The Option of Motion

I love action. Not necessarily action movies or that type of action. Although as a child I would have preferred almost anything to Gone With the Wind or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But I love the reality of movement, work, and completion. Life just doesn't make sense to me unless there's motion.

I also find that without a strong purpose and passion options are debilitating. Do you know what a factorial is? I read in an article in one of my economics books that every time you shuffle a deck of cards it is most likely the first time that arrangement has existed, ever. This is because there are 52 factors or cards that can be arranged 8.06581752 × 10^67 ways . . . I do not understand how many factors there are in my life. One reason is because the more I learn the more factors are introduced into my life--more cards to be arranged. I don't even know how to classify the factors in my life. David McCullough has said multiple times and I agree that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened. There are too many options, too many combinations every day of how something could turn out. I do not have the capacity to goal set my way through these options. Even on my desk right now are easily over 100 items. Scissors, belts, pens, tons of individual papers, books, pictures, vitamin E, a printer, a fan, a copy of the Virginia Gazette containing the Declaration of Independence, keys, 3 medals, movies, items forever going on! So yes, I believe in duty, but options without passion for me is corrupting. I could look online and call all the friends I know in 50 states about possible jobs in the 150+ career fields in America but what the heck? The only way I know how to deal with the infinite is by moving foward in faith, doing what I have have been given to want.

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"How exciting it could be. And even if it failed, we'd find out something, learn from our mistakes. We have to be ever inventive, take chances. The only people who don't make mistakes are people who don't do anything. We have to be careful about getting stale, about lazily, timidly falling back on formula." --David McCullough

Put on the Line

2009 Winter Titans.

In the Movie St Ralph, Chester and Ralph get in a fight.

Chester: I forged letters for you! I put myself on the line!
Ralph: No you did Chester, you've never put yourself on the line!

I know many people on this team put themselves on the line. It was a great feeling and a great semester even though we got last at championships. But, there have been times of lackluster commitment on my part in other areas of my life. Those times are not as rich in my memory. I'm still grateful for the ride though and for the chance to try and to attempt. I'd rather feel failure and commitment than bitter-protection.

Books and Canyons

I just finished reading Cry, The Beloved Country.

It is not a quick read, and it is not meant to be. My roommate Chandler says it's like reading poetry. It is written beautifully and naturally. I wanted to blog about this and include a couple of excerpts:

-I suppose so. But I wish now that I'd known more of him. You see, the things that he did, I've never had much to do with that sort of thing.
-Nor I either, James. His life was quite different from ours.
-It was a good life by all accounts. He sat, she lay, in silence, with their thoughts and their memories and their grief.
-Although his life was different, he said, you understood it.
-Yes, James.
-I'm sorry I didn't understand it. Then he said in a whisper, I didn't know it would ever be so important to understand it. (175)
--
And when he nodded, she said, Give it to me, Stephen. With shaking hands he gave it to her, and she read it also, and sat looking before her, with lost and terrible eyes, for this was the child of her womb, of her breasts. Yet she did not sit as long as he had done, for she stood up and said, It is not good to sit idle. Finish your letters, and go to see Kuluse's child, and the girl Elizabeth that is ill. And I shall do my work about the house (273).

--

I also wanted to include a few picture from my Rim to Rim hike of the Grand Canyon (I was told not to bring a backpack because a Camelback would be provided . . . it was a fanny pack.)

Thank You.

While at work this week I was fixing fence in a pasture facing the Tetons. (I did not take this picture, but this is what I have to look at every day at work.) The area had tons of different mixes of grasses and other plants. I did not realize how much variety there was in the area. Anyways, while fixing fence I heard some Crane's mating call. I looked and two Sandhill Cranes were rocking out to their mating dance. They were jumping high up in the air, running around each other, chasing each other, flying around, and lots of other things. They are beautiful birds. I just stopped working and watched them. I can't believe I got to see that.

On a second note, I checked my email today and was surprised when I read this email. It was interesting to read after meeting with the Air Force today and found out that I completely qualify to enter the pararescue pipeline:

__

Dear Oliver,

I am a faculty member in the MPA program at BYU, and was a member of the admissions committee that decided which students to admit to the program next year. I’m sure you were disappointed to learn that you weren’t admitted. Our decision about your application was a very difficult one, and the committee spent a great deal of time and discussion about you. I believe we were all intrigued by the qualities and perspective you have to offer, and would like to have included you in the next MPA class. However, there were aspects of your application that raised concerns (among them, your GPA), which made you less competitive in comparison with other applicants.

The reason I am writing is that the committee feels you are one of a small handful of denied applicants who has a strong potential to be accepted into the program in the future (if you remain interested). Of course, I cannot guarantee future admission. However, I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you to give you some suggestions about steps you can take to strengthen your application and thus improve your chances to be accepted in 2010.

If you happen to be in Provo some time this summer, I’d love to meet you. Or we could schedule a telephone conversation, if you are interested in continuing to pursue the MPA program.

Again, my regrets that we didn’t have better news for you this year. You are clearly a remarkable young man with great promise.

__

I recently graduated from college


It was supposed to be the beginning of a long journey


So, to celebrate I went on a road trip


I went to Crater Lake in Oregon


got lost and almost died in some Oregon mountains (picture of us trying not to freak out)
To the Redwood Forest


To Lombard Street


to China Town

and to a baseball game


Which was at San Francisco


I got Wet

played some games


hiked the Grand Canyon (just recently, not on the road trip)


. . . but Here I stand
Ready to heal, and start, and feel, and ultimately do.

Entertainment

What an information overload I experience every day! There is too much, so much to absorb, process, and weigh every day. I feel entertained to death, not as of recent but as a generation. I do not think it is anyone's fault. I think efficiency in communication, education, and mass production with higher rates of global political and economic stability have created a society in which I have to chose to not be entertained. I can see in one evening the quality and intensity of entertainment that people used to save up for a whole week for. Or so I read in my history books.

One time I got my back scratched so much in church that my back became numb and I just wanted to listen to the talks. I can't handle music, internet, and tv as much as what happens at college. And so I go this summer up to work at a ranch in Victor, ID. I need time to feel. I don't want to be the audience that the White Stripes are describing:



If I could govern better, possibly by kicking roommates out of the apartment, the amount of noise media I would not need to do this. Battle on ADD.

Puzzled

Here is an excerpt from a Creative Non-Fiction essay I once read about the baseball player Roberto Clemente. I loved it because I believe there is safety and strength in living a guileless life.
“For Clemente, life was always about the right way to play the game, like when, in a game against the Astros, he ran flat-out into a wall, risking injury on a relatively meaningless play. “A catch for the ages,” the Houston Chronicle called it, but some were dismayed.
Why did you do this? Why risk injury on a nothing play?
Genuinely puzzled because the answer was so obvious, Clemente answered simply, “I wanted to catch the ball.” CNF pg.317