We build then we break.

Christmas is always an interesting time. Today I was heralded by a cousin I hadn't seen in years as to how different I looked and how much I had grown up. I know the statement was an intended compliment, but at 21 I shudder to think how immature I was when I was 16. But she is well, as are her children, so I couldn't really ask for more blessings in family than I already have. Christmas sweaters were worn, food was devoured, and completely inappropriate jokes were told at full volume.



Everyone has "that" uncle but I love the hell outta mine.



Before I head to bed I just wanted to share a few thoughts on here. If you haven't heard of the author Dan Brown you need to log off, get in your car, and visit your nearest library or bookstore. The author of the controversial "Da Vinci Code" and the novel-made-recent-movie "Angels and Demons" is incredibly visceral and possibly the most talented suspense novel writer still breathing. The latter novel, I'm grateful I read the book before I actually saw the movie. It allowed me a somewhat privaledged awareness of the storyline, which helped me keep up with the adapted film (which strays considerably from the book).

In the book the organization known as CERN, a European complex used for advanced particle research, is mentioned several times. Housed 100 meters below ground lies the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator with a 20-something kilometer circumfrance that relays hydrogen particles up to 97% the speed of light. Using this massive and I mean MASSIVE machine, the international scientists working there collide molecules together in hopes of discovering the origins of the universe by studying the energies released during the event.

What exactly does all of this mean? Hell if I know.

But the main thing that astounds me about these guys are what they do on a daily basis. For those who don't know, these guys are literally the people responsible for inventing the internet. I'm serious. They originally used massive networked databases to store and analyze all of the data retreived from the extensive arrays of instruments and sensors used to record the events. That data would then be distributed across the country, and then globally. Once they realized the potential of the application they dubbed it the World Wide Web. Soon afterwards, in an act that truly displayed the organization's spirit, they released a statement saying that no one owned the World Wide Web. They literally gave it away for everyone to use for free. Its this kind of spirit in an organization that is no short of inspiring. They probably could have become inimaginably wealthy if they had decided to patent the technology, but they didn't. Instead they took their invention and made it into a gift for mankind.

But here's the philisophical analogy that occured to me, and the topic is under personal growth. Often in such conversations I explain my beliefs that a person wishing to better themselves needs to look no else but within. We have everything we need to construct our characters as we see fit, regardless of our current circumstances. Now consider the Earth as the mind. In the same ways the CERN scientists were able to take raw materials such as steel and glass and turn them into an instrument for pushing the very frontiers of human knowledge, each person has the raw intellectual materials to look inside themselves and measure who they are and who they want to be. No meteor landed somehere on the planet with some strange new ore that allowed the scientists to do what they wanted to do. They took the knowledge written before them and applied it with modern techniques to perform miraculous experiments in hopes of one day understanding where we came from.

This is part of that urge to stop gathering information from the outside and to start gathering it from within. We've only got this one shot, this one body, and this one mind of ours to change this world for the better. I think our children deserve at least that much. Take a moment out of each day and use it to reflect on your emotions and what you want out of life. This way we become responsible for our actions and accountable to those in our lives.

Much love and blessings.