Autopilot

you will never know what it's like to wake up at 4.30 am and sleep at 5 the next morning, only to wake up at 6 am, to change out of your uniform and prepare to carry your bags outside the gate.

and you will also never know how it feels to wake up on a friday, thinking it was a sunday, only to realize minutes later that you still have 2 more days to relax before doing everything all over again.

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everytime i get to hold a gun, i get a rude reminder that life is not like the movies, that i can't run into a building full of bad guys with nothing but a trusted gun and a badass attitude.

you know how the universe likes to remind me, by making me wear my LBV and doing basically anything, including being on high alert, where you must, MUST bend your back forward like some cripple trying to speak to someone much taller.

i read somewhere in an article about driving that, people actually go into autopilot mode when they drive after some time, because they think they are already above average drivers. you only truly understand how dangerous that is the next time you try to slice a tomato in autopilot mode, essentially your whole mind zones out and you go into your own little world while your body carries on doing the same action over and over again. Autopilot in itself is not dangerous, when you're maybe doing homework or running from one place to another, but when you put the lives of other people into that equation, a reaction that is just simply one second slower can cause numerous losses of lives.

and why am i talking about autopilot mode, scientists say that people slip into this is because human beings weren't designed to do mundane tasks. everytime you do something new, your brain absorbs all the new information and as a result become sharper and more alert. on the other hand, doing something repetitive creates boredom and causes your brain to focus on other non-old things, turning your attention away from what needs your attention most, the old lady crossing the street.

so i talk about this autopilot mode because i want to illustrate the sheer redundancy of certain military activities. while i'm glad we no longer need to clean our own plates after meals because that has already been outsourced, there are still so many activities that remain pointless and redundant and often, the excuse of "maintain discipline" and "conditioning" is often used.


actually i'm just pissed the haven't invented a car-wash-like machine to clean our rifles.

i hate cleaning rifes.

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also, people other than sam have not yet responded to my idea, i needed to call al, before she "approved" anything. so yeah there's that, nobody else seems to remotely use their emails.