cc: file, Mom, Sara and Des, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Diane Cluff, Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, Forest and Amy Warner, Ivan and Chell Warner, and Eric and Renee Miner
"I missed writing a Thoughtlet last week because I was driving back from Utah with a U-Haul truck half full of stuff. On Tuesday June 17th I flew to Utah and spent the day laying groundwork to consult with a group called the Energy & Geoscience Institute (EGI) in Salt Lake City. Wednesday was spent working with the Covey Leadership Center in Provo (see http://www.walden3d.com/hrnmen/1997/9717.html) on the groundwork for their Intranet. That has the potential of having a big impact, if we ever close an agreement. Thursday was spent going to the Temple, visiting my Grandma Hafen, Mom, and Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Luana. Friday was spent sorting through stuff at Mom and Dad's house to help get the house ready to lease. I had been storing about 100 boxes of stuff in the basement, with the intention of turning it into a couple of books when we moved to Cedar City. Even after giving a couple of calls and getting wonderful help from cousins in Cedar Valley (three of Gary and Susan Howes kids, Lynn and Leon Nelson, kids and a friend, and Des), I was very tired and bruised up by the time the stuff was in the U-Haul truck. I did go to St. George to take Mom from the Rest Home to a movie (`Buddy,' which is good and I encourage all of you to go see it) and out to dinner on Saturday.
There was still a lot of room in the back of the truck and so Sunday morning I packed my old rock garden that was back by the septic tank, went to church in St. George with the Warners (Uncle Lloyd was in the hospital). After visiting Mom and Grandma, I drove to Arcosanti (an Urban Laboratory 60 miles north of Phoenix in the desert). Monday I picked up Melanie, who was in Phoenix visiting Marie Williams, and we drove to Tuscon, stopped and toured Biosphere 2, and drove straight through to Houston arriving at 5:45 on Tuesday afternoon. My new home teacher, Steve Feil, and three friends (Larry McBride, Del Vance, and Dan Jones) were there to help unpack the stuff in the truck and we finished at 9:30 PM. Larry Law and children helped your Mom move her stuff to her new house the same evening. Wednesday the piano movers moved the Grand Piano out of the house. I loaded about half of a storage shed into the truck after a dentist appointment (finished it Friday morning). This was mostly stuff from HyperMedia Corporation, with 5 boxes of old Ensigns, a lot of food storage and miscellaneous other stuff. The bottom line is the dining room and my bedroom are absolutely full of boxes. I expect much of it is stuff which can be tossed. As I looked at all of this stuff, I wondered what would happen if I had a heart attack or car accident. Then I remembered a quote from `Walden, or Life in the Woods' by Henry David Thoreau:
As you each know, it is not my intention to encumber you with much of a physical inheritance. The paintings commissioned of Ken Turner and the associated ELDO, `Prime Words,' are the only intended physical inheritance. To quote from Edition #1: `This printing is a work in progress, and is eventually intended to be published as an ELDO (ELectronic DOcument) that users can use to build and polish their own set of Prime Words ... a self-contained solar-powered hyperjournal (a personal extensible living document.)' To expand on this a little bit, I anticipate within 10 years it will be possible to have gigabytes of data on-line in an ELDO the size of a small book. I anticipate having all of our genealogy tied into Prime Words, along with scanned and hyperlinked photographs from family times together, video tapes, songs, etc. The idea is they will all be cross-referenced against the couplets in Prime Words. If you will this would be indexed stuff.
I have often thought of a couple of scriptures about stuff. The first is in John 16:15 where the Savior says: `All things that the Father hath are mine.' The second is in D&C 84:38 where we are taught: `And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father's kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.'
The first question I have pondered was `If Ron Burgerner or someone else who is orders of magnitude better than I get's all the Father has, what is left for me?' Over the years I have come to realize `All the Father has' is `knowledge and intelligence,' or `light and truth.' These are replicatable stuff. Once it is defined it can be copied and given to two people, ten people, or one hundred billion people. So the second question was `How can I teach this to my kids?' The answer I have come up with is to not provide a physical inheritance. Rather your inheritance are intangible things like Prime Words, the ideas in an integrated set of paintings, an opportunity for a good education, a solid introduction to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and Thoughtlets. I am sorry there are also emotional time-bombs, low self-esteem, divorced parents, and other negative stuff. I believe in each of you and I believe you each have what it takes to work through the negative stuff and to be happy, fullfilled, contented contributors to a better world.
One of the things I brought back with me from Utah was the Butcher Block from Nelson Meat Packing Plant. It was funny to see my friends try to move this out of the U-Haul Truck. Their comments reminded me of Thoreau's barn. I am still pushing some pretty heavy stuff down the road of life. I am working on tossing stuff which is of no use, refinishing stuff which can be useful or has good memories, and being happy. I wonder sometimes if I will every find happiness, then I realize I have it every day I get to interact with friends and to help make a positive difference. I hope you will each be able to learn from my mistakes, not replicate them, take the time to become my friends, and to be happy."