Mulligans

To anyone who plays golf casually, mulligan is about as beautiful a word as any.  For those who aren't familiar with it, it is basically just a fancy way of saying a do-over.  The great part about a mulligan is that you get to take another swing and it doesn't count against you.  A mulligan is the epitome of a second chance, as it basically erases the existence of the previous stroke.  The reason that mulligans are on my mind in the dead of winter is that I was recently watching a TV show and that particular episode was entitled "mulligans".  The show had the golf reference because the episode took place during a golf tournament, but the true reason behind the naming of the episode was that in the end a son forgave his father for having left him and his brother as children, after having sworn that he would never do so.  Essentially he gave his dad a mulligan.  Interestingly enough this got me thinking about a certain friendship with someone that didn't end on great terms.  While watching this show I started to think about how things had ended and about second chances.  Then, later that night, I received an E-mail from that exact same person, apologizing for the way things ended up.  To be honest, had I gotten that message a day earlier I probably would have just dismissed it and been frustrated, thinking to myself that there is no way this person deserved any sort of second chance.  But it didn't come the day before, it came that exact same day, just as this issue was on my mind.  I mean c'mon, there is absolutely no way that something like this happens purely out of coincidence, right?  So I decided that I needed to follow my gut on this one and give my old friend another chance.  What happens in the end, I honestly have no idea, but there is one thing that I do know, such things don't happen by accident, and the best type of do-over is a mulligan, where the first time is completely erased from memory and the record books.  Give it up for second chances.

Cross Country Skiing

Exciting news in the life of Travis Zurcher, I have now learned a brand new sport, cross country skiing!  Granted it's not the most exciting sport of all time, but when you consider some of my other favorites like golf and baseball I guess it kind of fits right in with what I'm all about.  Anyways, finally something that got me outside and enjoying the snow for the majority of the day, not an easy task, I must admit, but definitely accomplished.  So now the question is this, could I be convinced to become a winter person.  A very interesting thought indeed seeing as since as far back as I can remember I've never been a fan of the snow or winter.  Sure as a kid I would make snowmen and snowforts, throwing snowballs at friends and having a good time.  But I always remember suffering through winter to make it back to the glorious days of summer.  In fact many times I recall people at the end of summer saying that they were excited for winter and were done with all this hot weather for a little while.  I also recall thinking to myself that such a thought was ludicrous because summer was in every way better than winter. "But you can always put on more layers in the cold, you can only take off so many", someone would say to me in defense of winter.  Right, because there's nothing I love more than putting on two shirts, a sweater, a jacket, scarf, gloves and a hat just to be "comfortable" outside.  And I also am skeptical to the fact that such amounts of clothing is in fact comfortable, because to me shorts, a t-shirt and some sandals is the ideal amount of clothes.  Too hot?  Try going inside in the A/C for a little bit, or maybe you can take a dip in a body of water of sorts.  Here's an idea, in the summer the shade is much cooler, relax in it while sipping a nice lemonade.  So what's the point, well at first it was to analyze whether finding enough fun winter activities could change my mind about loving summer so very much more, but now it seems quite obvious to me after my rant about how much better summer is.  No amount of fun winter activities will ever change my mind because summer is just that much better, period.  Even if I were to discover a plethora of fun filled wintery stuffs, the absolute best solution is a week or so out of the year where I visit somewhere cold, and then head back to some hot wonderous desert where winter is only a fairytale.

Assumptions

Today during Econ 110 Professor Kearl started off by making an assumption in order to simplify economics.  This, to me, seems like a perfectly reasonably thing to do since I know very little about economics and to attempt of study of the most intricate details right off the get go would be nothing but futile.  However, it appears that many other people were not able to grasp this very simple concept of making assumptions to simplify a system, even if this assumption is not entirely true.  In this instance, the assumption was made that people were self-interested and would therefore ultimately act in the fashion that would help them to acquire as much as possible.  While this assumption is obviously not 100% true, it is, in general, a very good guideline as to the roots of people's behavior.  That's why it's an assumption, and not a rule of economics.  But for some reason every couple of minutes or so someone would come up with some hypothetical situation of people not acting in a self interested manner.  While this was quite frusrtating to me, the fact that people couldn't understand the purpose of the assumption he was making, it was also very entertaining.  This is because every time someone gave a situation where people were not acting in their own self interest, Professor Kearl showed them why they were in fact wrong every time.  A mother staying at home with a child, not self interested?  Why yes it is.  That mother is staying home because it would cost more to hire a full time nanny than she would be able to make going to work.  The best choice for her is to stay at home to take of the child.  Point Kearl.  The industrial revolution, people went into terrible working conditions, this most certainly was not to their benefit, right?  Wrong again, no one forced people to leave their farms, they left because in the end it was a better decision, certainly not the best but obviously better than farming, or they wouldn't have left the farm.  Point Kearl.  This continued literally the entire class and was fascinating to see people continue at it, when time and time again, the point when to Dr. Kearl.  In the end, this made me think about other classes where similar assumptions are made, and I realized that they are all technical and science classes.  So it must be that all these people have not had many, if any at all, science classes, or this concept would not seem foreign, but instead blatantly necessary.  At first I thought more people need more science to understand this concept better, because making assumptions to simplify things that are occurring in life is a very useful and helpful tool.  But as I continued to ponder on the outcome of this solution I realized something very important.  If more of these liberal arts type people are in my science classes, then I would have to deal with the stupidity all the time, and not just in one class.  So in the end the current system is probably the best one and I'll just sit back and enjoy Dr. Kearl making people look stupid.

The Science of Religion

I just finished reading a really great article by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  It was an excerpt from a speech that he gave about a year ago at Harvard Law School in which he outlined three fundamental premises of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It was an absolutely fantastic article and I recommend you give it a read, you won't be disappointed.  The cluster of truth, as he called them, that really got me thinking was the threefold sources of truth about man and the universe:  science, the scriptures, and continuing revelation.  To me this is very interesting as the general concept about the interaction between science and religion is a negative one. Most people see science as a way to show that religion is incorrect and that we do not truly need religion in our lives, that they are inherently in opposition with one another.  However, as Elder Oaks explains, this is not the case, but they in fact work with each other in obtaining more knowledge about life.  It is my thought that, despite popular belief, God himself must obey the laws of science, that is to say that he must follow them.  Please note that I am not saying that God is not all powerful, because he most assuredly is.  What I am saying is that as a song I learned growing up says, knowledge is power. Since God is all knowing, he has a grasp of the sciences much more advanced than anything we claim to be able to understand or to model.  With such great knowledge he is able to take advantage of the laws of science, and use, not circumvent, them to accomplish his great design.  It seems to me that the more we learn about science the more it truly proves just how amazing God is as he is able to use the laws of nature to his benefit.  But if we truly think about it, what we do as humans and science is the same thing.  As we understand science better we are able to accomplish things that people even only 100 years ago wouldn't even be able to fathom.  For example, how would you be able to explain to a person in the 1800's the concept of blogging, there is no way they would be able to grasp such a concept of a virtual connection allowing people to post their thoughts and opinions in a forum where people from around the world could have instant access. My guess is that if you were in the right place and time you would probably be burned at the stake for being a witch for talking about such ridiculous things, although I suppose that would be more considered the wrong place and time.  So imagine what an all knowing God could be able to do with his understanding of the laws of nature, things that we can't even begin to understand how exactly they work.  Some of the biggest things I can think of are the resurrection and the atonement of Christ.  How one man can suffer for all of the sins and sorrows of the world doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever, but that's only because I have an imperfect knowledge of the science of the universe.  What I have come to understand though is that God does understand how it all comes together in the end, and that's why the other methods of learning are so important.  If it weren't for the scriptures and revelation we would not be able to figure out that there is a resurrection after this life.  Thankfully such wonderful knowledge has in fact been revealed to us along with many other things that will help us with our eternal salvation.  It is my belief that as our understanding of science improves, so will our understanding of God and religion because truth is truth regardless of the source.