Cowards Die Many Times

Cowards die many times before their deaths;The valiant never taste of death but once.Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;Seeing that death, a necessary end,Will come when it will come.

Julius Ceaser, Act II, Shakespeare 

The Older you Get, The More Important Your Father will Be

The younger you are, the more you need your mother. In your younger years you are completely dependent on your mother who caters to your needs and keeps you alive because you can't do anything for yourself. Your personality goes through the majority of its formation in your first 7 years, during that time where you are being catered to During these years, you don't need the imposition of the world upon you because you are not capable of withstanding the weight of the world. Your sense of morality is as simple as avoiding pain and seeking pleasure and satisfying your bodies needs. Kids at that age need firm set limits so that they can comport themselves around other kids and with adults. But what they do not need and are not capable of seeing the full expanse of the world. During these years, dad is still important but more for pushing limits because fathers are allow kids to explore more and are less paranoid about the kid's safety. This isn't a bad thing; it's necessary for raising a kid that is socially adjusted and who is not completely stifled. 

Once you pass your formative years, kids needs to be prepared with the harshness of the world. Moms do a terrible job at this because their instinct is to protect theirs kids. Watch how the kids of single mothers are, or kids where the father was there but not much more than a piece of furniture. The kids are not well socialized, they're terrible at interacting with the opposite sex, and they lack the sense of direction to make good decisions in life. This is why fathers are so important, to shorten the time wandering the desert and to prevent young adults from destroying their futures with debt, kids they can't afford, or drugs and criminality. 

Kids need two parents: a mother and a father. 

Advice for Depression and Low Self Esteem

In the world of health care, mental illness isn't taken as seriously as physical illness. Mental illness is the red headed step child, because it doesn't have physical manifestations - you can't check for it with lab values, you can't see it like trauma, you can't hear it in a person's lungs. It can be incredibly hard for someone with debilitating depression to get themselves out of the hole of a depressive state. You're isolated because the people around you, unless they have suffered through the same thing, likely won't have the tools to be able to help you.

The standard advice (which I'm not discounting) is to seek counseling and go see your primary care provider for an SSRI to help ameliorate the symptoms. With both of these treatments, the first person/pill that you take isn't going to do what you want. You may not appropriately connect with the first counselor that you talk to. The first medication you take may help, but not nearly enough. You'll likely have to try different counselors and different drugs - prescribed anti-depressants - until you find the ones that suit you. And even then there isn't a guarantee because the treatment of mental illness is mostly a shot in the dark.

Many people are resistant to taking medication to help them deal with their symptoms because they think it will turn them into a different person and that they will lose themselves. They are correct to a certain extent - SSRIs in my experience can make you more detached and emotionally distant. The thing is, if you are fearing that you will be radically changed by the drugs you are taking, that fear will help you to retain the parts of you that you like. Just be careful not to prevent the parts of you from changing that need to change to keep you alive.

There were certain things that helped me more than others during my dark years. Having someone in your life that takes your problems seriously and with whom you can share your problems is vitally important. I don't necessarily think that this has to be a counselor - a family member or friend who has fought and overcome depression can be a very helpful resource. They will likely tell you a lot of the same stuff I'm telling you here . Equally important in my eyes is meticulous self care. It is incredibly important to have a regular exercise program that you are following - be it lifting weights or running . The endorphins do wonders for improving your mood and if you are anything like me, listening to music can be therapeutic in dealing with your emotions. It is my honest opinion that if I had not payed such close attention to my health and didn't exercise that I wouldn't be alive today. You also want to make sure that you keep up with your personal hygiene and grooming. It's a matter of self respect.

Low self esteem and depression go hand and hand. Dealing with low self esteem requires a radical change in the way that view yourself. You have to look at yourself as if you were your own parent - the ideal parent that you wish that you had had that wants the best for you and who forgives you in spite of your mistakes and faults and who is always willing to give a second chance. The New Testament depiction of God is akin to the kind of parent you want to imagine yourself as. If you think about yourself as an ego that is only out to benefit itself you aren't going to take the steps of self care that you need to make yourself feel better. Look at yourself as a loving parent would look after his or her child. You'll show much more compassion to yourself.

Depression has a time component. It's not something that really goes away, so much as you become more resilient and able to tolerate it. Try your best to distract yourself with goals and a vision on how you want your future to be, listen to what I said above, and you'll have a better chance of making it through to the other side.

Minimalism

• Spend less than you make
• Buy cheap, reliable transportation
• Spend cheaply on housing
• Don't try to keep up with the Joneses

The bigger the house you buy, the more stuff you have to buy to fill it. Buy an unreliable expensive  vehicle, you'll always be repairing it. You'll always have less stress living below your means. And if you invest the money that you don't spend, your money will grow and you'll make way more in your lifetime than you would have otherwise. 

Remember that your money is your time, and that you have less time than you think. 

Just make sure that you don't obsess about money to such the point that you miss out on the important things in life, like family and friends and God. 

Winter 2019 Travel

Too many people say "I Love to Travel" but so few actually go and do it. Prior to this road trip, travel was an ephemeral thing to me that I would say that I wanted to do but had never made the efforts of actually doing. This trip served two purposes: it was a means to see what it would be like to travel on my own and it was also reconnaissance to see if I could imagine myself living in another state. The idea of living in another country has not yet been thoroughly explored because I would need to figure out in which countries I could take my current job skill and find a job.

I discovered that while I like to travel, being constantly on the road made me home-sick by about the 7th day. I also found that national parks need to be visited in spurts so that the act of hiking doesn't become a chore and can remain fun. It was cool to discover that my gym has locations in almost every small town that I visited. Had I had access to a vehicle with more space in it, I would have loved to have gone the minimalist route and slept in my vehicle, using the gyms for showering and working it, but my car is just way too small to accommodate me. I stayed at mostly motels, using Google maps to find the lowest pries and to read the reviews. The majority of the places that I stayed at were nice and clean, with only my last stop (America's Inn) being a bad experience. The largest expense that you run in too with travel is the cost of where you spend the night, which should be minimized as much as possible because you are traveling to see things, not spend all of your time in a hotel.

My goal was to get the lay of the land of America's Midwest, with all of its mountains and deserts. I stopped in Phoenix, Tuscon, Las Vegas, St. George, Moab, and then passed through Denver on the way back home. I loved the feel of Phoenix. It struck me as being clean, with numerous parks and places to hike. Phoenix has all of the modern conveniences that you could want from a city, while being proximal to a great landscape for exploring. Tuscon was also quite nice, being large enough to have its own Walmart while small enough to convey a small town vibe. It was quite a bit colder than Phoenix.

I was disappointed by Las Vegas. I've traveled there several times with my family where we stayed on the strand at the major casino hotels. This time, I stayed at a Super 8 on the outskirts of the city and explored and looked for what it would be like to live there. Compared to Phoenix, I found it to be quire ugly, with seemingly minimal efforts to have parks throughout the city. There was a Marshland preserve that I liked in the southeast quadrant of the city, as well as some mountains to the east that would make for good hiking. I just couldn't get over how ugly the city was. There are some redeeming factors of Vegas, such as how close it is to the grand canyon and Utah. I'm just not sure if it would be worth living somewhere ugly for that opportunity.

St. George was nice because it is so close to Zion National Park, which is absolutely breathtaking. The park is massive, with probably at least a dozen different trails to explore. I spent two day in St. George because I could not have done Zion justice with only a single day.

By the time I reached Moab, Utah, travel fatigue was setting in. I wanted to explore Canyon-lands national park and arches national park. I lost some of my winter gear and given how cold it was I decided to start heading home.

In a future trip I plan on going north through Colorado and west to Canyonlands. Had I done the trip again, I would have emptied more junk from my car prior to leaving home. I wish that I lived closer to the mid-west so the drive to get out there wouldn't take 20 hours. I still wouldn't take a plane because I would have to rent a car and dramatically decrease my mobility of travel. Perhaps in the future I will move and make a newer part of the country more accessible.

View of Phoenix from a hill near the Desert Botanical Gardens

Man made lake in Phoenix

Abandoned hut near the Vermilion Cliffs

In the interior of the Vermilion Cliffs

Zion National Park

Zion National Parks 

New York New York Hotel in Las Vegas