Still True: An old entry

I'm taking an ethics course at my community college. It's cheap and interesting. There is one flaw with it though, and it's not so much a flaw in the course as it is a flaw in the people participating in the course. It makes us pretentious. With a little bit of knowledge people will claim to be experts on anything. I know because I've been doing it most of my life. I have a very distinct memory of when I was first playing baseball with my father (I was about 3.5) and I told him in no uncertain terms that I knew more about how to bat than he did. I had received instruction from some player for the L.A. Dodgers that I'd made up on the spot. Now, he knew I was lying, but he also knew that the best way to teach me how and why I was wrong was by attacking the pride that had caused me to lie. He let me prove my ignorance and incompetence by trying to hit his pitches. I failed miserably and was finally humble enough to listen to his instruction. When we are humble enough to admit that we may not actually know everything about everything we are able to learn new things. This is a wonderful moment, this moment of learning. Even more wonderful is when the lessons of humility don't need to be re-learned, merely remembered. It's good not to be embarrassed outside of your own head. It's good to remember that we don't know everything about everything, making us willing to listen to and accept new and different ideas. It is nothing but arrogance to assume we know all about everything, or anything. There is always more to it than we see.

Scary Thought

What if the world ended and no one noticed?
Hang on a second. What I'm proposing is that the doom sayers were right and the end was nigh. Then it came and now we're living in the aftermath. The war is over, the anti-Christ is among us and ruling in his thousand years of misery.
I thought of this earlier today while reading the accounts of a reporter embedded with First Reconnaissance Battalion during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 ("Generation Kill" by Evan Wright). I was reading this and finding this outsider's perspective on me and mine (U.S. Marines) very odd and insightful. During this a comment is made by one of the officers. During the second world war, many Marines hesitated to fire upon the enemy when they first encountered him; they had an aversion to killing that was so deeply ingrained that personal threat could not immediately overcome it. During the Iraq invasion no one hesitated.
That aversion is gone. That seems like a bad sign to me. But maybe I'm just in one of my easily depressed moods.
Enjoy that scary thought.

Fighting Terrorism

We can all agree that terrorism is a bad thing. Most of us know that many middle eastern countries finance terrorism, officially or unofficially. Almost everyone knows that the middle east gets the vast majority of its wealth from its impressive oil reserves. Here's what we can do about it.
We need to change to alternate energy sources. I didn't say, "Invent alternate energy sources," I said, "Change to alternate energy sources." Most of these technologies are ready to go right now. Hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol engines, and the ever unpopular solar power could all be on the next models of car to roll out of the plants with very little conversion. What's more is that we can do all of this and never sacrifice any of our beloved performance. Even switching from gasoline to cleaner and cheaper fossil fuels like propane will help. The faster we can get away from our gasoline dependence the sooner we will remove the terrorists favorite source of funding, mid-east oil money.
For those of you who don't think that is immediate enough, go join the U.S. Marines. We will be glad to welcome you into our ranks (if you're willing to do what needs to be done). When the recruiter asks which M.O.S. you'd like ask for Infantry, Military Police, Combat Arms (tanks, field artillery, amphibious tractors, or anti-aircraft), or Intelligence. Any of these should give you a solid chance to fight terrorists by either killing them directly or by giving information and support to the killers to help them kill more terrorists.
If you are too old or too disabled to join up, then you may want to see about joining a non-military security agency. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and even local police and emergency relief organizations are all looking for more people to help with their expanded responsibilities. If that's not a practical option then do what you can to get our civilization away from our habit of supporting the people that support terrorism. Every dollar in an oil rich nation's hands is one more dollar that may go to terrorists.

Say what you mean, Mean what you say.

When I was in boot camp my Drill Instructors spent a lot of time discussing, instructing, and defining the concepts of honor, honesty, integrity, and duty. The crux of their lessons was to say what you mean and mean what you say, in all times, places and situations lest you bring discredit upon yourself, the United States Marines Corps, and Americans everywhere. I took these lessons to heart and combined them with the honesty that my family and upbringing had already instilled me with.
The benefit is that I say what I mean and everyone who knows me knows that if I say I will do it then I will do everything within my power to do it. When I say I will consider something I actually mean that I will think about the idea and come up with a response. When I say something that something is always the truth as I can best understand and explain it.
The downside is that I expect others to mean what they say. I know people are imperfect and lie, and I often make allowances for it, but if someone asks me a question I do my best to answer the question that they asked. I can't read minds (no, the Corps doesn't issues telepathy) so the only question I know they want me to answer is the one that they ask. The problem with that is that people who aren't me and who don't mean what they say or say what they mean assume that they asked their question so that other people who don't mean what they say would understand it. They may even do so. The problem is that people like myself hear the question that was asked and answer only that question. Then the questioner assumes that the specific answer to a specific question means something else entirely. This is why people should say what they mean and mean what they say.
I had some first hand experience with this when I applied for a job at a local convenience store. They had a "personality profile" that all prospective employees are required to take. I've never taken such a test before. I've taken personality profiles and they were comprehensive examinations consisting of hundreds of questions covering a large variety of subjects and situations. This was a two page, double sided, pamphlet that asked about theft, drinking, marijuana, and tardiness. That was it. It might have been useful if its questions had been worded as generalizations instead of hypotheticals that were correct if there was a single occurrence anywhere within the universe. Needless to say I answered it as honestly and accurately as I could given my lack of omniscience. When the results came back it was recommended that I be re-questioned on almost half the test. This was a 'failing' grade and now I may not get my part-time job.
If they'd asked pertinent or accurate questions they might have learned that I've been in charge of the records and training of 137 Marines; that I've been the immediate supervisor for 12 Marines in all aspects of their training, performance, and monitoring their personal lives; that I have been personally responsible for the maintenance, record keeping, use, and deployment of over 1 million dollars worth of dangerous equipment; and that I did all of this at the same time. They might have learned that I am honest, a hard worker, and willing to do what needs to get done if they had only said what they meant and meant what they said.

Reflections on time and it's effects

I think I've been in love before. I'm not certain, since they all seem to have ended, but I was certain at the time. There have been other girls and women, ones I knew I didn't love in the fullest romantic sense but I did care about them. But the big ones always affected me strongly. I would often write down pieces of rambling emotional stuff inspired by these feelings. Some of it would be pretty stuff about how I was made to care and support another and how that made me always happy, knowing she was around and in my life, even when things went badly. Other parts of it would be dark, grim, violent and scary. Being a pack-rat, I kept all of these writings and almost all other things I've written. Elephants...
Anyway, I was looking on my hard drive and I found a file that I'd made to store this stuff about one of the ladies. It was ... interesting to reread it. (For those of you who are readers, when I say 'interesting' I mean in the old Chinese curse way. You may like it, you may hate it, but it is in no way normal.) I didn't really feel what I had when I'd written it, it was more like hearing an echo of those days. Still, looking back I was impressively coherent and honest about it all. If nothing else, I am pleased by that.
Enough maudlin sentiment for one day. Enjoy your MLK weekends.

Anything you can do ...

I was just listening to some rant about the decline of the North American Great Plains and it suddenly hit me. God is the greatest gardener ever. And I suspect that he's probably a might annoyed with us for messing up his garden as badly as we have. (For those interested, the rant was located in the novel "On the Wing".)
Now I know that many religious folks will read that second sentence and say, "That's exactly what I've been trying to tell you for years!" Maybe they have and I've just been too blinded by my own ego to hear them. Or maybe they had another idea that they tried to express with those words and they got the message wrong. But when I heard how intricate and interdependent the ecosystem of the Great Plains was it occurred to me that no human gardener could plan out such a beautifully self-sustaining system let alone allow it to accept the occasional ravages of herds of buffalo. It had elaborate yet simple systems to deal with insects, grazing, dry seasons, fire, flooding, and every other disaster that nature holds except for human technological advancement. Even more impressive at driving home how well it had been set up was the observation of how much is going wrong now that we have come in and set up our own inferior systems to feed billions with no intention of making it self-sustaining.
It's an amazing thought and I finally see the appeal of the 'dirty hippies.' It seems a tragedy worse than destroying every painting by every artistic master in human history to damage these gardens of our world. They are intricate and beautifully crafted works that should earn our respect and admiration instead of inciting our greed and selfishness.
Maybe when we've all finished growing into the beings we are supposed to be we will all be able to be grateful instead of destructive. And maybe not. Maybe we are the final plague meant to wipe life from the earth. Or maybe we're supposed to preserve and protect all life. An interesting question and I suspect I will never know the answer to it; at least I won't know the answer until after my death when I can no longer use it to influence my decisions.

Woah Boy

Well, I done did it. I've got myself signed up for 13 hours of courses and I expect to have that number up to 16 before my first class starts. That should be an interesting workload. What's worse, I am planning to go to work for a local convenience store part time. Even less time for me to do things not regulated by someone else. That will become the largest amount of regular work since I left the Corps, and truthfully that will surpass most months with the Corps. I doubt it will be as strenuous, though they try to make that up with higher stress levels. I guess I need to do two things to not get stressed by something less than a life or death threat. First, I need to stop procrastinating and start working on things as soon as I can, including making myself sit down and write things long before the due date. Second, I need to plan my time. Two games to run, two or three to play in, 16 hours of classes, unknown hours of job and unknowable hours of homework. Per week. Good thing there are 168 hours in a week. I use 16 for class and lab (well, 18 with that 3 hour lab), and a conservative 32 for homework and that's 50 hours. If I figure 3 or 4 hours per session then that's 12 hours as a player and 12 as GM. 74 hours so far. 8 hours of sleep means 56 hours per week. That's 130 hours. We'll be conservative and say I get about 24 hours of work during the week (three days of 8 hour shifts). 154 hours now spent on school, work and RPing. That leaves 14 hours per week for me and my other stuff. That's 2 hours a day for me. I often spend that much just checking all my webcomics. Still I can handle that, I think. Well, the proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes. We shall see how it all unfolds.

Contradictions

It's strange. I find myself filled with hope for the future. Hope for the successes and pleasures of my life, hope for the joys my children will find in their lives, and the hope that all the things I hate and detest will be swept away by the right and the light.
At the same time I am filled with dread and despair. I am confident that the nation I love, the species I belong to, and the world we all call home will be neutered or destroyed within my lifetime. Dread that within 100 years the ecosystem of my planet will be so ruined that the only hope for survival is something small and far away. That within the next 30 years my nation's economy and freedoms will be nothing more than memory. Dread that my species will crap in our home one too many times and we will all die because of it. Dread that religious fanatics (or 'fundamentalists' as most call themselves) will, in a mistaken attempt to bring about eternal paradise, destroy all the things needed for my hopes to succeed.
It's very confusing inside my head sometimes.

Humility

I think a disclaimer is in order. I am a deeply faithful man. I have faith in a divine being of great power and compassion that loves me and everyone else and wants for all of us to be happy but even more he, she, or it wants all of us (including myself) to become something better than we are, to be whatever we were truly meant to be in all the light and love that he she or it has to shower upon us. Everything else I think is an idea open to change.
I find myself confused by religious fanatics. Most of the ones I've spoken to or have overheard have spoken about the great and unknowable will and plan that the divine has in place for us mortals. That there is a purpose that no human can ever know and a plan that will ensure that all comes out for the best.
So far I can follow that. It seems to make sense and is cohesive.
Then they tell me that they have the way to fit in with this plan, that they can ensure I am always acting in accordance with this plan, that I can always do my part and ensure that everyone else is doing theirs. They can tell me this because they understand the Great and Unknowable plan. The plan that I am too mortal to ever understand and comprehend they know instictively and perfectly.
This always struck me as a perfect example of sinful pride. Believing that one can comprehend something only comprehensible by a divine power is something that I think would piss off a deity. Now this assumes that deities can be pissed (which most religions do) and that they care what we pitiful mortals think and do (which most religions do).
I don't claim to be the model of perfect humility. That would be a hypocritical lie and I am neither a big enough hypocrite nor a big enough liar let alone both to make such a claim. I simply feel that we should all go through life trying to make things better for each other and try to find our own way to God's love and allow everyone else to take that journey in their own way.