In Defense of Multiple Subjects...
First, I once read a review/comment on one of my favorite songs from the Harry Potter soundtracks. It's the song played in the sixth movie when Harry finds Hermione crying after the Quidditch match. The critic said that the song wasn't very professional at all and was just made from a series of repeated chord progressions. Okay, may I just say that this really bugged me. The critic either wasn't a harpist, or he failed to notice that the song was played by a harp. Half, if not more, of music composed for the harp is made primarily from chord progressions and arpeggios (that word comes from 'harp', actually). Why? Because it sounds beautiful on the harp, thank you very much! The harp is an instrument that takes a simple song and gives it angelic elegance. And really, if you want to be technical, music is chord progressions, all of it.
Now for another thing that got on my nerves. Last year at girl's camp a girl from another ward picked on a girl from my ward because she had a stuffed animal with her. No leaders were there and I couldn't just let someone say something like that. I immediately stood up, sternly pointed at the girl, and very firmly reprimanded her. She hated me for it, and I even heard her whisper to her friend that I'm stuck-up, but I don't care. (Let me just say that sometimes it's nice to be the intimidating Laurel.) No one is rude or disrespectful in front of me, and when it comes to stuffed animals... I'm seventeen and I still have a favorite stuffed dog who is one of my most loyal friends. Does that mean I'm a little kid? No. Why are teenagers raised with the mentalities that you have to please the world and be certain people, and that if you don't than you're weird or immature. It just leads them to scorn those who are different. (Don't take this as a generalization, please. I know plenty of mature, nice teenagers.)
(Shilo, my stuffed dog, playing the piano. He's the best dog ever...even though he is a little bit of coward when it comes to dark lakes under dwarven mountains. Ah! The old bedtime stories my dad used to tell me and Kenneth.)
To keep going with my ranting...
I love history and the past few days I've had a bit of a history craze. Now, when you have a craze of something, what's the first thing you do? Well, I go to any source of information I can come across. (e.g. when I was having a period drama craze last Dec I found a handful of blogs all about period drama, with pictures and other fun stuff.) Well, yesterday I opened an encyclopedia under History. It listed the main periods of history and historical recording, including the opinions of many historians during those periods. Under 'The Age of Reason' it said that:
"The philosophers and writers of the Age of Reason (the 18th century) saw men as corrupted by society. They also thought that men were corrupted by history and by tradition (in which they included Christianity)."
For many of us, we see the beauty of tradition, religion, and the past; we see that it is what forms us to be who we are. Yet, you can still see threads of this mindset all of the time in our society. The example that readily comes to my mind is a new attack against homeschooling that some lawyers are presenting. This attack isn't about how social or how educated homeschooled children are (which are falsely based). It is an attack against parents teaching their children morals, traditions, and religious beliefs. It is founded on the opinion that tradition and religion is corrupting the children, causing them to believe that other beliefs and traditions are wrong. This is an attack, not just against homeschooling, but against any private school or religion in general. But these traditions and religions (and not just The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but others as well) bring unity, hope, and belief into our communities. Don't we already live in a society of strife and unbelief? We need the truths and the unity religions and traditions bring.
To finish off my ranting, I'm going to address something that greatly disturbed me last Summer. I was having a discussion with a girl about the purpose of life. I said that the purpose of life is happiness. It is the Plan of Happiness. "Men are that they might have joy." Our goal, our focus is (or at least should be) the Celestial Kingdom, where we will be eternally happy. She, however, said that it was the plan of godly sorrow, and that life is about the pain and the grief. She firmly believes that we will all suffer and "wear sackcloth" (she read the very last verses of Isaiah 3, which prophesies of the destruction of the proud and worldly) and that this anguish is what God will give everyone because of our pride. That it is His plan for us and happy endings aren't realistic.
By the end of our discussion, I was getting really frustrated. After a while she turned the discussion to how she thought that Nephi and Joseph (sold into Egypt) were prideful and that the natural man in them and us is "good"...at least that is what she implied. I let her turn the conversation and when I contradicted this last belief of hers, she stated "Isn't God a man?" To which I readily replied "Yes, but he's also a God" and ended the discussion.
Back to happiness though. I think it is sad that someone can have this opinion. Life is about finding happiness, even through the hardest of times. We all want it, we all try to find it. Some people give up, let themselves be taken in by despair. Others find it in ways that just leads them to more sorrow, saying all the while "well, I'll just die someday, may as well do whatever I want now." Life is hard, of course, but there is always hope and joy. We can find it in the smallest things. I firmly believe that God wants us to be happy more than anything else, and that He will do all in His power to give it to us.
Now for another thing that got on my nerves. Last year at girl's camp a girl from another ward picked on a girl from my ward because she had a stuffed animal with her. No leaders were there and I couldn't just let someone say something like that. I immediately stood up, sternly pointed at the girl, and very firmly reprimanded her. She hated me for it, and I even heard her whisper to her friend that I'm stuck-up, but I don't care. (Let me just say that sometimes it's nice to be the intimidating Laurel.) No one is rude or disrespectful in front of me, and when it comes to stuffed animals... I'm seventeen and I still have a favorite stuffed dog who is one of my most loyal friends. Does that mean I'm a little kid? No. Why are teenagers raised with the mentalities that you have to please the world and be certain people, and that if you don't than you're weird or immature. It just leads them to scorn those who are different. (Don't take this as a generalization, please. I know plenty of mature, nice teenagers.)
(Shilo, my stuffed dog, playing the piano. He's the best dog ever...even though he is a little bit of coward when it comes to dark lakes under dwarven mountains. Ah! The old bedtime stories my dad used to tell me and Kenneth.)To keep going with my ranting...
I love history and the past few days I've had a bit of a history craze. Now, when you have a craze of something, what's the first thing you do? Well, I go to any source of information I can come across. (e.g. when I was having a period drama craze last Dec I found a handful of blogs all about period drama, with pictures and other fun stuff.) Well, yesterday I opened an encyclopedia under History. It listed the main periods of history and historical recording, including the opinions of many historians during those periods. Under 'The Age of Reason' it said that:
"The philosophers and writers of the Age of Reason (the 18th century) saw men as corrupted by society. They also thought that men were corrupted by history and by tradition (in which they included Christianity)."
For many of us, we see the beauty of tradition, religion, and the past; we see that it is what forms us to be who we are. Yet, you can still see threads of this mindset all of the time in our society. The example that readily comes to my mind is a new attack against homeschooling that some lawyers are presenting. This attack isn't about how social or how educated homeschooled children are (which are falsely based). It is an attack against parents teaching their children morals, traditions, and religious beliefs. It is founded on the opinion that tradition and religion is corrupting the children, causing them to believe that other beliefs and traditions are wrong. This is an attack, not just against homeschooling, but against any private school or religion in general. But these traditions and religions (and not just The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but others as well) bring unity, hope, and belief into our communities. Don't we already live in a society of strife and unbelief? We need the truths and the unity religions and traditions bring.
By the end of our discussion, I was getting really frustrated. After a while she turned the discussion to how she thought that Nephi and Joseph (sold into Egypt) were prideful and that the natural man in them and us is "good"...at least that is what she implied. I let her turn the conversation and when I contradicted this last belief of hers, she stated "Isn't God a man?" To which I readily replied "Yes, but he's also a God" and ended the discussion.
Back to happiness though. I think it is sad that someone can have this opinion. Life is about finding happiness, even through the hardest of times. We all want it, we all try to find it. Some people give up, let themselves be taken in by despair. Others find it in ways that just leads them to more sorrow, saying all the while "well, I'll just die someday, may as well do whatever I want now." Life is hard, of course, but there is always hope and joy. We can find it in the smallest things. I firmly believe that God wants us to be happy more than anything else, and that He will do all in His power to give it to us.
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