Sometimes It Is Harder To Deprive Oneself Of A Pain Than Of A Pleasure.

All the suck for the awesome

Difficulties may come. Or actually do come. We like to call even the less trying days hard ones, too, but now I'm speaking of real difficulties. As I said, we come across those times.

I'm convinced you know what I'm talking of, when I say being the burn-out one, doing the monotonous routine you swore to never do, dreaming big but always being stuck in second gear... These all are quite common symptoms of a-normal-life.

I've just arrived at the end of one of these periods. It's been a quarter year, that I lived through many sufferings. But I must admit, that most of them were self-inflicted, for all this served an indeed great purpose: the benefit of my personality.

I've been very reluctant towards my studies in mechanical engineering. I grew to hate my uni, and all that came with it. BUT this time has come to an end, when I realised, how incredibly much I've gained from this. I learnt truly spectacular and useful matters, and I've made important acquintaces, valuable friendships. True ones. Much more true ones, than what I foresaw for the period.

All in all, I'm clearly grateful for the thing I hated the most in the past couple of months, since I feel like I've become a better man through them. It makes me delightful to have been able to just remain on the surface.

Oh boy, I'm exhausted, so I suppose this post will end up as some nonsense but I hope, that for some of you out-there, it will mean what I meant...

That’s an ediety knot. You might run into that sooner or later. Somewhere.

#thisisasneakpeek

Battle of tastes

What book (Out of ALL!) has the best opening lines?

We are one tonight, and I'm singing it out! We are on tonight, And we are dreaming out loud...

Jon Foreman

“I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.” A.W. Tozer

Waiting is hard but it's better than having nothing to look forward to.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/u0zhZVKS1eo?feature=oembed

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0zhZVKS1eo)

sick as frick |-/

Value v. Progress

Quite recently I wrote about how society is not getting better and just now I realized how easily that can be argued--not because it would be wrong but because of the pride society takes in itself.

There is a popular idea that is thought to be new, however it has always been the human approach to its communities: newer societies are better than the old ones (there are views, contrary to this but let us not discuss nostalgia now). It comes from the observation that new orders are set up because the old ones are mended or upgraded. But is it true?

It is, but only in the most technological sense. Society, as a means of something, as a very functional tool evolves into a better means, into something more functional. The structure enables us to do much more things and the new order, the new society can effectively react to many new issues. But it would be a folly to call the advancements good or bad.

Equality for women, the abolition of slavery and child labor, education--these are all huge steps forward but they do not necessarily fall into the category of good or bad because these things are progress and not values. Mind you that in retrospect it is always represented that old times were evil, when the oppressed suffered and died, when in fact the oppressed could sometimes be content and happy and feel satisfied--surely not because of the riches bestowed upon them but although their lives were hard it was not unavoidably a life they wished they never lived.

The difference between progress and value is not transparent because both are highly desirable. Still, they are not the same, although at times they may mix.

Progress is when something is being made. In sociological questions it may be assumed that progress is infinite, as there cannot be an ultimate society. It may be hard to accept, even so, almost impossible to accept because every step is very rewarding and needs to be served as an end in itself. So sometimes we are under the illusion that this or that change in the community will perfect the whole thing. Equality is the eventual goal and when that is achieved, we are done. However it just depicts how short-sighted we may be. Looking at history, putting ourselves in perspective, it seems like the greatest delusion to say that we would finish the work. For the people, who organized themselves into the first society, it must have seemed like agriculture is the greatest human feat, as it brings about a supply never before seen. And then the same happened with every new societal invention, its creators were so touched by their own grandeur that I imagine some of them almost cried. However, looking at those things today we just shrug and call it primitive. Even so, about agriculture we would say it is necessary for human existence but we would never take the extra step of saying agriculture is a value. Certainly it is in economic terms but it does not have a higher, abstract form. It is all about function.

In contrast with progress, value is an end. To be tender toward people, to save somebody, to sacrifice something, these can sometimes serve progress, but they are also satisfactory in themselves. And it also teaches a good lesson about the people of the past: everybody, throughout history, had the potential to live equally valuable lives or fill their lives with equal measures of value, as opposed to the social progress, which goes stage after stage.

So society does not convey an absolute value, however tempting to compliment ourselves with it. Societies can be advanced and complex and functional but goodness or badness remains in the life of the individual.