The sound of silence

2011.  Afghanistan

I think I am suffering from writers block, a mental abberation. I haven't been able to think of a topic to write about for well over a week. Either my life is devoid of anything meaningful to say, or my mind has given up completely on any analytical thought and is slowly simmering away in its own juices.  Simply atrophying away.  It 's probably both.  People here talk of getting into a routine.  I think I am now in it.  It's actually not very nice.  I get up - very early in the morning, go to work, finish at lunchtime, go to sleep, get up in the evening, go to work, finish in the early morning, go to sleep, get up at lunchtime, go to work, finish in the early evening, go to sleep.  Rinse and repeat as necessary.  And so it goes on.  Day after day after day, with another 9 weeks stretching out into the far horizon with the end, like the Hindu Kush mountains that surround me.  In sight, always visible, always there, but unreachable.  Ever present, but unchanging.  Life has slowly, imperceptibly, slipped into a constant stream of seemingly irrelevant nothingness.  Operations continue, reports are produced, briefs are given, decisions made,  patrols conducted, and then the same thing happens again.  No-one here seems to have noticed. I'm not sure if I should tell them or not. I wonder if it's important?

Have you ever felt like you needed to say something and then, when you open your mouth/book/email, suddenly realised that you have nothing to say/write/type?  That's how I feel. It's very frustrating.  Here I am, embroiled in a geo-political struggle playing itself out on the world stage, every day seeing events that are being talked about at the very highest level of governments and I have nothing to say.   Maybe that says something in itself.  But then, maybe it's because I am seeing them and the politicians aren't.  Yesterday I spent most of the day working up plans and Mission Briefs to kill some people with a missile strike.  I got it all briefed, approved and organised and then went and watched it on a live video feed.  For tea we had pizza.  I want to write about it, but don't know what to say.

I am also having trouble sleeping.