Genius

        I found a quote today that I really liked. It was from good ol' Albert Einstein.

        "Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
                
        It is important to remember, I think, that everyone is a 'genius' in their own way. For some, it may be that they have exceeding physical prowess--for others, they have great mental capacity or even astounding artistic ability. Too often with people, we just skim the surface and never really look deeper--and in so doing, we never get to appreciate the amazing 'genius' that some people really have. Unfortunately, when we do this we also oftentimes leave people feeling that they're not that great at anything or that they're no good. Don't let the opportunity to get to know someone pass you by.




Picture from http://th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/physpiceinstein.html

Outlet

        There have been many times in my life when there has been so much stress and worry that I just wanted to explode--times when more than anything, I just needed to release some internal pressure. Blow off some steam, let my mind loose. Time and time again, I've found that my best friend in such instances is a good ol' paper and pencil.

        Sure, sometimes I can just write down my thoughts and feelings and I'm good to go--but this isn't all that a notebook is good for. One of my favorite outlets has pretty much always been doodling. I don't know what it is about it, but there's just something so satisfying about letting your imagination take form on a page. Sometimes my drawings would emulate exactly how I felt--and often it also would show how I wanted to feel.

        Here is a smattering of my imagination, come to life on a page. This is from quite some time ago--more than two years ago, I'd wager. I need to get back into the habit of drawing every once in a while. Just looking at these doodles reminded me of how enjoyable that always was for me.

Rocky

        It would seem that I'm learning more than I expected in many of my classes this semester. In my Geology class, we've learned about some neat stuff that I found was much more applicable to my life than I thought possible. I mean really...how can you apply rocks to your life?

        Well, not too long ago we discussed the different types of rock, geologically speaking. There are three--igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. I won't bore you with the details, but I've discovered that, in a way, I'm in the process of becoming a metamorphic rock (metaphorically speaking. Wow, lots of long 'm' words around here). In layman's terms, metamorphic rocks are rocks that have gone through a metamorphic phase and become something new entirely, usually due to heat and pressure. For example, granite is a type of igneous rock. It's quite lovely to look at, lots of cool little gray, black and white speckles. But if a piece of this lovely granite becomes partially melted and subjected to the right amount of pressure, the composition of the rock will change entirely--the bonds between the different atoms in the rock will break and realign. The rock doesn't melt down completely though--then it would just turn into magma and later become an igneous rock. After it hardens, instead of just having granite, you have something else entirely--a metamorphic rock called Gneiss, which is pretty awesome looking. 

What a Gneiss rock...

        That's all fine and dandy, but what does that have to do with me, you ask?

        I'm, metaphorically speaking, a rock of some sort. I have my strengths, my flaws, my breaking points, etc. Right now, I'm undergoing a lot of heat and pressure--preparing to get married, trying to stay on top of things at school and at work, keep my body healthy, maintain relationships with family, etc. and on top of all these everyday things, there are of course problems that arise. Unexpected setbacks and disappointments...trials and adversity...there's always something, in some form or another. Under all of this heat and pressure, I am being metaphorically metamorphosed (oh, how I love alliteration..) into something completely new. God is transforming me, day by day, from the flawed rock that I am into the solid, flawless stone that I need to be. Sure, it's hard to undergo so much, especially when I might've been happy with that old flawed rock that I was before, but God needs me to be more. And best of all, though sometimes I might be feeling the heat, God's not going to let me melt down completely. Just enough to mold me into what he needs me to be.

         Isn't that a Gneiss thought? (Haha...ha...ok well my Geology teacher probably would've laughed..)


Photo from 


http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/169553/enlarge

Understanding

       It's amazing what you can learn when you read between the lines. Right now, I'm taking an Art class at my University, and I learned a thing or two in that class that I never thought I would. As one of our first assignments, I was supposed to read the first chapter in a big, boring looking textbook called "The Visual Dialogue". I just about started falling asleep from hearing the title. The first chapter was titled "Art Appreciation and the Aesthetic Experience". It went on and on about mankind's drive to create images and such, from architecture to cave paintings and so on.

        Eventually, I came upon a part of the text that discussed ways that people react to art. Sometimes artists use methods, images or things that are unfamiliar or unorthodox to us to try and communicate their ideas. It discussed that oftentimes, when viewing art, people were much more comfortable looking at pieces that were more traditional or that used methods that didn't seem wild or crazy or foreign to them.

        As part of the assignment, after the readings I was supposed to go to the University's museum of art. While there, I was supposed to pick out two different art pieces--one that I was comfortable with, and one that I was uncomfortable with or just didn't quite get, and I was supposed to do a critique on them. Basically write about my thoughts, feelings, observations, etc. on the piece. Bear with me here, I'm getting to my point.

        While I was meandering through the museum, I was actually a bit surprised. Very much like the textbook had discussed, when there was an art piece that I didn't really understand or that used techniques that were foreign/weird to me, I was much less comfortable with it. Often times I would even just walk past such pieces, not even giving them a second glance. The thought came to mind--do I ever do this on a greater scale? If there are people, ideas or simply new things that I don't understand or are foreign to me, do I simply ignore them? Walk past them, metaphorically speaking, without looking any deeper?

        When I did the second part of the assignment, and actually went to a piece that I didn't understand (even just wanted to walk away from). I sat in front of this piece for a while, and looked long and hard at it, trying desperately to understand. I found that after some time, the piece started to make sense to me--I didn't feel the urge to ignore it anymore.

        Could the same apply to, for example, people? I firmly believe so. People, ideas, anything that is different or foreign to us. And a lot of times, when we sit down and just try to understand someone instead of making hasty judgments, we'll find that we're not all that different after all.

        Amazing what you can learn from an Art class, isn't it?





Images from 
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/textbooks.jpg
http://attackofthecute.com/on/?i=1902

Healing

       For those that have gone through difficult, even painful times, I found a comforting little quote. It's about a man that I greatly respect that went through a painful heart bypass surgery.

     "For several weeks my physical activity was severely restricted by intense pain, but I learned the joy of freeing my mind to ponder the meaning of life and the eternities. I discovered that if I dwelt only upon my pain, it inhibited the healing process. I found that pondering was a very important element in the healing process for both [spirit] and body. 

“I have come to understand how useless it is to dwell on the whys, what ifs, and if only’s for which there likely will be given no answers in mortality. . . . The questions Why me? Why our family? Why now? are usually unanswerable questions. These questions detract from our spirituality and can destroy our faith."                      
        -Elder Robert D. Hales

Often times, we go through difficult times, and begin to question things. Sure, not everyone is a religious type like me, but the questions often arise--why me? Why now? Sometimes we seem to be doing everything right, and yet bad things still happen to us. I've met many people that use this alone as evidence that there really is no God, because if there really was a loving caring God out there, he wouldn't allow such things. Or if God would allow such things, he certainly isn't the loving type that everyone is raving about.


I'm not a wise, all knowing person, and honestly I'm still pretty young and have a lot left to learn. But one thing that I know for sure, is that God really is there, and that he loves each and every one of us. The difficult thing to understand is why this loving God would ever allow humanity to just run rampant and cause all the strife, war and troubles that it does. And what it comes down to is Agency. God has a plan for us--a reason why he created this earth and placed us on it. We came down here so we could experience life and learn and grow. One of the parts that makes this plan work, is that we must be able to make our own choices--good or bad. If God stepped in every time that we went to make a bad decision or do something wrong, we wouldn't ever learn anything for ourselves.


Yeah, I know, this probably leaves more questions than answers, but basically what I'm getting at is that we all go through hard times. Everyone has a time in their life where they feel like they just can't keep their head above the water. It is simply part of life. But the neat thing that Elder Hales teaches us with his story is that if we dwell on our pain and our problems, it hinders our ability to grow, to flourish--to be truly happy. 

The French author Voltaire wrote “Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.” 
If in times of hardship (as strange as it may sound) we focus on helping those around us, true happiness can be found.  


Picture from http://attackofthecute.com/on/?i=1209

Oasis

      Needless to say, these last couple of days have been hard. Who says that life is all of a sudden easy when you're doing the right thing and going the right direction? Liars, that's who. For some reason I can't quite explain, I've just been having inner tension of some sort that's leaving me nervous and anxious for no real reason at all. Maybe it's everything causing it--work, school, being engaged, life in general--or maybe it's nothing. I really couldn't say.

        Sometimes that's just how it is--you feel like you're being stretched in so many different directions that you might just snap. You just want to cuddle up with a teddy bear and pretend like everything will just take care of itself. But luckily for me, I happen to be engaged to (in my very biased opinion) the best woman in the whole wide world. Sure, she doesn't make all my problems go away (as nice as that would be), but she gives me a reason to keep on going, to keep on pushing right when I think I can't go on any longer.

        It's almost like, metaphorically speaking, I've spent my life in a desert, trying desperately to survive. Along the way, I've seen plenty of mirages, hoping to find a place of refuge from the deathly heat; as I chased each mirage, all I would find was disappointment and despair. Then I found Olivia, my Oasis in this otherwise dry and dreary world.
      
        Yeah, yeah, I know, it sounds mushy and corny, but it's true. She makes life so much better. Sure, she can't make my problems disappear, but she gives me strength and determination that I never knew I had. She makes me want to be better, to try harder to be the perfect guy that she truly deserves. Far too often, I fall short of this. Why she ever chose a flawed guy is quite beyond me--she deserves a Superman, a Knight in Shining Armor, a Prince Charming. I definitely don't fit the bill for any of those--I'm not bulletproof, I can't fly, I don't have a white steed, and I'm no handsome prince...but for whatever reason, she loves me. I don't even know what to call it...it's way too amazing to call it luck that things would turn out this way.

        In any case, our wedding is fast approaching. It's next month! That's so crazy to think. Olivia managed to sell her contract yesterday, so she's going to be moving in to our apartment this weekend; that's pretty crazy as well. It's almost like there's a weird time paradox--it seems like the wedding is so far off, and yet everything is falling into place and working out so fast. That probably makes absolutely no sense but that's the best that I could put it into words. It brings to mind the lyrics from a Phil Collins song..."So close, and yet so far".

       Anyway, the moral of the story is, in spite of trials, troubles, tribulation, inadequacies and what have you, I'm happier than I've ever been. Sure, I'm nervous about loads of stuff...I'll be sharing the rest of forever with the woman of my dreams. Who wouldn't be somewhat nervous about that?


Picture from  http://attackofthecute.com/on/?i=1284