Darkness exists due to the absence of light.

I must have been fairly bored to be staring at my hand so intently. The way the light hit it just so.... I’m sure I looked equally odd when I held my hand still and moved my head down to get a look at the shadowy underside of it. But luckily no one was in the room, so there was no witness to my odd behavior.

It was about that point when I came to a conclusion about light and darkness. Here is an observation, which can be seen at any point in time by any person with access to the sun, a candle or even a child’s plug in night light; it’s not new information. I relate the metaphor to life. Light being anything that uplifts and makes one to feel better in the long term. Darkness being anything that depresses and makes one feel worse in the long term.

Here is the metaphor.

You can light a candle or lamp or turn on a light in any dark room, and the result is a spreading of light through out the whole room, the brightness of the light depending on the power behind the source. Light spreads in all directions, insistently outward, bouncing off the white walls, traveling quite a distance into and around the room, and reflects off of mirrors. In this way, light is shared and spread all over. The light naturally disperses everywhere, lighting everything it can reach.

But these qualities are not reproducible with darkness or shadow. A shadow or darkness cannot spread every direction through the room by lighting a ‘dark’ source, or bouncing off the walls or reflecting in a mirror. Darkness doesn’t spread itself or naturally disperse like light.

I looked at my hand and noticed that the light is only blocked in small areas by objects, and that that is what causes shadow. The light source is there, and then the object blocks the light source's reach to a certain area. That's what darkness is. You can't burn a dark candle, and make a shadow light. You can block the light to small degrees by placing objects in the way of the light, but shadow and darkness does not spread like light. You can have a singular shadow from an object, but there is no type of burning, spreading darkness.

There is one more piece to this. And that piece is that candles, or any light needs a source or fuel. It needs energy or fuel to keep it going. The only power the darkness has over the light besides blocking portion of it's reach, is the power of giving up or drying up. When the fuel runs out or the source dries up, there is darkness. So if we continue striving, hoping believing and trusting, we have power over the darkness, but as soon as we give up, darkness can take over. Other than our own hope drying up, light and goodness prevails.

This is the metaphor I came to realize while staring at my hand. Oh the things we think when we are bored. And yes, I am very glad for the blessing of every once in a while, having nothing to do, being bored enough to stare at my own hand and the light casting shadows on it.

Womanhood Rant

I made sure to get up early. To dress well and make myself presentable. Even though I was super tired. I then drove the two whole blocks to the building. Yes. I drove the whole two blocks. In a car. But it’s cold out there, I reason to myself, and it’s winter and I’ll be late if I walk. Of course this is the same rationalization I use every Sunday. And one would think I’d plan ahead, and just get up earlier so that I could dress warmly, and walk the two whole blocks, but by the time I think of it, it’s time to go get in the car so I can get there on time.

So I’m sitting there. First class, and they start talking about ‘Womanhood’. I nearly rolled my eyes, picked up my stuff and drove the whole two blocks back home. But I only rolled my eyes.

When they start talking about ‘Womanhood’ my mind shifts into full gear, and I begin analyzing everything they say, trying to pick out that something, anything at all that I must have missed so entirely last time. Because last time… and the time before that, and the time before that… and the time before that… I was just as confused as the first time.

‘Womanhood’ is one of those topics that I don’t know what to do with. I get annoyed and depressed with the topic because when they talk about women, they either make them out to be better than men because we can have babies (gasp!), or they say “It’s all right, you’re special too… we just can’t think of a reason how exactly, so just trust us ok?”

They tell us “Men have the priesthood, and are the head of the house. They have the priesthood and the authority so that they can serve you, and provide for your needs, and everything is about you, you, you, and the priesthood was given to men so that they could better appreciate you, and learn to serve you… blah blah blah…” Or they say “Men have the priesthood, which is an amazing power directly from God, and men lead the church, and lead the home… but don’t worry, you don’t need to feel like you’re useless, you can have babies and men can‘t! So… ha!”

Great. I sarcastically sigh. They never really equalize it. They try so hard. They keep saying “Don’t worry, men and women are equal!” But they never give any support for this argument. It’s so easy to say.

I know that I see this through a filter that I’ve come to accept over the years, but that’s because I have seen no evidence to support that statement “Don’t worry, men and women are equal!”
We have no life, we’re pregnant for ten months, during which time our mobility and activities are limited, and then after we have a kid, we clean and care for the kid, while the guy goes off and does fun and important-type stuff…

There are lots of mothers out there who become pregnant with a child for ten months, and that is hard enough, and then she has to breast feed the kid every three hours or something every day, no matter if it’s night time, 3am or not, and don’t forget that she has to change the diapers and all that wonderfulness. They’ve got these babies inside them for ten months, and then once they give birth, the baby is stuck on the outside for another year or so ‘til they learn to walk, and then these women go and have another one!

‘Womanhood’ isn’t just about giving birth and raising kids. I’ve heard many talks and lessons about how great women are, and it’s always tagged in there somewhere, that everything we do is all tailored to the idea of giving birth and raising kids. Well, I beg to differ. I want to hear just one talk, one lesson about how individuals are great. How women are individuals and men are too, and that that is the reason God made us, so we could live and be people of agency to make good choices and come up with good ideas. This is what I feel is missing from all of those talks and lessons and speeches on ‘womanhood’. They say it’s first and foremost about raising children. But I say it’s first and foremost about the potential for being amazing people. It’s not about being living, breathing, reproduction machines. I have joys and talents and desires and ideas and ambitions. I am a person, disassociated from the idea of having children.

I am a person first, who gets up early in the morning on Sunday, gets dressed and makes herself presentable even though she’s tired. I am a person first, who has strengths and flaws and decides drive to a church building every Sunday that’s only two blocks away. Yes, I’m flawed, but I’m an individual first, and then second there is this amazing, sacred duty encompassed by the word: “Womanhood”.

The rewards of labor

I thought this diagram was pretty cool. I saw it when I was... well a lot younger. The colors were very impressive to me at the time, since it wasn't very often I saw a rainbow in a grown-up's book. So I sat looking at the picture for quite a while before I asked my mom what it meant. At that point in time, I was simply drawn to the pretty rainbow, and so of course, when presented with the choice of which one I thought I should choose, I wanted the rainbow one.

I've since come to realize that there is so much more to the diagram, with much more depth than just a pretty hour-glass shaped object vs. the brownish icky (I swear it looked worse in the book) diamond shaped object. The principle of the comparison is actually quite spectacular. The main principle of this diagram is that what you do now, will affect you later. Whether we choose to do something positive and uplifting (sharing our lollipop with the next kid over), or something negative and depressing (hiding out lollipops from everyone else), we can not avoid the fact that there are consequences to every choice we make. "There -- are -- ALWAYS -- consequences!" As would that guy off of that movie (Jumper) say.

It gets harder and harder as we strive to do good, to keep doing good. But if we endure, if we stick it out and keep on, eventually it will turn around and we will find it becomes easier because the rewards outweigh the challenge. An example of that would be lifting weights. As we lift them, we could realize that it hurts, it's hard and we don't like it. But the more we do it, the stronger we become, and the easier it is. And for some reason people get happy because they can lift big weights. And happiness is the ultimate reward for our actions. We have to keep in mind the long-term happiness though, not the short-term surface-type happiness that can be stolen away in an instant once our environment changes.

True happiness is not dependent on any outside influence.

This means that the happiness we feel in any given situation where 'something made us happy' can be stolen away from us if the situation had been opposite what it was. For example, if someone says "I think you look very attractive today", that might make you happy. If it does make you happy, then the opposite would also stand. If they said "I think you look ugly today", then that would make you feel unhappy. The goal though is to be happy even if someone says something that can be taken offensively. The goal is to stay focused on the big picture and realize that even if the world around you is a mosh pit of chaos, or a battle field of arrows aimed at you, or a jail cell of injustice... You can still be happy. Or at least at peace with yourself.

One way to do that, is to be grateful all the time, and looking on the bright side of things. If someone says "I think you look ugly today", you could be grateful that the implication is that the rest of the days, you look beautiful. Or you could be grateful that they pointed it out before you walked out the door so you could do something about it. Or you could be grateful that you don't care if they think you look ugly. Or you could be grateful that you have some duct tape in the drawer. See? All these bright, happy... happy thoughts.

It's the point of this life. "Everlasting Happiness"

Belief Prison

I was sitting outside, beside our foggy glass picnic table, basking in what was probably the last of the summer sun when some sort of tiny flying bug flew randomly over to where I was and underneath the table. After zigzagging around a bit as though it were searching for something important it had lost in at the beach, it suddenly (like bugs do) zipped upward, obviously expecting to keep the upward momentum. It hit the glass again and again and again, trying to fly up. It bounced a rough full circle around the underside of the table, eventually stopping to clean itself.

I’ve seen this natural phenomenon over and over where the stupid bug doesn’t understand that simply flying over and up would have much more effective results. Sometimes it needs to fly down, over and up, which yes, is a bit too complicated for an insect, but if only they could wrap their infinitesimally small minds around it, there wouldn’t be so many dead wasps and other insects trapped in windows, bug traps and empty upside-down peanut butter containers.

Many people (if not all) in some aspect or another are like that little bug. The glass is like the beliefs we hold about the universe. If we believe something is so, so it is. We say to ourselves that it is so, and it is so. It is our own beliefs that may set us free or imprison us. The insect didn’t understand the glass, and most of us don’t understand the invisible obstacles and walls that hold us from accomplishing the amazing. We can’t see clearly through the glass, because our beliefs of the world are skewed. As always, we see the world the way we believe it is, because of past experiences, and ‘that is just how it is.’

We can’t tell exactly what is on the other side, yet we faithfully continue pummeling with all our weight against the glass surface, sure that there is something of worth on the other side worth wrecking ourselves over. Maybe it’s all the pummeling and brain damage the little bugs receive that make it impossible for them to connect the dots that going around or under would save their lives.

For us, it is hard to keep trying after failing again and again. We can choose to give up and curl into a ball to die like most insects do, or fight for a way out of our self-imposed belief prison. And yes, if we keep fighting while holding the same beliefs then we will have the same experience, and probably receive brain damage.

We all have those grudges, insistencies or stubborn tendencies to live certain ways. We insist on slamming up against the obstacles we could so easily get around, if only we could wrap our minds around the simple changing of beliefs. It would save us most frustration and give us time in the long run.

Sometimes, we can hazily see what’s out there but we run away from it, believing the sight to be false, and we don’t want to trust in the false, right? So we curl up and die. Just joking, we don’t die, but metaphorically speaking, we kill off faith, hope and the belief of something better. The part of us that says “try, live, and learn.” So we give up. And that is the worst thing to do in this life. That coming from one who’s given up too many times.

If only we could see, that moving over a little bit, adjusting our belief, allowing room for the unknown, we would fly out from beneath the glass, and become free.


"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." - St. Augustine

The Universe: Explained

I am about to explain the universe... So listen closely children...

I have here my thoughts on everything. It may have one piece missing (maybe....), but I think this is it, the explanation of the universe. At least as I see it. My perspective. Me.

:D

There are three substances that make up the entire universe: energy, intelligence, and truth.

I did not include matter, and matter is all around us. So obviously there is more to the list, right? Well, frankly, no. We are taught in science class that everything physical around us is made up of particles. And it has been discovered that somewhere deep within the particles (when we reach in far enough with the microscope) we have quarks, which are made of energy. This discovery implies that everything solid, and everything we see, is made of quarks and essentially energy.

Energy also encompasses thought. Thoughts are in fact energy which can affect the world around us. It’s as though our thoughts go through a transformation instantaneously after we have made them, and they become energy. A great example of this phenomena is something many if not all of us encounter, which is this: when one of us puts a lot of thought into a project or spends all day learning at a seminar or at school, more often than not, we feel fatigued, as though we have used a lot of energy. Which is true. It uses energy to think, not just to stay awake.

But if there were only energy in the universe, humans, animals and plants wouldn't exist because it would be like a whole bunch of cars without drivers. There has to be some kind of intelligence that drives the energy/matter, in order for anything at all to happen. And let me tell you, anything would happen if we left the universe to fend for itself with only energy/matter and intelligence. So what else are we missing?



Laws. Without law, order and consequences, there would be absolute chaos in the universe, so there would need to be laws, which I’m going to simplify as truth. Truth is that when we jump, we fall down; when we do good, we feel good; touching hot stoves, will get us burned. Truth/law exists already, we don’t need to provoke it or conjure it to see it. It just is. Truth unexplainably just is, in the same way that we just are. It’s there, we’re here, and we are left struggling to understand the beginnings.



And let me just quickly mention the second level of truth. The first level is the experiences that we can identify logically (ie: jumping, and falling back to the ground, if we get hurt, it takes time to heal). The second level of truth is greater than the first and is recognized by God. It is on this second level of truth that the first can bend. God grants us miracles of total immediate healing, removing guilty consciences, and bringing loved ones back from beyond the veil, all of which defy the first law of truth that we have come to basically understand in this world. Healing takes time often left with scars, our guilt is a natural consequence of doing something against our better judgment, and death is total; according to the first level of truth. There is a greater truth that God lives that can bend the smaller laws to allow things to happen according to his will, when we believe strongly in something.

So, to briefly re-cap:

Energy is matter:

Intelligence drives matter,












and Truth keeps Intelligence and Energy in line.











These three pieces that make up the universe are so sure and stable, no matter how much lying, covering or ignorance there is concerning them, they will still be there at the end of it all, when our bodies join the dust, and the dust turns to crystal. In fact, these three pieces will be the reason why our bodies turn to dust, why our spirits won’t, and the reason the dust turns to crystal at the end of it all. They are unfaltering basics of the universe that govern the path of the whole universe.

Did I lose anyone?

Conciousness

According to science, there is no proof that I am conscious. Nor you. I think that is crazy, but I understand where they are coming from. All I can really deduce, and all I can really trust is that I, myself am conscious because I, myself am aware of myself. But as for everyone else around me, they may be robots, or a simulation of my brain, something I've made up altogether. An odd and ugly thought. It's one of those things one ought to have faith in. Let me explain why we ought to have faith that those around us are conscious.
No matter what way you look at it, by evolutionary standards or creationist standards, life would be impossible if this were all a simulation of my brain. They say that life evolved rather slowly, and from single celled organisms, and were that true, how then did this simulation of the brain come to be? It would mean that everything around me was fake, only brain waves, and signals to the brain. According to their own theory, life doesn't evolve like that. It’s ‘survival of the fittest’, not ‘let’s see how complicated we can make this’.

Doesn't it seem a bit far fetched? Even if your brain can wrap around it, and some how prove that it’s not impossible, it’s still not worth believing in because it would mean that I'm alone and worthless, and so is EVERYTHING else. And that would pretty much make me into a little ball of wetness that curls up into a corner and die. If everything were worthless and all in my head then there would be no point in living.

The question of consciousness is raised, and I believe it's harmful, to question everyone else's conscious existence, for what are we left in this world NOT to question? Where is there anything to trust? I want to be happy in the same way that I want to be warm after being cold, and if I'm constantly worrying that everything including the ground under my feet can't be trusted because we can't prove that it exists, then what would my life be? I would metaphorically be cold all the time. No warmth. I'm sure I would freeze to death. I choose to believe that we are conscious and aware, so that I at least feel warm. I choose to have faith that I and those I love exist.