Month: August 2005

An interesting and quite objective article on the subject of killing people in combat can be found here, mirrored from the Wall Street Journal. It is not a political article but a review and insight into the process in the US Army to handle the fact that soldiers are killing people and feel bad about it. A more in-depth perspective is given in Maj. Kilner’s essay, linked from the Wall Street Journal.

Why am I interested in the moral aspects of killing people, you ask yourself. First and foremost, it’s a classical and important philosophical topic which should be considered by every human person. Secondly, I have a great fascination of war fiction and the dramaturgical elements of such fiction, where killing people and the moral problem killing poses is one of the main elements.

… is not only a great song by Leonard Cohen, but also something people tend to plan ahead for. I’m not talking about future as in science fiction, but my own personal future. What will become of me? Normally, I don’t think much about the future – I prefer living in the current now. Sometimes, however, planning can be fun. Fun as it may be, it is hard, atleast for me. I have generally no idea what I want to do in the future or what career I want to pursue. This time, I will give it a try, because today the future is not as blurred as always (or I try to persuade myself to believe that…)

In 9 days I’ll depart for Hong Kong and for atleast 9 months of studies (and some regional travel). I cannot grasp how this will be yet, merely present wild guesses. So I’ll skip that fortune cookie and move on to the time after. Next summer, Beach 2006, will be filled with travel. I, and hopefully any friendly person prepared to tag along, will be backpacking through Asia and/or the US (the latter one should be designed as the typical road movie trip).

After that? I’m probably more or less broke, and I have 6 months worth of MSc Project, in Sweden (or under the right circumstances, in Hong Kong or somewhere else). After that, I will have my degree back in Sweden. And then the world is open to me. Or is it? Here my future branches into two parallell paths. The obvious next step would be to get a job in Sweden and start earning some money, moving to a better apartment, buying lots of stuff and just living. The dream would be to start my own business with some friends so I can work with things I like on my own command. That seems great fun, but not as exciting as my second path to the future. Imagine this:

When I have my Swedish MSc degree (not really a MSc, actually) I’ll go West – that is the US. Now, don’t cough up all your coffe on the screen and starting rambling about me being pro-american. I’m not. For the record, I’m being very critical against US policies (both historically and now), and I can’t stand the bloated “American way” and misled patriotism. Nevertheless, the US is a great country with a culture I both can relate to and explore further. There is also so much to see in the land of “freedom”.

Anyway, there I’ll try to get into Berkeley or some other well known university, and there I’ll just study anything that comes in my way, maybe english literature, history and additions to my software engineering education. I’ll also get my taste of the US and if I like it, I could aswell start living there permanently. If not, I’ll return home with a backpack full of useful experiences, as well as a good looking degree in something.

To summarize -if this will be my future, I’m a lucky guy. But that’s “if”. Well just have to wait and see. Or maybe someone else has a proposal for my future (marriage offers will also be considered 😉 ).

Blogs have a constant pressure on looking good (as opposed to bloggers themselves?). I feel this pressure too, although very few have visited this blog as of today. Unfortunately, I lack both the time, the knowledge and the inspiration to further polish the theme. I’d go for a somewhat darker, more graphical theme based on surgical instruments or something other similarily strange.

Well, I have to concede that the blog will act as the ugly duckling for some time and I will try to concentrate on serving some sort of content instead (a quest far from fulfilled at the moment). I just want to promise that some day, in a galaxy far, far away, even this blog will look good.