Humans are adaptable creatures. I was reminded quite suddenly of that fact this afternoon, when I resurrected my iPad from it's sentinel on my desk and caught up on some Hulu television shows (ok, so far I'm sounding like a technological caricature of a person). I also checked my email inbox, where I was looking for some news...and whoops! there it was. A long-overlooked email from a former professor of mine.
This email in question was a response to a message I sent him on the occasion of receiving some literature from my former college. I was deployed at the time, and struggling with separation from my new family and the almost constant activity that attends military operations. The mailing was a both a wrench and a breath of fresh air: it recalled the second-happiest period of my life, my time at Notre Dame. And as I re-read that email, written two years ago from the sleepy agricultural Japanese village of Komatsu, I wondered at all that had changed.
Like many, I turn to the familiar when I encounter adversary. Actually, that's like all of us. One of the benefits of studying ethics under Dr. Steven Olsen is that I can understand some of the impulses that govern my behavior. And he has demonstrated in neurological studies that humans ALWAYS go to the familiar in some form or another when faced with adversity. Choosing the different requires opposition, either in the form of a person who says, "no! don't do that! do this instead!" But I digress. In any case, during the particular adversity of that deployment--which seemed to consist of equal parts missing my wife, struggling to keep up with our day-to-day flying and movement schedule, training flights, and hangovers--I found refuge in my old refuge, books.
If you've clicked the link, you know that the book in question was Moby Dick. It might have seemed a little odd to my squadron-mates that I would curl up in bland, minimalist, and weirdly overstuffed sitting area with my Kindle while they were more concerned about taking the new guys out to Karaoke as a means to forcing them to perform 'Paradise by the Dashboard Lights' and nicknaming them Meatloaf (perhaps the new Marine Corps order on hazing has a part in this discussion? I kid, I kid), but they were used to my oddness. After all, they found it endlessly entertaining that my college degree was in something so vaguely titled, "Great Books" and they marveled at my effortless use of words outside their vocabulary. And though they eventually knew me better, perhaps, that my reader here, they initially drew the same conclusion: namely that I was nerdy, affectedly academic, and pompous, and that I probably was homeschooled too. Actually, I was not.
It's just, well, I have always had an affinity for reading. A psychologist would no doubt have a field day delving into my past and figuring out why my childhood friends were books, rather than friends, but here I am and then, in adversity, I went straight back to a good book, and forewent the Karaoke (although in retrospect I'm sorry I did, except that maybe otherwise I wouldn't have written that email, or rediscovered it now, or sat down to write a rambling reflection on it).
And so as I revisited this old email, my adaptability presented itself in the subject of the last books I read: The Rise of the Wehrmacht: The German Armed Forces and World War II, Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918, and my current projects, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and The Gathering Storm (Churchill's memoirs on World War II). Apart from maybe wondering if I've discovered some evil attraction in Hitler's awful regime (something some of my, er, acquaintances will no doubt say they knew already), the discerning reader will note the sharp shift from the pure artistic literature of Moby Dick and Paradise Lost (referenced in that old letter) to the very serious topic of European military history during the two world wars. So, I have adapted.
My wife sometimes tells me that I've assimilated too much into the 'Marine Culture.' I find this hard to believe, since I keep my hair as normal-looking as possible without pushing the boundary of stated grooming regulations and I don't have any tattoos on my body that say USMC, or depict an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, or that announce my MOS (looking at you, grunts!). But then I realize that I have traded in that thing I really loved--a great story, artfully told, illustrating something True about life--for something more narrowly focused to my profession. She was right, and I have to say that while chagrined I am also grateful that she stood athwart my regress and told me to stop. I repeat: so, I have adapted.
Now I want to make it clear that I think it a very good thing that I read military history. After all, I chose to read these books on purpose. And no, Lakesiders (and casual Facebook visitors), it's not because I'm somehow contemplating Nazism (academically or otherwise). Having in some wise the education of young officers, who will shortly be leading young Americans into combat, in my charge, well I'd better be educating myself! But instruction is futile if it's not authentic, and the less authentic I become in my self-imposed mind-narrowing the poorer instruction I'll give.
I should have read the signs, of course. I was thrilled to discourse a bit on Aristotle when talking ethics to my own Alpha Company, 6th Platoon. I recently started listening intently to classical music in the car when driving to and from work. WETA, anyone? Today I dived into my iTunes collection of hymns. All tugging me back to that most enjoyable thing for me, encountering good stories and Truth. It's my hobby, the way some people enjoy conversation, or woodworking, or playing an instrument. I only wish my hobby were more social, but, well, I blame the homeschooling (or whatever gave me that aura), apologies to one recent student and all homeschooled readers. You're all probably smarter than the rest of us, by the way.
So, adaptability. Definitely a good thing. Allows us to bring our talents to bear in new pursuits. Brings us into conversation with 'the different' so we don't always end up reacting the same way. But it also can pull us away from whatever constitutes our favorite things about, well, life. I don't subscribe to the theory that there is some immutable 'me' inside every one of us (well, not 'me;' in your case it would 'you') that has existed since conception or birth and persists until death--humans are too complicated for that. We grow, and develop, and adapt, and usually find things than are more enjoyable that what was previously our favorite. And it's really only important that we gravitate to the things that make us happy. Unfortunately for my wife and my close friends, I now add 'history about the German Army of the two world wars' to that list of things that makes me happy.
And I will finish my two current books, because *hmpf* I am a father and it's important I set the example of finishing what I started, and then I'll move on to something a little broader in scope. I would welcome suggestions.
