The Unseen Sea

This video captures best one of my two favorite things about living here. (The second is big and painted "International Orange" and I can see it from my window, as long as the stuff in the video below doesn't get in the way)

And this really, really, is worth waiting and watching in HD.

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

This one's also from the same guy and pretty cool too.

Steaming City from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

Lust for Power

Men, as a gender, generally have an obsession with anything that gives us a disproportionate amount of power to the effort we put in. I wiggle my foot a bit and the car goes 0-60 in a few seconds. Woosh. I retract my finger just a bit and BOOM! A gun/bigger gun/or explosive device is launching 50 lb vegetables into the air for everyone's enjoyment. Summary: I invest a few sugar molecules to contract a few muscle cells and I get gobs of power suddenly released at my disposal.

Like that

Leif is currently fascinated with planes, trains, and cars, but especially trains. If he hears the slightest background roar of an airliner overhead he stops whatever he's doing, points up and says something like "Erpane!" He watches Thomas the Train constantly (it drives me crazy, the endless yammering of the narrator and his voices is some of the most obnoxious droning I've ever heard). And he shouts "Caw!" anytime he sees a toy with wheels. At least he doesn't know about guns yet.

Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?

The sad thing is that we don't use this disproportionate effort-to-power ration to much productive use. We blow stuff up just purely to see it blow up. We drive fast, just because we can and it's exhilerating. We threaten, lie, steal, cheat, bully, cajole, and belittle, because it increases our perception of the "power" we've gained by it. It gives us something for nothing... or for very little.

Even subtle things: I have music playing a lot and spend lots of time on the computer. It gives me a very large return of entertainment and education for very little effort.

Chicks for free (I can get this on MP3Panda.com for a dollar. Eat that iTunes!)

Sugar and high calorie foods are the same. Kids don't eat Cookie Crisp for breakfast because its part of a complete breakfast. They eat it because it tastes good because the tongue, brain, and body know that it's a disproportionate amount of calories to effort and in a body that was made to deal with scarcity, it will ALWAYS want extra calories when it can easily get them. And extra calories come in two flavors: carbs and oils. Sugars and fat. Especially fructose and saturated fat. Throw some free amino acids and salt in there to trick you into thinking you're eating lots of protein and minerals and you're done for (read: glutamate, MSG, hydrolyzed soy/yeast protein/isolate/whatev) Just a little bit of chewing to buy a lot more time surviving the hostile wilderness of....today's supermarket-fast food-hostess laden society. Disproportionate food to effort.

Men aren't the only ones like this either. Women, generally (of course generally, no one get your feelings hurt now, ok?) shop and shop and shop. Discounts and hyped-up sales to feel like you're taking advantage of the seller. Or talk and talk and talk to gain an edge over social rivals. Novels to stimulate the mind without having to contribute back. Whining, flirting, manipulating to achieve sympathy or gifts.

Now we're just negotiating a price...

Whether or not we exercise our power over others, we like to have the power, just in case we need to. Just in case. I could argue it's for security. Or emergency. If that were the case, noone would ever know our abilities except in emergencies or when called upon. But we're not that kind of a society, so mostly it's to intimidate others so they won't even THINK about trying to take advantage of us or seek power over us. Sometimes it works positively in inspiring others to competition and improvement.

Don't think so? Prove it

Oddly, even giving up all power and strength is a form of power exertion. For some religiously devoted it is a sign of heavenly strength to give everything up and prove our personal righteousness to the world. Like meekness is spiritual wealth we flaunt. We think to ourselves that because we're poor or suffering we are focusing on what's REALLY important, not like those rich people who obviously are not.

Or we convince ourselves that because we gave it up we could have the power at any time but we chose to get rid of it. I'm powerful enough to be submissive. This isn't true. Giving up such ability, strength, wealth, or power only removes our power, thus taking away our choice to be submissive. It's just as foolish to think that giving up our agency gives us more freedom. It's reminiscent of the Orwellian idea: slavery is freedom.

I'm not sure why students are for this sort of thing, but I do recognize this isn't a shirt. It's a rectangle.

The trick is to remain "submissive" (humble, penitent, open-minded, soft-hearted, etc) while hanging onto every bit of strength we have. Christ wasn't giving up a single shred of power to those who crucified him. He had that power at every second they nailed him to the cross. It could have ended at any moment by his desire. He's kinda a unique case. If I were in his place, I would actually be losing all power and freedom and that might not be a wise use of the abilities God gave me.

So, what do we do? What level of strength do we display or flaunt? I have no clue. That's for you to decide, and I'm only gonna complain or get in your way if it's bothering me.

or if you take up 5 parking spots

Inarticulate

Tonight, a worker from Family Builders came to our apartment for a few hours just to meet and visit with us. She asked us a few questions about ourselves and adopting a child through them. I let Emily do most of the talking. Whenever I tried to answer questions I didn't have much to say. I have a habit of being to the point and it often doesn't leave a ton of room for discussion (I blame my Danish heritage entirely). I'll tell my stellar question-answer in a minute, but for now I feel like pontificating, so allow me a few moments.

if you've read many of my posts, be prepared. If you're like most of my readers, keep going, I know you just skim over everything else i write

With most people, conversation dies if I do much talking. Most of the time the other person or people just nod in agreement and give mmm-hmms and say, "yeah, that's right/so true/I never thought of that." It's pretty boring. When I teach Sunday School, I hate talking. I like axing questions and having other people do all of it and steering it by appropriate questions. When I feel like interjecting my thoughts into the lesson, the class stares at me with the look like I just killed an interesting debate and the show is now over, leaving me floundering over something to get them talking again.

I think if I ever wrote a book, it would take me a few decades to write. It'd start out concise enough to fit onto a few pages and I'd have to BS and fill out the rest just to make it interesting.

this would be most of my story

If you know me, personally, you'll know I enjoy a good discussion. Either the mutual working together to solve a problem through conversation, the sharing of new ideas and information that enlightens the participants and/or listeners, the fair and open-minded sharing of opposing ideas to reach a middle ground, or to present an accurate picture of everything that is in play in a sticky situation. I will love you if you disagree with me on the condition that you can back up your disagreement. If I disagree with you, it means I really like you. I never debate with strangers. You could be telling me the earth is flat, but if I don't care about you, I'll keep my mouth shut. If I'm trying to get you to like me, I'll ask questions that make you back up your position and prove your point or make a joke out of the tense situation. If I really like you, I'll share my thoughts as nicely as possible, but bring out the big guns if the situation desperately needs it.

it's sort of complicated, really

I'm not one to get emotional during a debate, but it happens. It's natural. Some have a lower threshold for emotional control than others, that's fine, but I will encourage you to slow down and discuss the topic rationally. I appreciate passion and emotion. It means there's something the brain has worked out that's important to our identity/survival/safety/self-interest even if we can't consciously articulate it. I like helping people figure that out and pull that jumbled massive cloud of firing neurons into an organized, step-wise sentence coming out of the mouth. That's essentially what an emotion is: a brain-wide response to a stimulus of some kind. A smell of a rose can trigger a bajillion memories in the cortex, sending off huge waves of visual, tactile, verbal, auditory sensations linked by other neurons and portions of the brain to huge chunks of life that have promoted our well-being (or injury and hinderment to some) and create an emotional response that result in our hearts fluttering, our skin flushing, and pull grandiose words out of the language center of our brain.

this is what happens when i'm on my bike and a driver doesn't use their blinker to cut me off suddenly

If you asked me why I like my favorite smell, I might just say, "It smells good." But there would be so much going on that formed that opinion. As Emily and I read these adoption books, they strongly emphasize the power of associations and warn of possible negative associations abused and hurt children may have with even simple things. The smell of cookie dough might trigger memories of anger and pain if associated with something traumatic that happened while freshly-baked cookies were in the house and once the reaction is discovered, it would be wise to act appropriately in the future to help resolve or avoid (if necessary) the situation.

cookie dough seems innocent, but it has a dark side no one wants to talk about

I find that these adoption books really contain amazing advice for dealing with everyone, not just hurt-children, and push me into being a better parent to my biological children. I also see a lot of it in the people I talk with at school, my patients, classmates, etc.

yes, i am judging you, don't be surprised. and don't deny you're doing it, too

It's impossible to fight emotion with emotion. Even well-articulated truth gets lost in the angry sea of anothers temper or sadness. Progress is made (ie, people are brought closer together) when both sides act rationally to some degree, and made closer the more rational they become. When emotions can be focused and organized, then the engine of our life can be useful, not just exploding vapors of combustible fuel. If our emotions are the engine, the steering wheel is our rationality. Both are required to move forward in consciously-decided directions.

'nuff said

So, as we get ready for the in-depth and very personal questions that'll be put to us by this worker over the next few homestudy appointments I'll have to prepare myself to answer well and not emotionally. The other day, I responded to someone's comment about a topic by talking about some triggered memory that probably seemed random to them at the time and cause them to think about me "What is WITH this guy?"

Tonight, when she asked us why we want to adopt a foster child, I said, "Because I think it's a great thing to do for someone." A few cricket chirps later, I tried to fill out that answer with some reason that didn't come out coherently, abandoned it, and restated, "It just seems like it's something great we can do for someone else," and deflected the question over to Emily with a panicked look on my face.

After thinking about it some more, I still can't come up with a better reason or answer, but it's not very exciting, is it?

the teacher finished 15 minutes ago. the girl at bottom right just has nothing else to do

Sorry if you came by earlier and the interwebs warned you my opining might be bad for your computer. Not sure what that was about, but I borrowed a picture off of Google Images and it got all jumpity on me.

More quotes

I just spent way too long writing a comment that probably doesn't make sense to the author of an "activist atheist" blog I stumbled upon while looking up C.S. Lewis quotes.

Here's some favorite quotes from "Mere Christianity":

“We must, therefore, not be surprised if we find among Christians some people who are still nasty. There is even, when you come to think it over, a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones. That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract ‘such awful people’. That is what people still object to and always will.”

"What can you ever really know of other people’s souls - of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles?"

“Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.”

“Each time you fall He will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection.”

“The natural life in each of us is something self-centred, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe. And especially it wants to be left to itself: to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher than it, anything that might make it feel small. It is afraid of the light and air of the spiritual world, just as people who have been brought up to be dirty are afraid of a bath. And in a sense it is quite right. It knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all of its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.”

“He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others - not because He has favorites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favorites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.”

“But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.”

“If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.” (Does this mean that if I think I am conceited, then I'm not?? LOL)

“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go.”

“If people do not believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that they should live together unmarried than that they should make vows they do not mean to keep. It is true that by living together without marriage they will be guilty (in Christian eyes) of fornication. But one fault is not mended by adding another: unchastity is not improved by adding perjury.”

“If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.”

“In the passage where the New Testament says that every one must work, it gives as a reason ’in order that he may have something to give to those in need.’”

“An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons - marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.”

“That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or- if they think there is not- at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”

“Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we are inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.”