10,000 hours

Blueberry yumminess

When I think about something I want to be really good at, I find myself trying to determine how many hours a day I should spend on that task in order to reach 10,000 hours. Apparently, that's the threshold one must cross to become a true expert at a particular skill. Yet I don't think I could ever sacrifice enough to become an expert at one thing... although, after 30 years I'll probably hit that many hours in baking. At least my grandkids will benefit from all the practice.

Education and War

A little discussion that I took part in this week has got me thinking about whether higher education means people are less likely to engage in violent conflict. I am sure studies have been done on this, but I decided to do my own bit of data analysis.

I compared the number of violent conflicts (by geographical region) since 1990 to the average years of schooling reached by adults (by geographical region) and found a distinct correlation (-.7935). The negative sign means that the more years of education, the fewer number of violent conflicts that occur in a particular region. 100 countries were represented in the education statistics - notably many in Africa were missing. However, the state of education in the missing countries does not vary greatly from most of the rest of the continent.

What does this mean? Educated people are probably much less likely to engage in violent conflict. People need teachers, not weapons.

Sources:
Education info from UNESCO via NationMaster.com (http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/edu_ave_yea_of_sch_of_adu-education-average-years-schooling-adults&b_map=1&b_printable=1)
Conflict info from PRIO (http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Armed-Conflict/)

Curse the lying desert skies

Cool breezes and a gray blanket give respite; whispers wander through the airs, a scent of dust and moisture.

Unfulfilled promises leave me wanting.

In summary

"Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference - so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked.... I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity."

-Frederick Douglass

Good News

My aunt does counseling, and she recently told me that often she'll ask the people who come to see her a question. "What is the gospel?"

When she told me that, I started to think what my response to such a question would be. I suppose I don't often meditate on that. I spend more time on less important things. So tonight on my way home (during a 45 minute drive) I started to try to tell the gospel to myself.

First, I said, "Jesus died for us." But that implies prior knowledge of Jesus. So then I said, "Once there was a man." And then I thought, well, that doesn't really mean anything if you don't know why. Next was "Once there was a nation." Nope, it's bigger than that. "Once there was a world - no, a creation." And then I laughed.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." Yeah, that's a good place to start. Man, God has an awesome story to tell us.

Excuse me while I rant

I'm irritated. Dan says I can't go on fb for a week, and I think I'll agree with that restriction*. Tonight, Sunday night, all anyone can talk about is "oh no, higher taxes, health care, blah blah blah." It's... pathetic. I am ashamed of the so-called Christians that are making this such a priority.

You know what? In two weeks, followers of Christ will be celebrating the singular, most important act in all of creation. One might argue it is The Act of creation - that we were made so that God might show us His exceptional, unfathomable, eternal love through one sacrifice. Everyone needs to hear about it! Nothing else matters compared to Christ's Resurrection.

So why the hell are so many people wasting their time getting all whiny about junk that is utterly insignificant compared to, well, anything?

Jesus died for you, for me, for mankind (and womankind if you're finicky about that sort of thing). How about we talk about that instead of, I don't know, health care.

*Every time I am tempted to go on fb the next two weeks, I will instead read my Bible.

The one where I get use my mommy instinct

My brother stayed the night at our place last night, and this morning afternoon (we were lazy) Dan and Jay and I went for a little hike at the Superstition Mountains. It was so green, the air was cool, the sky cloudless. The walk was pleasant, not too challenging.

We were just coming around the bend for the last stretch of the trail, when we saw two older couples up ahead. One of them started walking towards us and said, "Do you want to see a rattlesnake? There's one ahead, only a few feet off of the trail." We all thought that sounded cool. It was far enough away to be safe, and none of us had seen one in the wild before.

Jay hurried ahead, and Dan and I followed. We came to the other couple, and Dan and I saw the snake sliding away under a bush. But Jay couldn't see it from where he was, so he stepped off the trail with another guy who wanted a look as well.

"Good idea, Jay," I said. "Go closer to the killer snake."

He just laughed and started looking for it. He was standing right next to another bush, with the other guy behind him, for about ten seconds when we heard a very loud rattle come from that bush. I have never seen two grown men run so fast!

When he got back to the road, we could see the second snake hiding under the bush while the other one slid past behind it. Jay and the other guy had been only about a foot away from the hiding one. Two rattlesnakes! Jay (of course) complimented me on the astute use of my natural instinct to warn him about approaching deadly animals.

Dan reassured him that if needed my mommy instinct would have taken hold, and I would yell, "MOM SMASH!" then promptly kill the snake with the power of my fists.