Break Down to Build Up

On my way to church this morning, I saw a construction project going on at a local high school. Specifically, they have removed the old bleachers around the football field and seem to be putting in new ones. However, at the moment, all they currently have are several holes in the ground where the old bleachers used to be.

Still, that's progress. Just looking at how it stands now, it seems like they've taken a huge step backward, having gone from old bleachers to no bleachers. But that's just one necessary step in the process, from old bleachers to no bleachers to new bleachers. Sometimes, you have to break something down in order to build something else up.

There are things in all our lives that we can stand do without, if only because they're getting in the way of us getting something better. For instance, I like my current job. I'd be worse off without it. Yet, if I could get a better job by quitting my current one, then quitting my current job would be a painful but necessary step in the process of getting a better job, just as breaking down the old bleachers was a messy, but necessary step toward putting in new ones.

We should try not to be too afraid of making such temporarily detrimental progress. The whole "two steps forward, one step back" routine sometimes requires us to take the "one step backward" first. We shouldn't be too afraid of breaking down whatever stands in the way of us building something better up. It's a painful, messy, and temporarily detrimental part of the process, but it is sometimes a necessary one. Sometimes, in order to build something up, you have to break something down first.

Know Your Rope

My brother and I walked the dog today, and after we had been walking for a while, we thought we'd rest by sitting under the shade of the tree. To keep the dog secure, we tied the dog's leash, a long rope, around the base of the tree, making sure to pick a tree thin enough that the dog would have enough rope to move around. Naturally, being tethered to the tree would limit her movement, but if she used her movement intelligently, she'd have a decent radius of distance to work with.

Unfortunately for the dog, that's not what happened. She walked herself around the tree until her leash was so wrapped up, she had very little room to move. Had she been more intelligent and thought more carefully about the length of rope she had to work with and how she could use it, she could have maintained a great deal of freedom instead of wrapping her rope up unhelpfully.

We are all in a similar situation. We're all tied to something, figuratively speaking. Yet, the better we understand the ropes that bind us to one place, idea, or person, the better use we can make of the amount of space available to us. For example, I live in Sacramento and have limited travel options. Basically, I can bike, take Regional Transit, and occasionally ask people for rides. Still, that leaves me with a lot of area I can explore and a lot of great places I can reach. Sure, I can't get to the beach, for example, but I know spots along the river that are fairly beach-like, and I can pretty easily get there.

I also try to understand the limits of my understanding. I evaluate the information I come across, and I use the trustworthy information I've collected to try to draw reasonable conclusions, expanding my understanding. I also try not to tie myself to too many ideas that I know are wrong. Attending college as a Christian, I know that not everything I hear is true and good, so I have to take what I hear with a grain of salt and compare it to what I already know is true. The better I understand my beliefs, the better I can evaluate the beliefs and teachings of others.

All of us have constraints to work within, but the better we understand our constraints, the better we can work within them, giving us a great deal of freedom, even while we remain bound to the places, people, and ideas that matter most to us. Such bonds may sometimes feel restrictive, but they are much less so to those who know their ropes.

Love is the Answer

I just heard a song by Jack Johnson titled Better Together, and some of the lyrics include a somewhat profound thought:

        Love is the answer, at least to most of the questions in my heart,

        Like why are we here, and where do we go, and how come it's so hard?

Of course, there are many other questions that Love is the answer to, like what should we do, and what should we seek, what is most important? But there are other questions that are a little harder to answer.

I have a lot of questions, and I'd love for God to answer a few of them, but maybe the only answer I really need is Love. We are here to feel and express love for the people around us. When we die, we go to spend eternity with those we love. And in the meantime, life is hard because... well, okay, that one doesn't make as much sense to me. But still, knowing that God loves me makes the hardness of life a little bit more tolerable.

I'm grateful for the love that I have in my life and for the people who feel and express love for me, and I hope I express my love for them just as much. I don't have all the answers I want, but I have love, and that'll do for now.

Divine Justice Delayed Until Death

One terrible aspect of divine justice is that it doesn't take full effect until hereafter. People only receive there eternal rewards (and eternal punishments) after they die, leaving them with a lifetime of a life they don't deserve. The righteous suffer afflictions in mortality, despite being righteous, and the wicked enjoy blessings in mortality, despite being wicked. This undercuts the incentive we have to be righteous, since we know that we won't be rewarded for our good deeds until after our deaths. This also frustrates some of the guidance God could give us, since blessings aren't necessarily a sign of His approval, and afflictions aren't necessarily a sign of His disapproval. We could live a blessed or cursed life and still have no idea if we're living the way God wants us to live.

I sometimes wish that God's judgement was more tangible, more immediate, and easier to interpret. As it stands, God has few ways to communicate with us, and one of His strongest ways, through just feedback, seems to be sending mixed messages. I'm glad to know that, ultimately, everything will be made right through the power of the Atonement. I just kinda wish a more accurate reflection of God's justice in this life as well.

Should the Party and the Wererats Have Killed Each Other?

Resurrecting my long-dead series of "Should [D&D Character] (Have) Kill(ed) [D&D Monster]," I'd like to blog about senseless violence that lead to further senseless violence. Now that the violence is mostly over, I think I'd like to blog about how senseless it all really was.

It started with a completely unrelated conflict. One D&D character got on the bad side of an Assassin (long story), and the Assassin did a great deal of damage to that character. To regain some health, the character in question used a quarterstaff with a vampiric life-drain ability to hit a rat. I'm sure he intended to kill something whose life had little value, whereby to gain healing without causing much actual harm to the world. But this rat was actually a wererat, and he survived, and he remembered.

After the Assassin had been dealt with, the party, including the character who had unwittingly attacked a wererat, spotted several shady characters lurking in an alley nearby. These shady characters with the initial wererat and a handful of his friends, hoping to confront the character and "teach him a lesson," now that they had numbers on their side, outnumbering the party two to one. I forgot exactly how this conflict started, but it doesn't much matter. Both parties would have attacked the other if the other hadn't attacked first. I think the wererats technically made the first Attack Roll, unless you count Shoving as a kind of Attack, which it technically was. Either way, both sides acted aggressively, and both sides deserved to have their aggression stopped by the other, by force if necessary. This isn't the group of wererats whose lives I consider worth pondering.

The conflict continued as the surviving wererats went into full retreat and retreated straight into the wererat lair. The Party pursued them, perhaps (charitably) hoping to end the wererats' aggression once and for all. This led the party directly into the path of some wererats whose task it was to stand guard. This was a secret lair, and the wererats' policy was to ensure that anyone who discovered their secret took said secret to their graves. The wererat guards had a "Kill on Sight" policy regarding intruders. When the party intruded, the wererat guards were prepared to fight back.

This is the conflict I find morally interesting. "Kill on Sight" is rarely a justifiable policy. Initiating aggression is rarely a morally viable move. The wererats probably shouldn't have tried to kill the party on sight, and the party probably shouldn't have tried to kill the wererats on sight. In that regard, the morality of the conflict was a wash, with both sides being equally wrong.

What complicates matters was that the wererats live in their lair. This was a home invasion, and I believe that people have a moral right (if not a legal right) to defend their homes from intruders, perhaps with force, if necessary. Does this mean that the wererats had a moral right to defend their home by attacking the aggressive intruders? I think so. By the time these two sides (the adventuring party and the wererat guards) came into contact with each other, the adventuring party had been reported as being lethally violent and had been witnessed destroying wererat property in a threatening and violent matter. The wererats had every right to assume that the party was there to kill them all, and I judge that such an assumption would have been correct. The wererats had to respond in some way to the obvious, imminent, lethal threat.

Still, I suppose the wererat guards could have surrendered. I'm not sure if it's morally justifiable to require the victims of violent threats to surrender to those who pose such threats, but it would probably have precluded further violence, so it is at least an option to consider.Yet, once a person surrenders, they reduce their ability to fight back, making them more vulnerable to threats and attacks, perhaps inadvertently encouraging further threats and attacks against other people. Surrender is not generally a good plan, and while it was later found necessary for one of the few remaining wererats to surrender, and they weren't immediately killed, I don't fully know how I feel about requiring surrender, instead of counterattack, in cases of responding to violence.

The first D&D character probably shouldn't have attacked the rat the way he did, though that action seems mostly morally justified, given the knowledge he had. The first group of wererats definitely shouldn't have threatened the party. Neither side should have attacked the other first. The party probably shouldn't have pursued the retreating wererats, except perhaps with the intention to prevent further attacks. Neither the party nor the wererat guards should have had a "Kill on Sight" policy against the other, but it may be that true that the wererat guards had a right to to defend their home against invasion. And certainly, once an attack was made, a counterattack was all but guaranteed, placing both sides in moral (and mortal) jeopardy.

I don't think the party should have immediately attacked the wererat guards. I don't know if the wererat guards would have been justified in immediately attacking the party, though I currently think I think so. A lot of moral questions were asked and left unanswered tonight. But at least they were interesting questions, well worth pondering.

Breathe, Think, Do.

The other day, I was trying to do too many things at once, and I wasn't sure what to do next. I felt overwhelmed, dashing from one task to the next, leaving each task half-done because I felt that what I had to do next was too important to be made to wait. As I was getting myself all worked up about what I was doing and what I needed to do, I felt the need to take a moment to center myself. "Breathe, Think, Do,"I told myself. And it worked. Breathing helped me settle my emotions and clear my head, which helped me think about what really needed to happen next and to plan effectively, and then I was able to do my work efficiently and effectively without further stress.

I told myself then that I should remember that mantra for the future: "Breathe, Think, Do." It helped me relax, focus, and work effectively, and the next time I feel overwhelmed and stressed, I hope that it'll help me relax, focus, and work well again.

"Then Make One"

I recently saw a social media post comparing life to the greatest role-playing game, since we basically play whatever role we make for ourselves. In reply, someone said that they wanted a new character, and in response to that desire for a new character, someone else said "Then make one."

In the end, we can make ourselves, our "characters," more or less whatever we want them to be. Granted, there are things we can't change about ourselves or our circumstances, but we can change what kinds of people we are. If we're not satisfied with ourselves, we can change. In fact, we were meant to.

God does not intend for us to remain the way He made us. He intends for us to grow and become wiser and stronger as we gain experience. He expects us to "build character," and He gives us a great deal of freedom in which traits and attributes we focus on improving.

There are aspects I don't like about the character I have now. Fortunately, I know that I can build on that character and gradually change myself for the better. If I want a different character than the one I have now, and I really think I do, then I can make one.