Barama and Joeden

I think Joe Biden will be a good running mate for Barak Obama. That is not because I entirely agree with Biden or his policies (I have not even done the research yet) but I do know that Biden knows his stuff when it comes to foreign relations and, even though Obama was part of the foreign relations committee, he could certainly use some help in the world, especially now.

Biden compliments Obama's style as well, it seems. I do like the fact that he seems to be willing to state issues bluntly.

Politics is interesting. There is no perfect candidate. For example, I disagree with Barak Obama on several points. However, of every candidate out there, I agree with him the most on some of the most crucial issues for me. He and I agree much more than we disagree, it seems. As a result, he will get my vote (unless he changes position on something outright).

I have heard of people that do not vote because they disagree with all the candidates in some way or another. To me, that is just silly. Unless you run for president yourself, you will always have some disagreement with every candidate. Vote for he or she who you think would run the executive branch of the USA better than anyone else.

...and don't get me started about those who vote solely based on party affiliation...

(Just as a side note:

According to the 2008 Presidential Candidate Selector on Select Smart, Obama is the best candidate for me at 76% compatible and Joe Biden is 63% compatible.

Give that quiz a try - it of course is not perfect or absolute but it is fun and interesting.)

Musings

I have no particular subject to write on. A lot of time has passed since my last post so I wanted to put a new one up to let people know I have not died from the plethora of homework suddenly required of me.

School is an awesome and wonderful thing, though many disagree (hopefully most with their tongue in their cheek). My Calculus professor recently reminded us that we come to class as a supplement to our learning - it is not learning in and of itself. We study the textbook and complete homework for the same reason - to supplement our learning. The learning itself seems to come as we practice that which we are told over time. Hey! That might even have a scripture associated with it:

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. (Alma 32:28)

Let me put forth that not only does one obtain spiritual knowledge by such a process (this being the beginning of the process to bring one to perfect knowledge) but all knowledge can be obtained this way.

For example, when my mathematics professor tells me that "the limit of f(x) as x approaches c is equal to L and that the limit of g(x) as x approaches c is equal to K and that if you take the limit of the sum of f(x) and g(x) as x approaches c, that last limit will be equal to the sum of the former limits" I have two options: to believe him and try it out or not. What I have found (as he said) is that such a law can help me solve problems and simplify them. By acting upon what someone told me to test it out, I found that it was good.

Now, as I continue applying that principle or law (as the verses following the one above state), I will come to see that not only is it good but it is actually true. I will find proof in further experience (including further knowledge).

So it is with The Gospel of Jesus Christ. We hear a teaching from somebody (perhaps that Christ can change our very desires if we do what He asks us to do to be blessed with such) and we then apply it (we do what He asks). As we do this, we start to see good changes come. We then know it is good. As we continue to apply the teachings we have heard we come to know for ourselves that it is true. We actually experience a change in our very desires.

I have experienced that. I know it is true. Not only do I know from experience, I know through the Holy Ghost. "By the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." I have both a spiritual, temporal, and experiential witness (in this case, the last two are the same for me).

Now, back to what I started out moving toward. I enjoy learning very much. The more knowledge I gain, the more knowledge I want! It is sort of like intellectual aperture fever. Knowledge truly is power if it is used in the right way.

In light of all that is above, I close with the following quotation from my Humanities textbook:

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. - Rainer Maria Rilke

Repentance

I have listened on the television to Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, speak about repentance to a group of younger adults. His message was a call to repentance and an explanation of the doctrine behind the principles of thereof. The message in its entirety can be found here. It is powerful.

I felt a desire to share part of this talk here. He explained,

Another condition of repentance is suffering or punishment for the sin. In the words of Alma, 'repentance could not come unto men except there were a punishment' (Alma 42:16). Where there has been sin, there must be suffering.

He continues a few paragraphs later,

Am I suggesting that the benefits of the Atonement are not available for the person who heedlessly sins? Of course not. But I am suggesting that there is a relationship between sin and suffering that is not understood by people who knowingly sin in the expectation that all the burden of suffering will be borne by another, that the sin is all theirs, but the suffering is all his. That is not the way. Repentance, which is an assured passage to an eternal destination, is nevertheless not a free ride.

Now, a few more paragraphs later, he says:

Why is it necessary for us to suffer on the way to repentance for serious transgressions? We often think of the results of repentance as simply cleansing us from sin. But that is an incomplete view of the matter. A person who sins is like a tree that bends easily in the wind. On a windy and rainy day the tree bends so deeply against the ground that the leaves become soiled with mud, like sin. If we only focus on cleaning the leaves, the weakness in the tree that allowed it to bend and soil its leaves may remain. Merely cleaning the leaves does not strengthen the tree. Similarly, a person who is merely sorry to be soiled by sin will sin again in the next high wind. The susceptibility to repetition continues until the tree has been strengthened.

Are we Weeping Willows or soaring Redwoods? What has the Savior Jesus the Christ done for you? He has changed me. I am a different person because of His Atonement. I have no more disposition to do those sins of which I have truly repented. He who Loves has changed me into a new man. That reminds me of some scriptures:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2Corinthians 5:17)

And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians 4:24)

And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. (Mosiah 5:2)

I tell you those scriptures are literally true. Jesus Christ can change a person's desires and disposition by His Atonement through The Spirit. I am far from a finished product of Jesus the Christ but I feel that I am on my way there. That is quite exciting, to me. Bettering myself is one of my great goals in life and the best way to accomplish that is through the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Check out the link at the bottom of my page if you are interested in finding out more about it.)

Anywho - I love Elder Oaks. He is such a great Apostle. I love his deep voice and frank way of speaking. He even looks like a type of stereotypical Apostle, maybe. That is a silly observation, however. Any man who is called as an Apostle will have the Spirit testify of his calling.

The United States of America

After watching the documentary "A More Perfect Union" on BYU-TV I feel greatly impressed to write down my feelings for the United States.

Watching a flag fly can stir powerful emotions within my soul. We who live in America should count our many blessings. We are free, rich in many ways, and well-taken-care-of. I do not think I ponder often enough the tremendous amount of skill, talent, time, effort, tears, blood, prayers, dedication, focus, and aid that has gone into and still goes into The United States of America.

A few scriptures about America:

“Behold this [America] is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ” (Ether 2:12)

"And never could be a people more blessed...and more prospered by the hand of the Lord. And they were in a land that was choice above all lands, for the Lord had spoken it." (Ether 10:28)

This is truly one of the best countries ever to grace the face of the Earth on which we live. The Lord Himself protects our liberty. The members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the Book of Ether which seems almost given for the purpose of teaching the sacred nature of The United States of America.

With the election for president coming up, let us remember the importance of such things. I strongly encourage you, reader, to examine the issues carefully and vote with care this November. If you happen to believe in personal revelation and that the Lord can guide us in our life, also make it a certain matter of prayer and pondering.

I will close with a couple of quotations for your thought:

“America's future will be determined by the home and the school. The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live.” (Jane Addams - Nobel Peace Prize Holder)

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.” (Thomas Jefferson - Writer of The Declaration of Independence)

Earthwork

I haven't been blogging lately because of a tremendous amount of yard work I have been doing. The entire yard needs some work and I figure that I can devote this entire summer to performing it.

In light of my present activities, I feel I should write a little on working with the Earth. Many have extolled the great benefits of working "in the dirt." Jules Renard once said "On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it." I think this applies to "earthwork." For example, I enjoy looking closely at well kept gardens. The intricacies of the interaction between a single leaf and a flower can be captivating. I love the smell and appearance of damp dirt with a multitude of plants growing within it. If a single square inch of a garden can be beautiful in this imperfect world, imagine what a square mile of heaven must be like. Perhaps the most beautiful garden ever contains as a whole the appearance imbued in a single grain of sand from God's beautiful beach. "The poetry of the earth is never dead," said John Keates.

I must make mention of my favorite book of all time, The Secret Garden. Here is one of my favorite passages:

"And here is the handle, and here is the door. Dickon push him in -- push him in quickly!"

And Dickon did it with one strong, steady, splendid push.

But Colin had actually dropped back against his cushions, even though he gasped with delight, and he had covered his eyes with his hands and held them there shutting out everything until they were inside and the chair stopped as if by magic and the door was closed. Not till then did he take them away and look round and round and round as Dickon and Mary had done. And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here and there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head and there were fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents and scents. And the sun fell warm upon his face like a hand with a lovely touch. And in wonder Mary and Dickon stood and stared at him. He looked so strange and different because a pink glow of color had actually crept all over him -- ivory face and neck and hands and all.

"I shall get well! I shall get well!" he cried out. "Mary! Dickon! I shall get well! And I shall live forever and ever and ever!"

I love that passage. The power of a garden to heal is real. The book continues:

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun -- which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes.

And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned everything it possibly could into that one place. More than once Dickon paused in what he was doing and stood still with a sort of growing wonder in his eyes, shaking his head softly.

Take time to look at the earth, spend some time to work in it and allow it to work in you.

I am obviously no poet or great writer, but I hope I got my feelings across. To work in the Earth and make things grow or to help things continue to grow is a wonderful activity.

My good friend Walt has been known to say, "The outside of a horse fixes the inside of a man." I would like to modify that: "Working outside fixes one inside." Yes, I know - it is not as poetic but it is true! Hoo-Rah. :o)

The Corporations of the World

It turns out that my cell phone account can now be upgraded with a new two-year contract. At first I was quite excited to get a new cell phone but my search for which model to get has ruined my excitement. Why? Greed. There are two cell phones I will use as an example.

My carrier offers one of these cell phones for $80 and the other for $100 out the door. The $80 phone is wonderful - it browses the Internet like a PC, it has tremendous e-mail and business capabilities, and it can run high bandwidth applications easily. Obviously it is a high-end and somewhat expensive phone. The base price on the phone (before contract discounts) is over $400. The $100 phone is far less capable and is only given a more trendy name and color. Why ask $20 more for a phone with a base price far less? Greed.

It has been my experience that most people who are more concerned with popularity, trendiness, and style than values, honor, and compassion are less inclined to "think things through." My cell phone carrier seems to have noticed this too and overcharges their customers who shop for trendy rather than valuable phones - sometimes by a lot. In the past, this would have been called "taking advantage of someone."

Nearly every major corporation now-a-days seems to have no problem taking advantage of their customers. Auto dealerships are another example. The service department at my dealership quoted me at $220+ to change one of my headlight bulbs. They also told me that it was extremely likely that they would also have to replace the ballasts, control center, and/or another part. This was much more common than just the bulb going out, they said. I called around and talked to another professional and they quoted me at under $170 and told me that they has never seen anything but the bulb going out on my model of car. Was the dealership being dishonest with me? Of course I cannot prove it but such experiences are not uncommon and I am sure that you, the Reader, have had similar experiences.

Another corporation charges $50 for an item that costs $17 to manufacture, distribute, and stock. That same corporation charges almost $6 for a small battery that costs about 50 cents to get to the peg in the store. Why? Dishonest greed. Where does that money go? A great portion of it goes directly into the pockets of a very few people at the top levels of the corporate bureaucracy.

Do not misunderstand me - those in higher positions in a company do deserve higher salaries. However, when the head of a company literally makes as much per day as the average employee in their company will make in ten years, something is wrong. When the net salary of a CEO could feed every person in almost any country in Africa for a year, something dishonest or immoral is going on.

Please add any similar experiences you have had in the comments section.

The Wonder of the Wide Web

While working on my family website earlier today, I began a discussion with my Grandmother about the Internet. My mind is still rolling around the impression I have of how tremendous the Internet is! She was born in 1941. In her words, "Even telephones amaze me - that I can pick up a telephone and talk to Jason in Iraq just amazes me." Then it hit me - the Internet is not just a way to communicate words one with another. The Internet allows us to exchange who we are. This includes our personalities, ideas, motivations - our very selves.

How can this be? Never before in human history has a method of communication existed that allows a person to share text, audio, visual, and (now) emotion. How do we share emotion on the Internet? It used to take a lot of skill to bring emotion into the written word. Even with pictures, no author could express emotion without a certain degree of training or talent. Now a simple emoticon can express emotion. It takes little or no training or talent and requires only a minimal investment of time.

So, not only is the world connected more completely and quickly than ever before, it is connected more deeply and expressively. How will this change the world in the long term? We have only seen the creation of the ability and not fully the impact. It has only been around fifteen years since the public gained regular access to the Internet. It has been in common use even less a time than that. What will the world be like in fifty years? Who will become the leaders of the deeply connected world? Will we even know their name or just their screen name? Might "holyanne8745" one day be elected president? Doubtful. But holyanne's power to influence who will become the president might be tremendous.

Use this new power wisely, Reader. The world may one day depend upon it!

Discovery

I've just discovered that I can e-mail posts onto my blog from my cell phone! This will allow me to do more blogging than I otherwise would have done. The posts will not be able to be especially long because it takes longer to enter text using a cell phone but they should be interesting as they will be created "on location."

In one of my next entries, I will do a brief sketch of who I am. While I am no unusually special person, I do think my life is somewhat interesting and filled with many unique experiences. However, this blog is presently a way for me to express myself through the written word. I do keep two written journals - a personal journal (pertaining to experiences and events) and a study journal (pertaining to my study of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and other scriptural things). This blog will be my way to write about issues and topics which I feel are important. These might include current events, politics, science, philosophies, school, and other random outbursts ad nauseum.

My hope in the Reader is that they will enjoy reading the posts and that those posts will provide a seed to pondering. If there is one message I have to the world, it is that we must increase the amount of pondering we participate in. Pondering brings fuller understanding, stronger mental self-control, and greater recall ability. Therefore: ponder, Reader, and do it often and with focus. Think about things instead of only reacting to them. Examine yourself, others, ideas, and beliefs. Agree with something only after you have considered and accepted it. Otherwise life will become an unchanging string of actions based on prejudices gained in earlier years.

Greetings!

Hello there, Reader! Welcome to my first blog. I am a little unsure how this will pan out - I do not spend a lot of time on the computer so these entries might be somewhat far and few between. They should be interesting, however, and hopefully entertaining for you and me!

The name "Ergodic Quanta" refers to the idea that this blog is composed of many small pieces which all tend to be related in some random ways. Similar subjects will return again and again but in no obvious pattern. Hence the use of the terms "ergodic," which implies random repetition (as it were), and "quanta," which implies many small parts.

To learn a little about me, feel free to e-mail me or just read my profile. Thanks for participating and have a wonderful day or night, whichever applies to you presently.