Obsession

What you don't write can be as revealing as what you do write.

Case in point: I have been talking and writing so much about my

difficulties and worries in school, that now with my burden lightened

I don't know what to write about. Another example is excessive

flirting with a lady friend. Once we turn to more sincere and sober conversation,

the words don't come quite as quickly. But then they might just be weightier

matters and therefore don't move as quickly.

And there's another thing -- I've often wondered what it would take to

expand my vision beyond my own concerns. I take up the bulk of my writing

with egocentric subjects. That's fine for a blog or a journal, I suppose. But

it says a lot about what I place the most importance upon.

memories

I've been trying so hard to reach my goals within my timetable, I don't even know if I'll like it when I get there, and I haven't been creating any real, substantial, lasting memories while I'm at it. I want my memories of the past 4 years to be more than memories of the pressure and endless hours of homework, seeing the sun for only brief intervals during my morning on-foot rush to my first class of the day.

That's not the kind of life I'm trying to build. All this complaining has been about a choice I made before the semester(s) started with me at BYU: I wanted to catch up, get ahead, be on par with where I thought I should be in my academic progress.

Toad, my first friend in Provo, told me the other week, after not seeing or talking to him for months, that I need to change my priorities, and focus on making worthwhile relationships.

He's right; What will I have when it's all done and finished? A piece of paper and a pat on the back, along with "Good job."

So I think I ought to slow down and leave the rat race. Let the rats run it (No offense to the rats. My sister had a very well-behaved, clean, congenial pet rat). I want my life to mean something, but if nobody's in it, it's only going to mean something to me, and somehow that doesn't seem to mean a whole lot by itself.

I guess I've just been scared that the world won't give me the breaks I need if I don't bust my back early on.

Nuke-yuler

It's probably no cause for worry that American nuclear engineers generally
don't pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly, but it may cause some to
wonder about their credibility.

The way people speak and write can be misleading about their actual competence.
For instance in American television and movies, especially cartoons, people with
southern accents are almost always portrayed as being less intellectual and often
less intelligent. Conversely , people with northern or New England accents are often portrayed as being very intellectual and intelligent indeed. If you meet anyone from either area with either
accent, you'll discover that it isn't necessarily so. It's just a stereotype, but the stereotype is
probably encouraged by the I.Q. Demographics of some of the corresponding geographic areas just mentioned. NewEngland is known for its prestigious schools, and some areas, such as the hill country of Alabama and Kentucky, etc. are famous for their uneducated, uncivilized populations.

So there's some truth behind the myths, but don't jump to conclusions. Even about George W. Bush. his accent probalby hurt him as much as anything because of the public's perceptual mockery of his unintelligent-sounding speech.

7+4 =11 < 14(today). I must have missed at least a week.
Everything in school is to prepare me for the life I should already be living, but can't because of the homework deadlines constantly pressing in.
Even Hercules can't chop off all the Hydra's heads at the same time.
Now if I can just find a time-management procedure analogous to an avalanche....

I need to teach my mom how to use boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT, etc.) and other search expressions; she loves to research but the computers frustrate her.

Worcestershire sauce. Rooster tails. Solid fuel rocket boosters. Just a few of my favorite things.

Nonsequitir

How does one show compassion without inadvertently pressuring the compassionee to accept the compassion? How about a dance partner who worked so very hard and practiced with the compassioner many hours only to be on the wrong foot from each other for 80% of the first round and disqualified after only 40 seconds or less of dancing? Meh. Well at least we CAN do it well now, even if we didn't that time.

in whose hands?

What people need to realize is that we only depend on the government if we depend on the government. Even if the leader of our country is the absolute worst in history, the country only falls if the people fall. That's why CA prop8 is more important to me than who becomes president. Because the condition of society's standards and behavior will guide the country either to ruin or peace and prosperity.

The government can do nothing to create a productive, healthy society without families generating well-adapted, decent and honorable citizens. The very best formula for this generally has been to have each child raised by a mother and father who love each other and the children that they together create. This doesn't always turn out perfectly, but you can see a strong positive correlation. (Most of this paragraph is paraphrased from a BYU devotional/forum this week)

The only way a bad or good leader can make a nation rise or fall is with the people's permission. It's only because we invest in that leader that so much rides on them. only because we consent to their governance.

Cat's wild eyes

Tonight as I left the campus library, I felt impressed to go home a different way than my usual south-by-southeast decline.

As I walked by the Wilkinson Student Center, I spied a large cat, somewhat bigger than the usual housecat, but with tabby-like markings and not big enough to be something like a bobcat or cougar. Anyway, it noticed me first and the sound it made as it backed its head out of the trash can it was rummaging through was very quiet, but alerted me to look in its direction.

Its eyes met mine, not in a mutual communicative glance of gaze, but in an extremely alert, watching manner. My gaze quickly changed to a friendly one to comfort the wild critter so it could go back to its meal.

I just think it's so fascinating, the look in those eyes.
I wonder what feeling makes up that look. Is it fear? Maybe not. Maybe it's that extreme alertness that comes with fear, but isn't always caused by it. I wonder....
These wild animals must not exist always in fear. And when encounters occur, if it IS fear that motivates such intense stares, I doubt that it's the kind of fear that torments so many people.
It must, I suppose, be a fear without attachment. A sort of instinct without dread. That seems more right for the feeling of the look that cat gave me. I wonder....

finally conclude.

So please don't be angry with me. Please try to understand. I think we both want the same thing. We both want our children and families to be happy and have the best things in life. So I hope I haven't sounded argumentative or mean. It's just so important to me. Let's not be shocked and dismayed with each other's views anymore. Please let me keep my traditional family alive. Please help me always be kind to others, even if they don't want what I dream of.

even more...

After saying all that, though, the reason is love.
I love my family, and I love my future children and spouse. I want them to have a strong family and a mom and a dad to teach and care for them, and gain from all the strengths that a woman has, and all the strengths that a man has, to be more like our Heavenly Parents.

Yes, the traditional family IS an antiquated idea. It has never changed from the dawn of time, from before the creation of the Earth. It is older than you, me, our grandparents, our most distant ancestors, and even the first forms of life on this planet.

It is Eternal. I have to admit that makes it a little old-fashioned.

more

There is a reason for having males and females. It's not some ancient need that we've now evolved away from. It's like Hydrogen and Oxygen. You need both to make water. We need water to support life. Two oxygen molecules do not make water, and a diatomic Hydrogen molecule can't combine with another diatomic hydrogen molecule to make water, either.

Many other chemical compounds are possible, but we could not survive, or do anything without water. It is the only substance the has it's unique properties, and it's great range of abilities and effects. We must have water.

Likewise, we must have families. whole nations die and become defunct when the family disappears. That's what I'm trying to protect.

actual posted response...

It saddens not only you when some of God's children choose to injure, spite, hate, or reject His other sons and daughters. It saddens Him, too. It saddens me! Everyone should be treated better than that regardless of their feelings or beliefs or orientation.

Families give strength to the children, the husband and the wife of the family, and their extended family, when they live in harmony and love.

I don't want families pulled apart, but I don't want them to disappear, either. There is a reason we try to build families from a man and woman united in love with respect for each other and God. Because it works! Many grow up without a loving mother, or without a loving father, and they do all right. But how they long for it when they know what it's like, and how much better would it be!

It's not about rejecting people who are different. When you get down to it, a man and a woman create children. They create families! That's because each is important to the family sticking together and growing in love and greatness! Families need everyone who went into the process of creating it. No family is perfect, but this is the model to follow. there really isn't any other way, logical, physical or emotional, that we can really have families! Without this, we wouldn't have families at all. just towns, communities, etc.

The position of the church hasn't changed. God's position hasn't changed. He has always loved all of His children no matter what they do. And He has never wanted His children to use sacred sexual relations for anything else but for a husband and wife bringing His other children into the world into a loving family, and for the man and woman becoming united and increasing in their love, honor, trust and kindness toward one another. There is no other right use. It's this way so that love and happiness can increase for everyone -- even people with homosexual tendencies.

Unfortunately we don't all get to have children or find a mate in this life, and sometimes marriages go sour or, worst of all, become abusive. This is also not God's will. He wants us to be happy, no matter what our gender or sexual tendencies are. He loves us all and expects us all to love one another. This has never changed.

Everyone is entitled to the same rights as children of God. This has always been. He wants us to become like Him and enjoy our individuality to the fullest, developing our unique personalities to a glory like His, and He wants to help us get there(takes more than a lifetime!).

response to upset mother of 2 gay children about Proposition 8

The position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has never changed on this: To love on another, regardless of sexual orientation; to be kind and considerate, not accusatory or prideful or hateful in any way. It has never changed on same-sex marriage being wrong. I know there are a lot of people who have grown up always having had feelings of attraction for the same sex. That's the way they tend to feel. I don't hate them for that. I don't. I haven't met very many where I live, or had the opportunity to be friends with them, but they're usually pretty good neighbors like anyone else. I'm supporting the Proposition NOT to take away my neighbors' rights, but to protect people's rights to their religious beliefs.

Tolerance of people and their feelings does NOT mean tolerance of them doing wrong things. In fact the more you love them the more you help them do what they know is right. You mention other kinds of people who are different, like mentally ill or disabled persons. It isn't okay for them to break the law because they are that way. It also is not okay for anyone to have same-sex relations. But there's no human law against it. Only laws of nature and God. God hasn't changed his feelings about this, but He hasn't stopped loving all His children whatever their orientation, either. He doesn't want any of them using sacred sexual relations improperly, even if they're heterosexual.

I love everyone, and I'm not doing this to attack or demean anyone or take away their happiness or anything like that. People can accept things as right because it is pleasing and makes life easier or gives them something they've longed for. But it's not necessarily right.

Try to turn it around and look at it from the other side. Proposition 8 is to prevent the "Judgment, bigotry and disdain for the civil rights of humans in our present day" that you talked about. Without it, people who favor heterosexual marriage could have their rights trampled on much more severely than homosexual groups ever did. And those rights would be trampled in the name of Tolerance! Our rights are as important as yours, and they are the same rights. I want everyone to have a full, satisfying life. I hope you understand why this is important to me and why I'm promoting it. I'll always try to be a good neighbor to you even if you're against what I feel is right.

That which blasts a flowering intellect

Deadlines. Emphasis on the prefix. That is how one comes to feel and act when he has too many of them, whether by his own device or the inadvertent pressure created by the need to cover the material he desires to learn.
Or does he...anymore? Perhaps when he sees a light at the end of the tunnel, he'll cease trying just to survive and maybe learn something.

General conference styles

While watching General Conference last weekend, I didn't pay much attention to the presentation techniques used, but I do remember the general feel of it all.

Some of the diplomacy was peeled away during Priesthood Session. This is probably because as Priesthood holders, we've already made covenants and obligations we're expected to uphold, so it is appropriate to use more direct speech concerning our faithfulness to those things. At the same time as being direct and bold, any such admonishment was given in a non-accusatory manner.

All the speakers did well in the General sessions to fit or explain their terminology (via context) to a general audience, without losing the meaning to the primary audience.

On Dreams and Near-Death Experiences

Yeah, I edited that title for capitalization. Kinda defeats the purpose of freewrting. Ha! Didn't edit that one....

anyway, I recently told someone that I collect dreams, but the I realized my collection won't keep very well if I don't write more of them down!

Like a week or two ago, I had a dream where I was learning braille. And for a rather unusual purpose. But I can' tremember much bey9ond that.

I collect other people's dreams, too. And sometimes I interfere with them. Like one time, when a friend was muttering "No! no!" And obviously having a scary dream.
Or apparently anyway, if not obviously. So I decided to help her out and asked her "What's going on? is something chasing you?"
"Yeah."
"what's chasing you?"
"spiders!" (still sleeping)
"Here, take this magnetic flyswatter to fight them!"
"okay..."

A few minutes later she woke up. I asked her "did you have a scary dream?"
"yeah! How did you know?"
"Were there spiders in it?"
"yeah....How do you know that?"
"what did you do about the spiders?"
"I smashed them!"
"with what?
"A flyswatter!"
"Was it a magnetic flyswatter?"
"I don't know..."

close enough. I hope someone arms me with super cool weapons when I have a scary dream. In fact, if reality is just a layer higher than dreams, then maybe there's some way to materialize stuff from the realm beyond the reality we perceive........hmm..... But who or what would implement it?

That's not so easy anyway. Reality is made of denser stuff than dreams. It takes a higher activation energy to alter the material world than the immaterial one.

In other words, the manifestation of a thought into matter often requires a medium through which to communicate the (trans)formation. Often the process is begun by writing, but there are other ways.


hmmm....What is this branch of comtemplation called? Metaphysics?

Too bold? Nay

I had 1/2 an hour to wait in line, buy some food, eat it, and get to my Social Dance class. I picked the second-shortest line I could find, in front of L&T. The first-shortest line was at Freschetta's, and half my summer suppers consisted greatly of their leftovers, so I wasn't too keen on eating there.

So I positioned myself behind the 7 or so people I could see waiting at the storefront, and began scoping out someone to try my new experience on. What new experience? Buying a drink (soda pop, juice, etc.) for a stranger, that is.
It had only been a moment or so when I looked to my right toward the back of the line and saw a young lady giving me an good-natured but strange look. Having got my attention, she began formulating an explanation for what I had just noticed. She was also waiting in line... before I had arrived. Oops.

It only took half a question as to whether that was the case for her to confirm it with half a word, so I then explained how late I was and basically begged to be excused if I should hold my position in line. She acquiesced with a shrug and I saw my opportunity. I said, "Well if you're gonna let me butt in front of you, then you have to let me buy you a soda pop, too."
"I don't really want soda lately," she declined.

I was temporarily defeated, but still on schedule for a rushed meal when she casually mentioned,"I wish they had fruit juice and stuff like that here."
Perking up instantly, I pointed out the juices and we decided that I'd get her a bottle of orange juice.

I made several other attempts at socializing with my new friend, and kindly preventing me from getting any hopes up for a date, she mentioned meeting her husband off-hand. Missing only a beat or two, I asked, "How long you been married?"

"Since November," she replied.

Pondering on my singleness and lack of success in the world of dating and courtship, I took the chance to ask,"What's it like for you? Everyone here seems real enthused about it, but it's just a messy mystery to me," and what do you know -- she told me their whole courtship story, providing me with some good advice and not feeling awkward at all.

Too bad single girls generally don't open up like that. Too bad they generally feel awkward, pressured, or just turned off if you try to have a decent conversation with them or buy them an orange juice. And ultimately, too bad married girls aren't single, or I would be able to have a relationship.
(Would it be too much to ask for divorced girls to not be jaded?)

Whelmed, and Nearly Overly So

Someday I will tell my kids and grandkids how I managed to succeed in school despite the lack of funds, food, time, sleep, and sanity I have been supplied with. But why join the collective litany of the majority of all students everywhere?


Simply by writing that paragraph I see now that I would rather stubbornly feel differently about the difficulties of school, and simply to refuse disappearing into the homogeneous morass of self-pity from which decent, productive, and inspiring human beings eventually boil up from upon reaching critical experiential and emotional mass.

I also see that if I write the way I speak, i.e. in whole paragraphs rather than concise sentences, I'm going to need to revise it, or I will lose my audience easily.

So I'll have to resist editing more than before, or inadvertently forsake the revelatory properties of spontaneous writing, for which blogging is otherwise very contributory.


Eesh! Sometimes vocab can get in the way of the flow, y'know? I have $10. I should buy deodorant. Why do I keep forgetting things and leaving them behind? Perhaps that is why God has not permitted me any opportunity to create children thus far, legitimately or otherwise, let alone approaching the event. :-P I've become senile at age 26.

Well, I'd better stop before I get in a permanent funk. All too easy these days. More later. I have assignments to slay.