Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Seared Brains, Anyone?

Have you ever noticed that when you make a mistake and realize it, you have a kind of, "Oh crap!" reaction? Did you ever notice any kind of shock, feeling of dread or painful sensation with that? According to some new research found in this Newsweek article appropriately titled, "Oops, I Did It Again", there's a part of the brain that alerts us when we make the same mistakes over and over again by sending out a negative reaction, or electric shock. It comes from the part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex that signals what psychologists call ERN, or "error related negativity." Of course, there's a flip side to this. If you constantly make the same mistakes over and over again, the ERNs begin to weaken. This is possibly why some people never learn from their mistakes. If you tend to reason around errors in your life now, you are essentially rewiring your own brain to ignore them in the future, too. So when we say we're just having fun now and will change later, you may completely lack the physical ability to care or be shocked by your own actions in the future to effectively do something about it! This brings a whole new meaning to "searing your conscience", doesn't it? :)

The study also noted that "the subjects who were most impulsive and antisocial had EEGs that were quite different from those who were low on these traits." This points to the importance of self-control and fellowship with others of like minds. Of course, the human brain is capable of being rewired to send stronger signals for our mistakes as we correct our behavior while following God's way of life and building character. I'm sure a physical component of "building character" is reprogramming our brain to reward us when we do the right thing and to sting us more when we make mistakes. This is vital for raising kids, too (as I will soon learn). That's probably one of the main reasons why King Solomon wrote about learning proper values in our childhood years, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6).

Monday, April 23, 2007

What Could Bee the Problem?

I stumbled upon this artice earlier about large populations of honey bees used to pollinate various crops are disappearing for unknown reasons. The article mentions that it doesn't necessarily affect staples, but certain veggies, fruits and nuts. I guess it's widespread enough that they're going to hold congressional hearings about it. I'm sure that will do a lot of good.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Slightly Lighter Topic...

...OK, not really. But the last topic was probably too heavy and too vague to really discuss. So I'll try something different. The one thing the media keeps coming back to on this shooter in VA is how odd and different and morbid his thinking was... and it was. But many newscasters sat there in complete shock about his behavior and asked why more people didn't do anything about it. I sat there in disbelief, too. Do these people really know what modern schools and kids are like??? I went to school with 10-15 kids that acted like Cho did. Some of them did carry guns. Some of them would never look you in the eye. They wrote awful poetry and sick stories and kept to themselves or their small group of odd friends. I even befriended some of them later on because I, too, was in that "not accepted by normal people" group for awhile (probably not the smartest thing I ever did, but I'm pretty accepting of just about anyone who's willing to be friendly).

Chris Matthews on MSNBC told one of Cho's suite mates that in his day at college, they would never have put up with a roommate that never talked or never looked at them in the eye. "I guess you have much more respect for diversity than we did." I took that to mean he would have beat him up or changed rooms or reported him or something. I think anymore, we're so used to people being weird, slightly off or just plain out there that we don't pay it as much attention as we should. People not from this generation must not have an idea of how much anti-social people are out there in this modern world. And having been out of the school system for over 6 years and high school for over 10, I'm sure it's even stranger than when I was there. Oh sure, people would still get beat up physically or verbally for being odd in my HS days, but there was definitely a shift to just completely ignoring those same people in college.

I have a couple points to make from this observation:.
  • One, this world has definitely changed and is rapidly changing toward the worse. That has been obvious for quite some time.
  • Two, these kids that think and act this way are more and more turning inward until they block out everybody who reaches out to them, even in subtle ways except those who "understand them". Thus, they block out family and many times friends who genuinely want to help them and rather befriend angry, bitter kids who share the same viewpoint (Columbine boys), or worse, go completely loner on us (ala Cho or Ted Kaczynski). Most folks, in turn, don't pay attention to them because they're weird or because they say or do awful and strange things. I'll hear many of these kids repeatedly say, "I don't care," but you know they do. Otherwise they wouldn't be seeking the kind of attention they do. This cycle continues until a major lashing out occurs at a society they feel completely torn away from and mocked by. Analyze that last statement more carefully: they walk away from others and then get frustrated and angry when others don't try to understand them, care about them, follow them, etc. See how selfish that is? And yet, that is the very attitude that causes so many people to do their own thing and never return. It's a powerful Satanic device.
  • Three, (I feel like I should be using the numbered list now instead of bullets), what are you and I doing to reach out to these personalities? I'm a sucker for people that had to feel the same way I did growing up... Picked on, alone, etc. I wrote the occasional angry poem about rich kids and people's attitudes of superiority and snobbery. But even if we don't understand or relate to these people, we can still impact their lives. I remember a fairly popular guy in HS that would take the time to talk to me a few times just to be friendly. All the others usually ignored me or picked on me. But he showed me that people can be nice. What if you (I'm making the large assumption that you're "normal" and nice) did the same to someone strange to you? Maybe you'd give that person enough hope not to dive into selfish, inward, suicidal or even murderous rampaging behavior. People who have these tendencies need hope. They need solid friends. They're drowning in a sea of angst, anger and loneliness and need rescue. Perhaps we can't rescue them, but at least we can inspire them not to go completely over the edge.

So look out for the kids who never says anything to anyone or keep their distance... Say hi or smile at them even if they don't return it. Try to make them laugh or strike up a conversation. Keep at it. We all need friends and acquaintances, some are just better at making them than others.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Demons

It is truly terrible to hear about the latest news coming out of Virginia. With all the shootings that have happened over the last decade, I've occasionally wondered if demons have been at work in any or all of the individuals responsible for these heinous crimes. I know we in the Church use that explanation sometimes, especially in the wake of our own terrible tragedy. But having only heard ministers discuss this topic from time to time about some weird happenings at a dorm in Big Sandy, or a haunted house, or some deranged person at some Feast site, I haven't really figured out how we know when it's a demon and when it's just a weird person or a strange coincidence that our mind tries to comprehend. How many mentally insane people out there are demon possessed? How many are epileptics like the one Jesus healed? Are we chalking up demon possession to "abnormal psychology" too much? How can we possibly "test the spirits" as we are instructed to do in Scripture? As the end times come closer and closer, we're told that demons will be running rampant more and more and it's something I don't know hardly anything about. I know it's difficult to answer these questions, and it may be God's inspiration that we are even able to discern spirits. Thoughts or comments?