Comfort – Life - Enjoyment

[Post 27]

I went for a walk yesterday and was thinking about why people work – what the purpose of work is. I've come to this conclusion: We work to provide for ourselves or for a group comfort, life, or enjoyment. Comfort includes not only physical conveniences but also comfortable emotional states: peace, contentment, etc. Life includes the wherewithal to eat and physical, emotional, and spiritual safety. Enjoyment includes thrills, satisfaction, etc. Work accomplishes this for the laborer generally through the receipt of money (which allows the purchase of the work of others) and hopefully for the satisfaction of a job well done. Work is done for the hirer who has something he's trying to accomplish towards those ends. The ditch digger, the architect, the paper pusher, the president, and everybody else who expends energy all have the same goals and functionality. Some are selfish and labor only for themselves – perhaps at the same time denying these things to others, while many are generous and labor for themselves and others. Focus varies – some struggle to keep living and focus only on that. Others are so preoccupied with enjoying the moment that they literally stop living. In the end I think it comes down to at least one, and most of the time all, of these things. What do you think? Am I right?

-Schlange

मिलाग्रो - AKA Milagros AKA Milagros

Post 25

मिलाग्रो is a Hindi word for "Milagros" which is an English word for the Spanish word Milagros literally meaning "miracle" or "surprise." According to Wikipedia (yes I know, "never cite Wikipedia as a source"... but I'm lazy and not in the mood for extra research - if you're really that interested in source correctness go follow the references Wikipedia lists) Milagros are offerings made of various materials carved into one of many shapes and sizes and offered at alters to help focus a prayer toward the reason for the prayer - healing of a body part, romance, travel, whatever you feel like, and is carved in a way that represents the focus... a leg for a broken leg or traveling or a heart for romance or... um... heart disease? मिलाग्रो is displayed here in the mangal typeface of Microsoft Word, and is how it was displayed to me when I looked up Milagros using some translative device from Google that also mentioned that Milagros appeared in other languages and listed samples... such as मिलाग्रो. I learned that mangal was the typeface when I was curious as to whether I could copy मिलाग्रो into my text editor. मिलाग्रो looks nice, and that's probably why I'm posting. Wikipedia lists the following in response to a search for mangal (I was looking because I figured Mangal was a language and I wanted to know who it belongs to):

Mangal may refer to:
Mangal, a Turkish way of
barbecuing
Mangrove swamp, woody
trees or shrubs that grow in coastal habitats
Mangal
(Мангал), a Bulgarian word meaning gypsy (but with a racist connotation)
Mangal Pandey, a sepoy (soldier) in the
34th Regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry of the British East India Company
In an Indian context, mangal (मंगल) means "good auspicious"; it also refers
to a Mangal
Font for the devanāgarī script used for Indian languages [note that
mangle (मंगल) is typed in the Mangle typeface =D]
Mangal
is a typeface in Windows XP
Mangal, a Pashtun
tribe
Mangal,
an Afghan singer
Gulab Mangal, an Afghan
politician
Mangal,
Afghanistan

In short, mangal must mean anything and everything. Use it as a place holder the next time you can't think of the word you're looking for: "I was looking at that famous painting by... uh... Mangal...." or "I need an um... a mangle... " or "Oh... I left your priceless diamond ring over at... whatchaMangle's house" or "You are soooo.... *logical gap*... mangle..."

Oh... I ought to tell you where this whole research project came from: Some Mexican guys where my sister works started referring to her as Milagros or if not that, something else that sounded like it.

Now that I've figured all this out I'm turning in. By the way, if you are looking for some cool symbol to represent your name you can either do what Schmetterling and I did and super impose the letters of your name over each other, or you can be lazy and just type your name into word using the Mangle type face.

*a few moments later*

Doh! no you can't. I just tried to type Schlange in mangal and it came out in the English alphabet. Sad. Oh well. G'night.

-Schlange

Butt Munch

(Post 24)

Pardon the potentially offending post title, but that's really what we're talking about today - grasshoppers that stay on the move to prevent their hindquarters from becoming lunch. For those of you who want to read the whole thing you can read it here.

The main idea of the article is this: swarms of locusts get where they are going because the bugs in front are afraid that the bugs in back are going to nibble their bottoms. There were two paragraphs in the article that made me think about life in general:

The defensive movement away from the perceived threat sets up a domino effect,
as each individual locusts' movement causes them to touch another locust, which
then makes the second locust move away.

"You have millions of individuals all going in the same direction, because if they change direction much, they are likely to come in contact with each other," Sword said.

I think that sometimes people are just like this. We all move defensively away from everybody else, often because we are afraid of getting a "but chewing." That's what defines the direction of society. We all move in a direction that minimizes the negative contact we have with other people - thus we don't really go where we want to go, we just go where we all herd each other to.

Now, the locusts have a legitimate problem. They're cannibalistic and if they don't head for food they become food. We on the other hand have a tendency to imagine the things that other people are going to think. Most of the time we're wrong. Even when we're right we're spineless.

It's a pity.

-Schlange

Change

(post 23)

Things change way to quickly. It can be very hard to keep up some days. You live at home for 20 years, then you take off to go get some learning, then you move home for the summer and then move out again. Every time you change venues everything else changes: the people you're around, your sleep schedule, your degree of control over what you do (or maybe more specifically WHAT controls what you do - is it house rules, or the need for some $$$$), who you work for, your work hours, everything. It's hard to adjust to change, and it always seems that things are changing at exactly the same time you feel like you got used to the last change. I remember writing something poetic about this on my mission. Maybe I'll dig it up and make a post out of it.

-Schlange

Bl-ah-g

Post 18

I just posted a post in the which I made apologies for being away for so long and posting a topic that I'll discuss soon. The "cyber-ether" absorbed it with some mysterious error. I think the keeper of the void has it in for me. I still apologize, but not so nicely. Unpolished topic intro follows:

Topic will be:

"Most things you consider to be evil are really just lonely and lacking in social niceties"

Feel free to comment on the topic before I do, as I can't right now. Consider this virtual circle time.

Write in such a way that if your blog is called upon to die prematurely (as mine are prone to do) they'll have a happy reunion with the good blogs of the past. However, it's likely that their tarnished descendants (like this one) will end up going to the postMaster Demon (and yes I know that's not what it is, but Demon is far more appropriate than what's his bucket)

-Schlange

Appendix for “Inviting Yet Fruitless”

(post 15.A)

I've linked this post to my last post. If you haven't read it yet this one won't make any sense. It's likely more enjoyable reading anyways, so go there now. I originally wrote what follows underneath the original post but then decided I'd prefer to keep them separate. This accounts for all the references to "this post." I was too lazy to fix the wording. If you want to, you can pretend that this post is at the end of the last post.

~

I've decided to append a little something to this post for the following reason: I have a good friend, Schmetterling, who told me he has linked this post to one of his posts. He told me a little about it, but I haven't read it yet. I don't intent to read it until this is written because I'd like to sum up the deeper feelings I was having when I wrote the above post BEFORE I read what someone else says that I was saying. "Get it? Got it. Good."

This little pastry story really sums up my feelings about most things in life. There are a lot of things in this universe that look incredibly good. Some of them "taste" just like they look. Others are hollow. Some are filled with poison. Sadly it can often be difficult to differentiate between the three, especially when just looking on their outward appearances. (Note: in my original post I said that sin is like a hollow pastry - at this point I'm making a redefinition. "Hollow" means lacking in substance and "poisoned" means dangerous to the body, mind or spirit. I suppose that both of those conditions could exist in the same pastry at the same time.) Now, I'll be the first to admit that I eat copious amounts of hollow pastries - and half the time this blog may be fairly hollow, for which I am truly sorry - but I really do believe that we all need things of substance to survive in this world or to gain any semblance of joy. Hollow things -pastries that is - consume time and resources. Feasting on them and them alone leads to malnutrition.

Consider Isaiah 25:6

“And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.”

God wants us to have (infact, he wants to GIVE to us) things of substance: fat things, things full of marrow, and I told you before – His magnificently crafted grapes. (if you aren't yet sold on the grapes, just ask Schmetterling. He'll set you straight.)

Now consider Isaiah 24:16

"From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously.”

Besides the bolded bit there sounding like it could be an awesome start to a classic piece of poetry, it's got me thinking about the peddlers of the world selling us that which is without substance. We waste away for lack of nourishment, and we pay for the privilege! Enter Isaiah 55:2

“Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

It's all about getting fat my friends. "Eat that which is good." Stop paying physical and spritual curency (including resources like time or talents; and "bread" we already have, like peace of mind or joy) for that which isn't meeting needs. In media, and activities, and everything else in life we ought to be seeking substance for ourselves and offering substance to others. Whatever we choose to do, we had better get substance out of it, and when we find that what we are investing our "money" or "labour" in isn't yielding substance or satisfaction, then maybe it's time to look for new stocks. At least, that's what I had better do, and if I don't then I may find myself going to the same tables over and over just to find that the proffered pastries still deliver absolutely nothing that I'm looking for.

-Schlange

Something that is a part of this topic, yet that is apart from it is the concept of Becoming Something. I really want discuss that at a later date and when I do I'll create a hyper link here.

If you're interested, here is a talk by Elder Oaks (an apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) that speaks about getting the best out of the good things in life:

Good, Better, Best (Ensign, Nov 2007, 104–8)

Write Good[sic]

(Post 8)

This post is a response to another blog by Schmetterling (which I recommend to those who are interested in thinking about what makes writing powerful, and which might need to be read to fully understand this post) I'm not going to say anything really different, I just wanted to examine one of the points that stood out to me as having extrodinary value.

So that readers understand that “writing good” is not a grammatically smelly phrase, here is an important and defining segment from Schmetterling's post: “[T]hat a person may write or speak well does not necessarily mean that they write or speak good, and this is the distinction I wish to emphasize.”

Having placed that, this last part of the last paragraph of that post is what I’m basing the majority of this post on because it really struck a chord with me.

"To communicate truth with such clarity and power is a feat of Soul that I can no more than aspire to achieve, but I believe that to do so ought to be the quintessential desire of any person inclined to speak or write."

This was for me the most important thing schmetterling said. I think there is a large difference amongst the categories of writing well (using words in a way that is correct and sometimes pleasing - writing with the mind, as Schmetterling says), writing compellingly (writing in a way that makes people love what you are saying - writing with the heart), and writing powerfully (writing about the things that are a major part of you, that you can thus convey with the power of your soul). All of these things are individual characteristics of "writing good" as laid out by Schmetterling. Additionaly, I believe that these are gradiations of writing... some might take them seperately, but they really do build on each other. Writing with the heart is so much more effective if one can write with the mind - using it to find the words that say what is ment. Writing with the soul can't be accepted or even understood by anyone unless it is written with the heart.

These things are all methods to an end. I wish to aproach the same topic in the reverse. Let us now concentrate on the end. I believe that understanding and seeking the end to which one writes with mind, heart and soul is what causes the development of all three. The heart of writing that which is good is centered in the word truth.

The difference between compelling writing and "writing good" is whether or not the idea being communicated is true. In fact, writing good may not be compelling, and is thus set aside by the average reader because though one wrote good he did not make use of good writing. The result of writing good should possess three qualities that you mentioned: TRUTH conveyed with POWER, and CLARITY. If all words (written or spoken) were designed with this end in mind, then the mind, the heart, and the soul would work themselves out with help from God. Provided that those who wrote and spoke possessed truth, and wanted so much for it to be understood that they learned clarity, and loved it so much that they shared it with power, perfect communication would be the result: those that read and heard would always be compelled to believe truth and to use it. I suppose then that writing good requires an action – the seeking of truth.

What marks the difference between good writers and writers who write good? Good writers are motivated by self-centered objectives – status, pats on the back, great sales, etc. (and generally lack what Schmetterling called soul, because they cater to a soulless popular sentiment). The writers of good seek the edification of their readers. (Schmetterling pegged this one: "Without meaning, without the honest intention to uplift or improve, without Soul, a work is utterly worthless. If a person has nothing to say, they should not speak.") The writers of good want others to understand what truth is, but they know that they can’t teach others about what is without finding it for themselves.

As a general rule, truth can’t be discovered until other known truths are applied. Generally speaking, writing good is the province of good men.

There it is: Write good. Do it with mind, heart, and soul. Learn how by seeking for truth, clarity, and power; especialy truth. Love the truth. Live the truth. Write about the truths you are gathering about you, and become the epitomy of what you write.

-Schlange

For the Love of Money

(Post 4)

For those of you interested, there is a very interesting post and subsequent thread on The Eccentric Sage about money. The question at hand is this: "Is money good, evil, or somewhere in between the two?" All in all there are some excellent points of view and one spectacular, albeit lengthy, comment (The 3rd, starting " Anonymous said...") containing a quotation of one Francisco d'Anconia defending the inherent goodness of money. It's really worth the time to read.