A few items

This first item is not a journalistic entry addressed to my future self. It is actually intended for whoever is reading this blog at the moment:

There are many many things which are harmful for our bodies. Many of these occur naturally but are harmful in excess, especially over time. Some of these do not need to be in excess in order to be experienced or enjoyed. Two items in this last category are salt and high frequencies.

Salt is in nearly everything we eat, and adding it makes almost any food immediately taste better. However, long-term excessive consumption of salt is harmful (I don't know the specific effects. ..Shannon?). I have made it a conscious decision for a long time to not add any salt to the food I'm served. It's a clear action I can do to significantly lower my long-term salt intake. Yes, giving a shake of salt would make many things taste better (sometimes things really needed it :-P) , but I have found that 4 times out of 5, after a minute or two, I don't even notice it. You can wean yourself from salt, and fully enjoy eggs, meat, casseroles, pasta, etc. without adding any extra.

High frequencies in sound are very similar. Any sound, when loud enough, damages our hearing, but high frequencies contain the most energy, and thus are the most damaging. Play around with an EQ for a few minutes, though, and you'll find that turning up the highs instantly makes any music sound a lot better to your ears--clearer, more distict, more present, more pleasing. As with salt, though, if you just don't turn up the highs in your car, or in your headphones on your laptop, or wherever, within 30 seconds you won't notice the difference. Your ears are startlingly adept at acclimating to sound characteristics, so even if it sounds flat and lifeless at the moment when you take down the highs, 5 minutes later you'll be blissfully unaware, and you'll have taken one more little step towards prolonging your lifelong hearing. Over time you will train your ears to fully enjoy music without needing to slam the treble to get tht "crisp high."

So: I want to encourage you to eschew the salt shaker and keep your high EQ flat, or even dip it down, if you get that far. They are very simple, easy actions to do, and will yield certain long-term benefits.

Now back to blogging as normal...

I've been thinking about this blog lately, spurred by some strong uneasiness about a few past posts, and mostly about ideas I've had for things to post about. I have sensed the tendency to fall into Thoreau's error of elevating commonalities to unrealistic significance, dedicating attention to pedestrian details of my life that is laughably unwarranted. I am a big fan of unshielded honesty (except where it would not serve others) and the value of the spontaneous, and in the past I have run with that, justifying my posts by the purportedly inherent value of top-of-the-head thoughts and impressions. I still fundamentally think that that is a good philosophy for dealing with other people, but I have come to realize that my motivation for writing about little things that come to my mind can be simply pride, springing from a desire to portray my life and mind as incredibly significant and meaningful.

Pfft. :-P

So, I will still write up stuff, put forth my life with no unneccesary concealment, and depict as best I can who I am, but I will not consciously indulge my inflated pride and introspective delusions of significance. Is it helpful to wax eloquent about naming my iPod Jack? It is true that I thought about many names, as I stared at it, and none of them "fit" until Jack, but it's not that big of a deal. I shouldn't waste my words portraying it as though it is. It is helpful to think long and hard about my decision to quit AIM and the reasons for it, since clarification of that topic will serve my readers and remind myself, in the future, of what God was doing in my heart at this time.

So, *sigh*, I find myself indeed, after many protestations, applying a filter to the thoughts that I skim off the top of my head. I myself do not bear inherent significance (much as I'd like to think so), and thus I must subject my thoughts and feelings to the criteria of the only One who does carry self-existent worth: The creator God.

May His face shine upon every word I type here.

--Clear Ambassador