Why is it Called Amazing Grace?

Isn't that a great name for a song. Amazing Grace. What a title. It sets you up with some really high expectations. It makes you feel like that you should go away from this a better person than you were when you began listening to it. I'm not sure where the title originated but it was made by someone with some very high expectations.

There are some interesting this when it comes to Amazing Grace. The title implies that it is a soothing song, maybe the Christian equivalent to Yoga music. Interestingly enough however, it is played on the bagpipes traditionally, which are fairly shrill and loud instruments. Bagpipes are an instrument of battle.

Maybe that is the point though. To use an instrument of battle to play an anthem to the fallen. To show that soldiers have a much more sensitive side. That sounds really stupid but let me try and explain it this way. The same knife that could be used to slay someone on the battlefield can be used to carve a magnificent turkey dinner. Thus, Amazing Grace on the bagpipes is to show the duality of life.


Is that short enough.

Why Do We Examine the Past?

Well, today I stumbled into something I haven't seen in a long time. Joel wrote a blog a long time ago about a song by Relient K called "When I Go Down". It's a really awesome song, and I never realized this but he put all the most important parts in different colors, to illustrate his points. It was really cool. It have to have taken a long time. He must have been going through a lot of stuff then.

Then I went and read the comments. The first and last, by cindy and moasis respectively, were basically telling Joel to keep his chin up and telling him he is a good guy. This is very true, and probably what Joel wanted, or maybe not. I shouldn't presume to know what others want or need.

The middle comment was by me. I wrote something that really rang true for me today. It was along the lines of "In life pain and sorrow are superimposed upon feelings of joy and love". This seems so stupidly simple and yet how easy it is to forget it.

I mean, about 2 weeks ago, I did one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done in going to Coffeehouse and then up to Nathan's cabin. I honestly had never felt that close to God, or even to myself for that matter. I felt that I had a place in the world, I felt that everything was perfect.

Those feelings soon escaped me of course as I fell and fell and fell. Those thoughts of joy soon began to seem distant and now, just two weeks later, I feel like I'm looking back on something that will never be true again.

And maybe it won't be, because life is always changing. But why should the past be distant? Why is it so hard to hold on to everything that you want? Why is it so hard hold on to what is good and true and right? Is the devil really that strong, or are we really that weak?

I think the short answer to that is we really are that weak. We don't have the ability to hold onto the good because by doing so we have to let go of the bad. You can't straddle the Grand Canyon and you can't live your life as half good and half evil for very long.

I think that reconciles something that I personally struggled with for a long time, submitting myself fully to God. God realizes that you can't be both with him and against, so you must submit fully. I need to try harder to do this. And I will try, because in real life Yoda is wrong. There is no do or do not, only try.

Now to finish this post a small section of "When I Go Down" by Relient K.

Any control I thought I had
Just slips right through my hands
While my ever-present conscience shakes its head
and reprimands me.
Reprimands me.
Then and there, I confess,
I blame all this on my selfishness!
Yet You love me.
That consumes me.
I'll stand up again and do so willingly.

Why is Fear so Strong?

I'm really liking the way I'm titling these blogs even if no one is reading them. To think not that long ago I had a horrible fear of anyone ever seeing them. Now I know no one will ever see them at all and I don't really care. I guess I could email Matt or Matt, but I don't think I really care. It's kinda cool to have a place on the web that is unknown, in uncharted territory, but is there nonetheless, filled with the rand information of my life.

The real reason I'm writing this blog is because of a girl. I know I'll never see her again, but I guess that's okay. Actually, it's about two girls. Whoa I'm confusing myself. Slow down Brian....Okay, I'm good.

So today at the CSF conference I saw the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my entire life. She had flaming straight red hair. I Guess, that was her best asset, as well as her eyes. She had a good body too, I guess that is important to note, but once I realize a girl is not physically horrible looking I move on to other things. Anyways the point of the story is that I was totally amazed by this girl. Claudia told me I should talk to her, just to say I did. I didn't. But it brought me back to a time last summer, and a series of events I'll never forget.

I went to a summer program called NYLF last summer, it was like 2,000 high school students in a hotel in San Jose, it was really cool. When I went on a field trip to a college I met a girl whose name I will always remember Laurelie. She was beautiful, not as beautiful the girl who was at the CSF conference but probably second to that. Anywho, we met talking in line waiting for the bus. It just came naturally, when we got on the bus I sat next to her. We talked the whole way there. She was a little odd, and a Muslim, though her parents were Christians, but overall a very nice girl. When we got to the college we got split up but met up again for the ride back.

The point of this story is coming, I swear. After we arrived back at the hotel she said she was going to meet up with her friend for dinner. Right at the moment she said that I made the worst decision I think I've ever made, or at least regret it the most. I had the chance to ask her if I could join her. I had a chance to basically ask a girl out on date that I had never met before. I had a chance to get a girl not because of any preconceived notion of who I was but for who I really was. I told her I was going to get some dinner at the hotel, and I hoped she had fun.

I'll always remember going up the stairs, and looking back and seeing her behind me. I had hoped she had taken the escalator if only because that would mean we were different. Maybe if she had I wouldn't be writing this today. I wouldn't be so regretful. But she took the stairs. The fact that she was tough enough to take the hard way and that she was practically following me. I still had the chance to ask her then, at the top of the stairs, but again I was a fool.

I saw her only once more the rest of the week. She took a picture of me in front of my project. She has a picture of me, a memory. I will never see her face again.

I'm not sure that there is a moral to this story, I just felt it needed to be told. I'll never get over being that cowardly. I was gonna prove to the world that I wasn't clueless when it came to girls, or at least every once in a while I got lucky, but I didn't. I have yet to find a meaningful relationship, and, though I don't think this experience is holding me back, it would be easier if I had made the right choice. Even if dinner was a disaster, at least I would have had the courage to defy my own stereotype of myself.

Why Is It....?

I've decided I want to try out a new trend of starting the title of all of my blogs with the word why. It's really a great word, one which is not underused but which has great merit. When we first examine the world around us the first question we ask is "What is it?". After we get past the literal thing that it is we beging to wonder "How is it?". Finally, we begin to ask ourselves "Why is it". I believe that this is the question that is haunting me today. Why is it that I tend to copy behavior. I have no thoghts of my own, really. I mean all thoughts are pretty much inoriginal as there have been so many people someone has bound to have thought of what you are thinking of right now before. I mean, there was a guy in china who thought he was Jesus Christ's brother and who believed that any sex was incest. Maybe original for the time, but not anymore. Anywho, back to the main question, why do I copy other's behavior? I seem to feed so much off the actions of others. When other people are feeling good, I feel good. When other people feel like crap, I tend to feel like crap. I'm not able to cope with the feelings of others very well. On great occasion I am able to help someone or couteract their negative feelings with positive ones but...not always. This brings me to the crux of my argument. Tonight, I was talking to a girl on IM and she told me about something stupid she had done. I tend to kind of like said girl and when I was done talking to her, I couldn't help but feel, "I need to do something wrong". This is a preposterous idea, I know, but it was what occured in my head. I then proceded to do something wrong. I don't think I need to mention to the readers of this blog what that is. I don't know. I'm quite sure why I'm writing this as I seem to write posts about myself that are essentially meaningless and egocentric. Maybe it's because I feel that by putting my life down on paper it will make more sense. Maybe the world will read it and tell me, "Hey you need to do this." But it never happens. Nonetheless, I write to live. It helps keep me sane.

Why Not?

Momentum, it carries us through most of our lives. We get flying down one path and then continue going down it if only because we're already going that way. We continue down the path because we're almost here. Why not just continue to be the way we are? Why seek a change in yourself or in the world? It would be easiest to simply be "normal" and go along life with mediocre goals and never care to reach for anything higher or beyond. This is why my nickname on so many places is the uberman. I was introduced to the true meaning of the term by Joel today.For most of my life I thought that uberman was, to me, a simple amalgamation of the prefix Uber- and man; like superman but with Uber-. I learned today that the uberman is really much more than that. An uberman is a person who defies their predefined destiny; someone rises up against fate. There are two prime examples of the uberman, neither of which I feel I immitate, but I feel by explaining two extremes it will easier to understand the middle road that I am taking.
One classic example is that of an Italian king whose name eludes me. In an attempt to unify Italy all of the regional kings gathered. This one king, Arther we'll call him, attended the meeting dutifully. However, when he arrived he killed all of the other kings and united all of Italy under his own banner. This defiance of what should have happened obviously falls under the category of uberman. No reasonable many would have killed all of those kings for a goal that would have been accomplished otherwise. He did something that put him out of his traditional role or fate, even as a king.
Another example of an uberman which is much less esoteric than an obscure king of an Italian fiefdom is the NFL running back Reggie Bush. He was born in squalor and did not have much as a child. However, he rose up against these handicaps in order to become a first round draft pick and an amazingly successful rookie in the NFL. In addition he is a fan favorite for being just so dang flashy without seeming to be an ass about it. Maybe he just has us hypnotized with his wide toothy grin, but I think not. Again, Bush defied the odds, what was expected of him, what his destiny was, in order to become something different.
In a way the entire idea of the American Dream is hinting and becoming an uberman. Rising from one class to another is something that is very difficult to do. To take your life and deliberately change it in order to do that parallels the idea of the uberman.
These last two examples of what an uberman may be seem to paint a bit too rosy of a picture of what the uberman. One must remember that by trying to literally alter our own destiny we are being extremely selfish. If you believe in God this is a bad thing because God put us all on the earth for a specific purpose, and trying to break away from that most likely upsets the balance of the rest of the world. Even if one believes only in logic, logically all people should fulfill
a certain niche in society and by breaking away from the rest of society is hurt.
This is getting pretty long so I should rap in up. In my own mind I feel that I can be an uberman simply by performing the best. Not the best I can, nor the best according to a teacher or a parent or anyone, just the best. I am never satisfied completely by imperfection but must accept it in order to live(if I did not I dare say I would not be writing this today). I use this dissatisfaction in order to fuel myself to do better the next time. Thus, I feel that my approach to the uberman is more practical, even if I didn't know that it was exactly how I lived my life.