Bravity

"A brave man doesn't live forever,
but a cautious man never lives at all."

I think that was the quote, I really liked it. I saw it at my gym, can anyone tell me who it's from?

e2-music.com

Well I finally pumped out a template today, there's not much content yet, but that'll come soon. Check out http://www.e2-music.com, I'm not completely satisfied, but I probably never will be... Let me know what you think of the intro.

Infamous

I know I should probably be filling you in about my trip to Tucson, but I've got something else on my mind. I've been thinking about some of the famous rebels in history, now these aren't the only famous people in history, and you don't have to rebel against something to be famous. With that stated, some of the people I've been thinking about specifically disagreed with, and stood their ground against the prominent governmental and religious leaders of their time. A few that come to mind are the Pilgrims, the Disciples, our American forefathers, Martin Luther, Moses, and Noah. These people had wars started against them, were diligently persecuted, and ignored, often times even by the people they were standing up for or trying to rescue.

So I wonder sometimes what I should be standing up for and who I should be standing against. Are there religious leaders in my life who would angrily disagree with me or accuse me of being a heretic like so many historical figures we today embrace as praiseworthy role models? Taking a stand for the sake of taking a stand isn't healthy, and trying to manufacture strong negative emotions towards something isn't healthy either. Staying alert to what truth is and identifying things that are detrimental and infectious towards yourself and others is healthy, and important. Preparing yourself to be used when your spirit is alerted to dangerous internal happenings, and not being afraid to step outside of the things that are done and accepted by your peers are traits of some of our most famous leaders.

Health Concerns

I consider myself rather health conscious, I work out regularly, and watch what I eat most of the time(even though I can get away with eating crap when I need to because of my age). With that said, I would like to give an example of what I believe is a polarizing trend that is taking place, the obsession with health food. I was waiting for my flight at O'Hare today and all morning I had a craving for a doughnut, a good old fashioned American, jelly-filled, chocolate iced, 300 calorie doughnut. So I walked all around Concourse B, no doughnut. Walked all around Concourse C and I found plenty of healthy muffins, fruit, and other vitamin enriched, whole wheat treats, and then I saw it, a lonely chocolate doughnut. I bought the doughnut, ate the doughnut, and a $1.50 later, cursed the name of the person who considers himself a baker. How low have we sunk as a culture where one can go past numerous vendors early on a Friday morning and not find a pure, unadulterated circular pastry of delight. So I ask you, are you willing to sacrifice an integral part of American history and culture for a few calories?

The Disease of Overstimulation

I want to tackle the issue of overstimulation. Growing up I had television, Nintendo (which I annually pay homage to), the internet, computer games, and all sorts of entertainment that captured my attention. I was reading the Tribune a few weeks ago, and there was a Zits cartoon about overstimulation that brought it to my attention. I thought about it for awhile and later diagnosed myself with overstimulation. Some of it's symptoms are excessive boredom, a high amount of video game playing, and the inhability to watch anything that's not flashing, exploding, killing, or visually oppressive. I'm haven't concluded whether or not being overstimulated is a bad thing, it does have it's benefits, for example, multitasking. But the cons are many, sitting through church can be difficult, as can reading, cleaning, working, brushing your teeth, and watching educational television. Maybe I'll have a future blog about treatment of overstimulation, but until then I'll blame it on our overindulged, entertainment glutton society(as I'm writing a blog, listening to music, searching ebay, checking my email, listening to the tv, and chatting).

Christian Brothers

So lately I've been thinking about pleasures and corrupted pleasures, things God meant for us to enjoy, and those same things being twisted by sin and abused by man. I'm sure this is nothing new to you, and there are ones we all know like sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. But I was alerted to one that I wasn't fully aware of previously, relationships. Sure, I knew of marriage, divorce being one of the perversions of marriage, but what was brought to my attention was the relationship between Christian brothers. Close Christian guy friends are hard to find, and even harder to find ones that you can have a meaningful, powerful, mutually strengthening (non-sexual) relationship with. I was reading a book that pointed out why this is, and it hit me, so profound yet so simple. Christian brothers are most powerful, most effective when they're unified, united under a single goal and leader. The Bible says, "Wherever two or more gather in my name, there my Spirit will be". If this is true then what would obviously be Satan's plan? To trap us in fear of close, exposing relationships with other men!

My Obligatory Introduction Post, Filled with everything expected.

Yeah, so I like using the word "obligatory". I will now go into what I hope to explore with this blog. To accomplish this, I think it may be necessary to first establish a few things that I don't want this blog to become. I do not want this to become something that I abuse to "vent" or whine, because I have plenty of things to whine about. I don't want this to be a place where I allow myself to bash useless organizations such as P.E.T.A and N.O.H.T.H. (National Organization of Hippie Tree Huggers) and other such organizations that hate America and Go Karts. I also do not want this Blog to become completely satirical, I hope my fans can sift through my dry sense of humor and figure out what point I'm trying to make. Ok, now for what I want this to be, I'm going to sum this up in one sentence: "Nick's thoughts on life, living it, surviving it, and making the most of it."