A Life Hack Post

I don't know about you, but I've seen a lot of lists shared across Facebook and the rest of the internet sharing various "Life Hacks" or "Things Everyone Needs to Stop/Start Doing" or "Ways to Be Happy." While some of these posts actually have some pretty worthwhile and notable things to say, I would say that I find the majority of them to be pretty discouraging and disappointing. Some of them actually seem have a pretty rebellious or hostile tone to them as if their goal is not to help people learn how to be content but instead help them to create excuses and establish an emotional ventilation system designed to justify personal flaws.

Perhaps I am being too harsh, and maybe I'm just reading a more negative tone into them than is meant by the post's authors, but in any case, thinking about these lists and a few recent posts I've seen on Facebook over the last few days have given me incentive to fashion my own list of "Life Hacks." Within the depths of this post you will find a list of things that I think most people would benefit from doing/thinking more, and I include my self in that. I do not maintain the same kinds of standards I am about to put forward by any means, but they are the kinds of standards and goals that I strive toward and my best days are the ones where I stick to my guns and the kinds of ideals you'll find below.

Now, the single most significant, beneficial, and life changing life hack that I can recommend to anyone would be that they become involved in a conservative church (preferably a confessional Lutheran one), and I honestly believe that a great deal of the frustrations, complications, and troubling questions we face in life can be eased and even eliminated by belonging to the confessional Faith. However, I have a feeling that those of you in my audience who might agree with me on that already know and believe that particular observation, and those of you who would be more inclined to disagree with me on that point are not likely to be swayed through the ramblings of my blog so instead I will focus on a compilation of other observations about life that I have accumulated over the years.

Enjoy.

1) Be an Optimistic Realist 

 Optimism is a great thing, especially when the alternative is pessimism. Life seems significantly more enjoyable if you can look at the bright side of things and believe there is a hope for humanity. At the same time however, we all know that there are a lot of things about our world (and humanity) that are, quite frankly, pretty terrible. People do stupid things. We do stupid things. Time runs out, resources run out, patience runs out.... lots of stuff runs out. So, my solution for dealing with unfortunate complications and obstacles in life is to approach them with a sense of optimistic realism. Have ideals, believe that their is something good worth striving for, trust that there is hope for successes, but temper your enthusiasm with a realistic understanding of what kind of constraints you must operate within. Know your limitations, and know that there is also a chance for failure.

Another way of putting it would be this: Have ideals and strive for them, but keep your head out of the clouds and your feet on the ground.

2) Anticipate Pleasure Not Pain 

Life becomes really unpleasant if you assume the worst of people and going around expecting bad things to happen. If you operate under the assumption that others are going think poorly of you, will judge you for your actions/appearance/personality, or simply do stupid thinks, you're going to live in a perpetually miserable state of existence. Yeah, I know there are going to be plenty of people who unjustly judge you for doing things you are perfectly entitled to do, and I know that isn't fair, but until it happens you really don't need to worry about. Honestly, you don't really need to worry about it when it does happen. Formulating comebacks in your head, and memorizing retorts to throw back at people who make nasty comments is actually pretty nasty in and of itself.

At the same time, if you spend your time expecting something bad to happen, you are going to a lot less inclined to actually enjoy the good things that are happening around you at the same time. If something bad happens it happens, but until it does you should be taking the opportunity to enjoy what you have while you have it. Give others the benefit of the doubt, and take time to smell the roses and I think you'll find yourself being much more content with your lot in life.

"Anticipating pain was like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead?"
- Robbin Hobb

3) Ask More of Yourself than You Ask of Others

There are people who demand too much of themselves, I will acknowledge that. There are also people who spend a lot of their time sacrificing their own well being without asking those around them to contribute their own fair share, and I will also acknowledge that. However, I think we are often too quick to place a much greater value on our own actions and sacrifices than is really reasonable, and undervalue what other people are doing at the same time.

A good leader doesn't ask his followers to do something he isn't willing to do himself, and a good person shouldn't expect others to make up for the slack they're letting loose.

"Once you're perfect you can start criticizing everyone else," my dear not-so-old matriarch always says, and she expresses a very worthwhile and valid mentality. Don't establish standards and expectations for other people until you've actually met, nay surpassed, those standards yourself. It isn't fair, and it isn't going to make you happy, to wait on other people to make things better for you. Push yourself to be the best you can be (and that would be better than you are now, I can guarantee it), and develop a personal sense of responsibility and accountability that doesn't depend on others lifting their own share of the load... because their share of the load in making your life better and happier is pretty minimal. That's not their job. It's yours.

In my experience, people thrive best when standards are set high. Not so high that they have no hope of reaching them, but high enough that they have to stretch their strengths and test themselves. The rush of well earned pride and accomplishment that comes with reaching that bar you thought was beyond you is a lot more satisfying than having someone lift you up the whole way.

I'm not saying we shouldn't help each other, but there is a lot of contentment and satisfaction that comes from self dependency, and I actually think that many people find themselves more inclined to be more generous and sympathetic towards the struggles and challenges of other people when they've had to fight themselves. Once you've climbed the ladder and have an idea of the effort it takes, maybe you'll find yourself more inclined to lean over and help pull the next person up rather than criticize them.

4) Act With Confidence and Humility 

Usually people excel at one or the other, but learning how to be both humble and confident at the same time is an art I have yet to master. It pays to be sure of yourself, move with a purpose, and speak with a surety that demands attention, but it also pays to leave yourself open to learning, tread softly, and listen with the ear of a student. You should express your beliefs and your resolve with confidence and certainty, but you should also be aware of the fact that you have a lot to learn and that other people have things to offer than you could benefit from. Confident humility is at the heart of courtesy, respect, and nobility and it requires a gentle heart and steady head.

In a way, you think of yourself like you would think of one of your children or siblings. Be proud of yourself, your accomplishments, your talents, and your successes, but also be keenly aware of your faults and how far from perfection you still are.

5) Know Your Limits. Push them. 

I think it is very important to know what exactly your limitations are. How much time can you put into something before you exhaust yourself? How long are you able to operate within a social environment before you feel like strangling people? What is the greatest amount you can life? How much pain can you endure? What all can you take on before your efficiency and quality suffers?

These are all questions we should be able to answer about ourselves, and we can only know the answer by testing the extent of our limitations. At the same time however, rarely should we accept our limitations as fixed costs to operate around and accommodate. Always push yourself to move past the very limits you have discovered, and ever strive to become a better and stronger person.

Just do so within reason, and don't kill yourself on the way up.

6) Expect the Best. Prepare for the Worst.

I suppose this is kind of an extension of Optimistic Realism. Expect the best of people, expect the best of your work, and expect the best from others, because that way you will be motivated to make the best possible outcome become a reality. People are a lot happier to work towards a goal if they know you have faith in their ability to reach it (yourself included), and if you go back to the Anticipating Pleasure point, you'll be a lot happier if you expect good things to come.

At the same time, we don't want to be caught emptied handed when the rainy season hits. Have contingent plans in place, set up your safety nets, and have the emergency rations readily available. Most of the time Plan B will never need to become a reality, but when it does, you'll be mighty happy and relieved if Plan B already exists and is on hand, because when the excrement hits the fan you don't have to begin fashioning your helmet.

The zombies apocalypse is never going to happen, but if it did, would you be ready?

7) Know What You Believe

Seems like a pretty silly thing to say, but when someone asks you "Why?" have an answer ready for them. There is not much quite so disconcerting as having someone rocking your boat and realizing you don't know why you're on it to begin with.

Whatever you believe, know why you believe it and be able to tell someone else. If it is really something you think matters then you should probably know why and what it really means.

I've heard this can also be pretty useful in interviews.

8) Learn from Your Past and then Share. 

We all make mistakes... and quite a few of them at that. Hindsight is 20/20 and we can learn pretty quickly that setting that particular thing ablaze wasn't a good idea.

Learn from your mistakes, and don't let your own personal history repeat itself (well.. not the bad parts anyway). Ask yourself why things when downhill when they did, figure out where you went wrong when you did, and actually think about the implications of your past choices. When you do that, you are far more likely to make the better choices in the future (disclaimer: you will still make mistakes. That isn't avoidable).

Once you have learned from your past, and have successfully determined how not to do something, share your newly discovered wisdom with others. When you have children, younger siblings, or younger friends going through life situations you know you personally struggled with a lot, it would be a pretty spectacular idea to share some pro tips and point out the major pitfalls ("See that mark on the floor there? That's where I tripped, fell, and totally destroyed what could have been a long and fruitful relationship.")

You can't erase or eliminate the errors of your past, but the second best thing is helping to make sure that other people don't rack up as many of their own.

9) Have a Plan and then Deviate from it. 

Know where you want to go in life and what you want to do. Draw up a map, mark it with an X, and have a sense of purpose and goals to strive for. It is really hard to cover any ground when you're just flopping around in the dark waiting for something to present itself to you, whereas a great distances can be traversed in remarkable short spaces of time if you know where it is you want to ultimately end up. Always have steps one, two, and three at the forefront of your mind as you face hurdles in your life. Complications and unfortunate circumstances are a lot easier to move past if you have something worth fighting for in mind.

At the same time though, be flexible enough to comfortably deviate from what you had in mind. Know the rules of the engagement, and then find a way to break them beneficially. Not everything is always going to go according to your plan, so prepare yourself early on and don't let yourself get caught unawares and just take the initiative in derailing your own course. Figure out how to take the road least traveled by and still end up where you want to be.

10) Work 

Push yourself, and do something worthwhile with your time. Laziness, procrastination, and sloth may seem like highly appealing and wonderful options from time to time, but when you let them become the predominant and driving factors in your life, you trap yourself in a self-degrading and miserable mindset that you won't be content with forever. No one likes a bum, especially when that bum is yourself. When you don't do what you're supposed to you feel bad and beat yourself up and consequently lose motivation and confidence in yourself. That then leads to failure in some other responsibility that leads to a great drop in motivation and confidence that leads to more failure that leads to a never ending cycle that results in one very bummed out and unhappy camper who isn't even camping because packing a tent is too much effort and sitting on the coach eating chips and drinking beer while watching a soap opera is much more enjoyable anyway...

Work, be active, push yourself, and do contribute to your family, your friends, and your society. It will make you feel better about yourself, and will benefit others in the process.

11) Love 

While you are working, make sure you take the time to dedicate your life and your actions to something. If you don't have someone, or a group of someones, in your life that you love and you are willing to die and sacrifice yourself for, then you are going to run into trouble and run out steam eventually. At some point along the line you will end up asking yourself "Why am I doing this? What's the point? Is it really worth putting in the effort?" and if all you have to draw upon at that point is your own self worth and your own well being you're going to have a hard time carrying on in the face of adversity. If you instead have people that you love and that love you, and that are worth fighting and working for, you will be much better equipped to carry on through the torrential sea of troubles that pound against us through life and suck it up, because there are others counting on you and you would do anything for them. Love makes it worth it.

12) Trust

The last thing I want to suggest to anyone reading this post is that you need to be able to trust people. I'm not suggesting that you naively go out into the world believing that everyone always tells the truth, and that everyone has your back and will help you up if you fall down (because that isn't true), but you have to be able to trust people if you wan to live a happy and fruitful life.

No matter how many times you get tricked, or cheated, or taken advantage of, try not to lose your sense of trust, because once you start questioning everyone's motives, intentions, and reliability, you become like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings.

And no one wants to be like Gollum.

Always have a group of people you can trust, and always put value in the words and promises of others, and on the flip side of that coin, conduct your own words, behavior, and actions in a way worth of another person's trust. Relationships, whether they be romantic, familial, or commercial, can not function properly without trust, and human beings as social creatures can not function properly without relationships.

Professors

*WARNING: This post is full of extensive ramblings and brain spews. You may or may not have aged several years by the time you reach its conclusion.* 

The end of my fourth semester lies only a few weeks out, and junior status is on the near horizon.

At a rate of six classes a semester, and with only one professor overlapping across two different classes, I have studied under a total of twenty-three different professors since beginning my college education. Not all of them have been incredibly memorable, a few of them were less than stellar, but every semester I am amazed at some of the stark differences between some of the educators at my university.

After coming back from a ridiculously short and wintery spring break, the last two days I was particularly intrigued by the way my different profs jumped back into the swing of things (or didn't as the case may be), and since I am severing as a supplemental instructor for a seventh class, I actually got to see seven different approached to an after break return to the routine. Comparing these different approaches, and thinking about the way professors from semesters gone by have done things, I was inspired to write a post about my experiences with college level educators and their varying personalities.

As a disclaimer, I should point out that I'm going to a relatively small school with somewhere between seven and eight thousand students (last I heard), and I'm sure that has some kind of an impact on the type of people you end up getting as professors. I know a lot of the professors at my school are actually adjuncts who have spent their lives working in or training in the field they teach about on the side instead of being indoctrinated PhD's conducting research on the side, but you can just think about that as adding a bit of flavor to the mix. It might also be worthwhile to note that since I was educated by my dear not-so-old mother (and a few close family friends), the number of strictly student-educator relationships I had prior to college is somewhere around 0. My least favorite teacher in middle school happened to also be my favorite and the person who made me supper so I never talked to great lengths with friends about the qualities of my educators up until joining the ranks of the collegiate masses.

Anyway, (I just noticed that the last four paragraphs of the post started with A... I will either need to try and continue this trend through to the end of the post or break it immediately.) when I first came into contact with a half dozen different people whose responsibility it was to fill my brain with useful (ideally) information for sixteen weeks. Since then, I've actually gotten pretty used to the idea of sitting in a desk staring up at a more thoroughly trained and accomplished individual distributing vast(ish) amounts of interesting(ish) information to me from behind a desk or podium. Despite the handful of rebellious professors who attempt to break from the traditional mold and make it harder to adapt by making everyone participate in one kind of communal nonsense or another (like sitting in a circle), there are a lot of things that I can actually predict about the way a class is going to be taught simply because certain trends start popping from one to another.

For example, in a math class you are going to spend something like fifteen minutes (max) on the syllabus and you better be ready to start learning new number stuff the first day whereas your first day of a paper based class is probably going to be devoted to sharing "your name, major, and one interesting fact about yourself" after a roughly 45 minute review of the syllabus. Obviously, there is variation even within those generalization, but I think we all know how enjoyable it is to stereotype things and education styles are no exception.

 The four different math professors I have worked closely with are a good example I think however of the way in which professors and their teaching styles can vary drastically within even a single subject. My first semester I had Professor Bubbly teaching me Finite Mathematics. Finite was a significant class for me for a number of reasons, and Professor Bubbly was a significant professor for essentially the same reasons. It was in the class that I realized that I not only didn't dislike math, but I was actually pretty good at it and found it very enjoyable. A goodly portion of the credit for that revelation is due to Professor Bubbly and they very enthusiastic and energetic way she taught the class. Professor Bubbly is  more interested in making her students happy and interested in her class than almost any other professor I've seen so far. Her smile was infectious and, to be honest, her material was a lot easier than most other professors teaching the same class. I never needed to visit her in her office, but she was constantly encouraging students to stop by and meet with her, and she was one of the most optimistic and pleasant people to talk to you could possibly imagine.

Oh, and she also got me my job with the tutoring center so that's cool.

After Professor Bubbly I had Professor John. Professor John was a great professor, and I found his class very helpful even though about 95% of the material was stuff I either knew already or was able to catch onto in the space of roughly ten minutes (in case I sound like I'm bragging, wait until I talk about my English classes...). Professor Bubbly got her codename because she was a very energetic and enthusiastic, Professor John's codename is just simply his first name because while he was a very good and enjoyable professor, he was also incredibly... uninteresting. That isn't an insult or a criticism at all, and I actually prefer the straightforward, black and white approach to learning math so I thought he was awesome, but he was definitely one of the more monotone and flat professors I've had. He wore a plaid button up shirt or a polo with some kind of lighter color slacks every day, spent the entire class sitting at his desk writing on a piece of paper projected onto a screen, and moving from example problem to example problem. Again, this isn't a criticism at all. I found it great... others did not, and it was an incredible difference compared to Professor Bubbly.

From Professor John's Pre-Calc class I moved onto Professor Coffee's Calculus class. It should be noted that Calculus ranks among my favorite classes taken so far at the college level based on the material alone, and Professor Coffee gets her name simply because every time I see/saw her she has/had a mug of coffee in her hands. Anyway, Professor Coffee was like a cross between Bubbly and John. Professional, kind of quiet, and straightforward, she had the qualities of a math professor that I really appreciate for the subject matter, because I've given the material as it is in a chalkboard to notes to brain fashion that I find very helpful, but she also had an interest in students and in being a friendly/engaging professor that Professor John didn't have in his class. I actually felt kind of bad for Professor Coffee because there were a lot of... lame people in that class. By lame people, I mean people who, for example, flipped over their desk, shouted at her, and stopped out of the room before slamming the door shut behind him because she called him out on copying another person's work. While not everyone in the class went to such extremes, there was a lot of grumbling about her and the class that was totally undeserved simply because some people are incapable of taking the derivative apparently...

The last math professor I've worked with closely actually happens to be my boss. I can't remember if he's come up in any previous posts, but I think his codename is going to Professor Pascal because he really likes that mathematician to the extent that he named his dog after the guy. However, that is besides the point... mostly. Professor Pascal is a pretty stellar boss, and an incredible person to talk to, but strictly from a teaching standpoint, he is an incredibly enthusiastic, energetic, and colorful (quite literally) professor as far as math educators go. Pascal pretty much always wears button up shirts in bright teals, purples, ad blues combined with ties/bowties with exotic and equally colorful patterns on them. I haven't ever been a student of his, but this is the second semester in a row I have served as a supplemental instructor for a class of his. Almost every week students have an in-class exercise that involves using the match concepts from lecture. Some students hate them, others love them, but they involve everything from using graphs to solve logic puzzles to being given a handful of slips of paper with equations/answers on them and trading with other students until all of your slips of paper are connected to each other somehow. Reviews include Jeopardy style mathematics, competitions where you try to eliminate other teams of students by answering enough questions correctly, and trying to come up with the most creative math related team names (like the pi-rates, e^xcalibur, and the x(factor)). While it may sound like more class time is spent goofing off than learning anything, Professor Pascal actually also is one of the most thorough profs I've seen. Working with him, I've actually learned numerous creative ways of solving problems that I never learned elsewhere, and those of his students that actually put the effort in say that he is one of the best educators they've ever had. Truth be told, I think I prefer Professor Coffee and John's more chilled, laid back, and straightforward approaches when I'm on the student end, but at least for those who are not really into math, he seems like just about the perfect fit.

So, four completely different people all teaching essentially the same stuff (just different levels of difficulty and complexity) in extremely different ways. As a naive student registering for classes without any kind of outside recommendation or knowledge of the  Rate My Professor website, it is a total toss up as to what kind of professor you're going to get. You really can't take a math class at my school and just assume you know what kind of a prof you're going to get because, well, they're a math professor. The crazy thing is that I don't think I could even say any of those four professors is that much better or worse than any of the others, because in each class there have been students that loved the way things were run and those that hated it. One professor was perfect for a handful of students while the other would have been much better for the rest, but going in blind and without insider information, how is a student supposed to know which professor they're actually going to learn the most from?

One of the most fascinating things, I think, to look at in a professor is how they take criticism from a class or deal with  problematic situations. I think my English professors (this is the part where I admit to not being a genius), serve as good subjects for consideration when it comes to dealing with obstinate or difficult students.

My first English professor I had during my first semester, and going in I knew I was a terrible writer and would probably struggle in the class. When I got a D back on my first paper though I was utterly distraught and questioned whether there was any good in the world at all... OK, well, no it wasn't that extreme, but it was still pretty terrible. Apparently, however, I was not the only one who received a wake up call after that first paper and my professor position was basically this "Well, I'm sure a lot of you didn't do as well as you would have liked. Something like seven of you got a passing grade on that paper and no one got more than a B, but you know what? That's OK. We're going to move forward from here, we're going to focus on what you all struggled with, and you're going to leave this class being better writers than you were when you wrote this paper." Professor Reallylonglastname was definitely a no nonsense prof who wasn't giving out favors just because you tried hard, but she was actively involved in trying to help out anyone that wanted help. She didn't like whining, but she encouraged students to work with her and gave the impression that success in the class was going to be a team effort between her and the students.

My second English professor, Professor Hellboy (named so for the dozens of Hellboy action figures dotting his office. He could also be named Professor Batman for this reason, but even though I liked him, he still isn't deserving of such an extraordinary title) was not really so big on the team leader and pep talk idea. As I said, Professor Reallylonglastname didn't like whining, but her response to complaints about inability or excuses was something like "Well, how are you going to fix that? You need to find a way to take care of it, because that won't excuse you in the end." Professor Hellboy's approach to whining was more like "Suck it up, and actually do the work. I'm not listening." Now, he was perfectly willing to work with students if they came to him with legitimate concerns or questions (I found working with him one on one very helpful), but he didn't see it as his responsibility in the slightest to work with a student who made any attempts to push their work off onto him. After the first paper when most of the class got a failing grade (not including me thankfully), instead of giving a speech about how we were going to make it through the semester his speech had more of the tone "Y'all need to get your act together, and actually follow the instructions or you're going to fail this class. If you need help, ask, but you just gave yourself a lot more work."

I learned a lot from both of my first year English professors, but they were extremely different people with extremely different views about how to deal with difficulties or challenges in class. One felt like it was her job, as the prof, to lead the way and carry the class as far as possible as long as we did the work, and the other felt like it was his job to provide the tools necessary and then to point out mistakes when they were made. "Students float to the bar you set. I believe that, and I practice that." he said during one class.

Then my third English professor, Professor Italy, who taught business writing instead of gen-ed writing, was completely an oddball... and I say that in the most affectionate way possible. She was, quite honestly, the strangest professor I have had. Every class began with "Hello people!" in her thick Italian accent, and when we, as a class overall, didn't perform well her reaction was something like: *chuckle* "You guys have no idea what you're doing. Hopefully you'll figure out before you hand in your final drafts." Saying she made an effort to remove people's training wheels and get them off on their own is an understatement. I think her goal was more along the lines of "puncture everyone's tires, and steel the handlebars and then let them go off on their own." Maybe that's an exaggeration, but she told us numerous times that she made things more confusing and difficult than they needed to be, because she wanted us to learn how to be problem solver and creative thinkers as much as she wanted to know how to write a Resume. Go figure.

I actually learned a lot from her too, but she just showed another example of the way that professor see their role in the education of their students. Are they team leaders? Are the supervisors? Or are they the people setting the obstacle course and standing on the sidelines laughing manically as we attempt to navigate a maze full of Will'O the Wisps?

As I get ready to make the transition from gen-eds and pre business-core classes to 300 and 400 level concentration classes and try to think about what kinds of professors I want to see next year, I have realized that I can't really pin down a particular teaching style that I like the most or a "kind" of professor that I want to see. What I want, more generally speaking though, is a professor who is clear and thorough, but also blunt. I want a professor who lays the groundwork and hands me the tools to do what I need to, but then actually forces me to learn how to use those tools and put things together myself. I want my professors to be honest, and I want them to communicate well (preferably quickly) about grades, changes in schedules, upcoming tests, quizzes, etc. and professors who are tough but who don't look for ways to complicate things unnecessarily.

The vast majority of my professors have been good ones if not great ones. Most of them I don't have any great complains about, and I count myself blessed because of that. I know plenty of my classmates wouldn't say the same, and I don't take for granted the fact that I'm learning from some pretty smart and talented people, but they certainly have been pretty different and varied people as well.

The main reason I was prompted to write this post was because I found over the last two days that a couple of my professors actually had pretty terrible spring breaks, and they broke that news to my classes in different ways. My own professor's great-grandfather died toward the end of break after she spent most of our time off in the hospital with her sister who is fighting her third bout of blood cancer and was in critical condition for almost the entirety of last week. This professor, had us all sit in a circle yesterday when we came back and explained to use all what was happening with her family, and she actually was really blunt and honest with us, but in a way that made me feel like she didn't see herself as just our instructor but as a friend to us as well. She told us some details about the extent of the danger associated with her sister's illness that I wouldn't typically expect someone to share with a person outside of a close group of friends. I could tell it was an emotional discussion for her, and she asked us all to bare with her as we finish out the semester and promise she'd do her best.

Another one of my professors informed us today that his mother had a stroke over break and is expected to pass away at any time now. He also delivered this news very bluntly, but he delivered it in a very matter-of-fact, this is way things are way. I can't exactly articulate the major difference between the two announcements, but I sense a kind of guardedness and reservation about my professor today as he shared news that was clearly difficult and painful for him. His announcement was short, professional, and for the sake of letting us know why our papers were not graded instead of for the sake of keeping us in the loop about what was going on with his life.


Hearing these announcements from my profs over the last two days was helpful in reminding me that they are people too, and that in the same way that professors differ in their teaching style and education methods, they also differ in what's going on in their lives, how they deal stress and life problems, and who they are emotionally and mentally. As Professor Pascal says quite frequently "People are complex beings," and professors are included in that.

So as I look forward to the upcoming classes and semester I have left to finish out this whole college thing, I would like to see a lot of things in my future professors, but I know they'll all be different and that I'll like and dislike things about all of them.

Mostly though, I think the best thing I can get in a professor is a personality that cares.

Even though they were delivered in very different ways, both of my professors with grave announcements this week clearly cared, and not just about their family members struggling, but about their class and the way they personal struggles were going to impact us.

When it comes down to it, I can teach myself just about anything I need to, the internet is a wonderful place after all, but college is a heck of a lot more enjoyable when you professors actually care.

Pax

Goodbyes

I don't typically consider myself to be a sentimental person.

It isn't very often that I get emotionally attached to a physical object or place. A few of the mementos of my grandfather's (including a cuckoo cluck) would be a notable exception, but even when I do develop a fondness for an object, that fondness doesn't typically extend to any great remorse if it goes missing.

Stuff and places... they will all deteriorate and disappear in the end. A lot of them will get lost or ruined before too long anyway.

People, on the other hand, are different. I get emotionally attached to people fairly easily.

My older brother has been living about an hour and a half away for the past two and a half years as he worked towards the completion of his Master's degree. He and his wife (and within the last year and a half) his daughter have come to visit almost weekly during that entire expanse of time, but this last December he completed his formal education at long last, and just earlier today, he and his little family began their journey south to Texas, the original homeland of my sister-in-law, where they will be living for the foreseeable future. As they look forward to a twenty plus hour drive, I cannot help but look back at the last three... no... twenty years with more than a little sentimentality.

My big brother, Zach, is one of the best men God has ever given me the honor of knowing. A dedicated husband and father, a diligent worker and recent graduate with something like a 3.9 GPA in his Graduate studies after a solid 4.0 in his undergrad, Zach has actually been setting an astounding example for me long before he ever even moved out of the house. Even back years and years ago when he would lead the way into all kinds of mischief and naughtiness, he was still laying the groundwork for the kind of man I wanted to be when I grew up.

That hasn't changed since.

We don't always see eye to eye, and while I disagreements haven't ended in him picking me up and flinging me onto the couch any time in the last several years, there have still been plenty of times when we've gotten frustrated and upset with each other. However, I have to admit that the vast majority of the time, my brother's irritation with me was well deserved, and his often gently delivered reprimands have hit home more than once in a way that yet against has helped to fashion and direct the way I am trying to shape my own life.

I'm not a very sentimental person generally speaking, but right now sentimentality is turning this posts into one of the shortest I've written.

You were my first friend Zach, and you are my best. Saying goodbye to you and your little family this evening was even harder than I could have predicted. Thank you for everything that you have taught me, thank for you for setting such an amazing example of what a brother, a husband, and a father should be like. Today was a reminder that I have a lot of little brothers with whom I am still living and for whom I haven't set nearly as high a standard as you set me, and hopefully I'll take that reminder to heart.

I'm not a very sentimental person, but goodbyes still make me cry.

Love you Broski.

The Cinematic Commentary

Recently I've been doing some thinking about movies.

Last week I introduced a friend to Iron Man for the first time, the new Disney movie Frozen and the slightly less new Tangled have been pretty big topics of conversation among my social circle, and my Sociology class is putting an emphasis both on the general commentary of film and the Hunger Games in particular. These four rather different films don't really have anything particular in common, but movies in general have been floating around in my head, and since I know the readers of this blog just wait with baited breath between my posts, I thought I would share these mental meanderings with all of you.

Also, my university closed today in light of the weather so I can actually justify taking the time to write something.

While my Sociology professor and I have some pretty significant variations in opinion on some pretty fundamentally important issues, we both agree that movies all have an overarching commentary that goes beyond the story displayed to viewers at face value. In some situations, like in Avatar this commentary is pretty frank and obvious, but in other movies the purpose or message behind a film is pretty subtle. In movies like Iron Man, Frozen, and Tangled that seem to exist solely for the sake of entertaining a target audience (albeit pretty different ones) and reaping the financial rewards, underlying political, social, religious, and ethical messages don't necessarily seem entirely obvious or prevalent. Still though, I would argue that even movies that seem to center entirely around thematic adventures and explosions (like Avengers) there are ideas and opinions being expressed and a story being told that goes beyond aliens invading the city of New York.

I think this stems largely from the fact that movies are made by human beings, and when people create a form of art, to some extent they put their beliefs and worldviews into what they are creating. When we watch a film, even one without a story based on political opinion, I think we are given a glimpse into the opinions and beliefs of that films creator even if we can't predict them with absolute certainty, and I would also argue that there is almost always something that a film's creator intends for their audience to get out of their film.

As I go through rehearsals for this production I am going to be in at my university, I am developing and watching my fellow cast members develop back-stories to their characters, and I am hearing my director paint a picture of the kind of world in which our theatrically presented story is supposed to exist. Many of these details will very likely be completely missed by our audience; certainly they are not expressed in the script itself, but they form a background commentary surrounding the main story of the play that our director and our cast is hoping our audience will perceive.

This whole idea of subtle, opinionated messages being presented to use under the guise of harmless children and action films poses some of the same kinds of risks I mentioned in my past blog post about music and the kind of subconscious impact that songs have on us and our emotions. It can be kinda scary to think that everything we watch, and our children watch, is attempting to fashion a worldview for them through cinematic entertainment, but I don't think it is actually that hard to look anything from Sponge Bob and Happy Feet to Man of Steel and The Long Ranger and see that the movies we watch are all putting forward some kind of worldview or another.

The argument that stems from this observation is that we have to be  on guard when we watch films and let children watch films to make sure that what they/we are watching isn't attempting to teach them/us false ideas about politics, religion, social roles, and the reality in general. There is a great deal of merit, I think, to this idea in so far as it extends to teaching ourselves to actually think about what we see and hear before simply absorbing it and tucking it away into the back our heads to sit and grow, but the question I ask is: How do we actually absorb the messages we are being presented with?

I would like to believe that humanity, in general, is capable of rationally thinking about the world around them such that they are able to form intelligent decisions about how things really work without just accepting the worldviews and opinions being spoon fed to us through any kind of medium (film or otherwise). While I know it is impractical to assume that everybody actually thinks about an opinion before accepting or rejecting it, it would be foolish to suggest that even children are incapable of forming their own opinions of the films and books being presented to them beyond those intended by the author.

I have had discussions with friends of mine in the past about whether or not the intent of an art creator is the "correct" reading of that art and whether or not interpretation is entirely up to the viewer once the creator has released their work to the world at large. While I definitely think that is worthwhile to think about what a director or writer might have been thinking when fashioning their creation and about what they hoped to express, I think it is also true everyone is going to see films differently because they are going to be seeing them through a lens fashioned by their own beliefs and life experiences.

You car fight over whether or not your reading of a movie is correct, but I think we are faced with either deciding that A) there is not correct interpretation of any particular piece of art or B) the correct interpretation is the one intended by the original creator. You can likely make a good argument for either one of these stances if you try, but I don't see how you could fashion a reasonable argument around the opinion that really know what a movie is about unless are the originator of that movie, and even then your stance is up for debate.

Where am I going with this?

Wait until I finish writing and then maybe I can tell you.

So far I've proposed that all movies have some kind behind the scenes meaning being delivered, and that the meaning people are going to get out of a movie is likely to differ from person to person. If everyone is going to view a movie differently, why bother worrying about the message being presented?

Well, every movie is a piece of fiction. Even if they are "based on a true story" or a documentary, they are fashioned and constructed by individuals to serve as some kind of representation or depiction of  reality with fictional qualities. Unless we are talking about raw, unedited footage of real events not being manipulated by the one taking the film, every movie has some kind of a fictional aspect to it. Sometimes those fictional elements are really obvious (we all know New York was not really destroyed by Loki and his army alien warriors, and I am pretty confident when I say that the Hunger Games never really happened), but sometimes they aren't.

When it comes to analyzing a film and paying attention to what matters in it, I think it is a lot more important to look at how people carry out basic conversation and generally treat others than it is to dissect the climax and overall plot, because while we aren't likely to start believing in Batman's existence from film, the way that Batman behaves and the way he makes decisions are works of fiction that can easily work their way into our own day to day thoughts and behaviors.

In in a lot of movies, particularly the kind that I think my peers and those younger than I watch, it is easy to view the film for the flashy elements and entertainment factors without considering the basic views of humanity, dignity, integrity, family, and community being displayed.

When you want to seriously consider the value of a movie, look at the way that men treat women, women treat men, parents treat their children, and children react to their parents. Look at moral justifications that the villains and heroes use to explain their actions, and look at the kinds of words and actions that are deemed permissible and the ones that shunned. These are the kinds of things that play a significant part in the development of the characters we are watching on screen, but they are also the kinds of things that are easy to gloss over and absorb unconsciously in light of the grander actions occurring on screen. Ever young boy wants to be a hero like Batman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Superman, but when the costumes come off and they aren't saving the world, what kind of person are those heroes really? Every little girl has her favorite Disney princess, but if you put a princess's personality into a real world context, what kind of a woman are they really?

In every film there are people we are supposed to love, and people we are supposed to hate because of what they do in the course of advancing the plot, but taken out of that context, are they really people deserving our support or contempt?

Maybe they don't seem like important questions (it is all fiction after all!), but I think they are the questions worth considering; especially when young people still forming opinions about themselves, human interaction, and their roles in the world watch the movies. Even though they are fictional relationships, the relationships that people in movies have with each other are still going to have impression on us, and I think they are actually more influential the more we disregard them as being nothing more than make believe.

It is from fiction that we often derive some of greatest heroes, especially as children, and so I think it is important for us to understand what fiction is trying to tell us and what we are actually seeing, because every movie is has commentary that is going to keep running through our heads after we're done seeing it. The question is whether or not we let the movie create that commentary for us, or if we make one of our own.

I know that all of that probably came out as a scrambled discombobulation of random ideas, but such is usually the way I end up thinking. I do typically feel pretty bad when I finish writing a blog post, and look back to an almost impossible trail of thoughts that could probably be summed up in one or two sentences.

In any case, thanks for reading and think about whether or not Tony Stark is really a hero.

Pax

For All the World's a Stage...

...And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts. 

~ William Shakespeare

I wrote a post last semester about trespassing into an entirely new world within the realm of the university when I auditioned for production theatrical in nature at my school. Well, while I didn't initially make it into the cast, someone fell through, and I found out the final week of classes lass semester that I had been accepted into the thespian inclined ranks of college actors. Now, after three nights of rehearsing with people I will likely see as much or more than my own family over the next month, I feel like I have enough material to write the next post documenting my artistic adventures. 

Monday of this week was not only the first day of classes, but it was also the first day of rehearsal. Tentatively I walked through the door of the "conference room" for the arts department and entered into a faction of the university previously shrouded in mystery for me. 

Now, I can't remember whether or not I've mentioned this before in any of my posts, but I'm an accounting major. I do know I've mentioned that I work in the math tutoring center as well. Neither math nor business are subjects typically associated with the filed of acting as far as I am aware, so I expected going into this that I would be goose among ducks so to speak, and after the first rehearsal my suspicions were confirmed. Everyone else in the cast just so happens to actually be an acting major or minor. I'm the only one on the team crazy enough to attempt this without planning to make a career out of it. 

Fortunately, through working in the university box office as an usher, and through attending the audition workshop last year, there were several people in the crowd that I had at least met before so sitting down at the conference table wasn't as bad as it could have been. However, I still felt a little bit uneasy and like I didn't belong, not necessarily because anyone was making me feel that way, but precisely because everyone else carried on "normally," continued their conversations, and barely reacted (if they reacted at all) to my entrance. Perhaps I am too vain, but I was expecting at least some acknowledgement of the fact that I had suddenly walked in on a group of people who had almost all been through the entire rehearsal to performance cycle with each other before. 

Honestly, I felt a little bit like an intruder, but one that nobody particularly minded being there. 

Thankfully however, I'm quite the extrovert and I hold the philosophy that if you want to be part of a group, you interject yourself and make yourself part of it. I arrived about half an hour early, and by the time we officially started, I had exchanged a few words and names with the gents around me, and had at least established who I was and why the heck I was there. Also, someone needed  a highlighter and I'd brought one, so they declared I was the hero of the night. 

The first half an hour or so of "rehearsal" was dedicated to a presentation by all of our tech people where we got to see concept art for costumes, the set, and lighting. I don't think I'm technically supposed to divulge any of the secrets about our non-traditional setting for the play, (oh, I think I forgot to mention that we're doing a watered down version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to be performed for local grade school children.... I'll just insert that here in the middle of another thought.) so I won't give away and secrets about my costume or what kind of scenery we'll have, but I got to find out all of that Monday night. 

Once our tech crew disbanded and fled into the night, we got to do what every college student becomes a master at doing after their first week of classes. We went around in a circle introducing ourselves and sharing an interesting fact or two about our lives. As I usually do, I threw out my typical "shocker" facts and told everyone I had been homeschooled and was the third oldest in a family of ten kids. The guy next to me immediately asked if I was amish, to which I replied in the negative. 

"Are you sure you aren't amish? With a name like Nicholai and a family that big..." 

Once again, I assured him that I was not a member of the amish faction, and we proceeded around the table to finish out intros. One of my fellow actresses can cluck frighteningly like a chicken. 

Following intros we read through the script, and disbanded until the following night. 

After that first night I had established a couple of things. (1) I was going to be able to do this. (2) The people I am working with a extremely different from me. (3) The fact that we are a "Children's Play" does not mean the behind the scenes work is "Children's" by any stretch of the imagination. (4) I can handle 2 and 3... probably. (5) This is going to be a worthwhile experience, that I won't regret... probably. 

(1) was mostly certainly not something I was certain about even when I initially chose to take a stab at auditions. After initially being rejected... er... turned down, I thought it was quite likely for the best considering all the other obligations I had volunteered for. As I have already mentioned, I felt a little bit like I was trespassing into a world that I didn't particularly belong in, but while I did determine that theater would not at all be the place for me long term, I am pretty confident that I have what it takes to get through four months of it and enjoy it while doing so. 

I mean, I signed up for this because I enjoy acting and like the prospect of performing for 6000+ kids in a week so it isn't like I'm dreading it at all. 

Now, I can't say that (2) and (3) were really that much of a surprise, but they were kind of a disappointment. It cannot be said that I've found a terribly large number of like minded souls within the walls of my university, so I wasn't expecting to find my doppelganger among the ranks of theater majors, but I was hoping to at least find something that I could latch unto that would give me a connection to these folks. As it is, I think we'll just have to stick to the fact that we're all in this play, enjoy theater, and are working towards a common goal. To be fair, those are all pretty significant factors, I just doubt that we're going to remain bosom friends after the curtain comes down. 

A sad truth, but one that I'll live through and learn from. 

I mentioned (5) because I definitely don't want to give anyone the impression that I am rethinking the wisdom of my decision to audition and accept me role. This is something that I truly want to do, and it is something that I will benefit from greatly. It is another door for me to put a foot in, and another skill to acquire. It opens the window into another world for me to learn how to understand and appreciate even if I never become part of it. Honestly, when it comes down to it, this whole experience is going to have the same love hate relationship I have with my entire college experience. Why? Because while I can't stand the controversy and the nagging sense of isolation, I can't help loving it at the same time. 

The past two nights we worked on blocking the first two thirds of the play. Because we have to perform two back to back shows every morning for a week, the whole thing can only run 50 minutes so blocking one of the three parts only takes one practice (which is good, because we only have three weeks of practices). I have a pretty minor role with very few lines, so I haven't actually had to stay for the entirety of a rehearsal yet, but both practices have been quite the learning experience. 

We have started, and will continue to start, with a variety of warm ups including saying tongue twisters as fast as we can, doing lip trills, and passing "BA's!" back and forth to each other in a circle. As of right now, I am terrible at tongue twisters, but I have requested a list of the most commonly used ones from my directory and plan to rectify that situation before all is done and over with. I don't like being the worst in a group at something, so even when I have no hope of actually succeeding, I will always do my best to rise above whatever is standing between me and my actually displaying some sort of talent. 

After warm ups, we headed straight into blocking which turns out to be a process very similar to that introduced to me by the Duchess in my past theatrical experiences, only she didn't curse to demonstrate the types of emotions we were supposed to be displaying during those practices. (Thank you Duchess Olivia for your composure.) I have established my character as the moron of the group that falls down when able and doesn't have a clue of what's ever going on. (Acting becomes really easy when you just have to be yourself!) 

I enjoy it the most when I have an assigned task to perform, because when I don't... well... I'm left with still trying to establish where I belong among my fellow cast members. 

Right now, I feel kind of like a spider inching onto a web other than its own and uncertain about the strength and nature of the territory it is infringing upon. Every step of the way I'm testing the durability of the string upon which I am attempting to walk. At times the tension seems palpable and I feel like it a very thin thread indeed. At times I start to feel like I am almost settling in and figuring out what role I am supposed to operate within, and then something disturbs the web and I get a flash of... not hostility... but resistance. The temperament of my fellow cast is certainly more open than most of my classmates, but it is not that of my good friends. In my testing and tip-toeing about I have already seen glimpses or personalities that would not appreciate me settling into the personality I adopt for when I dwell among my closest peers. 

Obviously, we're still in the early stages of everything, and time will probably allow me to get a better sense of what I'm supposed to be doing and who I'm supposed to be, but I've set myself up to be the one spearheading the group as much as possible in the last few years and I haven't had experience with really being at the bottom of the pecking order since ye olde brother of mine moved out and I started forming friendships of my own instead of trying to tag along for the ride whenever he did something with his pals. I can't say it is a position I feel entirely comfortable in, and yet I acknowledge it is a role I need to learn how to handle. 

There is a lot of motivational propaganda that floats about, especially on the internet, these days about staying true to yourself and not trying to be what other people want you to be, and to a certain extent I will raise my glass to such a mantra, but it is also true that I admittedly have a variety of masks that I wear depending on my social surrounding. Shakespeare is entirely right when he says that the world is a stage and that a man plays many parts. 

My role changes depending on those who around me, and where I am, and I adjust as necessary to meet the requirements of the present day. I am one person around me family, another around my classmates, yet another at work, and again another with my friends. Now I am fashioning a new mask for a new role in the world of university theater. I don't think any one of these Nick's is the "true one" but rather each is a reflection of one aspect of my personality or another that I choose to show based on what's going on at the time. 

It seems ironic that I would have such a hard time determining my role and learning how to play my part among actors. 

I think the greatest challenge for me, and honestly the one I am looking forward to the most, is not going to be getting on stage and delivering my lines to hundreds of people. Instead it is going to be figuring out how to operate in a new world among new people, and if I am successful, that is a skill that I can be proud of and that I can apply to every day of my life from here onward. 

Because that's the big question isn't it? 

What's my part? Or if you prefer, what's my vocation? 

What role must I play? 

Who am I supposed to be? Here. Now. In this time, in this place, and with these people. 

All the men and women are merely players, and in our time we have our exists and our entrances. In my time I shall play many parts, and they shall all be mine, and I shall make them the best parts they could possibly be. This whole experience with my school's theater department and this play are an opportunity for me to once again find my place, my identity, and my role within a part of society. A new facet of my vocation has been unearthed, and another part has been given me. 

What about you? What's your part? What's your vocation? 

This world is full of a lot of thin webs to walk upon, but you'll never really know yourself until you take a step out there and take the plunge. 

Think on that. 

I know I do. 

Pax

Some Self-Reflection and a Glance Forward

I am deeply flawed person.

It probably wouldn't take someone long to come up with a list of my more glaringly obvious faults and failings. My family will tell you that I have a quick temper and a moody disposition at times. I'm sure my friends would happily tell you about my tendency to ramble and monopolize conversation, and even my classmates who typically go an entire semester without really getting to know me at all, could probably give you an idea of my overbearing and pompous personality traits. Not even those closest to me, however, have ever had the chance to actually look into my head or heart and see my most painful and crippling flaws.

Yeah, there are a lot of things wrong with me.

I'm impatient, nosy, inconsiderate, insensitive, and pushy. I spend far too little time thinking about how my words and actions will impact others, and that's usually because I'm too busy trying to figure out how to satisfy my own selfish appetites. I disregard the concerns and feelings of others when I don't think they really make any sense, or when they appear frivolous to me. Too often I fall pray to those mood swings that are always looming over me, and "Oh poor me." far too frequently becomes the chant of my mind if not my lips.

The list of things that are wrong with me is so long I can't even comprehend it.

Trying to come up with a list of New Year's resolutions is an overwhelming task, and as I look back on the past year in an attempt to take tally of the things I would like to change about myself, I am nigh overwhelmed by the terrifying weight of all the mistakes I have made and the injuries I have caused. In fact, I put into mind of a particular song from a particular musical that I fell in love with just last year.

"What have I done?
Sweet Jesus, what have I done?
Become a thief in the night
Become a dog on the run
And have I fallen so far
And is the hour so late
That nothing remains but the cry of my hate?" 

The cry of a man finally forced to face all of the wrong he has committed in his life, and nearly driven mad by the crushing, and unrelenting force that is the truth.

We deserve to die.

Like Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, every last one of us will one way or another be forced to face the fact that we are despicable, fallen, and failing sinners who deserve naught but death. Like Jean Valjean, I look back at some of my words and actions from the last year, heck even the last month, and I can only ask "What have I done? Sweet Jesus what I done?"

However, like Jean Valjean, I am not left to my own devices and doomed to face the consequences of becoming a thief in the night and a dog on the run. Despite all that he has done, Valjean finds forgiveness in Christ and the church. Despite the fact that he is faced with many, many years of hatred and wrong doing lying in his past, he at last recognizes and receives a forgiveness for all the wrong that frees him from what he describes as the whirlpool of his sin, and moves forward to become not only a better man, but a good man. Jean Valjean becomes a man who ends up dedicating his life, and in the end sacrificing it, to care for and raise a young girl to whom he is not related and to whom he legally and realistically owes nothing.

Why?

Because in being freed from the chains of guilt that plagued him, he was freed to live beyond his own failings for the sake others. Not by his own worthiness and strength, but by the worthiness and strength of the one who bought and paid for his faults, was Jean Valjean able to become a new man, a good man.

As I look back across 2013 and forward to the rest of 2014, I can only thank God that I too have be given the opportunity to be a new man, a good man, and that despite the fact that I day after day add to the list of mistakes I have made, every day I am forgiven and in that forgiveness I made a new man again.

2013 was a big year for me in a lot of ways and on a lot of levels. I made a lot of ground in both work and school. I got a driver's license and "inherited" a car. I was blessed with the opportunity to take numerous trips to visit numerous friends, and got to spend close to two fulls weeks with my lovely sister and her family from across the country. A lot happened to me as a person as well though, and I feel like passing classes and getting jobs pale in comparison to some of the lessons I've learned since January 2013. At last I was able to lay to rest some old demons that had been haunting me for some time, and with that came the opening of news doors that will hopefully carry me on to many different, and significantly better places.

More than anything else, I feel much more content than I did this time a year ago. I spent quite a bit of time in early 2013 feeling very anxious, frustrated, and restless with myself, my situation in life, where I was headed, and how fast I was getting there. I actually kind of enjoyed it when school and work were all consuming because it mean I wasn't wasting my time worrying about other things. There were loose ends from 2012 I didn't know how to take care of, and I was afraid of what the rest of the year was going to bring. I wasn't entirely confident with the path I had chosen for a degree and education, but mostly that was because I didn't know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do with it. I was, quite simply, restless. I was struggling to redefine my identity  and what I wanted out of life, and it was driving me up the wall.

I don't feel any of that now.

As I get ready to take on 2014 when it really hits me in full force on Monday with the return of work and school, I am looking forward to the next twelve months with an optimist and enthusiasm that was definitely lacking toward the end of my winter break last year. The kind internal anguish and confusion that plagues Jean Valjean in his soliloquy, and that ranged in my own mind at various times in the last few years isn't there anymore. I feel like I new man, made new by the New Man over the past months by my friends and family who have helped me to grow and change into a better person daily, despite all those painful and shameful errors ingrained within me I mentioned earlier.

A year ago I felt like I was missing a purpose or a path to follow, but this year I have wind in my sails and something driving me. True, true, I will hit a lot of bumps in the road and you will no doubt find me complaining and whining every now and then, because my flaws aren't ever going to completely go away, but that's part of life.

2013 was a big year for me. During the twelve months it encompassed I grew a lot.

God willing, 2014 is going to be another big year, and my resolution from here on out is to keep growing, and to use my faults and failings as a starting point.

The process has already begun, really it began a little over nineteen years ago when I was first born, but in recent months I've finally gotten comfortable with embracing that fact, the fact that life is always going to consist of growing, and dieing, and being born again as a new man in the New Man. I don't necessarily need a firm destination set in place every step of the way, I don't necessarily need to be guaranteed success, and I don't have to be perfect, not on my own.

I'll make a lot of mistakes this year, and I want to apologize in advanced to all the people I'm going to hurt, offend, and upset unfairly, because I know that I will do that quite often. 

I am deeply flawed person.

Until the last day, I will continue to be so, but everyday I am also a new man, bought and paid for by the body and blood of our Lord and washed white in the blood of the Lamb. I am a deeply flawed person, but that's OK, because in the end even Javert and the Law can't call me guilty when I've been declared forgiven.

Here I stand, I can do no other.

Happy New Year and a Blessed Epiphany to you all,
Pax

The Soliloquy of Jean Valjean

Merry Christmas, Homophobic Hunters, and Overreacting

It is that time of year again folks! That time of year when everyone gathers together with beloved friends and family members to share in a great bounty of loving kindness and generosity. It is that time of year when we strive to think the best of people and treat everyone with fairness and compassion. It is that time of year where nigh everyone is celebrating some Holiday or another, and people are full to bursting with excitement and anticipation. There is so much love, thoughtfulness, and goodwill toward men floating around the air it is almost overwhelming!

Isn't it wonderful how you can go out shopping and jovially wish someone a Merry Christmas just to have them glare at you and return a bitter sounding "Happy Holidays"? I can't tell you how much I love seeing my Facebook news feed exploding with debates over a Louisiana Duck Hunting hillbilly's personal opinions. The best part of those debates though is that they consist of a lot of mud slinging and insulting of the opposition. I mean, I was afraid I was going to start missing all the political warfare and vicious slander from last year's presidential debates, but thankfully Phil's statement seems to have sparked enough controversy to keep that kind of heated "debate" going during this generous and gift giving season.

Ah, can you smell that *deep breath* that's the smell of peace on earth and goodwill toward men; the smell of yet another special season being turned into a battleground for personal grudges and a ravenous desire for controversy.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have some pretty strong feelings about politics and religion (as you've probably seen in my other posts), and I'm not suggesting anyone lay aside their beliefs and look away for the sake of us all just getting along. I am the other of "The Opinion Section" after all, and I hold to the principle that if you believe in something you should fight for it. If you honestly feel like the Duck Dynasty vs. A&E issue is something worth beating to death over the internet through inconsiderate comments about your opponent and whining over the bigotry/hostility of the world then go for it.

Far be it from me to rain on your parade.

What frustrates me is something that everyone in every party of every current debate seems to be guilty of (including myself). People establish a personal opinion on a topic like wishing Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays or on freedom of a TV Celebrity to make a racial slur, and that's all fine and good. It really is a good thing to have an opinion on the issues of the day, but what I find to be utterly ridiculous is how passionately and yet simultaneously irrationally people drive their opinions forward while beating senseless the opposing opinion.

I'm a Christian, I'm a confessional conservative Lutheran who believes that Christmas should be a celebration of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior, and so as we approach the twelve days of Christmas I'm going to happily wish people "Merry Christmas!" because I think that something like the Son of God coming down to earth as an infant human for the sake of growing, living, and dying for the forgiveness of our sins is something worth celebrating and sharing. Maybe you aren't Christian, maybe you don't believe any of that stuff I just said. If you don't we clearly have a pretty major disagreement, but I can respect that. Despite what some people might think, I am not trying to shove my religious beliefs down the throats of every atheist, Jewish, and Islamic person in the world. However, neither am I on a crusade to keep the Christ in CHRISTmas and ensure that the whole world know that the only think worth celebrating and thinking about in the month of December is the birth of our Lord.

See, while I celebrate Christmas the way I do because I am Christian, I am not ignorant of the fact that other people celebrate the month of December for other reasons and I am not not going hold that against them. The Fourth of July isn't a religious holiday and has absolutely nothing to do with my religious beliefs, but I have no problem celebrating that occasion and wishing others a Happy Independence day. If someone from another country (Britain for example) comes to the States and I happen to see them on the 4th of July, and I wish them a Happy Fourth, I am not trying to shove my political stance and beliefs of my nation down their throats and force them to start a revolution in their country for the sake of founding a Democratic Republic. Likewise, if someone wishes me a Happy Holidays or a Happy Hanukkah, I am not going to take offense and rage at them about destroying the meaning of the Christmas season. They are celebrate their own holiday, they are celebrating their own thing and even though that thing isn't my thing, I have no reason to oppose them celebrating. If anything, I should be happy that they have a reason to celebrate! The fact that other people don't celebrate the birth of Christ in no way endangers Christmas or the fate of Christianity itself.

Instead, I will smile and be happy when someone returns my "Merry Christmas" with another "Merry Christmas" because they are someone who is sharing my own joy, but if someone wishes my a "Happy Holidays" or "Happy Hanukkah," I will return the same greeting, because I truly hope that they will enjoy their celebration as much as I will enjoy mine. These greetings are not about taking a side, or forwarding the cause of your particular religion/holiday, but about sharing each others' joy, appreciation, and celebration of the season and everything that is happening. If you are a Christian, there is no reason for you to think that people referring to Christmas as "The Holidays" is going to somehow undo Jesus's birth, and if you are an atheist you shouldn't feel like someone wishing you a "Merry Christmas" is going to result in a god appearing who will inevitably mess up your science.

Just share the spirit of community and happiness that surrounds a holiday, any holiday, and try not to make something that should be a happy occasion into a source of contention and rivalry.

Granted, I am greatly to blame for picking fights where fights aren't necessary and for overreacting to silly things, but I acknowledge that I am acting wrongly, foolishly, and pointlessly when I do that. I achieve nothing, and potentially inure quite a lot.

I think, at the heart of the problem, humanity seems to feel an urge to drift towards conflict and controversy. We aren't really content with the idea of peace on earth and goodwill toward men. I mean, we can't even get along at family holiday gatherings, how are we supposed to get along with the entire rest of the world?!?! If something of a controversial nature springs up you only have to sit back and wait for the masses to spring upon it like ravenous wolves starving for a good bit of juicy controversy. Those people on Facebook who spam their own walls with memes about the same issue over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again almost have to be passing out with giddy excitement when something like the Duck Dynasty issue emerges.  "At last!" they say "I can once again lock myself into mortal combat with the great enemy (insert political or religious affiliation here) and demonstrate my superior intelligence, wisdom, and righteousness by insulting and belittling them till the cows come home!"

Since starting college, I have a much wider variety of political and religious beliefs scattered amongst my Facebook friends. Now, when some "news worthy" event occurs, I get to see both sides of the argument begin to swell within my news feed, and the thing that really saddens me is that I see a very similar approach being taken on both of the sides. Whether or not I agree with them, it seems like everyone is intent to contribute the most shocking and antagonistic posts to their cause for the sake of seeing how people will react and baiting them into an argument. I see blog posts, I see memes, and I see comments that come out of the blue with no rational evidence supporting them that ultimately boil down to "I disagree with you and you are a complete and utter moron for having that opinion of yours."

After the Duck Dynasty controversy started spilling out all over Facebook and I hear multiple variations of the story, I went ahead and looked up what Phil actually said to cause such an uproar. I realized several things as I read the quotes from his interview. 1) Phil is not a very tactful or eloquent person, 2) some of the things he said actually did seem rather offensive 3) I agreed with his overall opinion and 4) the obsession over what he said is entirely unwarranted.

Now, I'm not gay, I'm not black, and I am not supportive of homosexuality by any stretch of the imagination, but homosexual people are still people and I can totally see how the gay community would be offended and irritated by his comments. I can also see how the black community would be fairly miffed, and it seems like his comments about slavery were pretty ignorant (although they certainly didn't seem malicious). What doesn't make sense is how violently people responded to his comments, and how violently people responded to the violent response! I get that if you're gay or you great-grandfather was an abused slave you'd have a bone to pick with Phil, but there is absolutely no reason to get the dude fired and call for his public humiliation and downfall. At the same time, if the liberals are going to go nuts and lose their heads over something as inconsequential as one man's personal opinions (one man who realistically has no power or political influence), then what do you really hope to gain by entering the battlefield guns blazing?

Sure, Phil is entirely entitled to his own personal opinion. Sure, what he said was said in a private interview in response to a question. Sure, his opposition is being hypocritical and unfair because they say just as bad things about red necks and hillbillies, but fighting fire with fire accomplishes nothing and just puts you on the same level as the people you are fighting with (same goes for you liberals). 

I feel like our society, as a whole, has no concept of agreeing to disagree. I feel like everyone is under the impression that not fighting to the death for the truth will resulting that truth no longer being true, when in fact the truth is not dependent on anyone's personal opinion, regardless of how many anyones there are. If you believe that Phil's comments were those of a bigot, and that he sorely misunderstands both slavery and homosexuals, than ignore him as an ignorant and insensitive southern duck hunter and move on with your life assured by the fact that his comments can never change the truth. If you believe that Jesus Christ was both God and Man, born of the Virgin Mary for our sakes, then don't get your knickers in a knot over people celebrating other things because they can't change what Christ has done for you!

There are things worth fighting for. There are things worth dying for.

A person's holiday greeting and the personal opinions of a celebrity don't fall into either of those categories.

We all make mistakes. We all get carried away, and I do so on a daily basis. There is always the temptation to overreact and take up arms, especially for a sensitive issue, but ultimately that isn't excuse. When you are struck, turn the other cheek and rest assured that no earthly prince can ever actually harm you.

I grew up being homeschooled (and I'll never regret that), and in the homeschool community we tend to kind of look down on the publicly educated. I grew up conservative (and I remain that way), and in the conservative community we tend to look down on the liberal. I grew up Christian (and I remain that way), and in the Christian community we tend to look down on every other denomination on top of every non-Christian. I continue to hold onto the values and beliefs I grew up with, but since entering the secular university setting I have realized more that your education, your political stance, and your religious beliefs don't change the fact that you are a human being for whom Christ suffered and died upon the cross, and in a world where we are all sinful human beings wrought with the disease of death, none of us has the right to look down on anyone. All men were created equal under God, and whether or not we disagree with each other doesn't change that.

Next time someone says or does something you don't like, remember that a person's a person no matter how small and everyone deserves your respect regardless of whether or not that deserves you support and consent.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and God Bless.

Pax