melancholy songs

I'm not usually drawn to melancholy songs, but every once in a while I'll lock onto one and listen to it to death.  When I was in high school it was Elle G. by The Newsboys.



In my twenties I could not stop listening to the Johnny Cash cover of Hurt.



Oddly enough, the melancholy song I've been going to lately is an old one rather than a new one.  It's the Gary Jules cover of Mad World.


For whatever reason, these particular songs are the sad ones I decided I wanted to listen to when I want to listen to a sad song.  The songs themselves feel like they have more substance than a run-of-the-mill sad song, but that might be me rationalizing after I've decided I like a song.

Do you have any that serve this same function?

what people say about mormons

I have a strange litmus test that I use to determine how tolerant people are of others who are different.  I listen for how they talk about or treat Mormons, or members of the LDS church.

If you are a Conservative and are not Mormon, you are probably a Catholic, Mainline Protestant, or Evangelical Christian who believes that their teachings are heretical.  For my part, I believe their views on the Trinity are heresy.  As a result, there is motivation to speak ill or joke about people who hold that belief.

If you are Liberal, you may or may not be Christian, but you are likely to strongly disagree with the political positions the church has taken over the past few decades.  As a result, there is motivation to speak ill or joke about people who belong to that church.

So, when Mormonism is brought up (very rarely), I perk up to pay attention for how people speak of the people who hold that belief.  Will they talk disparagingly about the people?  Will they withhold judgment on the people, regardless how they feel about the church and it's positions and/or doctrines?  It's edge-of-your-seat suspense!

In related news, I probably need to get out more.

karma and schadenfreude

Every once in a while I will hear someone say that they believe in karma or that they get enjoyment out of karma.  In some instances I will hear of someone getting their just desserts as karma exacting revenge on that person.  This usage of "karma" is not technically accurate.

First, I should note that since I am Christian I do not believe in literal karma, no matter how it is defined.  It is important to understand what I am disagreeing with when someone declares karma, however.

The real definition of karma comes from the Hindu religion.  The idea is that good deeds, thoughts, actions, etc. eventually result in good outcomes for people, and that bad deeds, thoughts, actions, etc. eventually result in bad outcomes for people.  The key is that this is supposed to be experienced in a person's next life.  Someone's karmic state is intrinsically linked to his or her reincarnation, and so payback would probably be in the quality of someone's next life, which would be lived without an understanding of the evils committed in the previous life.  Based on my understanding of the concept, which is admittedly imperfect, karma would have to be experienced a long time later, and probably in a future life rather than in this one.

I believe that a better word for what people mean when they say, "karma," is, "schadenfreude."  It's also a much more fun word to pronounce!  I believe that most of my audience knows what it means, but for the uninformed the dictionary.com definition is, "satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune."  I have mostly heard it used in conjunction with enjoying someone else's misery because one believes that misery is deserved.  So, when I hear that someone believes in karma, or enjoys seeing examples of karma, I understand that they simply like seeing the suffering of those they believe to be immoral.  This is more accurately the practical definition for schadenfreude.

Christian believers are not permitted to believe in Hindu karma or partake in schadenfreude.  Real karma is in direct contradiction to Heb 9:27, which states that people are destined to die once, and then to face judgment.  Schadenfreude is founded in a desire for vengeance that violates the spirit of Rom 12:17-21, fun as it is to say.

I'll certainly grant that both concepts are interesting, and have some allure.  At the very least, they can make you sound intelligent to adeptly use them in conversation.  However, a Christian believer shouldn't revel in either.

why i'm a tightwad

I used to watch Suze Orman quite a bit.  It could have really been any personal finance advisor on TV, but she was the one who was on CNBC on Saturday nights years ago when I had an hour every week.

The thing I always noted about the show was that the people featured on it tended to fall into one of two categories.  The first category were the people who made every right financial decision in the book, had great jobs that allowed them to do what they were supposed to do, and called or wrote into the show more to brag than to ask for genuine advice.  The second were people who made a lot of bad decisions, or who were in unfortunate situations such that their finances were in shambles or close to it.  I never felt I fit in either category.  That, plus no longer having the spare hour every week, caused me to lose interest in the show after a couple of years.

Like most people in our demographic, we are in between these two extremes.  We are nowhere near destitute.  We aren't in the impossible ideal where many financial advisors say you should be either.

One of the things I have wished existed was some way to indicate whether you're making the right financial decisions.  I am not concerned with decisions about investments, or things of that nature.  As ridiculous as it sounds, I just wish there were guarantees that if I made such and such decision or put a certain amount of effort into work that this would cover all of the unforeseen things that we'll need to handle in the years to come.

I know that the worry that drives this is sinful.  I'm trying to repent of this, but I'm still human and I still have human drives.  It is something God is still working on in me.

The real problem I have been butting up against is that on a basic level I don't know what my responsibility is and what God's responsibility is.  Both the Bible and American society frown upon men who do not financially support their family.  What that actually means and what responsibilities it entails seems fluid, though.  What one person considers being financially responsible another considers not trusting God enough, or putting career in front of family.

Because of all of this I sort of default to being a tightwad since it's the safest option.  If I don't allow many frivolous expenses it's not my fault if some day if we're unable to cover some important expense.

I know this seems silly coming from someone in my situation.  I've got a decent job, a couple of degrees, and no student loans.  I still think about it, though.

multi-factor issues

People are naturally wired to be lazy in many ways, and one of those ways has piqued my interest recently.  People like to find a singular cause for issues.  As a result, most people aren't wired to address complex issues, and have to fight their wiring to do so.

As an example, when the crime rate rises or falls in a region there is rarely one factor in play.  Policing, the justice system, the socioeconomic situation, etc all play a role, and people are prone to pick their favorite factor as the be-all, end-all reason for the good or the bad things they see on the streets and the news.  All may be factors, but it is unlikely that one is the primary factor that dwarfs all others.

I say this because I see the same tendency in myself.  When I see something broken I want to identify the issue and move toward a fix as closely as possible.  If I can identify an issue I want it to be the issue so that I can pin all of the problems I see on that one blamable and ultimately fixable thing.  I don't want to research more once one factor has been identified, because it's not in my nature to look for a second factor.  That approach leads to incomplete fixes, though.

I don't have much more to add on this.  This is just something I've been observing.

self-absorbed

I like to type introspective things because it helps me work through my thoughts.  When I do that, though, I find at the end that it sounds super self-absorbed.  As stuck-on-myself as I sound on this blog, most of what I write that sounds that way has been edited down and the worst of it peeled away.

Has anyone else run into this problem?

marker words

The professor who taught my undergraduate Business Communications course offered a free service to review students' resumes and provide recommendations for modifications.  She definitely helped me craft what was the first draft for the resume that I would continue to use for years to come, so for that I am immeasurably grateful.  There was one minor thing that always stuck out to me that I have thought of throughout the ensuing years.  She recommended that I note that I was looking for an environment that offered employee empowerment.

Employee empowerment was a specific concept that she taught in one of the classes I took from her, though I don't remember which  one.  I took three classes from this particular prof.  The idea was simply that a business that espoused this belief allowed employees the leeway to make decisions (and potentially mistakes) because the net result for a good employee would be positive.  It's not a bad concept, but the phrase has always been odd to me.

What seems weird about the phrase is that I don't believe I have ever in my life heard a man use the word "empowerment" or "empowered," even though I have heard several women use it.  It seems like one of those words that I suspect both sexes have that serve as markers for, "A woman said this," or, "A man wrote that."

A few other words that stick out to me as marker words that a woman said it are "blessed", "tacky", "sweet", and "vile."  I may have heard the odd man or two use them, but they show up far more in women's vernacular.

I tried to think of marker words for men, but I must have a natural blind spot to it.  Everything I have been able to think of has too many exceptions to be usable.  As an example, in the past most crass language probably served as marker words for men, but things are different today.

Are there any marker words that you have noticed in your interactions?  Is there a word or phrase that, if you see it in an article or book, you immediately have a guess at what the author's gender is? Do you disagree with any words I mentioned above?