Mushrooms and Sunflowers

Hypocrisy is an ugly thing, and I'm recognizing it in myself more and more every day. I don't know if there's any truth to the theory that some or all people are born evil, but I do know that my deepest natural instinct is to be hateful and suspicious toward everyone around me, and somewhere along the line those instincts have been groomed into a worldview of self-righteous skepticism—because it's smart not to trust other people, because it's rational to be pessimistic, because it's more practical not to help others. I turn a condescending sneer on those who talk about peace and love and "finding a solution." Am I my brother's keeper?

Well... yes. That's the answer by God's standards, and in spite of all my "practical" wheedling, it doesn't really get any more complicated than that. Of course, there's a whole slough of hairs to be split over exactly what that entails, but the fact remains that we are supposed to be looking out for one another. And I've been living by human standards for so long that it's easy to forget.

That said, blaming society is a lame cop-out. In fact, society—and I include in that both religion and secular morality—is the only thing that has instilled any sense of responsibility toward others into this otherwise selfish animal. And occasionally, for a brief moment, I have an impulse to do the right thing. But even then, it's insincere. Sure, I can hold the door for a stranger or hand a few bucks to a homeless person, but do I really care if that person lives or dies? Or am I just "doing my piece," meeting my random-act-of-kindness quota for the day so I can go on with my life and not feel guilty? (Let me tell you, it's not working.) Maybe I'm hoping that someday someone will do something nice for me, but the aforementioned pessimism keeps that from becoming too strong of a motivation.

Whatever my reasons, that is not love. That blind, insincere, saccharine farce of charity is not God's love, and it's an insult to anyone with half a brain who can see through the pretense. And honestly, I've begun to doubt whether it's really possible to teach yourself to honestly care about a stranger. Maybe the reason I look down on those people who talk about peace and love is that I assume they're just like me, that they can't possibly mean it. And so I call them hypocrites. But who's the real hypocrite? I call myself a Christian. I tell everyone else that we're placed on this Earth to do God's will, even convince myself that I believe it, yet somewhere between theology and reality there's that disconnect: I don't really believe humanity as an organization is capable of love. For years I've tried to be both a Christian and a cynic, but you can't grow mushrooms next to sunflowers, and you can't truly believe that God has a plan for your life and then keep on taking care of yourself before others because it's the smart thing to do. (Mushrooms and Fire-flowers, however, make a nice combination. Do I get bonus geek points for making a Mario reference?)

Lest anyone think I've turned into a hippie, I'll add this disclaimer: I have no idea what the "answer" to this issue is. Sure, all we need is love... but can someone please explain exactly what that is?

My New Pet Protein

I recently downloaded Folding@home, in order to offer up my spare computing resources for the advancement of science. Apparently it simulates protein structures or something. I don't quite understand, but it appears to be accomplishing something that looks vaguely scientific. At any rate, Maki-chan (my laptop) has been working quite busily on analyzing a little chunk of p3040_supervillin.

Isn't it cute?

Haha, it sounds like super-villain. XD Very punny. Hope they'll use everyone's computing power for good.

Little Random Thought

It's funny the way God reaches people. Sometimes, when He's got a really big announcement to make, he uses prophecies and a big star and a band of trumpeting angels. (I've heard a hypothesis that the Christmas star was light from a distant supernova. Which is really incredible when you think about it because it would have had to explode thousands of years ago in order for the light to reach Earth at the right time... but I digress.)

Other times He uses something a little more subtle, like a rear-window defroster.

Lately I've been trying to know God a little better. I mean, I've been privileged to know about Him since I was a little kid, but we haven't exactly had a relationship. And maybe this should come as no surprise, but the first thing I met with was a lot of fear and doubt, anxiety
and sleepless nights... which in turn have contributed to my growing Starbucks addiction. (But that's another day's rant.) I questioned myself. I questioned my faith. Most of all I worried about the connection between faith and action, and how much of the latter is required to claim the former.

But this evening I wasn't thinking about any of that, because I was concentrating on backing down the driveway. It was dark, I was shivering too much to get a good grip on the wheel, my 11-year-old car was a bit grumpy at being roused in such cold weather, and the fact that the rear window was covered in a thin, translucent layer of ice did not help the situation. So of course, I flipped on the rear defroster. (Those things are so handy! Best car invention next to the heater.) The little wires started to heat up as I drove down the road, and I quickly realized that it was actually becoming harder to see. I had been able to look through the ice while it was solid and get a somewhat fuzzy view of what was going on, but now that there were little clear patches running in stripes across the glass, I couldn't see a thing.

Maybe getting closer to God is like that sometimes. You go through life just trying to get from one place to another, trying to keep things under control, but the world can be a pretty cold place. And after a while, this veil starts to build up and cloud your vision, and before you know it you're separated from God. Maybe you know he's out there, and maybe you know it's dangerous to keep moving without being able to see clearly. But in the process of clearing your vision, there are times when you're so focused on the contrast between the foggy view you're used to and the sudden clarity, that for a while you can't see anything ahead of you.

And if I'm getting this frazzled over a window defroster, just imagine what it will be like to meet God face to face!

I don't claim to see the big picture yet. I'm still confused. I'm still praying I don't hit a tree or run over the neighbor's cat--literally and metaphorically. But I thank Him for this small slice of clarity.

I feel dirty

On Friday afternoon, while we were out shopping for Nerf gun parts for another project of his, Nick talked me into buying an issue of Cosmopolitan. I swear it was his idea, because he saw the "100 facts you should know about men" article and wanted to laugh at how stupid they were. I'll admit it was rather entertaining at first. I was making fun of the one that said men with long ring fingers have higher testosterone levels and are more athletic or better in bed or something. But apparently there is some truth to the claim. My dad said he saw some guy on TV using finger length to predict the winner of a race, and he was right nine times out of ten. For some reason, this made me think of that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry dates a woman who has man-hands.

By #20 or so on the list I couldn't take it anymore, so I dragged Nick into the hardware store. There's something fundamentally wrong about a girl having to tell her boyfriend to put down Cosmo so they can go look at stuff in Home Depot, so we threw the thing under the back seat of my car and it's been there ever since. (In his defense, the trip was his idea and he later redeemed his lost masculinity by spending all night shooting things.)

...wait, my ring finger is a lot longer than my index finger. Hmm.

A Novel Idea

...pun intended.

Nick and I decided to write a sci-fi type story together. Or more accurately, I dragged him into it. I borrowed the skeleton of a plot from one of my unwritten Sailor Moon fanfics, ripped out all the parts about pretty soldiers and magic, and tried to turn it into something other people might actually want to read.

Ok, from that description you probably think it's going to suck. I promise it's not as lame as it sounds. The basic premise is that there's this group of scientists who find a girl from an ancient civilization buried deep in a cryogenic chamber under the desert, and her DNA is the key to activating this secret powerful technology they've unearthed, so they try to clone her. (Nick says this sounds a lot like Stargate, but I swear I didn't know that at the time.) We haven't yet decided what the secret ancient technology does. My dad thinks it should involve aliens, but I'm not sure.

Also, lately I haven't been able to actually write anything. Don't you hate it when you get into one of those moods where you feel like writing, but you can't actually form enough concrete thoughts to get a sentence down on paper (or text file, as it were)? This occurs quite frequently at two in the morning after drinking too much caffeine and spending three hours staring at cheesy video game fanart on DA. (Yes, I know, only losers are on DA because the critiques are not nearly heartless and soul-shattering enough to be helpful to real artists, and drawing anime-style doesn't require any talent.) I don't know if you can call it writer's block, because I'm not at a complete loss for ideas. My thoughts have all turned into fireflies--maddeningly evasive and only occasionally brilliant, and all too easily squished. Fireflies do not make very good pets. Sure, they're cool for a while, but they don't do any tricks and they aren't exactly affectionate. I can't keep them very long because I'm not sure what to feed them.

Seriously, what do fireflies eat? ...Pollen, nectar, or other insects, apparently. I love Wikipedia.

Ficathon! and other fanfic-related ramblings

Yup, I did the Ficathon this year! This year's theme is "non-couple interaction," so things are bound to be interesting. I did Ami/Jade, which was apparently quite popular. I'm not allowed to tell what I wrote about yet, since the stories don't become available to the public for a couple of weeks. Only four days until the participants are able to see each other's! I can't wait to read them. "Flash of Crystal Tokyo" sounds interesting, and so does "BrideFight." It sounds like we aren't going to be told who the author is, so it'll be fun to guess.

All this has put me in a writing mood, so I'm going back over all my old stories from high school and trying to whip them into shape. Some of them, however, are beyond help. Teen angst poetry is bad enough, but teen angst poetry about SailorMoon characters is just wrong. And then there's the abomination that is The Fragile Flower--Ganondorf x OC, nuff said. Not that I'm really that much better of a writer now, but I usually have enough restraint not to post it. (Crystal Generation notwithstanding...)

Speaking of fan fiction, Yume can't wait for the next chapter of Drawing Conclusions! That whole series is awesome. It's funny, it's touching, and the characterization is spot-on. Ah, I hope she updates soon... *goes to re-read again*

It is Groovy in 5 Languages

Apparently, お洒落 is pronounced "oshare" and refers to clothes. (So says WWWJDIC.) So I looked up "cool" instead and got 格好いい, kakkoii. Just for kicks I plugged that back into the dictionary.com Japanese to English translator and got "It is groovy." In Chinese that's "它是时髦的." At least that's what they said it is. I'm gonna take their word for it.

That's American English, by the way. In British English they say "Sorry, translation is taking too long. Please try again later," instead. Man, those British people are weird.

So now we know how to say "it is groovy" in four languages. But apparently four is a really unlucky number in Japanese because it's pronounced the same as the word for death. So I'll go on and translate it into Italian too to make five. "Spiacente, la traduzione sta prendendo troppo lungamente. Provare prego ancora più successivamente." Italian sure is a wordy language...

Just now I realized that I'm supposed to be working on a project, so good night/おやすみなさい/晚上好/good night/buona notte!