Hard to come home

One discussion with the boys was a little more serious.  Son 1, who has always been fascinated and attracted by the military life and ethos, was talking about the message in Thomas Ricks's Making the Corps, that the Marine Corps is countercultural.  Ricks talked about new recruits on leave after six weeks of boot camp, who find that they have literally nothing to talk about with the friends they left behind, ... often friends whose only ambition is to get drunk or high or laid.  Six short weeks -- no, make that six very long weeks -- and a recruit's values are changed totally.  He can no longer care about the things that sloppy, undisciplined civilians care for.

As Son 1 went on about this, Son 2 said very quietly, "I feel exactly the same way coming home from Durmstrang."

I think I've mentioned that Durmstrang, the boarding prep school he attends, has a strong ethos of self-reliance and doing without.  And so he went on to say, "Whenever I leave campus, ... everybody else in the world has so much stuff! Even you, Dad, even in this tiny apartment, there is all this stuff.  And then I walk outside and everybody else in town has his own little house and his own little car and all his own stuff and the whole city is just so crowded. I'm used to a lot more space, and a lot fewer things to have to worry about."

I don't have any profound conclusions, but I thought it was interesting.  And I want to keep an eye on him as he grows ....