Sorry for being gone for so long. I've been busy being a new father and all that. I'll (hopefully) be posting some more in the near future, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm not dead. If you'd like more info about my wonderful daughter, visit my wife's blog (link at the right). She is doing a phenomenal job of keeping everyone up to date.
Ok, so I guess I have some things to say this week.
This post is going to be the continuation of the tirade I almost started in my previous post about the current popular opinion most Christians share about humility. I guess I kind of gave that away in the post title. Oh well, I was never one much for subtlety.
My experience as a Christian coupled with my more recent experience as an adult who doesn't accept everything he's told has opened my eyes to a few erroneous beliefs that I have been taught in the Christian churches I grew up in. These are things that I feel very strongly about but have not been prepared to open up on---yet. Most are for another day. The truth about humility and how Christianity has butchered its definition I share with you now.
What got me started on this was my comment about how most Christians believe that to be humble is to debase themselves. By extension (and the mathematical and grammatical laws of logic) this would also mean that any Christians that think good of themselves are prideful. As I stated in my previous post, I'm acutely aware of my own strengths and limitations. This is not arrogance or pride. It's humility. It would be arrogant to believe I am any more or any less than what I was created to be. At that point, I have called God a liar. The unfortunate truth about our society is that most Christians are taught that true humility is about hating themselves and putting on a mask of "I'm not worthy". At the same time, they completely deny their own strengths and gifts. Even worse, they judge and often ridicule any Christian that does not hold the same view and think themselves superior for it. There were people who did this in Jesus' time. They were known as Pharisees.
The scripture that says "I will decrease, so that you may increase" has nothing to do with me whipping myself. It tells me that I get my selfish motives and self saving practices out of the way so that I can be the man God made me to be. There is absolutely no way I can do this without taking a long, hard look at myself in complete honesty and admit everything, both good and bad, useful and useless, divine and base, etc. Humility is the result of this self-searching. What Christians define as humility has the exact same overarching definition. The problem comes when they try to tackle the self-searching and complete honesty bits. For them, self-searching and honesty involves nothing more than taking a look at a mirror and saying "Look at what you are. You are disgusting in God's eyes. Why, He even compares you to filthy rags. Those are His words! How dare you argue with them!"
I've done a great deal of self examination over the past few years. All of it has been beneficial due to my reliance in God to bring me through it, regardless of the substance of the journey or the consequences of the outcome. The net result, so far, is that I have been given a small taste of the truth about who I am. Let me show you what real honesty looks like:
The statement above describing what I was taught as truth (about God calling me rags) is complete and utter bullshit. The truth is that I am "the delight of my Father's eyes." I am the son that he runs to, throws His arms around and says "my son was lost, but now is found! Throw a feast so we may celebrate!" The "rags" part is actually referring to my attempts to save myself and my self serving "acts of kindness", which are intended more for my benefit than anyone else's. It does not refer to who I am.
I am not now going and never will go to hell for saying bullshit.
I am going to make a damn, damn good father.
My heart is bigger than I can handle sometimes. I hope I can learn how to let other people benefit from it more.
Who I am is wonderful, strong, powerful, sincere, honest, loyal, trustworthy and enjoyable.
I do not always exhibit those qualities, and sometimes exhibit their opposites.
Who I am, who I truly am, pisses people off more so than anyone else I know. This is a good thing and they need to figure out what it is about their character that I grate against. Preferably, they need to figure out what "iron sharpens iron" really means and embrace the grating.
Tact and respect can go along way to showing others they are loved. This is a lesson I need more than most people I know.
Doesn't sound like something you would expect to hear in church, does it?
Humility is knowing who you really are, knowing that you don't know everything about yourself yet and you need to keep looking, and knowing that who you are does not confer superiority over anything. It is painful, sobering, uplifting and life saving all at the same time.
The pain comes from honesty. I don't like being honest with myself and when I am, it sometimes hurts.
"Sobering" is a woefully inadequate way of stating this. Some of the things I've done that are contrary to my nature come close to instilling in me what I believe the bible calls the fear of God. They are, at the very least, eye opening, and at their worst, terrifying to me.
Somewhere, at the very roots of my soul, I love who I have been made to be. Knowing my strengths and gifts and being proud of them is nothing less than the purist form of worship I can offer God. There is no greater power or joy that I have available to me, save that of Jesus' gift of sacrifice, than when I believe these 2 truths.
Finally, how can I use what I have been given if I'm not aware it's available to me? What good am I to anyone if all I believe and have been told is that I'm not worthy? None. I'm useless to God and to those lives into which I have been placed. If you really want to see what frightening and earth-shattering power you have, if you really want to see God wipe away years of soul-destroying pain from those you love and remove a lifetime's worth of shame and guilt, throw out what you have learned about humility and revel in who you are.
"Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
"Let people feel the weight of who you are, and let them deal with it."
- John Eldridge
My friend Cerberus on my airsoft team (Myrmidons, link on the left) used the phrase 'Helicopter Parent' on a forum post of mine over there. This is the definition he gave me when I inquired about the meaning of the phrase:
Helicopter Parent Noun or Adjective depending on usage.
A parent who is over protective of their child to the point that the child is smothered. Also known as an "attack parent" inside education circles.
Example: Parent who must increase the dosage of (insert medication here) because child has gone to summer camp. Because of issues with child being gone the child is no longer allowed to attend even a day camp.
Example: Parent who comes to school screaming how the child is hated and made to feel inferior because the child was caught cheating on a test despite previous warning that anyone caught cheating would receive a ZERO for the test. Parent then leaves screaming that they will sue everyone involved for mental cruelty to their child.
I just made a post over at the WSGF (link on the right) and realized it would make a good blog post. Yay for self plagiarism!So, I'm playing Stalker last night on my relatively new 8800GT (upgraded from a 7900GS) with Oblivion Lost 2.0 and version 2.2.2 of the Weather Overhaul Mod (if you've never played with this mod and have an 8 series or higher video card, get it. The difference in everything right down to the smallest shadow detail is amazing) when I says to myself "Self, these graphics are crazy good, but it sure would be nice if AA was compatible with Stalker's dynamic lighting engine. Too bad it isn't." Then I says to myself as I look slightly to my left "you know, that 20" Dell flat panel that is on your secondary computer has a smaller dot pitch than this 22" Westinghouse you've been staring at. I bet that would help." So, since I have both hooked up to my main computer, I head on over to that nifty Nvidia control panel and bop the screen over to the Dell.
*smackhead*
*facepalm*
Well, it looks like I forgot how much better images looked on that thing. Not just the dot pitch, but the color and gray levels are outstanding. Much better than the Westinghouse. But I like 22" of real estate.
I do this once about every 6 months. Use the Dell, miss the space. Switch to Westinghouse, tolerate the picture quality. Switch to Dell...ad-naseum. I know the answer is a 24". I also know my wife would behead, crucify, skin, impale and qaurter me and then kick my butt, all of which would be swiftly followed by a "talking to" that would be worse than any of it.
*sigh*
Maybe I can get one for Christmas.
P.S. Can anyone explain why the Dell would look so much better? The Dell is an E207WFP and the Westinghouse is an LCM-22w2. (For those of you on the blog, don't worry about answering this. It was a question for the forums.)
P.P.S. Comments about my better half were inserted purely for humor. She would actually support me (probably) buying one. I'm not going to because we have a baby on the way.
P.P.P.S Our first!! Yay!
P.P.P.P.S. also...it's a girl!! Yay!
I have been an NVIDIA fan since my first GeForce 2 card way, way back in the day. I have never had any problems with their hardware, their driver support has been phenomenal, and they always seem to outperform ATI just enough to make them worth it.
Then I read this.
Apparently, NVIDIA has actually created a documented strong-arm policy called the UMAP. This policy dictates the advertised prices that retailers and etailers can show on their sites for video cards that have the same model of NVIDIA's GPU. As a result, you can no longer go to sites like Newegg and easily compare prices between different companies versions of those cards, such as the 8800GTX. You have to either click on the item itself or actually add it to your cart before you see what the real price of the card is. If the question you are asking yourself is "how can they do this", the answer is simple. NVIDIA is the 800 pound gorilla of the graphics processor market. According to the above article, Newegg refused to change their site until NVIDIA told them that they would no longer be allowed to receive cards with their GPU's on them if they didn't. NVIDIA can apparently control where the manufacturers send video cards with their GPU on it and as a result, Newegg has a new advertising policy for NVIDIA cards.
NVIDIA is claiming that the purpose of the UMAP is to create an even selling market between the different video card manufacturers by forcing all of their advertised prices for the same GPU to be either the same or not displayed at all. While that may very well be true, I absolutely cannot fathom how they could think that this will not destroy their sales. ATI must be having a field day right now. I don't know of anyone, except the most fanatical, diehard NVIDIA loyalist, who would not immediately choose another brand for the simple fact that they are easier to compare prices on now, let alone choosing someone else because of NVIDIA's sales practices.
Had I known about this a month ago, I would have bought an ATI card instead of an 8800GT, regardless of the performance difference or driver support. Even if NVIDIA rescinds the UMAP (which is apparently a possibility according to the article linked above), the damage has already been done. I will not give anymore of my money to a company who cannot differentiate between the ability to flex their muscle and whether or not they should.
(For any of you NVIDIA execs reading this who need a clue, the answer is you shouldn't.)
Well, I'm a daddy. My wife's had a bun in the oven for about 4 months now and things have been rather nuts, so I'm going to take a few moments to journal out whats been going on.
Gaming
All MMO's have stopped. In fact, we got rid of the internet at home again because it was proving too much a distraction for the both of us. We now have plenty of time for each other, which we spend doing other things. At least we're trying.
I have, however, finally been able to get one of these. I've ordered a bunch of games that I haven't played yet due to not having the graphics chutzpa needed for me to really enjoy them. The games that I already had are really enjoying the face lift and look absolutely beautiful. Oblivion is still only running at around 25 FPS , but that probably has something to do with all of the massive community graphics upgrades I've downloaded for it and that I run it with everything maxed out, except AA. It is quite beautiful. UT3 also looks jaw-dropping. I showed it to a couple of friends and they want to go upgrade just from watching me play for a few minutes. I'm looking forward to Crysis, Hellgate London and Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, all of which should be coming in the mail any day now. I picked them up off e-bay, along with 3 other game for around $60. Yay for the interwebs.
Friends and Family
I'm really, really jealous of this guy and the friend I mentioned above about UT3. They both have one of these with this game and I'm pouting all over the place because I can't play with them. Someone call the whaaaambulance. My beautiful bride, however, is quite content with me not having one, seeing as how she's mildly worried that I would be lost to her forever. Whether or not that is true is irrelevant. She's pregnant and I love her. No PS3.
Speaking of pregnant, wow. How do I put this while maintaining the privilege of sleeping in my own bed...my wife has become...focused...on...herself and taking care of her and the baby. This tends to leave other things...at a temporarily lower proirity. Like feeding the animals. Or telling me she needs me to take her to work more than 5 minutes before she needs to be there. I've had to adjust quite simply because I'm a stubborn pain in the neck and don't like changes to my schedule. I've actually become quite good at kissing my wife and saying 'Yes dear' while turning red in the face. This is, of course, no fault of hers.
We still don't know whether we are having a boy or a girl, but I'll honestly be happy either way. I can screw up one just as good as the other.
Work
Don't get me started. Seriously. I have friends who read this blog that I work with and I'll get fired if I say what I really want to say. Normally that wouldn't deter me, but having a kid on the way tends to make one stop and think of someone other than themselves (to an extent). I can say, however, that I am actively looking for another job.
Baby
In case you hadn't heard, my wife is having a baby. I'm not scared of this. Most people, when asked about having their first child, say they are terrified. It's usually due to a fear of making mistakes and messing up their kid. I have no such delusions. I know that I will mess up my kids in some way, therefore, no fear. In fact, I'm kind of looking forward to it. I know that much of who I am today came from not being perfect. I don't learn from success. I learn from my mistakes. The great thing about having a kid is that when I make them, I can learn to correct them and teach them how not to make the same ones. The real trick is allowing God to break my heart so I can be vulnerable with them. That's the part that worries me a little.
Wife
I love her. More and more everyday. The only reason that I am a little worried (as opposed to really concerned) about whether or not I can really give God access to my heart is because of this very thing. If he wasn't already changing it, I would not be improving as a husband.
Role-Playing Game
I swear, I really want to keep doing this. Really! Don't give up hope!
And that's about it. We have our next ultrasound coming up in a few weeks and those games should be getting here soon. I may actually have more content to post before next month.
I've not really been to keen on keeping things updated on this blog, but this was entirely to funny not to post.
Click here for hilarity.
