Good evening. I'm still in fucking Washington. I really miss my nice house and pool and pond and birds and beaches in Florida. But, I'm here for a reason, and that reason is to learn how to do cool shit. I'm used to doing cool shit, and learning how to do it; my career is filled with learning how to do cool shit. But this is different. This is classified.
I've always been intrigued by classified information. The public knows one thing, and reality is something else on the other side of the room. Everyone flooding Facebook and Twitter with opinions on what they think is reality, may just be touting an illusion. And knowing what's on the other side of that illusion is pure euphoria.
I've always said there are three things in life to pursue: money, fame, and power. I've never cared much for fame, I prefer anonymity minus the people I'm in a room with. Power is an interesting concept, the ability to control things and affect peoples lives from a thousand miles away; but it doesn't suit me either--why would I want to affect peoples lives? Money... now that's just a toy, something to play with. I like having something to play with, and thus money has always been my key pursuit.
But since joining the military and having the gravity of my job and life rain down on me like ash unto Pompeii, I've come to discover a fourth pursuit: knowledge. Knowledge, not education or intelligence per se, is understanding what is around you, the world we live in, the universe, the truth. If we assume that it is impossible to know everything there is to know, and further that only your God or the Universe would be able to do so, then we can draw the conclusion that the more one knows, in truth, in reality, the closer one becomes to that Universe. Knowing of the reality is a syncing device. It is putting you one step above every single person who does not know. And the more you know, and the less they know, the higher you become.
Think back to your teenage years, in High School. There is no knowledge of any importance in the institution of school until a teacher sleeps with a student. Despite this, the knowledge feels important. Which secret parties are being planned? Who's taking Xanax before class? Why did Whitney and Spencer break up? None of this matters, no one should care. But we do. We spent four years fighting each other for every bit of information that has no meaning. Why waste the energy? I believe it's because understanding reality is a substantial human need, a pursuit. We are curious beings but I'm determined it goes further than that. Knowing why Whitney dumped her boyfriend while other people don't puts you in a position above the public. You now see more of the universe than the person next to you, no matter how trivial.
Move on to college. Fraternities and Sororities have secret mantras and handshakes that are absolutely valueless. No one can do anything with that information, yet the secrets are developed and kept. And at a point, it seems, maturity steps in to rationalize and most of the meaningless bits of undisclosed rumors and secrets become a thing of the past, high school drama, a part of your college experience. You move on to staying politically and globally informed via CNN and NBC; that becomes the knowledge you intake, and for some reason it satisfies most thinking they read a breaking headline five minutes before Fox aired it.
And this is where I believe I separate from the average individual--it's not enough. If information is on T.V, then the public knows it. It's out and archived for the night shows and Netflix documentaries, and it will never go back in.
Enter classified information. Information that the government or NATO has deemed too dangerous for the public to know. How far can the missiles in Syria hit a target? How many times has China entered Guam's airspace in the past 6 months? What can we launch from Diego Garcia? What were Osama bin Laden's last words? These are all questions the public doesn't even think to ask. You can't ask what you don't know, and you can't know because it's secret. The public broils in their celebrity gossip, their political scandals, their State of the Union, but none of it is complete and exposed reality. They see a press release that's tailored to the suppressed truth, and the public tweets their polarized opinions on a topic of which they aren't even aware they know nothing about. A blockbuster movie is made on the topic, filled with inconsistencies and guesswork; and then the public tweets about the movie. A Wikipedia page is erected with mainstream academic sources and taken as fact.
And then, in a classified briefing room with my phone sitting alone in my room, I learn the truth. I become graced with a simple, intangible delight: reality.
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