Stress and Strain

I generally consider myself a lazy person, but lately I've been doubting myself. When I am extremely tired or just tired of work, I am a lot less effective at doing my homework, especially writing and complex math. I'm pretty sure it takes twice the time on a Saturday to do a math assignment for me. Rather than waste my time, I'd rather relax, sleep, read, play video games, or talk with friends, releasing that residual strain in me so I can be more effective when I start to do homework. My motivation seems to be more frustration than lazinessGranted, this philosophy has gotten me into trouble, like when due dates are coming and I have to force my pampered self to work when I don't want to and am very inefficient. Right now is one of those frustrating times, when my work is obviously not up to par and I should leave it for tomorrow, but I have to finish it. I guess it's just a sign that the end of the semester is here and I need a vacation...

Smash

Camaraderie is often associated with a common interest, something that binds two friends together that isn't necessarily essential to there friendship, but often the primer. Surprisingly, something as mundane as video games can be that common interest. In high school, I hung out with a wide variety of people, we had intellectual conversations, did interesting things together, etc. When I came to BYU I socially regressed drastically. All I did was hang out with a bunch of dudes and play video games, I rarely left campus:not exactly a recipe for social fulfillment. But, we got tired of video games (eventually), started to talk, got to be friends, and we can't get rid of each other to this very day. I live with some of these friends now, and needless to say our relationship has deepened considerably since our Halo matches, but when we gather in numbers the venue is rarely in question. It way the same way last winter semester with my roommates, Keith and Adam. Adam loves sports with a passion, I don't; common ground didn't exactly just sprout up. Keith is a masters student in English literature and rather reserved; we tried talking philosophy, music, literature and politics, but succeeded only in having good conversations. When I discovered Keith owned a Gamecube and a Wii, suddenly things changed. Suddenly we four (Mike, a roommate at the time, my MTC companion formerly, and a good friend currently, was the fourth) had a common interest, Super Smash Brothers (first Melee, then Brawl), a way to pit our egos against each other and oh, what chaos ensued! Friendly competition and a love of the game proved effective catalysts in our friendship, speeding up a process that might not have happened before we all moved out. To this day I still talk about books with Keith, life in general with Adam and we're still friends (though we don't see each other too often), but last Saturday we got together and Smashed, and it was awesome. So here's to you video game makers of the world, may we never grow to old to play!

Psst...there's a whole in your ethics, your character is showing!

I feel my true self is exposed whenever powerful influences in my life become misaligned and turned against each other. Often times the pressures (which I believe are all inherently internal; even if they are direct reactions to external factors, the nature of the pressure always depends on our internal character) that influence our decisions are themselves neutral, capable of both good and bad, just as fire can sustain or destroy life. C.S. Lewis uses the examples of maternal love, patriotism, and sexual desire to illustrate his point. Patriotism and maternal love are often times lumped in the "good" category of instincts (well, patriotism used to be, now it has fallen somewhat out of favor), but should either lead to unfair discrimination they could accomplish much evil. How many jingoist attempted genocides has the world seen in only the last few decades? How often do we see maternal love unduly protect a child from the consequences of his actions or unfairly side with its own, even when in the wrong? Sexual desire is similarly dichotomous in nature, it is the driving pressure behind both rape and of the family. The more I consider all of these moral considerations, the more I think of it all as a kind of vector analysis, each of these "pressures" representing very different force fields. Thus our true natures are complicated indeed. Let's say the ideal is for our decisions, represented by a particle being bounced around by all these conflicting forces, to remain within certain bounds, higher moral norms we establish for ourselves. We have no direct control over the particle, only over the fields that govern it, and only gradually. Sometimes we set unrealistic and contradictory bounds, and we find it impossible to remain within them, simply because such a combination of fields does not exist. Sometimes we find our particle does more damage and less good by staying within what we think is acceptable. In these cases our moral boundaries need to change, which can occur suddenly (like conversion to a new faith) or slowly (like desensitization). More often the not, however, the problem lies simply with the fact that our nature, or rather something less intrinsic, like let's say our disposition, contradicts our morals in some cases. I recently experienced this, my particle flew out of its cozy little circle. I discovered that my tendency to stick with my friends, support them and allow myself to be influenced by them can sometimes crush some of my morals I thought we absolute. Well, crush is the wrong word, again I'll resort to higher math to try to explain myself: they set me going so fast that my decisions escape the restoring force that would have kept me in the safe zone. Pulling back to the safe zone will be hard enough, but more importantly I need to change so it doesn't happen again. However, this safety will influence my decisions in non-divergent systems as well. A part of me tells me these changes must be pure good and a part of me tells me it is a sacrifice for the greater good. My relationships with others, with friends and family, will be the source of my greatest happiness, but if I allow them to be the hear-all-end-all of my life, I will find myself careening off to infinity, ultimately losing them because I valued the means too much and my friends too little.