Thoughts

Being a nerd does not carry the negative stigma that it once did, and in fact popular culture has embraced nerds perhaps more than at any other time in recent memory. In the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of movies like Revenge of the Nerds and The Goonies , and characters like Clark Kent and Steve Urkel revealed our fascination with this decreasingly outcast social group; while more recently, we find the same fascination in Napoleon Dynamite , shows like The Big Bang Theory and King of the Nerds , and Comic-Con. Part of me wants to believe that Bill Gates is solely responsible for this trend. It was he, from his position of financial success, who advised us to treat nerds kindly: "Chances are you'll end up working for one;" and when the subject of nerds is raised in everyday conversation, one or another inevitably follows Gates' words by saying that nerds may be unpopular and socially awkward, but it is they who succeed financially. An increasing push for tole...

I remember hearing once about a boy whose mother wrote a letter for him to C.S. Lewis, author of the children's series The Chronicles of Narnia , an allegory of the human struggle against sin and evil and the victory of Christ over them. The Christ figure is Aslan, who sacrifices himself to save one of the children, and then rises from the dead. In the letter, the mother explained that the nine year-old boy-- Laurence Krieg-- felt shame that he loved Aslan more than he loved Jesus. The boy feared he was worshiping idols. Lewis responded quickly that Laurence "can't really love Aslan more than Jesus even if he feels that's what he's doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving him more than he ever did before."* There are some Christians who are so afraid of God that they live as though they must earn hi...

This year, I will be entering my ninth year as a teacher. I have posted in the past about some of my experiences, but I take this time to do so again because it is such a unique, enduring, significant, challenging, and fulfilling part of my life. I have felt that no teacher remains a teacher without being taught in some way by his students. This is true for me, and I suppose that the most important lessons I have learned relate to the effects that my students and my experiences as a teacher have had on me. It fascinated me to believe that I would not be the person I am without the changes I've experienced as a teacher. I learned, for instance, that force is a poor motivator and a quick way to isolate yourself; and that respect as a leader comes less from charisma as it does from fairness. On this latter point, I have learned that you can have fairness with charisma and be loved, but cannot have charisma sans fairness and last. Indeed, I have wasted time mourning my lack of gusto...

C.S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman. In it he journals about his emotional and spiritual experiences as he suffers from this loss, questioning God's goodness and his own motives. In short, he attempts to characterize his own grief. Appropriately, Lewis is more vulnerable and honest here than in any of his other works. It is not surprising that Lewis was willing to publish words that he wrote in sorrow, and even despair. What is surprising is the similarity that grief in mourning holds to other forms of grief. One can grieve at the end of a friendship, a job, or even a bad habit. The differences between them are the extent to which they hurt us and the faces they wear. Common to them all, however, is loss. In that sense, A Grief Observed can be comforting, especially for those prone to believe--as we are wont to do when we grieve--that no one could understand our sorrow. In fact, it is difficult to admit in sorrow that we are not special, ...

Here is an analogy from a book called A Grief Observed : Imagine you are in complete darkness. You believe you are in a cellar or dungeon. Then, you hear a distant sound. The sound is something like the sound of waves, the rustling of trees, or the sound of cattle; or it could be a closer, yet still soft, sound, like the sound of a friend's chuckle. Either way, the sound is something good. You are either outside, surrounded by nature; or you are inside, yet comforted by a friend. This taught me that our perspective about our circumstances can be completely mistaken, even if we've held that perspective over a long period of time. We see in the darkness hopelessness, and ignore the breeze that gives comfort. We hear in the laughter heckling that isolates us, not camaraderie that reminds us that we have close connections and are not alone. Refuse to listen to those thoughts that tell you anything other than your inherent worth, however long they've tried to convince you o...

In Under the Black Flag , David Cordingly explains the motives of men who became pirates in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.* The hunger for riches was the most important motive, he explains, but there was also a desire to travel. Importantly, some men felt compelled to become pirates. Cordingly explains that peace between England and Spain in 1603 left former navy and privateering sailors unemployed, which led them into piracy; and those alive after the 1717 Treaty of Utrecht brought peace to England, Spain, and France believed that unemployed sailors were to blame for an increase in piracy.** A further motive was alcohol. Some pirates, in speeches they gave before they were executed, stated that alcoholism drove them to piracy and other crimes. According to a January 15th, 2014, report from the International Chamber of Commerce International Maritime Bureau, piracy at sea is at its lowest since 2011, in large part because of the deterrence of Somali pirates off the coast o...

1. Sometimes our past decisions influence our present more than our present decisions, but that does not mean we cannot change our present situation by the decisions we make today. In that sense, anyone who says you can't change the past is wrong. Your past does not have to keep you prisoner. 2. If food tastes better when you are happy (and I believe that it does), and if you are happier when you are social (which I believe you are), does this mean that food tastes better when you are being social? 3. I have heard, more than once, that you can find out about a person by looking at his or her bank statement, that what a person spends money on shows what he or she loves most; but what if the only items listed are necessities? A lack of purchases might mean that the man is just cheap. :-) 4. Reading fiction is supposed to encourage in the reader an empathy for other people. Like anything else, what seems to promote health actually promotes its opposite: read too much fiction, an...

If you read yesterday's entry, I wrote that I would attempt to think of ten original ideas for at least three days. I believe today is, on the whole, a little more original than yesterday's ideas, but I still have far to go. In any case, here are today's "ten." 1. Recycle used plastic grocery bags as lining for wood chip beds in landscaping. 2. Start a business in which mechanics use mobile mechanic shops to travel to people with a cars in need of repair, which will preclude the need for these people to have their cars towed. 3. Eqiip drones with a device that emits a scattering electromagnetic pulse to follow and then disable vehicles or other mechanical devices. This will allow law enforcement to end a police chase remotely. In addition, equip drones with a noise-making device to disable criminals in a location that is difficult to reach. 4. Embed honing microchips on the inside bands of wedding rings to allow their owners to find them when lost. 5. Incor...

I want to start the habit of thinking originally. I don't know how committed to this I will be, but it seems like a way to promote mental agility, and even empathy. To do this, I'm going to create a list of ten ideas every day for at least three days. This is my first attempt at this (I wrote twelve today). It's not very original or brilliant, but keep in mind that it's a first try. If I keep this up, I predict that I will eventually be able to think of ideas that are more original. 1. Create a shuttle service for neighborhoods with little or no access to public transportation. Recruit others and create a schedule. 2. Name ice cream flavors after a theme, like geography or music. For example, name one flavor "Melodic Mint 'N Chip," and another "Beatles Bubble Gum." As another idea, create new flavors, like oatmeal or granola. 3. Start a writing club by advertising at a mall or downtown. 4. Invent a tracking device (like a GPS) for luggage...

At the beginning of every day, I get up, make my bed, and sit down to read Scripture for a while. Today, I read Acts 2, in which the Holy Spirit comes on the believers in Jerusalem as tongues of fire. Thus began my day today, and thus begins this blog entry: A Day in the Life of Tony. I began this day at 5:30. After reading the Bible and praying, I wrote my list of goals for the day. On today's list, I wrote the following: 1. Read the Bible. 2. Wash, dry, and fold laundry. 3. Play guitar. 4. Write on your blog. 5. Read part of one of your books. 6. Write at least one stanza of a poem. This done, I began the aforementioned laundry. I then checked my e-mail; tended to my daily Lumosity games; and read more about the police chase here in Stockton, including videos of a witness to the chase, a woman I know. After breakfast, I read a book I bought about the history of pirates. I rarely do this, but I then took a short nap, after which I read another book called A Grief Obse...

The city I call home is famous today. Unfortunately, it is only due to a crime. Yesterday, my brother and sister-in law were entering and then driving southbound on a local highway to the California State Fair when we saw a cavalcade of police vehicles racing on the opposite side of the freeway and exiting at the street which we had just left. This street, Hammer Lane, was part of a police chase to stop and apprehend three suspects who had robbed a Bank of America. The suspects exited the bank with three hostages--a customer and two employees--so close to their bodies, and with AK-47-style guns pointed at the heads of the hostages, that police who had already arrived could not get close. The suspects then left the scene in a blue, employee-owned S.U.V. and led police on a chase from Stockton to Lodi (about twenty minutes north of Stockton) and back near the same location they had left. Toward the end of this chase, the suspects threw two of the three hostages from the vehicle (the ...

A friend reminds me now and then that I like to be "on stage," that I like attention. I admit that I do, but it was not until today that being "on stage" became literal. In fact, I enjoyed today by spending it with my brother and sister-in-law at the California state fair. We went specifically because Wheel of Fortune held auditions for potential contestants. Even being there for this was interesting, if only to witness how people are chosen to be on the show. Still, we had come to audition ourselves, and therefore applied for both the afternoon and evening auditions. In the evening audition, we watched as the stand-in-host and hostess chose these applications from a lottery tumbler. During the first round, after the host called four names, I heard him say the name "Tony," but it was the next moment that caught my attention more directly. Now, for any of you with a difficult last name, you are well acquainted with the scenario of a stranger whose task ...

I learned of the straw man while taking a class titled "Economic History of the United States" in college. A straw man is a type of fallacy in an argument. Specifically, a straw man is an argument leveled against another argument that no one ever made. For example, I could fight back against the claim that our culture is losing its innocence when, in fact, no one is making such a claim; or I could lament the argument that we should eliminate public speaking courses in college while no one is advocating that we get rid of these courses to begin with. While this is a very real fallacy in the academic world, it is no less significant in our daily thinking. I believe its form is a little different, though (though maybe you will call this argument a straw man, too). Our straw men can be arguments, yes; but they can also be problems or fears that are both unnecessary and created entirely by us. Take, for example, the sense that we sometimes have that our problems are somehow uniq...

If I had to lose one of my senses, I would lose the sixth sense of inference, or drawing conclusions. This sense allows one to understand unspoken messages communicated by body language and the dangers inherent in scenarios like falling asteroids and law enforcement. No longer would I need to worry about such things; no longer would fear plague my now-numb consciousness. Indeed, I would be free to act as I will. "Darn the consequences" would be my motto; and on my tombstone, written shortly after my imminent death, would read the words, "He lived so cautiously; he died so carelessly."

Don't take this poem too seriously. Storm The sky reads “Fear” again today, So I sift through my closet To find the same tattered overcoat, Worn timeless by ancestors Who, like me, Believed that the sting felt from hunching one’s shoulders and facing the cold Was more bitterly felt than cowardice and prodigality Thus, I wear the coat inside, And contrive warmth from the prospect That I will venture out tomorrow Besides, I can’t be bothered by experience Not when so much depends on my controls I button up tight, then, And both clothe and close my fears Though I learn quickly That the storm is not outside, That what I have sheltered Is the very gale that I fear It reigns heavy on an already saturnine heart, So that the deluge I see The delusion I guard, Is not from clouds But from memories Grafted like engrams on the future that I recreate daily When I wear the coat, The forecast is and will be always Wind and rain

My eyes are open, vibrant, blessed As my whisper speaks the sun And with this life in colors dressed Its mountains crumble, fall, and run To others should I shed this light Though broken from their lack of love For in a world where wrongs make right A thousand crows still laud the dove.

Soft and sound Live and loud There always is a heart’s divide Quiet breeze Blustered gale To all it seems we’d never tried Then in pressured let-loose rage All, it seems, is put to rights ‘Til stuffed again within its cage The twilight turns to darker nights Blist’ring wind Silent storm There always is a heart’s divide Bred in hollow Caves within Rifts grow gaping miles wide

While you know that most men seem unflawed from without Though obscured through the inundate rain You continue to feel all the question and doubt That compels you to scrub your own stain Though the window through which you perceive such a scene Keeps you safe, so it seems, by the breach Still the rain that you see is your self-imposed screen Which allows you to hide out of reach Were it washed of its filth to allow you the day You would find that your fear was for naught Were the thousands of voices proved right in their say You would learn the sheer fault of your thought! But the chains that here weigh on those atrophied arms Are too burdensome now but to lift So your plan to steer fate against all kinds of harms Remains idle from fears of the shift In its stead it is hope that reverses this fear Overwrought as you feel from your way That the stalemate life of a floundering queer Would pierce through the still nebulous gray

Alas, I am rejected again. I submitted the following poem awhile back, and found now like the others, it was rejected. It's alright, I suppose. I am going to submit another. In the meantime, here is the rejected poem. Your Own Gardener Dig at that empty earth Spread its treasure across your past Until the weed that is Resembles the vine that was Destiny planted into past as a tree And called a seed Shape your past and future Into one present A semi-precious mound Beloved, you think, by you in former dreams And dappled with the precious light Of a soothsayer who, with trained hands, kneads worries into platitudes Until they harden under The full baking of the sun Tend your budding apprehensions Lest you think the vine grown before its time Clip, then Clip away their tender shoots Binding them to the vine To make them such a part of you That you know and are known by them Pray, in time, that with the nourishment of your tears The weight of its fruit will f...

In a study I've been attending at church, we've been reading the book of Ezekiel in the Bible. Through the majority of the book, God has Ezekiel prophesying disaster on Israel and the surrounding nations for their idol worship, pride, and--in the case of Tyre and other nations--their joy at Israel's destruction. There are some events in the book that may seem strange to us: God has Ezekiel eat a scroll; draw Jerusalem on a clay block and make war against it; and lay on his side for 430 days with a pan between him and the clay city. God speaks of cannibalism, too, and of an entire valley of dry bones that God attaches together, puts flesh on, and brings back to life. Within the latter part of the book, however, Ezekiel outlines the dimensions of the temple, which was a significant place for God. Priests serving in the inner courts of this temple could not even don the garments they had worn during their service. They were required to leave them in the inner courts because ...

All of the dialogue-- and the line "with his fist now at Max's feet,..."-- come from Switchfoot songs. The actual line for the above quote is "With my fist at your feet,...." Thrown down hard against the outside bathroom wall, David heaved with anger and fatigue. "I dare you to move," Max bellowed fiercely. Sullen and determined, David picked himself up and, in one swift motion, thrust himself headlong at the well-known bully. Taken by surprise, Max threw up his arms, but then twisted his head and torso and returned with a right cross that caught David in flight. With his fist now at Max's feet, David began to tear in rage. He took a knee, then used his fist to lift himself and face David closely, brow furrowed and eyes outlined red with tears and anger. "This is your life," said Max, tauntingly. "Do you love me enough to let me go?" Resentfully, David turned; and with head lifted high, he trained his eyes on th...

I read in a geography book once that each year , nearly one of every six persons moves from one home to another. * With the lackluster economy we've faced in the past years, I wonder if that trend has changed. In any case, the same geographer noted several additional values about our culture. 1. We love new things (we’d rather have a new snowboard or bicycle than one that’s been used). 2. We want to be near nature (when given the chance, people will move out of the center of the city to the outsides of the city so they can be closer to nature). 3. We want the freedom to move. 4. We are individualistic (we feel a need to be independent and self-reliant, and want to choose our own paths in life; in contrast to depending on those around us and allowing others to make decisions for us). 5. We seek acceptance from society (we want others to accept us; in my opinion, this acceptance is partly determined by how independent you are). 6. We are goal-oriented (we make goals fo...

In his dystopian novel 1984 , while the main character weighs the character of his torturer, George Orwell writes these words: "Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood." With regard to the emotional love to which I believe Orwell is referring, I suppose the reader can qualify his words. Love (the emotional love, not the act of caring about someone with deeds) and understanding seem to be two sides of the same coin. That is, the most meaningful kind of emotional love one can receive is one grounded in acceptance, and genuine acceptance takes place when one person understands the motivations and behavior of another, and yet still cares for that person. This kind of love is indomitable. For this reason, I believe that empathy is among the greatest gifts one person can give to another; and since empathy comes through listening not only to the words of a person, but also to the motives and convictions behind those words, listening to someone is the condu...

Have you ever found yourself thinking about something too often? It could be anything: work, movies, friends, or that special someone. I have found how easy it is to slip into a thought life that glorifies things that don't really matter. What is perhaps worse is that sometimes we fail to realize how much of our energy we lose that could be delegated to things more meaningful to life. Let's take our worries as a safe example. It is easy to indulge in worrying about an upcoming conversation or appointment, for example. Still, we fail to see that our energy would be better spent preparing for the event or devoting our time to more positive thoughts. Note: This post was a competition between a friend and I. Each of us had to blog in no more than five minutes. This is the result of that competition.

This is a poem of new life found in loss. I believe that the loss of the things we care so much about in life--but which are really unimportant-- will lead to a life far better. This poem is meant to be uplifting. I hope it makes sense! A river that once bore blood and wine Is dammed into rivulets of cracked earth Water trickled to a still moment At the confluence of pain and peace On that side of the valley Set above the emerald canopy Is the calm for which we cry these tears For now, we wait Eyes lifted Shivering at the thrust of wind from the other side Which dips and curves around weed and greed alike To embrace what is left of us A fire erupts Scorching the ageless chaff that we've gathered At feet long stunned still Believing it our only warmth We're left with a barren earth At once feared and wanted For at pain's end The land can be filled With verdant flora Worth the tending

Here are a few things I learned today: 1. Kaiser Permanente no longer uses triclosan, an antibacterial agent found in many soaps, because it is believed to have encouraged the development of resistant bacteria 2. The Industrial Revolution changed the way we trust one another. Before the shift from an economy that depended on individual artisans who often worked near home to one of large businesses, men knew their neighbors and could more easily trust one another. Not so after this shift. There came need for legal--rather than social--protections to prevent buyers and sellers from defrauding one another. Banking and insurance came into being, and regulations dictating how those institutions could operate provided the security once held through social accountability. 3. In the late 1600s, Jamaica's coastal Port Royal experienced an earthquake so severe that a section of the city sank into the sea. At least 2,000 people died via drowning or as buildings collapsed on them, and ...

Albert Camus once wrote, "At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures--be what he is. And, above all, accept these things." I do not believe I know yet how far I can go--indeed, perhaps like others, I somewhat fear finding out-- but I have understood myself better as I've grown older. I am definitely better at accepting myself than I once was, but I have more to do in this area. In any case, it is important to understand your strengths and weakness so you can choose those endeavors that depend on your strengths, and avoid those that depend on your weaknesses (or, at least, understand why you are less effective in those endeavors than in those that depend on your strengths); and more importantly, so you know why you behave as you do, and so predict this behavior in your relations with others. More specifically on this last point, you can be sensitive enough to...

A cool, windless autumn night thick with mist found Andrew meandering the streets of Brooklyn. His heart had been broken, and he wondered now—thought hard about—how he could have lost her; and while the vivid neon signs and raucous sounds of street life surrounded him on all sides, to him it was a blur. Mindlessly, he dropped a gum wrapper in the trash bin next to him, and was about to move on when he spotted something glistening under the flash of a street light changed to red. Intrigued, he tunneled under the refuse to find an old pocket watch. As marred as it was from age, Andrew could still make out an inscription on its back: The wisdom of a thousand seers Has bound me here for countless years But wind me forth until at last You strip from time your sullen past. Stunned by the cryptic message, Andrew thrust the thing from his hand. It landed, open, to the side of the bin as he stepped backward off the sidewalk. Andrew turned to continue walking, and while his steps quickened at th...

Today, I spoke with a Jehovah's Witness named Ivan for fifteen or twenty minutes about a variety of topics related to the Bible and the Witnesses themselves. Ivan was a kind man, listening to my thoughts about what I'd learned of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and I valued speaking with him. At one point in our conversation, I asked him if he felt compelled to evangelize, and said that my impression of the Jehovah's Witness church is that the governing body is controlling. Though I didn't know it at the time, I was thinking of something I read months ago about the Witnesses' governing body being the only ones to interpret the Bible. Whether this is true or not, it left me with the impression that the Witnesses' church was controlling. I tried to express that I was asking about this out of honest interest and did not mean to offend him. He said understood this and did not seem offended. In response to my question, he likened his evangelism to that of Jesus' dis...