Weblog

Well, I've gotten some positive feedback about one of my posts here, so I decided to send it into the campus newspaper here at John Brown, The Threefold Advocate. They published it, and I am famous! Well… not really.

I'm tired; I'm going to bed.

To often, I feel that people hide their true thoughts behind a façade of happiness. Myself, I'm the opposite. I tend to let my feelings be known. Whatever it is that I'm pondering in my head, I feel the need to compose it to a symphony of words and then perform a recital of the work. This has produced mixed reactions from death threats¹ to expressions of appreciation.

So, honesty and the truth go hand in hand; honesty is telling the truth. However, the truth seems to have a wide range on the spectrum. One common proverb in the English language is “The truth hurts.”. William Blake once said, “A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.”. On the other side, good things have been said of the truth. The Lord himself referred to Himself as the Truth.² In another instance in the Bible, we're called to think of things which are true.³

Despite the good attributes of the truth, there's still truth to the bad as well: the truth can hurt. People realise this — nice people who don't want to be mean. Then, the truth might be expressed in “euphemistic language”. I don't see the advantage to utilising the euphemisms; it introduces ambiguity.⁴ It seems more advantageous to be bluntly honest. As long as our intent in being honest is not derived from malice or a desire to hurt, honesty is the best policy. We should keep this in mind when we are being honest… and when people are being honest with us.

I've said before that “you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by being honest”. It works on the receiving end too: you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by fearing the truth. Your honesty is appreciated.

1. Two and counting!
2. John 14:6
3. Philippians 4:8
4. “Was she trying to say that she wasn't interested or does she really have to wash her hair that night?”

Anyone who's attended college knows by the first week that there is a collection of questions that people ask when first meeting each other:

1. What's your name?
2. Where are you from?
3. Where do you live on campus?
4. What's your classification?
5. What's your major?

I went swing dancing tonight. With the abundance of people there in that church gymnasium, I had the opportunity to meet several new people. As is the college custom, these questions were asked to unfamiliar dance partners. Why do people ask these questions? I think that we ask each other these questions because we want to know more about each other. The problem is that when someone asks me what my major is, I feel that all that they know is what my major is. My minors explain more about me than my major: linguistics and history. Majoring in computer science wasn't my first choice. Essentially, I went into computer science for the scholarship money. Don't get me wrong, I know my way around a computer, and I don't hate it… most of the time.

Really, I don't see myself ending up in a career working with computers; I would end up going insane working in a job like that. Honestly, I see myself doing relief work or missions work in some distant country with a need for help. Working in our campus' Acting on AIDS chapter has really made me enthusiastic about helping others in disadvantaged countries. I feel that this is my rôle in life.

Come Monday, I'm going to go about my daily routine. I'll probably continue this routine for the years to come. If I am supposed to do this relief work, I'm thinking that I need to change that routine. I see myself helping others in other places, but I don't see my life headed in that direction. I don't see a progression towards that. People say that we should ignore the big picture of our lives and just take each day as it comes. If I did that, I probably wouldn't end up living my life the way that it's supposed to be lived.

I think that I need to start changing the direction that I'm headed in.

I'm often amazed at our society's knack for inaction. I suppose that the most obvious reasons why we don't take action when the need substantiates is either plain laziness or gross apathy. However, I've clearly noticed a third type of inaction: passiveness.

What do I mean by passiveness? Simply put, I'm talking about not taking action based on a belief that God is going to take care of it. This really is a tough subject to write about. I mean, trusting in God is definitely a good thing, and, by all means, I'm not trying to imply that we shouldn't. However, I am trying to say that we shouldn't let that determine what our actions will be.

I hear people who say, “God's in control, so I won't worry about the environment.”, “I don't need to do anything about the AIDS pandemic because God's in control.”, “I'm not going to bother looking for that significant other; God will bring them to me.” or “Politics isn't for me; God's the real person in charge.”. The hard part is that these lines of thinking have some degree of validity to them: of course God is bigger than these problems, so why should we worry when He's on our side? Still, does it occur to anyone how it is that God carries out His will? Obviously, when we're sick, we can trust and hope that God will heal us, but that doesn't mean that we stop taking medicine; that just might be God's way of healing us. Along that line of thought, maybe God's method for ensuring the stability of our environment is through people who take the initiative to care for it. Perhaps God will solve issues like the AIDS pandemic through people to whom it matters enough to try to fix it. Maybe God's way of finding you the right companion is by your having the courage to just ask that person to dinner. It is possible that your standing up for the things which are pure and lovely will make the difference in this cruel world of problems.

God parted the Red Sea, but that doesn't mean that we stop building bridges. Remember what Saint Augustine said: “God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.” As you go throughout your life, keep this in mind whenever there is a place where your actions are needed.

Well, the current time of the day is 5:00 AM. I've given up on trying to obtain sleep and have instead decided to… umm… stay awake. The reason? There are these flies. My house is infested with a great number of them. Even as I write this, they are landing on my computer screen and other various places on their quest to take over the world. Anyway, these flies are not letting me sleep. They seem hellbent on keeping me awake by buzzing in my ear, landing on me or flying into my mouth or nose. We've had this infestation for the past week, but we sprayed some sort of insecticide to kill the little futhermuckers, and it seemed to work, but little did we know that it only provided us with false hope, for they returned in greater numbers. I am tempted to go on a killing spree, but we tried that once, and it didn't turn out to be very beneficial. Still, it's better than just letting them crawl all over your body.

Enough is enough! I have had it with these… flies in this… house!

So, this weekend, I got to hang out with a pretty nice bunch of gentlemen. My friend, Ryan, got married on Saturday. My old youth pastor and an old friend made the trek from Colorado to Arkansas and picked me up along the way. However, being there that early with nothing to do meant that I had to hang out with the wedding party beforehand. Needless to say, I kind of “felt like a schmuck”¹ hanging around with the wedding party, eating their food and distracting them from their purpose.² In my times of distracting them from their purpose, I got into a conversation about past stupid acts.³

I still carry an amount of guilt about things in the past that I've done. When I think of my mistakes, I start to beat myself up over it. The conversation that took place in the basement of that church was something along the lines of “Christ died for that; He forgave you. Why not forgive yourself? Why add weight to His shoulders on the cross?” Hey, forgive myself? That's a wonderful idea!

Anyone have any suggestions?

It seems easier said then done. It's not like I can just feel better about it suddenly.

Yeah, I feel like a schmuck.

Otherwise, the rest of the weekend… let's just say that it didn't go according to plan. I'm not bitter in any sense of the word at all, but it does start to gnaw away at your self-esteem when you're 0/3. (If none of this makes sense, don't worry; it's not supposed to.) So, I'm a tad depressed. However, I have always thought (in my case) that depression is good. When I'm depressed, I think deeply and my weblog entries turn out to be longer than most. However, I've discovered that when I'm depressed, I eat… a lot. When you have to pay the food bill yourself, you start to notice when you eat half of an entire large-size bag of potato chips in one sitting right before bed.

Yeah, I feel like a schmuck.

1. My new favourite term.
2. Think Wedding Crashers.
3. Which, coincidentally, has been on my mind a lot lately.

Everywhere in my duplex, there are these small, annoying flys. They've taken over the duplex. I've been on a killing spree to try to kill as many of them as I can, but they haven't decreased in number; they're increasing! I don't know what to do. Killing them doesn't work; they just keep multiplying!

Well, I guess that if this is my worst problem, my life is just swell.

So, this week hasn't been nice to me, but this week has been more rewarding than most. Our campus Acting on AIDS chapter assisted the university in hosting a great chapel speaker. So, we helped the university by picking her up from the airport after her flight was delayed for several hours. I found the speaker, Princess Zulu, to be a delightful woman. So, we all did our very best to be proper hosts. For us, our primary concern was to organise a talkback session with Ms. Zulu the evening following the chapel. We all spent the previous week making sure that the event ran like a well-oiled machine. Then, the big moment arrived. First, I was worried that no one would show up. After a few minutes, I started to worry that too many people would show up. Then, I started to worry that no one would have questions and there would be an awkward silence. At the end, I had to cut it short so that Ms. Zulu could get some sleep.

Looking back on it, this whole shindig was incredibly rewarding. It was a great way to start off the year for our Acting on AIDS chapter. We gained confidence in planning events. We learned from our mistakes (which weren't that many). We got to meet the national Student Outreach Coordinator who also came yesterday. I'm eager to start planning for our next event, but I think that I need to recover from my lack of sleep first.

I start a new job tomorrow!

Jazz turned into swing.

Swing turned into blues.

Blues turned into funk.

Funk turned into disco.

Disco turned into rap.

Rap turned into crap.

Okay, as much as I love Maria Sharapova, it turns out that I didn't watch the match today. Instead, I decided to go ice skating with my friends. I ended up having a freaking awesome time. Although about half of the people there were my close friends, the other half were people that I didn't even know. By the end of the evening, I had gotten to know these people somewhat, and that was amazing. However, I ended up not watching the tennis match that I've waited nearly two years to see. The thing is that I don't really feel all that bad about it. I formed new relationships with people that matter, and, no matter how much I love Maria, she's never going to love me back.

Still, don't get me wrong: I was freekin' elated when I found out that she won. I'm happy for her.

I'm thinking of taking a risk. Last time I took a risk of this sort, it didn't work. Besides, if it does work, there's a decent chance that I'll regret ever taking the risk. Hmmm… ironic.

How can professors expect me to study and complete my assignments when there is an abundance of a wonderful sport known as tennis currently on the television?

I guess that if I really want an answer to that question, the fact that they're being paid twenty thousand dollars a year to educate me would allow them to assume that.

So, I wasn't exactly a joy to have around as a child. I was… bizarre. Sure, I've improved since then, but I still have this guilt that I carry around about my mannerisms from that time period. I don't know why; I hate who I was, but I still feel that who I was still is who I am.

I'm tired.

I feel like a failure. I feel like I disappoint God, yet, somehow, I just live with that. Had I disappointed my closest friend or an intimate lover, I'm sure that I wouldn't be able to sleep. However, when the person that I disappoint is God, I shrug it off and live out my day without much deviation in my emotion. Why is it that I give the courtesy of at least feeling bad when I disappoint a close friend, but I retain my good humour when I disappoint my Saviour?

Alas, I will never have Maria Sharapova.

That's probably a good thing.

What's more normal: waking up in a good mood or a bad mood? Today, for me, was a bad-mood day. By bad mood, I don't mean that I was snapping at people and having a McEnroe-class fit. I was just kind of quiet and bored all day. It's like I found satisfaction in nothing that I did. That said, when I finished class today, I didn't really feel the usual feelings of relief that are normally felt on a Friday. Afterwards, I ate dinner in a cafeteria. Since there was really nothing better to eat, I had cake and meatballs. I had then planned to sit around my house and do nothing but watch the U. S. Open, but I got out a little and visited my old friends in the old dorm.¹ Then, I was unagressively kidnapped into attending a skate party in Springdale. I didn't really feel like going, but I went anyway.

I know that many people like to write in their weblogs about how their day was. I would hate to bore you with those kind of details; I like to write about meaningful, philosophical junk. So, my meaningful thought for the day is this: I couldn't help wondering that rollerskating is just NASCAR on depressants².

1. Which turned out to only be one friend since everyone was other places.
2. Or, if you prefer to see it this way, NASCAR is rollerskating on steroids.