Category Archives: Challenge

A Short On My Brother and I

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I started writing the below post 33 days ago, but couldn’t finish it because I wasn’t happy with it. Now, I’m pushing it out anyway. Between the “~” is the original post. Below that’s my commentary since the birthday has come and went and I’ve asked the opinion of my sister and my Father.

~

With a 15 year age difference, living apart for most of our lives, and different mothers*, my brother and I have quite a bit of a gap between us, without accounting for any ability to get along or not. And the last four years, I’ve not gotten along the best with my brother.

My opinion of him has oscillated between outright hating his guts (briefly) and being glad I have an older brother, even if just one. At this point though, I feel that my sister’s (then fiancee and now) husband’s been more of a brother to me than my own brother has.

The long story short, is that most of the time, my brother and I just don’t get along well. It’s been hard to bridge the gap. For the last four years, I’ve been focused on his side of the story. He did this. He did that. He married this women, of whom I’m no fan. At moments when I was angry, I was ready to cut him out of my life.

But I still call him every now and then. To keep in touch. I called him today and when he asked if I could make his birthday, I told him I couldn’t because of work. Then he told me that no one was showing up for it. Not his best friend, not my sister, not her husband, not me. His 40th birthday. I’m not even sure if his wife will make it ( they don’t live together yet, because of work circumstances).

The 40th birthday is a big deal.

I was talking to my sister about it, who is about to be in the same situation with her 30th birthday. I made an (in hindsight) insensitive remark about how no one was there for my 24th birthday, but she patiently pointed I was missing the point and explained that while my brother has been difficult, he has shown up. Whereas not many family members have shown up for his events. She asked me if I was going to show up to his graduation (he’s about to get his masters) and I had no idea when it was; never gave

Now I’m wondering if I’ve been the bad brother all along.

~

My father’s been trying to impress upon for me for the past couple of years, in between listening to me complain about my brother, that family is forever. Family will show up, when it’s important, even if they’re mad at you from last Saturday. Family will still pick up the phone when you call, even after it’s been months, if not years, since you last spoke. Family, generally will have your best interests at heart, if at least, make sure they don’t step on your toes. Family is the original safe space™. It’s why my Father still keeps in touch with his sister, despite her giving him plenty of reasons not to.

After talking to my sister and my Father, I’ve decided that I haven’t really been a good brother myself. I’ve been so caught up in how my own brother’s been wronging me, that I’ve not been receptive when he’s done me right. I’ve not made any real effort to build any inroads myself. I’ve made to no real effort to bridge the large gape that exists between us.

Neither of us has been a terrible brother.

I still call him about once a month, and I’m happy with that for now.

But once he gets his housing in order, I plan to visit him once a year. Perhaps in Spring.

I wish him and his all the best.

~Wald

 

My Father On Communication

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My Father On Communication

I credit my Father with my advanced (for my age) ability to articulate my thoughts and ideas effectively.

He taught me early on the value of good communication and himself gives it credit, for a large part of his success in life. As he tends to cast a very large shadow, with little apparent effort, I believe him.

One of the core ideas that he told me early on, was the idea of reverse-engineering. Similar to reverse psychology, it involves taking a sentence that one speaks, pretending one is now the listening, and discerning all the ways such a sentence could be understood. Supposedly, if someone is a level 10 communicator, what they say could be taken 10 different ways*. If someone is a level 50 communicator, what they say could be taken 5 different ways. If someone is a level 90 communicator, what they say could be taken 2 different ways. At level 100, if you follow the analogy, what you say could be taken but one way: the way you meant it.

And if you think about it – this concept is not a new one. Rather it’s one that’s not often reflected upon, at least not directly, When someone tells you to “consider your audience”, as is common advice for writing a speech, they’re telling you figure out where someone comes from. That way, knowing a certain few particulars about an audience, you can narrow down the ways they might interpret things you say. Knowing your audience can raise you anywhere from 5 to 10 to even 20 points on the 100-point communicator level scale**.

Politicians and public personalities, be they government, military, or private, all are dearly acquainted with this concept. Should one person let the wrong thing slip or say something slightly wrong – and boom – they’re under fire. At least, only metaphorically, unless you don’t live in a ‘free’ country. Nowadays, however, with the advent of political incorrectness, the average person is becoming familiar with this idea whether they like it or not, lest they draw the ire of the politically crowd SJW mob.

Finally – the most important point is that the responsibility always lies on the speaker, the writer, not the listener, or reader, for comprehension. No one can know the speaker’s mind, so it is up to the speaker to articulate himself as clearly and concisely as possible. Should the listener not understand the speaker in the manner desired, it’s the speaker’s responsibility to correct that. Rightly, or wrongly, that’s just the way things are.

~Wald

*This applies to actions too.

**Fictional scale that my Father made up to explain his point.

This Is Gonna Hurt…

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This morning a large weight has been lifted off my shoulders, both literally and figuratively.

~

Last night I lay in bed by 2000hrs but couldn’t sleep until 2100 and even then I woke up several times throughout the night. I dreamt of various scenarios of going back in time and changing things, typical of the last twenty four weeks. The last six months, you could say, have been an ordeal of sorts. Finishing college, mother having a stroke over 3,000 miles away, my report date moved up 8 months early, losing a girlfriend, my car breaking down on me (still in the shop, in fact), disappointing my father time and time again…Finding myself spending a short spell in jail had me contemplating the six figures of life insurance I’d be worth to my Dad and ailing mother if I had just stopped breathing. As I went from failure to failure, finding it hard get myself off my own ass to save myself, the future looked more and more grim.

Thinking I’d lose my job and land myself in six figures of debt, learning I wouldn’t, and then learning I might, over and over again set me on quite the emotional roller coaster. My thoughts oscillated between blissful ignorance and the morbid. Some things, I thought, like failure, hurt forever. Other things, however, would only hurt for the rest of your life.

Three weeks ago, I found out right before I took a 4-day pass that the 8 mile diagnostic ruck I had gone on, and failed by 30 minutes (I had 2 hours to complete 8 miles with a rucksack) was not in fact a diagnostic. Before me lay a paper saying that it was the beginning of a 45 day period I had to pass a 12 mile ruck at the same pace (12 miles in 3 hours). Failure meant separation from the army. It suddenly occurred to me that the existential crisis I had twice avoided was only 31 days away. Except that I didn’t even get the 31 days – I only got 21.

A week flew by and I passed a 6 mile ruck with 2 minutes and 54 seconds to spare, the only real good news I had had in months. The 8 mile I was scheduled to take was cancelled and the sleep I was supposed to recover on the weekends, after losing it to details and preparation for court, I lost to drink.

Then it was the week of the 12 mile and Wednesday night came quicker than I had wanted.

~

I woke up still groggy after barely 7 hours of sleep. I put on my uniform, put on my brand new boots, loaded my ruck in my buddy’s car. As soon as I hit the boot to the one mile long track, I silently accepted it.

This is gonna hurt.

Wald

P.S. For comparison:

Sept 24 – Eight Mile Ruck in 2 hours (My time = 2 hours 30 minutes)

Oct 8 – Six Mile Ruck in 1 hour 30 minutes (My time = 1 hour 58 minutes 6 seconds)

Oct 29 – Twelve Mile Ruck in 3 hours (My time = 2 hours 40 minutes)

In the end, it’s all you can do

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I was going to write a sad poem in German today, to release some despondent energy, from a recent family misfortune. I could barely write more than two lines.

“Jeder sagt es ist ein Teil seines Plan’,

Es gibt nichts, dass ich tun kann”

I’m not one to talk much about matters of the heart, at least not at first. In a short time, I’ve been surprised by such kindness from a few people. Despite surplus of lamentation of flaws, there are still people and behaviors that give one hope.

The important thing is to keep going and do your best. Self medicate if you must, but don’t do anything too rash or crazy. Give yourself time to mourn, but don’t let it derail you. If you do, you’ll find that pain with more pain is not a matter of simple addition, or even a matter of compound interest. Pain increases exponentially.

So whenever you encounter hardship and find yourself waiting to see how it will turn out, for good or ill, keep going and do the best you can. In the end, it’s all you can do.

MU-21c-RangerRosary

~Wald

A Brief Interlude

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I haven’t posted this past week because exams start on Saturday, 13. December and it’s time I get busy studying for them.

Also – most recently – I was dealing with an incident from the weekend before Thanksgiving. I had hoped to escape the weekend unscathed – but unfortunately, the repercussions followed me back from furlough. For my actions, and due to my inability to argue a key point without impugning my honor, I was ‘awarded’ the highest punishment this fine Institution has to offer.

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A fitting end for an unrepentantly miserable semester.

~Wald

Day 24: #NoNothingNovember

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So, I’m now on Thanksgiving furlough. I’ve got 6 more days of vacation and 6 more days of November.

So far, this month has seen mixed results.

Unfortunately, my efforts to achieve no fap this month have been fruitless. Even when I had sex, I still ached for release; and with the easy access of internet, I always got it. I’m not used to denying myself, I’ll say. It’s also hard when there are many moments where I’m alone and prone to relentless boredom.

There were two times that I did no-fap for one month. The first time was right after freshman year of university; I read the website “yourbrainonporn” and got scared. I didn’t beat it for a month I was so worried about what I’d done to myself. For the first week, I got hornier. It became harder to ignore; the second week increased those feelings. But by the third week, I had largely forgotten about it. Sure, I woke up with a hard-on most mornings and seemed very aware of the opposite sex’s features in conversation, but it was largely in the back of my mind. Ditto for the fourth week. Then I was in Germany and went to a Thai massage parlour my first week in Berlin. I didn’t realize what kind of place it was (I really did only want a massage). And next thing I knew I was getting a hand job from the masseuse. She took a long time and I actually laughed at her (it went on for ten minutes where I was hard but nothing else happened). Finally, I finished myself a shot a load so heavy it was heard around the world (and got on her face a little).

The second time I was at LDAC at Ft. Knox. Why didn’t I diddle myself for a month there? It was simple – I was so damn busy that I didn’t think about it or even have the time. When I saw my girlfriend on my first day back, though – I was quite voracious. She gave me quite the warm welcome, which I still remember in exquisite detail.

On the plus side, my goal for writing at least two articles a week has succeeded and accomplished the main goal my #NoNothingNovember; to get writing again. Yes, there were some weeks where I barely cranked out two posts, maybe one was a progress report on #NoNothingNovember itself and the other was shitty and short. It doesn’t matter now. I’m writing again and the mindset that comes with it is nearly back. I’m starting think about the articles I could write with conversations with my friends and my father.

In the end, I’m on my way to complete one out of two goals I had for this month and I am completely happy with it.

~Wald

When She Slaps You

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The other night, walking to my friends house from Russian club, I invited a freshman girl to join us in a night of drinking and smoking (shisha). I’d known her for about a month and had a few interesting conversations. Besides one red flag about her parents, her views seemed slightly sympathetic to mine so I thought nothing of the invite, except whether my host would mind. Because this girl was a mutual friend of ours I figured it was fine.

I arrived with her and made myself a drink. She took up the whole couch and when she didn’t move, I contented myself by making a seat out of her stomach. My host, a junior, kept asking me in French:

C’est quoi ca?

And I’d always reply back to her with:

C’est rien.

The freshman I was sitting on wasn’t ugly, but she was a little pudgy. Her face was cute enough with sizeable tits but I was more interested in her freshmen friends. I had no intentions other than a platonic friendship. When she got up and then placed herself under my left arm, I could tell that maybe she thinks differently. No matter.

My best friend joined us that evening and proceeded to join in with drinking and smoking.

For some reason we were talking and then the freshman girl slapped me, softly. I slapped her back, with only a little force. She slapped me a second time and I stared her in the eyes.

“I’ll slap you again…” she says.

“I’ll slap you harder…,” I reply, “are you sure you want to play this game.”

“Oh you’re serious…I’m sorry.”

I walked up to make myself a drink and then sat back down, a little solemn. Soon after she left in order to “rescue her friend from boredom”. And the night’s merriment continued without delay. Eventually, my friend and I left to get back to barracks. He told me that he agreed with what I did and he didn’t know why I even invited the girl back to the Kremlin (name of our hangout) in the first place. He could tell she was trouble right from the start he said. On our way back we bumped into that very same freshman girl and her asian friend. She informed me that this was the friend who was visiting her in the same town in which I reside. Alcohol had started to take its toll on my mind, so I can’t remember if she was good looking or just plain.

I stumbled back into my room, played some chess, and passed out.

The next morning I got a text at 0757hrs:

Sorry for slapping you yesterday…

I replied at 1441hrs:

Don’t let it happen again and we’ll get along fine.

I’m not a fan of people touching my face; even girlfriends learn to do it certain way. I have zero tolerance for slapping, joking or otherwise. I always make it clear that I am perfectly willing to retaliate with full force. Thankfully, I’ve never had to exercise my “belief” in equality.

~Wald

Day 20 of #NoNothingNovember: Minor Setbacks

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An update on my progress and lack of it:

In terms of No-Fap. I failed. Last week, I had a girl send me nudes over the phone. A nice pair of tits. Normally, I’m an ass man – but that picture, after no-fap for nearly two eeks was too much. I sat down in a bathroom, and proceeded to ruin my streak not more than an hour after receiving nudes. Then I was studying hard on a Thursday, found myself awake in the wee hours of the morning. Bored and tired – I typed in a common website. After browsing it for not three minutes, I ruined my streak of No-Fap again.  I was pretty pissed after I realized what I’d done, but was too tired to care.

Minor Setback

As for not being lazy, I barely squeezed out three posts that week.

I had made up my mind to learn from it and try again for at least two weeks, but that failed again last night when I found myself in the same situation. I admit I’m disappointed, but I’ve already learned a few things.

1) If you don’t jerk it for a week, you’re automatically more horny. It comes across in your actions whether you like it or not, even if you know that you’re going to have sex in the near future (less than a week).

2) If you don’t jerk it for over a week, you’re more sensitive during sex. For me, this was a plus, because it takes me a while to come, often to the point where I get tired and wish (briefly) that I could be a two-pump chump every once and a while.

3) No-Fap is actually not that hard….as long as you can avoid pictures or videos about sex. Even though sex is everywhere in society, in a barracks environment, you can do just fine as long as you don’t get nudes on your phone and never…I mean never go onto a porn website. There have been a few times where I saw a porn website, browsed for a minute and got off it without problem. It’s possible. But most of the time, lack of release makes it too difficult stop yourself before you go too far.

As for not being lazy – turns out this month is busier than last month – so it’s a little hard to make time to post. But what makes it tough for me think of a post and write it, is apathy. After not writing for a long time, I’ve gotten out of the habit and don’t even think the way I did when I was more..ahem…prolific. Forcing myself to write has somewhat kicked started that thought process. And a few major changes in my life have given me a new sense of direction, which I may post about later. This week, I think I will be just fine with my posting. I may in fact exceed my goals.

So what now?

I am going to try to keep myself from fapping until at least the end of November. If I can do that, I may try to extend no-fap into December. Who knows; I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

As for my two posts a week. I’m going to up the ante and go for three posts a week, starting next week.

~Wald

#NoNothingNovember: Day 10

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My first week in #NoNothingNovember has passed.

Now’s a good time to review my progress:

No Fap:

So far I have not fapped to pornography and only looked at one website briefly this entire week. At the end of the week, I saw my girlfriend and, after vigorous discussion helped myself to painting her backside several shades of white. Some would argue that still counts as fapping and going against the no-fap clause of my #NoNothingNovember pledge. I concede that it is fapping – but without pornography. For me – getting pornography out of my life is the goal of no-fap. Secondly, I did finish “on or inside of a female”.

Progress continues with no-fap.

Laziness:

I started out “strong” this past with one post announcing my participation in #NoNothingNovember. Then I fell off the wagon. I could cite ROTC or my preoccupation with pre-registration for my final semester’s classes as reason why I didn’t have the time to write, but that would be bullshit. I had time. I just frittered it away on distractions like Alpha Protocol (PC game – oldie but a goodie). So this week, I will write at least one extra post to make up for it (not including this post).

This past week has been a minor setback for my no-laziness goal, but I still have three more weeks left.

~Wald

Two Stories

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Let’s play a game.

I plan to write two stories this weekend for next week. One of them is a dream and one of them is prediction.

Any reader who comments explaining what I am trying to get across in either story the best, get’s one free book of their choice from the manosphere. A reader may comment on both stories, but may not win both books. I wish to give out two separate books to two different people.

Start picking your books now.

~Wald