Gravity

We are all familiar with gravity, and it has a constant effect on our lives.  Interestingly, no one knows why gravity works, only how to describe and predict how it affects objects.  How do two sets of molecules exert a force on each other, thousands of miles apart, with nothing actually connecting them?  At its core, gravity is a force that attracts all objects in the universe together.  Each pulling at each other in an infinite web of interactions, all drawing each other closer, even as the universe expands, due to the stronger force of inertia.  The closer two objects get, the stronger the force they exert on each other.

Gravity is powerful enough to hold the largest object firmly on the ground, and to sling objects far into space, if harnessed correctly.  All objects in the universe are constantly in motion, but if any object somehow managed to truly stop, gravity would do two things.  It would force the object into motion again immediately, and cause it to begin to be absorbed by the nearest larger object.

This is similar to how God designed people to interact with one another.  There is some force that ties all people together, even if some times it is too weak to feel or measure.  There are certain patterns in how we affect each other, which can be predicted, even if we don't truly know how they work.  The closer two people are, the stronger the influence they exert on each other.  The connections we have with others can be very powerful.  And if at any point we were to ever totally stop moving or growing, it is the people around us who would get us going again.

God has a tendency to apply good ideas in multiple unrelated ways.  In the same way that solar systems and atoms have the same design to their structure, gravity and relationships have much in common in how they define the effect that we have on others around us, in both the physical and interpersonal realms.

Closing Doors

I have never been one to deliberately close doors in my life.  This has the effect of giving me lots of options at any given moment, but also comes at a cost.  Managing a lot of open doors can be challenging, and most doors require some level of attention and maintenance.  Sometimes doors probably just need to be closed, otherwise why would they need to exist, when just a doorway would be fine.  But that is not something I have much experience doing, and I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.  I believe that the trend in general can be a bad thing, since I hesitate to do it at all, even when I should, but each specific instance seems like it has been a potentially good thing not to do so.

Career wise, I make myself available to a variety of different companies and organizations.  That is how I support myself financially, and I get paid well for being available, but it occasionally leads to challenging situations.  Sometimes two groups have conflicting needs, and I have to prioritize my time between the two, and sometimes the magnitude of the needs in general can start to consume my life.  But I rarely deliberately close out one of those consulting relationships, even if it ceases to be particularly beneficial to me, whether it is out of loyalty, or hope for future improvement, or just a straight up desire to have employment options available, I am not sure.  Some of those arrangements do end, usually fading out over time, but with the door not locked to future possibilities.

In the context of relationships, I very rarely close doors on people, at least once they have been clearly opened.  I don't always open the door for strangers, at least not right away.  It usually takes me a little while to warm up to people.  I make a point of not doing things to push people away.  I don't necessarily deliberately end my relationships with people who offend or hurt me.  Maybe I should in certain cases, for my own mental health, but I don't, usually blindly assuming that is the right thing to do.  Other people close doors on me, and while I would prefer that didn't happen, I know it is just part of life, and I am used to it.  But I don't necessarily lock it on my side when they do get closed.  I have a number of "friendships" that are pretty dormant, but I don't necessarily end them.  I have recognized that certain people only come to me when they need something, and I try to set healthy boundaries there, without cutting them out of my life entirely.

I have never blocked someone on Facebook, or ignored their phone calls or texts.  I may take longer to get back to certain people, especially if they haven't communicated an urgent need, but I don't deliberately ignore them.  And when I realize that I have let something slip farther through the cracks than I intended, I usually feel guilty about that, although it is never intentional.

Clearly I am in the habit of not closing doors in my life unless absolutely necessary.  So recently, when I was in a situation where most people would have very deliberately closed a door, I felt a strong urge not to.  I felt like God was telling me not to, but that was not exactly an audible voice or anything.  I had to deal with the question of whether that was just me not wanting to do something that I usually avoided, or actually God trying to tell me something.  I didn't know what he could be trying to tell me, and I didn't have any good reason not to, but I still waited.  The door is closed now, and that is an acceptable and healthy outcome.  I still wonder if I was correct in believing that I wasn't supposed to close it, and if so, why not?  But I don't necessarily expect an answer to that question anytime soon.  I just hope I have a clearer idea of what to do and why, the next time I am faced with a door that needs to be closed.

The Purpose of Hair

I read a strange article on hair this week, and while I haven't gotten a chance to verify if any part of it is actually true, it has triggered some interesting thoughts.  The basic premise was that hair, as part of the nervous system, is responsible for more of our sensory input than we are conscious of.  It claimed that tests had established a correlation between people growing longer hair, and having a stronger intuitive "sixth sense" of what was going on around them.  The proposed reasoning being that hair was a highly sensitive extension of the central nervous system, and provided the brain with a wealth of subconsciously processed information.

I am not convinced it is true, but it is certainly possible.  And if it is true, it would provide reasoning behind a couple of interesting phenomenon.  One is that in general females are stereotypically associated with having a stronger sense of intuition, and have stronger "feelings" (which aren't necessarily limited to emotions) than males who traditionally lean more heavily on logic and reason.  Females also usually have longer hair than guys, so that at least in general lines up with the idea.

As a random personal anecdote, I got my hair cut a few weeks ago, although it wasn't particularly long anyway.  And while I didn't recognize the change at the time, upon re-examining the timeline of recent events, that day represented a strong shift in my intuitive understanding of what my girlfriend was thinking.  Prior to that point, I had been uncharacteristically good at figuring out what she was thinking and feeling, even when she wasn't ready to share that directly.  That is usually an area that I struggle greatly with, and recognizing that pattern was a significant part of the "connection" I felt between us.  From that evening I got a haircut onward, I ceased being able to relate to what she was thinking and doing, although I was very consciously trying to better figure that out.  The idea is a little far fetched, and I am sure there were other factors at play, but the timing does cause one to wonder if that had any effect on the relationship.

The possibility of that being true also brings up some interesting questions about what God was trying to tell us in the seemingly random requirements of the Old Testament Nazarite vow.  Was the prohibition against cutting one's hair to better enable them to sense what God was trying to show and tell them during that time.  And the story of Samson and Delilah becomes an extreme illustration of what happens in general, as opposed to a unique one-off tale.

Now I am not going to grow my hair out super long as a reaction to discovering this possibility, but I will consciously observe the effect that haircuts have in the future.  And who knows, maybe that will lead me to wait a little longer between trims, or discourage me from taking it back quite so far.  And where does facial hair or other body hair fit into the equation?  I can see how body hair can extend the range that one's skin can feel, but to the degree discussed in that article?  Or maybe the whole article was a crazy prank, and the human mind is conditioned to "find" examples of things it believes to be true.  Who knows what information you can trust these days?

Prioritizing Relationships

I want to get married someday.  And have a strong, enduring, "successful" marriage is on the highest position on my mental list of accomplishment goals.  I try to make sure that my choices and actions reflect that goal.  While I have not spend too much time actually in serious romantic relationships moving explicitly toward that goal, when I am not in a relationship, there are still things I can do to pursue the eventual accomplishment of that goal.  Learning about people and relationships is always helpful, since I feel naturally deficient in that area, and reading books can be good too.  It also affects larger decisions as well.

There are many reasons that motivated my decision to move away from LA, even though I had a dream job down there.  One of the primary ones was that I recognized that while I had accomplished many other goals in LA, being there wasn't moving me any closer to accomplishing the goal of developing a lasting relationship, for a number of reasons.  One was that my job absorbed my entire life when I was there.  I also felt little in common with most other people in Southern California, even my close friends there, and couldn't (/can't) imagine marrying someone from down there, due to the cultural differences.  I also recognized that I was beginning to take on some of those Southern California traits that I disliked, which isn't who I wanted to become, and also probably wouldn't make me a better husband in the long run.

So I make serious relationships a priority, even when I am not in one, which I think is a good thing, and I am totally at peace with the results of that.  Now when I am actually pursuing a serious relationship, I also prioritize that above pretty much everything else.  And that I have mixed feelings about.  It seems like a good thing on the surface, since that is what I am looking for, but the question is, at what cost.  During all three of my serious relationships, my friendships and level of communication with other people has decreased dramatically.  That is due to my time and energy being directed elsewhere, and while that energy is not being wasted, those "less significant" relationships that I am neglecting have value too.  In order to sustain a serious relationship to create a life long marriage, I am going to need the support and advice of other people in my community.

Other aspects of life fall to the wayside as well, and while they aren't as "important" as developing a significant relationship, life does inherently entail responsibilities that need to be taken care of.  My to-do list is pretty long at the moment, since there are a lot of things I have been putting off.  Now in this case there are a variety of other reasons for that, including my recent move.  But I am familiar with the feeling, because I have experienced it before, at times when those other outside factors weren't available as excuses.

So in the future, when Lord willing, I find myself in another serious relationship, I will need to do a better job of maintaining that balance.  It is necessary to distinguish between things that are "important" (for example relationship development) and things that are "urgent" (like paying bills and other practical needs).  Anyhow, I don't think I did a terrible job with that this time around, considering the state of my house, but there is definitely room for improvement in the future.  Especially since I am hoping that in the future, there won't BE a time to catch up with those things “afterwards.”

Things Don't Always Go as Planned

I have been faced with a couple of challenging decisions to make recently, with no previous experience to lean on.  It is always harder to figure out what to do when things aren't going well.  I don't really know how to react to people treating me disrespectfully, but it is rarely something I have to deal with.  I assume it is obvious that responding disrespectfully in return will only make the situation worse, but not letting them affect you or get to you usually upsets them even more, which is not my intended goal.  But there doesn't seem to be any ideal response in those situations.

And not every problem can be solved by thinking about it hard enough.  But I know that at least for me, understanding why things are happening is much less disconcerting than being totally confused.  I am someone who strongly believes that things don't just happen at random; they are always the product of a long series of individual decisions.  Sometimes we don't notice the sum total of those decisions building up until it catches us by surprise, but that doesn't change the fact that they were there all along.  Believing that things happen at random abdicates the participants of some level of responsibility for the outcome.  I don't understand everything that happens around me, but I try to make some sense out of what I observe.  And finding some level of order can be reassuring, in that it implies that things aren't just happening at random, without any specific reason or cause.

Observing my own reactions and emotions has been a bit enlightening.  I have been told many times that you learn a lot about yourself from being in a serious relationship.  I am sure that is true, but the revelations that stand out to me at the moment are all pretty simple and surface.  I have learned that I can get swept up in things on an emotional level more than I expected, and that doesn't necessarily lead to thinking clearly about things, even when I am aware of that issue.  And maybe I should probably put more stock in other people's perspective, and less faith in the idea that I can successfully be the exception to the norm.

But a big part of the relationship process still appears to be a unique fit between two very different people, which can be troubling in that I see no way to figure that out without just trying to see how it goes.  I don't like the numbers approach, be it the "lots of fish in the sea" attitude, or the "make sure you have shopped around" mentality.  I know people who are happily married to the first person they ever dated, so there must be more to it than that.  But I clearly haven't figured out what that is.  Well I don't intend to stop trying, but I don't feel too encouraged at the moment.