Soul, Body, Mind

Taking the leap of faith: the heavens, the ethereal and all things above.
Falling in love: the seas, the deep and all things therein.

Where is the earth? The terrestrial, and all those that walk upon the ground?--It is reason. The mind with reason is what distinguishes the two and allows one to see the variant beauty in each.

Being Healthy on Behalf of Others

One of the wonderful things about modern society is that we have very easy ability to be the healthiest creatures, regardless of how we were raised, and what's more is that we can use our very own health to help others. I think that is why I love donating blood so much. I simply take care of myself, and by taking care of myself not only do I sustain my own health for decades to come, but my healthy body can even sustain other bodies. Giving blood is also the most direct way to show yourself that yes, your life is literally useful to the life of another, so you better stay alive and well.

It fascinates me, how great of an ability the American person has to do good in the world. It brings moral responsibility to a whole other level.

Won't You light my way?

Lyrics to one of my favorite songs by Audioslave, Light My Way.

In my hour of need
On a sea of grey
On my knees I pray to You
Help me find the dawn
Of the dying day

[Chorus]
Won't You light my way?
Won't You light my way?
Won't You light my way?
Won't You light my way?

A bullet is a man
From time to time he strays
I compare my life to this
To this I remain
And I'm willing
To listen to Your answers
And I'm not ashamed
To tell You I need You today

[Chorus]

So when I'm lost
Or I'm tired and depraved
Or when my high bullet mind
Goes astray, won't You light my way?

Don't save it for another day
Don't save it for another day
Hey, don't save it for another day
Hey, don't save it for another day
Hey, don't save it for another day
Hey, don't save it for another day
Hey, don't save it for another day

[Chorus]

If it can go wrong, it will.

I have found that if what I am doing is not 100% in line with God's will, even if only seemingly slightly off, it is a hopeless endeavor. And this describes the "can" portion of Murphy's law, in my opinion. Anything done in obedience to and accordance with God cannot go wrong. If it can go wrong, it follows that it is not being done in obedience to and accordance with God, and therefore it will go wrong. Only God's will cannot go wrong, and will not go wrong. Anything else is fruitless.

100% honesty, or else it can go wrong, and it will.

If only to have gills.

I miss the water. I miss the silence and loneliness. I miss not being able to hear anyone no matter how loudly they yell. I miss being able to swim away. I miss controlling my breathing. I miss being able to sprint across the pool without taking a single breath.

The only things you hear in the water are your movements, and your thoughts. You only focus on your own existence. You only focus on getting to the wall, and back again. You try to make every stroke perfect. Every move you make has to be exactly calculated.

I miss having to isolate every single muscle at the perfect moment. I miss focusing on my skill and strength all by myself, without any criticism or input of others. I miss having every part of my body work seamlessly together.

I miss being alone.

Where to Put Your Extra Money

I think the problem these days is not in being willing to donate our money to a good cause, but to which cause to donate.

Yes, it is always good to donate money to orphanages, to organizations that build houses or schools, that provide clean water and internet access to remote areas. But what is the intent of all of these organizations? First they start with the physical needs, providing them with a better environment and resources, then they hope to someday work toward providing for their intellectual needs, so that the brilliant minds of the previously neglected children/people can be used to their full potential, where they in turn help others and advance our human race.

What about those whose physical needs are already provided for? Even in very poor families in America, the homes still have internet access, and it has become a solace to the children hungry for mental stimulation. These are the ones who have a lot of time on their hands and are willing to shape their own futures, despite their current economic or social disposition, as long as they have a means to figure it out on their own. These are the ones who might not do so well in class, because they don't think they are smart, or they are intimidated by their teacher, or they don't want to look like a geek in front of other kids. But with their wireless education, there are no strings attached; it doesn't matter how smart others think they are, or how smart they think they are themselves; they have the freedom to tap into their inner geek.

We think something is wrong with kids these days because they don't read books and are on the internet all the time. I'm not saying internet articles are better than books, but I'm sure the amount that some kids read, bouncing from webpage to webpage, might add up to a few books. And look at what Google and other places are doing, providing digital copies of millions of books that are in the public domain.

Sure, we also want equal education in the public school system, giving a quality and unprejudiced education to kids living in underdeveloped cities. But the internet provides an undiscriminating education, and probably a better education than even the best schools could provide. Because in school, what you learn is what you are taught---not necessarily what you are interested in, or think you might be interested in, not what you had to learn completely independently or really depend on yourself to figure out alone, not what you might have stumbled upon whilst uncovering knowledge of a future professional education you would love to possess, not obscure topics that just sound really cool, even if you're never going to care to read much about them again after clicking off that webpage.

Sometimes I wonder where I would be without my internet education. Sometimes I wonder how many more kids, probably more motivated and intelligent than I, depend on their internet education for their mental stimulation. Schools are paid for by taxes, and as terrible as this may sound, it wouldn't matter so much to me to see those go down as much as I'd hate to see Wikipedia or Khan Academy go down.

Pay your tithes to your churches, pay your tithes to charities and organizations providing aid in developing countries. But don't forget to pay your tithes to the organizations that have helped develop you, and millions more like you all across the globe.

Places I'd personally love to donate to:

Wikipedia (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/WMFJA010/en/US?utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=20101125JA006&utm_source=20101124_JA011A_US&country_code=US)

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/support/friends.html)

Christian Classics Ethereal Library (http://www.ccel.org/support)

Rutgers University =D (http://nb.rutgers.edu/)

Learning From My Experiences in Germany

Over the past Christmas Break, I visited my sister who lives in Germany, and one of the German phrases she taught me was, “Ich can kine Deutsch,” which means, “I can’t speak German,” in case there might have been a time where she wasn’t with me and someone spoke to me.

One day we went to her town’s community pool, because back home the swim team was practicing every day during the break and I didn’t want to return extremely out of shape, and someone in the pool started talking to me. Evidently replying in perfect German, I stammered “Ich can kine Deutsch,” to which the lady marveled, “Ohh,” smirked, and then continued talking. All I was left to do was to answer “Ya” to everything she said, until she swam away. It was an interesting experience, and one that I can definitely learn from when communicating with my father.

No human being with a mind capable of sound reason can accept the absurd things he says—much less follow them with mindless obedience, considering the fact that he is always unwilling to share the logic behind his madness. As his daughter, however, I am required to honor my father and mother by my faith, therefore it is sin against me to defy what he says. It is interesting that this is one of the Ten Commandments, the ten axioms of all morality in all philosophies, and moreover the only commandment that offers a reward (“...so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land.” Deuteronomy 5:16). I have now realized the true wisdom behind the emphasis of this seemingly unimportant rule. Honoring them and what they say is the only way to keep the peace in any household, and it seems that children really have absolutely no reason--aside from ironically having to be the bigger person in the situation--to honor everything they say, therefore a reward must provided for our efforts. One could say this reward is what is offered before the law was fulfilled through Christ, pre-Blessed-are-those-who-are-persecuted-for-righteousness’-sake-for-theirs-is-the-kingdom-of-heaven. Indeed, persecuted for nothing other than righteousness.

It is true that perhaps children in this day and age are not as obedient as those in past generations, but I do not think that this parent-and-child dynamic has transformed very much over the course of human civilization. I suspect that parents and children have always clashed and misunderstood each other, even in Old Testament periods, and always will. The parents are the authority figures, however, so in the end there is not much the child can do but simply obey the stubbornness of parents. Yes, I will admit, parents are right many times, and I usually only realize this years later, but I do think that my reasoning has become more sound over the years, and that if parents took a moment to truly explain their motives with their children, they would see that we also make good points and can also be right. My father in particular is very sensitive and jumps to conclusions regarding the most insignificant actions, therefore it would do him well to hear the other side of the story before automatically assuming that a family member giving me a gift is a direct threat against him. But he will not.

The only compromise that I have found between obeying my father and mother and accepting their absurdity is to mindlessly accept and agree with what they say and never think twice about it. I am also stubborn, so this has been hard for me, regardless of always knowing that this is what I ought to do. Now I have found an easier method with which to apply this, which requires a bit of imagination, which is always good. The same way I could do nothing but reply dumbfoundedly to the German woman “Ya,” despite having no idea what she was saying, I should treat what my father says as a foreign language, because his logic is extremely foreign and he in fact feeds entirely off of emotion. The only way to finally get him to swim away with a smirk is to answer “yes,” “okay,” “I will,” to everything and anything he says. Otherwise, he will drown in the torrent of his wild emotions and [ir]rationality, and as a lifeguard, my professional obligation is to prevent that.