August is Already Over

That was fast...August, I mean. Feels like it was just July.
I've been watching the major cable news stations and the response to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally from this past Saturday. I've watched the rally and listened to the messages delivered. I am pretty sure that none of the commentators speaking about it have. If they did watch, they didn't understand it, or they are making up what they wanted the rally to be. They are reporting their agenda. I call that propaganda. I wonder what the animosity is based on, the animosity against Beck. If he is as the commentators call him then why such the big deal about him? They try to paint him as inconsequential and full of hot air, but then why do they keep talking about him? Is it simply because they think it is easy to make fun of him? I suggest that they keep talking about him and slandering him because he is speaking the truth. At least what I believe to be the truth, and I recognize that. Not everyone sees the same things as being truth. That's fine. If we don't agree, great. Let's discuss it and be friends and see how we can teach each other, because I think most people have something good to share with others, regardless of political or religious or social points of view. So why can't Keith Olberman allow that Glenn Beck believes differently and appreciate that? And the same goes for Beck. I think the aggressive attacks on Beck are because some people can't accept the fact that others believe differently than they do, and they feel that they need to make everyone believe as they do. That is dangerous. If you don't think the same way I do then you probably think what I'm saying is hypocritical, and perhaps it is, or at least sounds that way. I know I have a hard time hearing some things and accepting that someone believes that without trying to run it through my perception of truth. But I try to. I guess I just have a hard time understanding how someone is going to attack Beck for encouraging faith in God, hope and charity. How can a man who talks about putting God first in our lives be so bad? Have faith, be responsible for your self and your family and your neighbors. Alveda King, at the Restoring Honor rally, talked about how we need to see past skin color and realize that we are all a human family. What's wrong with that? Nothing. Why are we a human family? Because we are all children of God. We are all a family because God created us and we are his children. But I suppose that's just what I believe. It happens to be what Glenn Beck believes it and a lot of other Americans as well. So what about that makes us racists or hate mongers? That's something I've been thinking about.
You know what else frustrates me? People who want to be victims. Sociology calls them conflict theorists. Conflict theory is one of the main theories of sociology. Marx would be considered a conflict theorist. This theory says that all problems are caused by people with power. Whether it is men having power over women, white people in America having power over black people in America or rich people having power over poor people. Everything is conflict. I think that when conflict becomes your reason for everything and your lens through which you view the world then you are embracing contention and anger. I joke about being an angry guy, and sometimes I get more frustrated with certain things than I should, but I think for the most part anger isn't one of my key characteristics. And I hope to root out that weakness entirely. It isn't a happy way to be, always finding fault in people and placing blame. Playing the victim. That's what anger and contention do. It comes down to selfish pride. You feel like you deserve something and if you don't get it then it must be because someone else is preventing you from getting it. You play the victim and if there isn't a real oppressor, because sometimes there will be (i.e. Hitler), you have to have a make believe oppressor. May I suggest a rich, white man? This type is the popular target from many conflict theorists. It just bothers me when people don't accept responsibility for getting the things they want or need. If you are capable of getting it, then do it. If you expect someone to hand it to you without work, then I'm saddened by you. An interesting note from Beck's rally, afterwards the area of the rally was clean and free from litter. After the last presidential inauguration the area was trashed. Perhaps Beck paid people to pick up the trash so he could use this comparison as a feather in his own cap, or perhaps the people who attended his rally are responsible people who work for what they have and take care of themselves and the people attending the inauguration are expecting a handout from the government because they are "entitled." Something to think about. Or I'm still being what I was condemning earlier. I'm not perfect or close to it in anyway. When I look at things that I don't agree with and try to theorize solutions I'm not trying to single anyone out, I'm making generalizations. And I include myself in the audience. I don't think you have to be perfectly honest to recognize the importance of honesty and the wrongness of lying. If you had to be perfectly clean to understand what clean was then no one would ever understand what clean is. Does that make sense?
Finally, I was talking to some folks tonight and one of them said something about rhetorically asking God how long he can see the injustices of the world and stay his hand. She wasn't asking how God could let bad things happen, but rather how long will he allow us to go so wrong in so many ways. In my mind I thought a possible answer to that question might be "How long can you sit by and watch these things happen?" I believe that we are agents to act for ourselves. With this being the case, we have to be free to succeed and free to fail (did you hear that Government? Free to fail). When we see injustice across the globe and wonder how God can let it continue, perhaps we should wonder how we can let it happen. Perhaps we ought to see how we can fix it. Maybe that's what life is about. God knows how to fix these problems and he has always told us the solutions through prophets. The resources are there, we just need to care and seek them out. Do we have faith that God is there and that he has given us the resources. Do we have hope that we can achieve these good things? Do we have charity, or love for others, enough to fight injustice by carrying out what God has taught us? When I contemplate these questions I feel a bit of guilt. This is what the revolution is all about. I've got to change. I need to revolve. This isn't the first time I've had moments like this. They always seem to hit, last for a bit and then fade into the distracting sources of entertainment that are so plenteous these days. Change is possible for everyone with the mental capacity and function to do so, which means most of us. If you desire to change you can do it. The difficulty comes in maintaining the change. Preservation of self-improvement. That is the topic I need to give some time to.

Blending of Real Life and Not-Real-Life

There I was, watching the movie Fallen, starring Denzel Washington, on the AMC channel. Wondering if the "C" stands for "classics" or for "channel." If it is for channel then my initial sentence is redundant. That is to say, if the "C" in AMC doesn't stand for "classics" then I said the same thing twice. I'll pause here for a moment to let you finish your laugh, just like they do on the sit-coms. I wasn't actually wondering that while sitting in the kitchen, I only began wondering as I typed the first sentence. I'm pretty sure that AMC equals American Movie Classics, but I wouldn't put any confidence in that. Perhaps a little. If you are wondering what I was doing in the kitchen while watching the movie, I will tell you now. I was waiting for my buffalo-style chicken strips (made with real chicken) to heat up in the conventional oven; the strips were fully cooked, so a good heating was all that was needed. The timer on the oven ticked down at the regular pace of seconds. It wasn't slow or fast, but as I typed the previous sentence it felt like I should type that the timer ticked down slowly. I've read or watched too many suspense stories I suppose. There was nothing abstract about the passage of time in this story. I wasn't even paying attention to the timer. I was paying attention to the text message conversation I was having with Muffin Man. I asked if he was familiar with the movie I was watching and he said he was. He then told me that a particular song, a popular song, used in the movie has left a bad taste in his mouth. Luckily he never tastes songs, so he doesn't have to worry about it, but the context in which the song is used in the movie has created a less than favorable association with the song in his mind. Always the friendly jokester, I told him that I would send him text messages of the song lyric (I won't tell you because I don't want to spoil any aspect of the movie) during the middle of the night, which for him is the early afternoon for me, time difference between VT and HI. Here's the punchline: right as I sent that text with my practical joker intentions there was a knock at the back door. At first I assumed the knocking was from someone in the house, a brother and sister were both home as well. I looked out at the front door and no one was there. The dog wasn't barking. I went back to paying attention to the movie. Then there was a knock again. I looked out the kitchen window towards the back door, but didn't see anyone. Then I went to the front door and saw no one. The dog still wasn't barking. This wouldn't be noteworthy (if it even is in this case) if not for the fact that I was watching a suspenseful movie and sending threatening text messages to my best friend. I went out the front door, to be able to sneak up on the door knocker at the back and obtain the element of surprise. As I came around the house a woman with a big dog came around towards me. She asked if it was my dog. I asked, "if it is my dog, then why do you have it?" Not really. I told her it wasn't. She is a neighbor from a few houses down and doesn't know who the dog belongs to. She left. That was all there was to that story, but it was funny to me and Muffin Man. And the fact that it was funny to us ought to be funny to you. We ended our conversation, Muffin Man and me, by saying that this person we both know could just sing that song lyric used in the movie and that could be their Halloween costume. This person we know has that serial killer look in their eyes and singing this song with the movie's context on it would work perfectly for a creepy costume. Get ready to dance!

So Much to Say and So Much Space Wherein to Say It

First of all, the most recent thing I pondered. I was eating a fudgcicle, or fudgecicle, or fudgicle (yeah, three options). I was also holding some outgoing mail. I thought about how if the item I was eating began to melt, I wouldn't want it to get on the envelope because it was already stamped. I didn't want to lose the stamp, but I wasn't concerned about the envelope. Why is the stamp so cherished but the envelope isn't? The envelope costs money; the stamp costs money. Granted, the envelope isn't 44 cents, but it still costs something. Why am I so quick to write that off but want to protect the stamp? Perhaps because the stamp has the price tag still on it. Well, not the ones I have now, they say "Forever." Stamps used to have the price on them, perhaps there are stamps that still do. The Post Office should stop being tacky and take the price tag off of all of their stamps. Or maybe the envelope companies should start printing the price of an individual envelope on the paper. Maybe it doesn't matter.
One of the envelopes contained a letter to my good friend who starts Army Ranger school in a few days. Get some. The other letter was a contribution form for the United Way. They sent me a letter today to request a donation. I've heard the United Way has a highly paid CEO. When I say highly I mean it makes a doctor's salary look like minimum wage. I don't think that is right. The head of a "non-profit" charity organization shouldn't be making that much money. That's just my opinion. But I like to share it, so I wrote a message about it on the donation slip and am sending it in. Petty? Perhaps. Useless and immature? You know that's right. But I'm going to do it.
Quiznos has a commercial with three cats. Three cats singing with horribly laryngitis sounding voices. The commercial kills me. I loathe it.
I went on a little hike with some friends today. We were hanging around afterwards and I was complaining about college, as I frequently do these days. I said that the only thing I got out of it was frustration and animosity. My friend then said, ignoring me and referring to an earlier story she had been telling before I went on my tangent, "Those are the only two things you need." It was impeccable timing. The others of us looked at each other, not realizing that the statement wasn't in reference to what I said. We laughed and agreed that frustration and animosity were all anyone really needed. Well, it was funny to us in the moment.
Every week Apple pops up an installing tool on my computer. I'm ok with updates to iTunes. I use that program. It also wants to update Safari. I have that installed, but I don't use it. The MobileMe Control Panel is the one I don't accept. I don't know what it is, nor do I want to. But thanks to that movie Despicable Me, which I haven't seen, I think MobileMe is like that movie, which I also don't know anything about. So what? That's what I'd like to know.
Shawn's dad is on Seinfeld. Corbin Bernsen. This episode is from 16 years ago. He looks young...er than he does today, on Psych. Wonderful.
I've had a hankering for some donuts all day. Dunkin' Donuts. That's what I want. But I didn't want to go to the Dunkin' Donuts place. The parking and location's are inconvenient around here. the kind I want is the powdered type with a frosting type filling and a blob, a tuft, of it coming out the side. It looks like a diamond ring. Think about it. I want one of those donuts. I also developed a desire for jalapeno poppers. Maybe I should head out to get a donut and a jalapeno popper, perhaps more than one of each, but more-so the latter.
I probably had more ideas to express here, probably.

Seinfeld, Season 7, episode 1 (111 overall) "The Engagement"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmJ4wa64iLA&feature=related

Jerry: What kind of lives are these? We're like children. We're not men.
George: No, we're not. We're not men.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Engagement_(Seinfeld) )

This is the kind of day I've had today. Did you watch the video? Just in case, here is the link again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmJ4wa64iLA&feature=related

Well, I don't know. I just need a job.

The End of the Every Day Posting

I realized that some days I just don't want to come up with something to write, and since this isn't my job, I'm not going to force myself to do so. It was a fun time while it lasted, posting everyday, but I'm not going to make that my goal anymore. I'll write when I'm inspired or angry. Better reasons to write I've never heard of.

Slow Down, You Crazy Child

Enough said.

100th Post

It has taken roughly 6 months, but I have posted 100 times on this blog. I don't know why that even matters. Why are we so interested in milestones and accomplishments? Are we all so insecure that we need to hang accomplishments on our wall to act as our defense? Kings used to build castle walls around their subjects. Why did they have subjects? So they didn't have to work. They kept their subjects safe to maintain that lifestyle. When subjects didn't subject well enough, they were thrown outside the walls, outcasts. They were outside the protection of the law, which ruled inside of the castle walls. The outlaws lived up to their name and acted outside of the law; stealing and murdering to survive. I don't know what that has to do with anything. I suppose my keeping track of how many blog posts I've done and thinking there is something special about having completed 100 of them is akin to building a castle wall. If someone attacks me I can say "I have 100 posts on my blog." I can also use this milestone to separate myself from the outlaws, those that don't have 100 blog posts. I can just shut them out. Except for some, who I can bring in under the protection of my blogging accomplishment. They can be my subjects. Keeping stats serves no purpose other than to separate and subjugate. Now I feel bad for mentioning the 100 posts. Today is Friday the 13th, that means it is time to make some resolutions. Let's all make the resolution to stop vaunting our accomplishments. I want some cupcakes.

Quote of the Day

From my brainyquote.com quote of the day widget:
Quote of the Day
We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.
- William Osler
This is a great idea. It is a good perspective which I think would be helpful in pretty much every situation imaginable. Unless you are an E.R. surgeon and you are trying to take a bullet out of a living body. In this case you wouldn't want to add more bullets to the living body. I'm tired and I didn't want to type a real posting today, so, deal with it.

Well.

Here's the deal: I didn't actually graduate college...yet. July 23rd was the last day of classes. I passed all of my classes, fulfilling all of my degree requirements, save one, the minimum credit total of 120. I have 118 credits. Apparently, you are able to meet all of the degree requirements(where it says take this many science credits and this many english credits and so forth) without meeting the overall total credit amount. So here I am, thinking I graduated because when I spoke with the academic advising office back in February we determined that I had only 16 credits worth of classes left to take. Which I took, and passed them all. Now they have told me I can't graduate without the other 2 credits to reach the 120 total. I've had a few days to think about this, and make some contact with people at the school, and I was inclined to acquiesce; I'll just do an online class and call it good. But, as I began looking through the online classes and wasn't finding anything of interest, except an english class that is different than my intro english class I took a few years ago, but is similar enough in the system that it'd be a repeat for me and wouldn't do the job, and an art class which you have to be an art major to take; eventually, and I mean eventually - the registration system is horrific - I settled on a communications class about the media and society. It sounds like more work than I'm interested in, but I guess its about time I do some work for my college degree. Interpret that how you want. I added the comms class and then went over to the finances tab of my student home page to find out how much this was going to cost me (it would be $200 more if they didn't waive the student insurance for me, which they did and I am indeed appreciative for that), I thought maybe $300 at the most, as a full semester (12 credits) is only $1800. It is going to cost me $840 for one class. So that made me annoyed and my acquiescent attitude developed some road rage. I clicked over on the financial aid page and found that I earned a school scholarship for next semester for good grades. This might seem like good news, but I'll explain why it isn't (on the surface it isn't because the minimum credit load to fully qualify for the aid is 14, and I'm not taking 14 online classes). The school does a nice thing where if you get a certain GPA or better, depending on your accomplished credits, you can get full, half or quarter tuition paid for right off the bat from the school. Why is this frustrating to me? I took three classes at the community college a year before I decided to go to this full-time university. I was taking the three community college classes while working full-time. I hated it. I never wanted to go to college, but I thought it would help me make better money. I didn't like the college classes so I stopped going to one and failed it (I didn't think I'd ever go to school again so I didn't see any need to withdraw or whatever. I didn't see the future consequences. Frankly, I didn't care to look). Another class I continued to go to, but didn't do a single assignment after mid-term and passed with a solid C. My friend Joe, who did all of the work including the final paper (which I didn't do!) had a C- for the class. Go figure. That grading fiasco reinforced my declaration that college was a waste of time and ineffective. My third class was an online class which I did enjoy a bit, I received an A (but somehow when transferred to my university it shows up in my transcript as a B. I never argued it, probably should have). What this amounts to is that regardless of what my GPA was at the university it was never high enough for those scholastic achievement scholarships. Even though my university GPA was always well above the limit for the full scholarship, I never received it because my cumulative GPA, with the community college credits factored in, was always a point or two below the lowest limit for even the quarter tuition. Until now. The semester after I supposedly graduated I am now qualified for scholastic achievement assistance to the tune of...wait for it! $840. Well that's perfect, right? That's how much this one online class is going to cost me. Except that the assistance only comes through if I am enrolled in 14 credits. I finally am eligible for the tuition assistance and I'm not even going to school anymore. Except I am, just not enough. I think I'll send some e-mails and maybe if I bother the right person, or enough of the wrong people, we can work something out. I'm willing to accept responsibility for my oversight in this matter, but I don't think I'm the only one responsible. Perhaps I put too much trust in an institution. Mulder was right, don't trust anyone. I think I'll go do some more yard work.

House or Howser?

I made a comment to Muffin Man yesterday about Doogie Howser and House. I'd like to delve further into thought about the two TV doctors. I'm wondering which would be a better guy to have checking you out when you are ill. House is obnoxious and self-centered, but he has been around for a while and he knows his diagnostics. Doogie is a pup compared to House, but he has more of that "bed-side manner" about him. House would probably make fun of you and burn your face with his cynicism, then he'll leave you to an intern or custodian to treat your burns. He is heartless and uncaring. Probably because of his constant prescription pain-killer induced high. There's one reason to prefer Doogie, he's not drugged up and he keeps meticulous records of his life on his personal computer. I wonder if he ever upgraded from the DOS prompt...

The rest of this post can be found in the Ajax's Whimsical Revolution ebook for Amazon's Kindle. The book is a compilation of my favorite posts, 78 to be exact, of which this is one. If you don't have a Kindle e-reader you can download the free Amazon Kindle app for PC or Mac.

Listen to What the Television Says and No One Will Get Hurt

The TV just told me that 1 in 5 relationships now begin through the Internet. It was a match.com commercial. I decided to think about it, and if you don't look at romantic relationships, I can think of perhaps half a dozen people who I communicate with on Facebook whom I have never met. If I have just misused "whom" please tell me. I don't want to look it up. I'm tired of looking up "affect" and "effect" every time I want to use them too. I don't know why I don't remember it. I digress, again. If 1 in 5 relationships start on the Internet as an average, I am seriously below average on this front. Lets look at Facebook alone. I believe that at the moment I have one friend that I have never met in person. A friend of a friend and we both comment on the common friend and such. I guess that could count as some kind of relationship. Out of the 70 some friends I have on Facebook, my Internet relationship ratio is 1 in 70. That's horrible when compared to match.com's claim! I think I need to increase my Internet relationship starting. I doubt that I will do that though. That's just something that I thought of when the commercial was on. Makes me think of how we are twirling away into a Brave New World.
I have also created a koan: if Ajax writes a blog post and Muffin Man doesn't read it, was the post actually ever written? Clear your mind. Zen.
Well, I'm 9 days into my goal of writing everyday in August. I'm also closing in on my 100th post on this here blog. Friday will be the 100th post. We should all go out for ice cream. Since none of you are here, I will go out for ice cream by myself and eat enough for all of you. It will be great. Thanks for reading.

Tools and Opportunity

Recently I heard someone on the news say if people have tools and opportunity they will make things happen. I'd like to think that is true, but I'm afraid that it probably isn't. Not in every case. I think there is still a majority of people who are willing to work, and that's good. I do think that there are a lot who aren't willing to work and while these do not make up a majority, there are too many in this group. I'm usually preachy about not creating "us and them" labels, but there are some obvious classifications among people, and this is one of them: willingness to work. Maybe I'm hypocritical on this point. Maybe it is just as wrong to group people into "criminals" and "law-abiders" or "mental ill" and "normal" as it is label people as willing to work or not willing to work. Maybe there can't possibly be a no-labels society. Even if this is the case we can still control how we view and treat groups which we label as "them." But that's another story. My question is about just how much people are limited by environment and how much they are limited by desire. The context in which I heard the comment about giving people the tools and opportunity and letting them make things happen was in a community with the classification of being the most obese in the country. Overall, the people in this community were collectively larger than the residents of any other community. A woman in the community challenged her neighbors to lose weight and began workshops and exercise programs community-wide to help them. She said that once they were given access to the resources necessary the people were able to make the appropriate changes to remedy their collective health problems. It was a good example of how people who were limited by environment were able to make things happen. I don't want to take away from their success, but I begin to wonder why they weren't able to make changes personally. Why did it take a community organizer to inspire them? Did they really not have access to nutritional information and the ability to walk before the organizer came along? I agree with the statement that people are limited by resources, in some cases, but I think that there is a greater problem of limitation by desire. I congratulate the people who got out and exercised and improved their health. But I don't think it was lack of resources that limited them. I think it was a lack of desire, which was probably a lack of hope. I would suggest that the woman who organized the activities and education introduced hope, not resources. It is hope of achievement that overcomes limitations of desire, which is what I would target as the real culprit. I think we are limited more by our desire than by anything else. When a person has desire they are able to overcome other limitations, like the lack of resources. Maybe not the most smile-inducing example, but look at the ingenuity of inmates in prisons as far as the ideas and tools they manufacture. They are extremely limited in resources, but they can still create weapons and tools to escape prison. Their desire makes up for their limited resources. Again, I know that isn't the happiest example, but it makes the point. We can focus on our lack of resources and opportunities and not get anything done. We can stand outside the burning building and lament "If only we had a hose to connect to this hydrant!" Or, we can do something. Anything. It will always depend on the situation, but if you want to effect a change you usually can to some degree. Hope creates desire and desire can (though not always) overcome limitations on resources, tools and opportunity. We need to take responsibility for our individual selves and "think outside the box." Find new and better ways to do things. Don't wait for someone else to cure the disease or come up with a better process, do it yourself. And then share it.

Billy Joel

Billy Joel is my favorite musician. I am listening to him right now. I've spent all morning working in the yard, as is my favorite thing to do lately, and I will be going to a movie with friends tonight. In meeting my goal of writing here everyday I am going to say that I like Billy Joel and call it good. I don't have anything pressing on my mind to write about, and I probably won't have anything to say later so I'm just doing this. You can call if filler if you want. You can say I've lost my touch and I'm selling out to the blogging world or something. I don't know why, that doesn't make any sense, but you could say it. If you wanted to, that is. But before you start getting down on me for writing filler posts, I just want you to think about one thing, the appendix. Talk about filler! We've got filler in our own bodies. If you can take out an appendix and a person can live a full life then it must be filler. Granted, I'd like to keep all of the parts of me that I came with for as long as I can, and there probably was a purpose for it before we learned to filter water or something, but for now the appendix is just filler. So this post is the appendix of my blog's body. Take it or leave it. It is a healthy one as I am not intending to say anything inflammatory. Suffice it to say, I like Billy Joel. Some of my favorite songs of his are (in no particular order): Vienna, Honesty, I Go to Extremes, My Life and his cover of Bob Dylan's To Make You Feel My Love. Those are some of my favorites, but you'd be hard pressed to find one of his songs that I don't like. There are some that I wouldn't put on my regular rotation, such as River of Dreams, that one just doesn't do it for me, but I still like it. Anyway, that's all I want to say today.

Blogging is the Poor Man's Radio

I haven't heard from any of the jobs I've applied for yet. I haven't applied for many jobs yet. I'm not sure if I should take it more seriously yet or not; it has only been two weeks, today, since I finished my last exam of college. Not that there need be a grace period before finding a job. I'd like to have started work already, maybe. Perhaps two weeks off is good enough, so it'd be nice to start work on Monday. In a way I am; I'm going to play band with my friend Nate. He is the one drumming in the songs attached to the widget at the bottom of this page. In case you haven't figured it out yet, that's my old band. Maybe this time around we'll make something happen. My sister is going to sing with us, and she can actually sing. Maybe that can't be a job. Perhaps this writing thing can be a job. I don't know how, unless I get a post office box, give you the address and then wait for you to send me money. Which is probably illegal. And there aren't nearly enough people reading this that aren't related to me to make that a profitable system. I like the idea of writing a book, but I don't know what to do with it after I write it (provided I do finish it). When I recorded an album it was a piece of cake to send it to iTunes (don't bother looking, I'm not renewing the whatever its called so the album is coming down August 9th), I just created an account with tunecore.com and uploaded the tracks. I don't think there is as easy a way to publish a book. Maybe there is. Maybe I'll make it my job to find out. That sounds like a decent job, but I don't think I can pay myself much. I'll have to take in sewing and mending to supplement my income. That's what I will do! I'll sew quilts and rock the county fair circuit. Good enough for me. Problem solved.

Knowledge and Wisdom, All Summed up in a Blog

My friend Christal (http://christalcollette.blogspot.com/) invited me to discuss the difference between wisdom and knowledge. I quickly thought of this statement: Knowledge is knowing what to say, wisdom is knowing when it is appropriate to say it. I think that sounds pretty impressive; if I were to follow my own sage-ness, I'd stop typing right now. It looks like I am still working on that wisdom portion. I just want to explain that this quote sounds so good to me that I am debating whether or not I could have phrased it on my own. A quick Internet search reveals that the idea has been expressed in various forms many times before. Oh well. You can still quote me on this incarnation if you'd like. I typed it into the search bar and nothing came up verbatim. So now I call it as my own verbatim. That's right.
Since I'm rambling, I will expound upon my quote. No, I will give an example. Those are fun. Imagine Captain America. He is about to thwart an evil dictator from some foreign country, and when I say thwart, I mean thwart! I don't know what that means. Wait! I need to reset my scenario. This is what you get when you type at your thinking speed. OK. We'll keep Captain America and the dictator as our protagonist and antagonist, respectively, but we'll turn the tables on the good Captain. In the James Bond-cliche-style, the evil dictator has Captain America strapped to a table which is about to be blasted with a laser and dumped into a volcano. As the hero struggles to free himself, he tells the dictator that he will never get away with his ultimate plan. Captain America coaxes the dictator to reveal his smarmy plan to enslave the human race. If the dictator is wise, he will not say what he knows about his plan. He has knowledge about what he plans to do: the how, where and when of it all. For his best interest, however, this is an inappropriate time to reveal that information. Wisdom would be recognizing this timing and refraining from giving up the battle plan. Luckily, Captain America is up against an evil dictator who, like the Bond-style villains, is pretty capable in getting almost to the end of an elaborate scheme, but falls apart at the end. One would think that if the wisdom is lacking in the end it would have been lacking all along the way, not the case though. I'm not here to argue the logic of spy movie writers. I'm here to give a real-life application of the difference between knowledge and wisdom. And I've done a mighty fine job I might add.
In case you were wondering, Captain America makes a last minute speech about the undying liberty in the heart of every man, woman and child in the world and how no evil dictator can put that in chains. Though their bodies may be restricted, their hearts and minds are free. One day they would rise up and overturn the evil dictator's regime. As the dictator finds himself listening intently and shaking a bit in his evil dictator boots, one of his associates, a comely lass, mixed up in the dictator's propaganda thinking she was doing something good for people, is inspired by the speech and sneaks up behind the dictator to give him a knock to the back of the head with a heavy book (camera zooms in and pauses on the title of the book: Concussions and Why You Don't Want Them). She quickly releases Captain America who does whatever it is he needs to do to stop the evil plan and get his rescuer away from the volcano. In the final scene of the movie you see the lass and the Captain parting ways at a bus stop. She's off to college to pursue micro-financing. He gets her e-mail address and promises to add her on Facebook, but you know he won't, he's Captain America! He's too busy for Facebook and comely lasses.
So there you have it. Wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge is the process and wisdom is the application. I hope that clears things up...if you were befuddled. If you were clear, I hope you are now befuddled.

THE END.

I Am What I Am, But is That Really What I Am?

Some things just are. These are what we call facts, or true, but is there a difference between fact and truth? I think there is. A fact is something that is proven and observable. It is a fact that water is wet. Obviously, that is also truth. Water is wet. In some cases what is fact is also truth. On the other side are facts that are not founded in truth. Fact is here and now, what you see is what you get. Truth is eternal and independent of people, time and place. Fact depends on those three things. Not all fact though, it is a confusing comparison to make between fact and truth. I guess what I'm driving at is that just because some idea or belief is accepted as fact because a majority, or even a loud minority, says it is so doesn't mean that it is true. Facts that are true have to be independent of the taint of man. Anything coming from God is true. I don't think man can create truth, only manipulate it, for good and bad. When things that aren't true are called fact and attempts are made to pass it off as truth then you have bad manipulation of truth. Good manipulation of truth is found in some science and medical understanding. Manipulation is one of those words that has a bad sounding reputation, but it is a fine word, it means to work with or control. What it boils down to is that you have to be careful not to be too quick to accept fact as truth and to thoughtfully consider the source of all information you receive. I think we all have access to the source of all truth for confirmation of truth. Maybe the fact vs. truth question is unimportant, but seeking to know and understand what is really true is well worth our while.

If You Don't Pay Now, You'll Pay Later

I don't know if it is societal born or what, but I've noticed that getting something for nothing is bad. I've mentioned this in other posts before. The thought keeps coming up in conversations and when I'm watching the news and stuff. After breezing through college like I did, and seeing so many others do the same, I began to apply this thought to myself. I'm not saying I cheated or was blatantly dishonest in my schooling, but I didn't put much effort into it. What did I get? A 3.67 GPA. That's what it's all about anyway, right? Just get the grade and diploma? Well, I think that is the mindset of a lot of people these days. Just get the results. If you can do it without putting in the expected amount of work, then you are all the better, right? I don't know.
I just bought a truck last week. I put more than half of the price down and then financed the rest. I didn't have the required amount necessary at the start, so I got some of this truck for nothing. The result is that I now have to pay more than I would have in interest on the loan. By not paying now I am paying later. I think usually the paying later is going to be worse than the paying now. For my education, I probably shortchanged myself in some ways by not putting in the effort to really learn and internalize some of the concepts. I think it would be interesting to have a standardized test given to entering college freshman, one specific to their major, and then give the same standardized test to graduating seniors and compare the two grades. My guess is that the scores would be slightly higher on the way out, but not by much.
Maybe I'm too critical on myself though. Perhaps school was easy for me because the school I went to was easy (which it was), or because I'm super intelligent (well, you know). Still, I know I could have put more effort into studying. Someday perhaps I'll pay for it. Then again, I know where to look for certain bits of information, so unless I'm on a game show and have only 30 seconds to come up with the answer I think I'll be OK. Maybe that destroys my claim that not working hard in college is getting something for nothing? No, it doesn't. It is logical to see how minimal effort in school results in getting something for nothing.
I'm not going to be like everyone else and say that things are always better appreciated if you work for them your self, but sometimes that is the case. I've had things given to me that I appreciated quite a bit. I hear people say that kind of thing often. I think parents on TV always say it to their kids. I can imagine Danny Tanner saying it to DJ, "You'll appreciate that sweater more if you save the money to buy it yourself." I disagree with Danny, and not just on this imagined dialogue, but that's another story. I don't think it is a matter of what you get out of the thing you get without work, but that pattern of thinking leads along the lines of what I see as the underlying issue.
Getting something for nothing leads to an expectancy and dependence upon the source from where your gift came from, if it happens consistently. Obviously I'm not trying to destroy the concept of gift giving. Gift giving is good, for both parties, which is why I disagree with the thought that you'll appreciate more what you work for yourself. It isn't about that. It is about what happens to your expectations if you don't work for it. Does a person receiving welfare benefits not appreciate what they are receiving? I think they appreciate it. Would they appreciate it more if they worked for it? Perhaps, but I think what they'd really be feeling good about is having done the work, not receiving the benefit. Work contains a benefit in itself.
For example, I am digging a trench in the yard. We have a natural runoff spot along the driveway. Over the years it has taken a gradual slope-to-level surface into a bit of a canyon. There is a snaking track along the driveway that is only a few inches wide, but the overall valley that has been created is too uneven to drive the lawn mower across. I've devised a plan to allow for drainage while leveling out the ground so that it can be mowed across. If I were to wake up tomorrow and it was done I don't think I'd be less appreciative of the functionality of it. I would enjoy the fact that the hard work was done and I wasn't the one to do it (although I do enjoy doing the work, so I might be sad about that, but there are plenty of other projects to work on, so it would be OK overall). I don't know where I'm going with this now. I guess it shows that gifts are good. It also shows that you (or at least I, maybe I'm alone in this) don't appreciate things less if they are given to me. Finally, the point I was probably trying to make is this: when you get something for nothing, you miss out on the benefit of the work itself. I would miss out on the new knowledge and experience that would be acquired through the task. I would miss out on the physical exercise the work would require. I would miss out on the creative exercise of my mind that would be needed for the project. All of these things serve as satisfaction in a job well-done.
When I worked for the State of Vermont as an imaging specialist (scanning documents and indexing them electronically) I never felt like my job was very demanding or important, not the paper aspect of it. As my friend Harris (the one that discussed the pay and performance rates of pro-athletes with me) said, my old scanning job was so easy even a monkey could do it. I didn't argue with him. Well, I did, because monkeys can't do the keyboard number pad as well as I can, but superficially looking at the job a reasonable person might think a monkey could do it. I'm getting distracted again. I felt like the job was pretty basic, but I was still satisfied when I accomplished a lot of scanning and indexing. There was something satisfying about that huge pile of papers being processed. Empty baskets were pleasing. Had someone else done the work I don't think I would have been offended, unless it left me without the ability to get paid, then maybe. But that wouldn't have been about my having done the work or not. What I'm saying is that while the task itself was nothing ground-breaking or world-saving, the process of doing it was still satisfying. I didn't appreciate an empty in-basket more because I emptied it, but because I became something new through the process of emptying it. Even when the task is as seemingly insignificant as scanning a stack of papers there is still learning and experience that occurs. By not working now we miss out on having that knowledge and experience later.
That's my message. I enjoy typing up these posts because usually I just take an idea and start typing, not doing drafts or revisions, just letting my thoughts flow and typing it all up. (I type down. Why do they say type it up? Perhaps because the paper scrolled up on a type writer? The text moves in an upward direction on the screen as I type, but the keys are down and my fingers press down on them to type.) So do I appreciate my blog posts more because I put in the time to type them or do I get more out of them because I'm the one putting in the effort? Probably both in this case actually. The moral of the story is to not tell people that they will appreciate the end result more if they work for it themselves. Tell them that they will gain more out of the obtaining phase if do the work than they ever will in just the receiving phase. That is, by working to earn the money to save to buy the sweater they will gain much more than they will in the receiving portion, which is the simple satisfaction of having the sweater they wanted. In either case they can obtain the sweater (whether by work or gift) and in each case they can appreciate the sweater, but they only become something better as a person if they worked for it (unless it is a really cool sweater).

I Posted This One Without a Title

I was thinking about that old children's show Romper Room. I don't know if that's what it was called or not, but I think it was. I could check IMDB or some other Internet page, but I don't want to. The accuracy of the program title will add nothing to the story. In reality, it would add everything to the story, but only if I currently have the title wrong, which I don't think I do, so I will continue. I was thinking about the show and how the host would look into her mirror or something and say that she saw the audience. She would then rattle off names as though she were extending a personal welcome to each child watching from home. I don't recall actually thinking that she saw me or knew me personally if she happened to say my name, but I imagine a 4-year-0ld would think that. What a clever ploy. The kids felt involved and thought they had a friend. It was like the first social networking site, only fake ("faker"). Anyway, I was just thinking about the good old days, when you thought the people in the TV knew you were there. (Now they just know your money is there.)

Looking to the Future

If I ever have my own dog, I'm going to name him Magellan. Not because I am a fan of GPS navigation devices, because I'm not. Nor is it from my interest in the space program and radar mapping excursions to Venus, because I'm not a fan of that either. It surely isn't because of the Portuguese explorer of the same name; I have nothing against the man, or against the accomplishments attributed to him of which I am aware (it is possible that he has accomplishments of which I am unaware that I would find unsettling), I'm just not naming my dog after him. I will name my future dog (one I have in the future, not some special robo-canine that is from the future) Magellan because that way when he does his sniff everything in sight routine, as all dogs do, I can ask "watcha smellin' Magellan?"