Health

Hello,
In my last post, I told you of my horrible week of death and heart troubles. Along with all those things happening around me, I had an atrocious head cold. I had it all: The massive sore throat, the runny nose, coughing enough that I thought I might get a six pack from doing so, and even the nasty phlegm days at the end. I had the works.

All throughout the week, I was complaining in my head about my sickness. How I wished the sore throat would stop. How I wished My nose would stop running. How I wish I could smell the summer air. I just wanted out. Then I fell to thinking about how during this same time, my grandfather had a heart attack. A heart attack. There was a good chance he was going to die. And here I am complaining about my little runny nose, when he's possibly going to die.

It made me realize, here in life, there will always be someone who is in worse shoes than yourself. No matter how bad things get, someone else will be worse. Most of the time, we complain about the littlest things- how we have to watch a different movie than we wanted to. How we wished to have ketchup, not vinegar, with our French fries. How we wished there weren't so many flies outside. And yet there are people out there with family members dieing around them, who would LOVE to have only our problems.

I know someone who is going through crap, and I mean crap. His dad died when he was nine. His mother is currently dieing. And He is only 18. Now. Every time you feel like complaining, think of him. Would you rather be in his shoes....or yours?

I'm reminded also of a M*A*S*H episode, where one of the doctors, BJ, is talking with another one, Hawkeye, about going home to be with his wife. He talks about how much he will love to do all the small things that he used to hate to do- fixing up the house, taking out the trash, doing the dishes, etc. How just being home with his family, as opposed to being a surgeon in Korea, would make all those tasks feel like heaven.

So the next time you complain about taking the trash out, think about how little and insignificant that problem is, when compared to the alternatives.

Foy Lyndström

Time is Ticking Away

Hello,
This past week has been insanely busy and hectic, for many reasons. Last Sunday morning, the husband of a friend of our family passed away. Last Sunday night, my grandfather suffered a major heart attack, and had to go through surgery that the surgeon said was the most dangerous heart surgery out there- more dangerous than a heart transplant. He was given a fifty-fifty chance of survival, and made it. I was able to visit him today, and he is doing well, though still not out of the woods. On Friday, another friend of ours had a major heart attack. I saw him in ICU today, and he is in serious trouble.

All this made me think of our lives. We, as Americans, suffer from the "busy disease". We are constantly on the go- running though our lives trying to get to the "next rung of the ladder of life", whether that be graduation, a pay raise, retirement, whatever. Our minds are constantly on the future, and not enough on our immediate situation. We take our families and our friends for granted, thinking that they will always be with us. The sad truth is- they won't. We will not always have [insert family member here] with us all the time. We must cherish the times we have with them now.

You've probably heard the saying "Don't run through life too fast that you forget to smell the roses". This is amazingly true. We must cherish every moment we have, because we do not know how long we will have. My grandfather was fine all day Sunday. Then at midnight- Boom. He got hit by the heart attack. He didn't know it was coming, and neither did we. We don't know when death will come knocking at our doors either- whether he will be admitted or not.

Think about your life: are you running through life with no intention of slowing down? Are you taking your family and friends for granted?

Slow down. Relax. Cherish that family movie night. Cherish those special moments you have with your spouse. Even cherish that game of fetch with your dog.

Cherish every moment.


Foy Lyndström

Father's Day

I just wanted to wish every father out there a happy father's day. This is the one day out of the year for you to shine, for you to receive corny gifts from your young children, and try your best to thank them for what you've done, only to giggle at them in admiration with your wife later on.

Since this blog encourages thinking and finding knowledge, even if it is useless knowledge, I did a little research about fathers day. Apparently, in 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd listened to a Sunday sermon, and was inspired to create a day in honor of her father especially, but also for every other dad out there.

You can read the rest of the story here. Yes, the website is a small & informal, but hey, it works.

Also- There is a mother's day, and a father's day, but why is there no Children's day? Or does the day already exist, and is currently being called Christmas? Fatty food for thought.

Foy Lyndström

Gary Larson

Gary Larson was an amazing cartoonist. I am sure that most everyone who will read this has, at one point or another, seen one of the cartoons from his most famous cartoon series: “The Far Side”. While many of his cartoons were blazingly simple, with jokes and ideas that made you go into hysterics in just seconds, others were very multi-faceted, having several jokes intertwined together to achieve a larger punch line. Many times, it would take several read-throughs to find and appreciate all the complexities within the 4.5 by 3.5 inch frame (or there-abouts). Here is an example of such a cartoon.

Let’s start with the basics- it's setting.

When: Sometime in the middle ages

Where: A castle

What: An army of raiders charges over a moat and into a castle, from which arrows are being fired upon the raiders.

Who: A guy notices something in the castle's landscaping.

Why is it funny? Let's look at three possible reasons:

1. Let’s examine the minds of the castle's designers. The standard moat-of-death full of alligators has been replaced by a goldfish pond most commonly found in Japanese gardens. Who in the world would put goldfish into a moat? Are the defenders Japanese arborists? Or are they just slightly loony? Who knows.

2. Here’s a guy, right in the middle of an assault. Usually, when a man is going into battle, he is very pre-occupied with what is going on. Is he going to get wounded by those flying arrows? Killed? Will he have to kill anyone? Well, not this guy. He’s just curious of his surroundings. He looks at the castle, looks at the pretty birds in the air, and then looks down at the water, and notices that there’s goldfish in the moat. Either he is a completely brave soul, with no concern for death, or he is a complete nut job, who’s out to lunch, and notices these fish he’s running over. Since he’s in the army, he must be relatively sane. Either that, or this is quite a rediculous army.

3. Now, even if you reconcile those two things as sane, you have one more: he tells his buddies. This begs the question: Which one of them is going to give a darn? Here’s Bob, running into battle, when he hears his buddy Joe yell “Oo! Goldfish, everyone! Goldfish!” What will he do? Will he roll his eyes, or just say “Joe. Shut up.”? But, considering the fact that he hangs out with Joe, it wouldn’t be so far fetched to say that he might actually look himself.

I’m glad to realize that at least at one point in time, someone was brave enough to put something complex in the mass media, even if it is just a cartoon. While I am sure there are many cartoons at hand with intricate punch lines, they are outweighed by the pure and simple ones.

Now, I am not saying that simple cartoons are stupid, quite the opposite- I love stupid cartoons. What I am trying to say is that there is a time and a place for both. Maybe our society is at a point now where simple is better. Maybe our society is just stupid. I don’t know.

Foy Lyndström

Welcome

Yes, this is my first attempt at a blog; so while I ask for a small amount of patience in adjusting to writing this, I also ask that you do not read this as though I am a complete moron. I will probably be writing frequently in the next week or so to get things started, but will most likely go into a slower one-post-a-week routine as I get settled. While some posts will be silly and sometimes stupid, others might be scientific or even philosophical. You’ll never know what to expect, as entering the thought patterns of my mind is quite a dangerous idea.

Foy Lyndström