Turmoil in a Teapot

Wow . . . I am not in control of my thoughts. I spent yesterday dealing with ignorance and egos resulting in me spending many hours trying, unsuccessfully, to help enlighten and triple checking things I already new to be true. In the end, it was a case of ignorance and egos making a mountain out of a mole hill. What I learned from the experience is that while education can cure ignorance, egos can cloud the learning process.

We are all human, susceptible to the human conditions. Denying that is to reject a vast part of our life on this earth. If we are to live life to its fullest, denial constrains our goals. I am okay with my feelings: stress from unsuccessful educational attempts, sadness of the "me first" perspective of those around me, entertained by the human dynamics people use in their attempt to manipulate the actions of others, and regretful to see people, however ignorant, pained by imagined ghosts.

What bothers me most is the lack of conclusion. Without resolving this, it enables the issue to be brought up in the future without the clarity of currency. Partial ignorance is a mighty weapon against the love of our fellow person. Each person arms themselves with the personal perspective and conclusions they drew from the experience. This in turn becomes the ammunition for animosity and division.

In the end, I can only chat today's mantra: "I cannot make them live my life. They must live their own."

Thoughts to ponder

Why save for a rainy day when the sunny days are belittled to the task of looking to the possible future failures? Why give up good memories just to have the chance of a memory at some future date?

Not that I think we should blow all our gains when we get them. I wonder what percentage is a good percentage savings for a future failure?

is testing Ping.fm to see how well it works.

has linked everything to ping.fm and is trying it out.

Change changes . . .

With my work dust settling, I am once again looking for ways to improve web design and development. I have been asked to participate in a project to bring another website up-to-date. As I have not finished making this one clean and fully functional, I question my readiness to take on another's.

Wary or not, helping others is key to success in this life. Working on another site only expands the options available for my own site just like helping others expands the options available to me. We are more driven when external, codified needs are presented than the drifting of the obscure requirements placed upon ourselves by our own needs. Moreover, helping others enriches ourselves, those we help, and the world at large. To us, we gain satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. To those around us, we give them solutions and help for their needs. And the world around us is bestowed with added kindness.

We must not stray from ever finding and fulfilling the needs of others. Time can disguise its behavior and slip by unnoticed. Like sand in an hourglass, time appears to shift slowly in the top vassal, implying the vast expanse of time available; while below, the pounding sand falls rapidly and constantly.

Truly random thoughts today.

Some things don't change

Many years ago, decades that is, I began to question some of the extraneous teachings of christianity. It seemed to me that the different denominations did not agree on all the more superfluous items. My questioning was even more firmly cemented when I took "religions of the world" and "comparative religion" classes.

My belief in God never wavered, even at my most scientific moments. God is. Nothing I have seen, felt, thought or experienced can dissuade me from such a fundamental statement. That said, I could easily agree with the message of Jesus when he taught us to love God with all our heart and with all our soul. I even felt in sync with his second golden rule to love one another. I don't know if Jesus ever said that in such a clear and succinct manner ascribed to him in the bible. It doesn't matter to me. Those thoughts ring true with me and I recognize them as fundamental truths.

It the rest of the stuff I find everyone making up as they go along. For instance, some believe "salvation" is through faith alone. Others believe it is based on good works. The role of saints and angels seem to have a mixed reaction as well. Even the role of women in the clergy is as varied as icons and sacraments.

About five years ago, I ran across a website that charted out how a number of christian denominations views many of these ideas. I took the time to review all of them and make a spreadsheet of it. To that, I added a column for myself and filled it in. Not too amazingly, I did not match up with any of the listed denominations.

I ran across the spreadsheet about a year ago. At that time, I added a second column. Without looking at my original column, I responded to the items in the chart. While my words changed, the underlying message was unchanged. I found my belief to have solidified.

I was grateful. My constant questioning of my faith lead me to believe that I may not have had a solid foundation. Seeing the commonality of responses over the course of years, pointed out to me that I did have a stable platform.

I found the file again today and repeated the exercise. My responses were even more clear and consistent. I can finally state with clarity that I have, despite my constant questioning and searching, a solid religious belief. I definitely do not fall within any of the traditional denominations, and I am fine with that.

What, then, did I write down? What is the dogma of my faith? Stay tuned to this spot, and I will expound on it further. In the meantime, I suggest reading the Epistles Of Doug.

Resorting to inefficiency

Sigh. I have been playing with Google Webmaster tools to improve my site's visibility. Since I did not want to use server side includes on my web server, I had to make my pages/coding less efficient in order to improve my google ranking.

I had originally created a javascript to manage my web site's menu. Using javascript, I could edit all my pages' menu by simply editing one document. Unfortunately, google does not read javascript. Consequently, google did not see any links on my pages.

sigh . . .