On Finitness

Teenagers are often a good topic to talk about because they present a concentrated form of Humanity.
By the time we're teenagers, we've figure out everything that we can get away with, but we haven't learned what we shouldn't do. We know what we're capable of, but don't have the wisdom to live responsibly.
Case study: Teenage girls who get their first job.
I know a bunch of girls who work after school or on the weekends.
Baggers at Market Basket make well above minimum wage, and they typically make more than $50 per week.
Now, with gas prices so excellently low, $50 is way more than it takes to fill up a gas tank for a week, even with the ridiculous amount of "let's go to the mall!" and "i'll drive" that they do.
So what do you spend all your money on?
Well, the answer is obvious, right?
clothes and shoes!

Lets buy 3 pairs of shoes that, in 6 months, either won't fit, will be worn out, or will be out of style. Then we'll buy one of everything in Hollister, and pick up $15 worth of pretzel bites on the way out.
When we get home, we'll make sure our parents get us a nice semi dress that we'll never wear again, and then spend the whole afternoon talking to cute boys instead of doing our homework/chores/etc.
Then we'll watch some completely unredeeming tv and yell at our parents for asking where we've been all day.

Do you get my drift?
good.
Now on to other things.

I read about a guy in the old testament a few months ago, and i've been wanting to write about it ever since, but couldn't seem to make it fit anywhere.
But i think now i have it.

During the reign of King David in Jerusalem, there was a really smart guy that David would seek advice from.
His name was Ahithophel.
2 Samuel 16:23 states that "In those days the advice Ahithophel gave was like that of one who inquires of God."
Essentially, this guy knew what he was talking about.

Now, at one point, one of David's sons, Absalom, got on this power trip and ran his dad outta town. Whilst he was trying to commandeer the throne, he asked Ahithophel to give him his advice.
One such tidbit of advice was concerning the best way to ensure he would stay on the throne:
"I would choose twelve thousand men and set out tonight in pursuit of David. I would attack him while he is weary and weak. I would strike him with terror, and then all the people with him will flee. I would strike down only the king and bring all the people back to you. The death of the man you seek will mean the return of all; all the people will be unharmed."

Now there was another advice-giver in town.
His name was Hushai, and he was still loyal to David.
Hushai said something completely different:
"The advice Ahithophel has given is not good at this time. You know your father and his men; they are fighters, and as fierce as a wild bear robbed of her cubs. Besides, your father is an experienced fighter; he will not spend the night with the troops. Even now, he is hidden in a cave or some other place. If he should attack your troops first, whoever hears about it will say, 'there has been a slaughter among the troops who follow Absalom.' Then even the bravest soldier, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will melt with fear, for all Israel knows that your father is a fighter and that those with him are brave. "

Anyway, Absalom decided to do what Hushai said, which meant that David knew what was coming for him and was able to beat him.
Meanwhile, we read in 2 Samuel 17:23:
"When Ahithophel saw that his advice had not been followed, he saddled his donkey and set out for his house in his hometown. He put his house in order and then hanged himself. So he died and was buried in his father's tomb."

and that's all we know about this dude Ahithophel.

What do Ahithophel and teen girls have in common?
They're both excellent examples of one of the human conditions: Finitness.
As people, we're incredibly good at living "in the moment".
we know how to procrastinate, how to enjoy minutes right now, and how to eat candy.
We're notoriously bad about thinking ahead in time, about thinking about consequences, and more importantly, about heeding those consequences and actually doing what we're supposed to.

My biology teacher has, if anything, increased my belief in creationism.
When we were studying enzymes, she constantly said, "this enzyme is designed for this substrate" and "when the wrong substrate binds to the enzyme, the intended substrate can't bind"
Like, shouldn't she have been saying "this enzyme by chance happens to break down this particular substrate" and "when this substrate binds to the enzyme instead, nothing happens and the other substrate can't break down"?
The theories and teachings that we've developed through science are inherently finite. That's why we're still trying to figure the world out: because not everything makes sense to us.
We have been unable to grasp the way the world works.
We have an incredibly difficult job realizing the way the human race fits in to the rest of the universe.
And individually, we are unable to see the "big picture".
we're finite.
And sadly, far too often we don't give the big picture any consideration.
We live as if the little piece of reality that is the present is all there is, and it gets the better of us down the road.
bummer.

On Thanksgiving

I just got home from DEC's "thanksgiving eve" service.
They rearranged all the chairs in the sanctuary so they all faced inwardly, and then they passed a mic around the room for people to give a short story of what they're thankful for and why.
At the end, the worship pastor lead communion, and he said something that stuck with me:

"Thanksgiving is like the one holiday that America hasn't caught on to yet. Just a day of worship."

And if you think about it, it's entirely true.
The most obvious example is that thanksgiving is completely left out of everyone's decoration closet- stores jump from Halloween to Christmas on November 1st.
Also strikingly absent is that it doesn't have its own "season".
there's a "Christmas Season", an "Easter Season", a "Veterans Day" season...
but no "thanksgiving season".
Thanksgiving has, wonderfully, been allowed to remain exactly what it is.
Possibly because it isn't a big catholic holiday that everyone celebrated in the 1700s (George Washington created our national holiday), we are given a few days off from work and school, and just allowed to gather as families and whatnot, and be thankful for what we have.

For Christians, that means thanking God and remembering that he made the ultimate sacrifice for our own lives.

I think that thanksgiving is my new favorite holiday.
Not that i ever had a favorite holiday before, but now i'll have an answer for when people ask me.
And this is because its the one time when everyone around our country, no matter their political convictions, economic situations, or religious beliefs, find it in themselves to, for one weekend, have the attitude that we're all supposed to carry every day.

That's why i like thanksgiving.
Because its one time where everyone in the world has the right idea.

On people, part two

Yesterday I wrote down my thoughts on how people treat other people.
It is my firm belief that one of the predominant traits of humanity is selfishness.
Not selfishness in the blatant sense, but in the sense that it takes effort on our parts to think about others.

I'll give you two examples of this. The first one is simple: Xenon headlights.

Some of you may have heard me talk about xenon headlights before. Usually i rant about them after i've had to drive alone on some back roads in the pouring rain whilst struggling with the defroster.

Xenon headlamps are a great idea: you increase the color temperature of your headlights, which brings the spectrum much closer to natural light, while actually being brighter, which increases visibility dramatically.
That is, visibility for you, the driver.
Not for me, the car on the other side of the road who is temporarily blinder by your might-as-well-be-hibeams headlights.

See: by installing expensive headlights, we make our lives better while making other people uncomfortable/miserable. Obviously we don't think about this when we get the nice headlamps. But as far as i'm concerned, that's exactly the point: Humans aren't programed to think of others by default.


I'm going to give a second example, which is much more abstract.
Bear with me.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation is a nonprofit organization started by none other than Lance Armstrong shortly after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Through it and its associated organizations, such as Livestrong, it raises money to help cancer patients and to raise awareness about the incurable disease.
A noble cause. Lance Armstrong has proven himself to be an influence in our society by being more than just an athlete.

But here's the problem I have: all those little yellow bracelets.
Why weren't they manufactured BEFORE Lance Armstrong had cancer?

This is nothing at all against Mr. Armstrong.
This is a gripe with our human mindset.
There are thousands of organizations out there like Livestrong that help people.
Except a vast majority of them were started by people who have been through the same troubles as the people the organizations help.
Here's my question to you:

Why can't we start organizations to help people without first experiencing what they feel?
Why did it take getting cancer to make Lance Armstrong start his foundation?
Why is it that the parents of children with obscure, incurable diseases are always the ones trying to find the answers?

Why couldn't Lance Armstrong have sat down one day, pre-cancer, and say, "i think i'm going to start a foundation to raise money for cancer research."?

This is what i'm talking about.

All you have to do is listen to teenage girls for a little while: they are completely uninterested in their friends until they say, "my dog died last night", and then it's all, "awww, my dog died 2 years ago and i cried for 3 weeks!!!"
People in general have a hard time with empathy.
We find it difficult to think about the every day struggles of anyone other than ourselves.

Paul wrote to the church in Rome:
"Let no debt be outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." [Romans 13:8-10]

This is one thing i believe we can all do.
It's not that hard to love each other.

On people, part one

A lot has been said about what people do in their cars while driving. People have talked about witnessing commuters shaving, eating full-course meals, and reading newspapers while in traffic. This fascinates me. Not that people are so desperately deprived of time for these things, but that they are put on display for everyone to see.

Ever since i was little, i've imagined that there is a bubble around every car on the highway. As we drift past vehicles in the other lanes, for a brief moment we are traveling on the same road at the same speed, in the same place at the same time. I always glance at that person in the other car, not to be nosy, but to see if they glance back: to see if they are just as interested in my life as I am in theirs. For that short time, your lives are connected, and that glance is all the communication you will ever have with that person. In the age of facebook, where a mere acquaintance can be labeled as a "friend" and remembered forever, this is a powerful concept. You only have a few seconds to meet this person, and only a few seconds to realize that their life isn't that different than your own. They, too have much too much to do and much too little time to do it in. They, too, are overwhelmed with thoughts and plans.
Here in America, we are famous for busying ourselves. Employers in Britain are required to give their workers 20 days of paid vacation time per year; the average in America is half that. We like to complicate our lives and stretch ourselves too thin.
We worry about our lives a whole lot.
But hardly ever do we worry about people.

I'm not talking about people you know well, or even only vaguely know. Everyone cares about their friends. But to a certain extent, that's just the same as caring about ourselves: our friends are part of our lives. Caring about them is, in effect, caring about ourselves. Never do we think about the lives of others- those people we pass on the highway, those people who we don't know, and whose lives couldn't possibly affect our own. After a few seconds, their life is once again unimportant to us. We go on with our day as normal, unaware of the condition of that individual. This is something that I would like to unsubscribe to.