Legacy

Certain times of year or moments in life make me think about something I'm probably not supposed to be concerned with until some midlife crisis: legacy. Such times may be the holidays, with family traditions, or the end of a semester as friends graduate and enter careers, or as friends and family bear and raise children, or friends and acquaintances writing books or starting web sites that seem to make an impact, or as I quit a job and look for another. While it occasionally weighs on me a bit, as it did this last holiday season, it's nothing heavy right now, just incidental to some other things I was writing.

Whether the truth is that I will eventually pass from one form of existence to another, or will be reabsorbed into a universal energy with or without consciousness, or will simply cease to function and become a heap of cells to be reorganized, I want to leave the world better than I found it, as a whole or person-by-person. I hope to have some assurance, as I face that passage (if I have time to "face" it), that I have truly made a difference for the better more than I have either made a negative impact or been an inconsequential player.

By my age, many people have a spouse and children they can look to as not only their greatest source of personal happiness and fulfillment but as their greatest legacy. The traditions they build, the habits and principles and teachings they pass on to their children, the light they bring into their sweetheart's eyes when they do something kind for them or, if they're lucky, just walk into the room. The things they teach each other in their most intimate lifetime companionship. *buzz* Don't have it.

By my age, many people have a successful career in which they can identify how they've made significant contributions to their business, their industry, or their field of study. They can say, "I created that fund," "I started that program," "I wrote that influential dissertation," or "I built that house." They often have something to show. And their efforts will have a ripple effect. *buzz* Don't have that either.

But there are other ways I have contributed. Many friends and acquaintances at church have told me how much they enjoyed my Sunday School lessons, or how a talk I gave in church impacted them, or how my example of obedience and faithfulness strengthened them. Hm. That seems pretty distant now, mostly in the past. What else do I have?

Let's see, there's my relationship with my nieces and nephews. I've helped raise a couple of them in some ways, though looking back, I feel bad for not having done better with them or not having enough patience. I was a pre-teen when I started, though, so how much could one expect? I've been a fun uncle here and there, but I've not been very steady in presence or involvement. I live far away from all of them now and have relatively little contact with them. I love them, but I feel like the uncle who just pops in and out. I should probably try to figure out how to improve that.

I've helped build a nonprofit organization in a small way, and it's a cause I believe is valuable even though I've distanced myself a bit from it recently. I want to see it succeed because it fills a need. Hopefully, it does succeed, and I believe it will, even if it hits some rough patches, but even if it dissolved, I'd believe it was valuable while it lasted, so no regrets there.

I have some close friends I've loved being available for and whose company I've benefited from, and whom I hope have benefited from mine. We've shared our triumphs and failures, hopes and fears, strengthened each other and hurt each other, but in the end, I value those friendships and hope they've valued mine. But there's more to it than that. I'd like to be able to look back at friendships and have some confidence that each person I've loved or been a friend to has been better off because of it, that they've been a better person in some significant way, not just that we "had fun" or "enjoyed each other's company" or "found each other's ideas fascinating." I want to help people be better versions of themselves. I just can't be sure I've done that. It's not an easy thing to identify, let alone to do. Hm, I'll let that be a motivator for the future.

I occasionally wonder what might be spoken at my memorial service, and I'd like to make my life such that the room, whether small or large, and whether seventy years from now or next week, would be filled with people who were grateful and happy they'd known me because their lives were truly better because of it, even after we'd moved on or I'd lost contact with them.

I hope that my thoughts shared on my blog, or my photos, or the spreadsheet I created to help a friend maintain her finances, or the weeds cleared from a conservation park in Florida, or the workplace changes I proposed and which were adopted to improve efficiency and customer relations, or the poem I wrote in junior high, or the lessons I taught in church or classrooms, or the gatherings I organized during college to bring people together and provide a place where all could feel welcome, or the games and skills I taught my nieces and nephews and friends' children, or holding a friend who was sobbing even though I was having a hard time and wanted a shoulder myself, or staying up late or giving time during a busy day to listen to someone who truly needed a sounding board...I hope all of these have made small differences. Sometimes, it's easy to forget the little things. I hope these have enriched someone's life at least a little because I know they've enriched my own.

I watched the movie "Milk" a few weeks ago, and there was a line in it that stood out to me both when it was spoken early in the movie and when it was repeated at the end: "Forty years old and I haven't done a thing that I'm proud of." Well, I've never published a book, or owned a company, or spearheaded a great cause, or saved a life, or had someone tell me I was singly responsible for improving the course of their life, but when the character spoke this line, I sat there and thought, "I'm really happy that I can say I have done a lot of things I'm proud of, or more accurately, a lot of things I believe have been worthwhile and productive beyond my own life. I won't be in his shoes at 40, as long as I keep looking for opportunities to serve and create."

My challenge may be to not get so caught up in each incidental opportunity that I never progress personally or professionally to a point where I can make a bigger difference on a grander scale. So I try to keep that in mind. Nevertheless, in the meantime, it's good to remember that maybe being influential doesn't require a grand scheme, flashy fame, or money and power, but can be seen in the everyday person you are and the way you treat everyone around you, not just those who treat you well in return or who offer you some emotional or monetary compensation for your kindness, as well as the time and energy you dedicate to the relationships that are of the greatest worth, which aren't always the most exciting. But heck, the small stuff along with some of the big stuff would be nice to achieve, wouldn't it? :-)

I've taken a step back from a lot of things as I felt a need to retreat a bit while I sort some things out for myself. Maybe it's my own personal "walkabout" as someone said the other night. But wherever it leads me, my hope is to live, borrowing the words B. H. Roberts used to describe the life of Joseph Smith, "in crescendo". Not in notoriety or in grandeur, but in personal growth and in positive personal and intellectual impact and influence, whatever form that comes in. I'm not sure I can feel right living any other way. I want to leave the world better than I found it, and people better than I found them, even if my efforts seem piddly and even occasionally misguided. And hopefully, there will be plenty of fun and enjoyment along the way as well.

How The Hours Fly

Here's a small sample of what I spent 3-4 hours doing today (friends' personal blogs, which took up probably an hour or so of that, omitted):

http://mormonmatters.org/2009/04/21/does-the-lds-church-claim-to-be-an-exclusive-conduit-to-god/

http://mormonmatters.org/2009/04/17/lds-worship-part-iii/

http://mormonmatters.org/2009/04/27/are-we-going-to-be-eunuchs-after-this-life/

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1893955,00.html

http://advocate.com/news_detail_ektid82363.asp

http://advocate.com/issue_story_ektid81028.asp

http://www.drlaurablog.com/2009/04/20/susan-boyle-wows-everyone%E2%80%A6almost/

http://www.drlaurablog.com/2009/04/22/using-the-airwaves-to-promote-cheating/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/05/06/funny-pictures-has-ur-name-on-it/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/05/05/funny-pictures-the-language-bub/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/05/05/funny-pictures-video-peek-a-boo/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/05/01/funny-pictures-ur-bags/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/04/29/funny-pictures-wait-that-one/

http://failblog.org/2009/05/01/audi-billboard-fail/

http://failblog.org/2009/04/29/name-fail-4/

http://failblog.org/2009/04/29/road-paint-fail/

http://failblog.org/2009/04/23/word-choice-fail/

http://failblog.org/2009/04/22/venus-flytrap-fail/

Yup, it's about time for a job. I could've been much more productive.

No True Vacuums

On one hand, I'm drawn to the stability of believing concrete truths, clear doctrinal scaffolding, scientific laws. On the other hand, I bristle against strict, unalterable conclusions or policies, and I'm not satisfied simply by asserting an absolute truth if there are still reasonable, valid counterarguments unanswered or factors not taken into account. And most often, there is subtlety and perspective far beyond what readily comes to mind.

Example: in Physics, I understood the basic laws of gravity, etc, but it always bothered me that there would be inherent imprecision in calculations unless you perfectly took into account every seemingly chaotic factor, which seemed virtually impossible to do in almost all situations. We could study the principles, but to test them in the real world was difficult or problematic. How often do you find a perfect vacuum with perfect measuring equipment to quantify the force of gravity on a perfect object? Even then, you have to account for the distance from Earth's gravitational center, don't you? Fortunately, our textbook told us to assume no other factors than those given (AKA assume all other factors are NOT, in fact, factors) in order to work out example problems. This stripped the equations of real-world factors to illustrate scientific principles but leaving them in real-world situations, which makes them easier for most students to grasp and learn.

In addition to elevation, factors that would affect REAL-world situations could include air resistance, the breeze on any particular day that is constantly shifting direction and magnitude along with seeds and particles carried on that breeze, a possible imperceptible dimple made by a hailstone on the wing of an airplane, the varying density of or moisture in the air at any given place, subtle seismic activity hundreds of miles away from a given plain, imperceptible intermittent slipping of an object rolling down a plain due to imperfect friction, the interference of grains of dust and imperfect roundness of a ball rolling down the imperfectly-surfaced plain, maybe even the interference of light acting as wave-particles...

I knew I could theoretically ignore those factors for the sake of (often very accurate) approximation. And I marveled that even the hard sciences are largely based on theoretical logic and calculations that can't be 100% proven because nobody has ever invented perfect instruments to take measurements of perfect objects in perfect vacuums. I won't say my world was shaken, but the fact that so few people even seemed to express awareness of those factors bothered me just enough to hope that NASA scientists were more attentive. And I was a bit wary of other people's results and research and found it a touch challenging to readily "trust" others enough to just accept what was taught in a textbook or by one lecturer, even though I acknowledged their knowledge far surpassed mine. But I was especially wary of the students who seemed oblivious to the confounding subtleties.

I guess it kind of comes down to this: it felt a little unnatural to approach problems fully pretending those factors in Physics don't exist because...they do. But I also appreciated learning the principles with the caveat that the principle will rarely, if ever, be observed perfectly in real life.

I see a similarity with life in general. Maybe that's one part of why I stopped enjoying most church meetings or religious discussions with most people: I'm not convinced most people are looking beyond their simplified view by even considering the subtleties or anomalies of people's unique experiences or all of the confounding factors of life in this world in general--the dust on the plains or the differences in gravitational force--so I have trouble believing that the things they are saying are as valid as they seem to think they are when they offer all of their "real life" confirmation of this or that doctrine or practice.

It's hard to listen to rules, creeds, or checklists that are taught as if the conditions of peoples lives are simpler than they are. Checklists are often held up as browbeating ideals when in reality, I think to check them all off, you would likely have to have been handed a theoretical vacuum of a life. Now, some people may love the vacuum life, the tidy, no-complications world they live in or think they live in. Such a person definitely has no right to--nicely or otherwise--inform others who are not living in such vacuums for whatever reason that they are somehow lacking for not checking those things off or even for having a different list due to their more complicated situation, regardless of how they found themselves in that situation. We teach principles and then expect people, including ourselves, to put them into perfect practice in a very natural, imperfect world, and we get judgmental or critical when people choose differently than we would like to think we would have or when we fail to live up to our own expectations.

Sometimes, the most motivating, powerful truths or principles are, indeed, the simplest, and we often over-complicate things when we try to quantify them according to our own imperfect measurements and rules. When you're talking about theology, religious convictions, or life philosophies, where there is no tangible quantification, isn't it more effective to focus on serving your fellow man, loving your neighbor, being willing to do all righteous things asked of you, and having a broken heart and a contrite spirit than to focus on whether your tithing is paid from net or gross, whether you drink the right drinks, whether Earth is 6,000 years old, or how anyone should vote on the next political referendum?

I guess when you look at it, though, some real-world application is necessary and helpful, and we all can use help learning how to translate the principles into behavior and action. I mean, Jesus asked a man to give away all of his belongings. But we don't always see each other and know each other's needs so accurately as we believe he sees us, do we? I suppose I'd just like to see more focus, among what I've considered my own religious community, on the principles and the "why" and the "good news", and less on the "to do" lists we hold ourselves and others up to in critical light, even if some of that is necessary for helping keep ourselves accountable and to remind ourselves of a few indicators of where we may be on our spiritual journeys.

Maybe I guess a trick I'm still trying to learn is to focus on the basic principles behind what people say, even if they seem clueless to the fact that their application of the principle may not be a viable approach for someone else. When I can cut past the fluff and get to the principle behind their blather, I think the principles are often true and good. I can't change the people whose preaching I find abrasive, but I can change myself as necessary.

Not Enough Time to Explore

My brain rarely rests. I've never been good at just "accepting" things for long. Surprised? Didn't think so.

The thing is, I want to understand it all. I want to understand details, subtlety, relationships, interconnectedness, structure, and logic. It's never seemed like enough to just "accept that that's the way it is", particularly when there's a possibility it could or should be something different. When learning about something, it's rarely enough for me to hear one side. I usually want both sides. And then I rarely conclude with any certainty that one side or the other is right, but if something they say fits into the puzzle, if it makes sense, I tentatively poke that piece in.

But one of the frustrating lessons I learn and relearn throughout life is that I don't have time to do this with everything. I don't have the understanding to complete my search for truth. I don't have the experience necessary to provide needed perspective in putting it all together. Part of me wants a hard, fast answer or solution: a clear explanation of why this or that is or exists or works. Another part of me avoids nailing down an answer because it's just likely to change or adjust later with additional knowledge or experience anyway, so what's the point in nailing the answers down when I'm probably going to find out later that what I thought was set has to be broken apart and reassembled again? Besides, where's the fun in having nothing left to solve?

I suppose this is one reason the idea of living forever is appealing. Time to continue satisfying this thirst for understanding. Even if a person lived for hundreds of years, I'm not convinced they'd get ahead of the curve as humanity grows and expands its knowledge in every field of study and every nuance of the human experience.

So time in mortality constrains me to either continue learning a little about everything and never really be an expert on anything or to focus my energy on one or two things to learn every nook and cranny I can find about them. Neither seems a fully satisfying option. Something in between should do the trick, if I can figure out what most piques my probing curiosity so as to merit particular focus.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the investigative journey, try to remember to experience things without having to understand them beforehand, to be productive with the understanding and knowledge I do have, to contribute what I can to worthwhile pursuits towards progress and improvement in the world around me, and to develop what I think will ultimately be of most value to me when my body is shriveled, my mind dimmed, and my senses dulled: relationships.

Skinny Muscle Dude? Nah.

For the first time, I've seen what I would probably look like if I had the kind of muscle mass I thought I wanted...and it doesn't look so great. In the gym, I saw a guy with a similar frame as mine but with much more toned muscle mass than I have and the kind I sort of pictured attaining (even though I certainly haven't cared enough to actually try that hard to get it), and now I think I'm OK with my relatively slender build for my frame. To have the mass I want, I'd want a heavier frame and/or more height. Hm. Good to know. Well, I have plenty of mass to gain before I look so odd, and it takes a heckalota effort to put on mass, so I'll just keep working out and enjoying the health benefits, come what may. :-)