GeekDinner - July 2007

Last night I attended my very first GeekDinner. A GeekDinner is exactly what the name implies: a bunch of self-proclaimed geeks getting together to share good food, drink, company and fun, but also to meet new and interesting (of varying degrees of geekiness) people and to network.

Last night we all assembled at Krugmann's Grill in the V&A Waterfront. Tania, winterkindt, and I went together and drove from Stellenbosch. I was pleasantly surprised by the relaxed atmosphere and the friendliness and openness of the people there. Everywhere you could make out people telling geeky jokes and showing off gadgets like new cellphones: the type of things which mostly only geeks can appreciate. We chose a table at the back of the room, mistakenly thinking that it was actually the front, but we still had good company at our table. A few people who had confirmed did not show up, which was a shame. I urge people to not forget about this event: the people don't bite and are really all very friendly. :-)

The food was great and some of the presentations were really insightful. Attending a geek dinner is not only fun, but can also be useful and practical. But apart from that, there appears to be this amazing energy of goodwill and cooperation which not only makes a GeekDinner possible in the first place, but also sustains it through the night and long after when everyone has gone home.

Sin and the Nature of Man (Part 1)

Part I: Destiny

This is a first instalment of what I intend to be a three-part series on my opinions, views and beliefs regarding sin and man's interactions and perceptions of it. What I am writing is going to mostly be from personal experience and observation and will not have been thoroughly researched. All views expressed here are personal. You have been warned.

Because the concept of “sin” in intimately related to the concept of religion, I feel that I must, for the benefit of those who do not know or are uncertain about this, first briefly state what my religion is. I am a Christian, brought up in a Calvinist* denomination and environment, al be it with many secular influences. That is to say, I believe in the Holy Trinity of God (Ha Shem), the Holy Ghost (Ruach ha Kadosh) and Jesus Christ (Yeshua ha Mosiach). I have, however, removed myself from mainstream Christianity (as most people would know it), preferring rather the idea of Messianic Judaism.

For my introduction, I shall share with you my view on fate, destiny and free-will. This view is based on a particular definition of sin, namely the Greek word for it as used by Paul in the New Testament**. In the New Testament, Paul uses the word harmatia to mean “sin”. Literally, it means “missing the target”, as in the sense of archery or shooting. This piece of trivia in itself is not so interesting as in its interpretation. For me, at least, it describes a dualism whereby the world takes its course. The definition implies that there is some target (something you are destined to achieve) and that every action and decision you make is a shot at the target. A shot either hits or misses. A shot hits or misses not by chance, but through deliberation. Every miss removes you further from achieving your target (destiny). A single hit does not fore fill your destiny: a series of correct choices are needed for that. You may have multiple destinies in your life. Indeed, a destiny need not necessarily be some grand apex in your life, but it can be ordinary, mundane and everyday. To me, a destiny is what Ha Shem has planned for your life, big or small. If everyone lives by what is Intended for them, the world would be an exceedingly happy happy place.

But, just as the atheists and agnostics start to object to the notion of being “ruled over” and deprived of a self-will, we come the the flip-side of the dualism. When romantic Westerners speak of destiny, they believe it is some divine plan that will come to pass, bar all opposition. Hence we have notions such as “soul mates” and the like. While I believe that a destiny is necessarily a divine plan, I by no means believe that it will necessarily come to pass. This is exactly because humans have been imbued with free-will. The story of Adam and Eve applies to every single human being on every single day.

Adam and Eve were placed in the paradise of Eden. They lived happy lives, provided that they keep one simple rule. This was the Will of Ha Shem for them. It was their destiny. But by their actions they chose to forsake their destiny, and were subsequently punished. What makes us human is the ability of free choice. Without that, we are merely puppets. If we had no free will, then Ha Shem could simply have set up a pantomime whereby everyone lived happily every after. Why this is not so, I do not know. And what this train of thought implies for Heaven, I also do not know. All I know is that I sit here now, safe and sheltered, but outside the world is a sick and twisted place, despite scarce miracles and positive actions of profound faith. Humans are much more in control of their lives than most would care (or dare) to admit. Everything boils down to choice. Sin. Repentance. Penance. Faith.

So how do we know what is right and wrong so that we may make the choices that will lead us to our destiny? I do not know. If I find out, I promise I shall tell you. But, if it was possible to always clearly distinguish between right and wrong, would our lives not transform into that pantomime I was speaking about? Perhaps the answers to our moral dilemmas must rather come from within ourselves. Perhaps that is the ultimate goal of our lives: for us to reach a level of self-awareness which is so fine tuned that we can foresee the consequences of our actions within a Bigger Plan. I believe that, for Ha Shem, every situation has a right and a wrong outcome, no matter how morally grey the situation may seem to us.

If you look at things this way, you come to the realisation that either our nature adapts to our actions, or our actions adapt to our nature. Put another way, we are controlled by our habits, but also have the capacity to change our habits. It all depends on which choices you exercise. We also find that choosing not to make a choice is in itself a choice. Usually it is not a constructive one.

Before the coming of the Messiah, sin was largely defined by actions relative to a fixed set of rules. For the most part, one could look to the Law of Moses for guidance. This law is, however, insufficient to bring a person to his or her destiny. This is because it is possible to adhere to a set of rules without having love and compassion for others. Also, repentance of the transgression of these laws were difficult. Yeshua ha Mosiach came to teach us that we must listen more closely to find our destiny. That is why we need the Ruach ha Kadosh in our lives. The laws do not fall away, but they are no longer the major (only) indicator of how one should spend your life.

So what is sin? Sin is our actions and inactions which keep us from reaching Ha Shem's Will for our lives. This is not merely macroscopic, but rather boils down to the simplest of things in life: your relationship with your family and friends, your personal well-being, both physical and mental. Your happiness and prosperity. Our destiny (or, rather, destinies), is not some finish line we hope to someday cross (or, if we fail through sin, a race we drop out of). Rather, our destiny is fore filled or not on the day which we die. When we die, we are no longer able to make choices. A person's life will be judge on the choices that person made. Because a person may at any time choose to become attuned to Ha Shem's Message, I am led to believe that his Plan for us is not a static, but changes so that none of our failings are too great to ruin is Plan.

Many times people ask questions about specific moral issues which provides its own answer. These people would like to believe one side of the argument, but the fact that they ask the question means that they doubt themselves when they behave as they would like to believe is correct. If you have to justify something too much, especially towards yourself, you need to consider whether your motifs are pure or not. This point needs a post (or maybe even a book) of its own, but I hope that what I said will help someone somewhere. Learn to listen to Ha Shem. He speaks not in the thunder or the rain, not the hurricane or tornado nor the earthquake, but in the gentle breeze which hardly moves the leafs on the trees.

We can never rid ourselves 100% of sin, but we can choose to walk a path whereby sin will not mean our downfall and whereby we are not ruled by it. The next part in this series will look at the role of sin in the lives of certain prominent Biblical figures.

* Calvinism in South Africa is “purer” than European Calvinism. By “purer”, I mean that the fundamental teachings, beliefs and practises of Calvinism in South Africa resemble more closely those of Calvinism in its original form. This is because we were mostly shielded from the so called Enlightenment of the 19th century.
** There is actually another word which Paul uses: paraptoma, which means “transgression”.

Mr. Handy

When I just tried to turn on my laptop, I got nothing. Well, it started up, but did not boot up. Something like that gives a person a terribly ominous feeling. Stuff break from time to time, and if it is electronic, it opens up a black-hole which sucks in your time and money. (The black-hole analogy is not a very good one, because whatever opens up also expels a lot of stress and distress.) I then proceeded to do the normal preliminary (and superficial) fixes: I reseated the RAM (this is a powerful fix), I took out the hard drive and put it back in again and finally I cleared some dust from the fan. Still nothing. I then proceeded to the next stage (usually the stages are reversed, but in expensive things like laptops, you want to save this one for number two): I hit the laptop on a few strategic places. Still nothing: it turns on, but the screen remains blank and the keyboard is unresponsive. Defeated, I turned the laptop on its side and let if fall between my hands for a few times for no particular reason. I shall call this stage three, because even though it is still quite clearly stage two, the manner it which I proceeded was much gentler. When I turned the laptop on after that, it worked.

I have fixed many things by just hitting it in the right place. People don't always believe me, but it works. I acknowledge that it is not the best way to generally solve problems, but if I had done all the trouble to take the laptop back to the shop (assuming it is still under warranty), Murphy's Law dictates that the laptop would have behaved when they turned it on, but go blank again after I grudgingly (al be it falsely relieved) returned home. It is all about applying the correct tools and techniques to a particular problem.

On a related note, when I then next turned on my desktop computer, I got a message telling me that booting into Windows failed and that I must reinstall the corrupted file (which probably would have boiled down to reinstalling the entire operating system). Had I listened like a good little dog, I would have lost a lot of time and would probably have become more negative and agitated for the duration of the day. A simple reboot fixed the problem. It seems that the gremlins are afoot again today.

Please note: the information supplied in this post is purely informational and meant for entertainment. No opinion expressed here should be substituted for the opinion of diagnosis of a professional technician, unless you have sound reason to believe that the technician in question is a thieving opportunist and jerk and/or an idiot.

Gone. Forgotten?

Today my parents and I went to visit my grandmother in the nursing home at Langebaan. When we received a call on Thursday tellings us that she has lung infection, we decided to go visit. My grandmother suffers from dementia/Alzheimer's Disease and has deteriorated (mentally and, as we saw today, physically) dramatically since the beginning of the year. I had not seen her in more than six months and, to my shame, tried to avoid seeing her. But I felt it was time and today we prepared ourselves and journeyed along the West Coast to her new home.

At the beginning of the year, it was still possible to have an intelligible conversation with my grandmother, even though she had been showing mental deterioration for quite some time. Within the first half of this year, she crashed (for a lack of a better word) completely. I could see her in her bed as we walked down the hall, and at first I didn't want to believe what I saw. She was thin, frail and looking bewildered. I don't know if they had recently given her her medication or what, but it was especially difficult to communicate with her. The nurse said that today was one of her worse days. Her speech was inaudible and incomplete. She looked confused and indecisive. We later took her out in a wheelchair and my mother gave her some tea. After that we could understand more words (“thank you” and “please” - she said “please” a few times, but could not communicate to us what she wanted or needed). We stayed for a couple of hours, then came home.

I didn't expect her to recognise me. She doesn't even recognise her own children anymore. But there was hope. She looked at me a few times – perhaps she did remember me. Or, after my mother told her my name, my name rang a bell with her (I am my grandfather's namesake). She kept fidgeting: the nursing staff said she is always fidgeting with her hands. At one time it looked like she was trying to get the “flowers” (the patterns) out from her duvet. She also once tried to give me either her duvet or something “in” it (before she went to the nursing home, she gave away many of her possessions without thinking twice about it – she would have given away everything if we didn't stop her). Some people might say that her eyes were vacant. They were different, but I don't think they were vacant. They were searching – looking for a way to express her basic needs and requirements. And her emotions. They were searching desperately; but in vain. All I could do was smile at her to at least be a friendly face to her.

People say she is like a child. I hate that simile, especially when the one nurse treated her like a child to try and get her to wave us off. Yes, she did wave by herself with the encouragement, but I found the tone of the nurses' voice demeaning. She is not a child; alas, her situation is vastly more complex than that of a child. A child grows every day and becomes stronger and smarter. Every new word learned is an opportunity for expressing him or herself. A child literally absorbs knowledge like a sponge. With my grandmother, the opposite happens: every day sees memories and skills forgotten. Every word that slips from her mind closes off a near infinite number of ways of communication. I fear the skills and expertise are not available to her to combat the regression. I do not believe, however, that the picture that is her mind is gone. In stead, it lies jumbled in a thousand pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. The picture is still there amongst all the pieces, but making sense of it is so, so hard.

Today was a double whammy for me. Not only did I have to see my grandmother in her diminished state for the first time, but I also had to see my mother see her. My mother has lost her mother, even though she is still there. I can't imagine it – I can't. My mother's tears are rare and priced more than saffron. She has carried more weight in her lifetime than was necessary. And still she carries on. She keeps fighting and moving on, no matter how difficult or trying times are. Even when the world crushes her, she can still take on the needs of a loved one. I admire her greatly for that. Atlas doesn't have a thing on her. Not only does she have to deal with the world and the family's woes, but her mind also taunts her that she might very well one day end up like my grandmother.

My grandmother was a good person and deserves the best. She deserves care, respect and rest. She led a good life and I am proud of her. I am glad that I went today. I don't know if I shall ever see her again.