All Posts

Who is the answer?

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

In English Class they make you study the worst of humanity. But there are some interesting works covered, like William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

If you took any subject that involved poetry there’s a good chance you know about Blake already, but I’ll outline it for those who haven’ts. The Songs is a collection of poems covering multiple subjects from two perspectives, one of childlike innocence, and one of more mature (and cynical) experience.

Blake will talk something like a chimney sweep (back in the day, those were little boys because they could fit inside the stack;) a procession of orphans on Holy Thursday, a garden; or a lamb and a tiger; and look at it first how a child would, with simplicity and a rose tinted view of the world, and then switch int he corresponding poem to an adult’s perspective, aware of all the bad things in the world.

It’s a unique idea, and it brings to mind how many poets and writers turn more cynical in their later days anyway. I think one reason, among many, is that they realize their ideas aren’t enough to fix the world’s problems.

Humans have this odd notion that our beliefs and ideals are enough to inspire people to resolve the issues int he world. With our Civil Rights Movement, protests, charities, and speeches, and of course, art.

I believe in all those things, but I have no illusions that they’ll work for everyone, at all times. My professor was commenting on how sad it was that it took a full hundred years from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement to really change how people felt about African Americans. My private reaction “A hundred years seems like a long time for human to change their culture to you? The world’s been around thousands of years and slaver and other evils still exists, they just shift around. It’s not like we’re getting rid of it altogether. Any progress a nation makes in eradicating an evil is a fight against the odds.”

I’m not cynical, I’ve just come to realize that mankind is not the answer to the world’s problems. At one time, perhaps we were, but since then we’ve become too much of the problem.

I don’t buy into that sci-fi super-villain mentality that mankind is a disease, by any means. I just consider us too much of a mixed bag. We undo each other’s work. We make progress for a century or two, and then we lose it. We ebb and flow. That’s okay. Because we aren’t the answer, we’re just part of the solution.

You can guess where I’m going with this, of course, Jesus is the answer.

Seriously, as often as we hear that, do we get it? Christians get all fired up over how we can change the world around us…I think “The Bible doesn’t say to change the world. The Bible says we need to change. We need to be different from the world. And then those in it will either come to the light, or they will shun it.” Jesus commanded us to make disciples, not to turn political tides.

I don’t have a problem with doing that. We are citizens on this planet and should promote its well being as much as we can. But at the end of the day, we don’t belong to the world, and the world won’t save us. And we can’t save it.

I pray for what goes on in the world, but I recognize that is is what is important to me that I can affect the most. I used to think my life wouldn’t be effective unless I reached a lot of people. I still believe that’s possible, but now I also see that numbers aren’t what’s important.

What is important is people, individuals.

“The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual – for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.”– M. Scott Peck.

This is the true battle.

Spiral Galaxies Confirm Creationism (A Post from another author.)

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I found this other blog post talking about galaxies that I thought was interesting. Check it out.

Michael's avatarNew Discoveries & Comments About Creationism

The stars were always an interest in my youth, learning about their range in color indicating their surface temperature for instance, the coolest stars are red while the hottest stars are orange. The temps in various stars range from anywhere 3,000 to 40,000 Kelvins.

Stars also have different brightness to them. The way scientists can determine how bright a star is, is by color and size of the star. Blue stars shine brighter than cooler red stars which are of the same size while giant stars shine more brightly than little dwarf stars.spiralgalaxyThe common elements which stars of made of are, hydrogen and helium gas. When you combine all the mass from these elements, it creates a gravitational field much stronger than earth’s which prevents the gas from dispersing out into space. Astronomers who embrace evolution, believe that stars randomly form from a collapsed nebula.

A nebula is an enormous…

View original post 355 more words

Ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I reviewed Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day a while back (I think.) I know I’ve mentioned the song from the movie before. The line “It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do…that’s what gets results.” Is the only one in the song.

I think it;s supposed to be the theme of the movie. And event hough it could justify things in the film that aren’t a good idea, like sleeping your way to the top; living a hectice and unstable lifestyle; drinking way too much on an empty stomach; and modeling lingerie. (I think it’s a bad idea anyway.) I think the line sums up what Miss Pettigrew herself shows us.

She poses as life assistant (or something like that) for Miss La Fosse. Even though she doesn’t know a thing about it (neither as it turns out does Miss La Fosse.) But as the film goes on, Miss Pettigrew rises to every occasion that is presented to her, surpassing her own expectations several times. The point is not what she’s doing, assisting Miss La Fosse, but the way that she does it. Helping her to turn her life the right way around. (Which is why I prefer the movie to the book in this case.)

I got to thinking about how many things are considered wrong to do except in special circumstances. Killing is wrong, except in war or self defense (depending on your worldview. But everyone agrees killing in cold blood is wrong.) Stealing is wrong…unless it’s in war or an act to protect someone else or in a criminal investigation.

Lying is wrong, unless it’s to save someone’s life.

Of course people differ on this, in the Bible it can be kind of depending on the person. David lied and so did other people on his behalf, we have no record of how God felt about this, but it would seem that He views it more leniently…But I’m not an authority on that, so don’t take my word as the final one.

My point it, it the way that these things are done, they why and the how that change them from bad to good.

But morally grey areas are only a small part of what this means.

I’ve noticed in life that people succeed and fail in different fields mainly because they do things a certain way. Not that everyone has to function like a machine, there is no formula for how you do things, but there is a factor to doing them well: Passion.

I seem to get good results whenever I put my mind to something, and I figure that this is because When I make up my mind to do it, I do it with my vim and vigor.

And other people who approach everything they do with that attitude make anything from street sweeping to hairdressing an art form.

I listened to the radio show Adventures in Odyssey a lot  over the last few years, and One of my favorite characters was Wooten, the mail man (and secret billionaire.) Who makes delivering mail into an art form. Wooten gets to know everyone on his route and is always helping them wherever he can, and asking about their families. So being a mailman isn’t that glamorous, but the way Wooten does it warms your heart.

Anything can be special if you make it special, if you get the most out of it. Anything can be impactful if your goal is to impact. True passion is always something other people pick up on. And it certainly makes your life more rewarding to you.

Till next time–Natasha.

Jumanji!

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Hey there movie fans. Ready for this one?

This is an east movie to review. I watched the original Jumanji and the new one on the same day. I actually recommend doing that if you can, becuae the new oen fits inot the old one like a sequel. and considering it’s been around 20 years, it fits like a glove.

They did everything, they came up with a explantaion for why the game is a video gma,e why it appears to be haunted, and why it is so much cooler if you’re actually in the Jungle. Th eonly falw I see is that they’re making a sewul, and thism movie was basically a decades-in-waiting sequel.

If anyone who loved the original was worried that they’d retell the story and ruin it, don’t be. Proper homage is paid to Robin Williams and his story, while an interesting parallel story is told. They also find a way to make you believe that the characters would not forget everything at the end, because luckily, no one’s future is handing on one character being able to win the game, like it was in the first one. (The only part that you didn’t like about the ending.)

This new one is a lot less sad too, but been with its wonkier style where people have three lives, you don’t lose respect f or the value of life. Two characters do push each other off cliffs or whatnot and lose lives doing that, and claim it’s no big deal. But that is balanced out when other characters sacrifice one of their lives to that someone can live and they can get out of the game.

I never thought I’d say this, but I think they managed to use the extra lives thing as a way to demonstrate how important lives are. And who would have seen that one coming.

And thank you actors, this movie is actually funny. The first one wasn’t, though it was interesting. But this one knows when to not take itself too seriously. g any real video gamer would know a game like Jumanji would not be likely to have cake make its characters explode, that can be overlooked since it’s supposed to be riffing video games in general.

And you thought Wreck-it-Ralph took them too seriously. But it works in Jumanji because you know the game kind of has a consciousness.

And it now has a creepy villain, not just a crazed sharpshooter. The villain isn’t on screen much and isn’t actually super important to the story, which is a good thing, because in the small amounts he was there he was creepy as heck. And his short screen time is very effective. You don’t like him form the start.

Somebody give Jack Black an award for this role please. It was over the top, but he played a completely convincing 16 year old girl trapped in a middle aged man’s body. He even walked like a girl. he committed himself to this part. He was definitely the funniest character. But the other three all had their moments. I never knew Dwayne Johnson and…whatever the girl who plays Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy’s name is… had it in them to portray nerds stuck in hot shot bodies. But they did an amazing job. Each character had the facial expressions of their teen counterparts down pat. It looked like it took months to perfect. (If not, then dang, that’s some talent.) I’d say Kevin hart was the only one who just played himself. But he still did a good job of portraying the other character.

To my surprise the moral life lessons in this movie were not shoddy either. I don’t like the sexual ones. But it wasn’t too bad mostly. Nothing that wouldn’t go over your kids heads likely as not. But as played as the be more confident message is, I bought it. We see signs of both nerd characters wanting to have more confidence before they go into the game, and we even see signs of it in the girl, and then the game is just the catalyst that psyche them. A nice touch they kept from Robin William’s was that they use the context of the game to deal with their real world challenges. The nerd stands up to his jock best friends, who finally reconciles with him and learns to respect him again. The weird girl who needs confidence and the nerd confess their love ( I could’ve done without the kissing, but it was supposed to be funny. To their credit, I like that their real world kiss was a lot sweeter that their video game one, implying that even out of it they have chemistry.) The selfish pretty girl turns out not to be so bad once you snatch the phone from her hand. And she even turns the tables on the smart girl by telling her she’s being judgmental. It kind of surprised me that a movie about a video game would bring up such a hit to the gut kind of idea.

The life lessons they learn are also not that you have to change your look or your personality and it will make you cool. Being cool actually isn’t the point. (How refreshing in a teen movie.) The point is to be a better version of yourself then you were before you went into the game. To know yourself better, and to care more about the people around you. The movie takes a real feel kind of life or death bonding approach to their friendship.

In other words, it’s the near impossible balance between weighty where it needs to be and lighthearted when it fits. It’s not the best movie every of course, or the most profound, but for the type of movie it is, it’s easily the best one I’ve seen.

Until next time–Natasha.

I Voted.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Hello everyone, hey it’s the last week of the term before finals.

I am not slowing down though, I have VBS in two weeks and I jump back into the Summer Term, got to get those credits under my belt.

I also voted for the first time this month. I was registered and even got the little card telling me where to go, but me and my family all were somehow left off the list. It happened to a lot of people in the state. My dad sad he’s suspect an conspiracy if it hadn’t been in the more liberal areas.

Not that that guarantees anything. We’re very conservative as you can guess.

About that, I’ve got nothing against liberals as people, but their policy are so whacked out. I’ve known plenty of them, and though some of them are nice, caring, and sweet, there’s always a certain glitch int heir thinking on certain subjects. I suppose they feel the same about me.

Basically they react to me like “That Natasha, she’s just so stubborn and determined to speak her mind. We don’t agree but hey, why argue?..It’s not like it’s important.”

Except often it is important, and tat’s why it bugs me. Back off from an argument over sushi vs tacos, sure, (they don’t usually back out from those kinds of arguments actually) but from Abortion? Politics? Respect? Marriage? This stuff shapes our lives.

My state had a voter turnout that was less than a fifth of the population. And I think hardly a fourth of the registered voters. I didn’t hear anyone at my college talking about it, I don’t think the other collegiates voted, not many anyway. And I was the youngest person at the place I voted at by at least ten years, likely more.

Young folks don’t care, or don’t know how to decide who to vote for. Both alternatives are frightening.

I felt the responsibility of the country for the first time. I don’t know how effective our votes are now, but they do something, as the 2016 election showed. So I could end up changing someone’s future. Do I want to live with that?

I’d better, because otherwise I put that ability into the hands of people I don’t even know who probably don’t share my values and who’ve been destroying my state for years. I have a very blue state, just so you know.

Think about it, suppose I vote for tax cuts, and in a year or so when they go into effect (if we’re lucky) someone can afford to send their kids to a better school, or buy a car, or even more food. OR at least they can but more of what they already use. In the snowball effect that could mean less health problems, a better education, a better job, and even better relationships.

Suppose, in the dream of a dream, the money for our roads was actually used for our roads, and people have less accidents or bad dents or jolts on their car, and better tires.

Makes you wish you were in America huh?

Just kidding, though for all I know it could. Everyone seems to want to come here.

I ask you Americans, do you think about this anymore? Or do you vote just to keep the person you hate out of office? To make your life better personally. Do you think about the greater good?

Do you consider the hundreds or thousands of people affected materially by these elections.

Did the people who voted Marijuana in ever stop to think about the hundreds of deaths resulting form driving high? and the people who are going to get addicted to it? and maybe to heroin since that often comes after pot. Did those people ever ask themselves if it was right to hand the right to get high over to a bunch of 18 years olds fresh out of high school, ready to do stupid things just because it’s legal now? Pot alters your brain, it’s true. And we made it legal to do that.

We made it legal to smoke pot around kids who will grow up thinking that’s okay. We are allowing people to raise their risk of getting into accidents with equipment because their perception is affected.

That’s just three examples. My question to you is do you care? And hey, I hear Canadians vote too, so if your from Canada I ask the same thing.

If you’re not in a country with that kind of power in the people’s hands, I would just ask if you wish the government would take the needs of everyone into consideration.

Our Republic over hear in the USA is far from flawless nowadays, or even the  force for good it once was, but it remains able to effect some things for the better still thanks to the people. And call me and old fashioned Yankee, but I still believe it’s the best system, next to the Biblical one.

And I believe in independence and responsibility for my own life partly because of my American heritage, though also because of my christian one. I love our history over here and I don’t apologize for it, so take that!

I mean, sure we’ve done some bad things. So has every country, I don’t catch them apologizing for it. You think Iran is ever going to make amends to us for terrorism? No. They want us to help them.

Not to throw Iran under the bus, my point is, we don’t need to feel ashamed to be Americans just because we’ve had slaves and bigotry here, and invented the atom bomb.

As countries go that still only makes us average, and as for how we’ve used our system to end those things as much as we can, we’re a cut above almost everyone else.

But a country isn’t something you love because it’s perfect, you love it because it’s your home and you want to take care of it. It’s just that America’s whole foundation was built on understanding that the people  are the country, kind of like Asgard in Thor: Ragnarok was described.

So, voting,  as small as it seems, is our duty. Our job. Our chance to help each other.

Until next time–Natasha.I_Voted_Sticker_5

Infinity Wars–2

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

There will still be spoilers, but if you read the last post,  you probably don’t care or you’ve already seen it, so we should be good.

So clearly there were a lot of deaths to talk about in this movie. My first question is if they were all necessary?

thr heartbreaking ones wee definitely Gamorrah’s, Spiderman’s, and Vision’s. Even if like me you never liked Vision, it was still pretty sad to see Scarlett Witch first kill him and then watch him die again  thanks to Thanos. That does make it seem meaningless.

But Thanos sacrificing Gamorra in order to get the soul stone that was both repulsive and emotional. Though personally, I don’t think she’s dead. I think she’s in a coma, because a fall like that shouldn’t have killed someone so enhanced, plus the whole thing felt like a cop-out of sorts. And there was that vision of her he had at the end, I think the Soul Stone has Gamorra in some sort of suspended animation. (Ask your nerd friends if you don’t know what that is, it’s a comic thing.)

Gamorra is so coming back, so it wasn’t so bad with her. And Spiderman too. Vision, probably.

But do their deaths add anything to this movie?

Spiderman’s? Not really. It adds to Tony Stark’s many issues to watch his yong protegee dissolve,a long with a bunch of other people. But it doesn’t have a lot to do with the movie’s themes.

But with the other two I have more to say. An ongoing theme in this movie was sacrifice. Thanos wants to sacrifice half of all the life in the universe just so the other half can go on to survive and thrive. he claims that when he did this, with Gamorra’s help, the planets went on to be lush and people no longer starved.

I guess Thanos has never heard that we actually have enough food for everyone on this planet, we just do not distribute it. Killing half the people is more likely to make that worse, not better. Collapsing civilization as we know it will cause more starvation as people struggle to put their systems back together. I don’t know what fantasy world Thanos is living in…one of his own device it seems. Since he can alter reality.

however, if he could alter reality, why not turn all the garbage dumps in the universe inot farms? Why not make the landscapes more fertile? Get rid of the Sahara? That’s just on Earth, but you can imagine in this world it would apply to all the inhabited planets.

Thanos is gong to live forever anyway, if he was so benevolent, he could have worked something out that wouldn’t have thrown off the balance of the universe.

It’s laughable that he blames his won planet for rejecting him, sure Thanos, that’s why the gravity and orbit was off, it had nothing to do with messing with the forces of nature. Just keep telling yourself that.

Now it doesn’t take much thinking to see the inherent problems with Thanos’es solution, but my beef with  this movie was that it’s more thinking than any of the good guys did.

In what is becoming the predictable Marvel fashion, no one in this movie had a good counter argument for Thanos. Gamorra clearly thinks what he is doing is wrong, but she only calls it murder, she does not go farther into it. Are we just meant to assume that murder makes it wrong?

And I would agree that murder is wrong, and this kind of genocide is insanely evil, but I would not just say that. I would have a reason for it.

I only know Murder is wrong becuase I know that God is life, I know that we are made in His Image, and that he forbids murder and it is never a good idea to disobey God. Because His rules govern the universe. That would be what I would say to Thanos.

But when Thanos is laying out his whole twisted philosophy, all our supposedly brilliant heroes can do is stare stupidly at him in horror, and then say they’re going to stop him. Well great, but why? So far we see no reason to think he’s wrong…other than it seems an overly complicated solutions compared to just rearranging things so there would be more resources.

Thanos’es philosophy matches that of many people in the real world, which as I said to my family, is the really carry thing about him. That he’s big purple, and powerful isn’t a problem, its that he represents real ideology.

Even scarier is that lots of people think that we are over populated. They don’t even question it. It’s not actually true. Our cities are over crowded, but the world itself still has plenty of room. Plus people are dying everyday, all the time. We kill each other so much, we don’t need some big bad guy to do it for us. We have enough of those already.

Vision tells Ultron he is on the side of life, and that is all the Avengers can seem to come up with in this movie. Never, ever, let people die.

Ironically, Vision is the first to realize that death can be necessary. Thanos is right about that, but murder is not. Self Sacrifice is not the same thing at all, to lay down your life for your friends or the greater good, that’s a noble thing to do. No one should disparage that. Gamorra tries to do this, and to his credit, Peter Quill was going to do as she asked and kill her before Thanos got the information out of her, but Thanos stopped him.

Captain America is so hesitant to let anyone die, at least since the Winter Soldier, or Ultron. Which is silly. He’s a soldier, he should understand the necessity of sacrifice to stop evil.

Then Gamorra herself fails when she sees Nebula being tortured. Now, I give her a bit more leeway since it’s just terrible to watch that, worse than a quick death scene. But then Quill later blows their chance to depower Thanos when he finds out Gamorra is dead…and Nebula didn’t whack him over the head because…?

yeah, there are some issues I have. Thanos makes his sacrifice, I agree that he didn’t really love Gamorra, but he thought he did. What he considers love, of course it was never going to be her if it came before her and the stone.

The Dr. Strange says he will sacrifice Tony ad Spiderman to protect the stone, and he doesn’t. Perhaps he has his own reasons for that, but it seems the movie is saying that the Avengers cannot let people die or else they would not be the Avengers.

That’s…stupid.

You have go consider stakes. It is not evil to let someone sacrifice themselves in a war, especially not if the whole galaxy is at stake and they can help.

There is simply no point in risking your lives as often as the Avengers do if you are not prepared to let someone lose it if they have to. You cannot live dangerously and fear death.

I am not saying we should be heartless and not care. I think on the contrary we care more when someone goes out nobly, and there is some meaning in it. Better that then the pointless carnage at the end of this film.

See, if three, or four people had laid down their lives willingly, half of the population would have been spared. Think about that.

Yet again we wonder who our real heroes are, if they cannot even make that kind of sacrifice.

Whosoever seeks to save his life shall lose it, an whoever loses it for My Sake and the Kingdom’s shall find it.

Jesus said that. And I think it fits. Int eh end if a few good guys had died for the sake of all, then more good guys would have survived.

Hopefully the second movie will clear all this up. Because life does not have true value unless it valued but  not so much that it cannot be given up.

Until next time–Natasha.