Traditions around mourning and loss

Mourning the loss of someone you love is difficult and painful. Various cultures and religions have developed traditions designed to help people through the process. I'd never want to change a person's perspective on their loss (or death, afterlife, etc.) if it's helping them grieve, cope, and move on. But sometimes we hear a sentiment that was helpful to one person, and we repeat it like it's a universal truth, and it ends up hurting others. Sometimes it hurts them by adding to their emotional burden, and sometimes it goes beyond that and causes people to feel like they need to make major sacrifices of time or other opportunities. When that happens, I think it's important to back up and focus on the most fundamental truths, and set the additional traditions aside.

I say that with the understanding that what I consider truth will be considered just another tradition to many. That is fine - the same principle applies. The main idea is to avoid holding on to sentiments or expectations that increase the burden on grieving people, in the name of helping them or the people they have lost.

I'll get to what I think are the essential principles, but first, here are some examples of the problem:

• Sometimes someone will die doing some kind of recreational activity, and people will say something like "He died doing what he loved." If that makes their family feel better, great. But what happens to the family of someone who died of a slow disease, having experienced pretty much no happiness at all for a long time before they died? If it's good when someone dies quickly after enjoying something, then is it bad when that doesn't happen?

• Sometimes someone will ask, "What if the last thing you said to that person is the last thing you ever say?" If your last words to someone were trivial, or worse, regrettable, is that going to be a source of ongoing pain for them?

• The same thing applies to all of our funeral traditions, really. Funeral homes sell coffins that are nice looking and padded on the inside, so that they would be comfortable to lie in. Cemeteries sell plots of land with nice views. People decorate memorial services with flowers. All of these things are fine if they help the grieving people. Physical objects can give people something to focus their faith on, or even to distract them from some of the realities of what they are experiencing. But what happens when someone dies far from home? What happens when the family could provide those luxuries, but at a cost that would create a heavy financial burden?

• One more: Say someone is suffering from a terminal disease. Mentally, they are not themselves, and they might not even be fully aware of what is happening. There's no cure, but death might be months away, or years. Just how much of a sacrifice should their family and friends make to be with that person? How important is it that they have someone with them when they die?

Here are the basic principles as I see them:

• In this life, a person's happiness can be affected by a lot of things beyond their control. Other people's choices and random chance can make bad things happen to good people. But once we leave this world, that isn't true anymore. As soon as someone leaves mortality, their level of happiness is gated only on their relationship with the source of happiness, God. (Of course they can still be disappointed by the choices their family makes, if it leads them to unhappiness. But empathy isn't the same as direct personal suffering.)
• If we accept that, then nothing a living person does can take happiness away from someone who has died. Nothing that is done to the body can limit the happiness of the deceased - not even a little bit. Of course, that implies that it can't help them either, and that, I think, is why we have all of these traditions in the first place. We want to feel like we can help. But really, all of the traditions we have are for us, not them. They serve to help the living grieve. And if a tradition does not meet that goal, it should be discarded. Because the person who has died doesn't need it. They are doing just fine.

• We talk about a person having a soul or a spirit, but that's not really right. A person is a soul. They have a body, during mortality and after resurrection. In-between, they do not have a body. The body left behind is not part of the person; it's part of the earth. The number of people buried in any cemetery is zero.
• The way my son talks about this is to refer to our bodies as mech suits that we pilot. If you saw a place with a bunch of empty mech suits, you wouldn't say "wow, that's a lot of dead people".
• This does not mean that deceased people have no connection to this world. I don't pretend to know the details about that. But I am confident that to whatever extent your loved ones are connected to this world, they are connected to you, wherever you are, and not to a location that happens to have several atoms that used to be part of their body.

• We humans put a lot of emphasis on firsts and lasts. We remember beginnings and endings more than the stuff in the middle. This is true of stories, and material we've studied, and memories of our own lives. And so we naturally get hung up on the end of a person's life - their final moments, or days, or even years. If someone dies in a horrible and unexpected way, we might fear that the person is sort of stuck in that moment, since we can't see them recover. But of course, that's not true at all. The purpose of life is about who we become. It's about the choices we make. And since people aren't usually making a lot of choices at the end of their lives (unless they are sacrificing themselves for someone else), the final day of a person's life might actually be the least important day. You can bet that the person isn't dwelling on the suffering and loss they felt on that day. They have moved on.

If we can let go of the need to feel useful to the person who has died, and of the fear that they might still be suffering the way they were when they were last here, I think that opens up a lot of doors. It won't make the pain of losing someone go away, but it will avoid adding to that pain with unnecessary rhetoric.

It also makes the answers to the questions above a lot clearer.

• It doesn't matter if someone didn't die doing something they loved.
• It doesn't matter if your last words to them weren't special, or even if they were something you regret saying. They will remember the whole relationship, not a single moment.
• For funeral and burial services, you should do exactly what will help you and those most affected by the loss, and not a bit more. No sacrifice should be made for the comfort of the deceased. They're better off than any of us.
• If you didn't make it to their bedside before they died, you haven't committed some eternal sin. The relationship is just paused, and the gap won't even seem that big a hundred years from now.
• You should visit gravesites when and only when it will be helpful to you, and never out of a sense of duty.
• When someone is dying, of course it's good to see to their comfort, but the living shouldn't be making unreasonable sacrifices to optimize for a person's final days. I know this one is controversial, because the person is still alive, so you actually can affect their happiness to some extent. But if you help out the dying person for a couple of days in a way that traumatizes you for years, or that incurs an expense that you'll spend years paying back, then that's not a very good exchange. They are going to recover for free; we need to keep living with the mortal consequences. So we should take those consequences into account.

Some of that might sound jaded and insensitive, and I admit that in the moment I'm writing this, I haven't suffered a major loss like the ones I'm talking about. But I have been around enough to be aware of damage to people still around that came as a result of rhetoric and decision around the loss of someone close to them. And maybe the times when we're not in the middle of it are the best times to reflect on the principles involved, so we can avoid having to carry that extra cultural burden when the loss does happen. Hopefully the principles here are helpful to someone. And if they're not helpful to you, you should disregard them, just like any tradition.

Defining Oldness

Every once in a while people argue about what it means to be "old". Some of my kids think that 50 is the cutoff. The term is relative and subjective, but it could be useful to think about it in more absolute terms.

Sometimes a teenager will look at a 35-year-old and say "ew, you're old". But what they really mean is "you're in a place in your life that I can't relate to." It says more about the younger person than the older one. So that's not a good place to look for a definition.

There are a few conditions I've observed that I think lend themselves to defining "oldness" in a few different ways.

The first sense is "physically old". We could define that as the point at which you can't physically do the stuff you used to, because your body's capabilities are shutting down. In that sense, most 35-year-olds aren't old, and neither are most 50-year-olds.

A similar standard can apply to "mentally old". That should mean that your brain doesn't work as well, to the point that your memory or cognitive abilities are an order of magnitude lower than they used to be.

Here's a more interesting one: I've observed that some people get to a point in their lives where they've made mistakes, and they continue that pattern of behavior even when it's clear that they'd be better off changing - but they can't let themselves change, because doing so would be to admit that all of the damage that has already been done was preventable. So they refuse to change, as a coping mechanism against the pain of admitting past mistakes. (This is different from simply refusing to admit you're wrong, which of course is present in everybody from time to time, regardless of age.) In my view, when you reach a point where your past mistakes add up to regret that you can't face, you're emotionally old.

There's another kind of oldness that I don't have a good name for. It's when there is no one in your life that you'd take advice from. It's not that you can't face your mistakes, it's just that you don't see anyone as an authority figure, or as having wisdom that you don't already have. I kind of think of this as being "spiritually old", since essentially spirituality is all about being willing to make changes even when you'd rather not.

You could also label the above state as being "intellectually old", although I think that might be better applied to another very common situation: feeling like you already know enough. That's closely connected to not seeing authority, but even someone who won't take advice can be interested in learning. And someone who always takes advice from someone might use that as an excuse from having to learn on their own. I'm not 100% sure that "oldness" is the right way to describe this state, since many people never really value learning, but everyone has phases of their lives where they have to learn something, even if it's just how to do a job. Once they stop feeling that need, I think they've lost something that's essentially youthful - the ability to look at the world as something you can explore.

I guess the point of all of this is that, while everybody will outlive their physical health, most of the other aspects can be avoided. (The mental thing is on the fence since it has a physiological causes, but some of that can be prevented too.) In theory, if you stay humble enough to learn and change, you never have to really feel old. 

Not that I'd know - I'm still young.

The definition of "black"

Sometimes people get so technical in creating definitions that they end up defining or categorizing things in a way that flatly contradicts the colloquial definitions of those things. I think that's lame.

One example is the question of whether black is a color. Some people say that it's not because it's the "absence of color", or it's a "shade", which can be used to modify a "color". 

But, come on. "Color" is a way to describe what frequencies of light come from an object to our eyes, and which of the light receptors in our retinas react to those frequencies. We experience colors as contrasts to other colors - just try and describe how a color looks in any other way. In that sense, black is definitely a color. It's one of the ways our eyes perceive light bouncing off of things. If someone is wearing a black shirt, and you ask them what color it is, they don't go "Oh my gosh there IS no color!" They also don't try to figure out which primary or secondary color is being reflected the most and then say something like "I think it's a profoundly dark green." They say it's black. And even you developed some ultra-Vantablack shirt and there were no light coming off of it at all, zero is a valid value that something can have. But then again, there's never really zero light.

And that brings me to another point. Some people say that nothing is really black, because black means no light and everything reflects a little light (except a black hole I guess). But dude, that is NOT the definition of black. If it were, it would be totally useless. That's like saying nothing is cold because nothing has a temperature of absolute zero. There are plenty of things that we all look at and say are black. That's the definition of black. It's all relative. All colors are relative. There's no use defining a common word in such a way that it can't actually be applied to anything.

Edit: The same principle applies to magenta. If you think the definitionn of "color" is "light frequency", then magenta isn't a color either, because that's just how our brain interprets blue + red. And for that matter, brown isn't in the rainbow either. So either none of these things are colors, or "color" refers to how our brain processes light, and not just the frequency of light we see.

Dealing with weird stuff in church history

[I wrote this on Election Day 2020 but posted it here later. The original, formatted document is here.]

I should say at the start that I have a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that Joseph Smith is his prophet. I'm grateful for the peace and perspective the gospel has given me, and the blessings I've received as I have tried to live it. For the most part, the history of the church strengthens my testimony - there have been many miracles that show the hand of God in it, and the church has been a positive influence in the world.

It's also fair to say that some parts of church history aren't great. Some people react to this by just rejecting everything about the church. Others make excuses and may even perpetuate some of the unfortunate cultural issues from the past. I have been thinking lately about how to address the negative aspects of the history, so I figured I'd better write it down. Fair warning - this post is long.

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The church has never claimed its leaders were infallible. It's actually very important to be able to see a prophet's role as distinct from their identity as a person, because prophets make mistakes. Sometimes really big ones. We need to be able to see and acknowledge this without it shaking our faith in God, or in the core doctrines of the gospel.

When I was young, I imagined the prophets and apostles as being in direct personal contact with Jesus Christ all the time. He told them what to do, and they just did it. I imagined something similar with local church leaders, except through the Holy Ghost instead of visions. As a missionary and in interactions with church leadership, I have since learned that most of the time God leaves decisions up to us and guides us in subtle ways, many times through other people. Most of the time he is fine with the direction we choose, and will only "warn us off" if we're headed for something immoral. We can get extra direction when we seek it (study, ponder, pray). But very seldom does God give us course-altering direction when we haven't asked for it. This is true even for prophets. God reveals truth "line upon line, here a little and there a little". (See 2 Nephi 28:30, Isaiah 28:30.)

This is important to understand with regard to church history, both ancient and modern. The clear modern example is the racial distinction on the priesthood, which was started a few decades after the church was created and wasn't lifted until 1978. I'll say more about this later, but for now I'll just point out that the church has disavowed all of the attempts at explaining the reasons for it using scripture. In other words, it was a mistake. A big, harmful one. Why didn't God correct it sooner? We don't have a direct answer, but I think a part of the answer has to be that not enough people were prepared to follow the direction to stop being racist. It was only when enough people were willing to follow that direction that the change came. (And yes, that means that racism was a huge problem in the development of the church.) Some might hear this and think "How could Brigham Young have been a prophet if he believed such racist ideas?" One answer could simply be a matter of existential priories: God needed a church with a strong community. There had to be enough members in Utah and worldwide to hold the church together. If too many people left too early, no amount of truth would have preserved the church long-term. But having a lot of people in strong communities was something God could work with, and fine-tune their moral failings bit by bit, as they were ready. In any case, I think separating Brigham Young's character as a man from his role as a prophet is actually liberating from a faith perspective. You can criticize one without throwing away the other.

Here's another example: Moses and Joshua wiped out a lot of people on their way from Egypt to the promised land. The Book of Exodus suggests that God told them to exterminate entire communities - men, women, and children. Really? Or is it possible that Moses received revelation about moving people, and commandments about how they should behave, and misinterpreted some of the "how"? I think it is. One might ask again, "Why wouldn't God stop him from committing genocide?" Well, he needed a group of people that wouldn't sink into idolatry. He needed people who would believe in him and pass on the covenant he had made. He knew he could work on the "love your neighbor" stuff later, so he gave them just enough to establish the basics. They weren't ready for any more than that. This is speculation, but it makes sense to me.

One more quick example before I get back to Brigham Young. A lot of people instrumental in forming the United States were guilty of atrocities. George Washington owned slaves. And without him, we would not have this country in the first place. He was a hypocritical white supremacist. And he did great things, for which we are indebted to him. We can believe both. Thomas Jefferson: same thing. Christopher Columbus: he did even worse things. And he was instrumental in the hands of God in forming a free country, and by extension, in the restoration of the gospel. I'm not saying I would vote for any of these men if they were running for office today, but we can acknowledge the good they did even while condemning their immoral behavior.

In a lot of ways, Brigham Young was the George Washington of the early church. God needed someone with leadership skills, and a vision of how to build a community. Brigham Young drove the creation of industry all over Utah and other places the church created settlements. He negotiated a peaceful situation with the United States and the Native American communities in the area. Without him, that church of refugees probably would not have survived its first fifty years.

He was also profoundly racist. He wasn't as bad as a lot of people in the South - he didn't advocate all of the atrocities committed against slaves. He didn't even own slaves. But he did believe in slavery. He strongly believed that black people were inherently inferior. And, while some might say that it's not fair to judge him against modern morality, his actions don't even stand up to the morality of the church at the time. The Book of Mormon condemns slavery, as does the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith wanted to abolish slavery. But Brigham Young upheld it.

And then there is polygamy. In some ways this is even weirder than the racism thing - not just because polygamy is messed up, but because the early church had a much easier time backing up the doctrine of polygamy with scripture. But women suffered a lot under the practice. And I'm not going from rumors or anything here - most of what I know about the subject comes from the Church's own publications. It was pretty bad. Did God set it up? Well maybe - the whole thing was wrapped in secrecy at the start, so it's not super clear what Joseph Smith said, or which parts of it were direct revelation from God, versus something that another imperfect man might have misinterpreted. (The section in D&C that mentions it didn't come out until a long time after Joseph Smith was murdered.) But even if we accept the institution as created by revelation, the implementation was not great. Women's rights and wellbeing were not respected as much as they should have been. Again, there were a lot of mortal people running this thing, and we shouldn't be surprised when we learn that they messed it up.

So how should we react? I think there are three important things.

First, I think it's very appropriate to be offended. I am offended. Racism is awful. Slavery is a betrayal of the gospel of Jesus Christ on every level. And hypocrisy makes bad things even worse, maybe because it is so effective at convincing people that they are good. We don't need to make excuses for others' wrong choices. It's okay to be outraged.

Second, we need to have a clear idea of core doctrine versus what I'm going to call "interpreted doctrine", versus practices and policies. (See this talk from General Conference, and this one.) There's a broad spectrum of how directly-from-God the things we believe and do fall into. That's just the nature of living in a mortal world. If we're clear on which things came directly from God, we can hold onto those things without getting thrown off when we realize that a human leader has made a mistake. Or even an atrocity.

And third, once we have that clear distinction about church history, we need to apply it to ourselves. We need to ask ourselves, "What part of my beliefs and practices are susceptible to human weakness? Are there perspectives I have that God would like me to change, if only I'd open myself up to changing?" (See Matthew 19:20)

Sometimes it will be policies that will change. But sometimes the doctrine of the church will be added to or clarified in a way that contradicts what members of the church had come to believe. When black people received the priesthood, a lot of members rejoiced - not just for the blessings of their black brothers and sisters, but because they no longer had to make excuses for a racist policy. They were beyond ready. But other members of the church had a hard time with this. They had been immersed in all of the theological rationalization for the policy. The idea of having a black bishop went against their religious beliefs. Of course, this means these people were racist. But the point is that they sincerely believed that God wanted them to be. At least up until that day. After that day, those who had embraced the racism of the time had a choice to make. Some left the church, or stayed but harbored racism. And others opened their minds and hearts and received a witness from God that white people aren't actually superior. Those people changed, and they're better people now.

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I want to point out one more concept that I think is in flux in the church today - in culture, if not in doctrine. This bit will involve a lot of speculation - this comes from me, not the church, and I could be wrong in either direction. But it's something that I think about.

It has to do with how we approach homosexuality. Now, the church is pretty clear on the law of chastity - no sexual intimacy except between married people, and marriage is between a man and a woman (because the essence of marriage is creating an eternal family). Most people and cultures in the world today don't believe in or support that standard. We can live with that. We don't walk around glaring at our heterosexual neighbors and thinking of them as unclean. And we should not do that with homosexual people either. The church certainly does not advocate looking down on other people based on who they're attracted to. But in the culture among church members, there is a stigma attached to being gay.

Growing up, I feel like I was raised with a relatively open-minded view of people. Racism always seemed and felt evil. But gay people? I have to admit that I felt an "ick" factor attached to that idea. Like, the idea of two dudes kissing still feels wrong to me - although I think this has more to do with bias than it does with morality. Not all of this bias comes from church - this is in the whole world. But let's examine the church bit.

Let's say you have two teenagers, a boy and a girl. The boy asks the girl on a date. They see a movie and eat food, and the boy pays. They hold hands. At the end of the night he kisses her on the cheek, and then they part ways. Nobody would call that a violation of chastity. Why? Because it's not sexual. It's just feelings, and social interaction. But if you change that story and replace the girl with a boy, all of a sudden you've got a problem. If these are BYU students instead of teenagers, you have an Honor Code violation. Why? If the law of chastity is about sexuality, and sexuality is only okay between a married couple, and romantic behavior is okay outside of marriage, then why are we concerned with non-sexual behavior between two men or two women? Why do we even care?

Of course, the perceived problem is that romantic behavior between people of the same gender "gives expression" to feelings that could lead people to break the law of chastity or to make other decisions that will stop eternal progression. That feels super weak to me. For one thing, two dudes on a date are no more likely to break the law of chastity than a heterosexual couple. The hormones are the same; it's just who they're targeting that's different. And if you're not attracted to the opposite gender, then you're not going to get married to them, so a same-gender relationship isn't competing with a potential opposite-gender one. (I mean if you're bisexual, then maybe it is, but that feels like a technicality that doesn't really sway the argument here.)

So the conclusion that I draw is that we should chill out and get off the backs of gay people. We should try really hard to stop feeling that "ick" factor, and acknowledge that it comes from the societal messaging we were raised with, not from God.

"But, But…" that biased voice in my head says, "how does being gay fit into the Plan of Salvation? What happens in the Celestial Kingdom?" To be honest, I do not know the answer to this. Growing up, my impression was that being gay was a birth defect, so it would be "cured" in the resurrection. That is an awfully insulting position to take. That doesn’t make it untrue, but then there isn't any scriptural evidence to back it up, either. Perhaps Brigham Young might have said that gay people are the way they are because of some spiritual deficiency, like he felt about black people. Of course that is even more insulting, and it feels deeply wrong on a spiritual level. I'd have a hard time even respecting someone who claimed that. The only other answer I can think of is that there's a celestial path for gay people, but it hasn't been revealed yet. Why not? Well maybe it's because the church isn't ready for that revelation. Because we have too much bigotry in the membership. Again. Still.

And if that's the case, then we are just like the members back in 1978 before President Kimball removed the restriction on the priesthood. We have a choice. We can hold onto the traditions of the past and be total jerks to our neighbors, damaging the image of the church and causing our descendants to be ashamed of us. Or we can be ready. We can move past the biases we've been fed and do a better job of thinking of everybody as equals. Neighbors. You know, the way Jesus Christ commands us to treat everybody.

Wishes

I've said before that time travel is always a bad plot point. Writers can use it for suspense, but as soon as you step back and analyze the logic of a story that uses time travel, you end up seeing major problems, all boiling down to the question of "Why didn't they use it to solve that?" And that's to say nothing about causality loops.

Well I've decided that using wishes are just as bad, if not worse. (And by "wish", I mean that a character gets to specify some nearly-unlimited action as a reward for something they did.) Wishes pretty much guarantee that the viewer/reader/player will come up with a better, obvious wish that the character could have used. And then it's just annoying. I recently finished a game that ended with a wish that made most things better, but had one very obvious and terrible side effect. Why didn't the character just say "except for this thing" at the end? And then there's Aladdin - I'm sure we can all think of more effective ways that Aladdin could have used his wishes. And why didn't Jasmine take a few wishes before Aladdin made his third? Wind Waker is another game that completely botches it.

To be fair, there might be a few exceptions. Wishes might be okay if they have very strict limits, or guaranteed side effects (like a malicious wish-giver who will look for loopholes). And I'm okay with a wish as a plot ender if the wish is just "fix everything", and everything does get fixed, like in A Link to the Past. (In general, I feel like there are some implied restrictions on Triforce wishes.)

 

That said…

 

The idea of wishes does raise an interesting question: if you were given the chance, what would you wish for?

 

Again, there have to be limits. If there aren't, your wish would have to be "maximize overall happiness for me and as many other good people as possible, for the greatest amount of time possible". Of course, if you're looking at the eternal perspective, God will make that happen anyway, so that would sort of be a wasted wish, but you could iterate on the exact wording. But to be interesting, the scenario has to have things scoped down. No asking for multiple wishes of course.

 

I think you'd want to disallow general commands, like "whatever will make me happy" - it has to be specified. Also it should have to be something that can take effect in an instant, and then be over. That would make the wisher think about long-term effects.

 

You'd probably also want to disallow the word "and", and maybe limit the number of words. Someone told me about a character in Dungeons and Dragons who was granted a wish. He presented a list of very specific things. The dungeon master (acting as the wish giver) didn't even read it, they just said "yep". Very effective in that context, but not a very good story element, so if you're designing the question, you'd want to disallow that.

 

One more limitation would be useful, I think: you might want to limit the scope of its effects. See, if you can create world peace, then morally you must do it, right? Like if you're Superman, then you'd feel guilty doing anything other than rushing around saving people. So if you want a character to make a more relatable decision, you sort of need to force them to have a certain amount of self-interest in the request. "No affecting the lives of others in ways that don't directly involve a benefit to you", or something like that.

 

So what would I wish for, given all of those limitations? My gut reaction would be to make me a Plasma Master. (That does have the risk of approaching the Superman problem, but I could set limitations that would reduce the scope of power.) If I had to scope it down even more, I might go for some localized mutant power, like not needing to sleep, or perfect health until the instant I would have died of old age. (But that would have the side effect of making you outlive your kids, which would be lame.) Flight is always a good option. Of course a billion dollars in an unhackable, untaxable bank account would be pretty life changing too, but that's boring. (Plus a well thought-out superpower could make you money - teleportation, for example.) You'd have to use a wish on something that no one could acquire in any other way.

 

But dude, whatever you wish for, don't make it stupid. Don't be like the time travelers.

Blaming the victim vs. protection

I recently wrote about those rhetorically dangerous situations where you have two relevant facts, and people focus on the wrong one for the current context. One of those has come up recently with respect to that "me too" thing on Facebook. It deals with an even heavier example than the one I gave in the original post.

On one hand, it is very important to avoid blaming the victim of abuse. It always floors me that anyone would suggest that someone who has been abused is somehow guilty or unclean, yet that's exactly the message that ends up getting sent sometimes. Sometimes it's framed as "you should have prevented it," but in any form, that message is wrong. It's deeply immoral. It's tantamount to colluding with the abuser, since it increases the damage done to an innocent person.

Another true principle is that it is good to avoid dangerous situations. If you don't avoid it, you're not guilty, but still, it's important to teach people to avoid bad situations if they can. If you get mugged in a dark alley while alone at night you're not guilty, but it's still a good idea not to walk down a dark alley alone at night. You don't leave your house unlocked just because it's not your moral responsibility to keep others out of your home.

The problem (well, a problem) is that people who call out that second thing frequently get accused of denying the first thing. That argument about not blaming the victim gets turned into a straw-man argument and thrown at yet another innocent person (ironically), as if any talk about prevention constitutes blame of the victim. That's very unfair, and very untrue. Both principles are important and need to be addressed. And taking an ally and making them look like the enemy so you can have someone to lash out at is counterproductive (and potentially immoral in itself).

So we shouldn't blame the victims. But teaching people to avoid danger is important too. And in doing both, we should be careful not to create enemies out of allies. There are enough bad guys out there as it is.

And one more thing

Speaking of blame: Apparently there are a lot of guys who feel threatened by that whole movement. They hear women saying they don't trust men, and they throw out that "not all men" hashtag and complain, as if they (the men) were somehow wronged by being grouped in with the abusers.

Here's the thing. While it is true that not all men are evil scum, that's not really a super relevant point to the discussion. It's certainly not helpful to a woman who has been the victim of abusive behavior, especially by many men. Women don't owe us their trust. We haven't been wronged if a woman doesn't trust us, even if we really are good people. And even if we are somehow damaged by that lack of trust, that damage is insignificant compared to the level of damage the woman in question has suffered. So if you're feeling threatened by a woman's distrust about men, or even overly-broad accusations against them, then help fix the problem instead of just trying to distance yourself from it.

How can we fix it? Well the obvious way is with your fist or another weapon if you witness an act of abuse. If it's verbal, you can speak up and hold the abuser accountable. At the very least, don't be a part of the problem. Which takes us back to my first point: Don't blame the victim. Stop complaining.

Coincidences

Every once in a while you'll hear someone tell a story that some would explain as a coincidence and then conclude saying "I don't believe in coincidences" or "There are no such things as coincidences." This could be regarding a conspiracy theory or a miraculous blessing. And don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that everything is a coincidence, or that there are no conspiracies, or that God doesn't intervene in people's lives. Of course there are, and of course He does. But denying the existence of coincidences is ridiculous.

The most obvious reason it's ridiculous is that it's so easy to refute. If I flip a coin three times, it might come up "tails" each time. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT! If you don't think that's a coincidence, then you must believe that someone rigged the penny, or there is some sort of divine symbolism in the event. Please, please tell me that no one would interpret that event in that way. It could just as likely have been heads-tails-heads or tails-tails-heads. The result was a coincidence.

On a deeper level, I think the real claim that people are trying to make is that important things happen for important reasons. It's easier to believe that, I guess, and maybe it's comforting to believe that there's a specific purpose ]behind a significant event. And again, to be clear, sometimes there is a reason. But sometimes, ya know, there just isn't. The conspiracy side of things isn't as interesting to me, so let's look at the religious side.

Speculation alert: Please remember that I'm not trying to represent my church or anything here. This is how I view things, but I have occasionally been wrong.

Okay. So apparently Einstein had this quote saying that he didn't think that God plays dice with the universe. And Hawking has one saying that he does, and that he throws the dice where nobody can see how they landed. I happen to think that there's some truth in both points of view. Certainly God doesn't leave the success of his plan to chance. But I think he also designed the universe to happen with a certain random element - hence the need for the Fall of Adam and Eve. God wasn't going to create evil and disaster in the world, but he did provide a way for those things to exist so we can experience opposition and grow. This doesn't mess with the plan because God can take a bad situation and bring a good thing out of it. And of course he also provided a way for the results of all that bad stuff to be taken away after this life, through the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ. As in, nothing bad that happens here is permanent; after the resurrection, our happiness will only depend on who we are, not anything that happened to us.

The real question people have on this subject, though, is "Why did <this bad thing> happen to me?" The answer to that is rarely forthcoming. People try to answer it by saying "God wanted you to learn <this important lesson>" or "God wanted you to have the chance to demonstrate/develop <this virtue>". And maybe he did. But does that mean that he causes natural disasters and leads people into situations where they will become victims of abuse? I don't think so. I really don't. Rather, I happen to think that he allows things to happen naturally most of the time, and when bad things do happen, he steps in and makes something good come out of it, in the long run at least. (Or at least he will if we allow him to.)

I think that's an important distinction, because if you look at the bad things that happen in the world and believe that God did them, or even planned them, then you're going to lose faith in him pretty fast. And I don't mean not believing that he exists; I mean losing confidence that he really is the source of happiness and a moral compass. I've known a lot more people who are mad at God than don't believe in him. And I think that has to do with a misunderstanding of who he is and the role he plays in their life. (And as for why God allows bad things to happen instead of actively preventing them, I think it's important to know that we understood before coming to this life that bad things would happen, but that their effects would be limited to the century or so that we are here. We saw that as a good deal, or we wouldn't have agreed to come. Knowing that doesn't make bad situations less painful, but it does lend a bit of perspective and hope for the future, at least for me.)

Okay, I could go on and on, but this is probably out of context without more of the actual doctrine, which can be better found in other places (like here, for instance). My point, though, is that assuming specific intent behind everything that looks like a coincidence might actually lead you push away people (including God) who are actually on your side.

There are such things as coincidences.

The "split-message dichotomy"

There's this idea I've thought about from time to time that I wish there were a word for so that I could talk about it more concisely. For lack of a better term, I call it a "split-message dichotomy." The general idea is this: Sometimes there are two principles that are both true and relevant, and two audiences that need to understand them. But one principle is more useful to emphasize for one audience, and the other for the other audience. Emphasizing a principle for the opposite audience can cause them to overlook an important part of the truth and end up making bad decisions. You don't always have the luxury of tailoring your message to just the target group, which makes crafting your message tricky.

One example of this comes up a lot in church, when you're talking about a specific commandment, although you could easily broaden it to any piece of good advice if you want. To be very specific, let's use the commandment to stay away from recreational drugs. There are two important messages here:

• Using drugs is very destructive. Don't do it. The consequences can hurt both you and others, and they may be permanent.
• If you're already addicted, healing and repentance are possible. Don't give up.

And of course the two relevant groups are these:

• People who haven't used drugs, but might be tempted to do so
• People who already have

To someone who hasn't started using drugs, you want to emphasize strongly just how bad the effects of them are, and how some of those consequences may be permanent. If you dwell too much on the availability of help and repentance, you might unintentionally convey the message that people can just try stuff out now and fix whatever problems arise later.

On the other hand, if someone in the room is already addicted, focusing on how bad and irreversible the consequences are might just convince them to give up trying to change. For that person, the message of repentance and the availability of help is exactly what they need to hear.

So you can see the problem. I guess the only real solution is to make sure that you cover both aspects of the issue, and do your best to be aware of the specific needs of the people you're talking to so you can tailor the message as much as possible.

It's pretty common though. I guess it applies to any choice that people make with major consequences. All the chastity stuff comes to mind. But the situation can also come up when one of the audience groups isn't really facing a decision. To use a super heavy example, imagine that you're talking to a person who has lost someone to suicide. They might worry about the soul of that person, since taking an innocent life is a sin. You'd be inclined to explain to them that the person clearly had a heavy burden of depression and probably wasn't seeing things clearly, and that God will take that into account - in other words, the person's moral accountability was probably low. But you would never want to send that message to someone suffering from depression or thoughts of self-harm, because "you can't control what happens" could encourage them to act on those thoughts. (I guess you'd focus on showing empathy and getting them professional help instead.)

Anyway, back to the start - I wish there were a word to describe this situation. Because it comes up a lot, and I don't think that most people think about it. We tend to focus on only one of the two groups, and that can be really dangerous for the group we're not thinking about. It's very important to give proper attention to all sides of the truth so that a little fragment of that truth doesn't blind people to the rest of it.

The authority void

People are good at looking at other people and figuring out (right or wrong) what those people should do to fix their problems, or overcome their weaknesses, or just generally become better. We're not always that good at analyzing ourselves. That's not the end of the world, though, because we have other people around us whose opinions we trust, and who can give us that outside perspective.

Usually.

When we're little, we have various adults who we view as authorities on various topics. As we grow up, we might change whose opinions we think are the most reliable. These people could be parents, teachers, religious leaders, or friends. But I think that a lot of adults reach a point where they don't have anyone left who they would listen to if they suggested a change. This might happen because you feel so successful that you don't need anything, or because you've thought your life through so thoroughly that you can't imagine anyone else adding anything to it. Or maybe you just don't respect anyone enough - or trust anyone enough - to believe that their input could benefit you.

In any case, I think that this situation - where there's no one in your life who could convince you to change course. If you're in that position, and if (by some crazy chance) there's some decision you're making or habit you have that is preventing you from getting where you want (or need) to go, and if you haven't already figured out the solution, there's really no way you're going to get there!

I'm speaking in general terms, but this is a situation that drives me crazy when I see it in other people. Back to my first comment, I can see someone I know and care about proverbially heading for a cliff, and it's super obvious to me what they need to change. But I don't have enough of a relationship of trust to give that input. And I can see that nobody else does either. And so disaster happens.

Of course, I'm not in this situation, I hope. For one thing, I'm married to someone very wise. (I highly recommend this.) And I'm pretty sure I'd at least consider the advise of a bishop (for instance) who counseled me to change something. And then there's extended family. So hopefully I'm not driving anyone else crazy over this particular issue.

But the point is (PSA time): If you can't think of anyone whose advice you would listen to even if it seemed wrong at first, FIND SOMEONE! Because otherwise you are betting your happiness in life on your own ability to make perfect decisions, and you're gonna lose. And that's going to drive me crazy.

Thank you.

Non-stupid dragon rider travel algorithm

I'm not a fan of Eragon - see the Books page for details. One (not the largest) of my complaints involves a moment where a couple of people (or maybe three) have a horse to carry their baggage, and of course they're traveling with a dragon. Since the dragon can't carry everyone, they decide to walk from one town to a distant one.

Stupid.

Of course the most straightforward thing would be for the dragon to carry one person (or however much she can carry) in one trip, then return for the next load, and so forth. Presumably a dragon could make several trips between towns in less time than it could take a person to walk. But for some reason I found myself thinking a little harder about this - specifically, how to optimize things for the shortest possible trip.

I started with a few constraints, which may or may not be valid in the book, but that's fine. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that on a given trip the dragon can carry one human, or all of the luggage, or the horse. (Granted, the horse would weigh more than two humans, so the dragon should be able to carry them both, but maybe the humans don't feel comfortable being dangled by just one set of claws or something. Or maybe the dragon can't carry the horse, but that makes this problem less interesting.) Another possible constraint is to ensure that you don't leave the luggage or the horse unattended. If it's okay to leave the luggage alone, and if there are two humans, then we have a fairly simple way of shortening the time even more:

1. The dragon carries the luggage to the end point. At the same time, one human starts off on the horse while the other starts walking.
2. When the dragon drops off the luggage, it returns to pick up the walking human. 
3. The dragon drops the human off with the luggage and returns for the horse. (By this time, the horse and remaining human have covered a lot of distance, so the dragon doesn't have nearly as far to go.)
4. The dragon drops off the horse and goes back for the final human.

We can optimize things a little further, because at step 3, the dragon doesn't have to carry the human all the way to the luggage - just close enough that the human can reach it before the final trip is over.
It might be possible to advance things even further,  if we can assume that extra trips for the dragon are offset by less time spent with a human on foot. At step 3, the dragon drops the first human off at an even farther distance from the end. Then at step 4, the dragon carries the horse from the second person to the first, then goes back for the second person. This way, more time is spent with the slowest traveler on horseback rather than walking. Like I said, this might (depending on relative speeds and distances) offset the need for some extra partial trips for the dragon.

Things get even more complex if we add the constraint that the luggage must always be in the company of a human or dragon. (Maybe there are lots of thieves around.) In this case, the luggage becomes the limiting factor. Again, assuming two humans:

1. The dragon takes human #1 far ahead, but not quite to the goal. The human starts walking. At the same time, the other human begins walking the the laden horse.
2. The dragon takes the luggage to human #1's position. That human must now stop. But human #2 can now ride the horse and move faster.
3. The dragon takes the horse to human #1, who can now move. Human #2 continues on foot.
4. The dragon takes human #2 very near the end point
5. The dragon takes the luggage to the end point, arriving at the same time as human #2. Human #1 can now ride.
6. The dragon takes the horse to the end point. (Unfortunately, the horse's extra speed is now wasted.)
7. The dragon takes human #1 to the end point.

Again, we might be able to optimize this by having the drop-off point for the luggage at step 5 some distance from the end point. That way human #2 can continue with the horse and luggage while the dragon goes back for human #1. But this would also mean that the human is stationary in-between receiving the luggage and receiving the horse, which might offset this. Of course, adding a third person would really free things up and allow the horse to continue running right up until the end, similar to the first scenario. (Although of course that would also add additional trips.)

You'll notice that I've left the math out of this completely, which is why it's not possible to come up with a definitive optimal solution. I guess this would be a good interview question if math were relevant. Maybe someday I'll write a program to simulate the situation - it would be pretty cool to have little icons representing the different elements and let you tell the dragon which thing to pick up and when to drop off. In the meantime, though, please don't make stupid choices like walking somewhere you're in a hurry to get to when there's fast and free transportation available.

The Chicken or the Egg?

I would like to announce that I have solved the chicken-or-the-egg problem:

An egg is a chicken.

Think about it. A fertilized egg is a single cell with complete chicken DNA. When a chick breaks out of its egg, it’s really just shedding a layer of itself, the way scorpions molt from their old skin.

(Of course, this still begs the question of whether the first chicken appeared as an egg or an adult, or something in-between. But putting it that way is not nearly as compelling.)

Understanding People

I've heard from various sources that men can't understand women. I've always had trouble believing this. In fact, I have a hard time believing any generalization about "men are like this" or "women are like that", even though I know that there are some actual differences. The thing is, there are more differences within a given gender than there are between genders. I suspect that the source of most of the perceived barriers of understanding come from the fact that people are more likely to care about relationship issues with the person they're in love with (or attracted to), and they just assume that the issues come from a gender difference. In reality, I think these issues come simply because they're two different people with different perspectives and values.
So in other words, women aren't hard to understand. People are hard to understand. Men just don't feel the need to understand other men as well.

As an example, my wife and I were recently talking about the stereotype about men always wanting to fix things. We both decided that both men and women can be prone to that, and that it’s a natural extension of caring about someone. You hear about a problem that someone has, and you want to fix it. I think the issue here is understanding what the problem is. If someone expresses a problem that they want a solution for, they’ll generally state it as an actual problem. But if they express it in terms of what they feel about it, there’s a good chance that they’re looking for validation of that emotion. They’re unhappy, and they don’t want to be alone in facing the challenge. They might already have a solution in mind, or they might be holding back details of the situation for simplicity – details that would be essential in coming up with an actual situation. Either way, someone looking for validation isn’t going to have any use for a quick solution tossed out there, whether you’re talking about a man or a woman.

So how do you come to understand someone else? I think it comes down to two things: love and communication. If you don't like someone on some level, (and if you don't respect them at least), you won't be invested enough to see the world from their perspective. And if you don't talk about how both of you feel and why, you're not going to understand each other. We send a lot of nonverbal communication, but it's very easy to misinterpret. You have to speak to really communicate. And of course, in order for communication to work, both people have to be introspective enough to understand themselves - what their rational and emotional reasons for doing things are. This does not come naturally to everyone, but it is very important. (Incidentally, it's one of my favorite things about my wife.)

So there you have it. I heretically declare that anyone can understand anyone if they both have a good understanding of themselves, and if they’re willing to communicate openly. (Granted, that’s a lot like saying that anyone can achieve space travel as long as they have a way to warp space-time and a way to power the thing. But not exactly like that.)

The WHAT Apocalypse?!?

In the last while, the theme of “zombies” has become a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon, and it drives me crazy. It goes beyond the matter of yuckiness, too. The whole premise feels immoral for several reasons. Mind you, this is just a personal rant, and I’m not trying to pass judgment on anyone. But seriously, this stuff is messed up.

Reason #1: It’s a mockery of the human body, which is created in the image of God. When this kind of thing pops up (internet image search, movie listings, etc.) it’s immediately revolting. I can only imagine that it’s intended that way, although presumably people become desensitized to it after a while. But this kind of imagery is not just unpleasant; it’s irreverent and drives away the Holy Ghost very quickly. The image of the human face is sacred, and disfiguring it to trigger disgust is sacrilege.

Reason #2: It glorifies murder. Mind you, zombies are generally portrayed as bad guys, but people become fascinated with them, the way you’d have a favorite Mario enemy or Decepticon – the theme is meant to entertain. But murdering and mutilating people should not be an entertaining theme.

Reason #3: It glorifies a loss of agency. I’m not sure whether zombies are supposed to be evil spirits in people’s bodies or the people themselves turned evil. Either way it is a demonic concept, and the second option (which I gather is the most common) is an outright denial of the divine gift of being able to choose good and evil, and a suggestion that everyone will or could end up as a murderer no matter how they live. Could the gospel be distorted any further than that?

So there you have it. I find zombie-related fiction offensive, whether they’re attacking humanity at large or garden vegetables on your phone. Just the latest in a long list of reasons the world is going downhill, I guess.

Have a nice day! :)

Blood Donations

It was a long time before I started giving blood. I had convenience as an excuse, and of course the idea of being stabbed and feeling the life drained out of me wasn’t exactly inviting. But they have blood drives at work, so when it’s like a five minute walk and I can be done before most people even show up at work, I figured I was out of excuses. The first time, I nearly passed out when I sat up. I think it was because I hadn’t eaten recently or something, though. When I’ve had enough to eat and drink, it usually goes okay, after the initial stabbing and after I manage to distract myself from the feeling that my life is draining out of my arm. (This last time, they got the needle set up wrong, and I ended up with a nice bump which has since gone down and been replaced with a huge bruise that’s the size of my hand and has icky lines crisscrossing it, showing [I guess] where the wrinkles of my sheets are when I sleep. But I digress.)

So, the following isn’t intended as a public service announcement or a moral discourse or anything; it’s just the thought process I use to make myself go and get stabbed, etc.

There are soldiers out there, fighting to keep the country free and safe. Some of them end up being killed for it, and others are severely injured. Imagine you were given the option of taking a bullet for a soldier, with the condition that after a few hours, you will have no lasting injuries. If you refuse, the soldier will die. Would you take it? Of course you would. You’d pretty much have to, seeing that you already owe him or her your safety. The pain wouldn’t even be a consideration because you’d see it as paying a debt.

Now, repeat that question, but not with a soldier this time. Just a regular person. You’d still probably accept the offer. Maybe you don’t owe a debt, but the tradeoff is obviously a good one. (And of course, you’d want someone else to make the decision if you were the one who were at risk.)

Okay, so lest this sound preachy, I have to admit that on the before-mentioned, most recent donation attempt, while I was lying on the table with my blood leaking not into a needle but into my arm, while I could feel my pulse in my elbow and my consciousness slipping away, burning with fever and a little nauseous, the above argument lost all weight and I was having a really hard time wanting to go back to my office and set up another appointment. All of a sudden the no-consequences clause in that hypothetical agreement seemed a little shaky. But, while I still have an impressive bruise, I guess the life-draining-out experience was still just an hour or so, so I guess I’d better go set up that appointment. Sigh.

Initiative

The professor of my computer architecture class talked about “career-defining moments.” A career-defining moment is when someone in charge points out a need and asks you to do it without making it a requirement, and you say no. It’s not insubordination, but I think his point is that it marks you as someone who is not the go-to person for that thing, which by extension means that when they need something else done, they won’t go to you for that either. You avoid work but also lose out on an opportunity to be seen as someone who adds value to the company. (Of course, if you decline with an explanation that you have a higher-priority thing you need to get done, that’s a different matter, because in theory you are showing that you are doing something even more valuable than what was being suggested.) Anyway, the imagery stuck with me.

A while ago I was mowing the lawn and for some reason I started thinking about the concept, and I came up with a set of categories that rank the ways people tend to approach work. In the interest of saving myself the trouble of having to re-think the matter during a future lawn mowing, I’m writing them down. Note that these apply to pretty much any organization you can think of: family life, careers, church callings, volunteer organizations, whatever.

1.       Initiative. Everyone will love you if you proactively find things that need to be done and then do the work without being asked.

2.       Volunteering. This is when someone else points out a need, and you offer to do it without having to be individually asked. This is almost as good, especially if the leader already has a clear set of goals. The other good thing about this is that if you’re in the habit of volunteering for stuff, you won’t look like a slacker if you keep quiet about an assignment you’d rather avoid : )

3.       Cheerful compliance. This is when a leader gives you a specific assignment, and you agree to do it without causing any trouble. I’m thinking here about my time in an elder’s quorum (that’s a group of men who hold the priesthood). There are lots of assignments that the quorum gets, and various programs you need to implement. You wish people would just volunteer when they were able to do something so you wouldn’t have to go inconvenience people, but that just doesn’t happen. Still, if people would just say yes when given an assignment, leaders wouldn’t really have any room to complain.

4.       Reluctant compliance. This is when you have to be guilted or incessantly reminded before you will follow through on an assignment. No one likes this.

5.       Rebellion. Of course, this is asking for trouble, assuming that the person making the assignment has valid authority in the matter.

So anyway, I have definitely found that the higher levels have more satisfying results, even though they might result in work that you wouldn’t exactly seek out. And if nothing else, I think I’ve managed to avoid any “career-defining moments.”

How Guys Really Think

There are a couple of things that I’ve wished I could explain to girls, but you can’t just walk up to someone and say them. I’ll make sure my daughters know them, but here they are for public consumption:

1. You are more attractive than you think.

There’s this common notion that guys have this internal image of a perfect figure, and that they measure girls’ attractiveness based on how closely they approximate that image. But a more accurate explanation of how guys measure attractiveness is that they have a range of ideal values in each of several categories, like hair color, height, intelligence, nose shape, etc. Each guy places a different weight on different categories, and the categories a guy cares most about will probably have the narrowest range of attractiveness. We’ll call that range the “ideal” range. There is also another range in each category, which we will call the “attractive” range. This is broader than the “ideal” range. If a girl falls inside the “attractive” range on most categories, a guy will think she’s attractive. If she falls inside the “ideal” range in a few of the categories that he values most, he’ll consider her very attractive and probably won’t even notice if she falls outside the range on a few areas. In fact, once a guy decides he likes a girl, his “attractive” and “ideal” ranges will generally realign to accommodate that girl’s actual features. She becomes his ideal without having to change a thing.

So the implication here is that girls don’t need to worry if they have a few features that they think fall outside of guys’ ideal range. Because first of all, different guys care more or less about different things. And second, any guy who notices a girl’s strengths is very likely to ignore whatever it is that girl has been worrying about – or he may even find it attractive.

There are a couple of corollaries to this principle:

1a. Guys notice you a lot more often than you think.

I’d say that for every guy who says something to you, there are ten more who noticed you in a positive way. For every guy who compliments you, there are probably a hundred more who thought the same thing but didn’t express it.

1b. Attention from weird guys probably means normal guys like you too.

I’ve known some girls who felt ignored by the guys they find attractive, but they got a lot of attention from guys that are, for whatever reason, not the type of guy the girls are looking for. Like, really awkward flirting. These girls wondered what was wrong with them that made the weirdos like them and the normal guys ignore them.

I maintain that if you’re getting attention from guys you consider weird, it probably means that all guys are noticing you, but the normal ones that know you are too shy to say anything about it. Of course, knowing this is not necessarily useful, since you still aren’t getting attention (yet). But at least you know that the problem is not with you; it’s with them.

2. What you wear sends a message, and the only way to choose the message is by choosing what you wear.

Specifically, every bit of exposed skin says one thing, very loudly: “Look at me.” That doesn’t cause a problem for your face and hands, but you might not want other areas to send that message. Too bad. If you expose it, that’s what it’s yelling. And every guy who sees you will hear it: chaste or not, available or not.

Of course, guys can decide what to do about the message. In the case of face, arms, etc, it’s not really a big deal, because there’s no threat of hormonal impropriety. But if you wear immodest clothing, a guy’s options are actually pretty limited. Let’s consider them in turn.

First of all, a guy can choose to foster inappropriate thoughts. Such guys will be attracted to girls who dress immodestly, but they won’t respect them. And it’s no wonder, since the girls in question are offering something that’s supposed to be sacred in a very cheap way. They might not mean to do that, but like I said, girls don’t get to choose what message they send to guys; the only get to choose what to wear. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s ignore this type of guy on the assumption that girls don’t want attention from them.

A guy who cares about having clean thoughts is going to have two options when he sees a girl who is showing more skin than she should:

1. He can avoid looking. This is no problem if he’s just passing a girl on the street or seeing someone in a TV ad. It’s a little more problematic if it’s someone he’s talking to socially. It’s a big problem if he’s on a date. Presumably, girls don’t want to make their dates look away from them for the whole evening.

2. He can lower his standard to accept what she’s wearing. Wait, what? No self-respecting guy would do that, would they? Well imagine that guy A is friends with girl B, and she clearly cares about morality and integrity and all that good stuff. So A asks her out, and she opens the door and her shirt’s a little low in front. What is he going to do? Tell her she’s unclean and run away? Probably not. He could ask her to change, but then she’d feel awful and that might just destroy the date. He’d probably just go with it. And then does he really want to avert his eyes the whole time? And is he going to avoid asking her out again?

That’s a lot of rhetorical questioning, but the point is that you don’t really want to put a guy in that situation to begin with. Because again, the kind of guy you want to find isn’t going to lower his standards.

Now, I realize that it’s hard to find modest clothing these days. But if it’s something you care about, there are a few things that guys everywhere would like you to do:

1. Don’t just stand still and look in the mirror when you evaluate a clothing choice. Bend over. Sit down. Fix your hair. If clothing only covers you when you’re standing still, and you plan to do something else in it besides stand still, then the clothing isn’t modest. And guys will most definitely notice what your clothing is doing even when you are not standing still.

2. If you feel like you have to adjust things constantly, just pick something else. I remember this one time where a girl in church was pulling up on the front of her camisole every couple of minutes. Did she really think it was in place until just before she did that? She was probably modest for a couple of seconds every two minutes. And the thing is, she was obviously conscious of modesty. She just didn’t realize what message she was sending to the guys around her. And what message was that? That’s right, it was “checkmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeout…….checkmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeout…….checkmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeoutcheckmeout”. And that is just not attractive. Don’t do that to yourself. Or us. Thank you.

Nature

I’m trying to get back into keeping a journal. I was writing about the church callings I’ve had, and an excerpt about the whole Scouting thing seemed relevant here (as much as anything does):

Nature is cool. It’s beautiful. It’s relaxing. It’s fascinating and inspiring to learn about and observe. But it is also subversive. You can enjoy nature for a few hours, but before long you have to eat. You need to find restroom facilities. And eventually you need to sleep and stay warm. If you have to stay in nature as you deal with these issues, a disturbing thing happens to you: you start to become part of nature. It affects what you eat. It affects how you smell. Things like what socks you’re wearing and how long your facial hair is and what you’ve touched since you last encountered hand soap start to demand your attention. In short, you sort of start to resemble an animal. Now, maybe that’s an overstatement. Lots of people like “roughing it.” But I don’t.

Of course, that’s totally unreasonable. Most people in the world’s history have never had the luxury of running water or food options to begin with, so there’s no reason why I should feel like they’re necessities. And of course there is lots of value in Scout activities beyond just being outside. So I’m not trying to use my aversion to lack of running water to get out of or discourage campouts. I’m just saying that I don’t appreciate nature’s tendency to try to assimilate me whenever I start to get close to it. I’ll have to keep my guard up.

Types of Gifts

People give a lot of gifts this time of year, with varying motives and effects. For whatever reason I was thinking about the different kinds of gifts, especially the less noble ones. So here is a memory dump on the different types.

Charitable

A charitable gift is when you see a need or want in someone else, and your only motive in giving is to fulfill that need. Ideally this type of gift is given anonymously, so that the recipient is not burdened with the need to repay you, and so that their gratitude can only be directed toward God. (This is obviously the kind of gift mentioned in Matthew 6:2-4.)

Sentimental

It’s a slightly different story when you’re giving a gift to a friend or family member. You generally put “From: Me” on the tag so they know it’s from you. It’s not to force them into gratitude; rather, it’s because this type of gift is motivated less from fulfilling a need as from a desire to express appreciation for a relationship. If this type of gift were sent anonymously, it would actually become less meaningful, since the recipient would not know that you were thinking of him or her.

Transactional

A transactional gift is when you give something with the expectation or hope of getting something in return. An example would be an item in a gift exchange – you bring a gift, but you may feel shafted if you leave with something less cool than what you brought. Another example would be company swag (designed to boost morale and loyalty).

This type of gift has no moral value, positive or negative. It’s essentially a business investment. And that’s fine, as long as that’s what you intend it to be. The problem comes when you give a gift that’s ostensibly charitable, but really you want something in return. For instance, you give a decoration and then get mad if you don’t see it displayed. You were acting like you were giving a sentimental gift, when really you were asking for a favor. (Same story if you give a wedding gift and then get offended when they re-gift it.)

Implied Obligation

This category is more complicated and is sort of orthogonal to the others. The idea here is that you give a gift, and you expect nothing in return, but receiving the gift implies some obligation – not to the giver, but to some third party. And this is always a bad thing.

For instance, if you drop by your neighbors’ house and give them a new puppy (without any hint on their part that they would like one), you may leave feeling like you have given them something, when really you have asked them to spend money to keep the puppy healthy and to feed it every day for the rest of its life. Or else they have to go to the hassle of finding it a new home. The gift you have given is essentially of negative value.

That may seem obvious, but you do see this kind of thing in normal life. I’m trying to come up with a more common example but it escapes me at the moment. But if you catch yourself planning something like this, stop!

Defining “Mature”

People talk about media as having “mature” content. It’s kind of an odd term. I think people tend to think “Oh, I’m mature, so I can ‘handle’ that stuff.” Or even worse, they turn 18 or 21 or whatever and decide that since they’re now recognized as “mature,” they might as well go experience all the stuff that’s labeled as such. I avoid stuff with that kind of label, but as a sort of “public service” I’d like to point out what I think the intended meaning is.

It means that whatever is being restricted will have harmful consequences, and that people of a certain maturity level are responsible for deciding whether to accept them. It does not mean that people of a certain maturity level can indulge in it without consequences. That’s where I think a lot of people metaphorically shoot themselves in the proverbial foot. They don’t bother to think how a movie they watch or a game they play could possibly have a negative influence on them. They’re “mature.” They can “handle it.”

So what consequences does it have? Let’s consider smoking as an example, since that’s the least socially accepted “mature” activity I can think of and so should have the lowest chance of pulling in extraneous stereotypes. I can’t speak from experience, but I hear that the first time people imbibe carcinogenic tar into their lungs, they gag and choke. (Big surprise.) If they repeat the process enough, the reaction goes away because people become desensitized. But you’re supposed to be sensitive to that sort of thing. When you can’t feel it, it doesn’t mean you’re safe – it just means you’re likely to hurt yourself even more. You keep kids away from smoking because they might damage themselves without realizing it. You let adults do it because they’re considered to have the right to damage themselves, not because they’re safe.

The same principle applies to graphic violence, pornography, profanity, etc., although the effects are perhaps less noticeable at first. You start out sensitive to the sanctity of life, marital intimacy, enlightened thought, etc. If you choose to disregard it, you lose that sensitivity.

That’s enough on that subject, except to add that one could argue that what’s really mature is to consider the long term consequences of one’s choices and optimize for long-term benefit, even when it would be easier (or more exciting, or whatever) not to.