20/20

You know how they say hindsight is always 20/20?  Well, for the past week this has been true for me.  A week ago, while trying to find something in the mess I call my room, I stumbled on a letter from the past.  At the time, when I read it, the letter seemed to be about a person in my life struggling with finding a direction in their life.  Something I could definitely relate to seeing as I often have trouble finding a path, but such is the internal battle.  I remember how I felt at that time, feeling concerned for this person, and wishing that in some way I could melt those fears away for them.  I mean, if you saw this letter you would understand that thought that was put into it.  There were bullet points, asterisks and underlines.  This obviously was a deep thought for this individual to put so much passion into it with a pen.  Yes this was a letter written to me specifically, and yes this person is an ex.  No it was not a break up letter.  At least that is what I thought at the time.  This brings us back to that hindsight is 20/20.  But before I continue on with that I suppose it is best to talk about how I view myself.

I was a child of a two working parent household.  I attended a grade school that was 27 miles from my home.  Stayed at an aunts after school and didn't see my friends except for the weekends.  And never really hung out with anyone I went to school with cause I was not around them on the weekends.  I had two best friends through grade school.  At the end of grade school, I became the proud brother of my 4th sibling who was born with some serious medical issues.  At 13 I was learning medial procedures to help care for her so that I could help my parents out.  Then for high school, although it was closer to home, there was no one I had gone to grade school with attending there.  And to top it all off, it was a college prep school so the people that did attend were not all from "the neighborhood" but rather were commuters from a much larger area.  I think it was these experiences that made me into the person I am.  I had two best friends, and what seemed like many acquaintances.  I think that when I call someone a friend I am very loyal to being the best friend I can be for them.  To this day I think that this is the case.  Even though my two best friends have moved on to have families, or jobs that moved them away, whenever they need my help I will drop what I can to be there for them.  And that is how I view my role in a relationship.

My parents have always said that to make a relationship work, you need to communicate.  I know that this can be hard, especially if you love someone.  At least for me it is that way.  When I was wearing those rose colored glasses I did not want to do anything that would hurt the person that means so much to me.  For me that was as simple as always making sure to share any possible plan thoughts with them, and bounce ideas off of them.  And for the first couple of years that was perfect and things seemed to be going swimmingly.  But then things changed for us.  Unexpected forks in the road appeared, and things changed drastically.  But I was still up beat and supportive even though things were a little tighter, and a little more stressful at times.  Then the letter happened, and I will admit, at the time the path seemed to be filled with obstacles, and maybe at times patience would get thin, but it never made me care less about this person in my life, it made me sad that I could not whisk all of her fears away and make things better.  But I was still very much committed to what we had together.  But then the letter happened.  And at that moment, I thought it was her fear that was causing some rocky issues, and I tried to put her mind at ease.  Back to the 20/20 thing again.  And I don't feel that continuing on is necessary here, cause after all, that is not what this is about.

Hindsight is always 20/20, it is a great statement, of course hindsight is always 20/20.  When you know the outcome, you know what you should have done.  I should have played those numbers on the lotto instead of what I played.  Or I should have put money on that game.  Or I should have (enter statement here).  And that damn note just had to pop up and linger in my head all week, didn't it.  As I am sure you have figured out, the end of that relationship was not at all smooth.  And for me, it was more like there was no end to it.  In fact it was never ended, it was more of an end cause of what I learned after the separation.  And that is why this letter is such the bummer for me.  All of that thought and love that went into writing this note that at the time was me thinking was her struggle with the things happening around us all of a sudden is a note of her trying to validate what was really going on in her head.  Those asterisks and bullet points and underlines all have new meaning.  Hindsight IS always 20/20.  And that is why this note was stuck in my head this entire week.  Had I seen that note for what it was, months of pain could have been avoided.

I don't know, just had to write something to clear my mind.  Well, that completes this what I am sure is a disconnected mess of thoughts.  I am not going to proof read this cause this is all about clearing the mind of things that are bothering you.  I recently gave advise to a good friend to do this exact thing, just write it down and get it out.  It was time I took my own advise and I must admit that now that I have done it, I feel a weight is lifted.  Figures that hindsight is always 20/20 would be the outcome of this exact post.  Cause now that it is done, it is a good piece of advise I gave.

Freedom of Faith

I have been getting lots of e-mails lately pertaining to prayer in schools, prayer in the work place, etc. I am personally sickened by these pointless discussions of faith in our lives. I thought we lived in the United States of America. A country where you are free to believe in what you want. A country where the government can not force you to believe in something if you choose not to. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (first half of the first amendment of the Bill of Rights.) So why are we having all this stupid crap being debated when there are more important things that should be worried about. Why am I having to rant on this right now because people are not capable of generalizing things to strip their faith from a proposed good thing? I guess that is the million dollar question isn't it.

"I would like to thank God for giving me the strength to...." "God made it possible for me to..." "I would like to thank God and my family for..." God's gift made it possible for me..." Who hasn't heard these lines in someones comments before? Seems like there is always a famous person or sports figure thanking God for their success and talent. And that is their right to do so. I don't care if they do, I say good for them for having something to believe in. Good for them that they have something in their life that makes them strive to do great things or to do the best they can do. So why rant about this, because I have to read e-mails like this forwarded by people who think they are doing the right thing, but for whom?

"If you look closely at the picture above, you will note that all the Marines pictured are bowing their heads. That's because they're praying. This incident took place at a recent ceremony honoring the birthday of the corps, and it has the ACLU up in arms. "These are federal employees," says Lucius Traveler, a spokesman for the ACLU , "on federal property and on federal time. For them to pray is clearly an establishment of religion, and we must nip this in the bud immediately.""

I think why is bowing your head praying? Why does it need to be? Every time I bow my head I am not praying! When people ask a group to have a moment of silence to remember those who have died or given their life in a war or what ever they are asking for a moment of silence for I bow my head. It is habit for me, I do not pray when I am doing it, I usually take that time to think of those people I know that fit the description of the silence I am being asked to take. After all I do not think about those people on a daily basis and it is nice to remember them in those moments. I was chatting with someone and they linked me an article and for the life of me I can not find the chat so I am going from memory here. I think Illinois passed a state law making it mandatory for public schools to have a moment of silence at the beginning of class for students to be able to pray if they wish. Now where is the harm in that? I will tell you where! It is in the phrasing of the request, if you were to drop the "to pray" part no one would care but because it is implying religion in it people have to be all bent out of shape about it. WHO CARES!!!!!!!!!!! Let students have a moment of silence at the beginning of the school day. Did silence ever hurt anyone? Can you go deaf from too much silence? Will silence get you pregnant? Can silence be harmful to your health? No it can't.

Here is my proposal, if you are gong to write a law write it the way you would like to see it presented. Get it all set up properly, make sure you cross every T and dot every I and then proof read it of course. I mean it would be silly to have said something you didn't mean to say in a law right? Get someone who has the same views as you to read it over and make sure you got it all down right. Then go back and remove every religious reference. Make it so general and not related to religion that no one can complain about your forcing your beliefs on them. Again proof read it to make sure you got everything about faith out of it. Then read it one more time, if it makes sense it is a good idea and you should roll with it. If it becomes a mindless blabbering of crap it was too faith based to begin with, just drop it. I think a moment of silence in public schools is a great idea! It gives people a chance to collect their thoughts, get into the frame of mind they should be in for learning, go through that mental check list of your day, and for some yes pray. How we handle OUR moments of silence is OUR business. But if you don't get a moment, you can't do what you want with it.

I say all of you sorry people who spend your time blabbering on about why religion is part of the United States need to shut the hell up and all of you people who are trying to force your godless beliefs on everyone also need to shut the hell up. After all it is my right to tell you you both suck at life and fail at being compassionate people. I find your pursuits to be pointless and worthless. It is time you start caring about things that need to be fixed then you can take all the time you want to dispute these other things when all other problems are fixed.

A book by it's cover

I remember a saying my parents taught me. Never judge a book by it's cover. Of course this does not only refer to books or their covers. It refers to everything one will encounter through life. Be it race, religion, or way of life. It is not "wise" to judge based on appearance or in one case a name.

I am a man so I subscribe to various mens magazines, one of which is Playboy. I was reading an article in this months issue that makes me fear the direction of our societies. Most people claim they want peace. And yet again we have a display of irrational reaction based on a publications name.

Playboy is now on news stands in Indonesia, along side Maxim and other "for men" magazines. So far they have had 3 publications hit the news stands all of which have sold out in a couple days. Okay now to hit you with the kicker. Playboy Indonesia is not a nude magazine. In fact the publication is less offensive than other "for men" magazines in the area. This publication is a symbol of freedom. It has articles pertaining to area and they are not tails of sex or sin.

The chief editor visited the Press Council and proposed what the publication would be about and contain. There were no objections to it. In fact in order to not just throw what he knew might be a controversial publication out on the streets, he reached out to the Islamic organizations in the area. But of course the largest group had issues with it. I would not even call them issues, more or less they said we don't care what it is about. I am speaking of the Front Pembela Islam (FPI). It is organizations like this that make me fear the worst. To not even enter a meeting with an open mind is just plain silly these days.

Of course when the first issue was released there were protesters lined up outside the offices to voice their opinion. Was it a peaceful display? Hell no, it got out of hand property was destroyed and it would seem that the group was out to hand out judgment. A lawsuit was filed against Playboy Indonesia for breaking the law with respects to Piracy and Pornography. (Time to remind all that this publication was not a pornographic publication.) The editor was found innocent of the charges brought against him and the publication was deemed free of filth.

Why do I care? Well, there are many poor people in Indonesia and there are no jobs for people to get. This publication adds to the available work in the area. I mean what ever happened to that saying "Never judge a book by it's cover." Seems to me that we as a race are slowly drifting further and further into a pit that no one wants to be in. Oh yeah, and it is all for the "good" of our community, humanity, etc., etc. Every day I find more and more things that try to destroy my hope for peace. And every day it seems that people are not looking or listening. I hope we soon find a way to think rationally and open minded. I personally feel bad for what the next generation of humanity is being left with.

May peace find it's way to all.

Magnets

So, not exactly sure why this popped in my head, but I was wondering when I could expect the world to flip you could say. So I was looking around on the web... And I know exactly what made it pop in my head. Just remembered. I was chatting with a friend about intelligent design, and that made me think about things that might cause the extinction of the human race. So that made me think of Modern Marvels and then that lead to the magnetic field of the Earth. Go figure.

Okay, back to it. So I was looking around the web for info on the pole flip. Did you know that on average the poles change places once every 200,000 years? How do we know this, well, apparently cooled lava is the key. The iron in the lava rock aligns itself to the magnetic pols when it is cooling. That is our road map. And as far as the time, well, we all know that is easy to figure out if you have enough over time building up. So, on the average I guess we are over due for a flip. But from the studies we also know that the flip is very random in terms of when it happens. I would have to find that article again but I think we are in the 600,000's since last magnetic flip. Makes me wonder what we can expect.

So the magnetic north pole was first found in 1831 by James Ross. Since then it has been tracked cause we found out it moves. And apparently it is moving at a rate of 40km per year. What I find interesting is that this is not an indication of a flip. In fact it would seem that no one knows to what to expect. Just found another page that puts the average at 300,000 years as the average over time. We are currently in 780,000 year range according to this site (science.nasa.gov.) But not knowing what could happen of course has not stopped people from thinking about what might happen. "The Core" comes to mind.

So we have a theory about the mechanics of the Earth. Solid inner core with a liquid outer core. And they say the magnet force that surrounds the Earth is the result of the dynamo effect. Look it up. So that got me to thinking what happens during a flip? Are we screwed? Well, never fear, according to NASA that will not be the case. Although a compass may be useless we will still be protected from deadly space radiation. You can breath now.

I found this to be interesting and figured maybe others might as well. I guess we will have to wait for that comet or meteor to plow through the earth for some great and spectacular natural catastrophic event to be the end of man. Science is cool I think. So much great stuff to keep you wondering!

Religion

So, I have had thoughts about faith that make me wonder how "good" religion truly is. It has been an ongoing joke that I think religion is evil. And I figure might as well explain myself. So here we go.

I am lucky to have a wide variety of friends all with different faiths and even different views on their faith. So what have I learned? I suppose the first question I should answer is do I follow a faith. I was raised Roman Catholic. I went to a Catholic Grade School. Went to a Catholic High School. I went to church every Sunday and religious holiday with my parents until I moved out. And I even played for the folk group in my parents church (and yes I enjoyed doing that.) Do I consider myself Roman Catholic? Well, if I am I am a non practicing patron of the church. However, I do not agree with everything taught by the "Church."

Yes, I believe there is a "God." And I believe in evolution. Now back to what I have learned. So far I see lots of similarities between all faiths as far as God and the creation man goes. Christianity being the big different one with the whole Jesus was the son of God thing going on there. I have also learned a little about the history of each faith. So why do I think faith is "evil?" Well that is the thing I do not think faith is evil. I think the institution that people choose to follow is flawed. And it is flawed because it was written by man. I know all about the inspired by God and all that fun stuff, but I don't think that any religion is flawless. If it was why are there so many?

I also look at all the hate in the world today. And what do we see in the media? Lots of infighting amongst different religious factions. As I read the different books of faith that I have looked at I see the same thing all the time. Socially accepted segregation. And this is where my problems with religion begin. If you wanted to look at the religions from a totally non religious point of view I suppose I would say that each religion is a revised edition of the last. Is that wrong? Does it matter? It shouldn't. And why does it.

Every religion promotes being good to others, blah blah blah. Same sauce different name. But what about the stuff written into them that contradict those thoughts. It is okay to marry this person of this faith but not these people. Who cares! Why do we put so much stock into a choice. Yes faith is a choice in my mind. You are born into the Catholic Faith. You are born into the Islamic Faith. You are born into the Jewish Faith. You can convert from one to the next as long as you follow the rules. It is a totally different animal. I mean it is not like I can be born an Irish person and decide later in life that I want to be African or Indian or Russian.

Look at me babble on here. I think I will let this rest for a bit. Just needed to get it off my chest I guess. I mean having faith is a great thing, but people need to learn to grow as times change. A book written thousands of years ago will have things in it that can not be applied to today. But the underlining message is good and is there to teach us how to be morally good people. But if you ask me, hating someone because of what they believe is not moral or good no matter what a book says. Neither is judging them by their religion.