Quick Hits

A thought from last week... when the world hears the word "Dallas" what is the first thing they think of? Is it the Kennedy assassination? Some of guys on The Ticket were talking about how Dallas was despised by the nation for a while after that fateful day in Dealey Plaza, I've never felt that growing up here, anyone else ever get that feeling?

Anyone see the new Harry Potter movie yet? I liked it a lot, but I think this movie more than any other made me realize that, as a huge fan of the books whose read them each at least twice, I'm never going to love the movies. The books are just so deep and intricate (and long) that it is impossible to make a good movie out of them that isn't 4-5 hours long. Usually with novels I like the authors to be concise and keep the action moving, but J.K. Rowling is one of the few authors who I don't mind taking a lazy stroll from action scene to action scene with.

How did my job go from being so good less than a month ago to so crappy right now? Anyone got a job for me?

Some other stuff. Tired of writing now. Later.

Problem Loan Reports

Been very busy this week writing this quarter's PLRs at work. Worked late several days. Very tired. There may not be any entries this week because of it. Sorry. Deal.

The Simple Life, A Better Life

Are the two terms interchangeable? I'm beginning to think that they are. They also happen to be the titles to two country songs, which you will probably find appropriate when I get to the end of this entry.

Lately I've been longing for a different kind of life. I go to work in the mornings, fight traffic, and sit down in my boring little cube to do the same thing over and over again. I deal with office politics and the injustices of the system, try to do my best and stay motivated through it all, and then fight traffic again on my way home each night. I'm constantly worrying about "where do I go from here," trying to plan out my next move, find my next job opportunity and climb my way up the ladder. And I hate that.

Then when I'm at home every night I listen to country music and watch TV, and both activities keep putting this crazy little idea into my head. Leave it all behind. Go find a simpler life. Country music often glorifies the country life, and while I'm sure it is being embellished a bit it still seems like a good deal. Recently I rented the PBS mini-series "Frontier House" from the library and it gave me even more ideas. If you can fight through the annoying personalities that took part in the project, it is really an awesome look at what it was like to live on the frontier more than a century ago and how different our lives are now. Each family that went out there had a hard time at first, but by the time the project was over each had come to love that simple life, and I think that I would love it too. Working all day for the good of your family, working with your hands, enjoying a state of exhaustion at the end of each day knowing that you've accomplished something and that you can be proud of it.

I wish I could go back to that time or find a similar situation in the present day. I wish I could find a job that didn't have any opportunities to move up, a career without a ladder. I wish I could find a place where I could work hard and come home every day tired physically, not mentally and emotionally like I am now. I wish I could find a place where my only ambition was to take care of my family and try to raise my children right. I wish I could find a life with less distractions, with less options, where more often than not my evening entertainment would be good book and where I could better appreciate the important things in life. Hopefully a place like that is out there somewhere. I know it will be a lot harder to live that life than just looking for it, I know it will require a lot of difficult decisions on my part, I know it will be just as much an internal thing as external, I know I have to really want it. I hope that I can make that choice.

Reasonless Happenings

A couple things have happened in the past few days that have bummed me out. First, a friend of mine found out on Friday that she'd had a miscarriage, this was her first pregnancy. For some reason miscarriage have always depressed me more than other bad things that could happen to my friends, there is just something different about them. There is something about expecting a sweet little bundle of joy, and then finding out that you will never get to meet that child. Also, I'm upset because I know how much my friend wanted to start her family, and how much she must feel right now. The second thing that has gotten me down are the crappy cliches I've heard others throwing around in their attempt to deal with what has happened.

"Everything happens for a reason." Bull shit.

I hate that phrase. People quote it like scripture, and indeed some people believe that they actually are quoting scripture. Well, let me educate you, those words, nor any paraphrase of those words, appear anywhere in the Bible. I understand why some people say it, it's like your blanky when you were a child, it provides you comfort and it shields you. In this case it shields you from the truth, the cold, hard, ugly truth that in this fallen world shit happens, and it happens a lot. The world is cursed, plain and simple, and in a cursed world bad things happen, without warning and without reason.

Actually, there is a reason for some things. Hurricane Katrina happened because of warm water in the ocean and the way the water molecules react with one another to form a storm, but that's as deep as the reasoning goes. My friend last week, and several other friends in the past, had a miscarriage because the human body is not perfect and just doesn't work right all the time. But some people would want to tell my friend that not only did her miscarriage happen for a reason deeper than biology, but that it actually happened for a good reason and that good will come out of it. I imagine that is just about the last thing that she would want to hear.

I would love to believe that everything happens for a reason and that good will come out of every tragedy, but everything I've seen and everything I've read, in the Bible and elsewhere, just won't let me believe that. But there is still good in life, and one, or many, bad reasonless happenings shouldn't make us lose hope that we will ever experience happiness and joy again. Any no matter how much pain we experience, with or without reason, we can still experience the ultimate good in a life beyond this one.

Intelligent Debate

A quick lunch hour post on an article I just read...

Intelligent design. The scientific theory/idea that the intense complexities of the universe and the way all the pieces work together imply that a higher power designed the universe. Basically the idea that evidence in the structure of the universe points to the existence of God or a similar being. Critics have called it "biblical creationism in disguise," which isn't totally inaccurate, though the way the phrase it gives it a deceptive connotation. Intelligent design is the scientific investigation of the Biblical idea of creationism, but it is scientific.

Evolution. The scientific theory originated by Darwin that life happened by accident out of non-life and that life has gotten steadily more complex through the years (millions of them). It is the investigation of the development of life and whether it is possible that one species can evolve into another different species. It is a theory, not scientific fact as many of its proponents would have you believe. Its critics have said that it has many holes and cannot explain life.

The debate. Several school districts over the country are currently battling at how to teach these two theories. In some places people want intelligent design taught alongside evolution. In other places people simply want teachers to read disclaimers before teaching evolution that states it is only a theory, not fact, and that it is a comparatively incomplete theory. Right now several of the school districts that teach intelligent design are being sued to remove that topic from the curriculum by those who think it isn't science and who think that it is a violation of the separation of church and state. Here's what confuses me, for those who claim it isn't science, what is science about? Isn't it about the search for truth, isn't it about investigating different claims to see if they are true or false, isn't it about keeping an open mind and not letting a personal opinion cloud results? If that is so then what are they so scared about? Even if they think intelligent design is wrong what is the harm in having it be taught as a theory along with evolution, it will help teach the kids to have open minds, to be able to consider an idea without accepting it and then to make their own determination. And to those who think it is a violation of the separation of church and state, let me remind you that those words do not appear anywhere in the Constitution, and that it is only the responsibility of the government to not establish or endorse any one religion. There is no way that teaching intelligent design as a theory is an attempt by the government to set up a national religion or even endorse one. These people are only trying to present an idea for consideration, not shove ideology down anyone's throat. It would be nice if we could have an intelligent debate about this topic, but that doesn't seem likely.