Someone On The Internet Is Wrong

I'm typing on my computer because someone is wrong on the internet. The internet is full of these people. Politics. Pop Culture. Ford vs. Chevy. Religion.

Even I can be wrong. So I'm told.

Telling people they're wrong is a hobby. Arguing is fun. Especially with trolls. Keyboard warriors.

Religion found me. I changed targets. I upped my game because I have smart friends. Politics weren't the issue. No one fact checks things anymore.

Let's talk about something less polarizing like religion.

I'm on Twitter arguing with an atheist. The clock ticks. 140 character bullets fly.

I'm sure every one of them is a kill. The atheist gets up again. He shoots back. It's a battle of attrition. I don't know who gives up first, him or me.

We both walk away thinking we're right.

I'm in front of a computer at work talking a religion. It's a blitzkrieg. I'm being massacred.

Questions fly like bombers. I answer as fast as I can. My smart friends are relentless.

One says I should think deeper. I think I could be if he would let me answer before hitting me again. I limp off the digital battlefield.

I open my phone. A religious question about the Gnostic gospels comes up on Facebook.

I keep scrolling. These are better answered one-on-one over coffee or email. Social media proselyting is murder.

What Kind Of Superhero Would I Be?

I recently got hooked on a show called My Hero Academia. It's an anime about a world where almost everyone has superpowers and go to a hero school if possible.

One of the main characters is Deku, who didn't have any powers-called "quirks" on the show. He was given one by the world's most famous hero. Imagine Superman giving you his superpowers and retiring.

If I was my own superhero, what would I be?

Not Batman. That comes with dead parents. But I'll take some aspects of his.
Not Superman or even Captain America.

What would I be as a superhero?

Moral. Competent. Street-Smarts with head smarts. Wise. Gentle, generous, kind and a comforting presence to be around. Calm yet firm. Some things he wouldn’t allow...
Noble.

What would that look like?

What Did I Just Read...

I'm a sucker for an excellent podcast or book. Earlier this year the Bible Project podcast was recommended to me. I'll admit that it's not for everyone and it leaves me scratching my head at times. Lately, they've been doing a series on God and the supernatural world, and it blew my mind.

Christianity is a supernatural religion. That's hard to grasp coming from a western cultural mindset. The closest we may get is God of the Gaps for what we can't explain. Yet it's all tied together.

Then they interviewed a Ph. D and M.A in the Hebrew language by the name of Michael S. Heiser. He works for Logos Bible software and wrote a couple of books, Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches about the Unseen World - And Why It Matters and The Unseen Realm.

The first is like an overview of the spirit world according to the Bible and the latter is much more in-depth. Honestly, it helped that he works for Logos. It gave him cred. Otherwise, I was probably going to write him off as a quack.

While I read, I looked for bad doctrine. I also saw how Jehovah's Witnesses could get confused and say Jesus is an angel.

The books tied the Bible together for me. Some parts make me do the doggy head tilt. Like how demons or unclean spirits are the spirits of dead Nephilim.

I've been ruminating on what he calls the divine council of lesser spirits that God has in charge of other nations. Apparently, some went rogue. Other's didn't.

One question I have is, are they still ruling? How does that work? Who's over America? Can we tell by how that country acts if it's a good or bad ruler?

Ok, that's more than one question. The books have me thinking though...

Winging It!

I was at the doctor the other day for my wife's health insurance screening. While she was in the back, I sat in the waiting room reading. Until a kid-toddlers-walked by.

I would look up and then go back to reading. This one child caught my attention though. She was probably barely over her mom's knee in height. She was staring in rapt attention up at her mom, her little head almost all the way back.

I'm thinking I can't remember ever being that small, despite the photographic evidence. The next thought is I don't feel like I ever grew up either. I was just given more responsibility until it snuck on me.

In fact, I feel just as uncertain now as I did then...

Philosophical Musings from Superhero Shows

Superhero movies and shows have some pretty deep philosophical concepts if you pay attention. Here's a couple:

Why I don’t want to mind read after watching the Flash. If I could, then I’d always be thinking about what I just saw in their minds. I do that now with the books I read, which is literally thoughts on paper.

And some hidden secrets would mar relationships since I would have a hard time looking at someone the same again. I definitely don't want anyone looking in my head at that darkness.

An interesting theological point I just thought of is that God knows just how horrible we are, that I am. Yet, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

That's Romans 5:8. It wasn't a surprise to Him. He wasn't like "aww man, I bought a lemon."

Then I was watching Black Lightning and Khalil’s divided loyalties. Man can’t serve two masters, he’ll hate the one and love the other. That's in the Sermon on the Mount.

You will have to choose when they conflict. Even if it’s your own set of standards. This may be where situational ethics comes into play-or no right answer/good answer. It's why politics are so sticky.

A person says one thing, yet does another. We don't ask why they did it. We don't ask what did they know that we didn't.

Trouble also comes when we don't know who we are or what we stand for as individuals. You have to think deeply about things because it's nuanced. I've said a child's Sunday school theology won't work for an adult. It applies to life in this way as well, a bumper sticker philosophy won't cut it in real life.

It's only a foot wide and a millimeter deep.

Two Months of Testing

It's been two months since I started using the Welltory app. Running experiments to see what restores me and what drains me. It's led to some interesting discoveries.

Like food is a drainer.  Lowers performance, drains energy and increases stress. Bummer. Digestion is a downer.

Full strength coffee? That's a nope. Ok, compromise. Half-Caff.
Still a nope. I've been relegated to Decaf. To think, I once shouted death before Decaf.

That blapshemous coffee boost my energy and lowers stress. I still drink the high-octane, but my caffeine amounts have dropped drastically from 600-700mg a day to 60mg.

Writing was a shocker. Lowers my performance, my energy and increases my stress. Still not going to stop.

What's good?

Chatting. Apparently relationships are good for you at +1 in energy and -1 in stress.

Same with church. But we knew that ;).

Work. It flucuates. Boosts the energy, but also raises the stress....

Reading for the win. It's a booster.

Volunteering is a gray area. It can drain or restore depending on what I'm doing.

The biggest surprise is when I stand up in front of people and speak. That's been the biggest energy booster and stress buster. How is that possible for an introvert?

Either way, it's helping get my life back in balance. Making adjustments to my day based on the daily tests. This week has been much better than usual. I even have the energy to work out again. Working to keep the trend going.

The Writer's Block That Wasn't

Writer's block. Some say it's a myth. That all you have to do is be willing to write badly until the good comes out.

I don't have writer's block at the moment. If anything its a deluge of randomness that I can't expand into a decent post. It's more of a long FB status.

Things like asking me what I think about the latest issue, or this thing and that-and being surprised when I say, "I don't know." Why?

Because I don't have enough info. Everything is layered like the lasagna I'm about to eat. Different perspectives, motivations, cause and effect, truth, half-truth, and lies.

Simple answer, "I don't know. And I don't want to invest my time in learning more on that topic."

Another bit of randomness. People are like kaleidoscopes. Multi-faceted.

Trivia for you. According to the Welltory app one of my biggest boosters is public speaking. It makes my energy and performance go higher and my stress lower.

How is that possible for an introvert like me?

Randomness from the Writer's block that wasn't.

Pfft...Politics

"Can you believe this!"
"What they're trying to do is..."
"I didn't know she was a liberal...I don't think I like her anymore."

The political monologue we deal with. People reading a headline, getting outraged.

"This makes me mad!"

One of the best decisions I ever made was when I stopped watching the news. And that was during the Obama presidency.

Now...it's even more of a sideshow that continually proves the darkness in the human heart.

Chill people. Turn off the tv and talk to friends and family...preferably about something other than politics.

Like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

Purpose?

Purpose. Something most of us search for. I was asked what I thought someone's purpose was.

My answer, “I can’t answer that since I’m not living your life. What I can say is it’s found where your strength, passion, and tragedy intersects.
I’ve been a teacher for at least 8 years. Teaching is the passion, learning the strength and having to use it to get through tragedy makes it where I can help people in similar situations or to keep them from the same”

Where do your strengths and passions collide with a personal tragedy or experience that you can speak into?

What's The Story You're Trying To Tell?

Narratives occur in real life. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Social media makes it easier to share such stories to the world with tailored pictures and posts.

It can be fun being the main character in a story. I remember as a kid in school always pretending to be a superhero. Spider-Man. Wolverine. Batman (I was an adult at that point 😉).

Something more than I was.

We do it still as adults. Trying to live up to the stories we tell ourselves about us. It's a lot of pressure to be a star.

Are we slaves to our "fame"?  Maybe instead we are actors upon the world.

What's the story you're trying to tell?

New "Toy" To Play With

Introspectors gonna introspect.

That describes me perfectly. I've taken almost every self-assessment I come across. I know my personality type, how people see me, my enneagram numbers, my weight and measurements over the years. I understand where StrengthFinder puts me.

Even my ancestry and how we migrated to the US centuries ago.

I'm the world's leading expert on me...and I still don't know much.

Have you heard of "quantifying yourself"? It's also known as lifeblogging. Wikipedia says this about it.

Quantified self, also known as lifelogging, is a specific movement by Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly from Wired magazine, which began in 2007 and tries to incorporate technology into data acquisition on aspects of a person's daily life. People collect data in terms of food consumed, quality of surrounding air, mood, skin conductance as a proxy for arousal, pulse oximetry for blood oxygen level, and performance, whether mental or physical. Wolf has described quantified self as "self-knowledge through self-tracking with technology."

If you track any health markers, even just wearing a FitBit, you're 'lifeblogging.'

I stumbled across an app called Welltory that consolidates all the information to give you health measurements along with tracking HRV (Heart Rate Variability). The goal is to measure stress and energy so you can work to balance out and perform at optimal levels. They say 'energy management instead of time management.'

I'm really good at time management. Not that great at energy management. Most of the time I'm one

project away from burnout again.

So I'm giving it a shot to avoid flaming out again.

Reflections...

Last week a friend died. Unexpected. It hit on a lot of levels.

I met him before his son died. Then afterward, in GriefShare where I helped him walk through the grief journey.

To see the progression from grieving father who couldn't make it through the first cycle to someone who made it through the second. He came back.

Not only came back, he became one of us, and joined the team comforting as he'd been comforted.
Then he died right before the cycle began.

We looked at a new flock of wounded people while likewise wounded. Then the next day we went to his funeral. The videos we show have a new light to them even after seeing them at least 7 times now.

I have a slight fatalistic streak. It comes from so many dying at once.

One in an accident. Four the next year with two within days of each other. Two after that. Four more in 2016.

Accidents, sudden health issues, miscarriages...

It leads to odd thoughts. Like what are people going to say when I die? How many will be there? Will God let me watch my own funeral?

It's one of the painful parts of marriage when you think about it. When you say, "I Do" when the minister asks if you'll take your spouse until death do you part.

It's something that stays in the back of my mind. The eventuality that eventually I or my wife will die.

How will we deal with that?

Poorly I am sure. Sometimes I think about it, like an inoculation. When you consider the eventual death of a spouse it gives perspective.

Was that argument really that important?

Do you spend enough time with them?

Personally, I'm thinking we need to print off some pictures. We have tons of them. Time froze on paper.

Death makes you think...

Ignorantly Brilliant

We tend to think people with high IQs are smart, and they are. It takes more than that though. I have a higher than average IQ, and have been called "brilliant".

The thing is I still do some pretty dumb stuff. Common sense stuff.

IQ tests cover a variety of areas, we are wired to be stronger in some ways, and weaker in others.
I'm strongest with spelling, yet feel stupid when I play Scrabble. That hurts as a writer.

And no one will ever accuse me of being good at math.

A week and a half ago I was visiting a friend at work. He's a software engineer. I looked at his computer screen, made no sense to me.

He's trained. I'm not. Focused IQ.

That same day I got to fly a C-130 simulator. I "killed us on multiple occasions" even knowing how aerodynamics work. Countless switches.

Training again.

I go to an in-depth Bible class. Really smart people are there. I feel dumb and I love it.
Hang around people smarter than you. You have your areas of expertise, they have theirs. You can always learn.

Socrates allegedly said, "I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing."
That's a helpful way to get around the cognitive-bias called The Dunning-Krueger Effect. It's a bias where incompetent people don't realize they're incompetent.

Know anyone like that? Is it you?

Always be a student.

If you're the smartest person in the room, you're probably in the wrong room.

Why Am I Reading These Books?

I read a lot of books, and recently beat my record of 42 books in a year. All but one is nonfiction. Part

of those books are books I've read before, and it's an eclectic bunch.

A few I haven't read in five years. Like the personal defense books I bought and read five years back.

With reading, I generally follow the whims of my heart as to what to read next. Or I'm driven relentlessly by curiosity to learn more.

The interesting part is I've used and generally had to use what I learn in the near future.

As a Christian, I believe in the sovereignty of God, and His providential ordering of the universe.

Why am I interested in my defense books again?

Is it because I see them as practical psychology? Mental defense?
Am I keeping the sword sharp...so to speak?

Where will I need this?

Or is it part of the rebalancing I tend to notice within myself. Where I go to one extreme from another and then balance out. Questions. Questions. Yet I continue to read.

And Here We Go...

Why write another blog?

Just to get information out of my head that doesn't really fit anywhere else. I have the A Ronin's Journey blog but that has a particular Christian niche. This one is for ramblings and musings with no real set schedule.

Just whenever. So if you're interested in staying up to date with my somewhat eclectic train of thought then you should subscribe.

I think I have a subscribe widget...I'm used to WordPress over Blogger. Trying something different.