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Thu Dec 30 11:30:26 AM EST 2021
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Aspirants to the U.S. Army Special Forces, I'm told, are
first run through a selection course -- a "weed-out" course
to filter out those least likely to succeed in the much
longer and undoubtedly much more expensive (from an Army
investment perspective) qualification course and follow-on
specialty training.

Part of that selection course, I'm told, are certain
tasks that may appear ill-defined or open-ended. What does
this mean? The Army is very good and very methodical in its
training and testing. The objectives and the pass/fail
critera are explicitly stated. The road march is for this
many miles; you will carry this much weight and you must
finish in under this time. But what you didn't know how
long or how far? What if you weren't given a cut-off time
for passing or failing, but you heard that it was possible
to fail for taking too long? Suddenly there is a challenging,
new mental component. Do your best; we'll see if it's good
enough.

I never went through the course. I was an aspirant of sorts,
but it wasn't in the cards: I injured my back, and life went
off in an orthogonal direction. I never really had to face
that challenge.

Except that I did. We all do. Every day. I mean, do you know
how many days you have left on earth? If you had a mission,
a meaning, or a purpose, did you meet the objectives? Are
you being judged? By whom? How do you know if you've passed?

Everyday, the Kobayashi Maru... Maybe "winning" is not even
knowing. And maybe like the selection course, everyone who
"fails" should at least be able to save face, to convince
themselves that it was for the better, to be glad their path
turned in a different direction.

Who knows?