Sisyphus Today: The Metaphor
"The IED that caused that crater would have taken out my side of the truck and me along with it. But strangely, I had no real reaction to that consideration; no fear, no shock, no feeling of fortune. Nothing except the idea that it signified something.
"It only took me a few more moments to realize what that was. As we were snaking our way through the tight, bush-lined corridor toward the Tigris bridge, I came to understand that the IED blast was a specific, destructive event that had left lasting effects.
"The metaphor began...."
I don't know anything this soldier Dean M. Dorman apart from what's on his blog, but I've got to be intrigued by its too-appropriate title, his chilled prose, and the fact that he lists two works by Aldous Huxley among his three favorite books. I sometimes take an old copy of Huxley's collected essays with me when I travel. "The Doors of Perception" is a fascinating pre-Sixties look at psychedelia. But one of the pieces I find most useful is the essay called "Usually Destroyed." For more on this point, see:
Shadowland: Out of Balance, 5 Jan 2005
The world rarely takes notice of disasters and wars until they cross a mind-boggling threshold of pain. Are Americans starting to feel the same way about U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6786899/site/newsweek/
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