Why We Teach

Everyone has heard a story of about a doctor who became a doctor because their mother died of Cancer, or a social worker who went into that field because they didn't want others to experience the same hardships, or the man who became a warrior to try to protect peace.
Most of ones life is spent trying to solve problems with the hope of passing the answers to subsequent generations.
Why spend a lifetime acquiring solutions only to have this knowledge lost to subsequent generations?

But are some answers unteachable?
Are some answers to be learned through experience only?

As with my younger half-brothers, half of my childhood was spent under extremely undesirable circumstances.
But I always had an out - I could always call my paternal grandparents for a life of ease.
But this was not really an option.
"I" was an older brother - with all the responsibilities that go along with being such.
How could I enjoy my life when my own brothers were suffering?
I had to suffer to ease the load that my brothers would bear.
I had to be Prometheus.

Was this thinking taught or was it inherent?
Maybe it was birth order, maybe it was genetics, maybe it was religion - I have no idea.
But being the older brother shaped my thinking in how I should go about life.
It seems that my role in most situations is that of being the answer man.
The responsible one.
The one who should show/know no fear and be able to handle any situation.
But were these traits learned from my familial position?
Were my brothers predisposed to prison and crime by genetics (their father was an undereducated drug addict), or could they be taught how to overcome their situation?

My step-father was not my example.
Even though my father died when I was one - I knew that my genetics were sound.
I knew that this apple could fall far from the tree of my step-father's examples.
I knew that I was not him.
But did my brothers assume that they were him?
Did they learn crime - or were they born to it?

But another problem could be that I took too much of the heat.
Was my being Cinderella an excuse for my brothers not to adapt to their environment?
Was my help doing more harm than good?
Maybe they would have had to be more responsible if I hadn't been around.
Maybe they would have been better off if I would have gone my own way and left them to theirs.
Maybe my help robbed them of the foundation of character required to build upon success.
Maybe I was just prolonging their adolescences.
My brothers lived a life of comfort and ease.
My brothers had a life in a neighborhood better than most of the country.
My brothers had all the goods and resources that come with suburbia but neither did any good with them.

This is best seen in poor countries, towns, neighborhoods and people.
If poor countries keep getting aid - they will fail to develop any foundation or any incentive to be self sufficient.
If poor towns always receive aid - there is no incentive to do for themselves.
If poor people always get aid - they have no need of learning skills and keeping jobs.
If we keep doing for others what many could do for themselves - are we really doing any good at all?
If we keep giving the rewards of success to people who haven't succeeded - why should they even bother to do or be better?

This past Christmas I dropped by the homes of many people whom others would assume poor.
Many of these people had made the food circuit and collected food from the local churches.
Many families had so much food that it would spoil before they would have a chance to use it.
Many families just threw out the food from their Thanksgiving run and replaced it with the new food from their Christmas run.
Many families threw food out saying, "I don't eat that ish."
(If these beggars can be choosers - they really don't need this much help.)
I'm disgusted - these poor people are not really poor.

When I feel like it, I do a lot of remodels on homes.
Most of the people buy new flat screen televisions and offer their old 27' or 35' models to me.
(I have four 35' and seven 27' TVs in my storage unit.)
I tried to give a family a 35' three year old set to replace their older 19' set.
But this was not good enough for this family.
They questioned why I didn't give them a bigger LCD flat panel set.
Really?
Have some people become so accustomed to everything being given to them that they can pick and choose what to accept?

I've escaped poverty - three times.
The lessons I've learned can be learned by anyone.
Or am I just different?
Am I just blessed?
Or lucky?
Or is it fate?
But fate cannot be taught.
Luck cannot be taught.
Being blessed cannot be taught. (Although the actions, mentality and humility required to receive such blessings can.)
So we have faith that we can teach others what we have learned.
But this may be a case of something which cannot be taught - only learned.

Faith

Hebrews 11:1 - "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
If we are only able to measure the mass of 5% of the known Universe with the estimated 5% of our brains that we actually access - Do we even know what we don't know?

Different Times Different Methods

I'm old school.
I prefer my CDs, LPs and even cassettes to my i-Pod.
(In fact, I only have one song on my i-Pod and I forget what that is.)
I prefer hand written letters to e-mail.
I prefer real tiddies to silicon implants.
I prefer short hair to weaves.
I prefer hard back books to web pages.
I prefer humans to the Internet.
I was raised in an era when one was stimulated through more tactile experiences.

But kids today may be hardwired differently.
Most of today's children are accustomed to devices that were thought to be the wishful thinking of science fiction movies to an earlier generation.
Many of today's children don't really know what being poor is.
When we said we were poor - we meant that we had no food in the house (Not even that nasty block of fake government cheese.).
Today's' kids mean that they have run out of Hot Pockets.
When we said we needed new shoes - we meant that our shoes "were talking" (The soles were beginning to come apart from the body of the shoe and flapped when we would walk.) or that we had worn a hole in our shoes.
Today's kids mean that they don't have a pair of shoes which exactly matches the color of the underwear poking out from the top of their sagging pants.
Many of today's kids aren't really poor - not even the poor ones.

Many of today's kids have never experienced recess or P.E or have been on a sports team.
(Many parents didn't wish to harm their children's fragile self esteem.)
Many of today's children are those who grew up in the entitlement era where some magical genie seemed to provide that which any child would wish.
Many of today's kids don't understand the work that came before the rewards which they so casually enjoy.
But this is "progress".

In this era we need a different incentive or method of teaching.
For some children, using the old outdated textbooks would be akin to us having had to use a slate and chalk in our schooling.
Since many children have more stimulation in their bedrooms than an entire family had in a an entire home a generation ago - learning through video games seems like a obvious answer.
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/12/20-can-video-games-teach-kids.html

al-iksir

Do kids know what they are learning?
How can a simple RPG contain references to the Philosopher's Stone (Mutus Liber?) and Norse mythology without having an impact on how these children will eventually view their world?

Prayer

SeeNew said, "...(D)o you suppose that even in a non-linear multiverse, only a very tiny subset of possible arrangements is actually meaningful?"

IMOHO - All arrangements are meaningful, but only a few are desirable. But how do we know which are which? This may be where prayer comes in. Proper prayer acts as a sort of tuning mechanism which brings us closer to the ideal.

If the theories which suggest multiple realities are true - these prayers bring us to the reality which we seek. Through faith, tachyons, or whatever - these prayers have already been answered in at least one reality. We just have to get to the reality which we seek. If "thought" is the only thing that can move faster than the speed of light - maybe this is what prayer is.

(Of course these last few posts are only approximations of provable theories. Just starting points which probably contain many steps in the wrong direction. But as of this point - this is what I'm thinking... .)

Infinite Realities

If there are infinite realities with infinite combinations of outcomes - there has to be at least one final outcome where everyone chooses what is best for everyone.
Is this the "narrow path" of which Christ speaks ?

But, there also has to be at least one final outcome in which everybody suffers.

Regula Falsi (Choice)

Da, over at SeeNew's spot, once suggested that all the spaces between quarks are nothing but information.
This concept makes sense - with my only amendment being that these spaces are really "Potential Information".
These spaces exist not as 0 (-1) nor 1.
But that these spaces are both 0 (-1) and 1.
These spaces have no real value until we decide which will influence us the most (red/bad or blue/good).

If we assign each of these spaces the value of choices, these spaces become what could be.
These spaces become the things which influence what will be - even though these spaces are nothing at all.

If I assign the purple line the value of a Creator,
the red line the value of a usurper,
the blue line the value of a Savior,
and the Black or white dots the value of what influences us (and which allows the complementary purple and blue sides to communicate (Holy Spirit)) in our choices - how do these fit into the light cone/DNA models below?

(While the shape is changed to resemble a square instead of that of a triangle - in infinity, any segment a mile wide would still appear as straight parallel lines.)
Using this model for the image below - the red and the blue lines would represent the apparently different aspects of God.
(God would appear to have both -1 and +1 traits, his "enemy" only negative, while his "Perfect Self" would only have God's positive traits.)
While the red line would appear as that closest to God, the blue line would be the most complementary and desirable.
Any choice that would consistently bring one into alliance with the blue line would allow one to function at their maximum potential.

The Shape Of The Universe

Are we viewing the Trinity from the wrong perspective?

If we view a segment of DNA from it's side - the segment resembles a model of a light cone.

But this shape could also suggest an ever expanding image of the Trinity.

(Father on one side, Son represented by the bounds of the other side, and Holy Ghost representing the final connection between the Two - forming a triangle.)

Since God is said to have no beginning nor end...

Was time created like this <-----*-----> (Simultaniously creating a past and a future)...

Instead of like this *-----> (Having a beginning but no end)?

When God said "I AM" - was this His point of gaining consciousness?

Was His "I AM" moment really the Big Bang?

If so, What is "Life"?
What role would satan play in this model?

What of the Son?

The Shape of The Universe

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...
This sequence seems to be the most common is our Universe.
Is the Universe trying to tell us something?


If an ever expanding strand of DNA were observed from above - the image seen would resemble this same sequence shown in the form of a graph.

But this sequence isn't man made.

Even shells exhibit this form of fractals.

But man has used this spiral even in our most simple of inventions.

The same could be said of Mother Nature.

Even the popular Yin Yang symbol is a form of this sequence.

If this fractal is evidenced throughout our lives - could this be the shape of our entire Universe?