Howdy Ya'll! Vagaries of the Language

So I have a friend who was an acquaintance for some time and only recently have we begun to hang out more.

This evening as we were all having a good time, it occurred to me that while I have adopted the word "ya'll" as an affectation, she hasn't known me when I didn't use it. Further, I don't think I've ever mentioned that I use language like that intentionally rather than naturally.

My real accent is fairly mundane American, the type you find in places all across the country . . . you might call it the generic American dialect. More than that, I have traditionally had a tendency to be very loquacious (hah, I finally had a use for loquacious!), maybe even to the point of sounding pretentious. My use of colloquialisms and simplistic phraseology is part of an active effort I made to be better at relating to people and communicating on a more personal level. I've been working on that so long that my natural inclinations have been suppressed and rarely do I speak as I was originally wont to do. Even my writing has tended toward a more informal tone.
Regardless, the informality is not my first inclination.

But if my friend has never seen that side of me in full expression, nor have I told her of it, how then does my language represent me to her? Does my use of "ya'll" make me appear a Utah bumpkin? If I adopt a slight drawl on occasion for fun (and I do), does that color the perception others have of my intelligence or attitudes?

In my desire to be more personal with people, have I perhaps begun to present an image of myself that conceals an important part of who I am? Is there a balance I can strike, where I can show both sides of my character without appearing inconsistent?

Language is a strange and wonderful thing.

Enough

A bit of venting:

Through my own experiences with God and with life, I have learned an important principle:
The greatest happiness and benefit is gained by doing the right thing before the Lord forces me to do it. It doesn't matter how complicated the issue is. It doesn't matter how much I dread the additional consequences of doing the right thing.
What matters is that the moment I admit that I should do something, the very best course of action is to choose to do it before I no longer have a choice. There is no better way to change and improve than to choose it of my own free will.

It is difficult for a prison inmate to fully repent of his sins, because he does not have the opportunity to choose not to commit them . . . he is forced to abstain from crime. All the prayer in the world will not change the fact that when he is released he will likely have to struggle with the temptation to return to his criminal ways. Change in the soul is accomplished by the full and complete act of turning our will to righteous ends, and taking the action we recognize as God's will.

It is a serious mistake to wait to do what we should until we have to, because we are missing out on much of the benefit that action gives us. Sometimes it is utterly impossible to gain the real benefit of doing what we should do if we wait until it becomes necessary first . . . this is especially true when the action needed is an emotional or spiritual change. Waiting until circumstances force us to act is like refusing to actually change, because we don't internalize it: as soon as the change is no longer necessary, we will cast it aside.

It's frustrating to me how many people don't realize this simple truth. If we wait to be humble until the Lord compels us to be, we will NEVER be like him, we will NEVER be free, we will NEVER overcome the challenges he presents us.

I'm tired of telling people this. I'm tired of seeing people wreck themselves and worry about all the crap they have to go through while refusing to do the things they SHOULD do. If you wait until He MAKES you do it, of COURSE it's going to be harder!

It's time to do what we should, while God is giving us time before he compels us. It's time to understand that what matters first is what is right. It is time to leave all the unnecessary baggage and pessimism behind and strip down the problem to see what the real issues are. It's time to come to term with our sunk costs.

--Jacob

Harnessing waste products

So I've struggled all my life with ADHD, and an accompanying resistance to work.
This apathy is frustrating, like a block that pops up in my mind whenever I need to buckle down and work. At times I have just sat there, paralyzed, as my desire to work battles with the block of apathy. It feels similar to my old social anxiety problems, in a way, the same sort of block that occured when I would contemplate calling someone or talking to someone I didn't know.

At the same time, lately it's been pointed out to me that I have an OCD streak. It's not that I'm mildly OCD, but that occasionally a mood will strike me and I will just start doing something until it's done. This happens most often with dishes. When the mood strikes me to clean dishes, I seem to clean them obsessively until they are done. It may be an element of dormant perfectionism, but most of the time it shows no trace in my personality. Frankly, I'm not sure where it comes from, where it goes to or what triggers it.

As I have pondered the first problem, it has occured to me that if I could learn to turn the OCD on or off at will, I could overcome the apathy wall by wielding the OCD at it like a sledgehammer.
The question is, how could I possibly do that?

I think it may be similar to how I learned to wiggle my ears, or whistle, or gleek. In those cases, it was a matter of learning what the relevant muscles felt like when I moved them. Once I isolated the feeling of them, it was possible to learn to move them consciously. Fine-tuning that movement yielded the desired effect: my ears wiggle, my mouth pours out Beethoven's 9th Symphony, and liquid can stream forth from my mouth should I so desire (disgusting yes, but relevant nonetheless).
If I can isolate the feelings that trigger the OCD, and learn to apply them to any activity I choose, I may be able to overcome one personality flaw with another . . . and thus my weaknesses become strengths.

My waste may become a hidden source of power.

Saving the Kobayashi Maru

Lately I've had several friends facing emotional trials. As I'm not normally the most perceptive or even emotionally stable person myself (in my opinion), I'm finding it an unusual position to be in, struggling to support and advise them.
A couple times my friends have found themselves facing a set of choices of which none were satisfactory. In short, they could see no way to win--or even come out happy. I admit, it has been frustrating to discover that I am fairly helpless to help solve these problems. What I bring to the table is generally fairly specific: I am good at thinking through problems systematically, and I have a strong faith in the power of God. Both have served me well when I apply them, and have often been useful to my friends.
Now I find that neither strength is of use, as all I can do is be a supportive presence, muttering the same encouraging words any good friend would. All my scheming and brainstorming can't solve these problems for them, and it frustrates me.

Through this, though, I have learned something important about myself:

I don't believe in the no-win scenario.

Now, that statement requires a bit of background. Forgive me a moment of nerdiness.

In t.v. series and subsequent movies called Star Trek (the original), the hero, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is a swashbuckling, daring, smart captain who originally existed for the sole purpose of solving the numerous problems the crew of the starship Enterprise ran into during their space explorations. Despite his fairly one-dimensional character, one trait emerged that was both highly characteristic of him and actually quite deep.
This trait was best summarized in the second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan.
It begins with a Vulcan officer (Vulcans are the superlogical folks, this one is actually played by Kirstie Alley) commanding a ship in a test simulation. They recieve a distress call from a ship called the Kobayashi Maru, which is in the neutral zone between them and a hostile alien empire. To ignore the ship is to allow them to die. To enter is to take their lives into their own hands. They enter, and are ambushed by three alien vessels, who promptly destroy them. After the test, the Vulcan confronts Kirk and complains that it wasn't a fair test of her abilities, because there was no way to win. Kirk gives her the line everyone does: sometimes, you face a scenario you can not win, and how you respond to the situation matters. The test is a test of character and a lesson. Of course, his colleagues inform her that Kirk is actually the only person in Starfleet history who has actually beat the Kobayashi Maru scenario (though he doesn't tell her how).

Later in the movie, Kirk has been outmaneuvered and marooned by an old and brilliant enemy, Khan. Khan is genetically engineered to be the superior being, both through charisma, through intellect, and even physically (played by Ricardo Montalban, who had huge pecks). The straits seem dire, but Kirk seems unworried and content to wait a bit. The same Vulcan is with him and a few others, and she asks him how he beat the Kobayashi Maru test. He tells her that he hacked the program and made it possible to rescue the ship.
"He cheated!"
"I changed the conditions of the test...
I don't believe in the no-win scenario."

Upon which, Kirk contacts his ship and reveals that he has tricked Khan and is in a better position than we thought he was.

Today I saw the new Star Trek movie, and to my delight the Kobayashi Maru and the principles behind it played a large role. They did an amazing job of portraying Kirk, and showing that irrepressible faith of his that there was always a way to win . . . even if victory meant sacrifice.


As I have pondered my friends' problems and the options that seemed to suggest a hopeless future, I found myself rebelling against the notion that these choices were really the only options, rebelling against despair.
Like Kirk, I don't believe in the no-win scenario. When I find choices that contain no way to be happy in the long-run, I feel that simply means I'm defining the problem wrong...or defining success wrong. The solution, when faced with such choices, is to look for a new option, to redefine the problem, or to redefine my objectives. To give in to the idea that I'm caught in a catch-22 is to fall into a trap. Those are the kind of choices Satan loves to throw at us, to make us think that there is no cause for hope.

It's true that I worry a lot. It's true that I often allow my thoughts to cascade down into claims of hopelessness and failure. I always balk, however, at actually accepting that hopelessness. When I am having a crappy day and someone asks me how life is, I give the honest answer: life is wonderful. My day sucked, but God is good, it is good to be alive, and The World is Just Awesome.

The Kobayashi Maru can be rescued. It's just a question of how, and are we willing to do what it takes?