collegeboy157

It seems like every day I remember something from school that has actually been useful (who knew!) Usually I'm thinking of the kinds of intimacy required to make a relationship work (according to my communication teacher.) They were so delightfully simple that in my brain, I've filed them with my C.S. Lewis quotes, Creationism arguments and Warcraft lore.
The three kinds of intimacy are as follows:

1. Emotional
2. Intellectual
3. Physical

Without these variations of intimacy, it's very difficult to maintain a happy relationship with someone. When I rolled out of bed this morning, I realized that these three kinds of intimacy not only apply to relationships, but also entertainment!
"But William!" you might say, "you can't be physically intimate with a book! That's disgusting!"
You're right. It WOULD be disgusting, but that's not what I mean. When I'm talking about intimacy, I'm referring to a sort of closeness with the subject matter. Isn't that the very definition of intimacy? In fact, some of the best movies, books or games I've played have had all three elements.

In order for an entertainment experience to be wholesome and satisfying, it has to be:

1. Emotionally relatable, specifically in the characters, world, narrative and story. Just look at nearly anything J.J. Abrams has done, specifically new Star Trek movie. The whole premise of Star Trek has been alienating girlfriends and loved ones for years, but ol' Jeffrey Abrams gave the story and characters an emotional entry point so that people can, perhaps for the first time ever, give a crap about how Spock is feeling.

2. Intellectually sound, stimulating, fulfilling and not too complicated for the average American moviegoer to understand. Americans like to feel smart when they watch a movie; some movies really do “science” you to death, leaving audiences feeling lost, a feeling that sometimes lasts for a whole movie. (Bladerunner, 2001: Space Odyssey.) We don't want to be talked down to for two hours. It's insulting and harms the movie experience. (For instance, nearly every filmschool student “art” movie.)

3. Physical reaction (sympathetic nervous system). Have you ever had cried while reading a book or jumped in your seat while watching a movie? Probably. Some action movies succeed in being exciting to the point where your heart rate increases while watching it (unless you're particularly jaded). The point I'm trying to make is that if you come out of a movie feeling a strong physical reaction to it, it has succeeded in that respect. Remember that laughing is a physical reaction!



I wonder what else you could apply these three kinds of intimacy to?
 

This is not a discussion about God or Biblical argumentation. I'm not arguing anything, I'm simply here to explain some things that I find fascinating about Heaven. You'll probably have an easier time reading this if you both believe in God and take the Bible seriously.

I was going to start all of this off with the Bible verse that says something along the lines of “the eye has not seen nor the ears heard the things I have prepared for you in Heaven,” (paraphrase) but the Blue Letter Bible seems to like being difficult tonight. Instead, you have that lovely paraphrase. You get my drift.

To even begin digesting what that verse is really saying (whichever verse it is, darn it) I had to begin simply. By its very description, God is describing something that is literally indescribable, as well as indescribably awesome. The word awesome really gets too much use these days, and so people don't even blink when people use it. When I'm saying awesome you must understand the weight of my meaning. With the help of my old friend the Thesaurus I came up with a few synonyms for awesome: Breathtaking, awe-inspiring, magnificent, wonderful, amazing, stunning, staggering, imposing, stirring, impressive; formidable, fearsome, dreaded; mind-boggling, mind-blowing, jaw-dropping, excellent, marvelous, wondrous. That many words to describe one word that is describing an abstract thought? Well, I can only hope it's an impressive beginning to what is sure to be a long-winded exercise. Who's to say?
So what have we got so far? A lot of words describing my description of God's description of Heaven. Organizing thoughts on paper is always harder than I think it's going to be.

Okay, lets move beyond trying to imagine the unimaginable; lets try to get Heaven to somewhere that we're comfortable with. One thing I'm always shocked by is the perception people have of Heaven. Hollywood has seemingly forever been selling a version of Heaven that is all angels, clouds and harps. Disney has furthered this thought, showing it as a place that all “good” people go. Unfortunately, they never define what makes a good person. Gosh, I could spend a whole evening going on about Disney's incorrect portrayal of things, but I have to move on. Heaven isn't like that; it's much more interesting, for several reasons.

God is much, much smarter than anyone believes. Certainly, Christians can see the world and think, “how wonderful God is for making such a beautiful world,” but that's only the start of it. Remember that we have hundreds of branches of science devoted to studying little pieces of creation, and those branches are constantly turning up new and exciting things to digest. They don't always come to the right conclusions, but the scientific groundwork is there. Might I point out that we're living in the broken version of the world. I'm not saying the world was perfect when Adam first stood up and said, “this is pretty sweet.” God didn't say the world was perfect, he said it was good; but lets not lose sight of things.

Although the world wasn't perfect, it was efficient, and it was better. So much better that I reckon we wouldn't recognize it if we saw it on Day One. If you think the world is impressive today, just imagine how nice it was back then.

Let me paint an analogy for you: An alien spaceship fell to earth one day. It crashed near a science laboratory and so scientists were immediately able to begin studying the ship. The technology was hundreds of years past our own; capable of doing things we could only write about in wild science fiction.

“This is breathtaking,” one scientist said to the aliens.

“If you think this is impressive,” replied the aliens, “you should have seen it when it was in one piece.”

Don't misunderstand my meaning: I'm not saying that aliens exist or that their technology would be hundreds of years past our own if they did; I'm only pointing out the similarities between our broken world and a broken spaceship. Newer would be better.

The world is alarmingly complex. So much so that it's almost (if not completely) impossible for a single person to learn everything there is to know about it. Heaven is made by the same person who made Earth, and this time it's not broken. In fact, this time it's built to last. Don't you think the contractor is going to build himself the nicest house? However, most contractors don't want everyone who has ever existed to come live with them. God does.

This is the same person who is responsible for genetic codes, molecular structures, scientific laws and how they interact with each other. He penned every language, sculpted every beach and spoke the entire universe into being. We've never even seen Him use his hands for anything. In fact, we never even seen Him. In both cases, it's probably better that we didn't.

Lets go back to Heaven. Are you still picturing clouds and harps? I certainly hope not. His world is going to be a lot better than this one, and much more real. It will make our reality seem like a distant dream half-forgotten a few seconds after waking. A mirage, a shadow. When I say Heaven, I need you to understand the tonnage of the word.

Not convinced? Lets see if I can get us there. Oh, and I found the verse.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

I like it better seeing it verbatim. It makes my paraphrase seem like the ugly stepsister in this scenario. Anyway, since it's very difficult to talk in abstractions, lets bring Heaven down a little closer to earth, (always with respect to the Real Deal) to make it easier to contemplate.

I don't like saying it this way, but imagine your guiltiest pleasure. Hopefully it's not too sexually depraved, but go ahead and think of it. It probably seems fun, but even at the most extreme end of the earthly pleasures scale, you cannot begin to touch the most crude pleasures of heaven. What's that you say, William? There will be sexual pleasures in Heaven? Of course not, sex is a purely biological function, and since we will no longer be biological, we'll have no need for it. What I mean to say is that there will be things that are inherently better than sex. Even more so, there will be things better than chocolate cake, sleeping in late and Christmas and Thanksgiving combined. Just breathing will be fun. That is, if you want to breath. Remember that you won't technically have to anymore.

Moving beyond sensory stimulation, lets talk about something that I believe is more pleasing. What is something that is, as far as I can think, universally enjoyed by everyone on earth?

Can you think of what it might be? (No, not that, you gutter-mind.)

I believe that it is creativity.

“Creativity?” you might be thinking, “I hate drawing, William! You're dumb!”

The definition of creativity as you're thinking of it is perhaps a little limiting. Let me broaden your understanding.

Everyone everywhere creates. Not just painters and writers, but everyone. Parents create children, philosophers create new ways to view the world, we're creating opinions all the time. Even so, this isn't enough. Most of the fun of creating something is sharing it with other people. If you write a story, you're probably going to want someone to read it. Seeing their reaction, gathering their thoughts, criticisms and additional ideas is exhilarating (at least if the feedback is good). After all, people don't make movies and then make sure nobody watches them. Sharing is fun. If you have a child who becomes a success, in a way that child is something you made who has taken the world and done something great with it. Your creation has improved the world, and perhaps improved you along the way. Everyone everywhere creates.

Creativity will be a very large part of Heaven, I think. Of course there will be an endless amount of “content” (to use a video game term) created by God, which will literally go on forever, but there will also be an endless amount of room for everyone to make their own world, and then share it with others. More importantly, creating will be easy. Effortless, in fact. Why is this? Well, of course because God made it that way, but also because of eternity, which I'll get to.

If you've ever tried to create something, you'll know how difficult it is to make something really great. It's that very difficulty curve that keeps potential creatives from trying. Just think of your favorite movie: It probably took hundreds of people thousands of man-hours to produce that two-hour piece of entertainment. Why does it have to be so hard? Even more interestingly, how come it's so easy for God? Well, of course it's easier for God; He's God. But also, he has eternity on his side.

Eternity is a difficult subject for most people. In fact, it's impossible to think about directly without getting caught in a frustrating loop of thought that goes something like, “how long is eternity, and how old is God?” It's an unfortunate way of looking at it. Maybe I can help.

With much careful thinking, I came up with a fairly simplistic analogy that will hopefully shed some light on the elusive matter of eternity. Are you with me? Lets begin.

Picture, if you will, a paved road. Any kind of road will do, but I prefer a small two-lane affair, recently tarred and painted, running through a field in Kansas or somewhere. The surrounding fields are green and rippling with the breeze. The sun is setting. There are gray mountains far off in the distance. A rugged, unpainted wooden fence runs alongside the road.

You are standing on the road looking toward the sunset. It runs as straight as an arrow, converging with the horizon in a fine point. The road represents time, and you represent yourself. If you were moving, you'd be running in a straight line from your birth to your death. You cannot get off the road. How do you get unstuck from time?

Now imagine that you can get off the road. You step off to the left or right. You duck under the fence. You can now see alongside the road. You can see a ditch or something that was out of you view before. “Interesting,” you think. You can also move straight upwards into the sky and look back down at the road. As you get higher up, you can see more and more of it. Eventually you can see where the road started a few miles back, and where it ends. You can see all of the forks, the valleys and the traffic congestion. “Handy,” you think.

You fly back down. You can also pass underground and look back up at the road. From here, you can see all of the things growing that are probably going to tear up the asphalt. You can see the seeds of several trees and grass roots that are going to create bumps later on, and maybe even a long-forgotten Indian burial ground. “Creepy,” you think.

Back in the air looking down, you notice that you can see many other roads snaking Westward, and there are little people jogging down their roads. You've never seen them before, but you can see exactly where they're going. You fly up a little higher and you see the entire planet is made up of people on roads. You can see everyone in the world! Is this eternity? Nope. What we've seen thus far is in fact not eternity, we're simply seeing time from afar. To get to eternity, I have to explain another concept. Be patient.

Certain Buddhist zen monks might try to explain eternity as a circle, always coming back on you (just like shrimp). However, I dislike the notion of a circle as it makes it seem as if eternity is being recycled; a proverbial Nascar racetrack if you will. I prefer to think of it as a sphere. “How is that any different?” you might ask. Here's how.

A circle only exists in two dimensions, a sphere exists in three. Moving around a circle is like a slot-car race, and it gets boring rather fast (again, just like Nascar). A sphere, meanwhile, is moving in all directions at once, all the time. Are you with me? If this is the case, it means that once you're in eternity you're completing things before you begin them. This means that creating things will be alarmingly easy; as soon as you decide to start making something, you'll find that it's already made (by you) instantly, because you already did it, and now you're staring at it. It's like time travel, except there is neither time nor traveling required. Neat, huh?

Now it's easy to see why the Hollywood version of Heaven is so mediocre. Having harps and wings and living in the clouds would be utterly boring compared to the possibilities that await. Remember that no matter how many adjectives I can come up with to illustrate the remarkableness of Heaven, it's physically impossible for any living person to describe it.

It's still not as clear as I'd like it to be, but hopefully I've given some of you a better understanding of eternity. 

This fun little Yahoo-powered site is made for one thing: Deciding what to eat. It's uses are limited, however.

At first I thought this was a joke of some kind, but then I looked at who had posted the video. It's all true: YouTube works in 3D

1. My most recent ex... is imaginary. That's her name, Imaginary.


2. I should learn... how to improve my writing skills.



3. I love... feeling healthy.



4. People would say that I am... “William who?”



5. I don't understand... why I had so much trouble with math all these years; it's actually not bad.


Seldom surrendering to sumptuous sensory sensations such as smell and sight, the seven sirens sailed southward, seeking to serve as the sheik's assistants. Subsequently, the sirens were seen by a sailor who succeeded in seizing their ship. He slaughtered the sirens and sold the ship's scraps for sixty-seven silver, which he spent to secure a stable for his stallion, Stanley.

Stanley and the sailor spent their Saturday stealing sugar from the supermarket. Sadly, they were seen by a security guard and a sailor who was on shore leave. Subsequently, the sailor was sentenced to several psychological sessions with a psychiatrist.

She said, “sir, surely you've seen the seriousness of your situation,”

“You shouldn't see me as a statistic,” said the incarcerated sailor, sighing. The psychiatrist shifted in her seat.

“Still,” she said, skimming her schedule, “it's simpler if we shoot Stanley.”

In the stables, Stanley the stallion shot shifty glances toward the street. It seemed simple, escaping, but such an exercise struck him as stupid.

“Screw it,” he said, starting to stampede. He shattered the stockade and sprinted into the street, striking several pedestrians.

Startled, Sarah Sitwell, senior assistant software supervisor, spilled cinnamon spiced coffee on her shirt, softly scalding her supple skin.

“Shoot,” she shouted, shaking herself and scanning the surrounding shunpike to see if anyone had seen her. It seemed she was safe. After a few short seconds, security soldiers arrived and shot Stanley until his body surrendered his spirit, which swerved off into the stratosphere.

“How sad,” said Sarah, slinging her shoulder bag over herself. She stalked into the sunset, sullen.