ups and downs

Recent ups
- scored best I've ever scored on an analysis test. hooray!
- realized Rice was harder than UT grad school currently
- I finally feel somewhat competently intelligent in a few areas.
- I feel like I'm sorting out questions about God in my head

Recent downs
- despair over current research and whether or not there's even a solution
- existential despair (mid-early-life crisis, what do I want?)
- still don't feel like I have a social circle in Austin
- I think I've gained weight
- sorting out questions about God in my head seems to have no impact on my life, as much as it logically should

why is that? I recently finished Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Blink", and it talks a lot about the subconscious choices that influence our actions and our decisions (it's a great book, btw - it paints the way we think in a very new and sometimes unflattering way). It's discussion of decision-making and prejudice is especially touchy and revealing. The conclusion I'm tempted to draw after reading this book is that our actions are, for the most part, outside of our area of influence.

Yet, I think many would argue otherwise. "Ideas Have Consequences", claims Richard Weaver in his famous book by that title - ideas do change the face of culture, and FDR (or was it Churchill?) claimed once that the next war we fight will be with ideas. It does seem true that most people cannot survive a dichotomy between their ideas and their actions for long - either actions or ideas have to cave, and most of the time, the habits that we've built up with our actions win out.

For me, though, it seems as if my doubt and questions about a year ago invited in a new worldview through the backdoor - with everything thrown into question, I had nothing to really believe in or stand on, and nature, abhorring a vacuum, filled it with the simplest and closest hedonistic worldview. After a long time of thinking and questioning, my thought process appears to have come back to the Christian theistic one; however, my actions and life are still firmly entrenched in my old habits.

How much control do we have over our lives and our thoughts after all? I think the answer is a lot, but not through our typical methods of controlling our actions and ideas. Thoughts and ideas are entwined together - you can change your intellectual thinking about different minority groups, but racism is most effectively dealt with by forcing our selves to interact with those minority groups. Likewise, actions without a guiding thought can have no goal, and can end up being done pointlessly. Even worse, actions guided by the wrong train of thought can be easily manipulated and abused, and can form negative habits and entrench wrong thinking in the future.

Time to try to form good habits, guided by good thoughts. Thought #1 - I'm a) 23, b) single and c) out of shape. Resultant action - lets go exercise so I can fix b) and c).