Humanity

For a while, I've been working on the campaign team for a couple of my buddies who are running for student body president and secretary. They're great and I love them. I really believe that they are people who will do amazing things at WA.

Today I feel tired. I feel sad and lonely and disappointed with myself. I've become so wrapped up in winning these campaigns that I've stopped seeing other people as people. Only another person to sway or an enemy to be dealt with.

And to be clear, this post is about me. I, myself. Dallin Ward. It's not about anyone else in the campaign because I can't speak their feelings or experience. This is solely and completely mine. I accept this as mine.

I didn't realize how wrapped up I was until I chatted a guy in class to ask him about voting for my candidate. A guy who is my friend; someone who I've worked with and I love. I didn't ask him how he was or even regard him as a human. Everything I did was in efforts to get him to vote the way I wanted him to, and then damage control when it appeared he wasn't going to. At the end, I even made the remark, "By the way, nice comments in class today, bro." But I didn't mean any of it, and I think he felt that. It was an awkward situation for me, and it looked like an awkward situation for him. 

But GAHADFOIASF AF;AGAEGA SREGFI GUBAVDN SADOGI NASDGONA;OIF OSIF ;OWIHF;AOIUEIHT;OF8QIEYHT;OIGWHSNE;OILD HFN; OASDHNGL VKHASN; DFOHVA OLSDHGVN; OAIEHSFN; OAUEHR;OGIHS;OUHKF AOIHGN ;LAK A ;;ASDSD ;KSDA  LNL

GAH.

VULNERABILITY AND HUMANNESS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY OPINION, AND I LET MY OPINION CHANGE THE WAY I TREATED ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.

This is not okay with me. 

**Sigh** I'm tired. I'm done trying to convince at any cost. The ends do not justify the means. 

Simon Sinek says that he's such an effective speaker because, 

"I only speak what I believe, and I only says things that I know to be true."
I want to be like that. I'm done trying to beat other people. I'm done trying to convince myself that it's okay. I love people. That's what I do. This forceful, angry side of me isn't who I am. I want no part of it. If I am to succeed in this life, I want to succeed because I did what I knew to be right and did not give up my integrity to achieve any goal. My integrity is what gives me strength. 

So, today, I am going to do and say things I believe, and that's it. I'm also going to see if I can finish my checklist. It would be the first time I've finished a whole checklist in a very long time. I want to believe that I can do this. I can be the man that God wants me to be. I can. Heavenly Father, please help me. I want to be a better man. 

There is such pride and foolishness in my heart. I am such a flawed human being. I don't feel happy with myself. I act in hypocrisy and deceit more often than even I understand. I don't feel confident and pleased with myself. I feel proud and stupid and glum.
Oh Lord, please help me. I just want to be a better man.

Time Travel

I think that if humanity ever travels in time, it will be a concept entirely of perception, and not of physical being in time.
In a sense, we travel in time already. The stars that we see in the sky put off light that we see years after the light is actually put off by that star. We're seeing things as they were a hundred or a thousand years ago, not as they are now.
So, if at some future point, humanity happens to build a telescope well enough to find an inhabited planet elsewhere in the universe, we will be seeing the inhabitants as they were tens or even hundreds of years before the present moment.
Following those same lines, if humanity were to figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light, we could theoretically catch up to the light that reflected off of the Earth in years past, and literally watch history unfold.
It is also possible that there is more sophisticated life in the universe that already is watching the Earth, and may even have recorded our existence. Pretty cool, huh? :D
To go even further, if humanity could move faster than light, we also theoretically could catch up to the end of light, and watch the creation of the universe happen.

So, how did the Egyptians build the pyramids? 

I don't know. Ask the aliens.

The Council of Music

It seems to me that the reason humanity listens to music is to take council from it.

To feel identified with, understood, and like we belong. We don't actively seek out music which we don't identify with. We like music that is like us, and when we listen, we tend to take council from it.

The music we listen to strongly affects the way that we think and the choices we make. It is a real and visceral part of who we are.

Is the music that I listen to the kind of council I would like to receive, and is it like the man I want to become?

Teach the Children

If my children are to work, they must first see their parents working.

If they are to have joy, they must first experience their parents being joyful.

If they are to find meaning, they must first be educated by parents who understand meaning.

In essence, everything I want my children to be, I must first learn to be myself.