Speaking of my bio paper...

I was born in the Hospital Garrahan in Buenos Aires on December 19, 1990. I was a complete breech birth and the woman who delivered me, a Buddhist from South Korea, told my mother that it meant I was a bodhisattva- a wisdom being. My parents chose the Korean word 'rae' as my middle name in her honor (although neither can remember what it means) and from time to time they still call me 'little lotus-eater.'

My parents met near Port San Carlos in the Falkland Islands. My mom was there on U-Chicago's photography foreign study program and my dad was stranded. He'd gone as a Baptist missionary intent on converting indigenous peoples through rudimentary hand gestures and drawings. Upon arrival he was surprised to find that the majority of the population not only spoke English, but also already practiced some form of Christianity. Rather than rebound by converting them all to his kind of Christianity, he promptly converted to Sikhism. Upon learning of his transgression the First United Baptist Church withdrew sponsorship and refused to finance his return to the United States. Recently-graduated English major that he was, he couldn't afford the trip himself and so settled down to studying Punjabi and doing freelance landscaping work.
One morning in mid-March my mom rose early and left her host family's home with the Nikon F4 on loan from her local paper. After a few hours of photographing sheep and Magellanic Penguins she wandered towards the seaside to eat her picnic breakfast. As she neared the coast her surroundings became more distinctly boggy and an eerie chanting floated on the cool-ish autumn air.
"Ik oankar sat nam karta..."
Seated on a protruding rock in the middle of a pool of bog water was my dad, now donning a long beard. My mom wondered at how he'd managed to reach his perch without wetting his clothing and determined to wait for him to finish his recitation in order to introduce herself. A full hour passed before my dad opened his eyes to the blond college student seated on the bank across from him.
Did she ever find out how he made it across without wetting his clothes? Well.. I happened about nine months later.

SOS

Ok, so. This isn't my usual type of thing. Then again, neither is the topic. The words aren't quite mine, they're as I remember them: tragic and raw. I don't apologize.

I'm drunk as fuck.
Did you ever want to fuck me?
I wanted to fuck you.
I always thought you had beautiful breasts.
I don't know why I'm telling you this.
I guess it doesn't matter.
I don't have anyone else to talk to.
Don't tell my mom and girlfriend, ok?
I miss my mom.
I never liked my mom until I left home.
I want to go home.
I want to hug my little sister and
kiss my little brother's forehead.
She's a good sister, she's always been
so nice to me.
They're both still kids.
I want to have kids.
I want to put my penis in someone's
vagina and make her pregnant
and I want a baby to come out
and I want it to be my son.
I want to kiss my son.
I want to hug him and tell him that
he's a good boy and teach him to
play the guitar and watch all
the Batman movies with him in
one day and never pressure him
to join the army.
I don't want to die.
I don't want to kill anybody.
I'm a good soldier.
I follow orders.
I'm infantry: I'm trained to break
down the door and kill everything
I find: mothers, children, pregnant
women, cripples, blacks, Jews, even babies.
Black Jewish crippled babies.
I'm trained to rip apart their bodies
with my bare hands if I have to.
Why?
Because they worship a different
God and because they don't practice
democracy and because they
speak a funny language and
because they want to kill me.
But I don't want to kill them.
Not over ideas.
I mean, why can't we all just
fucking grow up?
What kind of fucked-up thing is it
to say, "Ok, you killed more of
our guys than we did of yours,
so here's this much land."
Why do we need countries?
Why do we need continents?
Fuck, why do we even need a universe?
Why can't we just sit down and have
donuts together and say, "I don't
want to kill you, but I don't want
you to kill me. I'm not going to kill
you, but please don't kill me, ok?
Because you're alive, and I'm alive,
and we both want to stay alive,
so we should help each other
out 'cause we're friends, brother."
I don't want to die.
I want to go home.
I don't want to kill anybody.
I don't know if I'll be able to; I'll
probably cry.
And then I'll die.
In the desert.
I don't want to die in the desert.
I'll get hit by an IED or a grenade
or some other shit and all that
will be left of me is some scraps
of skin and some fucking bloody
sand, and no one will look at
me and be sad or know that all
I want to do is go home and
see my friends and play my
guitar and write. All they'll
say is, "Look, it's another dead
American soldier."
On the back of my dog tags it says
"Lutheran," but did you know
that I can have it changed to
anything I want, no questions
asked?
I'm going to have it changed to Sith
and make them give me a fucking
Sith funeral.
I don't want to die.
I want to come home and see all
you guys and hug my mom and
make love to my girlfriend.
I don't want to die.
I'm really fucking skinny, you should
see me.
I've got abs to die for.
I'm a fucking god.
I don't eat.
I don't sleep much, either.
I haven't slept in more than 24
hours now.
I once stayed up for 27 hours straight
once, cleaning my gun.
And then I put it on a towel on the
end of my bed for inspection
and while the sergeant was
standing there I just passed out.
I don't know why I'm telling you this.
I'll probably be embarrassed as fuck
in the morning, but right now I
don't care.
Another time they made us run ten
miles at night in the rain with
seventy pound packs on our backs.
When I got back, all the skin had
rubbed off the bottoms of my feet
and they were so swollen that
I couldn't walk for three days.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving.
I didn't get to go home.
I haven't eaten, either.
It's the first time I haven't
been home for Thanksgiving.
I want to make a difference in
the world.
I want people to know about me,
and I want them to be different
because of it.
I don't want to kill anyone because
of their ideas.
We all want the same things.
I want to be able to write again,
ever since I've been here I haven't
been able to write.
I used to think that I was so
different.
I wasn't, though. Now I am.
I am not a unique and beautiful
snowflake.
Who care's if I die?
I don't want to die, but they
want me to die, but I don't
want them to die. How do you
say that in their funny language?
Fuck.
I don't sleep, and sometimes I
hallucinate.
Like, this one time I was Princess
Leia, you know in that Star
Wars movie, and Darth Vader
was blowing up my planet and
I was watching and I was
screaming, and I was standing
at attention and I was just like,
"Holy fuck! What the fuck just
happened?"
I don't want to die, but I'm under
contract.
I'm under contract to die.
You don't disobey orders in the
army or they put you in jail.
I saw them put a guy
in jail for rolling his eyes once.
They put him in jail for thirty
days because he rolled his
eyes. I mean, Jesus Christ.
The only way I could get out is
if I'm gay, but I'm not. I want
to stick my penis in a vagina,
not have someone stick his
penis in my ass.
I always thought you had beautiful
breasts, did I tell you that?
I love you.
I love everybody.
I think everybody should love
everybody.
Why do we even have war?
Why can't we just sit down and
talk things out and each give
a little because we're human
and we love each other and
we don't want to die?
Why do we have to kill each other?
I hate war, I don't want to
kill anybody just because they
worship differently than I do
or love differently than I do
or what the fuck ever.
I hate those hippie bastards but
they're so damn right a lot of
the time.
I don't want to be a soldier anymore.
I want to go home.
I miss you.
I miss everybody.
I'm sorry, I'm probably boring you.
What time is it there?
I should let you go to sleep.
I'll probably be embarrassed as
fuck in the morning.
Bye.

A manifesto of sorts

To you: I believe, and yes, I love. I don't give a damn what those scientists with all their diplomas and test tubes say. I do not believe that anything as beautiful and perfect as this world, as the sky above and earth below and birdsandbeesanddaisiesandcocoatrees and everything else in between could have just HAPPENED. I can't watch the turn of the sun in the sky or feel the embrace of a cool breeze on a hot day or hear the whispered ecstasies of two young lovers and not know that someone is responsible. Someone amazing, and beautiful.
I can't watch the color come to your cheeks when you smile and think that you are an accident. I can't feel life pulsing through my veins and imagine that were it not for a highly specific, highly unlikely set of circumstances I wouldn't be here. I can't. I have someone to thank for you, and for me.
There are no accidents, there are no mistakes. Not when it comes to things as large and lovely as life and limes and leopards. Imagine the artistry, the intellect! Imagine what it took to design one wing of a plain brown moth! Imagine what care and patience it took to design each of the shells in the ocean. Can you? I can just barely grasp at it, like there's something much, much bigger and much, much more important to be seen..
What a master of art, of creation, of compassion and kindness and generosity. To have made all these beautiful things and not kept them horded away? To have been as proud of each and every one of them as it would be impossible not to be (of daisies and of lemons and of you and of me), and to have given it all away. Given us away. To free will. To each other. Given us everything that we need, and more. Not just the skills to survive, the skills to scavenge and hunt and keep safe in bad weather and avoid dangerous animals, but the ability to think! the ability to love!
We are given the ability to love, and as far as I am concerned that's good enough for me. I love and trust this creator much too much to begin questioning intentions. I am a work of this hand, in this image, and I am not so ungrateful as to reject the ability to love as it is given to me.
Some people worry that teaching us about evolution in school will make us question faith. Before that they feared that if we studied anatomy of the human body we would offend God. Before that, it was heresy to suggest that Earth was anything but flat, with Heaven above and Hell below. We now know that the world is a sphere. We have studied and labeled every piece of man's physical form. We are taught evolution. These things do not make me question my faith, rather, they make me believe even more strongly than before. And yet, how exquisite is the brain, the mind, that through its study even our most learned doctors are left with more questions than when they began so many centuries ago, and scarcely many more answers! How perfect that every creature in nature exists as part of a large-scale pattern! How appropriate that with the discovery of Earth's shape there is no longer room for Hell in the layout of our world.
But, oh! there is certainly room for Heaven! All you have to do is look up, and there is your proof. Look inside yourself; it is there, too. With as much care and precision as it took to construct the wing of that little brown moth just so perfectly that the creature can fly, my our aligned and arranged the cosmos to give us a glimpse of the wonderful world that is waiting for us (and in a way so that they don't get all tangled up and keep bumping into each other, besides.)
This is how I see my creator, who you may choose to call God, and this is where I see Him: in nature, in the heavens, in you, in me.
My creator, as I understand it, does not feel hate. Nor wrath. Nor the compulsion to damn any single one of we beautiful, perfect creations to an eternity of suffering. Each of us is loved unconditionally. My creator, as I understand it, would never even allow such a place as Hell to exist. My creator's forgiveness is too great; love, too strong. Such base sentiments as hate and loathing do not belong.
It sickens me to see how over the ages this messages of love, kindness, respect, generosity, and forgiveness have been muddled up and made subject to the whims and grudges of, pardon the term, mere mortals. I loathe to see atrocities carried out in the name of God, of Allah, or Yahweh, etc., against objects of the creator's adoration. Christianity and all other faiths, in essence, are about being the best that you can possibly be. They are about loving unconditionally, respecting uniformly, and forgiving absolutely. It isn't easy. That's the point.
My creator demands nothing, but expects everything. My creator expects me to see this wonderful world around me, and to see you before me, and to love it all, and to love him/her. And I do. My creator expects me to strive to be the best person that I can be, not in fear of eternal torment, but in anticipation of eternal paradise. My creator expects me to ensure that I feel as if I deserve to be there when finally my time comes.
I talk to my creator. I pray. I talk about my problems, I ask for strength to make it through tough times, I offer praise. Praise of those cocoa trees and those leopards and of you. Praise of my mind, thanks that for all the opportunities to use it that I have. Thanks for the glorious ability to love and be loved. Thanks for you.
I consider myself spiritual. I do not go to church. To me, it seems more appropriate to worship in nature, which was created by the hands of my creator, than in any structure made by the hands of men. I do not ridicule or disparage those who do choose to worship in these holy houses. However, I harshly condemn those who go through the motions, go to the services, claim that they're faithful.. but fail to show it. You know the type. They damn the people I love, the people that our creator loves, and praise God/Allah/Yahweh/etc. all in one breath. They beat down the spirits of others and then turn those same hands upward. It is they that I do not want praying for me. So, forgive me that I offended before.
I love my creator. I love the life that I am given. And I love you.
If this is a sin, then I understand neither the nature of right or wrong nor my creator.

To everyone else: I do not expect you to agree with me. I do not expect you to disagree with me. I do not expect you to respond. I would not mind hearing what you think, how you feel, how you react, though. However, if you can not keep it respectful, keep it to yourself. If you can not keep it to yourself, it will be deleted. These are my thoughts and beliefs, and I put them forth simply in order to clear the air of some misconceptions that may have been floating around lately. Finally, if you read all the way through, I commend you.