rummages around in my brain cells. Um I just read memoir "Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body" by Lyle Jeremy Rubin. Can't remember why it was on my to-read list in the first place. Had a vague recollection that it said something interesting about disability, which it didn't. Well. This is what you get when you have a pile of mossy rocks for a brain.
Very interesting self-insights shown by author into masculinity and the mundane cruelties of childhood that shatter one's sense of self.
Author was deployed in Afghanistan but instead of war being a harrowing or life changing experience it seems like the brutal social structure of the military was the thing most harrowing and traumatizing. Insecure men believing their manhood is precarious and that inflicting pain on others will solidify it.
I empathized deeply with the author's youthful hatred of his own softness and weakness. I used to feel that a lot. I don't think these are male impulses, I think they are human ones. But physical violence is encouraged more in men. Making it easier for the self-cruelty to be turned outward into others-cruelty.
The military is the most exact incarnation of a cult in every definition. Intense dehumanization, total isolation, control of behavior, sleep and food deprivation to create willingness to follow orders. Down to the way it targets pre-existingly self-hating, desperate, or isolated people, creates internal solidarity through enduring hardship and pain, builds resentment and distrust of the outside world which could never understand, and justifies itself based upon ideas which can never be questioned.
And the book makes me wonder: all of that, for what? The deployment itself was very boring, a dull rambling about while patronizing or terrorizing local people. Occasionally something blows up but randomly, without much personal intent. The brutality of military training isn't preparing boys for combat, it is preparing them to be members of the cult.
The author is a pretty good storyteller and writer. Seems like being a good storyteller is more important to the memoir than anything.
i need to post my analysis of "i sexually identify as an attack helicopter" its themes dovetailed very nicely with this.
