our own hurdle

Have you ever stopped to think how much our image of ourselves effects what we do and don't do. I came up with a theory about this phenomenon. We blame our social situations for hindering our "individuality" and "freedom" to do whatever we want without judgement. Though this may be a part of it, for a lack of a better term I believe that we are our own worst enemy.

We see ourselves a certain way, and dare not stray from that self image. Whether consciously or subconsciously everybody works to be a certain kind of person. Everybody falls into some kind of stereotype: prep, hipster, tomboy, alternative etc. If a person is told something about themselves for long enough they begin to believe it. As is human nature. It's this human nature that causes us to become stuck in our own social identity.

We willingly or unwillingly embrace that. Over time it becomes second nature and a comfort to us. We live in that identity from day to day not thinking much of it. That is until someone wants to try something new. They find that the identity is a serious road block.

We run into the "I can't do that because I'm me" phenomenon. Where we won't do something because a ___(fill in the stereotype) could never be caught dead doing that. Our mentality narrows our field of vision and we disallow ourselves to do a certain thing(s) because we would be in some way betraying our label. Spending multiple years around the same people also keeps us in place. Because subconsciously we know what to expect from each person in our lives and it becomes weird if one of those people steps out of their typicality.

But, there is a way that this constriction can be solved. It typically involves being in completely new situations (ie high school to college where you don't know anybody). The beauty of being in a new place is that nobody has learned what to expect of each other yet. We also learn that we can open our field of vision. It takes getting rid of the "I could never do that because I'm me." Granted that is easier said than done but it's pretty cool when it does happen.

funny commercials

Don't Judge Too Quickly - The best video clips are right here

100 games cupcakes

yet another product of stumbleupon.com. This time I found these people who made 100 cupcakes each with the theme of some sort of game. They comprise of old school computer and board games and popular video games. It's quite impressive. here

wordless beholding

kinda cheesy/far fetched but interesting nevertheless

pure nostalgic awesome here

sciency religion

As I was wasting a portion of my day on stumbleupon.com it took me to a 'popular quotes' page. One quote that I particularly enjoyed was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."-Albert Einstein.

Though Einstein wasn't a philosopher or religious expert by any means (or so I believe, I could be wrong) he makes a very valid point when he said this. It shows us that even in his time science and religion, according to popular/media influenced culture, bashed heads.

He says perfectly that: neither science or religion can reach its fullest and greatest potential without the other. All the workings of the universe, from the incredibly small and intricate workings of a cell to the millions of galaxies somehow floating out in space can not be appreciated fully without believing in a God that somehow thought each and every little thing out. Scientists who don't believe in all this will never be able to appreciate all the findings and discoveries for what they really are.

Christians who discount science are missing out on the world just the same as the scientists who discount Christianity are. When God made everything he made science, and he made us smart enough to figure out how he created things to run so perfectly together. There's a million examples of how insanely detailed God is (ie. the human body: from the cells to how the brain communicates to the muscles, giving atoms a positive and negative charge so they will either attract or repel each other creating new substances) and how he also loves the bigger picture (ie. a mountain range, the blue ocean, and animals big and small). I'm going to be very frank here and say that religion without science is stupid. Now I'm not saying that we should always look at everything quantatatively. Because there's a lot of things such as human emotions, behaviors, etc. that we simply can't make hypothesis about and than stick them in a test tube to run tests on. Although I love knowing why the sunset and sunrise changes colors, sometimes it's nicer to just look at it and say 'God created a beautiful time of day.'

Being that I'm a Christian who loves science, I've always enjoyed being able to see science from a slightly different perspective. My favorite and one of the hardest classes I took in high school was earth science. Though it was taught by a self-righteous science teacher he did a good job of just mentioning how amazingly created everything in the world was. Something that I loved the most was learning about how our planet is so amazingly unique. We're placed perfectly in the milky way, at the perfect tilt, perfect atmosphere to support life, perfect distance from our sun, etc. But it wasn't those things that made me really think about how perfectly created the world was. It's that we are placed on the edge of a spiral arm so at night we can see the stars above the milky way, below the milky way, and if the night is clear enough we can see the milky way itself. God had the sense to make us smart enough to look up and say 'wow, look at that I wonder what else is out there.' He gave us curiosity to explore what is outside of our own world.

the hmaun biran

it's cool what the human brain can do