Trusting the World

I have no doubt that our life experiences have a huge impact on the how we view the world around us.  I am not one who is constantly worried that the world is out to get me, although there are a few things I am concerned about.  I walk around alone in the dark, and trust that I can take care of myself, or that God will protect me, I am honestly not sure which.  I don’t hesitate to leave my windows open at the house, even though I am pretty religious about locking the doors.  I recently asked someone else if they had ever had anything stolen, as a way to better understand the way they saw the world.  Their response about a stuffed animal being stolen from a shared space didn't entail the violation of personal property and space that I was trying to get at.

It would appear that someone stole my camera right out of my truck at some point this weekend.  I believe that is the first time I have ever had something of significant value stolen from me. (Besides numerous bikes in college)  I don't know for certain when or where it was stolen, it honestly took me a day or two to confirm that it was stolen, and not just misplaced.  If it wasn't for the case being missing as well, which I never move, I would still be looking around for it, and the idea that is could have been stolen would never have even occurred to me.  But there were a couple other bits of evidence of things being moved and out of place that I hadn't really paid attention to earlier.  On a more positive note, a larger amount of cash was in the truck as well, but that is still safe and sound ironically.

It bothered me that it was gone, but I didn't feel as violated as I would have expected.  But I am not that emotionally attached to my physical belongings. (Now my laptop on the other hand...)  I am pretty good about locking my truck, and there was no sign of forced entry.  The only time I usually leave it unlocked is when it is sitting outside my house, at the top of my driveway.  The most likely conclusion at this point is that someone could have stolen it out of there while I was sleeping.  Now that idea makes me feel violated.  So much for all of the security around here, that never seemed very effective anyway.  This community is actually known for vehicle break-ins, but I never really worried about it for some reason.  Part of the “trusting the world” thing I guess.

The possibility of it happening at my house, which I see as a safe place, is very different than if it happened while I was parked in a public area while shopping or something.  The result is the same, I am missing a camera, but I feel very different about it, and I am kind of glad that I will be moving pretty soon. (Well for lots of other reasons as well, this is just one more.)

Now ironically, this also settles the question of whether or not I should invest in an upgrade to the new EOS 70D.  I have been waiting for a year, and now that it was released last month, it was just a matter of timing.  But I was planning to give my current one, and its various accessories, to a couple of my friends, which will no longer be an option.  My dad had this happen a few weeks ago with his toolbox that he had been leaving in the bed of his truck.  The difference there is that I found the toolbox sitting in his garage a week later.  I will keep hoping.

From the Lord

"Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD."  Proverbs 19:14 (NIV)  I have had this verse sitting in the long cue of ideas I have for future posts.  I hadn't looked at that list in quite a while, having no real shortage of things on my mind to write about.  This verse has a very different meaning to me now than it did when I added it to the list a few months ago.

My life is like the epitome of an example to illustrate what this verse is talking about.  My house, at least one of them, was inherited from one of my parents, through a unique set of circumstances, ironically hinging on my parents divorce.  (As was a portion of my "wealth")  But I had already gotten most of the things I was interested in, which could be acquired through wealth, so that inheritance had less effect on my life than it otherwise would have.

Technically, a wife probably can be acquired through wealth.  Isn't that one of the stereotypical surface things that girls are interested in?  Guys want physical beauty, and girls want to be spoiled with extravagant luxuries?  But that isn't how one finds a "prudent wife."  And I have tried a lot of other ways as well, and none of them seem to work.  But any progress I may have made in that direction recently, not much of the success was based on anything I did any differently, so the difference must be "from the Lord."

And there has been no shortage of prayer on that topic over the last decade or so, but I have made no significant change in that regard that should affect the outcome.  The positive changes that I have experienced recently are not really of my own doing.  Now once the right door was opened by the Lord, it was still my option to step through it, and it is now my responsibility to lead certain aspects of that.  But my willingness to do so was not lacking in the past, only the opportunity to try.

So I am very conscious of the role God plays in our human relationships, and hopefully I won't lose focus on that reality anytime soon.  Life is far too complicated to attempt without him, and relationships are the combination of two sets of those complications.  So the gender neutral version of the verse would be: "successful relationships are from the Lord."  And that seems very much true to me, and I guess I can accept that reality, although the idea takes a little getting used to.

Truth on a Global Scale

Truth is an interesting concept in today's society.  It is now subject to philosophical challenges that would have been unheard of in the past.  People claim there is no truth, or that they can create their own truth, and all sorts of other ridiculous things.  It is interesting to see what happens when those ideas are tested against the cold hard reality that obviously does truly exist.

Wednesday marked the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, and there is much debate over what actually happened, let alone who is responsible.  It also marks one year since the attack in Libya, and the truth of the events that unfolded there are even more hotly debated, and less clear.  The lack of trust in our society is clearly evident in how those events are received by the public.  In the past, the facts of current events were debated less than the meaning of those events.  We never even get that far now days, and have trouble finding any agreement on what actually happened in a situation.  Versions of the truth” have degenerated into a complete lack of truth in so many cases.  Those particular events are both past-tense issues, compared to the situation in Syria.

The world is confronted with a very interesting conflict, in determining the truth of what actually happened there.  How does anyone go about proving anything in the modern world, when technology allows so many things to be so intricately fabricated, if deception is the deliberate objective?  And if it can be determined what actually happened, the next question is: who is responsible for what happened?  And in the unlikely event that the answer to that can be agreed upon, that leads to an even more interesting question: how should the world respond to that action?

Justice between individuals, in its practical form, could be seen as revenge executed by the state.  But whose responsibility is it to execute justice against or between states.  Whose responsibility is it to protect the lives of innocent civilians, who are normally supposed to be protected by their government?  And if they have already failed to have been protected, (and are dead) how should that affect the response of outside parties?  You can’t protect people who are dead, only avenge them.  And while there certainly are still other people there who do need protection, dropping more bombs on their country may not be the best way to protect them.  Although if some powerful leader disappeared under mysterious circumstances, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.  But I don’t know if fighting obscured truth with more obscured truth is necessarily the best approach either.

I don't actually have a strong principle based opinion on the matter of what the exact reaction should be, since I see the strength of the case on either side.  But I see certain conflicts in the Middle East as leading towards fulfillment of Biblical prophesies that I am not looking forward to experiencing in my lifetime.  So, from a strictly selfish perspective, I would prefer that we not increase the level of violent conflict in the region, even though I can see the logical and moral case for doing so.  I also don't trust most of the players involved to have anything close to resembling the right motives for what they want to do.  Anyhow, the truth of all of that will someday be fully revealed.  In the meantime, there is not much else we can do now besides pray about it.  God knows the truth.

The Value of Physical Appearance

I have always been a strong proponent of the idea of "function over form," in nearly every possible context.  I see the effort our society puts towards "keeping up appearances" to be very disingenuous.  This is most obviously apparent in people's physical appearances, and what it says about their identity.  I am generally opposed to any deliberate change to one's appearance, being made purely for aesthetic reasons.  This applies to tattoos and piercing, dying one's hair purple, or even excessive use of makeup.  This is less of an issue for guy's appearances, but they have their own sets of issues.  Some guys go to the gym so that they will look strong and ripped.  In the rare event that I do some form of exercise for its own sake, it is so I will be healthier and in better shape, not so I will look like I am in better shape.

I have always liked to think that I was primarily interested in specific girls for reasons that went far deeper than their outward appearance.  And while I am sure that has always been true, it would actually bother me a bit when I would learn that someone else agreed with me that a certain girl was attractive.  The basic question running through my mind would be: "is she only attractive to me because she is attractive to everyone?"  I don't think that was the case, but that was something I was concerned about, and those types of universally attractive characteristics usually revolve around appearance.  And even recognizing that I too have preferences related to outward appearance kind of bothers me at some level.

And then there is the case of my own physical appearance.  It is not something I spend too much time worrying about.  Maybe I should put at least some effort into it, but I sort of make a point of not altering it.  The only things I used to do on a daily basis growing up, was comb my hair, but now I keep it cut short enough that I don't even need to do that.  I do have facial hair now, and that requires some level of conscious decision on a daily basis, I usually take the lowest maintenance route I can come up with.  Clothing wise, I am known for wearing a T-shirt and jeans at work, no matter what the occasion, kind of like Zuckerburg's trademark hoodie.

So we can safely conclude that I am not too concerned about my physical appearance, but that topic has come up in a number of contexts recently that I am not accustomed to.  I have always figured that regardless of how I feel about my appearance, I am probably average looking.  I intend to get married someday, and my wife is going to have to accept how I look, because I have no intention of changing.  I know I have lots of other positive characteristics, so I figured those should offset anything I am lacking in the appearance department.  But the idea that my actual appearance might be a positive instead of a negative in that context is kind of a new idea.

There was a girl a while back who was very excited to see me with my shirt off, which I never would have expected.  Now admittedly, three years of ropes course building has really developed my upper body, but I had never thought about that, not even once.  Then I have had other people tell me they like other aspects of my outward appearance as well recently, and even just a couple of comments have a way of reframing my own perspective on that topic a bit.  I still have no intention of doing much to alter or improve it, but it does lead to a bit of confidence in an area where there was none before.

Navigating a Route in a Complex Environment

Driving around Los Angeles is always an interesting experience.  Besides the terrible traffic and insane drivers (or vice-versa), there is just too much city to actually know all of it.  I have a pretty good idea of the basic layout of freeways and main thoroughfares, and just rely on the fact that it is basically a grid.  Even if I lay out a precise route ahead of time, I can't compensate for the unexpected traffic jams, road closures, and construction delays, for any trip over 15 minutes.  I frequently find myself making an impulsive right hand turn to get off of a street that is suddenly coming to a halt.  That places me somewhere new, that I have never been, while I try to find an efficient path to a point I am more familiar with.  I usually use dead reckoning to ensure I am at least moving closer to my destination during that search.

When I am down in the thick of things, I can't see the traffic on the streets next to mine, the way someone following my progress on Google Maps would.  Before I had a smart-phone, I used to call a friend of mine who was always in front of his computer, anytime I got stuck in heavy freeway traffic, so he could check the Sigalert website, and tell me which freeways were less congested options to get to my destination.  Outside input can be very helpful in navigating certain situations, especially if I have never found myself in a particular place before.

I am not necessarily always in a huge hurry, but I am someone who is very conscious of how much time is being spent or wasted on a particularly trip.  I usually try to avoid unnecessary delays or U-turns, purely for the sake of efficiency.  In the same way, I don't always follow the speed limit as closely as I could, but I recognize the risk I am taking by ignoring that, both the potential for being pulled over and getting a ticket, or of getting hurt more if something goes wrong.

I usually have a good idea of where my destination is located, but the best route to get there is frequently less clear.  And the same can be true in relationships.  It is not always clear how to get to where we are trying to go.