The times they are a-changin'

It's autumn in Utah. For weeks, I've been observing the colors as I've hiked, commuted, and lived. The colors are beginning to become muted and drab and will soon become wintry. The snows will come and most of the world's hue will be lost for a while.

Several of my favorite songs seem particularly appropriate for the season, so I made a few minutes to make a playlist for each of the seasons. I was surprised to find that the process of creating these playlists was a deeply introspective one. I now understand my own feelings towards the seasons better than ever before. I've included my playlists at the bottom, in case you're interested in seeing them.

When I think about life, I think of summer. I don't mean that things grow in the summer or that there's more greenery (although there is). I mean that, in my mind, summer is normal and the other seasons are the exception to the rule. Summertime is characterized by music that is upbeat and energetic. A lot of my upbeat dance music ended up in this playlist. Love stories in this playlist seem to be going well – or, at least, there are good prospects. My summer playlist is the longest of them, perhaps because I love summer so much. Or maybe it's because I love dancing.

In autumn, the world changes. Green turns to red and yellow. Heat fades. Clear skies become cloudy and it begins to rain. The music of autumn is reflective. It recognizes that not every good thing lasts. Some of the more acute breakup songs are in autumn, but so are some hopeful songs about change. There is brightness and color in the music, but the energy of summer is mostly gone.

Then the world fades into whites and browns. The sun hides and so do the people. For months, it seems as if there is no life or hope anywhere. There is nothing abrupt about winter, so it doesn't have sharp pains; instead, it has chronic ones. It is a time of longing for what was and wondering what might have been. There is hope for what might be, but it is marred by uncertainty about when or if the change will come. Although most of my dance music was in the summer playlist, there are several waltzes that found their way to my winter list.

Eventually, every winter begins to end when spring comes. The sun peeks cautiously from behind the clouds. The clouds are used to ruling the skies and fight back vehemently. Their efforts ultimately fail and, as the sun reasserts its preeminence, it brings new life to the world. Spring is a time of transition. There are somber days and setbacks, but there is always progress. Once spring begins, summer is no longer a distant, desperate hope but a certainty. The buds and leaves on every tree serve as constant reminders of what is to come. The music of spring is about new things, especially about new love and the hope that a budding love will mature into a deep, dependable one.

I'm not sure if I'm really being fair to some of the seasons. Actually, I'm more okay with winter than I ever have been before (yes, my feelings used to be stronger about it). But I tolerate winter at best. Maybe I'll be able to mature to the point that I can actually appreciate all of the seasons as they are.

Summer

• The Archies - Sugar, Sugar
• The Beatles - Golden Slumbers
• Bob Marley - Three Little Birds
• Boys Like Girls - Thunder
• Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting
• Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
• Cupid - Cupid Shuffle
• Collective Soul - Heavy
• Daniel Bedingfield - Girlfriend
• Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure
• Don Henley - The Boys Of Summer
• Duke Ellington And His Famous Orchestra - It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) (1999 Remastered)
• Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf
• Eagles - Hotel California
• Louis Armstrong - Summertime
• Ellie Goulding - Lights
• Green Day - Oh Love
• Herman's Hermits - I'm Henry The VIII
• Herman's Hermits - Silhouettes
• Imagine Dragons - It's Time
• Iyaz - Replay (Album Version)
• Jimmy Eat World - Sweetness
• Justin Bieber - Baby
• Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son
• Katrina & The Waves - Walking On Sunshine
• Kate Voegele - Only Fooling Myself
• Led Zeppelin - Fool In The Rain
• Louis Armstrong - Hello Dolly
• Loverboy - Working For The Weekend
• The Lovin' Spoonful - Summer In The City (2003 Remaster)
• Michael Jackson - Beat It
• Michael Jackson - Bad
• Miley Cyrus - Party In The U.S.A.
• Miley Cyrus - Hoedown Throwdown
• Natasha Bedingfield featuring Sean Kingston - Love Like This
• Owl City - Alligator Sky (No Rap Version)
• Owl City - Air Traffic
• Owl City - Deer In The Headlights
• Owl City - Fireflies
• Owl City - Good Time (Feat. Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen)
• OneRepublic - Stop And Stare
• Owl City - Hello Seattle
• Owl City - On The Wing
• Prince - When Doves Cry
• Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al
• Paul Simon with Los Lobos - All Around The World Or The Myth Of Fingerprints
• Phil Collins - True Colors
• Phil Collins - Dance Into The Light
• Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up
• La Roux - Bulletproof
• Sam Cooke - Another Saturday Night
• Savage Garden - The Animal Song (Album Version)
• Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence
• Starship - We Built This City
• Stevie Nicks - Edge of Seventeen
• Sting - Desert Rose
• Taylor Swift - Long Live
• Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me
• U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love)
• War - Low Rider
• Weather Report - Birdland
• Weezer - My Name Is Jonas

Autumn

• Sting - Fields Of Gold
• 3 Doors Down - Away From The Sun
• Annie Lennox - Into The West
• Collective Soul - Run
• The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five
• Don McLean - American Pie
• Earth, Wind & Fire - September
• Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)
• Fleetwood Mac - Landslide
• Gladys Knight & The Pips - Midnight Train To Georgia
• Jimmy Eat World - Hear You Me
• Led Zeppelin - Ramble On
• Kate Voegele - Chicago
• Nelly - Just A Dream
• Oasis - Champagne Supernova
• Oasis - Wonderwall
• Timbaland/OneRepublic - Apologize
• Owl City - Meteor Shower
• Owl City - Vanilla Twilight
• Sarah McLachlan with Bryan Adams - Don't Let Go (with Bryan Adams)
• Savage Garden - Hold Me (Album Version)
• Seether feat. Amy Lee - Broken
• Simon & Garfunkel - April Come She Will
• Simon & Garfunkel - Leaves That Are Green
• Stereo Fuse - Everything
• Taylor Swift - The Best Day
• Taylor Swift - White Horse
• TLC - Creep
• The Tony Rich Project - Nobody Knows
• Train - Hopeless
• The Verve Pipe - The Freshmen
• The Weepies - World Spins Madly On

Winter

• The Beatles - The Fool on the Hill [from the Film "Magical Mystery Tour"]
• Billy Joel - And So It Goes
• Ella Fitzgerald - Dream A Little Dream Of Me
• Evanescence - My Immortal (Band Version)
• Jimmy Eat World - My Sundown
• Josh Groban - February Song (Album Version)
• Josh Groban - So She Dances (Album Version)
• Josh Groban - Remember When It Rained
• Kate Voegele - Kindly Unspoken
• Lighthouse Family - Ain't No Sunshine
• Lifehouse - Simon
• Owl City - January 28, 1986
• Phil Collins - One More Night
• Sarah McLachlan - Answer
• Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends Theme
• Taylor Swift - Back To December
• Sting - Shape Of My Heart
• Taylor Swift - Last Kiss
• Simon & Garfunkel - I Am a Rock

Spring

• Annie Lennox - Walking On Broken Glass
• Antonio Carlos Jobim - Garota de Ipanema
• Antonio Carlos Jobim - Samba de Uma Nota So
• Association - Windy
• Starship - Sara
• The Beatles - Here Comes the Sun
• Billy Joel - The Longest Time
• Coldplay - Paradise
• Daniel Bedingfield - Without the Girl
• Ella Fitzgerald - Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
• Ella Fitzgerald - They Can't Take That Away From Me
• Jesse McCartney - Beautiful Soul
• Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World
• The Lovin' Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic?
• Mandy Moore - Crush
• Mandy Moore - Cry
• Marc Cohn - Walking In Memphis (LP Version)
• Miley Cyrus - The Climb
• Miles Davis - So What
• Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
• Owl City - Honey And The Bee
• Owl City - Hospital Flowers
• Owl City - The Real World
• Owl City - The Saltwater Room
• Paul Simon - Under African Skies
• Savage Garden - Crash And Burn (Album Version)
• Seal - Kiss From A Rose
• Seal - Love's Divine (Album Version)
• Simon & Garfunkel - Scarborough Fair/Canticle
• Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me
• Starship - Sara
• Taylor Swift - Fearless
• Taylor Swift - Today Was A Fairytale
• Train - Drops Of Jupiter
• U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Hedges about the law

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a presentation at a TED-inspired venue called MITE Night (Most Interesting Thing Ever Night) about the challenges in communication that are specific to geeks (or nerds – I don't distinguish between the two). After some deliberation, I chose to present with slides as visual aides, using pictures instead of text (except when quoting someone). In the process of preparing, I came across some video clips that I thought would fit well with my presentation.

The first video clip I wanted to use was about ten seconds of a video entitled An Engineer's Guide to Dating by An Engineering Mind. As far as I can tell, this video was created just for fun and was strictly not for profit. The second was a 16-second clip of The Big Bang Theory – just long enough for a single joke. And the third video was the first few seconds of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up music video (because rickrolling is a sort of online sport).

Of course, these materials are all copyrighted, so I needed to be sure that my use of them was legitimate. The legal doctrine of fair use attempts to describe some common exceptions to copyright law. These nebulous guidelines fail entirely to make clear what is and is not acceptable but give some guidance. But, as my use was of a small portion of each work, as it was for a noncommercial and educational purpose, and as my use of each work would either not affect the markets at all (except perhaps by advertising for the works), using these clips in my presentation is a textbook case of fair use.

I'm somewhat experienced with public speaking and I anticipated some of the common problems. Accordingly, I didn't want to rely on an internet connection, so I tried to put the video clips into my slides. The problem is that although my use of these copyrighted materials would be protected by the doctrine of fair use, I had no legitimate way to download them and embed them in my slides.

As I'd found the video clips I wanted on YouTube, the easiest way to download them would have been from the site itself. But YouTube doesn't provide a way for people (except for the people who uploaded the videos in the first place) to download videos. One reason might be to encourage traffic to the site. Another is clearly copyright protection. If copyrighted materials could be posted and downloaded at will, YouTube would be responsible for being the means by which people pirated countless copyrighted videos. By forcing people to go to the site to watch videos, a video whose legitimacy is called into question can be immediately suppressed. Using one of the many tools that downloads videos would have been a clear violation of YouTube's terms of service, regardless of the fact that my use of the materials in question would have been protected by fair use.

Another way I could have gotten the videos would have been via a DVD (well, two of the three, as I don't think An Engineering Mind has ever made DVDs). I could have ripped (extracted) the video files from DVDs and then I could have selected just the few seconds of each that I wanted and put those videos into my slides. But DVDs have a copy protection mechanism on them. It isn't effective at protecting anything, but it does make the act of ripping a DVD illegal because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (see the External Links section for the full text). As before, my use of these videos would not have violated copyright law but would have been a violation of a measure whose sole purpose for existence is to enforce copyright law. I should add that neither the current list of exceptions to the DMCA or the list of exceptions that will take effect in January 2013 allow this action, as I'm not a university professor or a student of film.

I could have, of course, simply found video clips on some torrent site and downloaded them. Torrents aren't illegal in the same way that websites aren't illegal, but downloading an entire episode of Big Bang Theory, whether or not I only ever used 15 seconds of it, could have caused legal trouble.

There is also the issue of enforcement. If I ever went to court over my use of copyrighted materials, the decision about whether or not it was fair use would be decided arbitrarily by some judge. I might get lucky; I might not. What's more, I can't afford legal counsel on the scale that the RIAA and MPAA already employ. I'd have no reasonable hope of winning the case, even if I were clearly in the right.

As for preparing slides that would work offline, I was out of ideas. Especially in the short amount of time that I had to prepare, there wasn't a way for me to store these videos on my computer and embed them in my presentation. I was unable to get either Keynote or PowerPoint to embed YouTube videos directly and I eventually went with a Google Presentation.

Of course, I had trouble getting online when I arrived. Since all of my slides were online, the presentation started late and the videos didn't work even after I got online. The presentation wasn't ruined, but it was disappointingly unpolished.

As I thought about these laws and behaviors that we use to enforce copyright law, I was reminded of the Pirkei Avot, which contains the instruction to "make a hedge about the law" (see this translation, which renders the phrase "make a safety fence around the Torah."). The purpose of this hedge was to help people be sure they never violated the law, which was of paramount import. I think this has great theological value; in fact, there are ways in which I hedge about the law in my personal behavior. But when we make hedges that prohibit others from doing otherwise legitimate things – in religion or in anything else – we must be extremely cautious.

We've clearly passed the point of reason with these laws. These hedges have taken the already crippled doctrine of fair use and rendered it completely useless. My troubles presenting when I was clearly doing something legitimate are not the only example of consumers' rights being ignored. It's time that we reformed our laws and our enforcement of them. The doctrine of fair use needs to be well enough defined and protected that ordinary people can exercise their rights in its regard without fear of unjust repercussions.

Solving Fixing Hard Disk Drive Errors

The Microsoft ScanDisk program searches your hard disk drive for errors and is able to fix some errors. Fixing hard disk drive errors can improve PC performance.

NOTE: Using ScanDisk to check for hard disk drive errors may take a long time to complete.

 1 Click the Start button and then click My Computer.

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2 Right-click the icon for the hard disk drive (usually labeled C:).

3 Click Properties, and then click the Tools tab.

4 Click Check Now.

5 Place check marks in all of the check boxes.

6 Click the Start button, and then click Yes to schedule a full disk scan for when the PC is restarted.

7 Click OK.

8 Click the Start button, click Turn Off Computer, and then click Restart. ScanDisk starts as soon as the PC starts up again.

Computer Keyboard Using Tutorial

Keyboard Using

The keyboard is the primary way you enter text and commands for the PC. The keyboard may connect directly to your PC or may be wireless. Your keyboard has an arrangement of standard keys, indicator lights, and special buttons (select models only). Your keyboard may vary from the illustrations. Some keyboards do not have the Internet buttons shown here at the top of the keyboard, and some use a different layout on the top right.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are combinations of keys that you press simultaneously to do specific actions. For example, from the Windows desktop, press the Alt (alternate) key, the Ctrl (control) key, and the S key (the letter s) to display support information for the PC (including model number, serial number, and service ID).
You will see this combination of keys represented as Alt+Ctrl+S. In Windows, press Ctrl+C to copy an item you’ve highlighted or selected, Ctrl+V to paste a copied item, or press Ctrl+Z to undo the previous action. These shortcuts perform the same actions you can perform through menus but save you time and mouse clicks.
Standard Keyboard Features
Alphanumeric Keys
The alphanumeric keys are the main keys found on a standard typewriter. 10 PC Basics Guide
Function Keys
The function keys, located above the main keys, are labeled F1 through F12. • Pressing F1 displays a Help window for the software program being used. • Pressing F3 displays a search window. F1 and F3 are available at all times. Other function key operations vary by software program.
Edit Keys
The edit keys are Insert, Home, Page Up, Delete, End, and Page Down. Use these keys to insert and delete text and to quickly move the cursor on your screen. They function differently with some software programs.
Introducing the PC 11

Arrow Keys
The arrow keys are controls for up, down, right, and left. You can use these keys instead of the mouse to move the cursor for navigation in a Web page, in a document, or in a game.

Numeric Keys
Press the Num Lock key to lock and unlock the numeric key functions: • When the Num Lock light on the keyboard is on, the numeric keys work in the same way as the number keys and arithmetic functions found on a basic calculator.
• When the Num Lock light on the keyboard is off, the numeric keys are directional keys used to move the cursor or play games.
Keyboard Indicators
Each keyboard indicator is a light labeled with the name or icon for its status:

Icon Name Description:
Num Lock Numeric keys are locked as numbers keys and arithmetic functions. Caps Lock Alphanumeric keys are locked to uppercase.
Scroll Lock Scroll function is locked. 12 PC Basics Guide
Special Keyboard Buttons
There are special buttons (select models only) at the top of the keyboard. (Some models have some of these special buttons on the left side of the main keys.) These buttons operate a CD or DVD player, control speaker volume, connect you to the Internet, or provide quick access to specific functions.
 Volume Control
The Volume knob increases speaker volume when turned clockwise and decreases volume when turned counterclockwise. It can be turned indefinitely, even after maximum sound has been reached.  The Volume Up button increases volume, and the Volume Down button decreases volume. The Mute button turns speaker sound on and off.
Media Control Keys
NOTE: The number, location, and labeling of buttons vary by keyboard model.
a Open and close disc tray(s)
b Record
c Play or pause
d Stop
e Skip to the previous track
f Skip to the next track

Making happiness in the lab

I spent a month in the summer of 2006 working in Kent Pinkerton's lab in the Center for Health and the Environment at UC Davis. The students and postdocs in the lab who worked with Kent were intelligent, articulate, and kind. They supported each other and helped me considerably. Despite feeling underqualified, I felt welcome with all of my colleagues (although I feel that I'm arrogating myself to call them that).

It didn't take long for me to realize that Kent's influence over the lab was considerable. He was respected for being very capable in his work, but he was loved for being a kind tutor. He communicated effectively and did an admirable job of helping people feel good about themselves. Before my month in his lab was over, I found myself observing him to learn what I could about the art of building others up. I've practiced what I learned over the years and, although I don't claim to be a master of this art, my ability to build others has improved greatly.

With this post, I hope to simultaneously thank Kent for this significant contribution to my life and to pass on some of what I've learned about this important skill.

I think that the first thing I noticed about Kent is that he's sincere. It's simply impossible to not believe him, even when he says incredible things. I still remember meeting with him at the end of my time in his lab. I'd done some simple analyses of some slides and remember that he exclaimed, "You were worth every penny!" I certainly hadn't thought I was worth every penny; I actually had thought of myself as something of a charity case. But the way he said it made it impossible for me to disbelieve him. Sincerity was not a new idea to me, as I'd been taught to be sincere all my life – but Kent's sincerity was so apparent that I was able to see why it mattered.

As I attended lab meetings and watched Kent doing research with the others, I also realized that he was very specific in his compliments. He would isolate exactly what someone had done or a characteristic that someone had and talk about it. Specificity matters because it communicates sincerity and because it doesn't sound like a platitude. I blame my egocentricity for the fact that I don't remember any specific compliments that Kent gave to others in the lab, but I do remember that he told me that, "We'll make a scientist out of you yet." At the time, I was planning to become an electrical engineer and Kent recognized specific aptitudes and abilities that would make me valuable in research. Without this comment, made in passing, I may never have considered a career in research.

The two compliments I've mentioned were effective because I could tell that Kent really cared. It wasn't that he cared about me (although I have no doubt he did and does), but that I could tell that the things he talked about really mattered to him. His enthusiasm made compliments that would have been nice into great compliments. The first compliment showed his enthusiasm for good evidence to inform the community. From the second compliment, I inferred that Kent values his field and wants it to do well – and that he wanted me to be a part of it because he saw that I could contribute.

I appreciated his comments particularly because they addressed insecurities of mine – things that kept me up at night. At the time, I was not at all confident that I was worth the hassle and the pay that I'd cost the lab. And I wasn't confident that my abilities were up to par. Such emphatic, unsolicited validation eased the burdens that I'd been trying to carry without addressing them externally.

It is crucial to note that these compliments described essential, not superficial, characteristics. They complimented who I really am on the inside and not something ancillary to my character, such as my appearance or a first impression of me. Addressing people's identity raises the stakes; the insults that sting the most and the compliments that provide the largest preponderance of warm, fuzzy feelings are the ones that describe the soul.

Of course, my listed generalities only help so much. It can be difficult to find useful and effective compliments for other people, especially on demand. Over the years, I've discovered that a few habits have greatly improved my ability to give compliments.

I've learned to observe people carefully. I'm not content to know what people are doing because understanding why they do what they do gives important insight into who they are. It helps to never assume that I've achieved my goal of understanding people. They are infinitely complex, which makes them interesting and which gives me cause to keep observing. Of course, passive observation has its limits. I have found it useful to combine careful observation with good questions.

I've also learned to believe the best of people. It's easy to assume that people do what they do because of some character flaw or other, but I've found that there is a deeper understanding to be had of virtually every person's motivation for any action. Assuming the best allows me to stop judging and to keep looking for others' good qualities. As I do so, I'm able to see specific characteristics of other people that I wouldn't see were I judging them.

Perhaps the most important thing that I have learned to do to build people up is to care about them. When I care about people, it shows. They respond with trust, which allows me to understand them better and therefore to build them up more effectively. As I have chosen to serve others, especially those to whom I'm not naturally drawn, I've found it easier to love them. This increased love has enabled me to build them up as I could not do previously.

One of the principal joys in life is sharing a sincere smile with someone else. Giving good compliments makes me happy because it makes my friends happy. I hope it does the same for you.

Apple's patch Wednesday

Apple released several updates yesterday. Most talked about was iOS 6, but there were also upgrades to Mac OS, Xcode, and other Apple software.

I'd heard about iOS 6 but don't have a device that will benefit much from it, so I didn't bother with it.

I use my Mac for school. It's basically a Linux laptop with shiny hardware and an aesthetically pleasing (if space-wasting) window manager. I use homebrew to manage the software I use from the FOSS ecosystem. So when I checked for updates last night it told me that my Xcode command line tools were out of date. This typically means that Xcode itself is out of date. I'd expected to see the update notification from the App Store, as Apple had just forced me to upgrade a few months ago to get a version integrated with the App Store.

It turns out that although the update was available, the App Store hadn't yet notified me. This isn't a huge problem; it just means that I can't trust Apple to notify me as soon as critical security updates are available. And, of course, I love the irony of being notified by a third party application that my Apple software needed to be updated.

I opened the App Store and checked for updates. I told it to upgrade everything (Xcode and iPhoto) and typed in my password to authorize the process. I quickly noticed that the update was over a GB. Having just been released, this patch was in high demand among developers and the download was painfully slow. I was only somewhat surprised that Apple doesn't use something sensible like BitTorrent to distribute its patches; after all, Apple maintains tight control over its products – even after the products have been sold to customers.

Hours later, I checked to see if the download had finished. For some reason, it was still listed and I instructed the App Store to update everything again. I typed my password again. For some reason, the patch was larger. It's possible I missed a detail somewhere, but I'm quite sure that 1.6 GB is larger than 1.3 GB.

The next time I checked, iPhoto had still not been upgraded. I told the App Store to install the update and authenticated a third time. It quickly reported that it wanted to upgrade but that it couldn't until I updated my operating system. Apple, of course, hadn't notified me that an update was available.

So I opened Apple's update tool and installed the upgrade, which forced me to authenticate (I think – at this point, it was late enough that I may have missed something) and then restart.

After restarting, I told the App Store to upgrade a fourth time and authenticated yet again and it happily complied.

When I launched Xcode, it had an update waiting inside of itself that I had to install before doing anything else. Then, finally, I dug my way through the preferences menu to find a way to upgrade the software contained within Xcode, including the command line tools. It listed four updates but said at the top that no updates were available. After ignoring the message at the top, I tried to install one of the tools. After authenticating (twice), I was told that my Apple Developer account doesn't have access to iOS 5. I have no idea why Apple maintains farcical security around its developer tools, as they're certainly available on the Internet without Apple's red tape. And it wasn't immediately obvious how I could convince Apple to give me the software. So I ignored the iOS 5 emulators and moved on to what I really needed.

The other updates didn't hassle me (although I think I had to authenticate again for each one). I was finally done. The experience left me thinking of the years I spent working in technical support for my department as an undergraduate, installing OEM copies of Windows XP on professors' laptops and doing battle to find and install the drivers they needed in order to operate properly. Apple had actually succeeded in creating its own Patch Tuesday (except that it was a day late, as it all came out on Wednesday).

So, Apple, I pose my questions to you: how do you justify such a horrific experience? Are you willing to own up to the fact that your developer tools are clearly an afterthought? Are you even bothered by the fact that third-party tools notify your users about updates (which could be security-critical) before you do, despite the fact that you control the operating system and applications that can deliver these notifications? And we all know that stealing ideas is how the computer industry works, but didn't anyone tell you to steal the good ideas?

A rock feels no pain

I recently experienced a significant disappointment. It didn't come as a surprise but it wasn't really what I wanted, either. Since that experience, I've paid careful attention to my emotions and have been surprised at how gentle they've been. I feel fine. I'm not sure that I ought to feel fine, though, and I've been wondering if there's something wrong with me and my emotions.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to my friends that I took a while to question what the ideal of emotional experience is, what my current experience with it is, what difference exists between them, and what I can do to close the gap. I had an interesting thought yesterday: what price would I pay to experience more emotion?

This question probably deserves some background. As I've discussed previously, I decided long ago that anger would not be a part of my life. Since then, I've chosen to avoid acting on feelings of anger and have learned to process those feelings. I've learned to give others the benefit of the doubt and to be patient. Years later, I sometimes experience frustration and occasionally indignation but anger really isn't a part of my life. When I do experience a feeling like anger, I'm able to arrest its development, remove myself from the situation, and deal with it on my own without expressing it at anyone else. I've cultivated this control carefully over the years. I've considered it to be a part of the ideal that I call emotional maturity for some time. My conception of this ideal, in summary, has been that a person ought to use reason and emotion together to make decisions without allowing either one to dominate the other. Anger should be avoided because it's specifically condemned in the Sermon on the Mount and because it is so strong that it overrides reason.

Yesterday, I questioned that ideal. Specifically, I asked myself if I would be willing to sacrifice the control I've cultivated for more than half of my life if it meant deeper emotional experience.

I thought about it and discussed it with some close, trusted friends. I concluded two things: if there were something wrong with me emotionally because I've been controlling myself too tightly and if it were possible to remedy the situation by letting go, I ought to do so. My experience has been that when I've gravitated to one extreme, I have to release the fear of the other extreme in order to progress towards a proper balance between them. I also decided that I don't think there's anything wrong with my emotional state. I'm not hiding from my emotions and I'm not suppressing them; I just don't happen to have a strong emotional response to some things and that has surprised me but simply is the way it is.

This morning, I was flipping through Preach My Gospel as part of my daily scriptural study. I came across the section about hope in chapter 6. As I read, a strong feeling of peace came over me. I realized that I have learned hope. I live it. I believe that good things are coming. I believe that, no matter what happens, my life can be happy – and that other lives can be happy, too. I realized that when, as the saying goes, the Lord shuts a door, I don't stand there and look at it as darkness closes around me; I simply locate the best open door I can find and move towards it. I was grateful to be reminded that I can, in fact, feel emotion and more grateful for the divine approbation that this communication implied.

Now, dear readers, please excuse me. I have worlds to conquer.