Tag: good

Why the Resolutions

John Corrigan

Today is January 4 2022 C.E. That is a fact. I started my work day with my daily list and on the opposite page of that list I wrote down 6 new year resolutions. I have a friend (yes only one (ha ha )), he does not seem to like resolutions. My friends reasons for the disdain of resolutions is the same as the others. Let’s see… no one keeps them, it is just an arbitrary thing, they are stupid, they set you up for failure and so on and so on. I have always liked resolutions and starting over. Ever since I was a child.

I was the kid who would build a city out of legos destroy it and rebuild it. I love the act of rebuilding doing something over and over again with just small changes and for me that is what a new years resolutions is like. I know, I know that we don’t get to reset our lives I realize that we do things that build over the years and time and the things can bring us good or bad results and that is why I try my best to make good new years resolutions and not bad ones. I choose resolutions like read 10 books instead of read 0 books (reading is so good for us!(it really is )).

My wife was speaking with my step daughter about doing something she was scared of and my wife told her that she has regretted things she did not try more than anything she has tried. I know that many of my new years resolutions may not get accomplished however I am a Cleveland Browns fan so I am totally ok with failure as long as I gave it my best shot.

I refuse to let the idea that I will not keep a resolution stop me from making and trying to keep one.

Time is an odd thing. When you think about time is about as abstract a concept as you can come up with and it is almost impossible to measure. Ask any scientist worth their weight and they will tell you the same. Many scientist will tell you that time doesn’t really exist at all. Every scientist will tell you that time is relative at best. I think that there have been some pretty famous papers written on the relativity of time and yet, you should never make it a practice to arrive late for appointments. Arriving late is a good way to upset friends family and get fired. Despite the wibbily wobbily nature of time (wink to all the Dr. Who fans), we all agree on time and try our best to arrive on time and mark time in our own ways. I refuse to let the nature of time to stop me from making a resolution.

Take some time today to create a list of things you want to get done this year and write this list down. 2022 is going to feel long and tiresome when it does look at your list and see where you are at. You may get to scratch something off the list. Oh man I get such an endorphin rush when I do this. I make a list every day of things I want to get done just so I can scratch them off. The year will feel long but it will be over before you know it when it ends and you are staring in the face of 2023 pull out the list and see all that you have done this will also feel amazing

Happy New Year and peace to all!!

Content

John Corrigan

When I was young I learned about Hellen Keller. Hellen Keller lost both her sight and hearing when she was just a baby. Anne Sullivan taught Hellen how to communicate through reading writing and even speech.

Hellen Keller became an author activist and lecturer. She graduated from Radcliffe college with an BA. she learned to speak and became a regular lecturer. Hellen Keller inspired others and still does to this day.

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.” Hellen Keller

As I grow older I become more accustomed to the creature comforts. I like to prop my feet up and enjoy ice water, however this is not always possible and that is ok too. I don’t know the secret to happiness but it seems that happy people are content gracious and aware people.

Contentment seems to come when we can wonder and learn. Learning is growth and it’s that growth that will bring us contentment or joy or make us happy. Never stop seeing the wonder learning and growing.

That tree outside

John Corrigan

This morning I read an article that detailed how 100 leaders promised to end deforestation by 2030. The promise / plan involves money and a plan for sustainable agriculture.

My office is on the second floor and the stairs leading to it open up to an amazing view of a treetop. I know it sounds silly to some but I love these kind of views. The trees are full of life and I feel like I am peeking into an amazing home when I see the view.

Yesterday I came back from lunch and as I looked at the treetop o thought about how odd we humans are. We cut down the trees to provide shelter, and warmth, and the tree itself is a source for shelter, oxygen, food and much more. The act of cutting down the trees to survive is unsound.

In Lebanon there are the Cedars of God it is a patch of land just over 20 acres that house the last of the vast forests of Lebanon Cedars. The Cedars are massive and this remnant has survived the mass deforestation attempts for 100s of years. The cedars are spoken about in the Hebrew Bible. Unfortunately climate change now threatens these cedars.

It looks like Canada, Brazil and the United States are now at risk of loosing their forests as well. Unsustainable “progress” has destroyed countless eco systems in these countries and if this pledge is not honored these nations will be just like Lebanon.

Humanity was given a rich diverse world to be a steward of and so far we have collectively failed to be good stewards of this world. We have destroyed the forests poisoned the water and polluted the sky. The indigenous people of North and South America lived in relative harmony with the world and they have been slaughtered and their harmonious lifestyle replaced by the current destructive one. We took trees and made them landscape material.

Let’s today do our best to be stewards of life. Human life and the life all around us on this earth. If we do not try we will certainly fail and our generation. Is paying a high price now for this failure but our childrens price will be higher

By

Too Fast

John Corrigan

There was a rush as I pushed the pedal to the floor. I felt excitement followed by fear and then more excitement. I was definitely traveling faster than I should have been. The car was on the interstate but 95 was the number of the interstate not the speed limit.

Speeding killed 25 people a day in the United States of America during 2019. Driving to fast or speeding reduces the likelihood that the driver will react in time to something happening on the roadway. Speeding is selfish and reckless.

Speeding is also fun but I am convinced that speeding needs to happen in a safe and controlled environment, as safe as it can be. Racetracks or closed courses are safe because everyone there is going near the same very fast speed and there are barriers protecting pedestrians.

When you speed on a public street or road you are endangering yourself and those around you. Everyone should be traveling at the agreed upon speed and then traffic flows well. When you speed you are an anomaly causing problems for your neighbors.

The book Fahrenheit 451 was set in the future and it was a dystopian one. The writing by Ray Bradbury is amazing and if you haven’t you should read it if you have read it again . In Fahrenheit 451 the people travel at ultra fast speeds on the highway and the cars are described as dangerous and destructive.

When I catch myself speeding like this morning o think about the paradigm. Me speeding is selfish, I feel that where I need to be is more important than all my neighbors so much that I can break our contract and speed. Even though speeding may bring me to my destination quicker it will always result in a broken contract and often destruction and ultimately death for others and me.

Selfish acts when brought to fruition harm everyone to include the person that is committing the act. We do not live in a bubble and helping others is as the champ Muhammad Ali put it “service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

Simply not breaking the law and traveling the speed limit is a good start to being a decent person and considering others as equal to you.

Let’s start being good people through simple acts like following the laws.

No one knows

John Corrigan

“Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.”

― Vince Lombardi

Happiness is? Subjective right? I mean a memory from Sunday school growing up was the youth pastor explaining heaven. “My dad imagines heaven as a farm in the country and I imagine that heaven will be a beautiful city with sidewalks.” – youth pastor Block (courtesy of Johns childhood memories)

Heaven is like happiness. My happiness and your happiness probably do not line up. I don’t know many people but there are some that do not enjoy petting a happy dog (I know crazy right?)! Our idea of happiness changes as we live our lives too.

When I was younger I was happy at my friends house watching his snake in the aquarium, now the snakes kind of make my skin crawl a little. I saw one on a walk with my dog two days ago and nearly jumped out of my skin.

Some say that being happy is a choice. I am not sure about that. I can choice to pursue things that I believe will make me happy however if I do not receive these things will I still be happy? Also, what things will make me happy? Lots of questions no answers.

I find joy in the unknown and the search for the truth. I really do. I think that this is good because I spend a lot of life with unknowns and looking for truth. If we are completely honest with ourselves well all do.

Enjoy every moment as much as you can because we never know when we will not be here anymore.

Darkness is funny that way …5lbs

John Corrigan

In most western religious texts, folklore and fairy tales darkness equals evil. Evil that surrounds and infiltrates.

I was a father at a young age (at least I thought it was young). I watched my kids grow up and while growing up I saw them face obstacles, in school, at work, within their friend circles. The obstacles were in form of rocky relationships, steep learning curves, and physical ailments.

The kids and myself were quick within rocky relationships to label people good or evil but that is reductive thinking that I tried to avoid. My dad told me that the most important thing and only thing I could do to make a difference was to do the right thing.

We cannot make someone do good or bad. People have freewill and autonomy. All that we can do is steer our own ships. When we begin to try and influence others through deeds that are not good we risk allowing the darkness to fill us. Darkness is funny that way. We can do bad things in pursuit of good outcomes and then we are the darkness we were attempting to drive out.

In the Christian bible text John 8:12 we are taught that only light or good can drive out darkness. I think a lot about war when I think about light and dark. In war we use harm and force to try and drive out darkness. It seems foolish to assume that war would create good or an end to darkness.

The written book “Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies” is thought by scholars to be, part of our civilizations knowledge base. It is a very important book that seems to have guided our society and in it the author says “Only the dead are safe; only the dead have seen the end of war.” — George Santayana

When we work and use darkness we only get pain and death. Darkness is funny that way it does not heal, mend, build, or give any life. Lets make a promise to ourselves today, lets promise that we will not use darkness even if it seems like darkness is the right way. Lets promise to only use light only do good.

What to do?

John Corrigan

Just the other day I watched the first episode of the the Aple + tv show Foundation. https://tv.apple.com/us/show/foundation/umc.cmc.5983fipzqbicvrve6jdfep4x3?ign-itscg=MC_20000&ign-itsct=atvp_brand_omd&mttn3pid=Google%20AdWords&mttnagencyid=a5e&mttncc=US&mttnsiteid=143238&mttnsubad=OUS2019859_1-547710607871-c&mttnsubkw=104006946180__gBGfTJXl_&mttnsubplmnt= is a show based on the novels of Isaac Asimow so being a science fiction fan I could not wait to watch this show and it did not disappoint. The first episode explains how our heroes got themselves exiled.

The heroes used math to predict when society would collapse and their reward for this insight was exile from the society they served. No good deed goes unpunished, am I right?

I have always been intrigued by the capabilities of predicative algorithms and probability. Right now algorithms are used in our lives everyday, often unknown working behind the scenes algorithms influence our career home choice where we are seated on public travel. There is a pretty good book Weapons of Math Destruction. The book outlines how and when algorithms are used in our lives.

The stock market is a pretty volatile business world. Fortunes can be made and destroyed in short spans of time. There are some pretty interesting predictive algorithms that are used by powerful players in the stock market that work well to make many fortunes.

There are some very accurate algorithms out there and some of the predicative algorithms are becoming more and more accurate. I for one love the idea of knowing what the future can hold. I think I like it because I understand that the future is not written it doesn’t even exist time doesn’t exist really. The future is simply the effect of the cause and the cause is the present. Pulling levers now makes a difference immediately and in the future.

I have some children and my major desire for my children was, initially for them to be healthy and happy however I quickly realized I had very little influence over those aspects of their lives and happy is pretty subjective. Now that the children are older I just want them to do the right thing. I want them to be Good with the capital G. I myself also want to do as much good as I can.

I really think that this is the most we can do. With all the predictive algorithms and formulas and tools we have doing good is still the best thing we can do. Thwe formulas and tools can help us choose the most good thing to do but at the end of the day it is doing the good or right things that will save humans and the world.

Do as much good as you can and do it now.

They believe that they are Right…

John Corrigan

When you get the chance you should watch the video on this post. It is a dark humor type of video and when I watch it I am taken back to my junior year of high school . I was in Mr. Millers U.S. history class in Lorain Ohio. I cant remember exactly how the discussion was started but I remember Mr. Miller telling one of the students that soldiers in war believe that they are fighting for just causes on each side of the war.

I grew up and joined the U.S. Army and I got to say Mr. Miller was right. I never once thought that I was involved in something wrong. I am not sure if it was patriotism, or duty but I always felt like the United States was the just party.

Look at that two videos in one post. I love that song and the lyrics are pretty interesting. They speak to how many nations use the blinders of patriotism to get citizens to go to war. It doesn’t mention one particular nation, I assume that is because this is done by all nations throughout time. St. Augustine struggled with the concept of just war and came up with philosophy surrounding making war as just as possible. Many argue that this just war theory or philosophy is where modern day war crimes originated.

You know that you have devolved as a species when you are coming up with the most humane way to wage war. To go to war a nation must convince its citizens that war is necessary. Conscription is used but then there is desertion to deal with and traitors. The best way is to convince someone that they are fighting evil or bad guys.

The gun lobby promotes gun ownership as self defense because of “bad guys” with guns. Since you are a good guy you should buy a gun register the gun and when someone breaks into your house shot the bad guy with that gun. In Louisville Kentucky men with guns kicked in the door to Kenneth Walkers house. Kenneth Walker had bought and registered a gun for self defense he thought he was a good guy. Kenneth the good guy with the gun shot at the bad guys with guns. In effort to defend his girlfriend. You can read an article about Kenneths actions here .

Kenneth didn’t stop the bad guys with guns, they killed his girlfriend with their guns and shot Kenneth. Kenneth’s girlfriend was Breonna Taylor and the bad guys who shot and killed her were; Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove. You can read about them here. These guys thought they were good guys.

In the video there is a scene where everyone is pointing guns at everyone else and someone asks a woman who the bad guys are and she says something like you all seem terrible to me.

Shooting someone is bad full stop. That is a great rule to live by. Shooting someone is wrong. The police officers were wrong and they murdered Breonna Taylor. Honestly Kenneth was also wrong. In hindsight maybe if Kenneth were to not have fired at the police they would have only kicked in the door and arrested the wrong couple (yeah the police kicked in the wrong door it was the wrong address!). We will never know though because Kenneth thought he was shooting bad guys with guns and police thought they were shooting a bad guy with a gun (even though they did kick in the door to this guys house, breached his inner sanctum in a violent manner).

The bad guys with guns who murdered Breonna Taylor and tried to murder Kenneth Walker, were not sent to prison. It breaks the heart truly that Breonna is dead and there is no justice. The jury and broken justice system that could not find a fault with the bad guys is a problem. I think maybe a big part of the problem is that the justice system itself is a “bad guy’ with a gun. Anytime you must use violence to enforce justice I would argue that you are far from policing by consent. There is no one that would want a police officer to kick in there door to their home ever and shot their significant other.

I think maybe that is what makes someone a good or bad guy. Inflicting ones will on someone without consent. Sadly throughout the world this is happening everyday by millions of people.

Breaking the cycle is painful but possible I hope and it has to start with someone. It doesn’t look like it will start with those in authority anytime soon so I will try to have it start with me. I will work towards respect and empathy for others in all my actions and when I get the chance (which I should in a democracy) I will vote for authority that has respect and empathy for others and not in one that declares “good guys and bad guys”. It is this good versus evil reductive nonsense that has and continues to hold our species back for forever. There are no good guys or bad guys when everyone is holding a gun period.

A good guy finds a way to help others that doesn’t involve shooting them or kicking in the door their home and shooting them.

It takes all of Us

John Corrigan

For as long as I can remember I have been a comic book fan. I love the stories, the art, the heroes and the villain’s. In a good comic book it all comes together for an enjoyable read. A real treat.

Most comic books feature a main protagonist, their name is usually plastered on the front of the magazine. The worlds our heroes protect and villain’s terrorize are mythical landscapes some are dystopian style and others are more balanced but in almost every comic book the villain is awful in their deeds. Some comic books have taken strides in humanizing their villains’ through back stories but still the actions of the villain’s are big. What the villains do gives the protagonist a mountain to climb and provides drama that propels the story forward. In the new comic book from DC Superman:Son of Kal-El. Jon Kent son of superman and Louis Lane does take on some real life villains like climate change, as well as a pretty bogus villain that was just introduced this month, and in the Marvel property The Black Panther, our heroes take on racism’s as well as the heinous villains. In the comic book Superman Lex Luthor the CEO of Lexcorp ran for and became president of the United States. Lex Luthor Divested from his company and made Talia Al Ghul the president of Lexcorp. Donald Trump never divested from his company while he was president, so the writers could not even imagine a world where someone would be as awful a president as Donald Trump was.

In the comic books good always wins, this is also true for the real world however in most comic books our protagonists defeat good on their own or with a partner, this is not how it works in the real world. To defeat evil or bad things we all have to work together. We can’t strap on a cap and eradicate diseases, poverty, climate change or crime.

Right now the world is experiencing a health pandemic with Covid 19. The last case of Polio in the United states was recorded in 1979. The scientists worked together with the doctors to craft a vaccination against Polio. The hospitals worked with communities to administer the vaccine and the citizens took the vaccine. Right now scientists and hospitals have done their part now it is time to step up and do ours. We have to get vaccinated. Herd immunity is essentially a myth. The mythical nature of herd immunity is being proven with the Delta variant of Covid 19. We have proof in nations that have not embraced the Polio vaccine like the United States that without a majority of citizens doing the right thing through vaccination we will never beat this villain. Afghanistan and Pakistan have been vaccine hesitant with the Polio vaccine and Polio still exists there unfortunately it seems that the children suffer the most.

There was just another story this morning on the news about a healthy college student Freshman that would not get vaccinated who died from Covid 19. If you love your children, grandchildren, family and neighbors it seems like you would jump at the chance to be a hero.

If you have already been vaccinated I salute you and thank you for doing your part you are a hero. If you haven’t been vaccinated I implore you to be brave. Joshua 1:9 Tells us to be brave and of good courage. Roll up your selves and get the jab.

This link will give you more information on where and how to get vaccinated.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/How-Do-I-Get-a-COVID-19-Vaccine.html?s_cid=10518:%2Bwhere%20%2Bcan%20%2BI%20%2Bget%20%2Bthe%20%2Bcovid%20%2Bvaccine:sem.b:p:RG:GM:gen:PTN:FY21

Its free and pretty quick. It is a small step for man but a leap for humanity. Be a hero get vaccinated