Social Butterfly

Dear Internet,

This week has been terribly busy. Last Saturday I went to my first club. I had done everything in my power to get out of it, alas, I was unsuccessful. A friend was in town and wanted to go. I didn't have the heart to say no. Plus, I'm working on broadening my horizons this year. A key part of that includes doing things outside of my comfort zone. It is not a gay club, but we went on gay night. I obviously expected it to be a den of sin overrun with shady, disgusting people. However, I was being far too harsh. We met a bunch of friends down there and I had a good time. I even danced (awkwardly of course).

Sunday night we had some friends over for boardgames and Bomberman 64. It was an excellent time, but I ended up staying up too late. I was out late Wednesday and Thursday night too. Friday I went to bed at 3 a.m. Yesterday was also jam-packed but I went to bed at 8:30 to recover.

It's Sunday morning and there is much to do including a really cool estate sale and a trip to Express to stock up on boxers (it's the last day of their sale).

This post has a point, and it's that I'm busy. I know everyone says they're busy all the time, and of course we all are. I'll clarify. I've got many other thing vying for my attention and time and my priorities have shifted. While I love this blog, my idea for a high-quality, weekly post has not come to fruition. I'm still going to maintain this blog and I have lots of things to say and plenty of posts in development. I just won't be the prolific blogger I once was. Maybe this makes you happy or maybe it makes you sad. I'll see you around these parts later.


Your Friend,

J

UPular

If a post showed up in your Google Reader about Sam Davis disregard it. It's still a work in progress. I don't have anything for my weekly post, so I'll just share this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2yt1ooLQGo

Enjoy.

Weakness

Dear Internet People,

Lately I've been thinking about job interviews a lot. I don't anticipate a change of career anytime soon, but the thought came from a NYTimes series I read called Corner Office. One day I aspire to be a member of executive management for either a large multinational corporation, or a highly regarded non-profit. Maybe both. Anyhow, reading this series always makes me think about the interview process and that brilliant question "what is your greatest weakness?*" The answer I'm tempted to give is perfectionism, but I've really been managing that quite well over the years (I think the turning point was losing my 4.0 in college). Therefore, I need to have another one.

Friday I figured out what it was. I don't take criticism well. At work I got a review that I was not happy with and was livid. My wonderful day turned into me going on a tirade in about 5 minutes. This issue will be resolved Monday. At least I know my weakness now.

In other news...

I'm going to a Brandi Carlile concert this week and am super excited. I've also been listening to the new Vampire Weekend non-stop. Alas, their concert in Nashville was sold out. Maybe next time.

This weekend is rather demanding of my time, so I'm cutting my post short.

*If you are interviewing a candidate and want to make sure you don't receive a canned response, ask what are your 2 greatest weaknesses. Most people only have 1 that they've rehearsed.

Common Ground

I recently had a very heated exchange with someone I consider I friend. It was related to sexuality and Christianity. I ended the conversation exceptionally frustrated and in a situation where I found myself unable to understand the motivations of the other person. It was an argument that led nowhere for either party. Ironically we both care deeply about each other and feel like the other is completely missing the point. At least, that's my interpretation of the events that transpired.

The conversation made me realize that I need to be more candid about my beliefs and core convictions, in person and online. Since I enjoy a moderate level of anonymity here, I'm going to start posting about my movement from Conservative Christianity towards agnosticism/atheism. This was something I've somewhat avoided talking about, but the time has come to share this part of my narrative.

As I've mentioned before, I'm hesitant to tell people of my lack of faith due to the fact they will assume it's because I'm gay. I (rightly or wrongly) feel people assume I changed my beliefs because I couldn't cope with being gay and I wanted to sin freely. I've mentioned this before (The Gay Thing) so I won't rehash.

The thing is, my coming out did act as a catalyst to the erosion of my former belief system, but it was certainly not the cause. The cause was that my beliefs could not be sustained. As I learned more, I HAD to change my beliefs.

I'm going to start with a basic example, the Gospels. While I had read the gospels in bits and pieces over the years, I never really read them all together. However, I ate up the fact they were eye witness accounts of the life of Jesus Christ. I believed they explained a virgin birth and a divine being and all the basic things a real, true Christian is supposed to believe. I was pretty much a biblical literalist and thought it had some kind of magical powers*. However, as I started reading gay-friendly theology (much of which I found weak), I did get turned onto some really great Christian authors that exposed me to a lot of truth about the Bible I didn't even know! It started with evangelicals like Tony Campolo (who I'm still a fan of**), Emergents like Brian McLaren, and academics like Peter Gomes. From this further reading of CHRISTIAN literature I realized how backwards I was in my thinking.

Now, I know backwards sounds harsh, but so I will defend my use of the term. Here in this world there are things that are true and there are things that are untrue. Of course, the universe is not black and white. Nevertheless, there are core convictions of biblical, literalist Christianity that can be proven false. Plus, you don't even have to look outside the bible! I assume 99% of you are already aware of this and can even chuckle a bit at those "poor literalists" who still believe everything they read (like a literal 7 day creation and dinosaurs on the ark). Tragically, I shared many beliefs with those people. But as I was challenged in my faith by counter-evidence I was able find peace by reading things as metaphor and finding passages that supported my new doctrines (such as pluralism).

In the long run these attempts to salvage a belief in a biblical god ultimately failed.

*At one point in my life I posted scripture on a bulletin board in my room in the hopes that "storing it in my heart" would strengthen my fight against gay thoughts.

**"50,000 people around the world died of hunger today. That's bad, but what's worse is that most of us don't give a damn. But what's even worse is that for many of us it is more bothersome that I just said the word 'damn' than that I said 50,000 children of God died of hunger." - Tony Campolo

Note: I'm pressed for time today so forgive any grammatical errors.

The Storm

No, the title is not some metaphor regarding an emotional storm I'm going through. I mean an ICE STORM! This week I was traveling for work but we cut the trip short and hurried home as a substantial portion of the country was impacted by winter weather. Here we had a mini-ice storm that shut down the city for a good 24 hours. In rural areas the streets are still frozen. Where I live the roads were safe for driving yesterday, but parking lots were a bit hazardous. The trees were totally covered in ice and bowed under the weight. It was absolutely stunning. Sadly, today the sun started melting the trees. The beautiful frozen Narnia began to thaw and it sounded like it was raining as water poured off the trees. Why do those meddling Pevensie's have to mess things up?



Life is still quite busy between work and personal goals. I've got another exam for work that I'm trying to study for and am also still working out twice a week. Slowly I'm seeing results but the self-esteem and energy boost after working out are already in full effect. Additionally, I have a new haircut that I love so I'm feeling quite cute. Hahaha. I only say this because I have a tendency to be rather critical of my own appearance, so I appreciate the times I feel attractive. I do attempt to keep my self-criticism to a minimum as it's a trait I find extremely unappealing in others.

Life here is really great for me. I've got some more serious posts I'm working on, but as I've mentioned time has been at a premium lately...sort of. This weekend I carved out about 12 hours (maybe more) to beat WORLD OF GOO. If you do not have this game you need to stop reading this post and go buy it. It's so much fun! Google it.

This March I'm supposed to be running another 5K and I hope I'm still in shape. I'm going to start running again this week. Alas, I found out Friday that I'm going to be taking a very short trip (under 48 hours) to a location yet to be determined for work. I do enjoy the fact that I can travel at anytime with my job, but every now and then I do wish I had a bit more consistency in my schedule. Of course, if I was not traveling 30-40% of the year I'd be terribly bored at home even if it meant I would always be able to make my training schedule at the gym.

Friday night I had a deep conversation with my roommate and it brought up a lot of emotion that I'd kind of buried. Be expecting a blog about my feelings soon!

Finally, today I bought a MicroSD card reader for my computer. Sadly, in a series of very stupid mistakes on my part I managed to get a mini-cd stuck in my computer (iMacs do NOT like mini-cds - DUH!), download unnecessary software repeatedly, and waste 45 minutes only to discover the problem was that I did not plug the cord in all the way! GAH. I used to work at an IT Helpdesk, and here I am making rookie mistakes. Oh well.

I leave you with my favorite photo from the storm.

Round-up

I find myself preoccupied by lots of things that keep me from blogging. None are too terribly exciting. One new "hobby" is watching Dr. Who (thanks Netflix). Growing up I used to watch the old series every now and again with my dad. I was quite late getting into the new one and I can't wait to catch up with Torchwood!

I'm headed out of town so I figure I'll post a round-up of things I've been meaning to share, but have not gotten around to until now:

• Biblical Historicity is an interest of mine, especially after an online course I was taking peaked my interest. This is an interesting read about David and Solomon.
• A good friend's sister posted this about yoga recently. It's absolutely worth a read, even if you don't know (or care) anything about yoga.
• Surely you have all seen Avatar by now. I also assume you've seen these. They've been making the rounds around the internet and I find them quite amusing.
• This Lily Allen song is one of my new favorites. I know it's not quite new.
  
• If any guys out there are in need of a new haircut you should check out about.com. Really, it's still a great site for a lot of info!
  

There are a ton of other things I would like to share, but I'll do it at a later date. I'll post something more substantial next week. Scout's honor.

I almost forgot! I want a new bicycle. Come spring, it will be mine!

Inertia

Before I begin I have a question. It seems that traffic has seen an upswing here and I'm not sure why. However, the real puzzle is where it's coming from! Here is a list of countries: Sweden, Malaysia, Spain, Singapore, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Lithuania, Singapore, France, Portugal, and more!

At first I was thinking someone might be using Tor or something, but does that really generate IP addresses around the globe? Most of these visits are 0 seconds. However, if anyone reading this is international (not you M or O), I would love if you left a comment explaining how you ended up here. Thanks!

Now for the main post.

In my job I try to understand how things work. I then compare the idea of how something works to the reality of how it's currently being executed. You would be quite surprised how large the gap between perception and reality can be.

The two most important questions I attempt to answer are "how" and "why" things work the way they work. As expected, people can almost always tell me how something works (when they can't it make my life miserable), but quite often the why can't be answered. Ideally a process operates the way it operates because it's the best method to achieve an established goal. The goal could be related to efficiency, safety, compliance, etc. Alas, when a company gets to a certain size, the rationale for business decisions is often unknown. At some point a decision was made, but over the years the reason for that decision was forgotten. Inertia has taken over.

We all remember from physics that inertia is the tendency of an object in motion to remain in motion, or an object at rest to remain at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. In our daily lives we tend to think about this in relation to speeding cars or falling objects. However, the inertia impacting our daily habits is a far more influential force.

I've been "acted upon" by an outside force that has thrown me off my game. The devastation in Haiti has really depressed me. The overwhelming and senseless loss of life in insane. Honestly, I don't usual get that worked up over tragedy (9/11, Katrina, Indo Tsunami, none have hit me like this). Maybe it's related to the fact that this is the first tragedy without a god for me. Being a naturalist has been fine in theory, but witnessing the absolute devastation and indifference of the universe towards human suffering is jarring. Still, it can validly be argued a lot of the devastation was augmented by humanity (i.e., the 80% poverty rate that caused the earthquake to be so destructive). Clearly, Haiti offers a view into the worst of mankind and forces you (well, me at least) to wrestle with how I can be so indifferent on a daily basis.

I know I harp on this a lot. I certainly talk about human suffering a lot more than I take action to alleviate it. I get so wrapped up in my life (finding love, television, eating, sleeping, sex, work, money, etc.) that I don't see a bigger picture. It's incredible that in a world so interconnected we can also be so disconnected.

A couple of weeks ago I thought I had my next 5 years set in stone. I was going to save X amount of dollars, apply to certain schools, move, get a Master's degree, get a new job, and...live happily ever after? Now I'm not so sure about my plans. I'm going to take a step back and fight against the inertia that so easily drives along my life.

Though tragedy is an eternal part of the human narrative, so are grace, beauty, redemption, and salvation*. It's time to rewrite this tragedy.

*Paraphrased from a sermon I heard this morning.