The Overarching Plan
I would consider my younger self a dreamer. I always envisioned things as they could be and asked why not? As I grew older I realized the answer to that question - because reality f’n said so. Reality doesn’t care about your plans or expectations or dreams or aspirations. Reality follows its own rules and doesn’t listen to what a human being’s mind whispers at night. Reality is the great beast that we are all subservient to and when it comes down to it, reality is the one who dictates how our lives will play out. Much of it is chance - we have no control over where we are born or what our family is going to be like or if we are going to be in the corner liquor store at the time when a masked man decides today he wants to go off the edge because $7.50 an hour just isn’t covering the bills so he grabs his old shotgun and aims it at innocent pedestrians on a Tuesday afternoon. The point is there is much that is out of our hands. The positive side to this is the older we grow the more opportunity we are presented in our lives - a chance card with an underlying choice to it. And those random chance moments that reality throws at us are really plot points designed to nudge us closer and closer to where we really are supposed to be. As Courage Wolf says, Life’s getting hard because God fears your progress.
Over the course of my life it feels like my internal world and external world have been disharmonious in their intentions. What my mind wants and what my body wants are two completely different things, which leads me to being pulled in several different directions depending on which has the strongest pull at the moment. The older I get the more I am aware of this issue and with each day I try to work towards bridging the gap so I can feel like a complete human being. It is difficult in our society, however, because the world we are living is an artificial one. Those in power would rather our minds be sedated and our bodies be active, so the gears that make this illusionary world tick can proceed uninterrupted. The overarching goal for my military service is to find balance between what I think and what I feel. I want my body and my mind to work in unison, so when I set my mind to task I can complete it quickly and efficiently then move on to the next. To do this, I must also keep my body happy and healthy. I view it as a vessel, and if it deteriorates too much it will make no difference how nimble my mind is.
The military is going to function as a cannon. My life is the cannonball. It’s loaded up and the fuse is already lit - soon it’s going to explode and I will be shot forward at a pace much faster than anything I have known before. When I am thinking about where my life could be headed six years, ten years, twenty years down the road, I have only vague notions of how I am going to act when I am in the service. I don’t know how things are going to work out. As everything flies past at lightning fast speeds I will be trying to hit a mark way off in the distance, all the while enjoying the view along the way. I can move a bit to the left and end up in this future life (staying in to retirement), or I can move a bit to the right and end up in this future life (leave the Air Force after six years and get a job in the civilian world), or I can continue straight ahead and end up in this future life (go into the reserves after six years). These are only three possibilities of the countless futures I could find myself landing in. This doesn’t even bring into account what happens if I meet someone and fall in love while I’m in the service. The destination may not be of my own choosing - because things are going to go quickly, I will have to aim while I am propelled forward. Thus, a cannonball shot out of a cannon.
While I am serving in the Air Force I will be working on plans for when I get out. I will be going to school on base for free so I will get at least one (possibly two) degrees. I have not decided what I want a degree in yet - I’m leaning towards a Philosophy degree (just for kicks) and then something more practical (robotics, engineering, teaching, etc). The way I’m looking at it is even if I get a degree, that doesn’t mean I’m going to get a job in that field. Part of it is my desire to pursue education for the sake of education. What I would like to do one day for a full time job is to be a writer. Sometime in the first year or two I am going to set up a website for Adam Crate so I can publish my short stories on there. In a few years following that I am going to start working on turning some of my longer stories into eBooks and selling them online. That way by the time I’m nearing the end of my Air Force career I can start talking to publishers and agents and showing them my portfolio so if it works out smoothly I won’t even have to get a transition job once I am out. Note this is relevant to the six year Air Force plan that I’m going in on - I’m not making any solid plans for staying in because that is something I will decide later.
So let’s say it’s six years later and I’m about to be leaving the Air Force. As of right now I can see myself choosing a city to live in and renting an apartment so I have a place to live right when I complete my active service time. I really want to live in California but I haven’t been there yet - I want to visit a place at least once before I say for sure I want to live there. Once everything is moved in and I am settled I will either be working with a publisher for hard-copy books or I will be working a transitional job while self publishing eBooks. Also note while I am in the service my goal is to write one short story a month, and my short stories will be published on my website (and most on this blog) for free. Only my longer stories will be sold as eBooks.
Writing isn’t the pinnacle of my life. While that is one of my major goals, once I get published that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit back and milk the profits. I will continue writing while trying to transition into other work as well. I’ve always wanted to own my own animation studio - if I make enough money writing, that will be one of the things I spend my money on. I can foresee myself working closely with a team of writers and animations to produce movies of cult status. I also want to do a lot of volunteer work; one of my goals in life has always been to join the Peace Corps. The big reason I want to do things of a helpful nature is because I am a capable human being and what kind of a utopian would I be if I didn’t try to improve this world as much as possible?
Which is really what everything boils down to. Beginning on January 3rd I will be moving at a fast pace through life and at the very heart of myself, I want nothing more than to leave as much good in my wake as I can. I want to do great things. I want to feel accomplished and satisfied when I die thirty-three years down the road when a renegade android decides to play punching bag with my face. Sure I won’t be around to see the machine’s inevitable uprising but such is reality. And what a bastard reality is. It used to bother me how messed up this world was. It used to bother me how messed up I felt my life was. It still does but a lot less because I know everyday I make another step forward to the life I really feel like I am supposed to be living. So what’s the overarching plan for the great Crate? Become a shaman and usher in the age of good feelies and creative expression.
