Pratt: Not every idea entertained is worth remembering
With one click of a button, the brilliant idea accidently vanished, lost in the aggravation of a technology that tries to “think” what I need and supply it without request.
I don’t have the relationship with computers I did with typewriters because I didn’t have to work through constantly changing programs. Instruction and experience helped when the A-J changed to a computer system.
Fortunately, experience showed me that as an adult I could still adapt to new processes. Adaptation was made even easier because the Lubbock newspaper had a technician on hand when I had a computer problem.
Now, without that support and a newer laptop, I am finding it difficult to adapt to almost daily changes in the program I use for writing. My daughter-in-law nearby is my techie, bless her heart. I know she must get tired of my inability to remember what she shows me a week or so earlier about how to cope with changes. It’s often a “technical language” issue for me.
Since I work on writing once a week, “remembering” how to do what I did last week or to quickly understand constant change is a challenge for an old brain. The old repetition argument is failing in today’s fast-moving technology. One thing that doesn’t change much is human behavior for good or ill.
The result: extreme irritation on my part – so extreme that I doubt the idea I lost ever resurfaces. Perhaps it would have been discarded anyway. That’s true of life in general as well.
Not every idea I entertain is worth remembering. That may be the case with many of the college students who have joined something they obviously know little or nothing about in support of an old “death to Jews” chant. Someday, they will rue their error and hope there is no photo record of their participation.
Engaging in ancient religiously motivated hatreds is a bad idea, no matter what your faith or political persuasions. Nor is it unusual that political entities often seek the lowest common denominator of human errors to enlist others in violent activity.
Evil is the basis of violent campaigns against the world’s peaceful religio-political entities. Reason goes by the wayside as violent conversation and action becomes the norm for expressing opinions.
Young people are the natural target for enlistment as they seek to sort out who and what they want to embrace as adults. Sometimes, it is their experience of mistreatment as youngsters that makes it easy to fuel their hatred within and turn them to embrace violence as an answer.
It takes a long time for us to grow out of our infancy and some never do. We want what we want instantly, which makes it easy for those with bad intentions to obtain our cooperation in whatever “rebellion” they are contemplating. Throw big money into the mix, and it becomes even more attractive to the immature trying to find their identity.
Why does humanity fall so easily for violent answers? Many factors exist, but the root of it all is the struggle between Good and Evil, as described biblically. If you think that is simply an “easy” way out, I propose that it is the most difficult answer because it concerns our beliefs in the origin of humanity.
Why would an all-powerful God give us a choice is the most evident question. It goes all the way back to the dollhouse dilemma I encountered as a 6 year old – “how can a Creator design companions if there is no choice on the part of the created?”
As humans, we adore our young children, but we also look forward to the day they become adults – which means loss of control on our part in a healthy relationship. And it’s a problem for the youth as well, who need parental support, yet long for the autonomy of adulthood and may make serious mistakes trying to achieve that goal prematurely.
God made a way incredibly painful, sacrificing a third of himself for our rescue. It is up to us whether or not we accept his offer of forgiveness through his Son’s sacrifice that we may be perfected to live in eternal fellowship. Do we choose the “freedom” evil offers in the here and now to suffer the consequences in Eternity? His Holy Spirit stands by, embodying within us acceptance and strength for the journey, which is not, and will not, be easy in the Now because we are not perfected in this life.
Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: Not every idea entertained is worth remembering
