Kapoketta-Kapoketta

Or "Thoughts on being an idiot"...

I refer to myself as "The Brilliant Idiot" for a reason.  Growing up, it seemed as if almost everyone I came in contact with wanted to be my mentor. For much of my young life, I had no idea what that was and, being paranoid, I suspected the worst. I often think I could have been much more; successful, wealthy, maybe even important. I know, fantasies about what "could have been" for a mediocre personality, mostly to be dismissed in the more rational of us.

But I am an analytical type, I like to look back and delve into the why of things, especially the why I had the life I had instead of the one I think I could have had. Mostly, it was because of decisions I made along the way. Important decisions that I apparently did not think were important at the time mostly but some which were obvious even to me that could be life-changing.

For instance, after boot camp, I went to  BEEP (Basic Electricity and Electronics Preparation) school... it is now called NEETS and is probably administered online... where I was offered something which, in hindsight, I was a fool to reject. I was offered a couple of chances then to get a "free" college education. Nothing is actually free, of course, and the Navy wanted more of my precious youth in exchange. I do not know how many years I would have had added to my enlistment because I never asked, I just rejected the offers.

Yes, I was a bonehead. But, when I was 19, I did not think 30 (the likely earliest age I would be when I would get out of the Navy if I accepted) was young and I did not think I was officer material. In fact, I had absolutely no desire to be an officer, to be in charge of anything, to be responsible for anything... especially other sailors. And I did not want to try to land on, or take off from, aircraft carriers (the tacit offer of Naval Aviation Cadet was one of the offers). In hindsight, of course, I gave up opportunities that could have resulted in a much better life (financially at least) than I have enjoyed thus far.

And so, like Walter Mitty, I am left only with daydreams and fantasies about what might have been.