Today is the greatest day I've never known

As its the inspiration for today's post, I'll start with the first couple of verses of Smashing Pumpkins' Today:

"Today is the greatest day I've ever known
Can't live for tomorrow, tomorrow's much too long
I'll burn my eyes out before I get out

I wanted more than life could ever grant me
Bored by the chore of saving face

Today is the greatest day I've never known
Can't wait for tomorrow, I might not have that long
I'll tear my heart out before I get out

Pink ribbon scars that never forget
I tried so hard to cleanse these regrets
My angel wings were bruised and restrained
My belly stings"

Yesterday was a zero dollar day.  I've had quite a few of those lately and its really starting to wear on me since I had been doing really well and its totally fallen off.  I can talk all I want on here about greatness or failure and grace and whatnot, but none of it really matters if I'm not putting forth an effort.  That's what's bugged me about my actions most recently as I'm not fighting at all.  I'm not being disciplined in working out or eating correctly or anything really.  To counteract this, I make this pledge.  I vow to make the rest of the week worth $10.  Something needs to change right now and hopefully this will do it.

The rest of the summer may be a little weird since I won't be able to be a creature of routine at all.  Monday will still be softball and Tuesday and Thursday will be class, but there will just be so many weekends where I'll be gone that my focus won't be able to be on the mundane and the every day things.

But I remember you saying that yesterday

End of April resolution update:

1) Work harder - coming soon.  I should be heading up to Michigan this week so I can start working on math stuff.  I've also started P90X2, but have only done a couple of workouts so far.  There was a lot of hiking in Utah obviously, so I'll consider that a win for this month.

2) Play harder - Boom. Done. Utah was awesome, but you already heard me say that a few times.  Softball has been good too, but I'd like for the games to be a little more competitive.

3) Travel more - Yep. Still Utah.  More stuff coming up this month.  June should include travels to Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and maybe Kentucky.  You could almost argue that all of these travels mean I'm running away from Indiana.  You'd probably be right too.

4) Read more - May was better than April.  I'm still going through East of Eden and am about 60% of the way.  This means I at least went through a couple hundred pages, which I'm fine with since its not a book you read for hours on end.  Its very much a book you read 20 pages at a time and chew it over.  Its been a good read so far.

5) Drink better beer - There's currently Oberon in my fridge so that counts.  Luke and I tried a whole bunch of stuff in Utah and while most of it wasn't overly hard, it was fairly good.  Utah was some weird alcohol rules that we had to contend with, but its all good.

New news! I have a date in a little over an hour.  She's probably the girl that's the most like me that I've met in all of my online dating so far.  I'm excited, but a little apprehensive.  As much as I want to talk about it here, I actually really don't want to talk about it publicly at all yet.  If I still feel a little weird about this, I'll probably just talk to Steph about it, because she's become my love guru more willing than anyone else to call me out on any potential bullshit.

Shots fired into the sky are now returning; where .. will you hide?

Alternate title: Still can be great, part two.

As literature nerds (no, I'm not good enough to be one) know everywhere, East of Eden is a retelling of the story of Cain and Abel while the actual biblical account plays into the story quite a bit.  This has been relevant for me since there has been some discussion of greatness in the story and based on my previous posts, its something I've wrestled with lately as well.  One of the excerpts includes comparing the King James version of Genesis 4 versus the American Standard version.  The Chinese character, aptly named Lee, picks up on one main difference in verse 7, namely the wording of "Thou shalt rule over him (sin)" versus "but do thou rule over it".  This encourages him to go back and study the actual Hebrew script to see why this ambiguity and difference of meaning exists.  When he does this, the actual interpretation he finds is, instead of Thou shalt or do Thou is actually Thou mayest, leading him to say,

"Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou', and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win."

And further on,

"And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing - maybe more important than a star.  This is not theology. I have no bent towards gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul.  It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe.  It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'."

I'm not going to claim this is anything overly special as its just a posturing of free will over predestination.  However, this is something I desperately needed to read after this week, since I've been struggling through idleness.  As a man, greatness is not something you can grasp or embody.  However, greatness does come through choice.  If I want to be happy or great or whatever, I can't depend on anyone else for that.  That can only come to me through Christ in myself, but with that, there still needs to be action on my part.  Instead of lazing around the apartment in the morning and just not doing anything, I need to make the conscious decision to be disciplined and run from temptation and to make myself the person I want to be.  I've thought about this a lot recently in terms of other people and what I want to tell them, but its hit me hard recently as I wallow in my own filth (not literally).  Instead of looking at others, I need to take care of myself first and make sure things are okay with me.

There is more to this still though.  Greatness does not come easily or grant ease of life.  To quote from earlier in the book,

"“It's because I haven't courage,' said Samuel. 'I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called his name - but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.'

'I'd think there are degrees of greatness,' Adam said.

'I don't think so,' said Samuel. 'That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other - cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He's suffering over the choosing right now. It's a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn't that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be.”"

Have I made my choice?  I don't know.  In some things, such as math, I know I've chosen mediocrity as I couldn't handle the loneliness of greatness in those things.  But for life as a whole, I can't say.  Get back to me when I'm on my deathbed and I'll let you know.

The words are too feeble, they can not contain

Few words, just a couple pictures.  Stop what you're doing and go to Utah.  It will B-L-O-W your mind.

Still can be great

A few weeks ago, I was told I was a great man.  I believe there was some authenticity in the statement, but I don't believe it was full authenticity and it was partly said simply to placate me.  It did get me to thinking though about what it means to be great.  You can certainly define what it means to be great in your own way here.  I was originally going to write a post asking if you had the audacity to be great.  When I consider the things I'm actually good at (math, running, etc.), its all things in which I don't actually consider myself great.  I put in a ton of work on them on I became very good, but certainly nothing where I can't easily find people who are better.  The original post would've been a call to see what you can do to best improve yourself and see if you'd be willing to put in all that time to make yourself awesome at anything.

Instead, hike southern Utah.  You'll understand what great is and where your place in it lies.  Its amazing God gave us something so awe inspiring.

I'm kinda over getting told to throw my hands up in the air

Before you say anything, the title is from Local H's cover of Lorde's Team so no worries, I'm still not necessarily listening to good music even though it is a fantastic cover.  As was promised earlier, here are this year's summer goals, once again, in no particular order.

1) Hike Utah's Mighty Five - Luke and I have this all set up already.  I am excited, oh so excited.

2) Explore Kentucky.  At a minimum, I want to visit Mammoth Cave, hike Red Rock Canyon and tour a distillery.

3) Drink homemade beer.  This is mostly a hope that I'll be out in the pacific northwest during August.

4) Do actual mathematical research on expanding spectral deferred correction.  I have a faculty development grant for this so it should at least have a decent amount of work put into it.

5) Catch up on scripture memory.  I'm going back through the scripture memory plan that URC put out a couple years ago.  I've got the first 10 weeks done or so and I want to get caught back up to the point where I'm on track for the year at the end of August.

6) Get involved in church sports.  I'm already on a church league softball team but I should check out the Wednesday night volleyball as well.

7) Watch the original Star Wars trilogy.  I've never done it.  I'm not sure if I actually will this summer.

8) Build a wine glass shelf so my living room is slightly classier.

9) Complete P90X2.  I tried before. I hurt myself.  I want to make up for that and I want something to do other than running and poorly planned out lifting.  I may take pictures and post them on facebook.

10) Eat no fast food within 75 miles of Anderson.

Truth, covered in security

Be forewarned.  Usually, my posts are 98% thought out before I even start typing.  Tonight, I have a few things I want to cover, but mostly, I'm writing to get these thoughts out of my head and I'm interested to see what all comes out.

First off, yes, I know, its weird to have a post entitled with the same thing as the motto of my entire blog. For the musical reference, go here. However, that's the whole point to this post.  I don't know if I can legitimately keep calling this blog "Truth covered in security".  Things are certainly no longer covered in security.  When I first started, it was just because it was a fun thing to do and a way to keep friends updated because we didn't have facebook and I was in grad school and everyone else was back in Chicago.  Originally, it was named after Local H (who else?) and called "I'm all wrong and all the kids are right."  In the last few years though and especially once I started this again in Indiana, I've been very forthcoming with a lot of things.  I can trace this back to people like Heather and Steph - people I probably shouldn't be good friends with because we don't have a tremendous amount in common, but I dearly love them both like sisters because they're such good people.  The thing I admire about them the most is just how open and honest and real they are and they never held anything back.  They were upfront with their emotions and their struggles and their joys and it was so incredibly refreshing because they didn't try to be anyone other than themselves.  Couple that with the breakthroughs I had in my men's small group at URC where there was a similar feeling and that's something I knew that I had to have.  I had to become open out everything with me.  I don't want to live in shame of anything.  Shame can not win if you do not allow it to fester by hiding it and denying what you've done.  First off, let me say, I don't believe shame is a bad thing.  Shame is the moral equivalent of pain as it just lets you know something is wrong.  If you take care of it, seek forgiveness and learn from your mistakes, the shame should not haunt you.  Once you learn that, the release of shame just becomes so incredibly freeing that its beautiful.  This is what I've set out to do and I think I'm doing it fairly well.  I think this speaks to my spiritual maturity that's occurred over the last few years as I've even further established who I am.  It says something to me when I can put things on here that I know are going to be unappealing to my mom, just because she's the one person in the world who I'd currently want to have believe that I'm perfect.  If I can put that stuff out there, then I know I'm not holding back.

That said, this blog will never just become a free for all.  I try to only write about my thoughts and opinions and experiences and sometimes that means I write about those close to me or even those who I interact with on any given day as they shape my experiences.  Mostly, I try to keep from ragging on others and with a few regrettable exceptions, I definitely stay away from doing that to friends. (Yes, I know which post you're thinking of and it's now been edited.)  I don't know how long this blog will even last.  While its just me, it'll certainly continue to exist because its an easy way for me to reach out to my support system which is spread out all over the country which is great for traveling, but pretty sucktastic for actually being a support system.  If I get married and have kids and life gets really busy or if my wife becomes uncomfortable with this blog, at the least it would become password protected or even possibly just given up completely. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Finally, I started up church league summer softball yesterday.  It was great to get out there again even though I only know one guy on the team and he's the sports ministry director at our church.  He's a really good dude though and I look forward to getting to know the other guys better.  The game was a blowout because our team doesn't suck, but we were placed in the bottom league because we were new and the leagues our Euro-soccer style where you have to earn your way up.  I started off poorly by popping out to catcher and lazily flying out to right in my first two at-bats.  I also botched a soft line drive by timing my jump incorrectly early on.  It was just early jitters though.  I ended up playing decent defense but that'll improve as I get back in the swings.  After those two early outs, I ended up reaching base the other seven times I batted including a couple of home runs (one was a four base error) and a walk.  I hate walking but none of the pitches were close.  The only disappointing thing about this league is that once again, I don't think any of the other guys on the team are single, which isn't a big deal, but I'd just love to happen some single guys to connect with.  I mentioned a possible singles ministry to my pastor as I was interviewing for membership at my church on Sunday, so maybe something will eventually happen with this, but I'm not holding my breath.  Additionally, playing church league sports will be part of my summer goals, which will be the next post that comes up once exam week ends in a few days.  I can't wait until my summer goals are simply 1) Be an awesome husband. 2) Be a kick-ass dad.