For the second time in probably a month I have posted something, only to take it down. The first time the post was only up for less than an hour. The second lasted several hours. The reason I took them down is quite simply this:
I want to glorify my God with my life.
But little things, whether they be my own selfish ambitions and desires, sins in my life, especially trying to please others and my poor attitudes, distractions, fixating on the "storms", worries, anxieties, fears, continually stand in the way.
They make me forget what I want. They make me push aside what I want. They demean what I want. I start wanting other things more.
The two posts I have taken down, if you were unfortunate enough to read them, highlighted this. I have been a very jealous, angry and frustrated person inside, and I was expressing that through both posts. In one I tried to explain my feelings and how God lead me to believe I was wrong. In the other I tried to justify my feelings and behaviours by pointing out ways I was fed up with being treated by different people.
In both cases all I was really doing was showing my inability to glorify God in these situations. It doesn't matter how right I think I might be. God is always right. He is always good. And my behaviours and attitudes, even the writing of those posts, was not justified. It doesn't matter what situations I have recently been through. My response was wrong, and the one I wronged most was God. And I lost focus of what I really want, to glorify God, in my need to express my hurts and vindicate myself.
God, I'm really sorry. Help me keep my attitude in check.
And anyone who read my posts, I'm also really sorry. I will be more responsible.
Showing posts with label perspective. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perspective. Show all posts
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 24, 2009
Okay, I admit this is stranger
This is mostly in response to observations made by Sam.
Observation 1
To me the letter A looks black. Just like all letters look black.
Sam, you're missing out. Seriously. Which isn't a badly coloured word. Word, on the other hand, isn't such a nice colour.
Observation 2
Samantha has yucky colours. I don't like green.
Actually, while there are a lot of green letters in Samantha, when I think of the word as a whole it is a blue word. Samantha is a blue word. I think the first letter of a word, or the stronger letters in a word, or where the accent is in a word, dominates the overall appearance of the word.
You see black. I see blue, but really it's blues, black and green.
Another example is Sunday.
If we accent the word so that you say it as SUNday it looks like:
while if you accent it so it sounds like sunDAY it looks like:
For some reason the letters U, V, X, and Z are all differing shades of grey. Maybe whenever this weird association thing happened in my head I didn't get much exposure to these letters so they didn't get other colours.
Yes, so now you know all this wonderful information.
Observation 1
To me the letter A looks black. Just like all letters look black.
Sam, you're missing out. Seriously. Which isn't a badly coloured word. Word, on the other hand, isn't such a nice colour.
Observation 2
Samantha has yucky colours. I don't like green.
Actually, while there are a lot of green letters in Samantha, when I think of the word as a whole it is a blue word. Samantha is a blue word. I think the first letter of a word, or the stronger letters in a word, or where the accent is in a word, dominates the overall appearance of the word.
You see black. I see blue, but really it's blues, black and green.
Another example is Sunday.
If we accent the word so that you say it as SUNday it looks like:
while if you accent it so it sounds like sunDAY it looks like:
For some reason the letters U, V, X, and Z are all differing shades of grey. Maybe whenever this weird association thing happened in my head I didn't get much exposure to these letters so they didn't get other colours.
Yes, so now you know all this wonderful information.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Okay, I admit I'm strange
Before we get to that, let me ask you a couple of questions.
Do you see numbers in colours? What about letters?
If you're reading that and you haven't figured out what I mean, then I'm guessing you don't. What I asked didn't make sense to you, right?
Well, to me it made a lot of sense. If someone asked me that I would know exactly what they were talking about. You see, I see numbers and letters in colours. I think it's something I've always done, and up until a couple of mouse years ago I never questioned this, assuming everyone else did the same. Then I discovered that not many people actually do. Most people I asked would stare at me blankly and get confused while I struggled to explain it. Then they would think about it. Then they would answer, "Err... no." I have only ever met one other person who can do it- Rebecca- but she's a special case in that she taught herself to see the colours while at uni.
By now you're thinking, "Desperado has lost the plot." I never had the plot. Anyway, let me explain what normally happens to me. Let's say we examine the word mouse.
You probably see it as:
I see it kind of like:
I don't consciously make the letters and numbers change colour. They just have colour. And the colours are consistent. For example, my favourite number 8 is always green. B is always red. How nice I find a word depends on its colours.
Kallie is awful. Too much yellow and pink. The background is black so you can see the white i.
Rebecca also has too much yellow and pink.
Samantha looks better. I like green.
There is a neurological phenomenon called synesthaesia, where the stimulation of one sensory pathway causes an involuntary experience in another. For instance, some people hear a sound which causes them to see a particular colour. More strangely, some people hear a certain word or phoneme and it causes them to taste things, like the sound f tastes like sherbert. There are many types of synesthaesia. One of the most common is grapheme->colour synesthaesia, where letters and numbers are shaded or tinged with different colours. It is involuntary and the colours are consistent.
I'm not sure, but I don't think I have grapheme->colour synesthaesia. Yes, I don't voluntarily make myself see letters as colours, and yes, the colours are always consistent for particular letters or numbers.
I did a lengthy online test to find out if I had synesthaesia. My score suggested that I have grapheme->colour synesthaesia.
Score:
Synesthaesia: < 1.0
Normal memory/association: around 2
Desperado: 0.54
Accuracy:
Synesthetic: 85-100%
Non-synesthetic: < 85%
Desperado: 98.61%
I'm still not convinced. It still might have been a memory thing. If I do have synesthaesia I must not have it strongly. It doesn't affect my life in any way, and unless I'm paying attention most of the time I don't even notice that the black letters are coloured. Possibly I just associate letters with colours. Maybe Sesame Street's letter of the week had a big impact on me as a kid.
Regardless, it's still pretty cool and interesting. So, what colour is the letter A to you? =)
Do you see numbers in colours? What about letters?
If you're reading that and you haven't figured out what I mean, then I'm guessing you don't. What I asked didn't make sense to you, right?
Well, to me it made a lot of sense. If someone asked me that I would know exactly what they were talking about. You see, I see numbers and letters in colours. I think it's something I've always done, and up until a couple of mouse years ago I never questioned this, assuming everyone else did the same. Then I discovered that not many people actually do. Most people I asked would stare at me blankly and get confused while I struggled to explain it. Then they would think about it. Then they would answer, "Err... no." I have only ever met one other person who can do it- Rebecca- but she's a special case in that she taught herself to see the colours while at uni.
By now you're thinking, "Desperado has lost the plot." I never had the plot. Anyway, let me explain what normally happens to me. Let's say we examine the word mouse.
You probably see it as:
I see it kind of like:
I don't consciously make the letters and numbers change colour. They just have colour. And the colours are consistent. For example, my favourite number 8 is always green. B is always red. How nice I find a word depends on its colours.
Kallie is awful. Too much yellow and pink. The background is black so you can see the white i.
Rebecca also has too much yellow and pink.
Samantha looks better. I like green.
There is a neurological phenomenon called synesthaesia, where the stimulation of one sensory pathway causes an involuntary experience in another. For instance, some people hear a sound which causes them to see a particular colour. More strangely, some people hear a certain word or phoneme and it causes them to taste things, like the sound f tastes like sherbert. There are many types of synesthaesia. One of the most common is grapheme->colour synesthaesia, where letters and numbers are shaded or tinged with different colours. It is involuntary and the colours are consistent.
I'm not sure, but I don't think I have grapheme->colour synesthaesia. Yes, I don't voluntarily make myself see letters as colours, and yes, the colours are always consistent for particular letters or numbers.
I did a lengthy online test to find out if I had synesthaesia. My score suggested that I have grapheme->colour synesthaesia.
Score:
Synesthaesia: < 1.0
Normal memory/association: around 2
Desperado: 0.54
Accuracy:
Synesthetic: 85-100%
Non-synesthetic: < 85%
Desperado: 98.61%
I'm still not convinced. It still might have been a memory thing. If I do have synesthaesia I must not have it strongly. It doesn't affect my life in any way, and unless I'm paying attention most of the time I don't even notice that the black letters are coloured. Possibly I just associate letters with colours. Maybe Sesame Street's letter of the week had a big impact on me as a kid.
Regardless, it's still pretty cool and interesting. So, what colour is the letter A to you? =)
Sunday, June 7, 2009
God likes fences
God likes fences. This was clearly demonstrated today on our way back from Frankston, when we had a bit of an accident. It involved going a bit too fast around a corner that resulted in sliding, over correcting that led to even more sliding across several lanes, and driving into a ditch. Thankfully, no one was hurt, the car did not roll (although it should have given the steepness of the ditch, the way we entered the ditch, and the slipperiness of the grass), and we did not slam into a pole. But, most miraculously of all, we narrowly missed hitting a wire fence.
Seriously, there was more praising God for the fact we didn't hit a fence than for the fact that we were alive. And it wasn't so much "phew, we didn't hit the fence and wreck the car" but more "phew, we didn't hit the fence and wreck the fence. Praise God!"
After I got over the humour of nearly being in an accident, I started wondering why we all thought it was important that we didn't hit the fence. Why did God care enough about the fence that we shouldn't hit it? Does God care about fences? Yes, yes He does!
Okay, so the focus of this photo is the powerline, not the fence. That's okay. I like black and white photos =)
So why does God care about fences? Fences are used to prevent or restrict movement across a boundary, and provide a visible mark as to where that boundary is. God protects fences to protect boundaries.
So why does God care about boundaries?
Boundaries mark the end of one thing and the start of another. Boundaries are the lines that define the limit of something. When you cross a boundary, you have left one state for another. Often there are boundaries in our lives, self-imposed or decided upon by others, that we should not cross because they separate what is "right or acceptable" from "wrong and potentially dangerous". Even God has set very important boundaries for us that we should adhere to.
It's very easy and often tempting to cross boundaries, to exceed the personal limits we set. It's easy to get caught up in the moment and temporarily forget that "I should not go there". Even people who are morally and spiritually strong and very self-aware occasionally overstep the mark. And sometimes it is not clear where exactly the boundary is. It's kind of grey as to "where this ends and that begins", sort of a no-man's land that requires individual discernment as to where to draw the line. At other times the boundary can be blindingly obvious, and yet still so easy to cross. Take, for instance, Spiderman:
The picture is very blurry, but it shows Spiderman surrounding by his sleeping children and, unfortunately, his wife/mother. He crossed a big boundary that even nature detests. But let's not go there. Maybe Spiderman isn't the best example. Something very beautiful came of him doing something very bad. Well, God is gracious.
Moving on. How can we avoid crossing boundaries? This is where fences come in. Fences are important. Fences mark the boundary. It's hard to cross boundaries if you walk into the fence. In your situation, if there are certain boundaries you should not cross, then put up warning signs and fences! Set yourself some very clear limits as to what is and what is not acceptable. If you are highly likely to cross the boundary, go and set up fences that are not so easy to get over! Get other people to help you define the boundary (though be warned that their fences might not quite work for you). More importantly, sit down and figure it out with God. He knows better than anyone else what you can and cannot deal with. He knows exactly how far you can go before you have gone too far.
So why have I wasted the last half hour writing about fences and boundaries? I guess I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and the almost-accident made me start thinking about it more from God's perspective. I want to share this, partially so you can learn from it, but mostly because I need to clarify this in my mind.
So to answer the question: God likes fences because they prevent us from crossing boundaries. (Of course, this is context sensitive. I'm sure God doesn't really like you putting up fences in your heart that prevent you from getting close to Him.)
I ate too many carrot sticks. I now feel sick.
Seriously, there was more praising God for the fact we didn't hit a fence than for the fact that we were alive. And it wasn't so much "phew, we didn't hit the fence and wreck the car" but more "phew, we didn't hit the fence and wreck the fence. Praise God!"
After I got over the humour of nearly being in an accident, I started wondering why we all thought it was important that we didn't hit the fence. Why did God care enough about the fence that we shouldn't hit it? Does God care about fences? Yes, yes He does!
Okay, so the focus of this photo is the powerline, not the fence. That's okay. I like black and white photos =)
So why does God care about fences? Fences are used to prevent or restrict movement across a boundary, and provide a visible mark as to where that boundary is. God protects fences to protect boundaries.
So why does God care about boundaries?
Boundaries mark the end of one thing and the start of another. Boundaries are the lines that define the limit of something. When you cross a boundary, you have left one state for another. Often there are boundaries in our lives, self-imposed or decided upon by others, that we should not cross because they separate what is "right or acceptable" from "wrong and potentially dangerous". Even God has set very important boundaries for us that we should adhere to.
It's very easy and often tempting to cross boundaries, to exceed the personal limits we set. It's easy to get caught up in the moment and temporarily forget that "I should not go there". Even people who are morally and spiritually strong and very self-aware occasionally overstep the mark. And sometimes it is not clear where exactly the boundary is. It's kind of grey as to "where this ends and that begins", sort of a no-man's land that requires individual discernment as to where to draw the line. At other times the boundary can be blindingly obvious, and yet still so easy to cross. Take, for instance, Spiderman:
The picture is very blurry, but it shows Spiderman surrounding by his sleeping children and, unfortunately, his wife/mother. He crossed a big boundary that even nature detests. But let's not go there. Maybe Spiderman isn't the best example. Something very beautiful came of him doing something very bad. Well, God is gracious.
Moving on. How can we avoid crossing boundaries? This is where fences come in. Fences are important. Fences mark the boundary. It's hard to cross boundaries if you walk into the fence. In your situation, if there are certain boundaries you should not cross, then put up warning signs and fences! Set yourself some very clear limits as to what is and what is not acceptable. If you are highly likely to cross the boundary, go and set up fences that are not so easy to get over! Get other people to help you define the boundary (though be warned that their fences might not quite work for you). More importantly, sit down and figure it out with God. He knows better than anyone else what you can and cannot deal with. He knows exactly how far you can go before you have gone too far.
So why have I wasted the last half hour writing about fences and boundaries? I guess I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and the almost-accident made me start thinking about it more from God's perspective. I want to share this, partially so you can learn from it, but mostly because I need to clarify this in my mind.
So to answer the question: God likes fences because they prevent us from crossing boundaries. (Of course, this is context sensitive. I'm sure God doesn't really like you putting up fences in your heart that prevent you from getting close to Him.)
I ate too many carrot sticks. I now feel sick.
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