Sunday, June 29, 2008

I have been to the promised land...

Well sort of. Maybe not "the" promised land, but I did go to the land of Zion this past weekend. Zion National Park that is. If you've never been to Zion's it's quite scenic to say the least. The views can take your breath away, and I find myself feeling quite small and insignificant in its surroundings. I would have probably had a chance to do some real deep pondering and had some zen like experiences in an environment like this had it not been for my other surroundings! The other "surroundings" being 3 little Hannah Montanas and 2 grown ones. For those counting, that's a weekend of fun with 5 girls and 1 boy. Drama baby drama! Needless to say by day 2 I needed a drama break. Fortunately, I have a great little honey of a wife, and she let me go it alone on one of the more challenging hikes in Zion. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision for me to go hiking on this trail, so I was ill equipped and ill prepared for this hike. The hike was called Angel's Landing, but at 2 p.m. in Zion's park at the end of June, Hell's Playground might be a more appropriate name. At any rate, off I went, gungho and ready to have a mountain top experience. Over an hour later, parched, dehydrated, and ready to give the boyscout next to me $20 for his bottle of water, I made it to the top. This was the first hike I've ever been on where I really felt a sense of accomplishment when I got to the summit. It was an incredibly cool hike, where literally they had to install large chains in the rock to grab hold of so hikers wouldn't plummet to their death! The hike was pretty amazing, but as I basked in the victory of making it to the top I realized something. This experience would be way more fun if I had others to share it with. You see in my zeal to go on a great adventure I had left those I cared about behind. My drama girls! And I wasn't alone. I came across some older kids on the path who had been left behind by their dad too. Turns out these kids weren't that agile, were afraid of heights, and it had really been their dad's idea to do the hike. The dad had left them behind to fend for themselves in his quest to get to the promised land. As I was pushing my way past these girls I couldn't help to think how selfish that was. Then I started thinking how much life is like that. I want adventure, I want stimulation, I want life to be challenging and fulfilling, and while it's much easier to achieve these results on my own, it's not near as much fun. Noboby wants to stop and take the time to help those who struggle through life, but help them we should (said Yoda). If I'm honest I find myself looking at people in my path and commenting either in my head or to a confidant how incompetent, ignorant, and useless they are. More often than not I'm the guy pushing my way over and through people, so I can hurry up and get the gratification that I deserve. When I find myself doing that I get exactly what I deserve alright. I get to jump up and down, look all around, and ultimately celebrate by myself. Here's to the hands that push up, not down, who grab hold instead of pushing through, who clasp the hands next to them and raise them in joyous celebration...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The pancake man...

I was reading an article today from the magazine, The Atlantic, a magazine I would recommend by the way, and I came across an article entitled “Is Google making us Stoopid?” (All quotes are from The Atlantic unless otherwise noted) I figured the article would be about how we have information overload today, and we don’t really have to exercise our minds anymore to find useful information. Turned out I was right, but the article did have a few twists that got me thinking. It talked about how in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter which allowed him to continue to write in light of his failing eyesight. However, a good friend noticed that when Nietzsche started using the typewriter his writing style changed. He “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.” It’s pretty fascinating how external forces can begin to slowly change our internal forces. Fast forward 125 years and a little company called Google has changed the way we think and operate today. “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter,” Page, a founder of Google, said in a speech a few years back. “For us, working on search is a way to work on artificial intelligence.” In a 2004 interview with Newsweek, Brin said, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” That’s insane to think about. Would we really be better off with an AI smarter than our noodle?
What really got me thinking about this topic is that this past Sunday, during a Sunday worship service, I started reading Romans ch.12. I realize I should have been listening to the sermon, but the reading was more interesting. Anyway, I bet I’ve read this chapter in Romans 50 times over my lifetime, but I happened to be reading from The Message translation this time. And as so often is the case when I read the Message a phrase really struck me, “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.” I’m afraid I’m guilty of this all too often. The systems I live in definitely affect my life. How I pay bills, read articles, and communicate with people has changed because of these systems, but I hope I don’t become so well adjusted to my culture that I stop thinking. I hope I can sit and dwell on the deep and mysterious mystery that is God. I hope I don’t allow AI’s to do my thinking for me, or any external force for that matter. I hope I will continue to stretch and work out my mind by reading long books, writing short blogs, and reflecting on it all. The magazine article ended by looking back in history even further. It seemed that Socrates was worried that writing could be a bad thing for society. He thought as people began to write and rely on a written forum, they would, “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.” And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.” Crazy huh?! Good thing that writing thing took off or we probably wouldn't know Socrates said that. But maybe Socrates was right. More times than not I feel like the pancake man! Very wide and far reaching, but really quite shallow. Shallow in life, and worse shallow in my faith. Maybe it’s because of my surroundings and environment, or maybe it’s just because I’m lazy and it’s too much work to really stop and think. Maybe there's some other pancake people out there? Man, all this pancake talk has made me hungry, maybe I’ll go nuke a pancake…Thank goodness for new technology!

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Everyone's Invited...

I have alot of friends out there that due to recent events I may not get to see as much, so I thought I might start a little cyberspace hang out of my own. The coffee shop is a favorite place of mine to sit and chat with friends, read, reflect, and let my thoughts be stimulated by all those wonderful aromas and all that java going in. If you are a fellow coffee shop pilgrim, or just a pilgrim trekking through life, then I hope you'll stop by, so the good stuff between friends can keep percolating!

my first blog

This is my first time to blog. I'm not really sure yet what I want this to become, but much like life I'm sure it will evolve and reflect who I am becoming...