Tuesday, September 16, 2008

If Facebook Does Not Go Back to the Way It Was I Am Going to Burn This Mother Down

People on Facebook are funny. For some reason there have been a lot of people who are for some reason upset with the new Facebook layout. Everyday I see in my feed a couple of people signing up for groups like "I Hate the New Facebook!" or "The New Layout of Facebook is Making Me Mad! Poo!" or "If Facebook Does Not Go Back to the Way It Was I Am Going to Burn This Mother Down!" That last one is probably the most confusing because why would you burn the building you're in down because of something intangible on the Internet. But then I realized it doesn't need to make sense because these people are upset because of layout. Layout. Not the fact that Facebook has a bunch of your personal information and literally uses it to send targeted advertisements to you. I can see some people getting upset over all the Christian dating site ads and Foo Fighter concert tickets and meeting Christian girls at Foo Fighters concert sites. I can find my own dates thank you very much Internet! Bordering on invasion of privacy is something that I think is something that is ok to get upset over. I mean, just don't sign up. But people who are upset over the layout of your personal information is the problem.

"This website is impossible to navigate now that it's been moderately rearranged how the heck am I supposed to encapsulate my life in a cyberspace bubble on a website if I have to click on a tab every once in a while! Aaargggh!" And then they throw the keyboard across the room and spontaneously transform into their werewolf forms. But don't worry, these werewolves won't literally attack anybody, they spread their virus on Facebook. If you are worried about a social networking site not being conducive to the ultimate experience of your poking, pirate/ninja-battling, chump-biting, anti-new Facebook group joining then you should probably just drop the whole thing and just go and hang out with the people that you use Facebook to avoid actually spend time with. At least pick up a phone and call someone about how you hate the new Facebook and then never use Facebook again. I have this funny suspicion that very few people that have joined these groups actually have vocally expressed their reasons for their hatred of the layout, because if they did do that instead of arbitrarily joining groups and crying about it, then they would actually hear what kind of ludicrous idiocy it is to care about that.

Monday, September 15, 2008

If Faith Covenant Church Could Choose a Modern Day Prophet, It Would Be Rob Bell

At church a couple of weeks ago, the topic was service. What was interesting to me was from a Rob Bell video. It may just be me, but it seems like if Faith Covenant Church could choose a modern day prophet, it would be Rob Bell. Which I would be fine with. Anyway, Rob was talking about how Jesus was going from town to town, preaching and healing and in one town, they wanted Jesus to stay. But Jesus keep heading to Jerusalem. Of course, Jesus could have stayed and done many good things, but that was not what Jesus was there for. Jesus had his sight set on Jerusalem. He had chosen his path and had to say no to the things that would take Him away from that path. In the same way, we can't take up everything that comes our way. We can't because there is too much for us.

Rob goes on to talk about about this idea of Kierkegaard, about willing the one thing. Focusing our energy into the thing we're supposed to be doing. If we are going to say yes to everything, we're not going to be able to do the thing where our strength lies. Of course all of these different things can be good things, but we don't have the capability to do all things. We have to choose wisely.

So the question came up, what should I be focusing on? What should be the thing that I focus on? What has God given me the ability to do? And I simply don't know. I mean I do have a plan of how I can take care of myself financially and everything, but that is not anything special. I mean, my skill set is weird. I can sort of write. I am better than some average schmuck with public speaking. I am funny to a degree. I would like to think that I am very adaptive in my thinking. I would like to think that I am objective in my approach. I should point out that whatever my focus is, the one thing I will, I don't see it as my job. Maybe that's my problem. But whatever my job is or will be, it's just the thing I do for money. It seems like there should be some magnum opus that I am supposed to be working on that I'm not while I wasting my time doing other things that are just in the way.

It's odd, although I believe that I am handling work well and that in some ways things are right, it feels like the whole ship is following the wrong current, and I am unsettled. It's like I'm meant to be a wanderer but I'm too busying setting up shop and trying to be responsible. I'm torn between some unknown dream that I can't grasp and a life of duty and hard work because there's no safety net. If I try to 'go find myself' and not find me, I am going to pooch myself doubly. Yet if I let myself get older, I may discover myself too late to be what I am supposed to be.

Unsettled is basically the summary of this post. But we'll all float on ok, we'll all float on alright.