Thank goodness I was finally able to find some real intellectual stimulation for once.  I have been watching episodes of the second season of Showtime's, The Tudors.  For those unfamiliar, this is a period series centered around King Henry VIII.  There have been many complaints about the loose history the show appears to be based on.  I appreciate it more for a period piece than actually historically relevant.

Midway through the second season, I can honestly say, these past two episodes have been the most difficult television I have ever watched.  We're at the point that King Henry VIII has issued an oath that all citizens must take accepting him as the leader of all things including those temporal and spiritual.  Two people refused to take the oath and paid the consequence.

I don't really want to give away the details surrounding their judgment and the absolutely fantastic way the writers are able to make you so angry, hateful, and sympathetic.  With Braveheart, you really saw someone with complete intrinsic constitution able to withstand torture and dismemberment for his beliefs.  I always wished I could be that sort of person or have something like that I could really believe in. This series, however, handled it a bit differently. 

One of the two, did not reach the end with the complete heroism we find in Hollywood movies.  Likewise, there are also moments of torment shown from the king himself over one particular individual, once a very close friend of his.  It felt so cruel at times and I'm tormented because all the people involved were very good people.  You've watched the king be corrupted by people around him and the destruction thereafter. 

At the strongest moments of my faith, I wondered what I would do in such a situation facing torture or death or deny God.  I realized often that I would not be a strong enough person to not deny God.  In my mind, I would think of ways to justify it.  I could say one thing but think another and God would know what I believe.  I could use the life I retained to do works in a way that was good in God's eyes or slowly try to damage whoever was making me decide. 

These episodes brought up the very same points and made me realize what a coward I really would be.  There was only one area though that really made it difficult.  One of the men had a large family.  Part of denying the oath to the king meant you forfeit everything to the king.  His resilience toward God meant that his family would lose everything.  In my strongest moment, I know I would not be strong enough for this. 

Wow, wow, …wow….  I don't know how I'm going to sleep after this.  This is fantastic!  I haven't been challenged for a while or been given any reason to be introspective or grow.  Finally, I've had a reprieve from the ordinary existence.  The first season was a decent period piece but nothing exceptional.  If you really want to be challenged and feel something intense, get through the second season.  Perhaps this series has the potential of becoming one of my favorites after all.

I was talking with some people at work earlier and they started discussing whether we should start drilling for oil in Alaska.  Their logic was mostly to decrease our dependence of foreign oil.  Supposedly there is enough oil there for the US for 70 years or something….

I think it was chruchill that said something along the lines that humanity always does the right thing, though, only usually after doing all the wrong things.  This would be one of those wrong things!

The oil companies have repeatedly set record profits by price gouging the average person by increasing prices.  Those sons of bitches, right?  Wrong, I am grateful for what they've done.  Al Gore set off trying to deliver his message around the world about Global Warming.  Some people are still ignorant enough to believe that the warming over the past several years is just something natural in the cycle of the planet.  Because of this, people still really aren't as motivated as they should be about doing something to help reduce the damage humanity is having on the environment. 

This is where big oil has helped people make up their minds for them.  They have increased the cost for you to be polluters.  The puts you in a place where decreasing your energy consumption not only decreases your expenses, but also decreases the damage you're contributing to. 

Only with really high prices would it ever be equitable for people to invest in renewable energy.  Wind power and solar are really starting to expand, mainly because it is so much more cost effective.  The technology will always follow the money.  I guess it is a good thing it has also caught the attention of unstoppable Google.  http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207400875

Google has now dropped serious funding into both eSolar and Nanosolar.  eSolar is a company that touts being able to make large scale, cheap heat based solar plants (light is reflected to a specific point generating heat).  Nanosolar makes panels using a CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium-Sellinide) cells on a roll to roll fabrication process.  I have been following nanosolar since I read the first article that Google dropped 100 million to help them start their first major manufacturing plant.  They are now in production there and are sold out passed 2009.  Traditional solar cells cost about $4 per watt by using silicon.  Nanosolar claims their cells can be produced for as little as $.30 per watt and are presently selling their panels for $1 a watt (still some damn good profit margin)!  There are other companies that are also developing CIGS cells but won't be able to provide good  competition with nanosolar for quite some time. 

Don't forget, we also have the new CAFE standards passed by the government from the new energy bill.  Vehicles will have to become smaller and more fuel efficient.  Have you thoughts altered about the vehicles you get and your driving habits by the cost of gas?  If not, hopefully they will be by the time gas is $4.5.  This has also perpetuated many (though I won't list them) companies, mainly in California, that are producing electric or single/double passenger cars.  Again, here the advancement has rapidly accelerated because the demand is starting to shift. 

I only hope though, that these benefits we develop will outpace our increasing energy consumption and finally begin to reduce our demand.  If we can make it to this point, we will owe the oil companies for finally forcing our hand away from them.  Our advancements in the past several years moving toward renewable energy and decreased carbon production has been perpetuated mostly by them. 

Thank you, big oil, for making being more environmentally friendly cost effective!

Let me ask you this, have you ever listened to a song where you thought, "I want my life to be like that"?  How is that even possible?  I'm not entirely sure, but some songs have come close in the past.  I finally found one that feels right--93 seconds of pure bliss. 

I recently picked up the showtime series, the tudors.  Immediately I was captivated by the title theme song. The composer has it available on his myspace page.  If you listen to this normally, it will be a beautiful piece.  For me though, this must be listened to with headphones on, your eyes closed, and loud.  It is completely immersive.  I can't imagine what it would have actually sounded like being in the recording studio with this being played live.  Hopefully you have a good quality sounds system for this song... I think one of its great qualities is how you can physically feel it...  It has several different waves you're exposed to that can be felt as well as heard.  I've had this song on repeat for the last 30 minutes.

It isn't the highest quality online, sadly, but it is what is available:

http://www.myspace.com/trevormorris 

I'm not sure how to start this blog, it seems like there is so much to say.  This has been the focus on my thoughts now for the last week, so it seems like something is telling me it's time to release some of these thoughts.  Through writing, sometimes I start to see things I would otherwise be unable.  This could quite well be the longest I've ever written.  Also, I'm not going to bother editing this one because I don't have the time or energy right now to do so.

I wrote a blog before about how difficult it was for people to change.  Without a very dramatic experience or a lengthy process, I've never witnessed major changes in a person.  There have been aspects inside of me that I've wanted to change for a long time… some of these things made me scared of myself at times. 

There have always been things in my life that I can't really explain.  For some reason, my brain will sometimes get stuck on something and be blocked.  One of these times was me putting in applications into the masters program at school.  For some reason, I could never bring myself to actually fill things out.  I ended up with a great internship at Micron and eventually decided to go there full time.  The opportunity looked great, and I always thought, that was the reason I didn't fill out the applications—I was meant to go to Boise.

It's been roughly 14 months since I moved from home, a period of time that feels more like 3 years to me.  I'm starting to realize that Micron was not the reason, a much more important one actually existed. 

The start of this has to go to the core of the most influential moment of my life. This summer, my 8^th anniversary of my car accident will pass.  I don't think I was ever capable of really understanding or having the capability to really deal with what happened with me.  The person I became was more devoid of recognizable feelings.  I wrote this cinquain in high school that kind of explains it:

 
Shattered,

Feelings once known,

Floating from piece to piece,

Changing my masks along the way,

Broken.

 
I still had feelings, very strong ones at times, but it was always difficult for me to know what I was feeling.  The ones that I always recognized though was this overwhelming influence of rage.  Anger was never a feeling I was without. 

In many ways, back then I was able to turn that rage into fuel for motivation.  Hardly anything could penetrate my composure.  I really thought I would be able to handle anything life threw at me.  I started to focus that anger into making myself successful.  Anything that made me angry just made me work more.  Even my classmates, many who treated me poorly in high school, became images in my mind of people I had to be more successful than.  They became what I could not let myself be.  Peer pressure was nonexistent to me.  This rage made me strong, confident, impenetrable, unstoppable, etc.  Most often though, I was too much of these things. 

I graduated and finally got to leave all those that used to ridicule me with all the fuel I needed to assure I would have a successful college career—failure simply wasn't an option.  While I didn't know anyone at college, I had no trouble making and building worthwhile friendships and getting involved in whatever I could.  Much like high school, I kept pushing my stress boundaries.  I remember moments in college where I never thought I would have enough time to do everything.

I remember one of my favorite professors and mentors, Dr. Mina, pulling me aside after class once where he said, "Randy, you can do better.  Why aren't you doing better?"

I responded by saying, "Mani, what do you do when you don't have enough time to do anything to the level you want but am also unwilling to give up anything to have more free time?"

His response was, efficiency.  This is one of those guys that always had an answer or piece of advice, one of the wisest I have ever known.   He ended up being one of my greatest advocates though, for being an engineer that was also interested in people (psych minor), and more importantly, being involved in student government. 

Each semester had these moments of extreme stress from the seemingly impossible commitments I had sometimes made.  It was usually 1 or 2 weeks throughout the semester and finals week.  I don't know why I kept doing it though.  Every week I felt this way, I assured I would do less the next semester so I didn't have to deal with it again—year right!  When grades finally came out and I saw that I actually had still remains successful, there was always a relief and feeling of triumph. 

There were times where I was single and felt pretty depressed throughout this time too.  I always thought I was learning and changing from these experiences, which I was.  Those changes though, never really had a lasting definitive effect though.  Through those times, I had so much else going on…. So much more to hide behind. 

As previously stated, there were things inside of me that scared me.  I admitted these to some of the closest people in my life for fear of what people would think of me.  I admitted that I was a capable liar.  I admitted that I thought I could be capable of someday cheating and being able to compartmentalize the event in my mind enough that it would faze me.  I was completely capable of keeping secrets.  If I ever got in a fight, I was always afraid that some switch would flip where I wouldn't be able to stop. 

I had always tried to be a good person, I know there have been times I wasn't very successful at doing so.  Some of the time, I felt like I was doing so just to prove that some of the things I felt inside of me didn't really exist.  I could always feel it though, in many ways it was those parts that gave me my motivation and strength.  I remember so many songs that would tap into this and make me feel powerful in a way. 

So where is this going?

I moved away from college, 1400 miles from my entire history to work at a place where I really knew no one.  After a few months, the sweet talk I had been given during my internship finally proved false.  There was also a good amount of devastating ex related things at the same time.  I reached a point where I had nothing left to hide behind.  My friends weren't around and you know how keeping in touch always works.  I had no relationship.  I had no classes or student groups.  My family wasn't around.  My work was unfulfilling.  It seemed like nothing in my life really had any meaning at this point.  When I faced my pillow at night, there was nothing really to look forward to, so all my thoughts were focused on my past and myself.  I finally was faced with myself and what was inside of me.

With this, I had also pretty much gave up on religion.  In those months after moving, I had been more depressed than I ever have been.  I kept seeing all the reasons that religion didn't make sense, and it basically lost its meaning to me.  It wasn't completely gone though… I still always kept wearing my necklace that has a small cross on it.  I also knew that when I thought of the type of girl I someday wanted to be with, I wanted her to be a Christian. 

So there I was, left with only myself.  I really had no other reason to stop me from being destructive or doing the wrong thing.  This summer I smoked a few cigarettes.  For people that really know me, you will understand that this is a much bigger deal than it seems.  I was never presented with anything worse, so I still don't know if I ever would have done anything more.  There was a night where I could have had a one night stand-ish sort of thing.  I definitely had the opportunity for emotionless and meaningless sex.  When that night came though….  I didn't.

Half a year later, the picture is becoming clearer.  I finally started to realize the changes that have been taking place in me.  There was nothing to prevent me that night.  She wanted it, so I was justified there.  I really didn't care about church, so that wasn't stopping me.  The majority probably would have… it many ways it seemed so easy.  It was easier not to care.  When I was left with nothing but me though, I didn't. 

I'm not as worried anymore about whom I thought was inside of me.  That moment came and I made the right decision.  The good person who I thought I was seems a bit more solid now. 

Some of these darker things inside of me I realize will never completely go away.  This is part of the experience I've had, a now inherent aspect of who I am.  What's different though, is its capacity of influence over me has diminished.  Much of that built up rage is gone.  I also decided that it isn't something that I would want completely gone from me either.  It's become a much more understood and controllable part of who I am. 

Take this for example…. With the girlfriends I've had in the past, I always felt compelled to know their complete "history."  It was a much bigger deal than it ever should have been.  I had to know because without knowing, the darker aspects of my mind would picture things that were worse.  I had a lot of problems dwelling on these things too—dwelling in general was a problem for me.  At this point though, I honestly feel like I wouldn't care that much.  I'm not so afraid of not knowing. 

 This last 14 months, which seems like SOOOO much longer, has really helped me deal with myself.  I think all of my views and wants are becoming more focused.  Who I am, is also becoming clearer.

 It wasn't easy for me to move away.  I know sometimes why I moved away doesn't make sense to the people I care about and that care about me.  I now understand the reasons and events that lead me to moving to be by myself.  I just want them to hopefully understand that this experience has been good for me.  I don't intend to stay so far away, but I had to be… I had to have nothing left to hide behind.  I wouldn't have been able to change without doing so.

 For once, I am actually ok with who I am. 

Picture having everything you want.  You've won the lottery 4 times and now have close to a billion dollars.  You've spent your money buying everything you want.  You've started foundations making and impact on the world around you.  With a little extra cash, you started a growing wind farm to erase the carbon footprint you created.  Your entire families debts were erased.  All the time you have is spent traveling and doing whatever it is you want. 

 How long can you remain happy?

 There is a common thing among most religions about a soul existing forever or spending eternity in some celestial place.  Even in a perfect world, heaven, doesn't the idea of eternity scare the crap out of you?  What my mind is capable of conceiving as perfect, is still not something I would want to last forever.

 Have you heard the story about the brass sphere 100' in diameter?  Every century, an eagle flies past and gently brushes the tip of its feather briefly touches the surface of this sphere.  When that sphere is eroded down to dust—the beginning of eternity has passed. 

 Seriously, think about that!!  Even in absolute perfection, can you imagine existing that long?  I think at some point, no matter how perfect, I would want things to end.  Lights out, that's it, my existence is over.  I'll say I don't think 85ish years will be enough to satisfy me, but I am ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED of eternity. 

 Say you do make it to heaven in the presence of God.  I would hope that at some point in his grace, that you could request your time to be over.  He smiles, shakes your hand, you close your eyes, and that's it.  That is my idea of perfection—getting to choose when you're satisfied.