penfist

stories are the bones of everything

Essays

Before and after PTSD

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I’m a sufferer. But not really. Depends on the day. Depends on the triggers. Depends on a whole lot of baggage that is stored somewhere in my head.

I’m not whining. Let’s stop that line of thought before it starts. Rather, I’m telling you a part of my story. Which connects to other stories. Because, human. It’s a part of the deal.

I volunteered after watching something unfortunate. Never, ever Google ‘beheading videos.’ If you have a soul and want to retain it in some semblance of wholeness. Don’t type that in. Shit. I’m dumb sometimes. And drunk sometimes. Plus, my genetics require me to be inquisitive. So I watched. Men holding him down. Men sawing his head off.

I almost passed out from rage. How can people do that to other people?

A few months later. I’m in uniform. For the second time. A few months after that, I’m in Baghdad. And it’s still rippling outward for me. And inward. Because, dreams, scars, and echoes.

I’m diagnosed with PTSD. By the Veteran’s Administration. I’m not ashamed of it. Lots of people had much worse experiences than I did. And most of them weren’t stupid enough to sign up for a contractor job in another war zone a few years after using up more than one human lifetime’s ration of luck. So yeah, I compounded my issues by showing up in Afghanistan later. Different day, different part of the story.

Caring about the human condition sucks sometimes. But I can’t stop. So I cry more than I used to. And maybe sometimes I drink too much. Put me in front of a well-done war drama and watch me shudder and shake while the tears fall. That’s mostly the extent of my post-traumatic stress disorder. With an occasional night terror thrown in. Sometimes those come in waves.Except when I have to run out of a room because I can’t control the exits and I’m not in charge of how long the meeting is going to go and I think whatever is being discussed is absolutely banal.

I’m normal. Except when I have to run out of a room because I can’t control the exits, and I’m not in charge of how long the meeting is going to go, and I think whatever is being discussed is absolutely banal, and I want to scream, “Are you fucking crazy? Focus your life’s energy on something that is worth a shit!You fuckity fuck idiot!”

I know. I overdid the exclamations a bit. You can forgive me. If you’d like. If not, I won’t hold it against you.

I want to crawl back inside the time when I could ride off into the sunset and know that I wouldn’t dream of being trapped forever in the living hell that was Baghdad in 2006. I’d like to stop having flashbacks, big and small, into moments when I was certain the next rocket or mortar would be the one with my name on it. I wish I had faith like some of them. The ones I went with, came back with, couldn’t be like.

God, I can’t hear you. All I see when I close my eyes is the horror we inflict on each other in the name of things I don’t understand.

And just like in 2005, I feel a visceral need to do something when I see savages masquerading as human beings. Unfortunately, the more I know about how many disguises we wear in this life, the less certain I am who is to blame for all this inhumanity.

The struggle

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In other words, the science itself makes clear that hormones, enzymes, and growth factors regulate our fat tissue, just as they do everything else in the human body, and that we do not get fat because we overeat; we get fat because the carbohydrates in our diet make us fat. The science tells us that obesity is ultimately the result of a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one—specifically, the stimulation of insulin secretion caused by eating easily digestible, carbohydrate-rich foods: refined carbohydrates, including flour and cereal grains, starchy vegetables such as potatoes, and sugars, like sucrose (table sugar) and high-fructose corn syrup. These carbohydrates literally make us fat, and by driving us to accumulate fat, they make us hungrier and they make us sedentary.
This is the fundamental reality of why we fatten, and if we’re to get lean and stay lean we’ll have to understand and accept it, and, perhaps more important, our doctors are going to have to understand and acknowledge it, too.
― Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

It’s working. This thing we’re doing is working. I can see it in the numbers. They are falling. I have never struggled with my weight. My dysfunctions are otherwise. The demons I wrestle with run a different course. But she struggles. With a monster made of heavy.

Fat. It’s a small word that does so much damage in this shallow ocean we inhabit. I’ve never been fat. But I care about someone who struggles, has struggled, will struggle with the three heaviest letters in the English language.

So much of what they tell us is wrong. The do-gooders operate around the perimeter. Feeding little lies and big ones that shape our daily decisions in manifold ways. So much of the stuff we learn is just made up. Miracles are only things we have not yet been able to explain.

Fat. I think I’ve begun to understand it. Because of this book. Because of a man named Gary Taubes. We followed his advice. My partner and I. We’re following a ketogenic diet. Sounds complicated. Not so much.

The basic premise is to eat lots of fat, moderate amounts of protein and minimal carbohydrates. Cut out the grains and eat as much bacon and dairy as you can handle. It’s working. We’re kicking that heavy three letter word in the ass.

Ten pounds this month. That’s significant. We aren’t starving ourselves. Lean muscle mass is staying consistent but the fat is melting off. Consistently. This flies in the face of what the government of my adopted nation tells me about what to eat.

If the people in charge can’t even figure out what we should be eating, what else are they getting wrong? It boggles the mind. I don’t need a fancy executive summary to know that the official recommendations weren’t working for her.

Life is an experiment. We’ve found something that works for us in this partnership. Whatever currents brought you to this place, if you struggle with “fat” I hope you’ll pick up the book and read. Thank you, Gary Taubes.

Dying doesn’t change our personality

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The full quote goes:

Dying doesn’t change our personality, it intensifies it.

The quote comes from a woman named Barbara Karnes, author of Gone From My Sight.

The driving force in my life is the quest for wisdom. That often comes from reading and writing. Through those two closely aligned processes, data is refined into knowledge that can be further refined into encapsulated lessons that we humans call wisdom.

I see the above quote as belonging to that third category of information called wisdom. Once you get to the end, it’s too late to change anything. You had the whole journey to do that. At the end, you’re already everything you were ever going to be.

Except more.

So every day, I ask myself, what did I do today that will make my ending’s intensity more meaningful to anyone who happens to go on after I stop.

 

Ebook prices are a ripoff because publishers are greedy

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There are many reasons why I self-publish. Among them is the fact that I want my writing to be affordable to as wide a range of people as possible.

There’s an author I like reading by the name of Seth Godin.  Seth writes about differentiating yourself, standing out from the crowd, how technology can be an enabling force. Stuff like that. The first book I ever read from him Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, changed my view on life and was part of what made me start writing full-time at 43.

The other day I decided it was time to pickup some more Seth Godin inspiration. I went to buy the Kindle version of his book Tribes: We Need you to Lead Us. Until I realized the ebook was more than the hard cover edition. I couldn’t believe it. This price gouging stuff has been going on since ebooks came on the market. There is absolutely no moral justification for it. Ebooks are cheaper to produce than their paper equivalent by several orders of magnitude.

I emailed Seth inquiring about why his ebooks are more than their paper cousins and got this reply:

Thanks Pen

I hear how frustrated you are. It’s logical to assume that authors have anything at all to do with Kindle prices, but of course, we don’t. Penguin is a giant corporation, and they set the prices, not me.

If it were up to me, I think I’d bring a different strategy go the table, but they’re not ready to change a company-wide policy at my suggestion.

Sorry for your disappointment in me.

I thought it was classy that Seth responded within an hour. However, and I say this gently, he can fire his publisher anytime. It’s hard to support authors who support the blatant price gouging of publishers like Penguin/Random House. I get that Seth needs to make a living. So do I.

There’s still no way it makes sense to charge $17 for an ebook. That’s a ripoff anyway you slice it.

I value my readers and thank each of you for every word of mine you’ve read. I encourage you to withdraw you support from authors who enable “agency pricing” that is designed solely to enhance big publishers bottom line. That only makes the work harder for people with smaller pockets to obtain. Information and stories should be affordable to everyone.

Sunflower man

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It wrecked me. Watching him.

He knew his purpose. I thought I knew mine.

Time has proven me wrong. Time has latched onto my brain and caused me to think about him. What was done to sunflower man. It’s wrong.

I had the might of an empire protecting me. How brittle that turned out to be.

He had his faith. Or many faiths. He watered every day. That was the thing he believed in most. His beneficiaries thrived because of the tender care he gave them.

Dust storms came. Bombs shook everything. The world turned orange. It turned loud. Nothing was certain during that year I spent in hell.

Except that he would find water and pour it out on those golden yellow survivors he created. They were never orange. Even during the hellish dust storms, if you got close enough, they remained bright yellow around the perimeter, with a dark brown center made of seeds. How beautiful.

Because. Sunflower man tended and gardened. In circumstances that would make most of us crumble into pieces.

I don’t know how he came up with the seeds, or the clay pots, or the soil. He just did. That earned my respect. And caused me to think of him. Almost a decade later, I remember his haunted face. Serene and dignified.

Imagine. Invaders coming to your metropolis. Or your rural farm. That part matters not. What matters is how you react when the reality you’ve known your whole life is taken away. Sunflower man. He knew what to do.

Give something life in the midst of hell. Pour the water out. Keep the pot tended carefully. Provide a stick to hold up the fragile nature of existence. I sometimes wonder where he is. Deep in dreams, I tremble and shake.

Shamed. By his bravery and my cowardice. While he grew life, I was a mouthpiece. While he carried nothing but a watering can and his resolve, I shook and cowered inside the latest technology. Body armor and a gun can never defeat a sunflower man.

I’ve learned my lessons the hard way. I hope you’ll hear his voice passed on through mine.

Perhaps I’ll recover a picture of sunflower man one day. If so, I hope to share it with you. He’s my idol. Far braver than most. Far more determined. Far less lucky.

All my respect is his.

 

Next year is going to be very different

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I’ve been mostly quiet in 2015. There are a variety of reasons for that. I’m not going to get into details. That’s not the point of this post. This post is, in military parlance, a warning order.

If you follow me on social media, subscribe to my newsletter, or are otherwise in contact with me, prepare yourself. I’ll lose a few of you in the coming year. It’s what happens when the volume gets turned up. I also intend to grow my audience by orders of magnitude.

Here’s how I am going to do it:

  • Share my original content here frequently
  • Share the most interesting, thought provoking, and horizon expanding content I come across often on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other channels
  • Reach out more often to my fan base – expect random notes based on what I see you doing with your own personal brand.

I am making 2016 a year of explosive, positive growth. I hope you’ll join me. Maybe I can teach you a thing or two along the way. I know I’ll be pleasantly surprised by all the things you are going to teach me.

Please share the amazing stories and authors you find with me. Share the dreamers and the visionaries. Let’s build an awesome 2016 together.

Regards,

Pen