Clouds

This evening, I looked at the sunset, and I saw that it had different effects on different clouds. Some clouds were lower in altitude and already in shadow, while other clouds were higher up and still catching the sun's light, creating beautiful colors. I thought that, had there been more lower-elevation clouds, we wouldn't have been able to see the more colorful clouds, but they still would have been there.

Sometimes, we don't see the light and beauty above us because concerns of lower elevation block our view. At those times, it can be difficult to remember that, even though we can't see it, that light and beauty is still there. Those clouds are still up there, still catching the sun's light. It's still good and bright and beautiful, even though it goes unseen.

Having a thick blanket of clouds overhead can feel oppressive and depressing, but we should remember that those dark clouds often have lighter clouds above them, and we can take heart, knowing that, even though we can't always see them, there very well may be bright clouds overhead as well.

Charisma

Charisma is one of the six main traits of all creatures in D&D. All creatures have a Charisma Score, which determines their Charisma Modifier, which they add to all their Charisma-based Attacks, Saving Throws, and Ability Checks. Charisma is useful in social interactions through the Deception, Intimidation and Persuasion Skills, but it's also used in Performance checks, such as acting, singing, and playing musical instruments. Charisma is especially important for Charisma-based Spellcasters, including Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and, you guessed it, Paladins.

Given that Paladins rarely use Deception or Performance, and they tend to reserve Intimidation for their enemies, Paladins most often use their Charisma for their magic and for Persuasion, which I interpret fairly broadly. In my personal life, I use Persuasion to form and maintain positive relationships between people and to try to be polite. Granted, I don't always succeed in doing this, but I almost always try, and I think I tend to succeed.

I think that Charisma is an important skill because it helps us maintain relationships stronger than those maintained through Intimidation. It's good to be friendly, and it's important to be polite. I know that not all people have high Charisma Scores, but I think that's it's still important for people to make their Persuasion checks to try to maintain their relationships and practice courtesy. It's important to be kind, and inasmuch as kindness requires Skill Checks, Charisma is probably the applicable skill.

I'm grateful that I seem to have decent Charisma and that I know how to use it to be kind.

Love and Service

I think I finally got a glimpse of something I've heard about at church. They say in church that you can't help but love the people you serve, and for all my life, I've felt that it was the other way around. If you love someone, as a family member, or as a friend, or even just as a human being, you'd feel some amount of compassion for them and some desire to serve or help them.

This time, it was a little different. As I served others this afternoon, my compassion for them deepened, and I felt a greater desire to continue serving them. As I helped them, I felt more Christlike love for them, and I wanted to help them even more.

For me, for most of my life, service has been a chore, or a duty, or at best, a habit. I helped people because that's what I do, not because I felt a driving feeling of compassion for them. But today was different. Today, I felt love for those whom I served, and that made me want to continue to serve.

A Balanced Day

Ages ago, I had a really good day. A day that was remarkably good. A day that was so good that I put thought into finding out why it was so good, so I could try to have as good a day again. And I think I just did.

That really good day ages ago was good, I determined, because it had a good balance of physical, spiritual, and mental work, rest, and recreation.

For today, I started with physical work, vacuuming the church with the help of a friend. My physical recreation took the for of a brief walk, only about 10 minutes, not quite enough to cause exertion. And, of course, I spent part of the day sitting down, at physical rest.

My spiritual work took the form of service, in the form of vacuuming the church building. I have no idea what spiritual rest is or if it's necessary, but my spiritual recreation involved the singing of hymns.

My mental work and recreation involved planning, preparing, and running a game of D&D. I'll grant you that it wasn't much work. It wasn't like homework or a mentally taxing job. However, some thought was put into the preparation of tonight's game and in the actual running of the game. Running D&D involves doing math, managing multiple characters and their unique abilities, tactics, and plenty of improvisation. I'd say that preparing the D&D game was mental recreation, whereas running it took at least a little bit of mental work.

And if you don't count that, you can at least count writing this blog post as a form of mental work.

And mental rest is easy. I can turn to YouTube for that.

Today, I had a decent balance of physical, spiritual, and mental work, rest, and recreation, and today was a decent day. Here's to even better days with even better balances in the future.

Physical Assistance

One thing that occurred to me yesterday, and was relevant to my life again today, is that, even though God has a physical body, His body isn't usually on Earth with us, as far as I know. God can help us with spiritual matters, but when it comes to physical matters, we can't expect Him to come down here, toll up His sleeves, and join us in the physical work. He can be with us in spirit, but if anything physical needs doing, we have to do it ourselves.

Perhaps that's why the church and its teachings (at least from the perspective of a member of an Elder's Quorum) place such an emphasis on service opportunities. As Uchtdorf said, we are the Lord's hands. He's not going to come down here to mow lawns or shovel snow or help anyone move from one house to another. When He wants to help people physically, He does it through the service of people like us.

I have been blessed with the ability to render physical assistance and with a sporadic desire and a tendency to do so. By offering physical help, I help others in a way that even God doesn't. Of course, that's not to say that I'm better than God. God helps way more people than I do in ways that I can't. Still, it's nice to have a niche. We're part of a team. God helps everyone in ways that only He can, and I help those around me in a way that He can't or doesn't. Together, we help people in every way possible. It's just that, sometimes, the help that God offers has to come through physical, mortal beings like us.

A Call to Serve

I got a call to serve this afternoon. It wasn't a big deal. All I had to do was walk for ten minutes and push a button, and as it turned out, I didn't even have to do that much. But still, doing so brought a friend of mine some peace of mind. It was a good thing to do, even though I didn't actually do hardly anything. But after I did that act of service, I thought about how I was the one my friend called. I was the one my friend turned to. I was the favorite vacuum cleaner. And yeah, I don't always like being people's first person to turn to. It gets tiring. But it's good to know that my friends and family know that they can count on me for help. It's nice to know that I can give them some peace of mind, even when my service doesn't amount to much else.

I'm glad I answered that call to serve this afternoon, and I'm honored that I was the one my friend chose to call and that he knew that I would answer.

Letting Agency Remain

In Elder Neil L. Andersen's talk, The Personal Journey of a Child of God, he quoted a woman named Emily, who had been the result of a teen pregnancy. Emily wrote that she was thankful for her birth mother's choice not to use her agency in a way that would have taken away Emily's agency. As a proponent of agency, I agree with this sentiment. We should not use our agency to restrict or invalidate the agency of others. Naturally, this includes not killing them, but it also includes passing strict and unreasonable laws and rules. It includes not trying to control people or manipulate them. Essentially, we should respect the freedom and agency of others and leave them with as many open options as possible.

We are both lucky and blessed to have agency. We should not now turn around and use our agency in any way that would restrict the agency of others.

An Afternoon Adventure

This afternoon, I had an opportunity to join a friend and his family on a little adventure. It was a little bit of a misadventure, with some getting lost and taking wrong turns, but all in all, it was fun, and it was a good bonding experience. I like going on adventures with people. They're fun, and I think that they can help people draw closer together. It's something like a "we're all in the same boat" scenario, and they usually require some element of cooperation. Adventures are good. I'm glad I got to go on an adventure with my friend's family today.

A Simple Measure of Goodness

I sometimes worry about whether something is right or wrong, good or bad, and I don't necessarily want to blindly take anyone else's word on what's right and wrong, not even God's, or rather that of those who claim to speak for God. I wanted a metric by which to measure their counsel for myself, and I wanted it to be something sturdier than just a gut feeling about what's good and bad. Fortunately, I think I've found one. One way to measure the goodness or badness of anything (and perhaps anyone, for that matter) is to what extent it (or they) contribute to or diminish from human happiness. For example, trees are good because they make people happy, and because they produce oxygen, which facilitates human life, which is necessary to human happiness. Conversely, car crashes are bad because they diminish human happiness, and thus reckless driving is also bad, because it increases the risk of car crashes, which diminish human happiness.

This isn't a foolproof method, mostly because happiness is difficult to measure and because it's not always possible to predict whether an action or course of action will lead to happiness or unhappiness. In most cases, we just have to eyeball it and take our best shot at increasing human happiness. Still, I think it's a half-decent way to measure how good or bad something (or someone) is. Does it (or do they) make people happy of unhappy? How happy or unhappy does it (or they) make people? How long does that happiness or unhappiness last? Eating right and exercising, for example, might diminish human happiness in the short term, but it diminishes unhappiness in the long term. Thus, eating right and exercising are somewhat mixed, but mostly good.

Another complication is the existence (or nonexistence) of an afterlife. We have faith in the afterlife, just as we have faith in Jesus Christ and the prophets, but faith is not a perfect knowledge, and other people have faith in their religions, too. We can't all be right. Given that we don't have a perfect knowledge of the afterlife, it's not possible to say for certain which actions will lead to happiness of unhappiness in the afterlife (assuming there even is one). However, we can make an educated guess. Most religions believe that those who are good will be happy in the afterlife. Thus, if we want a happy afterlife, we should do good here, and we can measure good here by whether it increases or diminishes human happiness. If we contribute to human happiness here, we're probably making good choices, the kind of choices that lead to a good and happy afterlife, or at least a good and happy mortal life.

So, I would say that things (and people) are good if they contribute to human happiness. Thus, we can do good, and be confident that we are doing good, by doing things that help people be happy and find happiness. If we have found happiness in the Gospel, then it is good to share that happiness by sharing the joy of the Gospel with others. If anything in our life has brought us misery, we can do good by warning others against it and the unhappiness it can cause. The Gospel and the teachings of the church can give us more specific ideas of what things are good and bad and what things lead to happiness or unhappiness, but I believe that this is a good rule of thumb to consider in cases not completely covered by the teachings of the church, and it's a good way to confirm some of the truths that are taught in the church.

If it contributes to human happiness, it's good. If it contributes to human unhappiness, it's bad. It could very well be as simple as that.

My Favorite Vacuum

This morning, I vacuumed for about two hours straight. By the end of the second hour, the vacuum felt warm near where I assume its motor is, and I told it it had earned a good long break. A short while later, I learned that I could gain access to a room I don't normally have access to and thus don't normally vacuum, so I grabbed the vacuum and vacuumed the room. After doing so, I felt bad for the vacuum. It was hot and tired, and it was resting, but I called on it again anyway, even though I promised I wouldn't. But there's a reason I grabbed that vacuum again when there was vacuuming to be done. It's my favorite vacuum, and even though it was tired, it was still the best vacuum for the job.

God calls on us a lot, and it can be pretty overwhelming. There are so many callings and service opportunities, and yet, God calls on us again and again. Of course, I don't think God plays favorites, and I don't think we're all necessarily the best at anything, but still, if you've got a good tool, it pays to put it to good use. If God calls on us to do things, that's because He knows we'd be good people for the job. When God calls on us to do a job, that's because He has confidence that we'll do the job sufficiently well. It's an honor to be called upon by God to do something or help someone, even when it's exhausting.

So, when we're called upon to do service, it may help to try to take it as a compliment. We have faith in God, but Him calling on us to help others is a sign of His faith in us.

Seeking Christ

Around Christmastime, one of my favorite messages to see is "Wise Men Still Seek Him," and I often feel like adding "This Season and Always." There is an eternal wisdom in seeking Christ, in seeking to become like Him, and it seeking to follow His teachings. Even regardless of His status as the Son of God, Jesus was a Perfect Man and an excellent teacher. There is wisdom in continuing to follow His path, not matter what time of year it is.

The Regrets of Yesterday

One of the phrases I read recently is something like "Don't let the regrets of yesterday take up too much of today." The past is behind us. We can't change it, so we shouldn't dwell on it. We can learn from the past, of course, but we shouldn't live there. Instead, we should focus on the present and the future. Instead of fretting about past regrets, we should try to live in such a way to not create more regrets.

We shouldn't let our past consume our present and derail our future. Rather, we should let it inform our present and build our future with as few paralyzing regrets as possible.

Heading Home

I'm heading home. I kind of have mixed feelings about this. I'm sorry that the vacation is over. The ride home is uncomfortably long. And I'm not looking forward to the work I'll have to do when I get home. 

On the other hand, I like home. It's comfortable and familiar. Many of the people I love live there. And besides, it's inevitable. Sooner or later, we all have to go home.

I wonder what that's going to feel like. Will I be anxious to go home, or will I wish I could linger? Probably the latter. I should probably fix that. 

A Week with Family

And so a brief but lovely visit is coming to a close. We've spent about a week together, chatting, playing games, watching movies and TV shows. We've played in the pool together, prayed together, read scriptures together. We've shared meals, quality time, and love. We've worked together and helped each other. Altogether, it's been a fantastic week. It's been a week with family. There's no better way to spend time than together with family.

Hope of Victory

Today, my family and I watched the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In the middle movie, The Two Towers, an army faces near-certain destruction, yet the leader of that army insists on maintaining hope. My family and I discussed this briefly, and someone said that you have to have hope for victory in order to fight to win.

I've seen this in my own life as well. Naturally, it has applied to my personal struggles, but it also applied this morning, while I was playing disc golf. As long as I tried to play my best, in hopes that I would do fairly well, I did well enough. But when I determined that I was only going to do "okay," I lost confidence, and I started to do pretty poorly. At least, that's the way I perceived it. Another observer may disagree.

Ultimately, hope for victory is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When one has hope that they can succeed, they usually exercise the confidence and determination that it takes to succeed. Conversely, if one expects to fail, they're unlikely to put in the effort needed to succeed.

There's a saying that goes "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right," and while I don't think that this saying is true in all cases, I believe that there is some element of truth to it. Hope, faith, and confidence are important. Without them, defeat is almost guaranteed.

Hope isn't enough to ensure success, but you need to have a hope for victory in order to have any hope of victory.

Practicing Kindness

I have humanized my sister's garbage can. I saw that it has its name written on it, and I call it by its name. I've thanked it for its service, and I have asked it for the kind of favor that a garbage can can do. I have, in a strange and overly-sympathetic way, formed a connection to this garbage can.

But hey, why not? Can there be such a thing as "overly-sympathetic"? Can a person practice too much kindness and concern for others? I'll grant that the garbage can doesn't warrant as much consideration as any human being or any animal, but so long as I can show kindness to the garbage can and to everyone else as well, why not? Being kind to the garbage can is certainly better than being cruel to it. Practicing kindness and humanization is better than practicing unkindness and dehumanization.

One can justifiably practice apathy towards such things as a garbage can or a dinner plate or a car or anything else, but it doesn't hurt to practice kindness towards them instead.

Playing Together

This afternoon, my family and I played separately. We played on our phones and computers. We played mobile games and video games. We each played alone.

This evening, my family and I played together. We played in the pool in the backyard. We played catch and Marco Polo. We all played together.

This evening was better.

Uplifting Messages in the Home

The home in which I am currently staying has several inspiring, uplifting messages scattered around it. I like having all these inspiring phrases around. They're good reminders of spiritual truths, and I imagine that they can be greatly uplifting when one is in need of uplifting messages. I'm glad to be in a house filled with so many spiritual messages. It's easy to feel the spirit here, even when we're just sitting around. When I have a home of my own, I'm going to try to fill it with such messages. I want to feel the Spirit regularly, and that's easy when spiritually uplifting messages are scattered all over the house. I always want to live in a home filled with uplifting messages.

A Week Without Wifi

When I set out on this vacation, I was kinda counting on having access to wifi for blogging, streaming youtube videos, and keeping in touch with people at home via Facebook Messenger. However, there's some problem with the wifi, and it's kinda thrown a wrench into my plans. Thankfully, I still have my phone, which enables me to continue to access the internet by using mobile data. I can still blog and keep in touch with others, but it now makes sense to use the internet as little as possible.

As if that didn't make sense already.

I'm on a vacation, visiting family in a part of the world that I've never been in before. It would be a crying shame if I spent all this quality family vacation time watching the same youtube videos I could have watched at home. To be brutally honest, I could stand to spend less time on youtube anyway, especially now.

Now is a time to spend with my family, not online. So, partly thanks to a reduced ability to connect to the internet, I now plan to be online as little as possible this week. For this week, and perhaps this week only, I'm glad I'm having trouble connecting to the wifi. I suppose I'll have to connect with my family instead.

Good Attitudes, Good Adventure

Today has been an adventure. Thankfully, those of us who are on this adventure have been in good spirits, making this adventure a good one. 

All adventures have their ups and downs. Some are more or less successful than others, but they basically all have their good parts and bad parts. I believe that what makes an adventure good or bad is how the adventurers respond to what happens. 

It is our attitudes and outlooks that determine whether our lives and adventures are good or bad. So, regardless of what happens during our adventures, let's all try to have positive attitudes, because it is mostly our attitudes that determine the quality of our lives.

Receiving Spiritual Nourishment

I'm glad I went to church today. I able to get some business taken care of, but more importantly, I felt spiritually nourished by the message in Elder's Quorum. I felt heard and understood, and I had some of my more pressing concerns addressed. My spiritual needs were met today, and I'm very thankful for that. I'm thankful that I received spiritual nourishment today.

Church is good. It doesn't always give me the spiritual nourishment I want from it, but today, it did.

Asking for Help

I am of the opinion that if you want help, you should ask for it, and if you don't ask for help, you have no one but yourself to blame for not getting it. Case in point, I am the Brighton Ward Building Cleaning Coordinator. It is my job to call up as many "volunteers" as I need on a given week, organize them, and assist them in the work of cleaning the church building. I don't do that. With very few exceptions, I have elected not to ask for assistance, with the understanding that I would just clean the building myself. I generally prefer it that way. Calling people is unpleasant, and cleaning is calming. I like cleaning the building, and I don't mind not having help in doing it. Naturally, that may change now that we're reopening and using the entire building again. But that just brings me back to my original point. If I want help, and if I want it badly enough to do what it takes to get it, I will ask for it.

I wonder how that mentality applies to me and God. God and I both want things from each other. He wants my obedience, and I want peace. He wants me to help Him with His works, and I want Him to help me with mine. We've both asked each other for help, but I'm now wondering whether that's enough. God merely asking me or assigning me to do something isn't always enough motivation for me to actually do it, and I can ask God for help until I'm blue in the face, but He's not going to give me blessings that I haven't earned or aren't good for me. Maybe I'm not supposed to have peace. I'm getting off topic.

Anyhow, merely asking isn't always enough. Sometimes, we need to offer some incentive. Not all people are willing to help others just out of the goodness of their hearts, and those who do can get burned out if there isn't some reciprocity. Then again, by the same token as those who want help, I suppose if one wants some reciprocity, remuneration, or even thanks, maybe one should ask.

The bottom line is that if you want something, you should at least ask for it, and if you really want it, it might help to offer something in return.

A Comfortable Afterlife

Given that there are multiple degrees of afterlives we might theoretically end up with and that none of them are completely terrible, I believe that everyone will ultimately end up (potentially after some divine punishment) in an afterlife with which we can be comfortable. Those who have grown accustomed to seeking perfection can continue to seek perfection and ultimately attain it. Those who are comfortable with the idea of merely being angels will merely be angels. And those who would be most comfortable being about as far away from religion as they can get will be able to find a place far away from religious sticks in the mud. That may be why eternal progression doesn't happen in the lower two kingdoms of glory. The people who end up there will be comfortable where they are.

I'm thankful that everyone is (after a period of judgement and perhaps punishment) going to have a comfortable afterlife. That's something that I eagerly hope for. I look forward to spending eternity in that kind of comfort. In the meantime, I'm glad to know that I can attain the most comfortable afterlife (for me) be striving to be/become/remain good and to to repent often. I have hope for a good afterlife, and I have a near-certain hope for a comfortable one.

Grading Systems

As I've been thinking about the three degrees of glory in contrast to the traditional heaven/hell dichotomy, it occurred to me that the three degrees of glory is like using letter grades, while the heaven/hell dichotomy is more like a pass/fail grading system.

Letter grades have an advantage over pass/fail systems in that they allow for grater nuance. With three or four possible "grades," people have a clearer idea of where they stand than they would get if they were merely told whether they passed or failed. 

In fact, given that the Celestial and Telestial Kingdoms are canonically said to have multiple degrees within them (and, given that precedent, I would expect that the Terrestrial Kingdom has degrees too), one can get a very precise idea of their grade. Those in the Celestial Kingdom all get As, for example, but the different degrees might tell you whether you got 91 percent, 95 percent, or 100 percent. On the opposite end of the spectrum, those in the Telestial Kingdom all get Fs or maybe Ds, but the precise degree they land in could tell them exactly how close they came to failing or exactly how much they failed by. (And I imagine that those with middling scores get opportunities to learn precisely how well or poorly they did as well.)

These more precise measurements can give us clearer feedback on our Earthly performance and tell us more about ourselves than whether we are binarily good or bad. I'm grateful that there are more than two degrees of glory and that there are degrees within degrees, so we can all ultimately know exactly where we stand.

Naturally, I'm not exactly looking forward to getting my test graded, but I am grateful that my final grade will tell me more than merely whether I pass or fail.

Unconditional Love, Despite Punishment

At a friend's recommendation, I just watched the first season of the Castlevania series on Netflix. In this show, one character is confronted with the consequences of his actions and is told that, because of his repulsive actions and those actions' disastrous results, God no longer loves him.

This is, according to my beliefs, impossible. God loves all His children unconditionally, even those that rebel against Him, hurt His children, defile His name, and invite evil into the world. I'm sure that He still loves even the devil and the other fallen angels, even if they no longer feel His love. Anyone can distance themselves from the love of God, but God does not cease to love them.

God is saddened by our actions that hurt ourselves and others because He loves us and wants us all to be happy. He disapproves of evil deeds because they distance us from the path to true happiness. God doesn't hate us for making bad choices. We are His children. He will always love us, no matter what we do.

However, that love will not always spare us from divine punishment. There are times when God punishes His children, not because He no longer loves them, but because He hopes that that punishment will persuade us to repent. We want us to make good choices that lead to happiness, not bad choices that lead to misery. And if divine punishment might persuade us to choose happiness over misery, a certain amount of divine punishment may be necessary. In fact, it's even evidence of God's love. If He didn't care how much misery our behavior created, He wouldn't care enough to try to correct our behavior.

I am thankful for my knowledge that God's love actually is unconditional, and that He continues to love even those whom He punishes. God punishes evildoers, not because He doesn't love them, but because He does.

Helping Oneself

Paladins have many abilities that help or at least can help others. They can cast protective and healing spells on others. They can empower everyone near them with their strengthening and protective auras. Most of a Paladin's magic can be used to help others. However, it's also important for a Paladin to remember that many of those benefits can apply to them as well. A Paladin can target themselves with protective and healing magic, when needed, and a Paladin is always in the center of their auras and receive the benefits of them. Paladins exist to help people, but they should never forget that one of the people Paladins can help is themselves.

I sometimes struggle, but I can and should help myself overcome my struggles. I am a worthy and in-need recipient of the help and service I sometimes give to others. If I think of myself as two separate people, I could certainly see myself as one of the many kinds of person that I would be willing to try to help.

Unfortunately, I am often too down on myself. I talk to myself in ways that I would never talk to a friend, and that's terribly unhelpful. Instead, I should try to be a friend to myself and to help myself improve.

My life, soul, and happiness are just as valuable as those of other people. If I'm willing to help, love, and care for others, I should also help, love, and care for myself.

Brotherhood Friendship

Last night, my brother and I went out for a walk to watch neighborhood fireworks, and it was a great night. We had fun walking around the neighborhood, watching the displays together. I'm glad that my brother and I can do this sort of thing together. I'm glad that we can go out on walks and mini adventures like this and share experiences with each other. I'm glad my brother and I have this kind of friendship. It's a great thing when brothers can also be friends, and I'm glad that that's how it is for my brother and me. I'm not sure what or when our next mini adventure will be, but I'm glad that I'm sure that there's going to be one.

Happy Interdependence Day

Today is Independence Day, but despite our relative independence from Great Britain, we are not, as individuals, independent from each other. We all rely on each other. I relied on medical professionals last night. I relied on my mom for transportation. People rely on me for physical labor and assistance. We all rely on farmers, plumbers, electricians and other unsung heroes to keep this nation running. We rely on past generations to make this life possible, and future generations are relying on us to improve this nation and not mess it up. We all rely on each other.

It's hard to picture anyone being fully independent from others, but that's okay. As long as we still have each other, we can still afford to rely on each other. And if one of us becomes unavailable for whatever reason, we can rely on others to help fill the gap.

Very few people are completely self-sufficient and independent, and that's okay. We're all in this together. So long as everybody keeps helping each other, we can all continue to rely on each other for help.

The Value of a Life

I wasn't able to blog last night because I had a medical issue. I went to the hospital and underwent a procedure, and I'm mostly okay now. But while it was happening, it stuck me how many people were working for how many hours, just to help me. Granted, they were being paid for their time, but it was almost overwhelming how many strangers were willing to put in work to help me get my life back to normal.

Considering the number of people and the number of hours, and adding the cost of the use of the specialized equipment, I'm sure that the cost was pretty great, but so is the value of the well-being of a human life. I get down on myself sometimes, but my life is still worth maintaining. Even if the cost is fairly high, I'm willing to pay it, because as troublesome as life sometimes is, it's worth it to me to maintain it.

Life can be rough, and the afterlife sounds a lot better, but there are good things about our mortal lives, too, and the benefits of our mortal experience are well worth the cost.

A Good and Happy Life

Of the insights I gained yesterday, on of my favorites is that life on Earth can be heavenly, if we choose to see and/or make it that way.

For much of my life, I've focused on the afflictions of life and how the struggle is supposed to make us strong, but I think it mostly made me bitter instead. Now I think it may be better to focus on the blessings of life, including the opportunities to grow.

We don't need to wait until the afterlife to have good lives. We don't have to wait until the afterlife to be happy. We can be happy and have good lives now by making the decisions that lead to good lives and happiness. We can be happy and have good lives now by focusing on the things that make us happy and that make our lives good.

I have many blessings and several afflictions. When I focus on my afflictions and problems, I get negative. So, it stands to reason that if I focus on my blessings instead, I'll feel positive, and that positivity may help me gain more resilience and help me deal with my afflictions and problems. At the very least, I'll feel better about and in spite of them, and that alone will be worth the effort.

I want to be happy, and I want to have a good life, and I'm grateful that I don't need to wait until I'm dead to do it.

Subtle Influence

Today, I became aware of how subtle God's influence in our lives sometimes is. Throughout the day, several small coincidences have added up to teaching me some pretty important lessons. Unrelated things, like remembering song lyrics, seeing a YouTube video, and getting a text from a friend have led me to some profound messages, many of which are too personal to share. But still, it reminded me of how subtle God often is. It would have been easy to overlook these messages and even easier to not realize that God was the one who was sending me those messages. Sometimes, I think God isn't helping me, but maybe He is, just in ways that are too subtle to notice.

We should try to keep our eyes open to God's subtle influence because, as I learned today, His influence can be so subtle as to be almost imperceptible.

Should the Dungeon Delvers Have Killed the Goblins?

With the return to playing D&D on a regular basis, I once again have an opportunity to renew the "Should X Have Killed Y" series of blog posts. The first few sets of monsters the party encountered were no-brainers. The Skeletons were already dead and clearly aggressive. The Skulks were also aggressors.

The Shadows were an interesting case. They were hostile, though not aggressive. They weren't going to attack anyone maliciously; they were just going to stand in the way and attack anyone who got too close. They only fought back because they were attacked. They could have been peacefully left alone. However, they were also undead, so their redeaths don't really carry much moral significance.

The real conundrum is the case of the goblins. The goblins were not hostile, undead, or evil. They had a certain amount of malicious sadism, but that was mostly because their idea of a harmless prank extended far into the area of what other people would call a harmful attack. All they wanted was to play a friendly game of "Dart Tag," using actual, weapons-grade darts. They also had little regard for the lives of others, or even of each other. It didn't bother them to see their fellow goblins die around them, and it wouldn't have bothered them to see any of the adventurers die. They weren't trying to kill anyone; they just didn't care whether deaths happened or not. In terms of morality, I would have placed them closer to Neutral than to Evil.

However, the situation is complicated by the existence and prevalence of evil goblins in other worlds and media. Sometimes, goblins are depicted as inherently evil in nature. Sometimes, they're assumed to be under the control of an evil god. And sometimes, Goblins are merely forces of nature who cause harm, but with no concept of morality at all. It's easy to assume that goblins are all evil when, in many cases, they are evil, or at least harmful to others.

In this particular case, the goblins weren't evil and didn't need to die, so their deaths were arguably immoral. However, the goblins themselves were somewhat amoral, and they wouldn't've bated an eye at some behavior that others would consider evil, like throwing darts at each other for fun. Perhaps it's better that they were killed than it would have been to let them live. It's hard to say.

I'm not going to judge whether the Dungeon Delvers should have killed these particular goblins or not. They did it, and it is what it is.