Preamble

Most people in wars aren’t hardened killers with beards and clear eyes. They’re dumb eighteen year olds tricked by recruiters, they’re people who choose the military over prison, they’re doing it to get free college, they’re doing it to run away from their problems, or they were simply drafted.

It’s less complicated than going on a vacation. There’s no blockers, it’s a simple series of operations. You don’t have to be a special human to volunteer, it’s paperwork and showing up. After that, you’re going to war whether you want to or not.

Why to go

I’m a young man who doesn’t know what do with his life. I’m going through a mild existential crisis. The armed struggle to fight off an anti-democratic invader is an effective resolution to this deep problem.

What existential ennui can you have when you’re struggling for survival? Why work towards building bland friendships in Seattle when you can have brothers in arms? Why chase novel experiences in Capitol Hill when you can feel the sharp adrenaline of war? Why convince yourself to care about work when you can commit yourself wholly to the task of making it another day and accomplishing the objective in front of you?

I need to haul these boxes. I need to keep marching. I need to sprint across this street. I need to wait. I need to fire my weapon. I need to survive.

It’s a chance to esacpe from the endless thoughts, worries, anxieties, and just focus on the object level, on something real. If you do have a moment to think, you can think of how your actions are unambiguously good and righteous. You’re part of the great global project to help liberal democracy triumph, doing your part in the fight for a brighter future for humanity.

I would have structure, and I would have meaning.

This is deeply compelling to me.

Of course, there’s a long history of young men having less noble motivations for going to war. The Romans would have you serve your time in the legions and give you a nice farm from conquered territory. I won’t be gaining literal wealth from volunteering in Ukraine, but the returning-hero experience is pretty fucking good in America. That’s a tale as old as time, and I’m not going to lie to myself that it’s not part of the appeal.

Also, war is really cool! I can think it’s both terrible, terrifying, a source of meaning, and simultaneously have the boy in me admit it’s really cool! I’m 25, I’m not going to get another chance to participate in the masculine tradition of war. This isn’t some questionable adventure in the middle east, a four year inescapable contract, or some brutal balkan ethnic cleansing with a side of war. As far as wars to get involved in, it’s pretty good.

If I find myself regretting it, I’m right beside the EU. Take off the uniform, take my Canadian passport and slink home. Whatever, at least I went for it.

Death

I could die. The war is slowly sliding into being increasingly destructive, with Grad rockets blanketing Kharkiv high-rises just today. There’s a lot of unused Russian military capabilities that aren’t going to be sitting idle forever. Destructive and indiscriminate weapons systems will be used, and it’s a lot harder to convince yourself you won’t die when the opposing firepower is truly hellish. By the time I’d be in Ukraine, there’s a good chance the Ukrainian side is taking dreadful losses.

But I still suffer from the young-man-invincibility-feeling. I spend time visualizing the outcomes of “You’re leaning against a wall. A tank down the street you weren’t aware of blows you up.” and “Your idiot commander has you take an exposed position, you hear the crackle of bullets, a moment later a sharp sting in your gut. You get to regret your choices for five minutes”. But that’s not the same thing as actually feeling the regret and fear, it just doesn’t register in my brain.

In any case, if a course of action that has a 10% chance of death (or a 20% chance of a Bad End like disability), it doesn’t mean it’s negative expected value. The positives of volunteering in this war and making it out are astronomical (see above)!

(But I might get a tummy ache and the army might make me run around anyways! Owie!)

What would I leave behind?

I spent time building the case for volunteering, so I spent time building the case for not. I was surprised at how weak it was, and this process revealed some deep tears in the fabric of my life.

I enjoy my day job, but I really don’t care about losing it. I know that I can easily restart my career and find another good job after I return. My job doesn’t provide me any meaning.

I really don’t want to give up everything I’ve built up in my life, the creature comforts, my position on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but maybe that’s what I’m addicted to, that’s keeping me trapped in a meaningless life where I blink and I find myself on my deathbed, having done nothing and wasted all my potential. Being able to play computer games whenever I want does not a substantial life make.

I’d miss being able to dress in fun ways and try on new clothes all the time. This isn’t something that would stop me from volunteering, but I value this a lot more than I thought I did. That’s something.

But I don’t have family ties.

And I don’t have a connection to a community.

And I don’t have anyone I’m supporting. I don’t have anyone who needs me.

BEGIN SECTION THAT FEELS FALSE NOW

“What about my friendships?” he asks himself with an undercurrent of desperation. I spend a lot of time and energy on my friendships, what about them? What are they, a series of multi-hour blocks where I try to get someone to like me? The feeling of joy and acceptance when you have a notification from someone you like? The ugh feeling of having to manage someone else’s feelings? The terrible realization when you burden someone by venting about your problems to them, watch them fail to understand or empathise, and regret it? The ecstatic feeling of knowing people think you’re cool and look up to you? This is all hollow.

I value most of my friendships because they represent the potential that they might eventually lead to a close friendship I would actually value.

Almost every friendship is in a state of being built and isn’t yet delivering that deep value that is the actual goal of connection for me. This is because I’m kickstarting a novel friend network in Seattle, but it’s hard to put “you get to work towards building connections for the next year” in the pro column. The lesson here is that I should be more selfish in how I spend time with people and how I invest in connections.

(If you’re reading this and you’re asking yourself “I thought we had a friendship?” you probably do. It’s just a matter of scale. My goal is deep, intertwined multi-decade friendships. I have a high-effort mode of friendship, my ceiling for connection is very high, and my needs are deep. I need a lot, and what would make other people happy is insufficient for me.)

END SECTION THAT FEELS FALSE NOW

Eventually I did realize that there are some connections I deeply value. There’s shared experiences I truly look forward to. But these connections are fragile and rare. If they’re the only things I’ve really got going on in my life then my life is in a bad state. I will fix this.

So are you going to do it?

No, it’s a stupid idea. It wont solve my problems and give me meaning. I’ll be mentally and physically broken, another human body callously used up by a state to help it perpetuate itself.

The point of this exercise was to learn about myself, the option of volunteering was never in serious consideration.