nothing specific comes to mind

It's a shame people seem to struggle so with finding an happy medium in recognizing the agency of others. I don't mean "people" accusatively; I often tend to recognize people are trying to help me and immediately expect perfection from them, becoming terribly critical. On the other hand, I've recently tried to extend a caring hand and been told that I'm kept around only to pay a debt, not as an actual contributing member of a relationship.

I'm certainly not bitter; I just think it illustrates a point nicely: we seem to have a very hard time in finding a balance between leading and being led, between nurturing and being nurtured. I wish I knew how to encourage more balanced relationships, in which even imperfect attempts to help were sincerely appreciated. I guess it's largely because of the condescending attitude of the benefactors, though, our tendency to assume that if people need help, they must be stupid or wicked.

I guess that flows pretty naturally into my gender's-purpose rant. I'm not in the mood to write tonight, but meh, Smurfs requested it quite a while ago, and my list of random rants grows intimidatingly lengthy. So. First off, I'll explain what I meant by, "Of course, I ached a little at Ivy's 'I do long to do boy things.' I quite liked that scene in general, but it was tarnished by the reminder that every modern story needs a girl with Big Dreams held back by Patriarchal Society."

It probably seems silly and overdramatic to use "ache" for an ideological objection, but I'll try to clarify. Basically, it often seems that the media is saying, "Women rock, especially those with some masculine traits." Being a somewhat androgynous guy, I feel as though I'm accused of having neither the fortune to be born properly nor the sense to lean in the right direction, and I think that's understandably disheartening. As I think I made explicit, though, I've come to understand why strict female role-typing can be disenchanting.

Basically, it seems to me as though the Pauline marriage model is one in which the parenting is directed from husband to wife, then wife to children, seeming to imply an hierarchy. In the modern view, it flows weakly between the autonomous spouses and from children to parents, and strongly from both spouses to the children.

As I considered this, it seemed appropriate to hybridize the two, forming a model in which it flows most strongly from mother to child, strongly from father to child and father to mother, weakly from mother to father and child to mother, and most weakly from child to father. Of course, the degree of hybridization will vary according to the individuals involved. Also, in this model, note that the father receives and gives less nurturing than any other member, justified by the emotional deadening of exposure to the world.

Blech, such empty rhetoric. Just not feeling it tonight. Sorry, Smurfs, but in continually pondering it, I've only had one night of epiphany, and most of that's faded since. I expect this is all you'll get until someone throws me a freaking bone. I've decided that my superpower is killing threads on blue-beta. It's almost as awesome as Grant's power to always be too hot or too cold. Unfortunately, neither of us is anywhere near as awesome as the sociopath in Girl, Interrupted who could drive people insane.

Hey, while I'm offending people anyway, could someone please explain to me what's so offensive about racial profiling? It seems like it's a scandal whenever people hear about it, but seriously, it makes sense to me. Like, I would advocate that they pull *me* over in airports more often on the grounds that as an hulking male, I'm more statistically dangerous than a stooped grandmother.

I recognize that I'm very uncoordinated and some grandmothers are kung-fu experts, and that's precisely *why* it wouldn't offend me: because statistical likelihood is not the same as logical implication. Focusing on Arabs is not saying all Arabs are terrorists, only that it's a more efficient use of resources, assuming that they are, in fact, more likely. Is the outrage directed against that statistical assumption, or the practice itself?

If you also understand why it's unethical for businesses to avoid hiring women who plan on having many children, I'd appreciate an explanation of that, too. I don't mean to sound like an heartless conservative; I just don't see what's wrong with statistically-based policies when a) they cause no significant inconvenience or b) the stereotyped class is entered by choice, not chance.

Anyway, today was fairly nice. My lesson went incredibly poorly, which was quite disappointing, because I'd actually put a lot of thought into it, and I found the following great quotes:

"There must be this chain in the holy Priesthood; it must be welded together from the latest generation that lives on the earth back to Father Adam, to bring back all that can be saved and placed where they can receive salvation and glory in some kingdom. This Priesthood has to do it; this Priesthood is for this purpose. …
"The ordinance of sealing must be performed here man to man, and woman to man, and children to parents, etc., until the chain of generation is made perfect in the sealing ordinances back to Father Adam."
(Discourses of Brigham Young [Deseret Book, 1971], pp. 406–408.)

"All things gain enduring force and validity because of the sealing power. So comprehensive is this power that it embraces ordinances performed for the living and the dead, seals the children on earth up to their fathers who went before, and forms the enduring patriarchal chain that will exist eternally among exalted beings."
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed., Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966, p. 683.)

I tried to start off by asking why we don't focus on baptism and confirmation if those are the ordinances requisite for the celestial kingdom and we'll be able to progress within kingdoms. Someone countered my requirements assumption, and the bishop backed him up, so I was thrown off track right from the beginning, and in a ten-minute lesson, it's tough to get back on. (By the way, I still assert that I was correct; it's what Brother Bott taught, at least, I believe. Thoughts?)

After my lesson concluded, the bishop chewed us out for not making more of our roles as the spark of the entire ward's missionary program. He meant it as a pep talk, but it felt largely like he was slamming my lessons, particularly when he spent the first five minutes explaining how sealing is *actually* relevant to missionary work. Sacrament meeting and elder's quorum were fairly boring. In Sunday School, I was asked to share an experience from my mission of the role of the priesthood in retaining converts, which was a nice final reminder that I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm not doing a very good job of explaining why it was a good day. And yeah, I was pretty dang broken for a while. Fortunately, my amazing extended family came over for dinner, I had a good little chat with my father, and I took my little brother out to teach him how to drive stick. None of this qualitatively changed my situation, but it distracted me from castigating myself very nicely.

Eric was actually rather amazingly good with the stick. Like, tonight was his first time, and in an hour or so of driving, he probably didn't stall it more than ten times. He really is much better than I am at virtually everything. Like, the kid is in a band that played "All the Small Things" at Stapley Junior High's last talent show. Rather bloody well, too. In truth, I was very impressed with the event in general; I wish I cared enough to compliment each performance individually, but it will suffice to say that everyone was awesome but the piano players.

As an example of anti-awesome family relationships, Dad and I were watching this BYU Education Week talk on BYUTV (he watches soooo much BYUTV stuff), and the speaker said "The problem we face as parents is that if we're too flexible, then our kids don't do what we want, but if we're too firm, then they sneak around." Seriously, how disgusting is that? It made me appreciate my dad a lot more, actually; he's pretty incredibly good at picking his battles, letting us learn lessons by making mistakes. I guess it's a good thing, though, that there's such diversity of opinion in the Church. I've certainly learned a lot from opinions ranging from Nibley's scorn for lucre to Heather's benevolent commercialism, from Brother Ramirez's strict observance of the speed limit to the Heritage boys' fondness for rated-R war movies. As a last example of how much my family rocks, Mum got some frozen "petites quiches" from Costco and left them in the fridge for me while I was dogsitting. They're amazing.

Do any of you use Outlook Express? I swear that the "new mail" chime is based off the opening notes of a song in Ages of Empires. That'd be so cool, melodic brand recognition.

So Asmond and Bamabeau both posted recently about why they struggle so to make good choices. An answer struck me the other day before even reading their posts, in fact, as I was walking around campus. I nearly stepped on a pigeon, and I had to wonder what kind of ridiculous evolution would let them be so stupid, how it could possibly select for "don't move when someone's about to step on you." Then I realized that, if all behaviors were selected by simple negative consequence of neglecting to observe them, we'd all be neurotic; every time someone was struck by lighting, the genepool would select a little more strongly against "sit in one place under any circumstances." We'd lose all sense of reasonable danger. To avoid this, we must necessarily be hardwired to prefer laziness. All those Saturdays I thought I was just sitting around, I was aggressively maintaining our species' ability to ignore insignificant threats.