Insidious Adaptation

"And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord."- Ephesians 6:4 What is it to provoke someone? What is it to influence a life in corruption? When we interact with people, do they walk away worse than before meeting us? Nobody wants to admit they could be a contributing cause to the destruction of another because that is a lot to take on, and counseling says that people are responsible for their own actions. All very true, even the painful part of acceptance. However, what if in our pursuit for self-satisfaction we eat up and produce noxious fumes polluting the purity of life along the way? What if on our way to weight-loss we post pictures promoting our thinner physiques as our salvation to an otherwise pathetic self? What if on the way to becoming a doctor we produce long, difficult sentences to show our knowledge, thus superiority? What if in my accepted way of self-promotion I provoke you in a negat...

A bowl of oatmeal, a few eggs, this is what I chose to eat this morning before heading to the gym. A few cups of coffee, because, well, let's be honest, I am up earlier than I should be. Being tired is not a foreign concept to me, for I have either woken up early, or stayed up too late for much of my life. As many people do, I rely on what "science" tells me to do, to help remedy these problems. As a child I wanted to be better than what I was, and eventually into adulthood, I wanted to just be better than. I wanted people to think I was smart, for "look what I told you." I wanted people to like me, but more importantly, look up to me, for I was presenting as a smart person, something I always feared I wasn't. I wanted you to see everything about me that I couldn't see. I was able to take something concrete-ish like nutritional information, and provide that to people with my own unique insight to relate, to comfort, ultimately to persuade you that I ...

A box on the grocery store shelf, nothing special. Two dollars, an egg, and a cup of oil, and you’ve got yourself a snack made for a king. In fact, kings wouldn’t have had it this good when kings ruled the land. The heroes depicted in Game of Thrones don’t have a box of easy to mix, bake, and eat brownies, but yet, I do. I am not royalty, I am not famous, why should I have access to such a plethora of taste. My buds stimulated as a sugar glaze and the perfect ratio of fatty acids graces the tongue telling the brain how good I’ve been. As with all good boys, they are rewarded. My reward is a delicacy ready without much effort at all, and available to anyone. No longer are delicacies measured by the time it takes to produce. Sure, purists can always argue that those ingredients are crap and that the authentic stuff is better. Nobody is disagreeing with that. However, to a poor person getting $100,000 one could say a million is better, but that hundred grand still looks pretty sweet (...

Wars around the world, gun violence occurring in the schools, financial decline, famine continuing in 3rd world countries, pollution, global warming, decline of the family structure, on and on. I like to get the, "bad" news out, therefore the, "good" can be put into context. Out of these problems the world faces, in the hardest of times, there is one pure feeling that remains, one indescribable thing that can make it all worth while, love. Oh, what a daunting task to take on this word, for to talk about love means one has experienced it, felt it, allowed it to wash over them drowning out the pain, sorrow, fear. This wave consuming an entire being causing them to feel both the rush and the indescribable high unlike anything else this world offers. By, "this world" I mean here and now, for it is different for everyone, assumptions, perceptions, a life lived, all making experiences different, yet, the need to stay connected with one another, a need from God...