Coming home after serving a full-time mission for two years, life is a little bit different from what I was used to. But I'm adapting pretty well. Most of the time I don't actually notice much of a shift. As I mentioned in an earlier post it's almost like experiencing a peculiar transfer. I was doing one thing before, and now I'm doing another. End of story. Here's your popcorn. Let's go do The Stuff That Needs Doing.
That last sentence may be another contributing factor. There is a season for everything under the sun, but it all boils down, for me, to things that need doing. Before it was one thing, and now it's another. But it all needs doing.
I feel so much better today after I started using my modified missionary daily planner. Having times and tasks set aside feels so nice.
Where the shift to civilian life is jarring it is so not because of the differences but because of the similarities. Watching a movie does nothing to me. It is far enough removed, I think, that I do not compare it to missionary life. When I went to Church today, however, it was one long train ride of feeling really weird. A few weeks ago I was one of those missionaries standing at the door. A few weeks ago I only ever went to the first hour of the church block because there were always other wards to attend. Second and third hours barely existed as a concept for me, only had a presence as That Thing Other People Do. Now I'm attending Sunday School and Elders Quorum.
It's not the big differences that get me. It's the little things, the tiny differences just similar enough that I can't help but hold these two periods of my life beside each other and compare them.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Thursday, November 21, 2013
I Watch: Ender's Game; The Croods; Iron Man 3
Several movies over the past few days.
Surprisingly, Ender's Game wasn't the best of them, IMHO. Some of this came from heightened expectations. Some people have been waiting for this movie since before I was born. So if Orson Scott Card had given the green light, then obviously something amazing was in the works. It was worth watching the once, and I'm impressed by Asa Butterfield's performance as Ender (and Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff was a wonderful thing). They changed a fair amount of the story but I was okay with that. Strangely, I find myself having to say that they should have changed more. They tried to put too much into the story and as a result too much of it felt cramped, especially the ending scenes. When the supposed wham moment of the movie takes less time to resolve than it did for the Little Doctor to recharge, I think that there's a problem.
But I'm glad that I saw it anyway, if for no other reason than having some closure. Ender's Game was filmed. It wasn't horrible. We can stop worrying and go to bed, okay, thank you, goodnight. That alone was worth the time and money.
I was surprised by The Croods too, but more pleasantly. The title alone leads one to not expect very much but, while I have to say that I don't know how much potential it has for repeated viewing, the first time was more than tolerable. I was most impressed that they didn't make Eep conventionally attractive, especially since she felt like the main driving force in the cast. Yes, she's a cavewoman, but when has that stopped Hollywood? Kudos. My only strong disappointment was that Grug didn't seem to get much respect from the writers. He grows, sure, but until then he seems to always be an impediment to the point that you wonder how, if this was how he did things, how they had survived to this point in the first place. Yes, Grug needs to get with the times and until he does they won't be as effective as they should be, but it's as if everybody forgot that Grug's way had ever worked before.
Without a doubt the best movie that I've seen since my mission ended was Iron Man 3. The series has always been my favorite set of films in the Marvel Universe since the first one came out, and the third one beats both of its predecessors with its hands tied behind its back. The film's take on the Mandarin was genius. He is such a completely Tony Stark kind of villain. But really, I can't find much to complain about at all. The fight at the end went on just a little too long, I think, but I can handle that. Maybe the next time that I see the movie, I'll decide that it was just right, or even too short.
I think that I like Iron Man the most because Tony Stark is the most human out of the heroes that I've gotten a glimpse of yet. He has flaws, and those flaws are magnified to an epic scale, but that's as far as it goes. Other heroes in the Marvel films have been bitten by radioactive spiders, or come from other worlds, or were given super-soldier serums. Tony Stark is just a man with a brain and an ego, both writ large, and when Time Magazine, Newsweek, and CNN came onto the screen his feet were firmly placed on our world. How many other superhero movies had a major plot point about the protagonist's alcoholism?
Iron Man has a heart has the other Marvel films lack. Some people have complained about Tony not needing to be in the suit anymore. "This should have been called Tony Stark 3." But of course, as he says in the conclusion of the film, the suit is just a suit. Tony Stark is Iron Man, and a movie without his suit at all could still be the best of them.
Surprisingly, Ender's Game wasn't the best of them, IMHO. Some of this came from heightened expectations. Some people have been waiting for this movie since before I was born. So if Orson Scott Card had given the green light, then obviously something amazing was in the works. It was worth watching the once, and I'm impressed by Asa Butterfield's performance as Ender (and Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff was a wonderful thing). They changed a fair amount of the story but I was okay with that. Strangely, I find myself having to say that they should have changed more. They tried to put too much into the story and as a result too much of it felt cramped, especially the ending scenes. When the supposed wham moment of the movie takes less time to resolve than it did for the Little Doctor to recharge, I think that there's a problem.
But I'm glad that I saw it anyway, if for no other reason than having some closure. Ender's Game was filmed. It wasn't horrible. We can stop worrying and go to bed, okay, thank you, goodnight. That alone was worth the time and money.
I was surprised by The Croods too, but more pleasantly. The title alone leads one to not expect very much but, while I have to say that I don't know how much potential it has for repeated viewing, the first time was more than tolerable. I was most impressed that they didn't make Eep conventionally attractive, especially since she felt like the main driving force in the cast. Yes, she's a cavewoman, but when has that stopped Hollywood? Kudos. My only strong disappointment was that Grug didn't seem to get much respect from the writers. He grows, sure, but until then he seems to always be an impediment to the point that you wonder how, if this was how he did things, how they had survived to this point in the first place. Yes, Grug needs to get with the times and until he does they won't be as effective as they should be, but it's as if everybody forgot that Grug's way had ever worked before.
Without a doubt the best movie that I've seen since my mission ended was Iron Man 3. The series has always been my favorite set of films in the Marvel Universe since the first one came out, and the third one beats both of its predecessors with its hands tied behind its back. The film's take on the Mandarin was genius. He is such a completely Tony Stark kind of villain. But really, I can't find much to complain about at all. The fight at the end went on just a little too long, I think, but I can handle that. Maybe the next time that I see the movie, I'll decide that it was just right, or even too short.
I think that I like Iron Man the most because Tony Stark is the most human out of the heroes that I've gotten a glimpse of yet. He has flaws, and those flaws are magnified to an epic scale, but that's as far as it goes. Other heroes in the Marvel films have been bitten by radioactive spiders, or come from other worlds, or were given super-soldier serums. Tony Stark is just a man with a brain and an ego, both writ large, and when Time Magazine, Newsweek, and CNN came onto the screen his feet were firmly placed on our world. How many other superhero movies had a major plot point about the protagonist's alcoholism?
Iron Man has a heart has the other Marvel films lack. Some people have complained about Tony not needing to be in the suit anymore. "This should have been called Tony Stark 3." But of course, as he says in the conclusion of the film, the suit is just a suit. Tony Stark is Iron Man, and a movie without his suit at all could still be the best of them.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Be Still
Keep running and you don't notice anything.
You could say that my mission has given me a number of additional actions that I can take when presented with any situation. I have a stronger testimony that the answer to a problem just may be in the scriptures, and a better idea of how to find that answer. I've seen priesthood blessings work, and miracles roll out from the side of the road like tumbleweeds or Autobots. But the most unconventional action to take- at least for me- is "Do nothing."
There are times when God says "Wait." It does you no good to rush Him. He knows what He's doing. It does not good to run around in circles until something happens. That only leaves you dead from exhaustion by the time that the cavalry arrives.
Sometimes, you just have to stand there like a fool. And wait for something to happen.
We're not in any kind of race here. Anybody that tells you otherwise is getting their information from the other team. Take each item in its time. Tackle it, thoroughly and efficiently. Go to the next item on your list. As appropriate, distribute rest times throughout your schedule. "Fuel, no tires" may have given Lightning McQueen a temporary edge but then there came the point that he was breaking down, and then when he just couldn't move anymore.
I am reminded of family scripture study this past Sunday. Each time my littlest brother, Owen, took his turn reading he easily took as much time as the rest of us did because he's still working on his reading. I was frustrated at first but remembered the injunction to "Be still," as an investigator expressed it almost two years ago, and put the incident in its proper context. We were reading from the scriptures. Why did I care about getting to the end of the chapter in half the time?
I mention this because I don't mean "Be still" to be applied to your life only when you're waiting for something to come from Heaven (Though perhaps it might be a good idea, now that I phrase it that way, to apply it to the Second Coming and stop being so frantic about it. He'll get here when He gets here, now go do your duty and it'll be well for you no matter when He arrives). It's for everything. Don't rush. For anything.
But yes, it does apply specially well to matters heavenly. Especially to the realm of communication. One of the things that I have learned most strongly since returning home is just how hard it is for God to get through to someone that is always doing something, always listening to someone (else), always going somewhere. All those things make noise, and too much noise blocks out the most important signal.
The calling- the mantle, if you will- of being a full-time missionary for the LDS Church contributed to my spiritual sensitivity, but just as much did my strong desire to take things as they came and focus on each moment in its time. Discarding that, running like a headless chicken, I lost more sensitivity in a couple of weeks than I should have.
You could say that my mission has given me a number of additional actions that I can take when presented with any situation. I have a stronger testimony that the answer to a problem just may be in the scriptures, and a better idea of how to find that answer. I've seen priesthood blessings work, and miracles roll out from the side of the road like tumbleweeds or Autobots. But the most unconventional action to take- at least for me- is "Do nothing."
There are times when God says "Wait." It does you no good to rush Him. He knows what He's doing. It does not good to run around in circles until something happens. That only leaves you dead from exhaustion by the time that the cavalry arrives.
Sometimes, you just have to stand there like a fool. And wait for something to happen.
We're not in any kind of race here. Anybody that tells you otherwise is getting their information from the other team. Take each item in its time. Tackle it, thoroughly and efficiently. Go to the next item on your list. As appropriate, distribute rest times throughout your schedule. "Fuel, no tires" may have given Lightning McQueen a temporary edge but then there came the point that he was breaking down, and then when he just couldn't move anymore.
I am reminded of family scripture study this past Sunday. Each time my littlest brother, Owen, took his turn reading he easily took as much time as the rest of us did because he's still working on his reading. I was frustrated at first but remembered the injunction to "Be still," as an investigator expressed it almost two years ago, and put the incident in its proper context. We were reading from the scriptures. Why did I care about getting to the end of the chapter in half the time?
I mention this because I don't mean "Be still" to be applied to your life only when you're waiting for something to come from Heaven (Though perhaps it might be a good idea, now that I phrase it that way, to apply it to the Second Coming and stop being so frantic about it. He'll get here when He gets here, now go do your duty and it'll be well for you no matter when He arrives). It's for everything. Don't rush. For anything.
But yes, it does apply specially well to matters heavenly. Especially to the realm of communication. One of the things that I have learned most strongly since returning home is just how hard it is for God to get through to someone that is always doing something, always listening to someone (else), always going somewhere. All those things make noise, and too much noise blocks out the most important signal.
The calling- the mantle, if you will- of being a full-time missionary for the LDS Church contributed to my spiritual sensitivity, but just as much did my strong desire to take things as they came and focus on each moment in its time. Discarding that, running like a headless chicken, I lost more sensitivity in a couple of weeks than I should have.
Friday, November 15, 2013
I Read: Animorphs #1, #23
And it feels like coming home.
I think that it hit me when I read one particular passage, where Jake is wondering if his parents don’t want him to ever cut through the construction site because they’re afraid that he might run into an axe murderer. I read it and, in some way that I can’t describe, I remembered, vividly, reading that passage before, many times. I mean, I know when I’ve read something before, but it wasn’t just knowledge. It was feeling it, and remembering how I had felt when I had read it before, and, too, how I was now feeling about having read it.
It was something in the neighborhood of nostalgia. A cross between that and what you feel when you know, without anyone telling you, that what’s happening right now is a good thing and that you’re exactly where you belong.
It’s like coming to love someone again, without ever having stopped loving them before.
What struck me the hardest was just how depressing the series could be. I mean, it’s like Baby’s First Grimdark, and I don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. It really should be required entry-level reading for the stuff that makes you cry. Before your kid reads Lovecraft, give her Animorphs. And then, after she’s read Lovecraft, tell her to read Animorphs again.
I mean, in the first book Tobias gets turned into a hawk forever because he was in morph for more than two hours, and it’s implied then and throughout the series that he did that on purpose because his home life was so terrible that even life as a hawk was better. Not to mention Visser Three describing to Elfangor how the war was basically over now, just as soon as the Yeerks finished infesting Earth, and Visser Three was going to personally oversee the infestation of Elfangor’s family and looked forward to hearing their screams.
The Pretender only escalates it. Tobias has to resort to eating road kill because another hawk has moved in on his territory and he can’t kick it out. Just as it seems that Tobias has finally found a non-crappy family member who might actually care about him, it turns out that she’s Visser Three in disguise. And because he’s forced to interact with humans besides the other Animorphs a major theme of the book is how distanced he’s become from humanity. He can’t remember his birthday. He doesn't even remember to make facial expressions.
Oh. My. Heart.
What am I reading?
The rest of the series is no better. I remember when Elfangor had to leave his wife and unborn son forever to rejoin a war that he had spent years trying to forget about. I remember Alloran justifying war crimes- and I remember a war that just maybe was so terrible that he was right. I remember Dak Hamee’s guilt over making warriors out of a people so peaceful that they had never before conceived of purposely intending to kill someone.
I remember a story about six kids that were forced to fight a war on their own, and I remember the trauma that they incurred over three years and fifty-odd books of desperate guerrilla warfare against a foe that outnumbered them and could be anyone at all.
I remembered how depressing it was before I started to read the series again, but reading it again was like the difference between hearing about the Rocky Mountains and seeing them.
It’s no secret to anyone who’s read some of my stories that I like the really depressing stuff. Other stuff is good, but sometimes nothing will satisfy but something that cuts to the heart and bites down. Reading Animorphs again, I wonder how much it affected my future development; like that years-ago dance with that girl who was going to boot camp in a month. The first dance of my youth, and her last, and without even trying I can think of half a dozen qualities I find attractive in a woman that can be directly traced back to her. Same way, Animorphs is the yardstick by which I measure YA stories, both mine and others'.
I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of the books.
I think that it hit me when I read one particular passage, where Jake is wondering if his parents don’t want him to ever cut through the construction site because they’re afraid that he might run into an axe murderer. I read it and, in some way that I can’t describe, I remembered, vividly, reading that passage before, many times. I mean, I know when I’ve read something before, but it wasn’t just knowledge. It was feeling it, and remembering how I had felt when I had read it before, and, too, how I was now feeling about having read it.
It was something in the neighborhood of nostalgia. A cross between that and what you feel when you know, without anyone telling you, that what’s happening right now is a good thing and that you’re exactly where you belong.
It’s like coming to love someone again, without ever having stopped loving them before.
What struck me the hardest was just how depressing the series could be. I mean, it’s like Baby’s First Grimdark, and I don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. It really should be required entry-level reading for the stuff that makes you cry. Before your kid reads Lovecraft, give her Animorphs. And then, after she’s read Lovecraft, tell her to read Animorphs again.
I mean, in the first book Tobias gets turned into a hawk forever because he was in morph for more than two hours, and it’s implied then and throughout the series that he did that on purpose because his home life was so terrible that even life as a hawk was better. Not to mention Visser Three describing to Elfangor how the war was basically over now, just as soon as the Yeerks finished infesting Earth, and Visser Three was going to personally oversee the infestation of Elfangor’s family and looked forward to hearing their screams.
The Pretender only escalates it. Tobias has to resort to eating road kill because another hawk has moved in on his territory and he can’t kick it out. Just as it seems that Tobias has finally found a non-crappy family member who might actually care about him, it turns out that she’s Visser Three in disguise. And because he’s forced to interact with humans besides the other Animorphs a major theme of the book is how distanced he’s become from humanity. He can’t remember his birthday. He doesn't even remember to make facial expressions.
Oh. My. Heart.
What am I reading?
The rest of the series is no better. I remember when Elfangor had to leave his wife and unborn son forever to rejoin a war that he had spent years trying to forget about. I remember Alloran justifying war crimes- and I remember a war that just maybe was so terrible that he was right. I remember Dak Hamee’s guilt over making warriors out of a people so peaceful that they had never before conceived of purposely intending to kill someone.
I remember a story about six kids that were forced to fight a war on their own, and I remember the trauma that they incurred over three years and fifty-odd books of desperate guerrilla warfare against a foe that outnumbered them and could be anyone at all.
I remembered how depressing it was before I started to read the series again, but reading it again was like the difference between hearing about the Rocky Mountains and seeing them.
It’s no secret to anyone who’s read some of my stories that I like the really depressing stuff. Other stuff is good, but sometimes nothing will satisfy but something that cuts to the heart and bites down. Reading Animorphs again, I wonder how much it affected my future development; like that years-ago dance with that girl who was going to boot camp in a month. The first dance of my youth, and her last, and without even trying I can think of half a dozen qualities I find attractive in a woman that can be directly traced back to her. Same way, Animorphs is the yardstick by which I measure YA stories, both mine and others'.
I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of the books.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Experiments
I went back to 4chan.
Maybe they'll inscribe that on my tombstone.
I had a short-lived weekly thread there a few years ago, where I'd take story requests and make something out of them. I'd write right there, which led to my stories being crappy. I'm taking it back up again and trying something different: taking the requests then but writing throughout the week and posting the stories the following week. I hope that it'll work out better than last time but I suspect that it'll take a couple of weeks to get underway. Right now I have one request, which I think that I'll be able to turn into something decent.
While I didn't plan it that way, Monday was also a day for figuring out just a little bit more about my acrophobia/fear of falling (I think that it leans more toward the second than the first). I could file it away entirely as an inexplicable phobia but I know that there's something more to it, something underlying it, and I want to get at it and find out what that something is.
Going to Pioneer Park on Monday was the first time in a long while that I felt a really visceral fear, stomach churning to the point of making me feel ill. Me-at-Moab found the experience undesirable, even if part of me was even then coldly monitoring the situation and assessing the information that I was gleaning, but present!me is grateful for having had the opportunity. Accurate conclusions can't be reliably drawn without raw data, and this is a matter for which I would appreciate drawing an accurate conclusion.
Just while we're his blog is an experiment in itself. As you can tell I'm sort of just spitting words onto the screen. I'm editing, yeah, but I'm still trying to figure out my groove, find what I'm really writing and when and why, and how to do it. Just, stuff. If I'm lucky I'll be able to figure out exactly how to roll with this blog. if I'm even luckier, I'll be able to do it sooner rather than later.
Edit Oops. Pioneer Park, not Moab.
Maybe they'll inscribe that on my tombstone.
I had a short-lived weekly thread there a few years ago, where I'd take story requests and make something out of them. I'd write right there, which led to my stories being crappy. I'm taking it back up again and trying something different: taking the requests then but writing throughout the week and posting the stories the following week. I hope that it'll work out better than last time but I suspect that it'll take a couple of weeks to get underway. Right now I have one request, which I think that I'll be able to turn into something decent.
While I didn't plan it that way, Monday was also a day for figuring out just a little bit more about my acrophobia/fear of falling (I think that it leans more toward the second than the first). I could file it away entirely as an inexplicable phobia but I know that there's something more to it, something underlying it, and I want to get at it and find out what that something is.
Going to Pioneer Park on Monday was the first time in a long while that I felt a really visceral fear, stomach churning to the point of making me feel ill. Me-at-Moab found the experience undesirable, even if part of me was even then coldly monitoring the situation and assessing the information that I was gleaning, but present!me is grateful for having had the opportunity. Accurate conclusions can't be reliably drawn without raw data, and this is a matter for which I would appreciate drawing an accurate conclusion.
Just while we're his blog is an experiment in itself. As you can tell I'm sort of just spitting words onto the screen. I'm editing, yeah, but I'm still trying to figure out my groove, find what I'm really writing and when and why, and how to do it. Just, stuff. If I'm lucky I'll be able to figure out exactly how to roll with this blog. if I'm even luckier, I'll be able to do it sooner rather than later.
Edit Oops. Pioneer Park, not Moab.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Dead Missionary Report
I’m writing this in the car on the way between two DIs. Mom found most of the volumes of The Work and the Glory, which has sent us on a quest to find Volumes 6 and 9 to complete the series.
In missionary parlance I’ve been dead for three days now, which means that you’ve got the privilege of reading the words of a ghost. If this is the Spirit World, though, then it looks remarkably like Utah, which isn’t really what I was expecting.
Utah really is an inescapable black hole.
Dead Missionary Life hasn’t been as restful as I imagined. There are a lot of people to see before I go home, and yesterday we went up to tour BYU-I. I’ll be living there for most of three years, so it’s a good thing that the campus appears to be a place that I’d be content to live at. It feels a lot like the campus at Schoolcraft College, which is nice.
By far the most curious thing to me is that I don’t feel a great and pervading shock over the transition. What I’m doing now feels as normal as what I was doing before. I would wonder if this was a sign that I wasn’t going as far as I should in my mission, but the transition into my mission felt just as natural, and the same when one of my companions genuinely died (and not just in the parlance of missionaries). It seems more likely that I just adjust very quickly.
The anticipation and worry over how I would take the change were worse than the change itself. Which, honestly, I should have expected. I had had enough information on hand to anticipate that.
Still working on renovating the site. I hope to have it all finished by the end of next week but, you know, working on that in between everything else.
In missionary parlance I’ve been dead for three days now, which means that you’ve got the privilege of reading the words of a ghost. If this is the Spirit World, though, then it looks remarkably like Utah, which isn’t really what I was expecting.
Utah really is an inescapable black hole.
Dead Missionary Life hasn’t been as restful as I imagined. There are a lot of people to see before I go home, and yesterday we went up to tour BYU-I. I’ll be living there for most of three years, so it’s a good thing that the campus appears to be a place that I’d be content to live at. It feels a lot like the campus at Schoolcraft College, which is nice.
By far the most curious thing to me is that I don’t feel a great and pervading shock over the transition. What I’m doing now feels as normal as what I was doing before. I would wonder if this was a sign that I wasn’t going as far as I should in my mission, but the transition into my mission felt just as natural, and the same when one of my companions genuinely died (and not just in the parlance of missionaries). It seems more likely that I just adjust very quickly.
The anticipation and worry over how I would take the change were worse than the change itself. Which, honestly, I should have expected. I had had enough information on hand to anticipate that.
Still working on renovating the site. I hope to have it all finished by the end of next week but, you know, working on that in between everything else.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Returns
Follow-up to: The Redemption of Shemesh
There are a number of things that I could point to in The Redemption of Shemesh. Shemesh is a Christ figure as easily as she is an Adam, but it is more in this latter vein that I wish to move today. The principal point of The Redemption is there in the title. It is a story of repentance.
There are a number of things that I could point to in The Redemption of Shemesh. Shemesh is a Christ figure as easily as she is an Adam, but it is more in this latter vein that I wish to move today. The principal point of The Redemption is there in the title. It is a story of repentance.
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