Study notes: Nov 23-29, 2014: "Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern" and other things

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Article, "The Seven Types of Short Story Opening, and How to Decide Which is Right for Your Story," by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern," by Nicholas Wade
• Paper, "Buddhist Hard Determinism: No Self, No Free Will, No Responsibility," by Riccardo Repetti
• Article, "Vladimir Putin is Right Out of a Russian Novel," by Linton Weeks
• Letter, "Letter of His Holiness John Paul II to Artists," by Who Do You Think?
• Article, "Neoreactionary Movement," on Rational Wiki
• Article, "Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neo-Reactionaries," by 
• Article, "Mormon Women, Traditionalists and Feminists: An Evolving Conversation," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Mormon Studies in the Classroom: Mormon Women, Patriarchy and Equality," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Pragmatism and Progress: An Overview of LDS Sister Missionary Service in the Twentieth Century," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Ukraine, Not the Ukraine: The Significance of Three Little Letters," by Katy Steinmetz
• Article, "Ukraine or the Ukraine: Why do some country names have 'the'?," by Tom Geoghegan. 
• Article, "Life Tips You Need to Know," by Likes.com
• Article, "College Life: Tips for Survival," by Hassan Ishtiaq
• Article, "What's so bad about hating the Daleks, anyway?" by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "The Economics of Star Trek: The Proto-Post Scarcity Economy," by Rick Webb
• Article, "BYU prof fears Mormon scholars are giving in to secularism," by Peggy Fletcher Stack

Study notes: Nov 18-22, 2014: "Philosophy in Prison" and other things

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week:

TED Talk: "The leaders who ruined Africa and the generation who can fix it," by Fred Swaniker
TED Talk: "Is there a real you?" by Julian Baggini
TED Talk: "Philosophy in prison," by Damon Horowitz.
TED Talk: "All it takes is 10 mindful minutes," by Andy Puddicombe
TED Talk: "We can be Buddhas," by Robert Thurman
Blog post: "Contemplating the Red Pill," by Free Northerner
Article: "Fifty Ways to Leave Leviathan," by Max Borders & Jeffrey A. Tucker
Article: "How Long Ago Was Adam Created!?" by Maan Khalife
Blog post: "The Most Useful Mnemonic Technique," by Brienne
Article: "How Climate Change Will End Wine As We Know It," by Sandra Allen
Article: "Latter-day Saint, Latter-day Lovecraft: an interview with W.H. Pugmire," by Theric Jepsen

I have also written notes on David Pulsipher's talk, "Renouncing War: How Mormon Theology & History Lead Us to Nonviolence," and compiled some knowledge from Wikipedia and elsewhere.

Happy New Year!

Today I start two new projects. The first is a YA novel called Fox Sense and Circumstances. It's about a young girl who finds a friend in an abandoned, half-dead fairy who turns out to be more Cthulhu than Tinkerbell. But she accidentally ensnared him in a magical contract that's put him on a leash firmly in her hands, and if he wants to act as he pleases then he's going to have to convince her to let him.

In the meantime, they're going to have to deal with a group of straightedge wizards with white trench coats and cold iron straight razors. Her new friend is a walking nuclear bomb, and they aim to put him down like they thought that they did the first time.

So it'll be interesting. I really don't know what it's going to be like tomorrow. It's practically a fairy itself.

The other thing that I'm working on is the 30 Days to a Better Man project from The Art of Manliness.

Whenever it's relevant (there's no point to saying "Today I scheduled an appointment for a medical check-up!") I'll discuss what's gone on. Today was "Defining Your Core Values."

I decided to start with the initial list of suggestions that they offered. If there seemed to be a hole missing then I could fill it, but I thought that it would be mighty silly to spend a few hours working it out only to find that everything was right there on the list.

Right off the bat I could see some things to rule out. Control was a complex of mine, not a value. Assigning it as such would only make it harder to not be authoritarian and controlling. Same thing for Power. Fulfillment, Happiness, and Success both seemed like putting the cart before the horse. Unless you were understanding it as, say, financial success, all of these seemed more like the result of living in alignment with your core values.

Spirituality and Faith got folded into "God. Honesty and Integrity got folded into Truth. Marriage and Friends got folded into Family. My closest friends are family to me, and otherwise the Friends category isn't a core value for me. Education and Wisdom were folded into Knowledge. The former contributes to it, and wisdom is a kind of knowledge, not this thing that's totally distinct from it. Independence was folded into Freedom. Progress was folded into Growth.

With thirteen less options to choose from, I did what the article suggested and started pitting them against each other. For simplicity's sake I did it in alphabetical order, and this left me with Balance (over Adventure), Creativity (over Confidence), Forgiveness (over Fun), Kindness (over Humor), and Knowledge (over Peace of Mind, which I thought was an apt conflict), and Truth (over Strength).

There were a few conflicts that I couldn't resolve, and I saw that Reason needed to be folded into Knowledge, and both Financial Security and Self-reliance needed to be folded into Freedom.

From the fifteen possibilities remaining I narrowed it down to Knowledge, Discipline, Creativity, Freedom, God, Growth, Family, and Truth. I liked the rest, sure, but I couldn't include them in the Top 5.

But ohhhhh... Knowledge, that sneaky weasel. Hadn't I realized that prioritizing Knowledge was a Bad Road for me months ago? Apparently I was starting to forget, but I chopped it out readily enough. I liked it, but if it were endorsed by a Top 5 position then I might never fix the complex that that obsession had given me.

With that out of the way I got it down to Creativity, Freedom, God, Family, and Truth.

Then I had to prioritize them in anticipation of conflicts between my values:
1. Truth
2. God
3. Family
4. Freedom
5. Creativity

I tried to view these in a Wu Xing kind of way. One value wasn't superior to another so much as it allowed another. Without Freedom I can't exercise my Creativity, so choosing Creativity in a conflict between them is only going to hurt it in the long run. Similarly, I can't have Freedom if Family isn't accounted for.

Truth comes before God because no matter how I try to get away from it what fills the "God" spot is ultimately going to a flawed conception. I don't know everything and I don't perfectly process and accept everything that I do know. What God is in this list is "My understanding of God and what God requires of me." Where it's right, it's still incomplete, and there are many things that I "know" about God that are totally wrong.

By putting Truth above "My understanding of God" I hope to ensure that I will never turn down the opportunity to update my knowledge of God because the information runs counter to what I think that I know right now. Without my chief priority being Truth, I'll only ever serve God-as-I-think-God-is and never God-as-God-is.

Everything in five words

To Moses God stated, "I am what I am."

This is both announcement and declaration. He teaches that He exists. He tells that He is eternal.

But contained within this statement is also a lesson that we can take to heart for ourselves, not in reference to God's nature but to our own, not for the future but in this moment. This is God's revelation of His existence and nature. And it is in the selfsame message that He refuses to make excuses.

He is. He is what He is. He does what He sees to be good, and does not what He sees to be bad. And whether He moves hither or thither, raises the sparrow or lets it strain and grow, calms the storm or steps away, He will not be browbeaten. He may be questioned. But He will not break under pressure and go the easier path, nor apologize for doing exactly as His knowledge leads Him.

Would that we could all be so! How great that we can, and how miserable that so many do not. But in following the example of our God we see the way that is better than the capitulation of our wills. Walk the path that your combined experience- knowledge, faith, and all other things- leads you, and never stray from that guide. When it passes to another road change your course swiftly, and regret not the loss of face that may come, nor apologize for abandoning your friends.

Your true and polar star is your own, and where you follow it you are sure to triumph. They have not your star, nor know the roads that it has brought you to. Where is their excuse to mock or make afraid?

Now, this is not to say that you have license to be, as the scriptures say, a law unto yourself. But the Holy Spirit is to be part of your guide, and it would be foolish to claim that your history and learning- other parts of your combined experience- do not affect how you interpret its guidance. When you take all these things together to walk by the light of the Spirit or to feel your way when God leaves you to your own devices, as He does from time to time, then you have your star and this you should neither disregard nor ask forgiveness for following. You have the guidance that you have been given, and they have not been given it, nor you the guidance given them. To each their own road, let it bring them where God will.

Fiction: Stories We Tell Each Other in the Dark

There was a couple and their children that I witnessed, sitting all together around a silent pit. The wind howled, and the trees shook, and the storm clouds gathered above them.