A Curious Instrument

Parents let their kids run the family. Education panders to the desires of students and their despised and dismissed parent-lackeys. Governments coddle childishness for their own political ends. The immature majority lust for the irresponsibility of socialism and the lure of "free stuff" stolen from others through police-state democracy. Disclosure:  I work for a college and make a living from tuition and state education funding. Let's see an example that I know something about:  college education. College tends to care too much about the student and too little about their actual training. How a person feels about their educational experience isn't germane to what college should be doing, which is  inculcating a body of knowledge and practice that produces success along a specific professional path . Your professors should know more than you do about the proper way to shape you for a chosen path and a student should submit to their training. That is the relation...

The posts have been a little heavy-handed of late, probably because I am actually a very heavy-handed guy!  To lighten up things a bit, how about my perennial favorite, The Perpetual Computer Buyer's Guide ?  I haven't changed a word in it in over ten years and it is still really good advice for getting your next computer, if I say so myself (which I do).  Enjoy!

I have great respect for Harry Browne , who many you probably have never heard of. Here is a wonderful article about him and some of his ideas from the Misses Institute. It has gotten fashionable for young people to try and change the world (again) for the better.  Of course, every generation has attempted this and a few (like the youth of the late 60s) were so narcissistic about it that we still see the mess they created. Our present crop looks poised to make the latest effort even more flamboyant and destructive. Harry revoiced the answer to this in the 1970s.  This is a concept that actually features in the Bible, so it has the cache of being tried a few times before.  If you want to make the world a better place, be a better person! Isn't it simple?  If the world is crashing down (it always is) and everything good is coming to an end (yet again), the best thing you can do to make a positive change is make yourself into the change you want to see.  Th...

I am a descendant of the Biblical Aaron which makes me a kohen or priest by tradition, and I work to honor this with service in God's temples and other situations that are available to me. Although I am not a Jew in the rabbinical sense and I am not a particular aficionado of rabbis and their lawyerly aspect, I access and serve God in my own way, as he guides me, similar to my fore-bearers. Before I was born, my parents embraced the spiritual thought and practice taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). I have been tasked with responsibilities and labors as a holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood that Abraham and Moses also held and as interpreted by the LDS faith . My obligation is to God before it is to any family or religious tradition . Mormonism, like some other faiths such as Judaism, do not make a particular profession of priests. There is no paid clergy in the LDS tradition and most men are holders of the priesthood and do priestly service re...

In a previous post, we talked about the proclivity of some to surrender control of their lives . As mentioned in the Psychic Proximity Principle , there is something I like to call "weak magnetism" provided by God that gently guides you toward your best potential. The interesting part is that you always have to make a conscious choice to follow that slight intuition - it isn't of sufficient strength to actually run your life. The spirit of God cannot force you to do anything - it can only gently point out the next step forward when we are paying it some attention. Let's explore an analogy... It was both a scary and exhilarating day when I got behind the steering wheel of a car.  What a powerful thing. I could now go faster and farther than ever before!  My range was greatly extended from what I could realistically travel on foot or on a bike on any given day.  On the flip side, my ability to do great harm to others (and myself) and damage to trees and buildings am...

Recent shootings and fearful yet angry pushes to eliminate the tools of power (aka guns) will force everyone give up what little power they may have over their lives. I don't know the deeper purposes of institutional agents. I know a high school football coach gets to keep his job if his teams wins. I know a corporate leader gets to keep her position if profits rise. I know many people want to be influential or wealthy and usually both, and our society is quite willing to exempt such people from higher standards of behavior in hopes that you or I might also enjoy the by-product "perks" of being rich and famous. Many activities speak more to the power and money desired by the individual actors, no matter the rhetoric being employed or some altruistic-sounding cause being espoused. I don't know the deeper motivations of these people, but that may not really matter in the end. It will likely become a simple grab for money and acclaim and the realization that our soc...

Do you remember this quote? You have been weighed , you have been measured , and you have been found wanting . That is classic Count Adhemar from the memorable A Knight's Tale movie. This film was actually in contention to be a "Sunday" movie, a distinction in our family that the subject matter of a film made it appropriate for Sabbath viewing. It never made it to the third drawer (where Sunday movies live), but I find myself pondering the theme of the movie on a Sunday morning. It reminds me that God gives us standards upon which we will ultimately be judged. I did an essay on this subject a while back.  The movie quote is actually adapted from Daniel 5 :27, where the Jewish prophet Daniel interpreted a divine message of doom to the final Babylonian king. God judged the king and he will also judge each of us through something like a weighing and a measuring.  I suppose a good question is this: Will you be "found wanting"? In the movie, William Thatcher...