Post-Collegiate

I want to make a comment on an issue that has become relevant again for me in the laast few weeks.
The curse of "post-college" life is something that my good friend Ian in his blog has commented a lot about, and to me in person, too.
As you are all aware, I have recently, in the month of May 2010, returned from a 15 month jaunt in Japan. All details aside, it was yet another emotional roller coaster, and a hell of a lot of learning and life-experience too.
But now I am back in Australia. For all intents and purposes, in the physical world, I am RIGHT BACK where I started 15 months ago. Living at home in Sydney, unemployed except for the scraps my one English teaching job tosses me once in a while, and looking for a path into my future.
That's in the physical world.

As for the better world, let's call it the mental world, I am in a very different place. "Different" in this case does not mean "totally alien", but more along the lines of "more advanced". If I were to try to draw an easily relatable analogy using something we all know - telephones - it would be like this:
The Tom of 15 months ago was certainly not Alexander Graham Bell's first prototype, but more like the big black and clunky bakelite phones of the mid 20th century. The Tom of Today is akin to an early 2000s, pre-iPhone mobile phone. I am not as sophisticated, stylish, or expensive as an iPhone, but I can get done what I have to do.
To continue the analogy into the ATTITUDE of post-college life, there are some times when I think that I want to be an iPhone. There are also times when I look at other iPhones and think "that's too much, and too much of that is something I do not want".
Obviously, given the hundreds, thousands, or perhaps millions of types of phones that have ever existed since Mr. Bell's first protoype he used to call Mr. Watson, there are that many types of phone that I could be or become. What am I now? Well, like I said above, I believe I am dependable and working, but still prone to collapses of fortitude under odd conditions (but not often, by no means).

I think the phone analogy made my point, so I want to part from it now and get back to more real terms.
I know what I have done. Mito (Japan) taught me a lot about many kinds of things - eg. work, love, making money and living alone, and of course culture and differences.
Japan - the 2010 Expedition - taught me much more enjoyable and lasting lessons about LIFE in general, and the types of lessons that could only be learnt from a 1 1/2 month trek across a foreign land.

But where am I now, and what am I to be?
I guess that is the question, isn't it.
Just the other day I visited a place called Roselands, a shopping centre that has existed since I was a little boy, and to which I and my family frequently went back then. Save for one quick trip in there out of desperation about 2 years ago, I have NOT been to that place for approximately 5 years.
Why did I go this time? Two reasons:
1) I was looking for a new hat rack which didn't exist
2) I was curious to see it after all this time.
And sure enough, disappointment about the hat rack aside, I was surprised to see that the centre had itself changed rather drastically. Shops that I recalled being here or there were gone, colour schemes that dominated large swathes of wall were totally changed, the elevators in the middle of the centre, which were once a marvel because they were so shiny and new, had been completely replaced and upgraded with a very boxy and unimpressive new version, and old shops that were still there had arrogantly changed their names to no avail (not the least because they still sold exactly the SAME stuff - I'm talking about you, Grace Bros. and Myer).
It was interesting to see the changes.
As I wandered into the bowels of the place - towards a shop which is, quite aptly, named the Reject Shop (think social and commercial value, etc.) I felt a tide of suburbia welling around me. The shop itself is largely useless, and nothing more will be said here, but I also wandered past other shops down in that bowel. The 'food court' area refelcted what might be called the "Sub-way revolution" - a term I just coined for these reasons:
1) It started with the quarternary industrial revolution led by the Subway sandwich chain - whereby people go to shopping centres to buy expensive food that they could very, very, VERY easily make at home by themselves, for a small fraction of the cost, if only they were not so damn lazy
2) the prefix "sub-" fits the situation, because the food in these food courts really is below standards (or at least MY standards) for what a decent meal involves, but it is all being proffered to the customer as "healthy", "lo-fat" or "lite" or some other such misspelling that legally misleads casual observers (and, by no stretch, exacerbates the laziness of the consumer)

Let it come as no surprise to you then that I saw NOT ONE person of a healthy weight-range, and more than a majority of them had obese waist-lines that any principled cardiologist would have a cardiac over. I say this bit also with recent memories of being surrounded by skinny Japanese people - mainly puny men, sinewy men, tight-bodied women, or malnourished children, all due mainly to the fact that RICE consists of about 60% of daily dietary intake. I am aware of this skew on my perspective, let it be known!

And I also walked past a pet-store that has a curious back-story.
Way back in 2008, as I was finishing college, or University, as we only call it Down Under, I was desperate to get a job and start making some money. One sunny Saturday morning, as I was about to head down to another shopping centre and seek a job at a store somewhere, I received a fateful call that spared my arse such a job, and got me into the English-teaching job I do occasionally now. Had that call not come, my first choice at Miranda (the other shopping centre) was to go into a pet store and try to get a job there. Given the choice between the musty, muffled clothes and white walls of Big W or looking at puppies all day, I preferred the latter.
As it turned out, within a fortnight of getting my teaching job, I had noticed that said pet store had closed down and vanished from Miranda. Gone for good, I thought.
But no, apparently they simply relocated to another shopping centre, Roselands, lo and behold!
So, in short, had I taken that job at the time, I could theoretically be working in the same shopping centre where I had visited as kid, and subsequently actively avoided for half a decade, and forgotten about for many more years. And I will not, for the record, EVER got there again, unless a dire emergency should strike the need.
At the age of 23 and given the expereiences I had (and created for myself!) in Japan already, it would be heart-breaking to suffer such a fate. I realise that I have just described the lives of at least a hundred people, or however many are employed at Roselands (and Miranda, because I went there too when I was young!). And I pity them. I really do. Not in any condescending or arrogant way, I simply say that I pity the path that they are trudging through life with that kind of job as a sole means of income.
But this is also a part of the broader matter of 'suburbia' and the tiresome environment that it can become.

Let me keep the focus on ME, for now (it IS my blog!), and just say that I cannot and will not suffer such a fate because I feel and know inside myself that I have much greater potential than to work at Roselands or Miranda for the rest of my life.
Let me also say that I am trying to practice the vigilance to ensure that whatever job I DO get, ever, does not turn into a monetary succubus, sucking the life out of me from the inside for sake of getting a paycheck.

And what this means for me now, at this point in my life - 23, returned from Japan, unemployed but with huge aspirations?
It means that there is a long and confusing path directly ahead of me, one which I must tread wisely and carefully. I must be sure not to fall into a pothole and hobble myself at some given turn in the road and stay there. By this, a good example would be that I should not jump at just ANY job that I can find, for sake of making a buck. I am lucky in that I am sourced from the middle class, and probably the upper end of it, too, because my parents raised me well, instilled the correct values and moral capacity in me, and can even now offer a safe and stable platform for me to base my search for a future.
I should also point out that the same goes for women - or in a more universal sense, the seeking of a significant other in one's life. I will NOT jump on the first woman that smiles at me, or who I set my sights on casually, not without proper thought and "getting-to-know" time at the very least.
Potential is something that I think all people can have, but it only exists if you see it, and it only becomes reality if you realise it.

(Let's all be clear: etymologically, "realise" literally means to make something into reality; "real" meaning Reality, and "-ise" being the verb suffix, connoting in this case an active making or doing of the base before it, hence "to make reality", in the sense of bring it into being int the real world that we all share, and not just inside one's head, or in a psychosis).

Yes, it is good to go for something when an opportunity arises. Yes, it may be good for the cowboys to drink anything when they are tired and thirsty. But NO, it is not OK to stick with the second-choice, to settle for third-best, or to restrict one's own self and one's own choices before one even has the chance to MAKE THE CHOICES!

Make the chances for yourself!
Make the choices for yourself!
You only have one life, as far as we know,
and that life is far too short to drink cheap whiskey!

From The Tominator.

SHE LOVES ME!

SHE LOVES ME!

Darkness all around him,
But no darker than his heart
The void inside consumes him
Let us find a place to start.

He saw her on day, sitting there,
He didn't know her name
But he thought he could watch her close,
It was harmless just the same

With no clues to back him up
He went in caution free
The moment that she looked his way
His mind was made with "She loves me!"

She did little more that that, that day,
Merely looked in his general direction
But for the next week, 'till he saw her again,
He couldn't tame his constant erection.

Waiting in anticipation
As she entered the room
His blood running hot went icy cold
As he witnessed his secret love's doom

It started docile and under control,
He could keep his mind on other stuff,
But soon, so soon, it got so bad
When he saw, he fell in a huff.

Once and more it came to be
He had been sent into a spasm,
The thought of her, in any sense
Caused him a violent orgasm

He ended up in bad one morning,
Moaning just her name,
He couldn't move for his organ's sake,
It was permanently inflamed.

He had watched her for so many weeks,
His sights set never away
His heart was crushed when realisation came,
That dark and haunting day

She was hanging with someone else though,
A friend, he thought, hoped, it must be,
For what did she see or want in him,
"THAT SHE CAN'T FIND IN ME?!?"

He had managed to get her phone number,
And she somewhere had jotted his too
And from that moment his hopes soared high
And he stuck to his phone like glue.

And here we find our anti-hero,
With the phone, desperate, more than ever
Waiting, waiting, in the dark,
Leave it, he would never.

Each day and night he sat there,
Anticipating a certain dream
For whenever he thought of her,
His underpants he would have to clean

It came a time, this time right now,
When he sat there in the still
"She'll call!" he said unto himself,
And that phone, to ring, he willed.

That darkness all around him,
No light but for that on the phone,
And the two little reflections of his pupils
As he sat there all alone.

The only sound was of his breath,
His lungs, deeply, in and out
His anticipation heavy in every pant,
That she'd call, he had no doubt.

Someone opened the door to his room,
In poured the light like a wave,
He shrieked and covered his eyes in pain,
Acting as a vampire would behave.

Left alone, for oh so long,
It didn't matter to him,
He was happy until the phone rang,
With an atmosphere so dim.

Then finally, the quiet broke,
The call he had awaited had come,
"I'm getting married," she said ecstatically,
And, "The rock's as big as my thumb!"

To that he could not answer,
As he set the receiver down,
Eerily, his demeanour remained
Not even the slightest frown.

Silences of silences,
Had taken their residence here,
not even the smallest pin could drop,
For its sound would not reach the ear.

Then abruptly, like a volcano burst,
The sound issued forth from his chest,
Pain, hatred and disappointment roared,
And left behind a broken man, and a mess.

Tom O'Keefe.

Be Relieved!

Peoples of Earth.
Perhaps this is more for my peace of mind than for yours, however now that I am back in Australia, and have a completely blank slate ahead of me, there are many many many many many things that I will do in the near future.
One of these amazing future accomplishments will be a REFINEMENT of as many as possible of my essays already published on this Blog.
I realise, fully, that practically all of my essays, right up until the Vietnam War/Kamikaze one I wrote just before this one, are unreadable.
My excuse: because it all came tumbling out of my head at the time.
I've had extensive experience in this kind of refinement, editing, whatever you want to call it. This was really all I did in University. University could be broken down into base units of two weeks (that's a fortnight!) wherein I had perfected the essay editing process to take two weeks so I could survive the onslaught of paper after paper after paper that is the result of choosing only humanities subjects.
But I got through it.

And I am aware that no-one thinks like me, and that if I want to get anywhere in this world, I should really refine my methods of expressing myself to the rest of the world, lest I retreat inside my head entirely. And I don't want to go there all the time, it gets weird in there if you stay too long (well, sorta. Ask me again later!)

So, stay on the lookout for Tom's revised, refitted, edited and refined essays, and I am sure you will enjoy them, and hopefully learn something, too. And PLEASE leave a comment! I want to generate discussion. Sure, it's fun to write my own stuff, but I want human interaction more than anything, especially since my 2010 Expedition!

I'll bee back!

From The Tominator.

Comparisons You Never Imagined: Vietnam and Kamikaze

I have been reading a very good book about the kamikaze pilots of WW2 recently that I bought in Kagoshima (and will probably give you all a review of it once I finish the last two pages).
But my point today is about the Vietnam War, too.

There were many things these wars had in common, so I won't go listing them all here. But let me say one super-important thing that really needs to be addressed:
In both wars, the sides who prosecuted it, that is to say the sides that initially began armed offensive action: WW2---Japan, Vietnam---USA, both had one vital thing in common, and it was their perspective.

Now, I am acutely aware that I have spruiked and spruiked about 'perspective' and more recently 'attitude' as such important things, but, by golly!, no-one seems to understand it, and no-one in history ever seemed to get the concept either. And if it wasn't so damn important and crucial to the very meaning of EXISTENCE itself, I wouldn't keep bringing it up!

So, back to my point:

In WW2, the Japanese LEADERS (important disticntion here: the Leaders of the country are usually the individuals responsible for starting, continuing, and losing wars. It is only the People of the country that can WIN them.)
The Japanese government of the War-time was inept and fascinated by its own creation of a pseudo-samurai spirit, and marvelled at its own amazing ability to essentially steal a late bloomer of a country that was developing fast, and mobilise the population to fight a war against America. Ok, sure, maybe not anyone can do that, but you'd actually be very surprised how many people CAN do that.
The problem in Japan's case was WHEN to stop fighting.
Through extensive research on my own part, I am steadily gaining a grip on the psyche of the kamikaze, and I want to tell you all about it, probably in the review I'll do of the book.
But the Kamikaze were the penultimate manifestation of the Japanese side of the war. The unltimate of course being complete and utter destruction, including two nuclear wastelands where cities used to be (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and yes, I HAVe been to both!).
The kamikaze attacks came for several cultural reasons that were combining with one BIG factor, which happens to be my main point for this post.

The USA in Vietnam... what can I say? Complete disaster? Unmitigated nightmare?
Well, before I say all the bad stuff, let me comver the good points:...............................
OK, so NOTHING GOOD came of the Vietnam War.
So WHY did the USA prosecute that war for so damn long?? (approx. 11 years if you count the spinning of the Gulf of Tonkin incident).
Follow-up question: Why did two presidents, LBJ and Nixon, both escalate that war separately??

You have questions, I have answers!

Vietnam, in the briefest description you'll ever find (and if you want me to expand, ask me, because I really do know it all!) was the love child of US global dominance and itchy trigger fingers. The Gulf of Tonkin, whether it happened or not, they ran with it, cited north Vietnamese aggression, and took it from there ("they" in this case is the LEADERS of the USA - President, Joint Chiefs, and all other top-dogs who happened to NOT have a son in the military at that time. LBJ had two daughters, for chrissake!)
Also there was the myth of the Domino Theory. On that, really due to unfortunatae circumstances and veiled activies based on bad intelligence, that Theory seemed to be playing out in real-time. To that end, it was somehow misconstrued and spoon-fed to the public that communism was a "godless" evil, and simply had to be stopped from taking over a largely worthless strip of mosquito-infested jungle on the South East Asian coast.
It was escalated twice, as I told you already. The reasons: well, overwhleming firepower and large numbers of men were not getting the job done, so just like when you take medicine that isn't working, you should take more, right? Put more men, money, and materiel into it, and that means we win, right? RIGHT? WRONG!
The reason, in short-sharp-and-shiny form, for the USA's loss in Vietnam was they fought a materiel war when they should have been fighting a political war. Ho Chi Minh, now deified god of Communist Vietnam, was NOT a Communist. He was first and foremost a Vietnamese Nationanlist, and I totally understand where he was coming from: The Froggies (the French, for the uninitiated) had colonised Indo-China (former name for Vietnam area), and lost control of it as the Nazis were kicking their arses during WW2. The colony was, in a sense, liberated from French colonial rule when the Japanese army invaded it durin their prosecution of the Pacific War. France foolishly attempted to re-take their prized possession after the War, but found that the locals didn't want them back. Short on money, manhood, and materiel, the Fench pulled out early and decided to let it go. But that wasn't before the USA, full of manliness and confidence and GOLD! after the war, and also still harbouring a long-festering paranoia of Communism, had decided to get involved. This is where, I can say with confidence, the USA took the wrong turn that has led directly to all its problems in the latter half of the 20th century, and even spilled into the 21st century.
The USA had always been, since its War of Independence, staunchly anti-colonialist. That means it doesn't like Colonies to exist with Imperial mother-countries back in Europe (as it happened to be Europe that colonised the world). Before WW2, America was very content to sit in the Western hemisphere and talk with its Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking neighbours in the Americas and Caribbean, exploit them, etc. Any interference from outside interests, ie the European motherlands, was not liked.
But the USA made its fatal worm-turn in Vietnam. Before "Communism" was even really an issue in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh had helped Allied forces in WW2 by fighting the Japanese occupation there. After Japan's backside was thoroughly kicked, Ho Chi Minh sought help from America in establishing a government in Vientnam, one of national self-determination (meaning a local government run by locals, not overseen and neutered by an imperial overlord back in Europe.
But France, useless ally of the USA and Nazi pin-cushion during WW2, was still in a strong alliance with the USA after the war, and also sought American help to rebuild its fallen outpost in Vietnam. The USA, perhaps for reasons of racism, or perhaps for sake of the WW2 alliance, chose to side with France.
Now, let;s just take a moment to recall any, ANY point in history when taking France's side ever amounted to a good result:
Crimean War: several countries in Europe (except Prussia) lost many men on a rather useless war over a pilgrimage route;
NO-one helped Napoleon;
WWI: French ally Britain lost more men, money, and materiel than it ever had before in a single engagement, and ally Russia had a Communist revolution!
WWII: Pretty much the same as WWI, except Russia lost MORE men, was already Communist, and other countries got involved too!

Siding with France spells DISASTER, and that's just the Historical facts!

So, America, and honestly, I can't think of a rational reason, decided to side with France.
Ho Chi Minh took his next best option, and asked the Soviet for help. The Soviets, desperate as Russia always is of showing its manhood somehow, and as a pariah state seeing a chance to gain another ally at a time where even its official allies didn't like them (ie USA, WWII ally, always distrusted Soviet politics and economic principles), jumped at the chance to help Ho Chi Minh.

And THAT is why America should have been fighting a POLITICAL war in Vientam.

So the USA was doing the wrong thing, and couldn't face the fact that they were losing.

Back to Japan, the Japanese Government if WWII was doing the wrong thing (the ENTIRE WORLD was allied against them), and couldn't face the face that they were losing.
(Details in the book review later)

DO you see a correlation here?!?!?!?!?

Bothe the USA in Vietnam, and Japan in WWII, were fighting a war that they simply should not have been fighting.
What is the answer to such a problem?
Stop fighting??
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NONONONONONONONONONO!!!!!!!!!

The Kamikaze were mobilised, such a useless, senseless waste of young mens' lives, and the US army was escalated and enlarged, again, a useless and senseless waste of life, because neither prosecuting states could face the fact that they were losing the War.
Japan's perspective: WWII was somewhat of a Holy War, and America was pure evil that had to be taken out at all costs!
USA's perspective: Vietnam was a war to stop the spread of Communism, which was pure evil, and had to be stopped at any cost.

"At any cost" - nice phrase! It invokes a feeling of desperation, and therein warrants desperate measures to be taken!
And so they were taken.

What started as little war for Japan ballooned out of all recognition into Total War. Total War is a political and historical concept that means all industries and the population too are totaly mobilised to supply the war effort. In light of this, WHAT were the Japanese troops and kamikaze dying for? For the Japanese people's right to work in munitions factories, and so that 14 year old children can exercise their right to work on a building demolition site?
(By the way, most of the people martyred in the Hiroshima Bomb museum were 14 or 16 year olds who were working at building demolition sites on the day of the bomb. WHY THE FUCK WERE 16 YEAR OLDS WORKING AT BUILDING DEMOLITION SITES?!?!?!?!? they should be in school!
Why weren't they in school?? Because the holy government, with holy sanction from the Emperor, determined that demolishing buildings and running a war was more important than educating its youth!
Japan should have surrendered in 1942 or 1943, after the Battle of Midway at the very latest!

The USA should have pulled out early from Vientnam, too, certainly before its troop number reached over a quarter of a million!
The American government had also determined that for its young, fit men the most important thing was to catch an exotic disease, develop intense psychological conditions, and get shot while trudging through endless useless fucking jungles in searing tropical heat and monsoonal rains. Certainly all that was more important than finishing University, getting a job that promotes the economy, and perhaps even cure some nasty diseases and make the world a better place?
Surely!

And for those that are unable to grasp my meaning here, I am heavily deploying a thing called SARCASM here, the highest form of wit. Using it, I can satirically and strongly state the utter folly of things in a way that direct, negative talk never will be able to match.

Both the Japanese and the USA in their respective prosecuted wars had the same problem: they could NOT face the honest truth: they were losing their wars, and no God was going to save them.
The best idea WAS, and still IS in modern times, to pull out early and reassess the situation.

Bismarck achieved a lot more with diplomacy, political battling and realistic application of military force than anyone else ever did using Total warfare or overwhleming force!

To the leaders of today and the future, I urge that you pick up a fucking history book, and READ it!
Read it before your government outlaws such reading because it "disturbs the resolve of the country".

Freedom will reign, one way or another. It just depends how long it takes. How many lives are lost and wasted depends ENTIRELY upon you, so stop blaming a god or running with myths to get things done, and just get things done!

From The Tominator.