Morgan was a famed pirate in his time, you know.  Anyways, if I was his contemporary, I’d wish him the best of luck and good fortune.

And that was probably just meaningless to most anyone who happens to read this.  Oh well.  I’ll stop being cryptic, I promise.

…

Truth be told, I felt incredibly dumb after that discovery, but, at the same time, I also felt like my mind had been opened.  No longer did I need to wonder about the tenuous connection between David Beckham and the Vietnamese people.  It was all so clear.  It was, indeed, a fake mohawk.  It made so much sense.  Absolutely incredible.

dude, nó làm cho cảm giác bây giờ

Also, this might be kinda random for some of you, but, for those to whom this might mean something, I have no idea what the funny metal thing that keeps popping in is supposed to be, but I found a cool .gif that I may fondly think upon every so often in leaders meeting next year ))

I don't know what the funny metal thing is either.

And in keeping with my sweet, newfound animation, I will not seek to expunge or extrapolate or expand upon the ever so poignant meanings associated with my phohawk story.  At least not today ;P

Disclaimer: I don’t think this is shaping up to be a fun post, so you can leave now if you want. But if you stay you should stay through it and not leave my argument half baked.   Now back into it -

Yes, you can judge me for saying this and all the implications it has.  No, I’m not talking about the skill set or job abilities or other KSAs or w/e of small group leading in Intervaristy Christian Fellowship.  Nope.

I’m talking about really really basic things.  You should probably believe in God before you call yourself religious, for instance.  And you should probably have experienced God before you try to call yourself a Christian leader.  You should probably have that basework, fundamental kind of understanding or where God has been, where you are with God……you gotta be steady if you want to lead, right?

Yeah, lookit him, standin' steady like a straight homeboy right there...

Well, I said ‘probably’.  There are an awful lot of things that one would hope of a leader.  Like practicing what you teach, for instance.  Leading by example, you know?

As a random insert, this is my further reflection on the topic after discussing it over with my roomie, whom I left at the “you arent qualified to lead if you dont know if you’ve experienced God’ stage of my reasoning.  Oops.  I think I say too many things that come back to bite my own ass.  Too bad.

But, back to leading, I dunno.  If it is qualification based on knowing God, well, hell, I’ve seen full fledged pastors and ministers fail.  If its about leading by example, well, shoot.  If its about having experienced God, I think I’m OK, but if its also about interpreting it, well shoot.  If its about being humble and christlike and all that stuff…….uh oh.

No, this isnt a sulking post about personal failings, its not an airing of personal insecurities, and no, it isn’t even a sarcastic commentary on something that you might not even really care about.

You know, if you are still reading this, I applaud you, because I know I stop reading when I see too much godspeak in a post.

But, nobody said it was easy.

I mean, who is really qualified to judge who has or has not experienced God?  Maybe someone really is, I don’t know, but I sure don’t have much right to comment on leaders still trying to find that.  You might not even know about some problem until it comes out full fledged and pwning your ass, right?  Could be me next.

Or that praying over other people business, the whole ” I think God is saying XYZ” business – thats hella dangerous territory, fella.  That is SO dangerous.  Actually, I was talking to someone today, and they felt that even inductive bible study was dangerous.  They have a point.

Between me and God, well, thats my own business and I’m pretty good with that.  Between you and God, well, thats between you and God, I have not much stake, and its not my business anyhow, so do what you want.  But between me and YOU and God, well hell, I don’t trust you for shit, buddy!  Don’t be trying to speak God to me, because thats dangerous, who knows where you are getting your info from?

Thats how a large part of me still likes to think, anyway.  But I guess that hinges on categorically denying God’s ability in certain areas, and we can’t have that now can we?

So.  To be clear.  At my current place in thinking,   You shouldn’t trust your leaders with the really big things, like your faith.  Bad idea.  You have no idea where we are at.   You shouldn’t trust your pastors, either.   I don’t know that you should fully trust any person, actually.  Heck, I don’t even trust myself sometimes.

You shouldn’t categorically trust most ideas, I’d say.  Even when the Book says it verbatim, seems like taking things literally sometimes isn’t the way to go.  Woohoo.  Yeah, just had to throw that nice f-ing wrench in everything, didn’t you? Why should trust someone’s interpretation over another’s, if they both have decent logic behind their claims?

Nope, you shouldn’t, because in the end the faith is your own, and you can really only save yourself when push comes to shove.  Not saying that community is bad, etc.  but your leaders can’t lead you to heaven, only approximately towards it.

I dont think faith is really about picking which dogmas, which tenets, which theological stances to agree with.  There are so many, and they are good and helpful at times to be sure, but they won’t get you there.

Nope, its about that thrice damned middle road that its so hard to find sometimes.  Nope, can’t reject that spirit led prayer business out of hand.  But I cant accept that everytime everyone claims to do it, its true either.  Nope.  haaarddd middle road ahead, weeeee.  I must accept that God is working in his people, in his fellowship.  and I must reject the legitimacy of non-spirit led leadership to a certain degree, both my own and that of others.  Weeeeee middle road time.

I think for a long time my problem was a focus on the people who were leaders, the people who were praying, the people.  Always the people.

But I think it was a misguided focus.  If I categorically accept that God will do good things, well, I can still categorically accept that you and I will fail, and fail epically, right?  Finally, my God is actually starting to be a wee bit bigger than people.  Even though I used to say it before I actually believed it.  Took a while getting here.

But, nevertheless, it has its place, so why don’t we chat, dear reader, you and I (or, actually, why don’t I just talk at you, and you can chuckle and respond however you will, and maybe you can tell me what you think in person and we can make it nice and awkward and maybe deep together, howssat sound)

Yeh, Tha's somma mah English raight theah.

Anyways, of late, with the 3 man dorm team business going on and some other stuff, its just been a time to think and reflect on a lot of things.  In a way of giving brief background, basically, the only extracurricular I am involved with is IV.

Also, after hearing from a haas school of business that rightly reciprocated my lack of drive and passion for the subject with what I already knew but was going through the motions to tell myself again in a GPA lowering manner, I am much more at peace with major stuff and direction of life through college, and next time I will listen to myself the first time rather than kill some grades in the process.

But hey, the sermon at Convergence today was titled ‘War’.  So I think Im going to frame many things in that imagery here.  Bear with me.  There will be pictures.

Right now, in life and in a lot of things, I feel solid.  Like, really, really solid about all the big stuff.  I feel like a fortress.

yeah, tha's right, come try to bust this place, biatch!

Yeah, look at those nice murder holes and crenellations and just imagine all those crossbowmen ready to mow you down…..

OK, so thats not quite right.  Everybody is in progress, I’ve got my fair share of work in progress, just like everybody else…..  so maybe more like

OK, so they are still building it, but I mean, Mickey's place looks pretty solid right about now, right?

But……OK, it would probably be incredibly arrogant to say that I’ve got it all under control, and that would be a lie, and while I don’t see any shitstorm on the horizon, my fortress could conceivably look like this in short order…….

uh oh. my castle is asploding.

But in reflection, I just feel at a good place, and it just feels right that I’ve only got IV on the plate this semester, so I can cover better when my two intrepid co-leaders are up to their eyeballs in shit they signed up for.  Its not about workload or commitment or any lack of how awesome they are – its just nice to see the positioning that God has worked out, how things just fit.  They are meant to be in different communities right now, and they are doing great work and going great places, and maybe I’ll feel called out in my own turn…

for those readers who don't know where Unit 4 is... a) you fail it and b) now you know.

…but for now, Unit 4, as hard to lead and as pigheaded as I think you guys are sometimes, much love.  If you guys are stalking your leader’s blogs, well, I was the same last year on the pigheaded scale, so I feel ya.  (and you’ll prolly feel me in about a year)

But…….what else……oh yeah, I’m officially going for Political Economy and Asian Studies double major now.  And I’m aiming at UC Hastings for law.  hopefully that will go well, or if I am allowed to dream…..Boalt……I seeeee you…..

Its going to be so much work.  But it’ll be so worth it.

Lastly, partly as just a general ‘where I think I’m at’ kind of statement, and partly as something that I think everyone should think about, you know all those Christian praise songs people like to sing?  The “where you lead me I will follow” type of things, the whole “I’ll have some faith and go anywhere” dealio?  So lately, I think the question that is posed to me whenever the song comes up, and the accompanying images……

Well, I’ll let them speak for themselves.  See for yourself, would you really be willing to walk the talk through……

actually, I looked around and there weren’t any pictures comparable to the image in my mind.  and this is a question I’ve seen posed elsewhere anyway, so I’ll let you connect the dots and all that for yourselves.  But some eye candy anyway -

Dude, this pictures is awesome, there is so much WIN going on right now I can't even verbalize it properly....

And of course, as per usual whenever you consider anything deep and remotely connected to conflict……

THIS! IS! SPAAARRRRTTTAAAAAA!!!!!!!! (never gets old, don't care what you say)

OK, I’m done nerding out in a christian kind of kind of sort of way.  yeah. alright…..frick….chinese quiz tomorrow GG…

From my dad, it comes in the form of “Hey, young man!  what do you have to sigh about?”.  From mom, its “what are you thinking about this time?”, and my personal favorite, my little sister has resigned herself to a simple “again?”.  haha.

But I have to admit, I do sigh a lot.

What is a sigh in the end?  I guess for the most part its something along the lines of “sigh of resignation”, right?  If you ever catch me sighing, well, I’ve probably just resigned myself to something.  Or some situation, or some arrangement of the universe.  At least temporarily.  But what does this young man have to sigh about after all?  Life is good.

And so it is good.  But sometimes, you just gotta sigh.

Apparently I write in this blog the same way that I speak, and apparently this is not entirely accessible and I subconsciously layer things a little bit with sarcasm and dry quips and other things that mask meaning.  Well, here I’m going to make a conscious effort to be completely understandable.  And maybe the way I speak will make more sense after.  Or maybe not, I dunno.  *sigh*

So, these are the things I sigh about:

I sigh about people, mainly.  I sigh when I see what people have managed to get themselves into again.  I sigh to see the holes they dig for themselves.  I sigh when the seemingly incredibly obvious solutions and easy fixes are ignored, and friends head down the hard way.

I sigh when its my friends doing these things.  And I sigh when I find that its actually me sometimes.

I sigh when I am called to have faith in people.  I don’t sigh when I extend that faith.  But I am resigned to sighing when I’m less than utterly surprised that my faith was misplaced.

I sigh at people’s logic, and sometimes I want to groan when I hear their reasoning.  But that would be weird to suddenly groan out loud at somebody, so instead I sigh.

I usually sigh when epiphanies come or realization dawns, because usually, they just lead to the need to have an even bigger epiphany.

I sigh at sad and ridiculous situations.  I sigh at sad or ridiculous situations.

I sigh that I sigh so much. (oh I don’t care if everyone pulls this one and its not clever anymore)

I sigh that people are so limited.  I sigh at man’s amazing propensity to lie to himself.  I sigh at my understanding of God sometimes.  And there is one person that I seem to always sigh about when they come up in my mind’s eye.   But mostly I sigh at myself.

A good friend told me recently that I am the most cynical person that he knows.  I personally prefer the term “realist” myself, but hey, semantics arguments aren’t that fun to engage in, so call it what you will, I don’t really mind.

But you know what?

The sigh is one of the most hopeful acknowledgements you can give to an ordering of things.  Some people never sigh.  They get to somewhere that is just so ridiculous, so inconceivable, so unacceptable, that they can no longer move forward.  They may choose to ignore, choose to reject, choose to struggle.  The sigh given after consideration chooses to accept and move on to build something better (and, inevitably, hit another sigh).  [Actually, that was pretty much a lie.  A sigh isn't really that hopeful.  probably]

And besides.  People never seem to notice whats right after the sigh.  The dry chuckle should not be underestimated.

No, the heavens didn’t quite open up, the skies didn’t quite spit forth fire and flame, no spinning wheels or wet rags that should be dry or brushfires and inflammable bushes, and definitely no authoritative, ringing, the-whole-valley-must-have-heard-that voices.

No, the rage these days seems to be that quiet little whisper in the really quiet place where all you can hear is yourself.

And lets say that God isn’t quite one who wastes his breath.  No, lets say that he wants to speak to you about something of paramount importance to your life.  One of those big decisions.  One of those big life decision type things.

So, if God spoke, would you listen?

HUUURRRRRRRHHHH?  WHAT KIND OF STUPID QUESTION IS THAT???

Sure, we read about the Israelites and at least I personally used to think “wow, they must not have had enough zinc in their diets or something, how can they act so dumb?”  but now I think if a voice started talking to me from the sky I might be tempted to check myself into a psychiatric ward myself.

And this post will have so many tangents and implications and theological questions and things that should be hashed out and clarified, and some reading of scripture done and all these things, but for now, lets just finish the process to completion, right?

But suppose that for a moment you thought you heard God.  And then, the question is begged and suddenly, you start to suppose that for a moment you may or may not have heard God.  How can you be sure?  After all, it is a matter of scale, right?  If I start to build trust with you by borrowing 1 dollar at a time and consistently returning that, well, we are both happy.  But suddenly I want to borrow 100 dollars, and you might be a little uncomfortable with that amount.  Or if I suddenly want to borrow 1,000 dollars, you might be very skeptical, and if I asked for 10,000 you’d probably look at me as if I were out of my mind and start seriously re-evaluating your past assessments of my character and intention.

So you think that you may or may not have heard God, and then the details start getting fuzzy, and you remember you saw that show one time about how once the details start getting fuzzy you start forgetting things that were and even remembering things that weren’t, so then you might doubt your initial thoughts and feelings even more, even though you distinctly remember trying to remember everything to be sure that you were hearing God and not some of you.

And you might think to yourself for a moment, well, if God really spoke, well…….it doesn’t matter for now.  Lets take it back a step, lets say I act like God spoke.  Well, if he did speak, then thats great.  But if he did not speak, and I act as if he did…..well…….I am in for disaster!  And we all know that humans are probably twice as averse to disaster as they are drawn to success and good stuff.  For all the big stuff, at least.  But at the end, you might think, well, if I can’t be 100% sure, or tell you what, I’ll have a little faith, if I can’t be 95.78% sure, then this is irrelevant, because I can’t act on this intel.

And then you look back at yourself, and you think, “wait…..so how did I get here in the first place……what are the reasons I think that there is a chance that that might have been God back there?”, and if you are unsure enough, you’ll question “well, if the conclusion isn’t correct, then there must be something wrong with at least one of the variables in my process leading up to there” and suddenly you get batted down the spiritual ladder a couple rungs for some corporate restructuring, since even if all your variables are correct, the fact that you still aren’t sure means that something is still inherently not lined up, yes?

ffffffffffffffuuuuuuu…………..

Ai Caramba, Mi Casa es Implosioning-o!  (4 years of California Blue Ribbon High School Spanish right here)

I suppose if your faith is shaky enough, you could domino reason yourself straight back into agnosticism, but lets say that we have a solid bedrock foundation thinggummie that our belief in God is based upon, and so our additional structures collapse to our solid foundation.  No, we don’t question the existence of God or any of that, but we question the religiosity we may have built up, looking around in the ruins of our house at those support beams that couldn’t quite hold things up all the way.

And we might look around at the collapsed parts and pick out a couple promising components that we are pretty sure are solid in themselves – maybe your house had a good roof, or you did the living room ceiling really really well, 100% solid stuff.  No point in throwing that out with the rest.  A lot of your problems is probably just structural re-arrangement, not really faulty parts.  Try moving the pillar a couple feet to the left to hold up that patio or something.

And maybe the best course of action is just to try again from where you left off, and try to consult the architect a little more this time around.

Just have some faith and make your decision – after all, a little faith and a little failure never hurt anyone…..right……….?

]]> http://stealthedchicken.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/suppose-for-a-moment/feed/ 0 A.Lin Sun Breaking Through Clouds (400) confused facepalm http://stealthedchicken.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/a-eulogy-to-computer-games/ http://stealthedchicken.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/a-eulogy-to-computer-games/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:48:48 +0000 A.Lin http://stealthedchicken.wordpress.com/?p=65 ]]> I always knew that this day would come.  A day where computer games and the seemingly boundless possibilities of advanced Graphics Processing Unit goodness would start to lose their luster, and the much beloved PC game would start its decline to the occasional indulgence.  No, I’m not quitting completely.  But the days of being a “gamer” are over.  Just don’t got enough 1337 left.  *sigh*.  You’ve been good, friends.

So, by way of fond farewell, and for those of you who were secretly curious but had some public image to protect, allow me to tell it to you like a pro.

In the PC gaming world, there are basically 5 main genres of games.  Oh sure, there are spin-offs, and little differences in the sub-genres, but really, there are 3 primary colors in….well, color, and there are 5 primary genres in computer games, OK?   They are, in descending order of WIN,

—–

1. The RPG. The RPG (role-playing game, not rocket-propelled grenade) is first and foremost a story.  Its kind of like a book, albeit a book that can be full of cool, flashy animations, one that asks you questions, and one that more often than not is trying to kill you.  In an RPG the player is posed as the protagonist (or antagonist, if you want, depends how you look at it, right?) and makes various decisions/embarks on an epic adventure/ sits at screen and repeatedly clicks mouse for ungodly hours.

Anyways.  If you liked English class, and believe that it is possible to have a literary analysis of people/humanity/society/life, well…..a well made RPG is immediately relevant and applied philosophy, ethics, value judgement and differentiation and can tell you more about yourself than George Orwell ever could.  Should I kill the innocent little boy?  My pickpocket skill isn’t high enough, and he’s got this really great Flaming Sword of the Ages with +4 to hit and the -3 THACO and the -4 AC….hmmmmm I could really kill the beastie and save the town with this puppy…….oh, decisions………

—–

2. The RTS. (Real-Time Strategy).  Basically, a group of people get together, try to gather more gold/wood/food/stone/pizza than each other, translate said resources into an angry army, and try to burn/pillage/destroy until only one man/team is left. Quite simple, but then people start mapping hotkeys, actually doing MATH to figure out the best combinations…..it gets ridiculous.

A working vocabulary of the games Starcraft or Warcraft is useful for penetrating gamer circles.  Just know that Orcs are green and ugly, humans are generally always 2nd best, undead are undead, night elves are rigged, zerg = Korean, and protoss shine in the late game.  I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but next time you meet your gamer friends, just spout these things off and enjoy the amazement plastered across their faces, regards of yours truly.

—–

3. the FPS.  (First Person Shooter).  There are also third person shooters, but I’m just going to lump them all here.

In the wise words of General George S. Patton,

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.  He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

’nuff said.

—–

4. the Sim , which, if you haven’t guessed, is short for “simulation”.  These strive to simulate real life (for reasons unfathomable), but…..hey, if you ever wondered what it would be like to manage a city, well……here you go!

Want to get as close to piloting a plane as possible without actually piloting a plane?  Its not quite the same without the gravity part of the barrel roll, but….

Or want to open a 5 star restaurant without even beginning to touch a pan?

These are fun for short explorations.  Just don’t ever put money down for one, b/c they get old kinda fast…

——

Lastly….and certainly the least of these….. 5. The MMO……  short for Massively Multiplayer Online (insert RPG or FPS here).

These…….just don’t ever play one.  If you know someone who plays one, well…..be a good friend and try to bring them out into the light of day more.

These are short for absolutely UNGODLY man hours put into improving the looks of your character with better equipment, etc.  People pay $15.00 a month to improve a couple hundred pixels on their char.  Absolutely ludicrous, I know.

MMO’s are also the games that most blatantly market sex appeal.  PROTIP:  Every single female elf who has unequipped everything (translation: is not wearing anything) has a 13 year old pre-adolescent boy behind it.  (obviously not true, but much more comforting than some of the other possibilities).

———————————————————————————-

To complete your whirlwind tour, some good things to know:

1. relevant technical things.  Short and painless – CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the main processor on your computer.  Measured in giga-hertz (ghz) nowadays, basically, the higher the number (and number of cores, for the dual core and quad core stuff, though not exactly precise, it gets tricky the way it works for now), the more powerful and faster your computer.  GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is a processor that specifically takes care of the image on your screen.  same things go, bigger the number the better.  These 2 are the most important in relation to gaming, and in general tend to be the topics to come up in technical gamer discussions.

2. general terminology – GG stands for Good Game.  Meaning depends on how well you did – if you won, or it was close, its congratulations.  If you suck, well…..it means you suck then.  GG no RE means Good Game no Rematch, and means that you suck enough that they don’t want to waste time with you again.  PWNED started out as “owned”, but if you’ll notice the location of the p key…..  now it basically means a little more owned than owned.

3. the numbers.  When people  are talking about games and they start spouting off confusing numbers with ridiculously arbitrary acronyms, they may be powergamers, or people who take the fun out of games by doing Math and figuring out the most powerful strategies by the numbas.  If you ever hear the terms  THACO, AC, AP, DPS, APM, and other similar things in a given conversation, its probably a good time to exit the convo.  Its only going to go downhill from there, trust me.

And there we are.  you know have a layman’s understanding of the computer gaming world.  You should feel accomplished.  Maybe a little dirty too, depending on your point of view.  Although if you feel a little dirty I might be liable to call you something roughly translated as ‘jerk’, so you shouldn’t tell me.

But, for what its worth, adieu, my good friends.

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”