Creativity

When I was a kid I used to draw all the time.  That and legos.  And reading.  And G.I. Joe.  Okay.  I drew a lot of time.  And I had fun with it and did it well.  My older sister went to college and got a BA in photography and was excellent at it, and made a career out of it for a long time, but was scared to take the plunge and move to NYC or LA where the big creative ad houses were.

Anyways, when it came time for me to go to college it was a little bit of a battle with my Dad.  He’d been laid off for the first time in his career, and was conflicted.  When he was 18, he was pretty much kicked off the farm to go make something of himself, and did so.  So while he’d helped subsidize my older sister’s education, and wanted to be fair, he also wanted me to make it on my own.  I’d been working for years and had money, and he was never going to pay 100% of my tuition (and he didn’t for my sister either), but the question was how much and with what strings attached.

One of the strings was course of study.  He wanted a hard degree, like mechanical engineering.  Art degrees were out of the question.  I could become an ME, get a steady paycheck, then go back and pay for art on my own dime.  So away I went, taking ME req courses and trying to sneak an art class in on the side, or justifying it with the drawing classes that they wanted engineers to take.  I loved those classes, sketching, learning how to see things differently, all the exercises to improve coordination between the eye and the hand.  I loved the metal working and sculpting classes as well, not just the painting and drawing.

I am not sure what happened.  I started working in a research and development lab of a company that made small engines.  Started learning how to machine.  Slowly my creativity turned to problem solving.  “Hey, how can we make this engine do this?”  “Why did this fail?”  “Hey, we need a part that connect this to this and look good.”  Then I joined the Army where “Adapt and Overcome” is the motto, frequently by hard necessity.  Because I’d been to college and none of the other commo guys had, when I showed up I was the instantly turned into the “computer guy”.  Didn’t matter that there was no formal training program for me, that we had no budget for books or materials, that we had limited, spotty, dial up internet access things needed to work.  Drawing and sculpting happened less and less.

I could, if time permitted and I really baked out my thoughts, sketch out a drawing of what I was thinking to solve a problem and people could usually understand what I was talking about.  If they couldn’t, it was usually because of their poor mechanical abilities, not my ability to sketch out a picture.  But usually I aggravated the hell out of people.  Usually there isn’t a lot of time and I’m making it up on the fly.  We go to the Ace Hardware or Lowes and start walking the aisles.  “What’re you looking for?”  “I don’t know.”  “Then why are we  here?”  “Because I’ll know it when I see it.”  “Wait.  I thought you knew what you were doing.”  “I do, really.  I know what I want to do, I just don’t know how I’m doing it yet.”  “That makes no sense.”  “I know, but trust me, this will work.”  Every once in a long, long while, someone will understand my gibberish and that’s a pretty awesome experience to collaborate with them.

Eventually it got to a point where I could sit down with a blank sheet of paper, pencils and time but couldn’t come up with a single thing to draw.  I’d have to challenge myself.  Draw that pot, that shoe, my hand.  Draw that panel from a comic book, draw the person in that photo the way they look in that photo.  It was reproduction, not creativity.  The ability to conjure up an image in my head and translate it to paper to share with others was gone.

I started the blog on a deployment.  I suppose some could say that was creative, but in some ways it wasn’t, still the zerox machine.  I was relaying events that happened in a different medium.

A couple of weeks ago a good friend came to visit.  She’s very creative and loves art shops and lives in a smaller town so we made sure to hit up the Michaels and local art stores while she was here.  At one of them there was a cheap block-printing kit.  Came with the roller (brayer) for spreading ink, a sheet of linoleum to carve, some basic tools and a tray for ink.  The art store had some cheap linoleum blocks and ink so I bought those as well.  To me, the investment might force me to sit down and DO something.  And it was part carving, part drawing so if one side failed, maybe the other side could pick up.  Options, you know?

Got home and same thing?  “What to make?”  Found some simple things.  A cookie monster for a friend’s friend who had a baby and wanted to make some cards.  A teenage mutant ninja turtle head.  Simple images with clear lines that would look good printed in one color.  Fun, good practice but still not “creativity”.  I wasn’t tracing, I was sketching free hand, but I was still looking at a picture when I did it.

Then a good friend’s brother is getting married this weekend.  He and I have gotten to know one another better over the last year, to the point where I consider him my friend as well.  Probably not “good friend” yet, but apparently we’re at the hugging stage.  I hate wedding gifts.  When I was a kid, dad would buy everyone a door knocker with their name engraved, regardless of what else they got them.  If it was his friend or family, he’d also get them a gift card for Target or Home Depot, knowing the a) most of the registry gifts were usually things the guy couldn’t care about and b) a couple starting off would be faced with some emergency or another and the gift card would come in handy.  If it was mom’s friend or family they’d go straight registry.  But they always also got the personalized gift of the door knocker.

I liked that.  The registry seems so impersonal to me (and in some ways odd.  “Hey, I want this.  It’s my day, buy it for me!”).  I had just gotten the block-printing stuff so I decided I wanted to make them personalized cards.  If they liked them, they could use them, if not, trash them, but it was just a little something “more”, that was more from me.  So after much trial and error I made it happen.  I had bad luck with inks, bad luck with carving material, bad luck with my being an A.D.D. dumbass, etc.  But eventually I got 50 cards printed.  And I had fun doing it.  For six hours the night before I had to give them to my friend I locked myself in my kitchen and carved and printed cards.  Had the music going and really zoned out.  It’d been a long time since I focused that long and that hard on something.

Not sure where I’m going with this.  Maybe it was a just a one-time thing and it’ll fade.  Maybe it’s the start of something, maybe not more printing, but at least more carving and sketching.  I realize a lot of it is me, I have to force myself to do it often enough that it becomes a habit, then second nature.  My school notebooks and folders used to be covered in doodles.  Drawings were stuck in the pages.  The bottom of my lockers used to be stacked high with drawings.  What’s it take to get back to that?

A.D.D. strikes again…

I clearly remember saying to myself “Don’t forget to flip the drawing before you trace it jackass.” when I was transferring the design to the block with carbon paper. What did I do? Forgot to flip it. So now when I go to print with this the letters will come out backwards. So I have to carve the whole thing again. But I still like the way it turned out.

Holy Shikies…

I started this thing FIVE years ago today?  And had a blog before that?  I realize I’ve done a terrible job updating but still…  I remember when I couldn’t keep a journal for more than a day or two.

I need a new hero…

I need a new book character to get engrossed in.

• Robert B. Parker passed away.  I know someone has picked up the torch and is writing new Spenser books but it’s not the same.
• Bob Lee Swagger is getting old.  I still love to read the series but Stephen Hunter isn’t cranking them out at a super fast pace.
• Pretty sure that Dennis Lehane is done with the Kenzie/Gennaro series.
• No idea how many times I’ve read the Travis McGee, Fletch, Flynn, Scarecrow, Bond, and Flynn books.
• Greg Rucka would rather do comics than add to the Kodiak or new series.
• Janet Evanovich, VInce Flynn, Patricia Cornwell and Brad Thor all stereotyped their characters and made me dislike them.
• The Jack Daniels series is dead.

Interesting Article

Interesting Article

I’d love to sit with him and talk to him about this and how he came to this moment in more detail.  And how far this mindset extends?  Just to women, or into homosexuality and other areas as well?

Professionalism and Job Satisfaction

When we were in Afghanistan the first time things were a little messed up. Well, they’re still a little messed up but in different ways. We were part of the first large force to show up, “Big Army” in the speak. Special Operations had been there for awhile, doing their sneaky stuff, forming relations with the locals and getting a toe-hold. A different Infantry Division had gone in shortly after them, built the toe-hold out a little more and then more and more people started flowing in and we were part of that. When we got there and got off the plane, we immediately started seeing locals walking around with AK-47s. No one was shooting them, so we didn’t either, but it felt weird. We got the scoop, they were part of the local tribe and were being paid heavily to ensure our security. This wasn’t like what the Army had trained me for. We weren’t “digging in”. We had a couple guard towers up, we had some concertina wire out, but there was a whole lot of nothing between us and bad guys. On the “base” there were about four or five fortified areas. There was the Joint Operations Center (JOC), where we worked. This was where the highest ranking allied officer in the country resided. There were a couple of Special Operations compounds and there was an Air Force compound. As we were there the engineers rolled in and started fortifying and demining other areas of the base and establishing check points and enforcing security but for awhile there it was really iffy. We woke up one night to a local trying to sneak into our tent and had to participate in roving guard duty within the base because the perimeter wasn’t secure.

There’s obviously some… wrongness about this. In the army that I was brought up to believe in (which may have been a myth), leaders led from the front and didn’t ask soldiers to take risks that they weren’t willing to take themselves. So while we lived in tents with no power, no real perimeter, no hot water in the tents where we took showers in (without power, have fun trying to find anything in the dark) and went everywhere 24×7 armed the higher ranking officers and senior enlisted lived in a smaller, fortified compound, in a hardened building with power and water and their own private porta-potty which was cleaned daily by some poor schlub.

In our “cell” in the JOC we were a mixed group of people. We were the small teams that they didn’t quite know where else to put so they gave us our own tent and told us to sit in there and be quiet basically. We were all valuable enough to be there, and provided valuable information but we were “strap-hangers”, people who weren’t normally part of the larger unit and were added on because of the deployment to enhance capabilities. Some of the guys in our tent were Psychological Operations (which is funny because my next two deployments were with PSYOP units) and as such, fell under Special Operations and as such had full access to, and lived in one of the Special Operations compounds. They were liaison officers between the Special Operations PSYOP units and the “Big Army” folks so had to cross the street to work in the JOC compound daily.

One day one of these officers made an interesting observation. He said that he’d never seen a lick of graffiti in any of the porta-potties in the Special Operations compound. Sometimes there were some phone numbers scrawled by the moral/welfare phones in a different area of the camp, but for the most part the camp was clean and he didn’t hear Sergeants Major having to scream and threaten anyone to keep it that way. The SpecOps camps were usually much less officer heavy, more enlisted heavy and had a large number of “junior enlisted” (less senior and lower ranking, think “privates”) soldiers in their camps performing support roles. However junior enlisted soldiers were a rarity in the JOC, mainly there as drivers, radio operators, clerks,etc. and most of the personnel were officers or senior enlisted and yet all of the latrines had mass graffiti, there was always trash collected by wind in the corners of the yard and the Sergeants Major were always trying to beg, plead and threaten officers with their positional power to keep their working areas clean. The officer chalked it up to the “vibe” each camp had. In the SpecOps camp there was a feeling that they had a good mission and were accomplishing good things. Soldiers weren’t micromanaged and didn’t need to be because they had a higher level of professionalism. Teamwork is the norm over there, and guys just jump together to get the mission accomplished. They were getting “outside the wire”, they were seeing the locals, they knew they were making a difference. Even guys who normally wouldn’t go outside the wire were getting the opportunity there, as a form of cross training or to support larger missions.

By contrast the folks in the JOC were mostly what are today called “FOBBITS”. FOB = Forward Operating Base and people who never leave the FOB are called FOBBITS. Sometimes this is earned. In past wars they were called REMFs for “Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers” and were to be avoided at all costs. They were the ones who sent soldiers to fight without taking on any risk themselves, demanded reports and paperwork, stole supplies that were meant for front-line troops and who would yell at combat soldiers for not meeting uniform standards. Yet these guys were the ones without job satisfaction. They were miserable. They were working an office job, but working 12 hour days, 7 days a week away from home and didn’t get to see the impact they were having on the war. They have to deal with micromanagement and just don’t feel like they’re contributing and they get made fun of. Sitting in a tent making PowerPoint presentations isn’t what they joined the Army for. A great way to get a sense for this is to watch the movie “Mr. Roberts”. Unfortunately this existence is much more the reality for a lot of soldiers than something like “Restrepo”.

At my current job I’m on the main floor of a three floor office building (2 floors and a basement), so my team and I use the same restroom that visitors would, right off the lobby. For whatever reason there’s a tiny plastic wastebin in there with a tiny opening. And when I first got here the floor around the bin would be littered with paper towels that people had used and missed the can with. That used to be something I’d harp about to my guys, make sure they picked up after themselves, that restroom was an impression to corporate visitors.

I was brought into the company to effect change. I hired a team of guys, many of whom I’d worked with before to help. However this is a very change resistant company and while one owner approved my hire, the others may not have realized what they were getting. Because of this I practice what I call “management by erosion”, meaning I’m just so stubborn and repetitive that I finally get my change through. This is not appealing to me. When I win, I feel good. But it’s wearing. And I regularly have to remind my teams how far we’ve come, how much we’ve done because we’re constantly getting frustrated by having to convince the company to let us help it help itself. The changes we’re making are necessary to improve the stability, supportability and scalability of the company, and the company wants to grow. Last week was especially hard for myself and for the team. I went to use the restroom, washed my hands, dried them and missed the trashcan with the paper towel. And I walked out and left it there.

Guilt got the best of me and I went back and picked it, and the others up a few moments later, but I realized it’d been awhile since I’d even done that. Lately I’d just been making sure my towel hit the mark and considered that good enough. I’d heard for years that pride in job manifested itself in multiple ways and that by assigning responsibility for pieces of equipment, etc. you could do things to foster a sense of pride. In the Army, when you’re the assigned driver of a specific vehicle the logic is that if you name the vehicle and stencil that name and your name on it you’ll have more of a sense of ownership and pride in the upkeep of the vehicle.

Anyways, it was interesting to see what an indicator of job satisfaction such a small thing was. I have more empathy now for the guys who’ve been here for years or that my teams and I replaced.

PTSD

I’ve been handling minor issues with PTSD/TBI for awhile now.  I say it like that because some of the symptoms are so similar to one another, and treatment is so similar that in the diagnosis exercise for me they only take it so far and stop worrying about the exact cause for each symptom and just treat me.  A common frustration with vets is that their PTSD issues are so internal and nothing like the media makes them out to be.  The vast majority of these guys aren’t going to go on a killing spree, aren’t going to commit suicide, aren’t a threat to anyone.  Most people will never know that they’ve got a problem.  They just have problems sleeping, problems fitting back into their civilian worlds.  Their relationships suffer or end, they are hyper alert, they get antsy in crowds or are easily startled and feel stupid and embarrassed by their reactions, but they’re tough and they find ways to adapt and get through it.  And with time, hopefully it gets better.

The thing that a lot of people forget is that PTSD isn’t unique to the military.  There are tons of non-military people who deal with it everyday.  People who were abused or traumatized as kids, people who went through a horrific accident or were raped or mugged.  Even some people who just worked for tyrannical bosses and couldn’t get out of the situation have problems.  And for most of them it’s the same thing.  Some little trigger will set them off and they’ll have a bad spell and then they’ll get past it.

I had an interesting event this last week.  Long before I was dealing with any Army related stuff I was going through huge relationship issues with my ex.  We were in a crazy spot.  We had never been formally married but were considered common-law, and had no idea what that meant when it came to breaking up.  We were living in a house but she lived upstairs and I lived in the basement.  We could go days without seeing one another, communicating mainly by email, text or phone calls, even if we were both in the same house together.  We needed to end it, but weren’t for various reasons, none of which seem great in hind sight.  I knew that she liked to drink but didn’t realize it was an issue until something that was to me, emotionally traumatic happened.  I’m not going to go into detail about what happened, but once I became aware I was amazed at how oblivious I’d been.  Had probably subconsciously chosen to be.  All the signs were there.  And I was ashamed and embarrassed that I’d missed them, or chosen not to see them.  Especially with the way that I found out. 

Now I don’t know that this qualifies as “PTSD” but last week I was in the basement laundry room and I was taking the trash bag out of the trash can down there.  The only thing I throw away in that trash can are lint from the dryer and tags off of clothes that I’m washing before wearing or the little peel strips on a new thing of detergent or fabric softener.  So that trash can probably goes a year between before it’s emptied.  As I was pulling it out glass bottles in the bottom clinked.  Now that stuff happened years and years and years ago but emotionally I didn’t understand it at that moment.  The sound just hit me in the gut and it was a compulsion, I had to upend the trash bag and get to the bottom and see what was inside of it to get past it.  All that was there were some old glass coke bottles that I’d been drinking when I was replacing a utility sink in the basement last summer. 

Just a funny experience, and something that I had to feel stupid and embarrassed about after the fact.  But it had nothing to do with being a soldier or deployments.