This week

This week, I have watched an astounding amount of Doctor Who, as well as a few dozen movies. Just now, I was caught up in an interesting thought-why?

Yes, the all powerful, ever present, "why?".

Why on earth do so many people in the world sit around watching television all day?

I watched a movie called August Rush. In this movie, a boy has such incredible musical gifts, and he goes out and shares it with the world. At the same time, his parents decide to take action and do something drastic, and go in search of each other (having been separated after the night of August's conception). All in all, a very inspiring and musical film, fabulous all around.

Also today, I watched several episodes of the British sci-fi series "Doctor Who". In it, an alien being called the Doctor travels around with his companions, helping people and fixing problems in time and space. Every single episode details how he uses his brilliant intellect, as well as a fairly large amount of luck to help people, no matter who they are or what they are.

Both of these things detail brilliant events, people going above and beyond and doing fantastic things. I think this is exactly why we watch television so much. It gives us an escape. We see things that are astounding and think "wow, I could NEVER do that". The problem is, we CAN. We can indeed do all of that. We can do anything we want to (okay, so flying through time and space is a bit far-fetched of an ambition, but it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing).

Why on earth do we spend so much time watching and marveling and what other, imaginary people can do and not going out and doing something daring ourselves?

I planned to spend this past week practicing music for my SEIBA Honor Band auditions next weekend. I instead spent it watching and marveling at someone else's musical achievements.

Is this what we do to ourselves? We live out our dreams and fantasies through proxies, while sitting slumped on our couches? Is this the life we really want to live?

I understand fully, however. It's so much easier to watch it all happen and not have to do the work for ourselves. Who wants to work for months, even years to develop an ability when they can watch a movie about it and experience the whole process in two hours?

I challenge anyone who happens to come across this blog to try to go an entire week without watching a single movie, television show, anything. Spend your time instead developing a talent, bettering yourself, growing better at something. Experience life for yourself instead of living out your days watching other people do it for you. This is my aspiration for the next week: to have spent significant time on my talents and to slowly pull of the leech that technology has on me.

It really is draining.

Good luck to you, as well as to me :)

Have a fantastic day, all of you.

-Cody

I think...

I am going to make a personal goal of posting at least once a week on here. It's a good place for me to think and reflect on my life.

as i read my posts from two or more years ago...

i realize how much i have degraded mentally. it's depressing to see how smart and strong of a thinker i was.

now I'm lazy. I'm weak-minded. Sure, I still have my stubbornness, and I'm a free thinker. but i'm lazy. pathetically so.

and it sickens me to even look at myself. When did I get so bogged down by the world? When did I get so irresponsible? When did I lose my conviction? When did I stop thinking? When did I stop caring about learning and knowledge? When did this apathy set in?

I don't want to be this weak. I don't want to be this way. I want to be strong.

When did I lose myself?

this makes me want to puke...

so. did you guys hear about the Wal-Mart worker that got killed during Black Friday? apparently, there was about 2000 people gathered outside Long Island Wal-Mart early morning friday. the store didn't open til 5, so they were all waiting for "amazing deals and price drops!". well, the crowd got antsy. yeah, standing in a parking lot at 4 in the morning in the middle of November can do that to ya. but they decided to do something about it. the crowd got into a frenzy, chanting "Push the doors in" and beating on the doors. the workers inside made a human barricade to try and deter the soon-to-be-shoppers from acting upon such impulses, but it didn't work. they broke right through those doors, and trampled their way in. they broke the door off of its hinges. in the chaos, one worker got pushed down, and was trampled underfoot. he DIED. and why? because some antsy pantsy people couldn't wait another 10 minutes to save $20 bucks on their new Plasma TV. good trade, yeah? some random dude's life for a NEW FRICKIN TV.

sad, isn't it? other workers were reduced to climbing up on top of vending machines in order to avoid being trampled underneath the feet of this very very animalistic mob of people.

you wanna know the worst part? they announced over the loudspeakers that the store was closing because a dude DIED. okay, the people all have to leave, right? don't make me laugh. they all said various things, comprising of various forms of "screw you people, i've been waiting outside all night. there ain't no way i'm leaving now". and they KEPT ON SHOPPING.

so now the question stands: do you think you would trample someone to buy $8 Men's Wrangler's Jeans? would you kill a man in order to save a whole $20 on a tv?

yeah, didn't think so. so what the heck happened here?

you wanna know what happened? they became like animals. these people let their animal instincts take over, and they stampeded like the animals they became.

stories like this make me so sick to my stomach. it almost makes me ashamed to be a human. this is where the church's teachings about the Natural Man come in. the Natural Man is basically caveman-like. that's the best way to put it. it's kill or be killed. let your emotions take over. survive. get what you want. kill. eat. drink. now, in this time when the world is becoming more and more wicked. Now, when the world is accepting things that would have made our Forefathers puke. Now, when our very humanity is at risk, and everything that we value is threatened, we NEED to stay strong in the church. we NEED to put off the Natural Man. we absolutely NEED to have the Holy Ghost at all times. and we also need to pray. i pray for the family of that poor worker who was killed. i pray for those people who cared more about how much $$ they were saving than about someone's life. and i pray for all of you, that you will not fall victim to the desensitizing and demoralizing that is happening in our society.

for all of this, i pray, and hope you do as well.

thanks for reading.

Love,
Cody


ps: if you want the full story on what happened, here:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.html?page=0

How much do YOU know?

so. i felt like posting a few links in here to some very interesting websites. the first, i found on my sister's blog. the second my mom got in an email.

this first one tells all about things that are NOT in the Constitution. I just thought it was really interesting to see, and thought you might be interested in it.

http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html


this second one is a quiz to test how much you know about the country, history, economy, etc. it is very interesting to hear that most of America gets less than 59% on it!

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx


just a few rather appalling facts that i thought i might identify that came from that quiz...(on the side, click on Major Findings)

1. less than half of the people who have taken the quiz can identify the three branches of government (legislative, executive, judicial)

2. almost 40% believe the president has the power to declare war. He doesn't. that's Congress.

3. almost 25% believe that Congress shares U.S. foreign policy authority with the UN!!

so, when i took this test, i naturally didn't do the best. but i did do better than a good majority of officeholders out there. for example...27% of officeholders cannot identify one single right guaranteed in the First Amendment. 39% believe that the power to declare war belongs to the president. my biggest downfall was not knowing in depth how taxes and such work.

so test how well you are informed. you may learn a thing or two!




until next time, God be with you til we meet again!

Cody

my reason for not saying the Pledge.

EDIT: i'm sorry. i wrongly stated in this blog that the Pledge of Allegiance was created in the 1940's. I must correct myself. it was actually written by a Socialist, but it was in 1892, and it originally said:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

it was edited in 1923 to say:

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

and then in 1954, Eisenhower responded to Communist threats by adding "Under God" into it, and it then and now read:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."


you can read more about the history of the Pledge here at this website:
http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm

Well, in response to recent events with people...i decided you all might want a bit of explaining. to those of you who don't know, i do not say the pledge of allegiance. i was recently called on this, and i think i may have gotten some people really mad at me for it. so i decided that you deserve to know why. i'm not atheist by any means. you know that. but there is more than one reason for not saying the pledge. i do believe in God, and i do support our country. remember that when you read this. i am not against America. but this is why i do not say the pledge.

first off, the pledge of allegiance was written when? in the 1800's? when the country was founded? no. it was written in 1892 by a Socialist. a Socialist. right there is warning bell #1. if a Socialist wrote it, he wasn't really thinking about the free republic of America, was he?

secondly. here is the main reason:

why pledge your allegiance to a piece of cloth that is a symbol of whatever the gov't decides to do? think about it: the flag is merely as symbol. if your allegiance is to the flag, whatever the government decides to make it stand for is what you're pledging your allegiance to. if America becomes a socialist nation(as it basically already is), the flag will still stand for America. it will just stand for Socialist America. Symbols change meaning. i refuse to pledge my allegiance to the symbol of a country that is very, very quickly becoming Socialist. i personally would much rather pledge allegiance to something solid. my mom and i decided that the Constitution would do very well. It spells out very clearly everything that this country was built for and everything that it was intended to be. it is set in stone. it won't be changed. symbols change. words don't. I personally would much rather pledge my allegiance to what our Founding Fathers built this great nation up to be as opposed to a symbol of what our nation is currently. that's my personal choice. that's my reason.

i hope that now you understand a bit better. i am not against America. i am certainly not Atheist. i simply believe in America, and everything that it was intended to, and can still be.

i thank you for reading and understanding.

peace and love to everyone,
Cody

courage

is an interesting thing. i've been thinking about it recently quite heavily. mostly because of a very close friend who displayed an incredible amount of courage today. it got me to thinking. what do the movies portray courage as? they portray it as "oh, i'm so tough. i'm never afraid of anything. i'm BRAVE!!!!" but is it really? no. courage is doing something even though it scares the crap out of you. it's doing it in spite of that natural fear. i see people doing this all the time.
I want to commend all of the people i know, and one person in particular (though i don't think they'll be reading this anytime soon), for when they display this kind of courage. i hope that i can someday have the same courage as you. kudos.

and to everyone: courage. it is not being unafraid. it's doing what needs to be done in spite of fear. i heard a good song by The Fray, in which he sings: "Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same." this is so true. often, the hardest things in life are what absolutely needs to be done. we can look at this from a gospel standpoint. think about it: how easy would it be to simply give in to sin and let it take over our lives? much, much easier than you think. believe me, it's easy to just give in and accept sin in our lives. it takes so much more strength and determination to fight against the never ending waves of sin that Satan throws upon us and not give in to them. I pray that we all, when the time comes and our faith and courage are tested, will have the strength to stand up against the world and shine.


Peace and Love to you all, and may you all shine bright!!

Cody