Do what we got to do...

Well, I wish I had time to make my own slide show. I've got to resort to photobuckets' for the time being... However, I did add in details below captions for each photo, you just have to click on the photo to see them I think.

Better coming soon...

I've gone too far...

No, not really, I've just moved from my room to the room next door. It's bigger and has a better view.

I will say I love dialog, and even though Michelle and I only went back and forth a few times, it was worth more than all the time spent looking for the right examples in my post. And it was way more fun too!

Ok, in addition to political and religious opinions (which may be unsavory to some) I also partake in movie watching . I think everyone can agree I have more problems than simply watching rated R movies, so lets not get caught up in that.

Ratatouille: I'm sure most have seen this movie, but the more I think on it the more I come to realize this might be the best animated film I've ever seen. It doesn't beat you over the head with the lessons it's teaching, but it throws in a dash of depth and a touch of reality of the world in so many scenes. This is where movies should be today and not just animated. It's a shame we get stuck with Shrek 3 so often. Buy it and rewatch it, it touches greatness.

Forgetting Sarah Marshal: There's a penis in it, there are puppet vampires, a great analysis of relationships, and most importantly all the people seem and behave like real people. Good movie, I laughed a lot. Rental.

Harold and Kumar: There's a penis in it, there's a cyclopse... and if you liked the first one, you'll probably like the second one. Decent for it's genre, I laughed. Rental with friends who find people on drugs funny.

I've filled my penis-in-movies quota for the year thank you. Movies are like new jobs, with the right attitude anything can be fun and worth the experience. And I find myself trying to coax people into the attitude that's required for specific movies. If you're expecting to start work in an office around a bunch of people and end up shoveling dirt for a landscaping project you're not going to be happy. Unfortunately movie previews are a lot like your Employment office where they try to sugar coat something or trick you into taking the job so they can keep theirs. It's important to see past the BS of the trailers and try to understand, as best you can, what it is that they made. Here's where a director or specific actor sometimes helps, you know or like their style. Anyway, my point is this, generally there's a right attitude for each movie and it's worth finding out what it is (or if the people you're with enjoy having that attitude).

-Peace

Some Answers are Questioning Answers

Well, glad I got that off my chest. Most times whenever I'm discussing these things with people I have to be polite and not really share my mind (I have before and it gets hairy really quick heh).

On a different note: Work! I've got new work and new old work! Getting paid is good. I had a four hour meeting today on this simple site... kinda overkill but they're paying me for my time, so hey, I don't mind.

Interesting thought I had a few weeks ago: You know when people say "I can't even comprehend eternity" or something along those lines when talking about the afterlife? In actuality, all you can comprehend about life is it's continuance into eternity and this is why: You can't remember the beginning, therefore you can't understand or "comprehend" and end. If all we know is life, are our lives not viewed as never-ending in our minds? Wasn't the King Follet Discourse explaining precisely this principle, that God, The Eternal, is comprehensible?

Anyway, food for thought perhaps. So you can enlighten your Sunday School Teacher who says this next time, since that's where I hear it the most.

You got your liberalism in my mormonism!

You see, I'm a liberal. And I'm a Mormon. These might seem contradictory to most people, and those people would be correct in their own eyes. They are contradictory in the assumptions people who are conservative make about liberals. And liberals are equally confused about my religion (based on their own misinterpretations) This is what I hate about these labels is they make so many assumptions about who I am for which I am grateful to have a balancing stone (the church) for people to see. I think it makes me look very interesting and mysterious and that's what I need if I'm to fulfill my goal of... looking interesting and mysterious (I guess I need some new goals...).

Here's my argument for why every Mormon should be more liberal than conservative: If we're eventually going to live the Law of Consecration would it not make sense to try to learn how to do it with the challenges of today? Whatever you may believe about socialism and communism and their ties to Satan is completely wrong. Why do we think these idioms to be wrong or evil? McCarthy is why, the unwarranted fear of communist. Without going too far down this rabbit hole, let me back up and make it simple. Our religion believes in community, sharing, being sensitive, love, hope, and faith. But I don't ever see conservatives behaving like this in any respect when it comes to politics... And they don't because in all reality most are republican and are indoctrinated into this mentality that the gays and the liberals are trying to take their country and money from them. When in reality people just want to live their lives without persecution. I am for gay marriage. How and why do I say this? Because I don't believe in the divinity of the state marriage board. And I'm not afraid of what could happen to the "Family's" in this country. There has been too much fear mongering and too many people using their religion as a scapegoat for their insecurities and misunderstandings. "If gays are allowed to marry..." is often said but never ended, it's an open invitation to cause all your fears to bloom.
But like I said, "love, community, hope, faith..." I don't see any of these when conservatives are in the grip of their insecurities around the possibilities of passing legislation. Don't you think the Pharisees felt the same way? Insecure and scared of what could happen?

I'll tell you what I believe. I believe the founding fathers we're not perfect and made mistakes, I believe God expects us to better ourselves and love our neighbors, I believe we are not punished for allowing others to make mistakes on their own, I believe I am not being punished for not lobbying to revoke Roe vs Wade, I believe people who have no religion can be closer to God than those who claim to be, I believe in investigating truth in all aspects of my life not just religion, I believe if you claim to love someone you can listen and try to understand them, I believe if you don't understand someone you cannot help them.

Lastly, I believe in all these things because I discovered them for myself. In what ways am I conservative then? I conserve the right to go to practice my religion without persecution. I conserve the right to allow others to do the same. I also live a conservative life style, I'll probably live a conservatives life even, that's because I choose my own path, no one else. I couldn't imagine trying stop anyone else from doing the same. If the greatest gift gave mankind was free agency wouldn't he expect us to do the same? I know he would, and I think it's a challenge to all of us to progress there instead of trying to revert the country to the 1950's when families were "families" (i.e. Like some religions want to go back to the Garden of Eden to innocence).

Zen.

Tripping

So, vacation is over. To sum up: I wake boarded on a chain link fence behind a tracker while it was hailing, I sewed my pants to my underwear, and in the end I learned a lot about balance.



I don't want to get caught up on the details of sewing my pants to my underwear, it's a really boring story fraught with meticulous stitches and red thread... quite boring. However, I feel like expressing a huge sigh of brain relief. Sometimes when I only have my thoughts to keep my thoughts in check things get very messy (see other blog entries). At this point in my life I need some friends to release and re-evaluate whatever conclusions I've come to (I've got a lot to say about that too). Release is not enough (i.e. like this blog). I thought it was enough to release my thoughts by having to write them, but it's not.


Balance. I have learned new insight on my balance between my religious and political beliefs, social skills and humility, focus and exercise, faith and knowledge. It seems silly to write such big ideas but that's the truth of it. I have it all inside, but without anyone to challenge me and to speak honestly with me, it's all just a pile of crap. Let me share some of my insights (it's not all politicky, I promise, it's much more zen'ish).

Democrats and Republicans
Here's the deal: Democrats see themselves as compassionate ants. They work hard to do what they do to better the lives of those around them, if they work as a community they can build a successful community (think relief society). Republicans see democrats as their over-protective mothers who rule with an iron fist (think over-protective mothers... with a Russian accents). Republicans see themselves as artists. The artist will thrive or fade by his own skill, you cannot have a committee deciding on which color to use, or which stroke is the last, it is the artist that chooses. Democrats see republicans as Ebenezer Scrooge (before the ghost of Christmas past). Each side is beautiful and each philosophy functional, and if you can't see this you are unbalanced... then comes the balancing, someone, somewhere feels the exact opposite and when they speak up, YOU will speak up against that. There is no 1 party utopia, there is no 'right way', because both are flawed, both will balance. When one teeters,'inertia' will bring it back. Whether by revolution or election it will always balance out because that's what people do, that is who WE are. Understanding the balance that is our society is a must if we truly wish to be happy with it. "Hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is"- (Dr. Phil?) I was once indifferent two both repubs and demo's, now I love and respect both sides and accept their necessary existence.

See, Zen!

To be continued...

Readership

Having to face your audience is not something a writer wants to do very often. They want immediate answers to all their questions. Overtones and subtlety go right out the window and it's impossible for meanings to be found between the lines with some issues. I write like I speak, I speak like I think.


Sometimes I don't like what I write, or maybe it will upset someone to hear it, but it's true none the less and I wouldn't be honest to myself if I wrote anything else. It does make me think about Truth though. I am always thinking about the how's, why's, and what's of Truth. Such as, when certain truths are spoken aloud they are no longer true. We could totally botch the delivery, or even inflection is important... every detail matters and could go wrong so easily it's amazing we can even communicate sometimes at all.


Maybe I should explain what this all is, what these words are to me. They are my inner thoughts, they are not a well thought out, planned and organized strike team sent out to accomplish some secret mission. It will be silly, funny, pointless, absurd, thoughtful and sad. It is entirely possible for someone to feel happy, sad, hopeful, and depressed all at the same time. But stacking all of these up, weighing them, and deciding which weighs the most, declaring the winner and then write from that perspective is not who I am or what I do. These words are for me and you, dear reader, to know and understand me better.


On a lighter note, "shaggle" is a really funny word. By far one of the best I've ever made up. Use it with some friends sometimes, I'll let you decide the context!

Dreams

We were able to travel to close planets, this one being Jupiter. I had found a close connection with the atmosphere and space (down in Chile) So, I jumped past the barrier (like a bubble of some sort) and began to float away from Earth and I had something to help me direct my decent to Jupiter. Though it was VERY easy to go flying off the planet, and it was very steep. My Mom and Dad were there, and we were trying to have fun doing something but the fear of almost slipping away into space didn't make things very fun. We went into this small alcove and started exploring, we found a bunch of trash and then a big crab came out and we all thought it was really cool (like two feel in diameter) Then, unfortunately my mind really liked the idea of the this crab and I imagined next insects, like beetles with a large pincher... this insect pinched through my dads gloves and through his fingers. Then the cave was filled with them and I was on my back laying on top of maybe fifty of them and they all pinched at the same time and tore my back apart. I was in some pretty serious duress at this moment and I think I woke up. I went back to sleep and thankfully there were no more killer insects.

As always, there was much more, hard to describe stuff, but that was the fun stuff.

-Aaron

Pressure

Going back and reading that discombobbled mess of a post, I often wonder why I can't write my thoughts in a more clear and single file line. I mean, WOW, what a mess. Here we go again!

It so often comes to this in my life. I procrastinate things I've been meaning to do for weeks or months before some event. This time it's going home for a vacation. I approach it like two math assignments I was out sick on and now they're due. Just put my head down and power through... and that's just to make the LIST of the things I need to do. Once the list is made and I've made the proper mental adjustments I realize it's not so bad. But I know once I get one or two things done I'll be high on accomplishment I wont get the other, now "minor", things done. Is there something wrong with me? (Why do I ask so many rhetorical questions to myself and then kick my ass until I have a clever response? hah!)

Going home is like a rejuvenation for me. I get to eat well, I get to spend time with people I love to spend time with... and I realize why I'm not living there anymore. For example, I'll have to run downtown Portland for my dad and then pick up a worker for him to transport to a job site only to have to go buy supplies for the job... etc., etc. Some people might see my loathing in this regard as selfish or "doesn't-know-a-hard-days-work" sort of attitude, which isn't the case at all. It's much more subtle and difficult to understand (for some) I think. Though, because I'm only in town for those few days it doesn't effect me, in fact, it's nice to do something productive and helpful for my Dad or whomever. But before... oh man, the only comparable loathing that I had for my Dad not asking me to do these tasks for him, but telling me to, was... on my mission actually. Not the mission itself, just some instances on the mission where you pass the point of breaking making contacts (or whatever)... and then having the pressure of your companion (which could lead directly to pressure from the mission prez, and often did in my mission) then spiritual guilt of not "doing-what-you're-called-to-do". It was much easier to just grin and bear it in the mission because you were surrounded by, preceeded by, and lead by people who were all doing the same. Doesn't mean it didn't suck though. And I was one of the handful of missionaries that loved the mission on my mission... and the reason was because as bad as all that was, it wasn't as bad as living at home being told what to do. Haha, that sounds pretty bad I know, but it's true.

large paragraphs aside, I'm excited to go home!

-Peace

#2

Blog karma is great. It's what keeps these things alive I suppose.

I post, then you post... karma, good stuff.

Anonymity is a curious creature. I spend most of my time with anonymous people (online, in games, etc). What I gather is that most people are just as honest or dishonest as they are in their real lives (duh, right? well, it's easy to see once someone points it out and believes it). Honest people don't indulge in dishonesty because of anonymity. Perceived virtues are not virtues. What I mean by "perceived virtues" is those good qualities we see in other people are perhaps not virtues at all, but masks or just plain habits. I for one believe the "fake it 'till you make it" policy is terrible. For me it is anyway, pretending to believe something until I do, rings very wrong. So, what's this have to do with anonymity and online postings? What I'm trying to tie together is the fact that anonymity bears no weight in whether people are honest or dishonest. People are not more open or more closed communicating anonymously. People can just as easily lie to themselves when posting anonymously as they can to everyone else.

When communication is opened in a new way (ie forums, comments, etc) people can discover how honest they really are if they're paying attention. There is a brief moment of transparency and we can feel the weight of our deceit (albeit however small) or feel the weight lifted and the road cleared.

I feel like I've had to clear a lot of road to be who I am today. Which is why I spend so much time thinking about communicating. Everything I've done in my life has only reinforced my opinion that communication is the key to life. Life itself is not all that great, it has moments though. We fill our lives with good things because without them it's... boring and lonely. If I can really communicate with someone though, it's honestly all I want to do. I am addicted to talking to people who can think and challenge me to communicate in new ways.

See that, if I wouldn't have started this blog I might have never made that realization about myself! Good or bad, there it is.

-Aaron

On again Off again

Blogging is an on again off again thing for me. I get these itches to write and I can't stop until it's complete (or it's 7 in the morning). I once had a better schedule for writing after reading On Writing (a must for anyone who wants to write imo). But that faded after I started gaming more. TV and gaming really hamper the writing time... work too I guess haha.

Anyhow, I'm going to try to update this thing more... maybe I should tell people about my blog.. comments seem to be the inspiration for updates.

Music of the day: In Rainbows Song: Jigsaw