Experience, logic, and intuition

The older I get the more I distrust intuition and instinct. 

I have seen people follow their gut, follow their feelings and sometimes it leads to good experiences. On the other side, I've also seen people "follow their instinct" and it leads to disaster.  Following your heart on relationship drama is one of the biggest mistakes I've seen. I've mentioned it before, but you can save yourself a world of pain and difficulty if you judge your potential relationships with your head as well as your heart.  

Passion and chemistry are wonderful things and you certainly need them in a releationship. You also need to judge relationships with your head. You might think that the stripper you met and proposed to at your friends bachelor party has "long term potential" but it probably doesn't. Neither does asking your prom date to marry you after you graduate. Women, you might think the married man at your office will be faithful to you but he probably won't either. If the guy followed his heart, he'd marry the stripper and develop a nasty cocaine habit. The girl at the office would find herself on the bad end of two nasty divorces-the first being her boyfriends and probably within a few years, her own. 

Your instinct might lead you to believe that homosexuality doesn't occur in nature and isn't biological-even though it does occur in nature and is clearly something you are born as. Your instinct might also make you think GMO foods are "dangerous". After doing five minutes of objective science research-you would find out you are wrong and GMO foods are not only healthy, but could cure world famine. Yes, look it up. 

I don't think instinct is bad-Immanuel Kant did teach me that A Priori knowledge is important and an effective source of well, knowledge. But experience, thought and logic are also important. More people need to follow those than their feelings. 

Scripture Sunday 3 Nephi 13:5-7 part one.

This is one of my favorite passages in all of scripture.

What isn't talked about much in mainstream churches is how much Jesus detested hypocrisy, legalism and pedantry. They hypocrites are, in some ways worse to Jesus than the other sinners. CS Lewis also agreed that the sins of the flesh are secondary to sins of pride, hypocrisy etc.

Do people read too much into this passage?
We see so many people claim to be holy. They might avoid temptations like addiction and adultery-but they make sure everyone knows how holy they are. They pray louder than everyone else in church. They sit in the front and make sure everyone sees how involved they are in the church. In the LDS world, they are the first to tell you how often their husband has been bishop. Or how they know an apostle. Or how their family is so involved in the church and yours just isn't up to their level.

Christ warns them in this passage. "Verily I say unto you, they shall have their reward."

Women drivers

There is an annoying, incorrect stereotype that women are bad drivers and men are better. This is total, complete bullshit. I have yet to see a mom of four giving me the finger as she drives seventy five in a school zone. Men are much, much worse drivers than women and it's so blatantly true that it's actually a bit hard to understand why people believe otherwise.

Women get defensive about it and in fairness they have every reason to be. I bet you that some saw the title to this blog and immediately thought I was going to make stupid jokes about women drivers or claim that men are superior in some way. I don't blame them-even in 2016 women are innudated with stupid jokes and annoying cliches that portray them to be somehow incompetent behind the wheel. Hopefully any female readers will finish reading this and realize how I really feel about this.

Hack comedians are comedians that can't think for themselves or find things funny that weren't funny even back in the 1950's. They'll yell out "Men never stop for directions, ain't I right? Haw haw haw." or "Women can't drive. Know what I'm saying? Haw haw haw." Sure, they'll get some laughs from the neanderthal set-but that's not the audience you should aim for.

Album of the weekend

Metallica-Hardwired to Self Destruct

Metallica will never be as good as they were pre-the Black Album, and we need to accept that. This album is as good as Metallica will ever get. Older bands can create outstanding albums. Judas Priest and Megadeth both released great ones in the last three years. Metallica has always been the most popular and well liked thrash band-but they were never the best. This album is better than St. Anger or Death Magnetic that's the good news. The bad news is that it's still very hit or miss. Like Muhammad Ali when he fought Leon Spinks and to quote Megadeth-The end is near, it's crystal clear. 

The singles released from the album including the title track, "Atlas, Rise", and "Moth into the Flame" are the better songs on the album- though the best is clearly "Spit Out the Bone". It's loud, aggressive, angry and could easily be placed on Justice for All or Kill Em All. It's my personal favorite and a truly outstanding song. In fact, I think it's their best song in years. Better than anything off Death Magnetic or St. Anger. "Now That We're Dead", "Dream No More", "ManUNkind" are all mediocre to bad and would be filler at best on a better album. "Murder One" sounds a little like the classic song "Sanitarium" and it's actually a bit sad to listen to because it reminds you of better times and what they could do a long time ago. Not a pleasant experience. 

This is it for them. Sorry for the boxing metaphors but Metallica is like the boxer who can still win one round in match-but the lose the fight overall. 

Narcissism

I see a lot of people putting on their psychologist hat and proclaiming those who disagree with them or those they don't like personally are "narcissists". That's a loaded word and in all honesty, one that might be among the most overused words going around right now. When people say "Narcissist" they really mean "person I don't like". It's a term that should only be used by a qualified psychologist after many evaluations with the person they are talking about.

In the world of the internet and Godwin's Law it's easy to throw words around that you don't understand. Let's be frank-if you deliver pizzas for a living (a noble job that I've done before so no, this isn't an insult to pizza deliverers) you probably lack the institutional and educational training that requires you to label someone you don't like a "narcissist".  The anonymity of internet makes it easy to throw words and accusations around. Keyboard warriors unite. 

The other blunt truth is that everyone-yes even you reading this-can be condescending, arrogant, rude, disrespectful and nasty at times. That doesn't make any of us narcissists or sociopaths. It simply makes us human. In fact, the people who admit they have flaws and try to work on them are in much better shape than those who accuse everyone else of having flaws but can't look inward to discuss and fix their own.

Replica Titanic

It might be very realistic click bait, but apparently they are building a new Titanic.  It looks just like the real one too-like a prop from the Edwardian age suddenly thrust into 2016. It'll also be much "safer" than the original one-this time complete with all the life boats, radar, and things that in 1912 we're not even thought of. It's apparently popular too, reports coming in that tickets are in high demand. 

If you want to do this, knock yourself out. It's not for me though. I'm not a cruise ship guy first off and second-I find the entire thing kind of creepy and incredibly disrespectful. Imagine this-would an  amusement park experience based on the Orlando shooting be cool? How about a ride that simulates crashing into the Twin Towers. This time, instead of dying you shake it off and talk about how cool it was. Better yet you are charged two hundred bucks per person to enjoy the experience. Sure, if it's your thing and you should be allowed to do it. But lots of people died on the Titanic and they were innocent victims. It happened long before any of us were born, but their lives still matter. 

I am a raw, naked capitalist.  You should be allowed to do what you want, when you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone in the process. So just because I think it's sick doesn't mean that you should. The really cool part about capitalism/freedom is that I can also voice my opinion, judge you, and even mock you-but I can't stop you. 

Kindness, love, peace and tolerance

Everyone is stressed out over this election and a lot of people are talking about promoting "peace, love, kindness to others, etc." It's sweet and very nice. We should be kind to others and we should of course speak out against injustice and cruelty if we see it happening. Or even if we don't see it happening.

"Everyone wants to change the world, no one wants to change themselves." Is a wonderful and very introspective quote. It's credited to Tolstoy, but I've seen it credited to other Russian writers. It cuts right though me. It's so easy to talk about others needing to show more kindness, tolerance and love while we scream at people who disagree with us. I also get the sinking feeling that people who are promoting "love" do so to feel really good about themselves one minute then cut the lady off in traffic ,snarl at the cashier and leave no tip when they go out to dinner.  The true sign of a "good person" is how they tip, in my view. This is how these people feed their families. Remember that.

Instead of telling everyone else to be kind it's probably best for all of us to remember that it's sure easy to critique everyone else but very few of us have the power to turn inward.