Most war heroes and honored servicemen protectively keep or display their badges in their cases, wanting to preserve them for others to see what they've been through, and as a personal memento of whatever service or act of valor they performed to earn it. The badges don't go away, notwithstanding the principle that everything is eventually going to break down, but it won't happen in their lifetime. If a badge goes away is it really a badge? Can you give yourself a badge? Treat it like a purple heart for everything you've been through? I find myself asking these questions, daring to compare an honorable merit system to a rough, disordered system of self-loathing that has cost me a lot more than the superfluous. I just got through reading a book all last night (while I didn't sleep at all, and I'm on my second one now) about a woman's struggle with the badge question. But maybe she doesn't treat it like a badge. It could be something totally different. Which I'm convinced that it is since the main character in the story had a life different from mine, complete with perfection, discipline, and secret integrity driven from fear and performance. Ah, but with performance we come back to the concept of earning and merit, and perhaps her struggles were not her badges, but her symbols of what she believed to be the opposite of badges.

Sorry, no funny stuff. Go to http://www.icanhascheezburger.com for a laugh. I mean, if you're into that.

Holla.