Tuesday,
October 16, 2012
- I think 3
is an unofficial burn out number for me. If I try to spend time with someone,
and they are busy or flake out 3 times in a row, I tend to give it at least a
few months. Dunno why I thought of this at random right now lol.
Thursday,
October 18, 2012
- The new
CTO at work is enforcing a “be in at 9:00” attendance policy. Not a good
leadership idea :/
- CJ is just
like Dad when you ask him to do things haha. He has to finish what he’s doing
or often he sees something and starts that instead, like taking out the
garbage. Maybe it’s just a guy thing.
- The
promotion demotion was a total easy blessing for increased pay without
complicating my life more. Awesome!
Friday, October
19, 2012
- “A
person’s god is the thing or being in which he trusts and which he believes has
the greatest power. It is the
thing to which he looks for whatever salvation he believes is available. All
other beliefs and actions are affected by that belief or object of his
worship…. If a Latter-day Saint will not
tithe, is it
not because he centers his trust in worldly things and the system that produces
them instead
of in the
providence of the Lord? In that sense, then, the things of the world become a
god to him, for he trusts more in them than in God’s power. Those who do not
pay tithing would likely be shocked to think they were guilty of idolatry just
as the ancient Israelites were guilty of idolatry. The form differs, but the
sin is the same.” – OTM pg 254
- “under the
rule of the judges the people must demonstrate loyalty to the Lord and His commandments
for this ideal form of government to function properly.” – OTM 258 I’d argue
the same about our country
Saturday,
October 20, 2012
- It’s funny
how social and anti-social I feel at the same time right now.
- I am not a
reading learner, this is why I can’t seem to get well read on politics!
Monday,
October 29, 2012
- Awesome
line from The Black Prism, “Kip spluttered, making some kind of sound like he
was drowning. Seriously, if embarrassment were a muscle, I’d be huge.”
- Talking
with someone online (Molly is her name, great fun so far J ) and I wrote this
novel that I figured I’d preserve on my log. My Utah bubble rant, tangent
inclusive. I do recognize and acknowledge the existence of the Utah bubble, but
I don’t think it’s as big of a deal people make it. For example, I remember
once being teased because I didn’t know a word was also the name of some random
alcoholic beverage. First of all, there’s like a million alcoholic beverage
names, pretty sure almost anything works. Second of all, I don’t drink alcohol,
why should I even know the names of obscure mixes? If it was some sort of
derogatory or offensive term that I was misusing, that’d make sense to know.
But a drink name? Who cares! The point being, a lot of the things that people
are sheltered from in the bubble are often things not really necessary for us
to know. Random sexual terms, drink names, gang signs, and so on are all things
that one can live an entirely healthy life without ever knowing. Maybe there’s
hard life lessons that people would learn faster outside the bubble, but
there’s nothing significant to our eternal salvation that we can’t learn
regardless of where we live.
That being
said, Utah Mormons can definitely take the passive sheltering of just being in
a different environment a step too far, and actively shield their kids from
everything. This is not good parenting. If you’re afraid your child might
drown, you don’t try to keep them from ever being near a body of water. Someday
they’ll end up at a party with a pool at the house, and when they get pushed in
they won’t know what to do. No, you get them swimming lessons. In a similar
way, you can’t teach them not to swear by never allowing them to hear swear
word, you can’t protect a child’s chastity by forcing your will on who they
date, you can’t protect your kids from pornography by not having a computer or
tv. You need to teach proper principles and allow their agency. Anyway the main
point is I think the bubble is less of a big deal than people make it, if
you’re really living the spirit of the law you’ll be fine.
However,
overall I am not very proud of Utah Mormons. I’d love to be wrong about this,
and I never feel my opinions or observations are absolute. But I would say the
vast majority of Utah Mormon’s would not fit in the valiant category. I have
been pressured more to break my standards (both passively and actively) by my
LDS friends than I ever have by my non-LDS friends. On the flip side, I would
say the vast majority of members I’ve met that grew up out of state (excluding
some parts of Arizona or Idaho, which are pretty much like extensions of Utah)
are way more valiant than the majority of Utah members. I don’t have any
personal basis to say this, but it almost seems like it’s just as hard to find
a good member to date in Utah as it is everywhere else. The difference is there
are just so many people in Utah who SHOULD be good members.
Living out
of state where not everyone already knows my standards, where I could have open
discussions with people about their different takes on the world (here it’s
pretty much the Mormon take, an all out anti-Mormon take, or a “I don’t want to
think that hard about things because I’m afraid my conclusions would require me
not being so lax” take) I’ve LOVED the comparatively few times I got to discuss
religion with a Jew, or a practicing Catholic, or an Atheist, or what not. It’s
so interesting. BUT! I’m also super super close to my family, and I can’t
imagine living far from them, so I don’t know what I’d do. Not to mention it’s
a little harder to move your roots in a wheelchair.
Tuesday,
October 30, 2012
- Fun random
fact. The average person reads 250-300 words a minute. If we go with the upper
average of 300, it would take the average person just under 240 hours straight
to read the entire Wheel of Time series.
- Had an
interesting conversation with a friend today. They mentioned how in games they
are more willing to make firm choices even when the consequences are ambiguous,
because the consequences are irrelevant. They could win, or they could end up
dead, it doesn’t really matter. It can’t be that way in life though, because in
life consequences matter.
For the most
part I agree. Consequences in life certainly matter. Ended up dead in life
experimenting with something brash is no small deal. Drugs, pornography, anger,
lies, any form of sin really, have meaningful consequences we are meant to
learn from. Luckily choices like these seem to have the most clearly defined
consequences in human experience, and the consequences really matter. It’s good
though that we don’t have to step on a nail ourselves to know it’s not
enjoyable.
Going on in
a religious light, the consequences of sins of omission are similarly clear
(although not as vivid or direct). Not going to church our testimonies become
lax, not serving in our callings we end up thinking less of others and more of
ourselves, not receiving all the temple ordinances we won’t be eligible to
enter the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom. All still moderately straight
forward. All very real consequences that really matter.
The
interesting thing to me here, is the choices in between these two categories.
I’d argue that the consequences of these in between choices hardly matter.
Note, this is if you’re living the gospel enough that you’re in tune when the
Lord tells you no. But the consequences of whether you take this girl or that
girl out, or whether you pursue this career path or that, while seemingly
significant, I submit are not very consequential. Or at least not consequential
such that we should be as paralyzed about our decisions in them as we
frequently are. I mean, take asking a girl out for example. Maybe she’ll say
yes, maybe she’ll say no. If she says yes it may make us happy, if she says no
it may make us sad. But unless she ends up being our eternal companion, or
unless the sadness drives us to sin, the consequences were really just more
experience. I’d wager that people who are willing to step into the dark with
good goals, without knowing the consequences, have much more to show in their
lives than people paralyzed with the fear of consequences. I KNOW the people
who step out all the time like that have had more failures than people who
rarely do, but they have more successes too.
Well, I do
think my above “consequences hardly matter” category does have consequences
that matter. I just believe that win or lose they’re for the best for us when
we look back someday and see it all. And if they worked out for the best, it
didn’t matter really. Not in a way we should be very worried about our
decisions anyway.
This is all
a somewhat hypocritical rant for me by the way. I’m still fairly disenchanted
with dating. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how low I’ve been. And while I do
feel like I’m on the uphill now, I still have less faith in this category than
I once had, and would like to have again. Not willing to take action becomes
one is afraid of failure isn’t good, I call that a fear driven motivation. But
not being willing to take action because I have low faith in the meaningful
consequences of the effort is just as bad really.
-This may be
idealistic, and it's definitely easier said than done. And it's not even a
point I've reached so maybe talking about it is hypocritical. But as long as or
opinion about ourselves is derived from others, we'll always be controllable by
others. The only reliable and sustainable confidence is when we get our
validation ourselves and from God. Someone confident with their standing with
God is waaay more confident (and thus likeable) than someone who is likeable
just because the crowd says so. And it doesn’t require any outside validation
to find peace between ourselves and God.
Thursday,
November 01, 2012
- No matter
how justified anger is, it will consume you if not bridled.
- Awkward
moment, I woke up with this song stuck in my head http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-su4WO5TVxQ
and I wanted to show CJ, cuz it has Final Fantasy tribute in the middle. I
thought the band was called GString. They’re not, the song name is. But I
Youtubed G-String, not even thinking about what a G-String was for some reason.
I was
assaulted with butts.
