Goodbyes

I don't think that it's hit me yet that I've left Provo. I have reasons to visit from time to time, so I'll see people. And there's always Facebook and cell phones, but it's never the same.

I won't be in the daily life of my friends and they won't be in mine. I won't be around when Marie has a story to tell about something amazing from her life. I'm unlikely to be the first one to hear about the dates that Peter and Weston and Scott go on. And I won't have happy daily encounters with Kim, Taralyn, or Emily. Countless other people won't be in my day-to-day life and that saddens me.

My only real consolation is the fact that friendships, although not sealed in temples, can still be eternal. I look forward to spending an eternity with my friends, talking and laughing and listening.

In the meantime, friends, please tell me about your lives.

Principles of Communication

Introduction

In the last month, I’ve bothered a lot of people with things that I’ve said. As a result, I’ve thought a lot about what it is that we say and do that bothers people and I’ve tried to refine my understanding of the principles that should govern communication. I hope that they are as useful to my readers as they have been and will be to me. This is not an explanation of things that I do perfectly. It is an explanation of the ideals I strive to live.

These principles are applicable in all communication, but are particularly important when the messages we send are uncomfortable or unwelcome. It is easy to avoid offending people when we’re telling them how much we appreciate them or that they did something well, but easy to offend when we’re correcting, teaching, or disagreeing. It is in these “negative” communications that we are most tempted to violate these principles. However, they are as applicable in difficult situations as in easy ones.

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The search for truth

I don’t think it’s always clear to people that when I express my opinion, it’s not always because I’m positive that I’m right and I’m trying to convince everyone else to think like I do. There are certainly times that it seems to me that I’ve found an element of truth that most people don’t seem to have grasped and I try to share it with them. But even in those moments, I often find that my discovery is incomplete and that there is more to learn in that specific area. I believe that the discovery of truth is far more important than my ego, so I appreciate correction. There are times when I fail to be gracious about being corrected and I ask my friends to forgive me for those lapses.

I frequently express my opinion in my blog posts and usually do it emphatically. When I do so, I argue for truth as I understand it. However, I recognize that I do not fully understand the truth. As such, I enthusiastically welcome others’ opinions. I would love to hear from people who agree and from people who disagree. I also welcome explanations to accompany opinions (why do you agree or disagree with me?), because it is frequently in the explanation of why that we find more truth.

I'm going to begin a flurry of posts in the next couple of days, if all goes according to plan. It would please me greatly to see intelligent debate about my ideas. So, gentle reader, please respond after you read.

No more excuses

I just read a couple of news articles about two horrible, violent acts. I realized that my greatest fear is that I'll do something monstrous to someone else and think of myself as a monster, not to be trusted around anyone. I'm glad that I've never had to forgive anyone else for something like what I read today.

But then, I realized that I'd have trouble forgiving myself for the same acts. At first, it seemed natural because they are deemed inexcusable in society. I believed that they were, in fact, inexcusable. And, by extension, unforgivable.

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Life lessons from video games

I have played a lot of video games in my day. They are a form of entertainment, pure and simple. But as I look back, I'm surprised to see what I've learned and what I can learn from them.

A few years ago, I played a game on my roommate's computer called Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). The plot centers around Jedi who lived years before the Star Wars saga began. A people, some of whom are Jedi, work together to stop an evil Sith from taking over the galaxy (to no one's surprise). As I played the game, my characters would "level up," or become more powerful. When they leveled up, I could choose how they developed; they would develop skill with various force powers, such as Force speed, the ability to destroy droids, or Force choke (Darth Vader's signature move).

I was pretty put out when I discovered that I couldn't develop every ability and make a character who did it all. I have always enjoyed making my characters so irresistibly powerful that no foe could possibly challenge them. It's still possible to make the character ludicrously powerful, but not in every way; the player is forced to choose some sort of emphasis.

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Engineers and scientists

It’s easy to think of scientists and engineers as the same group of people. Both stereotypically wear glasses and use pocket protectors. Both use words that no one else understands and then has trouble figuring out what wasn’t clear. Both know about (and, for some unfathomable reason, enjoy thinking about) incomprehensible things. They commonly take the same classes and discuss the same concepts, although they sometimes use different terminology or notation; for example, many engineers use j and many scientists use i to denote the second root of unity (colloquially, the square root of -1).

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Environmentalism, dirty dishes, and good friends

After I drive a car a few miles, there’s a little less oxygen and a little more carbon dioxide (as well as some partially combusted hydrocarbons and maybe some additives) in the air. The amounts of oxygen and so on are so small that they make no perceptible difference. But when lots of people drive lots of miles, they create a remarkable difference in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

The same is true of many environmental issues today: they are not caused by huge destructive acts. Rather, they’re caused by little things that have almost no impact on the environment. But, in aggregate, they can cause all sorts of change to the environment. For so long, humanity’s numbers and technology have been insufficient for us to impact our world in such a subtle manner, so we’ve generally adopted the attitude that any difference that seems insignificant is actually insignificant, no matter how many times it’s multiplied.

This type of thinking manifests itself in other aspects of our daily lives. For example, one plate or cup left out or a few bread crumbs on a table or counter hardly make a huge difference. But several people who live together, each one routinely leaving dishes out and surfaces neglected will quickly find that their living conditions have become unacceptable.

More significantly, we can fail to care for others. Not taking a moment for a friend or loved one once is usually not a big deal. A friend is still a friend, even when we fail to be the friend we should be. However, habitual neglect will destroy any relationship.

So take a minute to talk with a friend. Wash a few dishes. Take a walk instead of driving once in a while. The little positives add up in the same way that the negatives do.