When so much is left undone

I am the king of buyer's regret. I'll debate long and hard about a decision, make it, and then forever second guess myself. It's a rare treat when I make a hard decision and it just feels right, like when I went to Hungary last summer. After I bought the ticket (and not a moment before), I knew it was the right thing to do. Even when tons came up and I was tempted to recant, I stuck with it, sacrificing quite a bit and changing my life based on that good feeling. Sometimes I feel pretty good a about decision, but the question "What might have been?" is always there in my thoughts. I recently stood at a very significant crossroads and made a difficult decision. I stick by it, but I can't help but keep thinking about what might have been down the other path, and whether or not I could still go back and change my mind...

Az igazi

In the past year and a half or so I contracted what I call the "Provo virus." It spreads viciously, being contagious and effecting behavior before any recognizable symptoms. It's major effect on the mind is a constant and abiding obsession with marriage. Ignorance and misinformation abound concerning this disease, some even denying that it exists, and scientific knowledge on its cure or even prevention are woefully inadequate. An unsuspecting victim can contract it in ignorance and suffer the consequences the rest of his life. The flash point for this pandemic was, of course, Provo, but it spread rapidly throughout the international Mormon community, albeit on a smaller scale due to less than ideal incubation conditions. I have this virus. After a casual conversation with a member of the opposite sex my mind can stray to our potential marital compatibility, and I realized that the majority of those around me were doing the same. I toyed with various ideas for wedding colors while not even dating anyone. My ideal for an eternal companion became skinnier, blonder and more the daughter of a dentist. Slowly it sapped the meaning from my friendships, indeed, even of the meaning of the word friend to me. Luckily I spotted the symptoms in time to prevent it from spiraling out of control, and I managed to salvage a few friendships and precious little of my vestigial sanity, locking the virus into lurking remission.
Still, as any good Mormon, marriage is still the ultimate goal of my dating, but I haven't lost sight of the significance of having fun in the mean time or the importance of marrying the right person, as opposed to just a person. This of course begs the question: who is the right person? I generally find that my taste in girls bounces around like a squirrel in a bird cage. My current girlfriend and my previous one could not be more different individuals if I had planned it (and it wasn't the sort of break-up where I would have :P). All my crushes in between also seemed to represent cartoonish opposites. Part of my problem, I think, is that I love people. People in general fascinate me, all their flaws and idiosyncrasies combined with all their strengths and individuality. And people, like metals, cars, and races in an RTS game all come with their own pluses and minuses, their intrinsic value obscured by the sheer variety of attributes. Indeed, intrinsic value becomes somewhat moot when compatibility becomes the main concern.
This post was a vain attempt to force my mind to some kind of a conclusion, an epiphany about myself and world that would force me to a descision. Unfortunately (or, more aptly, the greatest fortune ever bestowed to sentient life) it remains just that, a descision, a matter of taste and preference as oppsed to simple optimization. So, if I want to get married some day, I might as well make up my freaking mind about something.

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.

Nerdy T-Shirts

In my formative years, 6th grade, I think, I purchased a shirt, one of the nerdiest I have ever owned. It's black with the periodic table of elements emblazoned on it in proud neon colors. When I bought it I did so with wisdom beyond my years, realizing this shirt would not be cool to wear until much later in life, and I basically wore the thing three times until college where now it serves as my laundry shirt. Like the strip of red tape at the end of a roll of receipt paper that lets you know when it's about to run out, the shirt means that all of my other shirts are dirty. Usually when people call me on the nerdiness of my shirt I try to pass it off as an obscure indy rock band. "What, you don't like the Elements? You should hear their new album, Combustion!" Lately, however, I've been getting so many comments on the awesomeness I know it to posses, that I've decided to put the shirt into regular circulation. Atomic weight of argon? I can tell you that.

Jó barátok és a magyar vendéglátás

I owe a lot to my friend Rutai Géza. I stayed at his house and he fed me every day, despite the fact I told him I planned on feeding myself. Hungarian hospitality is syonomous with food. Even the word for invite also means to treat someone to food, and the word for resuraunt comes from the word guest. Géza was divorced not to long ago and gets a disability pension for a soccer-related heart condition, so he's recently delved intot he world of cooking. He is an amazing chef and makes good tradional magyar kaja. His chicken soups are full of things Americans don't even feed to their cats anymore and he cuts up all his vegetables from scratch. Starting a dish without a chunk of lard would be unthinkable. He loves distinctly Hungarian ingredients: mák, túró, and paprika. Unlike most Hungarian food, however, he makes everything spicy. From chicken noodle soup, to cucumber salad, everythng tastes better with a little spicy green pepper in it. He is an incredibly patient and humble man, a die-hard soccer fan, and one of the kindest people I've ever met. I consider it a privledge to be his friend.