thinking, that if someone can’t undergo the hardships of becoming a member of a fraternity, a club, or a corps of cadets, then how can they be expected to adequately stand up to the trials of executive life, combat, or, actual society?

            In conclusion, I would classify myself as one among the old breed of social thinkers. I am one who thinks that one must first earn their place and prove their worth before counting themselves among the ranks of those who have. I acknowledge that there are less than pleasant things that occur during these “rights of passage” and that not everyone who undertakes them will seed it through to the other side; but I promise you, that those who do undergo these hardships, this baptism by fire, will prove to be more dependable, reliable, and competent individuals.

                                           -Sam