The greatest lesson...

Recently, I posted a question as a status on Facebook.com, the question read; "What is the most basic, yet most important lesson a person should learn?" The answers that I received are as follows:
Joe Shininger- actions have consequences. alternatively-don't be a jerk.
Andrea Hill- Time waits for no one
Ryanne Patrice Ross- Sex and life and friendz
Jesse Cromwell- If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
Stephen Rubio- How to LOVE...
Justin Overton- I think the fact that God will provide you with anything you need if you put it in his hands
James Williams- Well most people lack general common sense and common decency towards eachother and manners.
Sharecess Carter- The biggest lesson one can learn is appreciating and understanding the unconditional love you get from your family.
Natasha Milliken- Treat everyone the way you want to be treated
Kevin Anderson- I am with Joe. Consiquences of descisions.

(First off, I would like to thank everyone that answered my question and took the time to give me feedback. Thank you.)

Though most of these are truly valuable lessons that a person should learn at one point or another during their lifetime, I would not say that any of these were a essential/vital basic lesson that ALL people should learn. The key words being "most basic" and "most important". For math, the most basic and most important lesson would be numbers, for if you do not know numbers you cannot understand multiplication of polynomials. So I am referring to the fundamentals, the base, the cornerstone, the building block, etc. It is essential for true, pure, unadulterated learning; it is to question EVERYTHING!! Yes, questioning is the MOST important lesson a person could learn.

Quite frankly, questioning is a natural tendency like a knee jerk reaction. Really? Yes, really. What are the two favorite games of young children; Why? and the What if...? games; "Why is the sky blue?" "Why do the birds fly?" "What if monsters did exist?". These aren't really taught and though most times it is actually an inquisitive mind trying to fill the gap in their limited understanding, unless it is honed these powerful techniques are perverted into an annoyance session and loose their intellectual value. However instead of cultivating this natural reaction, through various institutes, we are taught NOT to question, especially those in a position of authority; parents, school officials, coaches, police officers, "elected" officials, employers, etc.

Prime example of the value in questioning; when I was in the third grade, we were creating a replica of the United States flag as a class project. As we were going through it, the teacher (Ms. Smith) would ask trivia questions about different aspects of the flag. One of her questions was; "Why are there 50 stars on the flag?" We answered, "For the fifty states." Then Ms Smith said, "Correct... but there are 52 states, Hawaii and Alaska were not added to the flag because it would be difficult to change ALL the flags." She was a school teacher in the state of Texas, so she had to have a four year degree and a teacher's certificate, so I took her word as if it was gold. That day I went home to outsmart my sister, who was a year older than me in school grades. I asked her how many stars there were on the USofA flag? She answered 50. I asked her how many states there were? She said 50. AH HA! I'm smarter than you... I repeated the information I was taught by my respectable teacher to my sister to prove my superiority. Game- set- match. Check and mate. I win, you lose... Surprisingly, she didn't believe me. WTH?!?! But my teacher said so... and because I wanted to PROVE I was right, we went to my dad's atlas and counted the states together. The first time we came up with 50, which I knew was a miscount, so I recounted 3 more times. Every time, coming up with fifty... I was upset. I had been lied to, by someone that was supposed to nurture and feed my mind and prepare me for life and if she doesn't even know how many states there are after a minimum of 17 years of schooling, then how am I supposed to trust anything else that came out of her mouth? Needless to say the next day I showed up to class on a mission; to straighten out this dilemma. She tried to argue against my new found truth up until I asked her to count all the states for me, she then conceded and renounced the false teaching of 52 states. (I think she blamed it on Guam and Puerto Rico- but no excuses)...

Another useful example is when a high school varsity basketball told her athletes to run for thirty minutes because they were not going to have practice during the winter holidays. When one of the athletes told me (a personal trainer/ certified run coach) what the coach prescribed as their workout, without hesitation I asked, "Why?" She said, "IDK.." It just doesn't make sense to me though; in a game of sprinting, with the longest dimension being 74', where does long slow distance running prove effective? Stamina? No. Running long slow distances isn't going to make fast short sprints faster, it isn't going to build up your endurance, it is simply useless for basketball training. However, since she wanted to be the "good obedient athlete" she went on and did what her coach instructed her to do. She didn't question the coaches methods and the coach didn't question the terrible learned methods that someone passed on to her.

Where is the value of this "vital" lesson? Though I gave these minor, quasi insignificant examples, the liberation is being able to be a critical thinker. Throughout our lives we are taught to do what people tell us and those who comply are the ones that are rewarded- to reinforce the sheepish qualities- and those who question authority are punished. Why is thinking on your own and evaluating the validity of the information that a third party gives you (whether through lecture, book, media, etc.) frowned upon? Because it is empowering. Being able to cipher between fact and fiction means that it is harder to control and manipulate you, I would have to put forth a valiant effort to deceive you or assert dominance over you through force or another means of oppression (IE debt).

I will leave you with this clip of George Carlin (Yes, I am aware that he is an avid atheist just eat the meat and spit out the bones. For he was very insightful in other facets of life- not to mention funny too).



and this picture....



(If you are offended by Carlin's language, reread my second blog).

Many of you will read what I wrote and sheepishly simply agree (which would be the exact opposite of what I desire). I am not THAT good of an teacher/ writer to were I leave the matter resolved and without question. So feel free to question what I say, protest my thoughts, give criticism- just remember if you have taken the time to read, please take the time to leave a comment. I DO EXPECT IT.

Time...

With the recent birth of my nephew and today being the one year anniversary of a close friend's death (William Brandon Vaughn), I have been thinking about this thing we call "LIFE" and the time we have... This will be, more or less, a rant. It will be filled with subjective feelings and opinions, some truth, but a lot of what I am thinking and may be like trying to follow the flight path of an elusive bee (all over the place). Again, feel free to post your comments. I encourage it (and kind of expect it).

Time: A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

Huh? Though I understood it, how can a four letter word, that is in such common [worldwide] usage, have such a complex meaning? Well, as simplistic as it seems, time is a complex and deep subject matter. I am not sure that the entire essence of time can be understood with our finite minds. I mean, time itself is limited by time, (Hahaha) for it has a beginning and will have an end... Try and figure that one out. But that does not mean we should not try our best to understand what we can about this phenomena.

Time is unique, because it is a constant factor in life (as gravity is a constant factor on Earth), it is indiscriminate for it is not a respecter of person, it effects everyone and controls everything. Time changes a boy into a man, time turns black hair into grey, time changes the seasons, and brings a brand new day. Time is a powerful domain. You cannot fight time; as shown by many of the superstars with their hideous cosmetic surgeries; they still die and die ugly. But people speak of time as if it is a bad thing, when it is not. Time has the ability to heal all wounds; the little child's scraped knee, the young teen's broken heart, the bereaving loved one, the lonely child... time is the healer of those wounds. It is only when you abuse time, waste time or mismanage time that you feel that it is something that you wish to do without.

The value of time you ask? It is priceless. I can be given items, currency, and even labor, and then able to justly repay a person with items, currency, or equivalent labor to settle a debt. But if someone were to give me an hour of their time, I would NEVER, no matter how hard I tried, be able to give them that hour back. [aside] This is why it is hard for a person to go from a high paying job to a lower one. Since time is valuable and priceless, it cannot be bought, it can only be compensated. Therefore if you start out working for $10/ hour and then you lose your job, it will be hard for you to now think that your hours worth of work is anything less than $10/ hour. Though this also begs the question; when dealing with wage work, what makes one person's hour worth less than another's? It is the same 60 minutes, the same 3600seconds, and same 360000 milliseconds. What makes one person's time worth more than another person's? Nothing. Absolutely nothing!! That is why paying completed work would be more civilized (and actually better for business- not capital-gains wise, but productivity of employees- kinda like commission but without having to rip someone off), for if a person is working his ass off and completing more tasks then they would earn more and for the person that does nothing they would earn nothing. But both would be able to manage and maximize their own time.[/aside]

The relativity of time; different situations make time FEEL different for different people. (Again time is a constant and cannot change.) For example, you are driving to pick up a friend while that friend is sitting and waiting on you. We'll say it takes you 20 minutes to drive to their house, for the driver it was a "short" 20 minutes, but for the awaiting friend it was "long." Or perhaps a person on a roller coaster versus the person waiting to get on; the time of the ride is the same, but the person on the ride will feel as though it was a "short" 3 minute ride and the person waiting will say it was a "long" 3 minutes. Albert Einstein's famous formula (E=MC^2) explains how persons in uniform motion have a the same perspective of time. So if a group of people are waiting (in either scenario) they will all agree that it was a "long" wait, but the group in motion will agree that it wasn't "long" at all. In which case they are both quasi-right, for their view of time was subjective to their motion. (One of the rare occasions I agree with subjectivity). However, objectively it was the same 20 minutes for the driver to pick of the friend and the same 3 minute roller coaster ride/wait. The time domain is not different, just the way it relates to a person.

As a child, for the longest, I couldn't fathom what eternity meant. I was trying to think of it with the mindset of; "how long is eternity?". Well we live in a space and domain where time is a factor and plays on everything indiscriminately, but more importantly, everything in this domain has a beginning and an end. Eternity is the absence of time and thus the absence of needing a beginning or an end. So, is that good or bad? Well, if you are in pain and are without time, you will not heal, if you are feeling good in a utopia then the feeling will not go away for time cannot change. (Without the sublime: if you are in Hell it will SUCK; for you will never be able to heal from your wounds, the pain will never stop, and the agony will continue in a domain that has no [metaphoric] walls).)

Conclusion; time is a constant and only VIEWED as relative to persons in uniform motion. Time is only a factor in our realm, God doesn't age nor does He grow in "knowledge" [Mormons] because He is outside of time and is not learning as things go by. (Plus how can an all-knowing-being learn...) The value of time is priceless, I can travel through space and back track and regain the distanced traveled, but cannot travel through time and back track to regain the time traveled. But most importantly, we do not know how long we have here in this domain so it is only right that we make the most of our time and use it wisely. Do not be like the fool who tries to store it up. Live like it is your last day, but prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions as if you are sure you will wake up tomorrow.


**Don't leave without commenting**

Who is in charge of deciding what words are "bad"?

As many of you know, I am one that questions a lot of things and wonders about the origins of a lot more; for it is at the origins you find original intent and the nature of an item- in it's purest form. Such as words like "goatee" (the beard) which is usually pronounced as go-tee. Though when looking at the spelling and taking into consideration the actual look of the beard one can reasonably assume, at the onset, the word was pronounced as goat-ee; for it looks like the chin hair from a goat. And even though I tend to question, I am also one that picks his battles wisely and is not a reckless gunslinger (well... for the most part). So when it comes to things like "curse/ cuss" words and "bad" words, even though I questioned, I tended to just follow what was publicly and widely accepted to be the truth.

That all changed when in the same week I was forced to ask myself, "Why are some words bad and others aren't?" "Who deemed them to be 'bad' words?" and "Can words even be bad?" Firstly, with anything that I do, I researched both sides of the argument, sifted through opinions to find (constantly and contextually) supported/ corroborated facts, and then draw a conclusion based on the best possible answer. This scientific and systematic approach is not easy when you are dealing with something that is this subjective. Nevertheless, my results are as follows. Comment, let me know what you think, let me know whether you agree or not. This is an open forum, meaning I will NOT delete, sensor or mute you from voicing your opinions- no matter how ignorant, misinformed or flat out stupid I think they are. (and this will be the conclusion of my research, I will NOT be rewriting all the info I found... If you want specifics go to www.google.com :-D )

To answer the question at hand objectively, we first must decide on what words are the bad words? For this I am going to go off of what general words are frowned upon in public schools for elementary students. These words are; ass, bitch, cunt, dick, faggot, fuck, gay, hell, hoe, pussy, queer, and shit. Secondly, we have to figure out the origins of the individual words and figure out if their original intent was to be evil or to be just another descriptive word. Finally we have to figure out when and why it became taboo and widely accepted.

When looking at their genesis, all of these words' first written usage was in an author's literary forum; poem, letter, book, etc., and had a neutral meaning other than that which is associated to them nowadays. Ass was derived from "arsehole" which meant an animals anus, bitch is a female dog, gay means happy, hoe is a gardening tool, queer is something that is oddly different or counterfeit, shit described cattle diarrhea. Well... all but one. The only word that I came across that in it's origins was intended to be brash, offensive and controversial was the "F" word, the "F" Bomb, F-U-C-K... fuck. Ever still, the word still had a meaning, it's first recorded usage was used to say that friars where having sex with other men's wives. The ever growing consensus is that the word is not found any many early writings because it was sooo taboo no one wanted to write it down. Eh.. either way it had a denotative meaning.

So, what makes these words so controversial? Why are they deemed as vulgar and bad? Honestly, there is NO answer to those questions. The closest plausible answer is that the Scriptures speak against "cursing" people. However, the words, in and of themselves, are NOT curses. When someone says, "Shut the fuck up!" they are not wishing ill-will or your demise, they are simply telling you to close your mouth and stop speaking. If you ask someone if they love you and they answer, "Abso-fucking-lutely!" how is that bad? Where is the negativity in the usage? I can speak harm and curse someone without even uttering one of those words. For example; "Go jump off a cliff." "Shoot yourself." "I hope you contract AIDS and die." "can't wait until you have kids that are just as bad as you." Those are curses, those are things that the Bible speaks against. So it is not the words but how it is used and the context in which it is used. Words are like dynamite, if used by the right they can be used for a valid (non combative) purpose, but if used wrong they can cause a lot of damage. It is the man that is evil, not the dynamite or the word.

It is funny how in movies, songs, television shows and the like, how words such as these are; voiced over, *bleep*ed out, silenced, etc. However, they will broadcast the phrases that are actually curses. And it's not like they actually work- apart from the occasional voice over or edit version of a music track. For if I am watching a movie and mid sentence I hear a *beep* I am forced to replace the beep with a word that best makes the sentence complete and for it to make sense. For instance; "I'll give you son's of *bleep*, three mother *bleep* seconds to get your pansy *bleep* off my lawn!!!" Now, it does NOT take a rocket scientist to figure out what words I "edited" out and even with the "editing" my message was conveyed. Not to say that the sentenced required it, but the words played a useful role in stressing how adamant I was about you getting off my lawn. Irregardless, the reader was still forced to replace the "*bleep*" with the very words that I was attempting (and failing) at keeping hidden. That goes the same for pseudo-homonyms; instead of saying "fuck" you say "fudge" or instead of saying "shit" you say "ship." The message is still there and your listener or reader will still (in most cases) associate the "vulgar" word in it's stead.

All in all, words are apart of the English language and some are more colorful than others, but NO word can be bad or evil. It is dependent solely on how it is used and the motives of the user of the word. Also, contextually, all but one word is neutral from it's beginnings and it is only the slang form that is most commonly looked down upon. As I previously shown, you can use any word to tear down a person and you can use any word to build them up. We need to elevate our thinking and get beyond the minor issues of WHAT word is being used and see the true essence of how it is being used. And for all my offended Christians out there that want to say, "God wouldn't be so controversial..." I say, take a hard look at the Scriptures prior to telling me how "loving" God is. Though I will recall what Paul wrote to the Church at Corinth, "'Everything is permissible'—but not everything is beneficial." Ideally it would be great if people would stop being so ignorant and minor, as to miss an entire point of a conversation by the insertion of a word that they, by tradition and through learned ignorance, deem to be profane, vulgar or bad. But in reality, that is NOT going to happen anytime soon. So take this information, do with it as you will, but be smart enough to know that it is not wise to give a speech at school, corporate gathering, church, etc. with an onslaught of words that the general public will find offensive; I can guarantee many will miss the point of your speech.