Life...

In the past month or so, there have been a few people I know who have passed away from either old age or just misfortune, to which my landlord is one of those people. His name is Bill and he always seemed to be enduring his old age even if it was difficult. Another that has been in my thoughts is the unfortunate death of an old exes brother. He loved skydiving and unfortunately passed away because of this love. Both deaths have made me reflect upon my life and what others would say about my life if I were to pass this very day. Yes I know, this is a very depressing thought to have on the mind, yet it's something that everyone should ask themselves. Am I doing something that I love and pursuing my passions in life? Or am I just living/surviving to the next point in life? It has been my goal in life that when people talk about me after my passing, they speak of a man who was been led by his love for truth, honesty and a desire to conquer. I'm not sure what I'll be conquering but I hope that it will be so my whole life. Lets start with my Spartan race in two weeks. After that? I guess we will see.

Utah Spartan Race June 29th

Mothers Day Skype Call

Hidden Agendas

I've had this topic on my mind a lot and it can be kind of a mind boggler for me to be honest. I've grown up my whole life with a mother who has instilled in me that you talk to everyone like they are important, even if they aren't in the grand scheme of things. She would come out of the bathroom and talk to us about having just made a friend in the stall. So when I got to the state of Utah and have tried to continue my normal friendly self, I've run into a problem that has really troubled me. Can a guy not just purely care for another women without wanting romance or something out of the encounter? Is it impossible for people to co-exist without looking for what they get out of it? I have had this argument constantly with coworkers and friends, yet I can't understand how it's impossible to just be a good person and want to understand a human being with great potential. Is this all that we seek after when it comes to human interaction? An advantage in the race we call life or even a mystical thing called love? I don't really know... I can't understand it really at all. As I've lived here in Utah, it seems like I've ran into a lot more people who aren't interested in getting to know who you are because you don't offer them anything in return. Boy are a lot of people missing out on individuals who are walking miracles. Maybe I need to stop ranting or even thinking too deeply about a topic that will only bring me more questions then answers. Perhaps I just need to write some poetry to clear my mind...maybe.

Inhumanity

I know that not many people really read the blog posts that I write, yet it's always been good way of collecting thoughts when they tend to be so scattered. Thats what brought me to write about the topic I am right now. Growing up, I was never a big reader of books and found most of them to be boring and insignificant. How can I get into something that is fictitious and in the end, will be thought of as simply words on paper. Yet as I've grown, I have found a great love for non-fictional autobiographical pieces of literature that illustrate the intricacies of an individuals life. Most recently I finished the story of Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, as well as started the story of a concentration camp victim. Both books address the various inhumanities of mankind from different perspectives. One person issuing what he believes to be sweet justice, while the other being subjected to incomprehensible punishment. It made me think, what causes anyone to lose total sight of the things they do?

For Gary, a man who killed well over 40 prostitutes over the span of years, he subjected his victims to torture and death because he saw these mostly young girls as nothing. Yet when further evaluated, in all reality, Gary was a victim of his unwillingness to accept his view by others as weak and insignificant. Instead he received a sick gratification from imposing his will upon these lost women who simply needed a hand in life to overcome the lifestyle that most of them despised.

The concentration camp guards inflicted pain because they found those who were "inferior" as a scapegoat for the countries inability to overcome financial ruin. Certainly there is more to the topic then that, but when you have been through so much turmoil and hardship, why not take the easy route and blame someone else?

This topic is so complex and difficult to fully understand why inhumane things happen to those who don't deserve the outcome. No one deserves such things. Maybe one day I'll understand the reasons behind the lose of perspective by such people or groups of people. Until then, I'll keep watching the many stories that happen every day that involve those who impose their power in inhumane ways.

Politics, who needs it?

I'm officially living in Salt Lake City as of late and found an entry-level warehouse job with Sure-Loc Hardware. It has its pluses and minuses for the most part. One of the benefits of working there is that all of the employees are educated and have a pretty good understanding on the workings of life. Along with this element though is that they enjoy the occasional politic radio talk shows. Now I've never been one to get all political and enraged about the topic of politics but I've come to the conclusion that when politics are involved, we all lose.

So...out of the many hours of available contemplation while at work, I've decided...who needs politics anyways? It seems as though the only thing that presidential candidates do these days is bash the other and bring out certain dirt from each others past. What have I learned from the bashing and constant bickering? Both are incompetent to help the country I love. Why should I vote for individuals who's sole conversation or campaign is to discredit the other? What happened to the people's needs being the most important topic instead of everything else? It should be about what that individual is capable of doing for the people and not about how the other individual will fail or has failed. I guess we have forgotten how to be civilized and act like adults.

On a happier note, I recently went to watch Marv and Heather Bateman (my uncle and aunt) complete a Spartan Race in Washougal, Washington. I just have to say that this small blip of time taught me more about true love and marriage then any other time in my life. For those of you that don't know Marv, he is one man who I really look up to in my life. He was an Army Ranger and lives his life the way it should be lived. Honestly and full of love. This beast of a man ran the race stride for stride with his wife Heather, even though he probably could of went ahead and fed his ego. It wasn't about him though, it was about the love of his life. His princess, as he often puts it. He wanted to do it together with her because its was more then just finishing quickly but finishing together. Thanks for being such a good example. :)

Team Honey Badger

My feet hurt...

It's kind of crazy to realize how often you think of things when you go for a run. Something about running for long periods of time brings about the weirdest thoughts. As I went for my daily jog yesterday, I passed a fellow jogger and intuitively gave him a wave. This got my brain going and I realized how quickly people are to look for similarities and embrace them. For instance, fellow motorcyclists give a friendly wave whenever they pass each other on the road. Those who are of a similiar nationality quickly converse and are pleased to discuss the homeland that they both know and love. Heck, even my mother will get a friendly wave from fellow Mustang owners. Is this action of looking for similarities a natural and innate element of mankind? I can't really say, yet it got me thinking...why isn't this the case with religion?

As a Mormon (Latter-Day Saint), the continuous barrage of media articles and news reports on my religious beliefs have been popping up more then before. Whenever I go to the comments section of each article or news report that appears in the media, these comments consist of ignorance and a total disregard for ones personal beliefs. "Mormonism is a cult;" "They are brainwashed;" "How many wives did Joe Smith have again?" Certainly I am not naive enough to believe that my religion does not have the ability to come off strange to the lay bystander, yet has anyone really sat down to think about what they are saying? Many of these individuals saying such things are avid believers in the Bible, the book that speaks of incest and also polygamy, the exact thing they make jokes about with Mormons (the polygamy part, not the incest part). If they were truly interested in understanding further, they would see that, like the runner or biker, there are plenty of similarities to have an intellectual conversation and try to gain a better perspective.

I guess the better question to ask pertaining to this issue is: Aren't we all brainwashed to a certain extent? As much as you may not like it, we are for the most part molded into our thoughts or beliefs through constant learning of a topic. Whether you are Muslim, Catholic, Atheist or Mormon, we are swayed by others words and eventually take this on as our method of thinking. If we would just stop with the ego and start listening up, we might realize that we can learn a bit from everyone. That doesn't mean you have to think the way that they do, yet it means that you are willing to accept the fact that they might understand something you don't. In the end, the only thing we really experience are the workings of a neural system to the brain that tells us that we hear or see something in particular. I don't wanna take my opinion too seriously because for all I know, I could just be a schizophrenic.

                                                                         Love this picture!!

                                                                          I graduated!!

What a Bozo...

So as I was sitting down in the Ricks building to study for a Race and Ethnic Relations test and one of the well educated students here at Brigham Young University of Idaho was speaking to a girl who I later found out was his sister. The issue was the American border and the Mexicans crossing it. His solution, like many quick judging and slightly inhumane individuals beliefs, was to simply shoot them at the border and let brute force be our answer. He then proceeded to state that illegals could not and should not be baptized because its against the law, which the church tells everyone to abide by.

During this process he ended up criticizing his sisters friend who thought otherwise and the student stated that he believed he is a "douchebag." What was my initial reaction? I in return called him a douchebag in my head and proceeded to study further. Then I really thought about the matter more thoroughly. Was calling him a douchebag for calling someone else the same thing at all justified? It came to me that name calling and bad mouthing is simply a continual cycle of ignorance and egotism. Certainly he might be ignorant about the matter, yet that doesn't mean I have the right to get feisty about it all. Perhaps he was even correct in his opinion about the sisters friend. Yet taking such a viewpoint just isn't worth it.

Moral of the story: Quit the name calling and the viciousness and open your eyes to the beauty of loving the person no matter what they say or do. I have to admit that this is going to be one of the harder things for me to overcome, yet the long run tells me that it'll be worth it.

PS-The pictures are so you readers don't forget what I look like. ;)

Thought Provoking Thoughts

The start of every new semester in college seems to bring about a lot of thinking and pondering about ones situation in life. Factor in that a new year has also came about recently and you have a variety of thoughts swirling in ones head. Often times when I get into this mood, my thoughts are directed towards the two years in Germany which played such a big part of me realizing the good things in life.

With this in mind, I started to think about a book which was read while on the mission. My mother had sent me the book and it dealt a lot with the spirit and finding truth and the whisperings of God in everyone. One of the best examples of this on the mission was dealing with the first drunk slash disheartened German I had met on the street. He was totally plastered and my German was horrible but I simply remember him stating that he had lost basically everything. As hard as I had tried, he wouldn't listen to our message. Because of this man, I learned what it meant to have love for everyone no matter who they are. Naturally this is something which will probably be worked on my whole life, yet it showed me that everyone has worth so long as the time is spent towards searching for it in that person. To everyone else on the street he was a straggly drunk man with no direction. In the eyes of those with the right mind set, he was simply someone who had lost his family, job and hope in life.

Life is full of "intelligent" men who receive degrees and get trained to become something of "value." Yet the best life lessons come through the most unconventional and unlearned people out there. For an example of this, just observe a little child and their pure innocence about the world and the inquisitive nature they always have about the world. Perhaps we shouldn't look towards the educated for wisdom (to a certain point obviously), but to those who are actively seeking pure unbiased knowledge.

Nature Inspires!

They taught me so much!

Such a good example