What’s in a name?

Call me “el tigre” from now on. But don’t make a big deal about it.

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End of the Semester

I feel as though I am standing out in the open wearing a football helmet. To my right is a red crane whose arm is extending directly above my head. Attached to that red crane arm is an cord which extends and then ends like an exclamation point with a molten steel wrecking ball. This wrecking ball was held horizontal to the red crane arm, until it was released. Once it was released the cord snapped taught and with a mighty rushing wind, it began to swing toward me. The molten steel wrecking ball, is the end of the semester rushing quickly, forcefully and inevitably towards me. Good thing I’m wearing a helmet.

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Online Interaction

Someone far smarter than me once said, “The medium is the message.” Plenty has been said about how the internet and our ever increasing means of communication are ironically creating more isolation and individualism. Before us are arrayed a display plethora of consumer oriented options each merely a click away. However, I think there are more serious effects of being plugged in…

Virtue is cultivated through pain, through resistance, through obstacles. You don’t learn endurance unless you are able to persevere through hardship. You can’t practice patience if you receive everything instantly. The problem with online interaction is that it gives us everything we want and nothing we don’t. It gives us unmitigated control of our own miniature world. If we want something we can get it. If we don’t like something we can ignore it. We can control what we interact with, how long we interact with it, we interact with people when and how we want. We ignore the people, issues, problems we don’t want to deal with.

The real danger of online interaction is that it gives us what we want, when we want it. This atrophies our character. It reduces our ability to grow, because it contains no conflict, no waiting, no opposition. By attempting to be in control we lose what the very virtues we hope to possess. Now the difficult thing is to let go. In order to regain possession of virtue, we have to exercise at least two. The first is restraint. Stop escaping, start living in a real world. Stop enjoying the easy simple things…at least as much. Second courage to engage in difficult situations, take on challenges that are harder than you can handle, make yourself a better person. Quit trying to control your life and start to live it.

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Modern Nostalgia

Nostalgic video games mixed with modern civilization in a visual feast for the eyes.

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This Paper

This 16 page hebrew exegetical paper isn’t going to write itself. But I may wait just a little longer, just in case it does.

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