Time Dilation

Time dilation is a phenomenon (or two phenomena, as mentioned below) described by the theory of relativity. It can be illustrated by supposing that two observers are in motion relative to each other, or differently situated with regard to nearby gravitational masses. They each carry a clock of identical construction and function. Then, the point of view of each observer will generally be that the other observer's clock is in error (has changed its rate).

Lost in time
My life feels behind
The moments whine
a little blind

The stars rise
as a Day is put away
ending more unwise
with memories decay

The seconds flash
slowing my grasp
thoughts to crash
like a sick rasp

A new minute
time's dilation
of life's strange pivot
in suspension

Commitment

In bible study last night we studied Jesus' sermon on the mount, specifically the section where he talks about not swearing at all, that let your 'yes' be 'yes and your 'no' be 'no', swearing in this context meaning not taking a vow on anything be it God, Earth, or your life.  This passage speaks to a lot of things, but something I specifically attached to was this idea of how we try to influence or control our lives.  Now if you know what passage I'm talking about in the center of the passage Jesus says, "Do not swear at all" and proceeds to list out a lot of things not to swear on with the point being you have absolutely no control, not even over the hair on your head. And from that verse, it got me thinking on what people do to manipulate control over there lives.  The strongest thing I could come up with was delayed commitment, or simply maybe. People use maybe in so many contexts, "if I have time", "if I'm feeling up to it", "depends" all of these communicate the maybe. Funny enough the thing that people use often to delay commitment in this digital age is the Maybe button on facebook. You know what I'm talking about, the 3 confirmed "Yes", 5 confirmed "No" and the 22 "Maybes".

What that maybe communicates to me is: I'll go to your event, if and only if, something better/more important doesn't come along first.  And what that communicates to the soul of the person who receives the maybe is, I value you and what your doing only so much, to the point that I want a good time on that day and I'm not convinced that your going to be my best option. So I'm going to reserve my commitment, firstly so I don't seem like a flake for ditching you if I say yes and another option does come, and secondly, so I don't offend you by saying no, communicating to you that I have little to no interest in what your doing.  All of this to control the perception of who we are, or more specifically what we want other people to see.  This my friends is a problem. 

It has now become common place to click this maybe button and forget what the real world implications are of these actions.  The implications being the rampant selfish evaluation of other people, more importantly relationships. By defaulting to Maybe, we select maybe with our relationships, that people are only as worth it as what entertainment they can provide, useful purpose they can serve, or desire they can fill at the time. I'm going to be blunt, this is just plain selfish and prideful.  Not to mention wholesale devaluation of community. 

Commitment isn't about limiting yourself or your "options", its about seeding your pride over to place value in another person. By committing to someone you say, I value you and what your doing more than, my time, my energy, my desires, my wants, and even sometimes my needs.  What a feeling of love, connectedness, appreciation, and respect you give that person.  Commitment is not about obligating yourself to save face, its about engaging another with humility knowing that what they want is no more or less important than what you want.

So I challenge anyone who reads this, let your "yes" mean "yes" and your "no" mean "no", and commit for you can do no greater deed for any friend.

Faith

Like a wind that blows, 
a Feeling inside yells go!

I wait,
desperately trying to articulate.

The words that only God knows,
that will save me from my mutilating throws.

So I trust,
that God will do what he must.

My faith restored,
I can live once more.


(The difference between pride and humility is a matter of focus, pride focuses on us, that we can solve our own brokeness, that we have the answers to all our problems.  While humility focuses on God, that we have none of the answers, and everything that has ever been given to us is from God.)

Thoughts Explosion

Its almost 3 in the morning and I can't really sleep, so many things rattling around in the brain.  What am I going to do? Where am I suppose to go? Should I go on summer missions? Can I even go? Thinking about 3 projects, running 3 projects, working on 3 projects.  So many strange feelings, feelings of repression, unable to say what I want to say.  Have the afters "Say It Now" in my head and can't get it out.  I feel so much is locked up in my heart.  I can't shake this feeling of being trapped by silence.  Wanting to speak my mind about philosophy, art, history, music, culture, sociology, video games, software design, international relations, politics, law, morality, psychology, sports, books, who I am, other people, it all feels trapped.  Its pounding in my head, all these thoughts intersecting and exploding off each other, understanding being lost to the spontaneous combustion of ideas.  Its maddening how many thoughts are fighting for my attention.  So many chains of ideas flowing together.  How is it that the world has come to this point? Information explosion, leading to a character implosion.  How to make sense of the rampant misinformation and pride that comes along with it.  Why are so many people so prideful?  How do I change it?  My life's purpose is to serve others, why can't I figure this out?  So many forces pushing and pulling at me! Holy Spirit Guide my path, lead me through my day to day.  What can I do to move forward? I feel stuck! My thoughts are creating a net, a web, blocking the truth of the God.  My mind is capturing everything right now, writing is helping slow down the thoughts.  I just want to be less aware of my world, its to much information for one person to handle.  To many people, to many differing thoughts, to many things to know and learn, to many things to try to reconcile to the Truth, if only I could just snap my fingers and expand my mind. I wish, I wish.

What is your biggest strength? How did you develop it?

 I think my biggest strength is my work ethic, if you know me in any capacity, you know I know how to work.  I think a lot of things come along with having a good work ethic.  Good time management skills are a given. But also the ability to judge priorities really well and knowing that not everything in life is fair.  Especially how much one person has to work in relation to others.  I think my work ethic has really help me to see the value of human life, to see that every person, if they put their mind to it, can really improve above what is natural to them.  I think what really encompasses a good work ethic is focus and discipline, being able to sit in a crowed room of friends at 926 and get stuff done takes some serious focus.  I think the discipline comes in when you confronted with two options to have fun or work.  Often these two things come in to conflict with each other, more often then not actually, and you have to be able to say no to doing that fun thing just to get things done.  But I think people appreciate it when I do take the work option and that does lead to a sense of delayed gratification.

On to the second part of the question, how did I develop it, really the question should be how did other people develop it in me.  More often then not people just gave me stuff to do and I would wish to meet their expectations.  I'm just an expectations driven person. So the more you put on me, the more I want to meet and exceed those expectations.  So its pretty simple just make your expectations known and you can get me to do just about anything. Secret reveled. But more seriously, I would just want to do the best by other people and that would lead me to be more focused and disciplined about how I was going to best serve them.  And the rest cascades out from there, to be able to serve more people I needed better time management skills.  To be able to   be more efficient and get the best things done, I developed better prioritization skills.  Basically everything is developed as a reaction to better serve others.  That's what God created me for. And that's just how I do it.

What do you think is your biggest flaw? What have you done about it?

I think my biggest flaw would be my inability to let go of the past.  For me, my life doesn't just exist in the present, but it has its own flow of life into the past as well.  My mind always seeks to understand a situation.  The problem is that so many things in my past I don't understand.  So I forever machinate and manipulate the situation in my head until I get an understanding.  Going through what people said, what I said, what people did, what I did, over and over again, looking for new insight into what happened.  This is were an idemic memory is not a good thing.  I don't forget.  Some would say that's a good thing, but if you knew how much it kept me from growing positively, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.  It's like being chained to a chair in a movie theater that only plays the the worst moments of your life.  Its reliving the worst moments of your life, trying to make sense out of them from a reasonable stand point, not to justify them, but to understand them for what really happened.  And I'll tell you it doesn't always work out, somethings from when I was a child, I still try to understand, how crazy is that!

So on to the second part of the question, what have I done about it. Well, not much.  But I've started this new thing that's been helping me.  See I think the root of a lot of this is that I keep to much of my thoughts and feelings inside of my head.  This causes them to store-up, the root of the problem.  I found that if I'm just super honest about what is going on, I don't really hold on to the emotions and thoughts as firmly, which means they don't really fight for my attention.  Half the reason I started going through all these questions. It just helps me to focus and ultimately be myself.  Ultimately, that's why I think not letting go of the past is my biggest flaw because it keeps me from being myself.

That of course, and not being able to say no. :P!

What would make you feel embarrassed in public?

I think the most embarrassing thing that could happen to me in public would be if somebody called my bluff or directly called out a lie I had said.  Oh man just thinking about it brings shivers down my spine.  It's just such a bad situation with absolutely no hope of you saving face. The only real option is to swallow your pride and take a bullet straight to your character's head.  A lot of people don't like the truth, but everyone hates a liar.  Beyond just how embarrassing that moment would be, the trust you had with anyone in that area would be hurt. Maybe not severely, depends on the severity of the lie.  But it most certainly wouldn't help you build trust with anyone, especially if the lie happened to do with you supposedly doing something.  Woof, that's some bad karma folks, so when I think about the most embarrassing moment that could happen to me, lying and getting caught ranks right on up there on the "things I'd rather die before happening" list.

Its time to get serious

So I needed a little inspiration and I found a great list that can help me explore that pesky and illusive identity, I'm going to do my best to answer these questions as honestly and openly as possible.

1. What would make you feel embarrassed in public?
2. What do you think is your biggest flaw? What have you done about it?
3. What is your biggest strength? How did you develop it?
4. What do you have to put up with in your life? How long have you been tolerating it?
5. If you could change your name, what would your new name be?
6. If you could change your appearance, how would you decide to look?
7. What color dominates your wardrobe? How do you feel when you wear that color? Why?
8. Which song do you sing only when you’re alone? What memory does it bring back?
9. Whom do you secretly envy? Why?
10. What do you really want? But really…
11. What is the way you often sabotage yourself?
12. Who would you like to please the most?
13. What do you think a stranger’s first impression of you would be?
14. What recurring dream do you have? What do you think is the message your subconscious is sending you through that dream?
15. What would you try now if you were sure you wouldn’t fail?
16. What was that thing you never tried because you were afraid of failure?
17. What was your greatest disappointment in life?
18. As a kid, what did you dream of becoming when you grew up?
19. What are you really good at?
20. What can you do better?
21. What worries you the most when you think about your future?
22. What really sucks in your life? Who has the power to change it?
23. What is your life really about? What is your purpose in life?
24. What fear could wake you in the middle of the night?
25. What joy could wake you in the middle of the night?
26. What are you grateful for?
27. What time of the day do you feel the most energetic? And what do you usually do in those moments?
28. If you knew you had only one week to live, how and with whom would you spend it?
29. Why do you think your most favorite film touches you so deeply?
30. If you could be a fictional character from a movie or a novel, who would you want to be? Why?
31. What are you really bad at?
32. Who would you like to forgive and forget?
33. Do you often hear your inner voice? What does it usually tell you?
34. When was the last time you cried without anyone seeing you? And why?
35. What do you want people you meet for the first time to think about you?
36. What’s your most striking physical attribute? Do you like it?
37. If you had the opportunity to go back in time and make a change, would you still want to have the same parents?
38. If you could go back in time and change things, how would you alter the last ten years?
39. If you could get rid of one of your responsibilities today, what would that be?
40. What is the biggest lie you tell yourself?
41. What do you think is missing in your life?
42. What do you think is the biggest injustice that was ever done to you?
43. What type of person angers you the most?
44. Who never fails to make you feel good about yourself?
45. If you could start all over again, what would you want to study?
46. Which type of intelligence do you wish you had: kinetic, visual, interpersonal, linguistic or mathematical?
47. What is your biggest pet peeve?
48. What was the one opportunity you always believed you’ve missed out on?
49. What do you like about yourself the most?
50. What do you regret the most?
51. What is the most hurtful thing you’ve ever witnessed? Why did it affect you?
52. What would you like most to be acknowledged for in your life?
53. What is the first thought that usually crosses your mind the second you open your eyes in the morning?
54. What is that thing about yourself you’re sick and tired of?
55. Who really depends on you? Why?
56. What was the main factor that played a role in your biggest mistake?
57. What was the main factor that played a role in your biggest success?
58. What childhood memory sizzles your heart?
59. What was the most frustrating period in your creative life?
60. Do you love yourself?
61. If you were your own coach, how would you guide yourself?
62. What is that thing that no one, not even your partner, your mother or your best friend, knows about you?

Thoughts Pt. 1

Master transforming big ideas into immediate action.  More thoughts on this to come....

New Year, New Things To Do!

This is the list of everything I hope to accomplish in 2011,

-Gain 20 pounds
-Work-out at least 3 times a week
-Complete at least 5 video games
-Go on a backpacking trip
-Go on a Road-Trip
-Read at least 5 books
-Have an itunes library that has over 50%  music I've found
-Have at least 20 deep conversations with 20 different people
-Dance in the rain, on a train, on a bus, and a plane
-Laugh until I'm exhausted
-Have a Disney movie marathon
-Go to Disneyland over 20 times
-Write 2 programs that could benefit somebody
-Finding a new place to live
-Finding a career
-Sharing the Gospel with at least 1 person
-Spending a week loving others so much I'm exhausted