Thought Directory

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The Plant Outside My Window

by Jacob A. Howard


There's a plant outside my window
As green as the greenest grass.
It's innocence will shine right through
All you have to do is ask.

There's a plant outside my window,
It's light will never give out,
The light that brings its constant beauty
Is the beautiful sun, without a doubt.

There's a plant outside my window,
It stares up at the blue sky.
It's limbs of green with flecks of brown
Forever reaching, it never dies.

There's a plant outside my window
It sits there all year 'round.
Forever a smile on its green face,
And never wearing a frown.

I wish I was the plant outside my window,
So happy and so green.
 To live with a smile, each and every day,
To see past what cannot be seen.

To let the worry slide right off,
My ever weary brow,
To stop worrying about the future
And live for what is now.

Friday, November 11, 2011

The Only Real Complication

A bit of an addendum... 

Hey there, classmates.
And classmates you are, as we all still learn everyday of our lives.
Not but a century ago, there was work to be done by true manual labor. There were no robots, machines, automatic assembly-lines and no computers.
Shocking, I know.
There was work to be done, and it was our duty to do it whether at the expense of being social or not. In fact, friendships and relationships were pretty simple back then, too. Your friends were your work mates, your family, and maybe the barkeep at the pub. Your marriages were arranged by your parents, who almost always knew best. Sociality was simple, and work was complicated.
Now, in the common day world that we know so well, we do have automatic assembly-lines, we do have fax machines and telephones, and we do have computers. Some jobs are no more than a few emails and a couple phone calls behind a desk in your office. Jobs aren't easy, but they are simple when things are said and done.
With all this stuff being automated, Facebook, and telephones that can call people nearly anywhere in the world, you'd think that life as humans would be quite simple and run of the mill.
But we all know the sad fact that human life is really not that simple at all.
Why, do you ask?
Because we took the one thing that used to take a backseat to our duty and jobs, we took the one thing that was simple and easy-going and we did what humans do best: We complicated it.
Today there is so much complication to being social and having friends or a relationship that most people could most literally cringe at it.
It doesn't stop us. No, it encourages us to somehow make it more and more complicated!

Yesterday I published a post about Human Analysis.
Today I realized how important it could be.

Not only is Human Analysis a great thing to study, as it could help you in a lot of respects, but it's a necessity. 
With a social life being so complicated as it is today, I believe it necessary to analyze people simply so you can understand and not offend.

Now, with that out of the way, let's move on.
I love that one phrase we use: "Entertaining an idea"
It is unfortunately completely backwards.
With the bare facts, humans are easily bored nowadays.
Not only can we not - the greater population of our world - handle studying bare facts without getting bored, but the idea literally has to entertain us
Books, study books, are written in such a way as to entertain the person who's reading it.
People on blogs write informative facts on their posts all the while having to hold your hand and entertain you, and I'm guilty of this, too.
Where does this breach of duty end?
When can we bare the true facts in mind, and put sociality back in it's place?
I didn't come here to rant, and I didn't come here to entertain.
I came here to point out a fact easily overlooked by a lazy eye.


 As always, your host,

Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Little Holmes Inside Us All

And the word of the day is...


Hey there, classmates.
I've never really thought of myself being a teacher one day.
Not a school teacher or a professor, but more of a mentor.
Why? Because I've never seen my own knowledge as above any others.
I'm by no means selfless, not at all.
It's more of a "down on myself" thing than it is me being modest.
I'm sure everyone (minus kids below the age of 12) knows about the teenage years where it seems your doing an unending amount of "soul-searching" of sorts.
Makes you a bit sick of yourself sometimes.
The reason why we don't find ourselves as quick as we believe we should is because we're afraid to.
Why? Because when you find yourself, you have to accept the responsibility it entails.
Now, I won't preach my wisdom about responsibility, as I'm sorely lacking in that area.
I will, however, talk a bit about analysis:
Human Analysis. 


[big title words theme]

Human Analysis


Jeez, resetting the font takes me a few seconds sometimes.
I blame it on Firefox.
But I digress.
I once read a small book about half way through, with the same title as above: Human Analysis.
It's reasoning's were mostly right, but it's presentation made me a little sick.
It had to do with the "Five Human Types"; the integrity of which is very questionable in my eyes.
Especially because it conflicts with the basis that we do, indeed, have souls. 
I did agree with one facet of it:
We are all much more alike than we think.
 So, Mr. Jacob, how did you come to this impromptu conclusion?
Well it started here at home.
   My little sister, Hannah, has this way of talking that makes her seem smart and arrogant at the same time.
It used to annoy me to no end.
One day I was talking with her in the classroom (or study, whichever you wish) and it was about something computer-y.
It slapped me in the face.
What did?
The realization that I sounded exactly the same way she did.
I even moved my mouth the same way.
From that day on, I was no longer annoyed by the way she talked anymore, as you might have guessed.
Well, Mr. Jacob.. She's your family. You two are bound to have plenty of similarities.
So, so true.
But wait! There's more.
I went to Swing Dancing (something a wrote a blog post one) last Friday night, and I was talking to a very nice fellow named Timothy.
He seemed entirely my opposite - big, burly. A bit dull even -
so he made quite the engaging conversation.
Half way through our talk, he started talking about sports.
And once again, that invisible hand slapped me across my face.
He talked in just the same way that me and my sister had the tendency to talk.
And that completely changed my perspective.
So, Mr. Jacob, get to the point!
Fine, Mr. Voice, I will!
Human Analysis was created by people who most likely knew themselves well.
How did they know themselves so well, you ask?
Because they analyzed others.
In conclusion:
If we aren't so different from other people, then by figuring them out, won't we find a piece of ourselves in the process?
I guess it's a question best answered by time and experimentation.

Mr. Jacob, you brought us all this way so you could give us a silly experiment?!
 

ONLY SORT OF!

 
I may not ever become anyone's mentor, or anyone of grand knowledge. But, in the end, I reserve the right to dream.



As always, your host,

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A Call.

As silent as a breath without breathing,
As quiet as a call without name.
As powerful as the lovely Earth,
Attracts the Moon, just the same.

A bidding tide to wash away,
Too much, the pain that comes today,
To Him, I say I heartily agree,
That, humans, we are blind.

To talk in such a way
Would admit that I am part of it, too.
And when things are all said and done,
What, then, does it mean to you?


Like a word spoken, with lips to the wall,
It goes unheard; the ground to fall
Like shutters on a grand window,
So much to see, nowhere to go.


An act would be all that it takes,
The soil of all that's good to rake,
And yet we sit in arrogant filth,
With what ground we stand remaining untilth.

 What then becomes of those who know?
Trapped inside what their brothers don't.
To Him, I say I heartily agree.
That we humans are blind.

So we wait by terms of the coming wind,
So swiftly to man, it brings the end.
At our actions man has yet to appall,
We wait in promise of our Father's Call.

Monday, October 31, 2011

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Elementary, my dear Watson...

Hello there, classmates.
Whoops, might have fudged on the intro line there, eh?
As they say: Variety is the spice of life.
Sometimes, at least.
There's a certain comfort in things that stay the same.
Do I digress? Hardly.
One man that forever stays the same in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous books is the very well-known Sherlock Holmes.
You've just had a small taste of my wonderfully convoluted thought process. Be fore-warned.

(theme music)
It's time for the Big Title Text Inside the Post Bit!

Sherlock Holmes &
The Hound of the Baskervilles

It all starts when a man named Dr. James Mortimer travels from Devon to London, and appeals for help to our great genius: Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Mortimer, after being accepted inside to the company of Holmes and his companion/chronicler Watson, then explains to them that the Baskerville family is believed to be cursed. He even tells them the story of said curse, which goes as follows:
A wicked, arrogant man who had lived two centuries before and ruled over Baskerville Hall; a man named Hugo Baskerville, became infatuated with a yeoman's daughter. So infatuated, in fact, that he up and kidnapped her - imprisoning her in his bedchambers. He then went to have a drink with his friends down stairs in the dining room. As he became inebriated, laughing with his friends, the young woman escaped. Upon going up to his bedchambers and finding the woman gone, a drunk and enraged Hugo swore to give his soul to the Powers of Evil if he could overtake the woman. He then took after her, helped by his hunting hounds and his equally drunk friends, across the desolate moorland. Eventually, after losing track of him, his friends found both Hugo and the woman dead, a ghostly and giant hound standing over the body of Hugo. The hound plucked out Hugo's throat and spirited off into the night, leaving behind terribly frightened men.

Stay tuned for more!

As always, your host,   

Friday, October 7, 2011

"What's wrong with me, doctor?"

A diagnoses for your Yom Kippur...


Hey there, classmates.


After reading an amazing article on aish.com,I decided that Yom Kippur should go by in two steps. There's probably a million different sub-steps, but that'd take quite a while. So for the sake of this post, we'll say two steps and write about the first.
What's the first step, you ask? Well, as if you were visiting a doctor, the first step is diagnosis. Need I define diagnosis? Probably not. I'll do it anyhow, though.

Diagnosis:

1.
Medicine/Medical .
a.
the process of determining by examination thenature and circumstances of a diseased condition.
b.
the decision reached from such an examination.Abbreviation:  Dx
2.
Biology scientific determination; a description that classifiesa group or taxon precisely.
3.
a determining or analysis of the cause or nature of a problemor situation.
4.
an answer or solution to a problematic situation.



Okay, so I defined it. Or rather, Googled it and copied/pasted the definition here on the post.

Now, as we all know, I'm thrilled with analogies. So, on that note, let's begin:

Say you went to the doctor because you had a hernia, and you told the doctor you just had indigestion -- he'd probably give you the wrong medicine and it would just make you sicker.
Now, as you might imagine, there are many people who are not aware of this "hernia". There are also, however, some who are not willing to admit they have this "hernia".
Okay, so maybe my analogy didn't entirely fit.
My point is, there are people who have done things very wrong, yet they won't admit everything they did. They'll take the medicine for indigestion instead. You're probably saying "Well, G-d knows all that I've done wrong." Entirely true, as he is all-knowing, but it's the same as making your sibling angry, s/he won't give you what you truly want -- forgiveness -- unless you repent everything. Poor sister must have to deal with your "indigestion" quite a bit.
So if you lighten up what you've done wrong; if you only repents for a few of your sins, how can G-d justify giving you your medicine of forgiveness? Your just going to make your hernia a lot worse.
So, when 6 'o clock comes around tonight, set your heart to do what's right. Diagnose each and every one of your problems, and let the doctor know what's wrong with you.



As always, your host,

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Oh Look, I Have Some Change

Try the updated Blogger interface? Pshaw...


Hey there, classmates.
The new Blogger dashboard colors are Orange, White and disgusting.
That's my personal opinion, at least.
I realize it's been there for a while, so you're probably asking yourself: "Why does he address this NOW?"
I've got a good answer to that one.

I logged on to Blogger today wondering what in the world I was going to post about today. I was then, and suddenly, annoyed by the "Try the updated Blogger interface" link that pooped up at the top. I'm a firm believer that Blogger is fine JUST the way it is. Why is this? Well I'll explain it like this:
When one thing stays the same for a long time, and your mind gets used to it -- gets comfortable with it -- then when something or someone tries to change it to the way THEY think is best you naturally get very, very annoyed.
So what is change?

I'll stop here and state that someone needs to make a theme song for my definition time. It's quite an important event.

Let's define it:

Change:
1.  to make the form, naturecontent, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: to change one's nameto change one's opinion; to change the course of history.
2.
to transform or convert (usually followed by into ): The witch changed the prince into a toad.
3.
to substitute another or others for; exchange  for something else, usually of the same kind: She changed her shoes whenshe got home from the office.
4.
to give and take reciprocally; interchange: to change places with someone.
5.
to transfer from one (conveyance) to another: You'll have to change planes in Chicago.






"Pfft, dude, we know what change means."
Yea, I know. We all do. It happens every second of every day. Every time we breathe some minuscule thing changes.
So what's the big dealio with change, then?
Well it's a big deal when it, itself, is BIG. So when you breathe, the air changes. How will that affect you? It won't. Now you're brother who's been gone for more than a year moves back in to your cozy little nook of a home on the corner of Burgess and Marie and wants to change his lifestyle. Does this affect you? Big time. My cozy little home has suddenly changed. Everything I was comfortable with having to myself I am now uncomfortably sharing. It's annoying, it's frustrating and it's not fair!
Well, Mr. Jacob, life isn't fair sometimes. Sometimes you have to sacrifice or change things so that others can better themselves.
Who says? Who's gonna make me?
The answer to the second one is: Know one but yourself.
The answer to the first is: G-d says.
Sacrificing ourselves for others is something G-d rewards, and something you'll feel good about afterwards.
Change things for others, help them along at the expense of yourself, and you will be blessed.

Now here comes the big "book-tie-in".
Sherlock Holmes.
The Hound of the Baskervilles.
As I've not read very far into the book yet, I couldn't find anything to do research on. But listening to the story of the Baskervilles lineage... Well I'll give you two characters.

Sir Hugo Baskerville–This 17th-century Baskerville ancestor spawned the legend of the family curse. Sir Hugo had been the picture of aristocratic excess, drunkenness and debauchery until, one night, he was reputedly killed near Baskerville Hall, in the wilds of Dartmoor, by a demonic hound sent to punish his wickedness.

Sir Charles Baskerville–The former lord of the manor of the Baskerville estates in Devon, Sir Charles was a superstitious bachelor in waning health. Long terrified by the Baskerville legend, his footprints show that he must have been fleeing from something at the time of his recent death in the grounds of Baskerville Hall. Furthermore, the paw-prints of a large dog marked the soil near his corpse. Sir Charles had been a philanthropist. His enlightened plans to invest funds in the isolated district surrounding Baskerville Hall prompts his heir, Sir Henry, to want to move there and continue his uncle's good works.

Sir Hugo's description is very well.. descriptive. He was a wicked man, lead by his emotions so far as to bring this "curse" upon his family's lineage.
Sir Charles' doesn't really describe him as well as they do in the book. He was constantly scared that the curse would be brought onto him by the wicked acts of his ancestor. Therefore he swore to do right. He was an honest business man, a friendly host, and was constantly giving great sums of his wealth to charities.
Sir Charles' example, though one formed on his cowardice, still stands firm amongst the ranks of others. Can you changing your ways, going against the evil of your ancestors, change your curse into a blessing? Indeed, it can.

So, in hindsight, maybe I should give Blogger's new layout a chance. Who knows, maybe it needs it.



As always, your host,