Thoughts

When you've worked too much, and have done so for a long time, things get pretty boring, and so-- you can expect-- do you. It's in these times that leaving for a while with some friends helps you wake up a little. I did that today, and more than simply enjoy their company, I've found myself restored in a sense. Let me explain. I've found, pretty consistently, that friends do more than share your interests. They play a crucial role in reflecting your identity back to you. That is, you're reminded of who you are by the simple fact that you've chosen them as friends. You look at their values and compare them to your own, and you find that they paint a pretty clear picture of the things you care about. Even more important, if they're good friends and if you've known them long enough, they also validate you on a level that few others can. You're reminded that you're okay because they respond to the paths you intentionally trudge or sprint through ...

My class's journals and debates this week centered on censorship. Essentially, the debate was one of freedom versus security, as so many other issues in our culture are (think search dogs in schools, child vaccinations, gun control, etc., all of which relate to the conflict between individual freedom versus social security). Our specific question was whether a school library should allow middle school students to read controversial books. On the one hand is the First Amendment's promises of the freedoms of speech and press, and on the other a desire to protect children who might not be mature enough for the content. More often than not in debates, the debaters dutifully fulfill their requirements, making clear arguments and supporting those arguments with evidence. This round, however, the debate turned impassioned, to the point where a few students grew angry with one another. The exchanges were such that I had to step in fairly often to remind the debaters of debate rules. ...

The most famous of those who have supposedly been able to predict the future is a man named Nostradamus. He was a French apothecary (pharmacist) who published several predictions within his lifetime (1506-1566). His popularity is evident in that he is one of only a few authors whose work has rarely been out of print for over four-hundred years. This is because many people believe that his predictions have come true. They interpret his predictions in terms of what has happened recently in our history. For example, they say one of his predictions foretold the Challenger disaster in 1986 (it mentions nine people, when seven were in the shuttle). Another, they say, foresaw the rise of Adolph Hitler when it mentions “Hister” (really a location in Germany); and still another, that he accurately predicted the terrorist attacks of September 11. Nostradamus’s words, though, have been misinterpreted, so it seems like they fit well with the events we’ve seen; but in truth, his words can at bes...

Dean Karnazes has proven his incredible talent for long-distance running. Although he ran track as a young man, he quit after a conflicted relationship with his coach. On the night of his 30 th birthday, however, he decided he wanted a change; so he walked out of the building he was in and began to run. He didn’t stop running until he reached the number of miles equal to his age. He ended up running 30 miles straight, all with no training. From that point, he began to push himself to run extreme lengths and under extreme conditions. Among other accomplishments, he has run a 135-mile ultramarathon across Death Valley, California, in heat that reached 126 degrees; he’s run a marathon to the South Pole in temperatures that reached 40 degrees below zero (in normal running shoes, not snowshoes); he ran a 199-mile relay alone (it was supposed to include a team, but he was the only man on the team); and ran 350 miles over three days, without sleep; and most recently, he ran 50 marathons in...

Our possessions are often very important to us, so much so that we even try to take them with us when we die. One of the most spectacular tombs still evident today is found in China. Records of the burial site of China’s first emperor, named Chinshi Huangdi (ruled 221-207 B.C.), state that the man himself was buried in a large chamber full of “precious stones” and “fine vessels,” great treasure. Jewels that represent the sun, moon, and starts are said to line the ceiling of this chamber; while the floor is recorded to contain “rivers of mercury” that represent the earth. More than that, the man is guarded by 8,099 clay soldiers, each one different from the rest in both appearance and height. The tallest are the generals, who tower at 6 ft., 6 inches. There are also horses and other figures besides the soldiers. It’s said that their purpose was to help him rule another empire in the afterlife, and for protection. His tomb, which is supposed to be a type of palace, is estimated to have ...

In February of 2009, a woman was driving down a road around midnight in East Yorkshire, Great Britain, when she drove over black ice and skid out of control. Her car crashed through a fence and flipped over into a pond, with her still inside. Providentially, a taxi driver named James Brown noticed that there were headlights beaming from the water. The forty-one year-old man stopped to call the fire department, but then noticed someone inside. Even though the dispatcher urged Brown to stay out of the water, he saw that water was filling the car, and concluded she wouldn’t make it if she had to wait for a rescue team to arrive; so he made a choice. He put the phone down to jump in and found a woman inside banging on the window for help. Unable to open the door or window, he tried to comfort the woman inside as he flagged down another driver. Using a hammer given to him, Brown returned to smash the window and pull her from the car. He then carried her from the pond, put her in his car, ...

Math is a humbling subject for me. I spend much of my time on the right side of the brain, where idealism and figurative language dance together along neural pathways. This, of course, leaves the gray matter on the left side of my mind-- where math and logic dwell-- looking something less than gray. Perhaps it looks more charred, especially after tonight. I met an acquaintance from my clinical medical assistant class to study basic math skills. Having done fairly well in my last college math class, I had left the math world somewhat encouraged. Tonight, however, that little glass world was shattered wide and far. It's not that I didn't know how to add or divide fractions. I remembered that. It was that I made so many careless mistakes. It wasn't all that frustrating, I suppose, because I felt I understood the concepts. I simply am not accustomed to the precision required by math, the lack of room for error. If the social sciences are a spacious suite with a kind old wom...

As a boy around 1917, Glenn Cunningham's job was to warm the schoolhouse each day by lighting a fire in the pot-bellied coal stove. On one of these days, however, the teacher and students arrived to find the schoolhouse in flames, and Glenn inside. They rescued him, but only after he had sustained major burns to the lower half of his body. In the hospital, the boy could hear the doctor telling his mother that he would surely die. When he did survive, though, he again heard the doctor, who said that it would have been better if he had died. Since the fire had burned so much of his flesh, Glenn would surely be crippled, unable to use his legs. This boy had different plans, however. After being released from the hospital, his mother would massage his legs daily, and yet, there were still no signs of life. He could not even feel, let alone move, his legs. For this reason, he was consigned to a wheelchair, when he wasn’t bedridden. On one occasion, his mother took him outside for s...

John L. Sullivan had tried various careers to make a living, but he found all the vocations he encountered unfavorable. His mother wanted him to be a priest, but his personal choice for making a living was to do so with his fists. As a young man, he was arrested a number of times for boxing in places where it was outlawed; as a teenager, he would fight in Boston barrooms, claiming boldly that he could “lick any man in the house;” and he actually went on tour offering money to people who would fight him. He was known as The Boston Strongboy , and during one tour across the U.S. between 1883 and 1884 was able to knock out eleven men. He lost only once his entire career. Perhaps his most famous match came on July 8, 1889, where he fought a man named Jake Kilrain. Before this time, he had been out of practice, choosing not to box for over a year. He not only stopped training and boxing, but became so sick that he was bedridden for months in 1888. Partly because of this, he was complet...

Work can be pretty draining some days, as most everyone knows. I'm certain there are those readers who feel that some days at work are exhausting; and if you have enough of those days consistently, you begin to feel as though you're less of a human and more of a walking body. I call this flatlining: you're alive, but you only know you're alive because your body is still moving. Those motions are mechanical, and your mind has less and less to do with them each day than the day before. This zombie-flatlining life can only go so far, until you burst forth from your deadness to pursue life outside work again. Of course, we all have seasons in life when we are busier than normal, and it is when those periods end that you return to social and emotional homeostasis: you are balanced again. I know, then, that this period of busyness will soon expire. In the meantime, I gather what life I can from the zombie-robot-dead-person days, because I can find in them sparks of life: in...

He wipes his face with listless cloud Still phosphorescent all the while And hangs in universal shroud While downcast glances make them smile Though chipped, he hears what masters might But shivers in the lonely cold His thoughts now turned to higher light And tucks away what he was told The shallows need what makes him wax But still he hides his face from pain He curls to shun his self-made tax And shadowed now, begins to wane With firm resolve he leans away His back now turned against the tide Now dark on dark leaves emptied bay And hollowed hearts with little guide

I played a lot of video games growing up. When I think about that, my first response is to believe it was a waste of time; but when I look at the context in which I played those games, though, a tendency-- or pattern-- seems to surface that explains why they were so magnetic to me. I think it is informative to survey this tendency to understand why games are so popular today. I can think of two general principles that apply to the popularity of gaming, especially for males. First, social interaction is not always easy. This seems to be especially true for males, and perhaps more so for prepubescent males; and yet, being human, those males need intellectual stimulation. They get it through video games. The fact that games offer that stimulation without the need for socially appropriate behavior offers him a way to satisfy his need for entertainment without feeling compelled to perform socially. Importantly, and under the same point, gaming allows him a measure of control. He decides w...

I started the clinical medical assistant program last week, and am already learning a lot about the medical field. Predictably, it's much more hands-on than history is. Since history involves the study of human behavior through the lens of past events, there is much focus on cause and effect, theories (Darwinism, postmodernism, etc.), historic movements, historiography, and other related topics. There isn't much interaction with historic figures, so interaction in history means discussing ideas with your peers about events. The work is solely mental, and room is left for speculation about the reasons things happened or are happening. So far, medicine seems to involve memorization and the ability to communicate clearly and with respect for the other party. Medically, you learn how to respond to an emergency and how to take vital signs; but with regard to human interaction, you learn how to interact with different cultures so as to remove as many roadblocks to communication as po...