The first video is about pride and the second one is just a silly one that I borrowed from Beth's blog. Both videos have to do with change. Watch this first video before reading any of the comments because I have posted a comment about it right away that will give away the punch line.
uss_montana.wmv
an old video but still funny!
Download the original: uss_montana.wmv (2.0 MB)
This next one is sort of cute when you click on the play button, but what really got me laughing was when I started zooming the mouse quickly around Obama's head and watching his eyes follow the mouse. I couldn't stop laughing cause I thought he looked so silly. I guess it doesn't take much sometimes to make me feel amused. Be sure and notice the flames in the back ground.
I have no idea why I ended up with two copies of this. I don't know how to fix it. Nor do I know how to make the above video any smaller. Oh well. If you want to see the stuff on the right a little better than just click on the title of one of the other posts.
Click on the play button to hear
Get a Voki now!The comment section of this post contains some interesting discussion on the subject of change.
21 comments:
Hopefully you have already watched the first of these videos before I go and give away the punch line.
I chose these two videos randomly and than realized later the contrast that was being presented by these two videos being placed together on the same post, for both of these videos are about change. The second of these videos is about change, yet we should never assume that all change is good. The first of these videos is not only about pride, but also an unwillingness to change in order to accommodate the will of someone other than themselves.
To really get the real meaning here, though, we must consider the light house. This was actually the first time that I have seen the first of these videos, yet I have heard this story before told in church as a representation of the unchangeable nature of God and Jesus Christ. When competing with the Light House (Jesus Christ), it is always us who need to change our course and never the Light House.
Proverbs 16:18
"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." KJV ..which in the tides of time has been shortened to Pride
Goes Before a Faal. Originally a warning that one's soul is always subordinate to God (early Hebrew),and as you note, a metaphor for personal relationship with Christ. Like many biblical
aphorisms, it can, and is, viewed in terms of the human condition:
so that in even secular terms, it
refers to hubris or arrogance, eg.
unsubstantiated or unwarranted pride..which overcomes rationality.
Thus, dare we note, "Pride goeth
before running my great ship into
the stubborn lighthouse!" :)
This is a very good comment, BB, and all of what you are saying is accurate.
It's interesting that you used the word "stubborn" to describe the light house. Since the Light House is a metaphor relating to God, are we to imply that God is "stubborn"? Unfortunately, the word stubborn over the years has been viewed as a negative, whether than a positive.
Just for the sake of discussion, I decided to look the word up in the dictionary. The first definition listed is "refusing to yield, obey, or comply; resisting; determined and obstinate." Though obstinance is sort of negative, what about refusing to yield, obey or comply? Is resistance a negative? What about determination?
A person who is constantly yielding to, obeying and complying with other people is a person who never thinks for oneself. Is this a positive? What about a person who never complains or criticizes? Couldn't such a person also be described as a person without an opinion? As Griper's grandpappy put it, "A man without a gripe is a man who has no thoughts."
And what about Resistance? Is that a negative, or what about Determination? Determination is similar to Motivation and Drive. What happens to people when they have no Motivation and Drive? Is this a problem? Maybe we should just accuse such of laziness and go on with our own lives.
So my question is this. Is it best that we all learn how to be more yielding, obedient and compliant and should we all learn how to stop complaining and criticizing and "If you don't have anything nice to say, than don't say anything at all."? Is this what we should strive for, or should we learn instead how to be more stubborn about what we believe and are certain of, more expressive in our opinions and passions and more resistant and determined when what we cherish and value is challenged?
In light of this, there are certain Christian trains of thought that are inaccurate, just as the line of thinking that I have just described and defiantly argued against. In my own personal experience, such thinking has lead to depression, whether than peace.
The only thing that exists that we really do need to yield to is the Light House. That is something that is not going to move, so we might as well accept this fact and treat it with the proper respect that it deserves, yet when we come across someone like Obama who insists that what we need is change and that he knows exactly what sort of change we need, we need to be cautious. The reason I don't trust him is very simple. He is using a different standard besides the Light House and is therefore headed in the wrong direction.
As I hear myself make this statement, I'm thinking that the voice from the light house is God, yet the light house itself represents a direction or more specifically, the direction to which we are instructed not to go because it will lead to destruction.
Another way to look at this is that the laws of nature are stubborn and unbending, so it's better if we just respect them, whether than insisting on doing things our own way.
Oops, accidently hit your ponder button. By the paraphrased metaphor "Pride goeth
before running my great ship into
the stubborn lighthouse!" I was
parodying the arrogance & hubris of the ship captain from his POV .'great ship' 'stubborn lighthouse' Sort of like paraprhasing Griper's grandpappy's
"A man without a gripe is a man who has no thoughts." by argumentum absurdum into, oh,
"A man who gripes constantly is a profound thinker" semantics, amusing, but not profound. Pragmatically, the politics of
'change' is not novel, been around since Griper's grandpappy was a tyke: when the electorate is disastisfied with events, they
seek change: Eisenhower during
Korea, Nixon during the VN war,
FDR when the depression sank in.
Change can be good, bad or neutral.
Thus we fear change because we are unsure of it's direction. And it is the basis for election politics from dogcatcher to schoolbard..thus McCain speaks to it as well as all the other candidates including Obama did.
One wonders if a politician promised, "I will change nothing, nothing at all" Same-o same-o.
Would that be good? Would events
pass him by? Hmm, now you pressed
MY ponder button.....
The quote I used is an exact quote from Griper's blog from the top, just under the blog title, yet I liked your paraphrase of it. That's really cute.
We change and grow because we are creative. I guess we aren't really meant to be stagnant, yet we do need to consider the possible side effects of everything that we are considering changing. We should be a little more cautious when changing things and not in so much of a hurry.
P.S. - You don't ever have to say "Oophs", BB, for pushing my ponder button. That's a positive, not a negative, you know? Sometimes I have thoughts that are just dying to come out and it takes very little to trigger their flow.
laughing out loud. "ohh boy"
yup, bb, if one wanted to go over the deep end your conclusion of my saying would be the result yet it would be a contradiction too, wouldn't it? but it would also be a slippery slope we'd be on. but i guess that is what makes it absurd too. lol
change is good, for we are human not Gods, and as long as change leads to the better then change is for the better. but when change leads to throwing out the baby with the bath water then grandpappy gripes.
and there is where, i believe, the fallacy of some's thinking. they see change as replacing the whole idea rather than making the idea a better idea.
Very well put, Griper. It seems that most people just react and jump over to the the extremes, instead of using their heads and keeping things in balance.
In some ways, depending on the difficult to define term. 'change'
is a degree of inevitability, for
example "Some have held that change is a consistent process, and rendered so by the existence of time." source:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/change/ As the clock hands
move, a baby is born, snow falls,
a gazelle is taken by a leopard,
two cars collide, etc etc. Perhaps I gained 2 lbs since last week or
Uncle Walter got hives...so there is a constant random time-related
process type of change, not driven
by overt action. We can overtly
cause change: cooling water until
it is ice (a physical change which follows the law of nature). As living humans, we change course
frequently (free will?), attempting to better our situation. (and sometimes succeeding). The effect of change
can be individual perception: a
heavy rainfall on newly poured
cement is perceived by the frustrated contractor differently than the delighted rice farmer!
So, when politicians inevitably
promise 'change' there will be
those who welcome it and those who
dread it..whatever it may be.
And whatever changes occur, you are correct, there are certain fundamental beliefs which remain
unchanged (the lighthouse).
Hi BB,
When I first saw your comment, I remember thinking that the key point in it that I wanted to respond to is the fact that one person can perceive a certain change differently than another. The example you gave was of a heavy rainfall being perceived differently by a frustrated contractor who just poured cement than by a delighted rice farmer.
Here is the thing with politics. Once, when talking with Griper about the negotiation and bargaining processes of people, such as that which takes place between employees and employers, I was hit with an insight about politics and how it seems to reflect a similar negotiation and bargaining process between groups of people who fight for certain causes, such as the Democrats and Republicans.
Ideally, it is best when both of these groups can balance out each other, yet one unfortunate reality is that sometimes one side or the other will get too much of the power and make certain changes that the other side does not like.
Another unfortunate reality is that too often in this country and/or in the states, the judicial branch of government has too much power, just as like here in California, our supreme court recently decided to make the marriage between Homosexuals legal in this state, even though the people have already voted against this by 61%.
The vote between the judges was far from anonymous. It was 4 to 3, so basically the will of 4 people has over ruled the will of the people and this new change in our government has been forced on our state by the will of 4 judges.
Changes in government are much more severe than the changes that take place every day in the lives of individuals and this is why judges and politicians should not be quite so flippant about the changes that they impose.
You know BB,
As I was rereading some of the above comments, a rather odd thought came to my mind in relation to your rather "absurd" paraphrase of the Griper quote. Though "A man who gripes constantly is a profound thinker." sounds rather absurd, in reality "One who hurts often, may indeed be a profound thinker." and since people who hurt, do sometimes gripe more than those who do not, your little "absurd" paraphrase, may not be quite as absurd as you think. I guess it depends on the griper.
To 'gripe' is typically defined as
"To complain naggingly or petulantly; grumble", but earlier
archaic meaning was "To cause sharp pain in the bowels of." ..from the Old English
'gr1pan', to seize. We can interpolate these old Saxons as
'griping' when they had a stomach
ache. So, your '..since people who hurt, do sometimes gripe more than those who do not' while dervived in a different logical sense, agrees with the etymological derivation. You get an A!
Sheesh Lista! I just enjoyed the videos, hon. I guess I'm not feeling very philisophical today. LOL!
I will go this far though: change just for it's own sake is dangerous, which is exactly why Obama is dangerous. He's not the lighthouse, he's the captain of the ship, and we are going to be the passengers if he gets elected.
I can't help it. Politics is my nature. :)
Hi BB,
She smiles and chuckles a little. You mean to tell me that the task for the evening is to totally and thoroughly break apart and analyze Griper's grandpappy's quote. Though I look forward to it, I probably ought to fix my husband something to eat first before his stomach starts to gripe. lol.
Hi Gayle,
You can do politics. Go for it. I guess being a little philosophical and spiritual at times is my nature, yet I can't resist throwing in a few political comments with it as well.
I agree with you about Obama. He's headed right for the rocks and we may not be able to stop him.
Hello again Gayle,
I'm back and this time I have a little more time. During our dinner, I kept thinking about your statement, "I can't help it. Politics is my nature." and I kept thinking about my nature. It's a little pathetic in a way. Here I try and do a more comical post and end up getting all serious and philosophical, analyzing the comedy, so you see, I'm the one who ought to be saying "I can't help it. Analyzing everything to death is in my nature."
I'm so glad that you drop by anyway, in spite all of the analytical, philosophical nonsense that I get so caught up in. Your contribution to the discussion is right on.
Hi BB,
Since you looked up the word Gripe, I decided to also. It's interesting that the main definition that appears to be in use today is the one that my dictionary calls slang; "to complain or grumble". Exactly how extensive this complaining and grumbling is seems to depend on the dictionary. One of our dictionaries just says "to complain or grumble" and the other one says "to complain with sustained grumbling".
Obviously, in the quote, "A man without a gripe is a man who has no thoughts." the word gripe is meant to be a positive, whether than a negative, so Griper's Grandpa couldn't be referring to the more excessive definition of the word. In your paraphrase, though, "A man who gripes constantly is a profound thinker.", the excessive element is inserted and I guess we all know what sort of person such a statement brings to mind.
I guess for the most part, it is best to limit our gripes or as I've often put it, prioritize our battles, complaints and requests. People can only handle so much change and in the end, we end up having to let a lot of it go and keep at least some of our many wonderfully "profound" gripes to ourselves. :)
Oophs! One more quick comment. The most profound of thinkers are full of gripes, yet know when to gripe and when not to. I made that one up just now.
Well OK, "Here I try and do a more comical post and end up getting all serious and philosophical, analyzing the comedy," Let's try and reverse: from philosophy to
comical..Rene Descartes is known for his 'cogito ergo suum" (I think, therefore I exist). The
philosophical alternative is "I don't think, therefore I am not"
Such is philosophy that new college students receive the following advice:
Don't LOOK at anything in a physics lab.
Don't TASTE anything in a chemistry lab.
Don't SMELL anything in a biology lab.
Don't TOUCH anything in a medical lab.
and, most importantly,
Don't LISTEN to anything in a philosophy department. :)
Ah yes, and even more importantly than that, if you care at all about preserving your nonexistence, than by all means,
Don't READ anything on Lista's blog,
nor Griper's for that matter.
I think too much you guys. Way too much and even now, it feels as if the ponder button is stuck on the on position and I simply do not know how to shut it off.
I'm still thinking about Gayle's comment about Obama being the captain of the ship. It's so deceptive really. On the one hand, he claims to be about change and yet to both Gayle and I, the change appears to be from a safe course away from the rocks below the light house back to a course directly towards them. Check out the video on Gayle's post entitled "Barack Obama's Blueprint on How to Dismantle a Superpower". He wants to cut way back on our national defense. This is a very scary time in history to be doing that.
The most profound of thinkers are full of gripes, yet know when to gripe and when not to. Lord please help us to prioritize our many gripes.
I just thought the first video was funny, until I realized there's a very profound message in it.
In the second one, the thing that stands out to me is the flames behind Obama. Now THAT's very fitting!
Hi P Maillet,
Yes, you can laugh at the video. It is also meant to be humor.
Hi all,
Before I do my next post, I thought I would come back to a few of these earlier posts and see if there is anything more that I want to add to the comment threads.
Hi BB,
I thought of another verse relating to what you said about pride. You quoted Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." (KJV). The verse I was thinking about is "For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, 'Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.'" Romans 12:3 (NIV). The mention of "sober judgment" in this verse illustrated your point about "unsubstantiated or unwarranted pride, which overcomes rationality".
Once again, BB, don’t worry too much about pressing my ponder button. Sometimes this button just gets jammed and I can’t stop thinking about all kinds of stuff. It’s just one of my plights in life. Oh well.
Now in relation to the mime presentation that the next post is about, as I was watching this show, I was thinking about our little discussion about change. There was a lot of positive change going on as the mimes rehearsed for the show. As we learn and rehearse, perfect our art and grow, positive change occurs, yet one thought I said earlier that is worth repeating is that changes in government are much more severe than the changes that take place every day in the lives of individuals and this is why judges and politicians should be more careful with the changes that they impose.
I feel as if the subject of growth and change is a hot topic for me and I may need to keep doing more posts until my ponder button shuts off again. There were all sorts of things that I could have responded to and new questions that I could have explored, such as how much of change is random and inevitable and how much of it can be overtly caused? How much of our lives is caused by destiny or Divine Will and how much of it depends on our choices and our free will? This could also be another post, yet it is not the first one in line for the posting. Don’t be afraid to respond to me and hit my ponder button. I like hearing from you, BB, and hope that you will continue talking. Or anyone else for the matter.
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