cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts via mail.
"Coming up with a title for this week's Thoughtlet has taken longer than it will take to write it. It is 8:15 AM and I have been thinking about what to title these comments since Friday evening. I started out with Trust, and seemed to recall using that title before (../9916.html). Then I thought Repentance, and realized this wasn't a good summary of the week. Then I thought Exxon-Mobil, and as I cite my mind forward (Alma 13:1) and remember the future, it seems like this title will be taken sometime out there. Then I thought about the word Insight, and when I looked this morning realized I have a Thoughtlet titled Insights (../9650.html). So, out of desparation, since it is hard enough for me to sit down and find words to talk about my week, I have decided to call this week's Thoughtlet `Insights Continued.'
I guess this is appropriate, since hopefully our whole lives are built on insights continued, or continuing to implant themselves in, or is it on, the disparity pattern known as our mind. Entropy, the law of physics which states everything in the physical universe is moving to a state of more disorder, teaches us that that life is transient. As near as I can recall (the book is at the office: Why? Science Unveiling the Mind; which I quoted in 0015.html), R. Colin Johnson's word for the opposite of entropy is levity, or the innate and natural capability and function of life to create organization out of chaos. If we stop gaining insights, we stop growing. We turn inward and become a sink rather than a source, taking rather than giving, and assisting entropy rather than creating levity. Whereas if we are or are becoming confident inside ourselves, which confidence, I believe, starts with a personal relationship with our creater and with our savior and with their agent The Holy Ghost, then we are a source, actively changing our piece of the universe, and gaining insights along the way in order to help us to continue to create organization out of chaos.
Matt and others, I'm sorry my words are so hard to read sometimes. It is important for each of you to remember I'm also writing it for you to reread when you are my age and when you will hopefully have an interest in going back to these (and other words, like the scriptures) so the insights are continued to be built up in your mind. We hopefully never stop learning.
Last weekend was very hard for me. I apologize to those of you whom I offended by what I wrote. My intention was not to offend, simply to state my feelings and the truth, as well as I can see it through a glass darkly (I Corinthinians 13:12). I recognize when one feels it appropriate to apologize, it is probably an acknowledgement there was entropy rather than levity in the situation being apologized for. Recognize we sometimes start our bridges on an unsure foundation, and then it truely is necessary, as soon as we recognize the issue, to tear down the existing misbuilt structure and move it to where there is a more sure foundation. Please recognize I am not apologizing for speaking the truth. One of the things I have strived with all my heart to do in these thoughtlets is to speak the truth, because I believe, even if it is hard and missperceived in the present, objective adults and children in the future will recognize it (truth). I do apologize for my words not being clear, and specifically for when they lead to unintended implications in any your minds. I do hope that when there is concern or anger or some other entropy enhancing emotion about something I write that you will immediately call or write me and seek clarification or provide me your continued insights, so I also grow.
Monday it was hard for me to get my arms around my work. There were several phone calls of a personal nature during the day, and all in all I felt like insights discontinued pouring into my head. I had signed up for the missionaries to come to dinner in Gospel Doctrine when the list came around. Andrea enjoys feeding them, and both last month and this month she has felt a little bit overwhelmed and really would rather I would not have volunteered her. Anyway, I picked them up on the way home from work. Sara had come over for dinner and to talk. After dinner Elder Wickman shared a thought, truly unique in it's presentation, he sang solo Hymn 129:
And then he challenged our family to listen to the discussions as a family. We ended up having the first discussion and being challenged to read (or reread) from the Book of Mormon the Introduction, the testimony of the witnesses, the testimony of Joseph Smith, a brief explaination about The Book of Mormon, and Moroni 10:3-5. It was an inspired discussion, and I left it feeling like I might be able to function again. Insights continued.
Tuesday it did continue to be hard to focus at work. Sara called and got directions on how to get Rob to the Lifeway meeting. I went early so I knew where it was, and called Sara and corrected the directions. Andrea went to Relief Society, as I felt it was best for me to go alone. There are some similarities between Twelve Step programs and PAIRS. The adult group topic was fear. They define FEAR as False Events Appearing Real. They pointed out that everytime fear goes up, faith goes down. We wrote down three things we are afraid of now, and three things we were afraid of as a child. I wrote:
False Events Appearing Real. Insights continued.
Wednesday was another day at work. The Venturing Crew played tennis for our activity. When I got home I called Ben and Sarah to thank them for the nice note they sent relative to last week's Thoughtlet. Sarah was having what turned out to be false labor pains. It is hard when natural laws come into play and the Christmas present can not be opened early. Insights are continued, even when we may not want to hear them. We had a wonderful talk, and I am very excited about Ethan Evans. Hope for the future is not endemic. I had a sense of what my Grandpa Hafen might have felt as my birth approached. I know how much he loved me, how much he taught me, and how much he sheltered me from some of the stuff I have found out later. And this is a thoughtlet or three all by itself. Hope springs eternal, and there is great hope with and for every new child. And as I think of my hope for Ethan Evans, I feel great anguish for the millions of innocent aborted children who were not given a chance to experience free agency. It seems so backwards to me, that those who favor abortion, also favor forgiving consequences for those who have misused their free agency, specifically by fighting against the death penelty. Maybe they are thinking it would be nice if we knew in advance who is going to misuse their free agency, and then these these are the children society can kill before they breathe. Levity (and God) does not work this way.
Thursday morning we had a meeting with BP-Amoco's Deepwater Team. Four of the leaders of the team had visited earlier in the week. The one in charge made a comment about how neat the 1999 GSH Tour of Immersive Environments was (../9916.html). I had just been told by an executive of BP-Amoco that they would not open their HIVE (Houston Interactive Visualization Environment) up for the GCAGS (Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies) meeting and tour I am currently organizing for the 24th and 25th of October. Needless to say, I was disappointed, and maybe because my emotions are closer to the surface these days, I reacted too strongly. Peter Duncan did a nice job of putting everything back in place, both times they visited. I told Peter I saw a 2% chance of a sale of anything coming out of their visit. However, I am receptive to continued insights. Time can create funny relationships. It will be really interesting to see if CoReExplorer(TM) comes together like it is designed, and if it becomes the staple we expect it to for companies like BP-Amoco. It is a very frustrating time at work, since the programmers do not have the software to where we can choreograph the demonstrations for the SEG yet, and since we keep getting turned down by our clients on showing data they once told us we could demonstrate. Refusal to let us show the models does show me there is tremendous value in what we are building. For instance, Devon Energy, who recently purchased Pennzoil, just got approval from the Security and Exchange Agency to purchase Santa Fe Sneider. The President of Santa Fe Sneider had his guys call us up and make an appointment to have the first meeting of the two executive boards in the Continuum Theater looking at a model we built for them. After all, he told his guys `This is the most impressive thing we have done in the last several years.' We had a CES meeting at Guadalajara's after work. Roger is in Galveston for the next month or so. Vpatch has formed it's first subsidiary, Vpatch Communications. CES has a nice contract, although it is not enough to put me on salary if Continuum goes away. Time will tell what happens. Sort of like the extended conversation Rob and I had Thursday evening, and the fact he has been back staying here since then. We just need to trust the process, trust God, and hope for the best.
Friday was one of those watershed days. I had spent several hours on Wednesday and Thursday evening preparing for a meeting which finally happened on Friday. Sometimes it seems as if insights discontinued coming to me, and yet, this meeting was the basis of my name for this Thoughtlet. The meeting was with Tom Frantis, Manager of Exxon-Mobil Upstream Research's visualization efforts. My notes for the meeting are at http://www.walden3d.com/ideas/kyoto.html if any of you are interested. This was a meeting about thinking long-term. We had been attempting to get together ever since we met when I spoke at HARC (../9944.html). He had canceled on the day of the meeting twice during June. The spirit and my heart told me this was going to be an important meeting, and it will be interesting to look back in a few years and to see how important it actually turns out to be. I do not think Tom was expecting me to lead him to Kyoto and ISO-14,000. I anticipate he expected me to attempt to sell him CoReExplorer(TM). I didn't, and he actually asked me if Exxon-Mobil Upstream Research could become a beta test site for the software. Rob, Tom was very impressed with your painting, which I anticipated. I gave him a copy of Prime Words. He opened up to me about one of his significant emotional experiences. I won't get the words exact, yet I will write a reasonable summary of his words:
The hour and thirty minutes we spent talking was high bandwidth and fun. I feel he was suprised how insights continued to come out for both of us. I had left on my whiteboard the `Laws of Form' based logical model I have built of Data Management, Regional Studies, Play Fairway Studies, Prospect Generation, and Economics based on the HyperMedia Knowledge Backbone. He was unacquainted with Spencer-Browns work (0018.html), and was extremely quick to pick up on the idea of things being defined based on their envelope. When I mentioned in passing the importance of trust, he immediately put trust inside the envelope, and asked `What happens when someone loses trust, steps outside the envelope? It seems to me that travel to the outside of the envelope is different than travel to the inside of the envelope.' In otherwords, Tom taught me that it is very easy to make a mistake and have someone lose trust in us, and once this trust is lost, it is very, very hard to regain it. Insights continued. Maybe I should have named this thoughtlet `Repentance.' Repentance is very hard, and as I have contemplated our discussion since Friday, I have realized what an important part of the process of getting back inside the envelope of trust that repentance is. Isn't it interesting how when it seems like there is no hope, when you most feel like you are a failure, or when there is extra stress, that a little unexpected light comes into your life, and you recognize God's guiding hand. Friday night Andrea and I rented a video and watched Robin Williams in `Jacob, the Liar.' Good stuff. Makes you think, and gives hope.
Saturday morning we had our first executive meeting of Heritage Galleries On-Line, LLC. Andrea is the President and owns 80% of the shares. Ken Turner is the artist and owns 20% of the shares. Ken asked how much traffic we have had at the site, and I went in and checked and found out we have had 79,000 hits. Insights continued. In case any of you are interested, the specifics of how much activity there has been are at http://www.walden3d.com/hgol/access_logs. The whole area of HGOL is another thoughtlet, so I won't pursue this now. I spent several hours in at work. In the afternoon Andrea, Audrey, Matt, Rob, and I went to see `The X-Men.' Great special effects. Good story. Violence. Language and innuendo were much better than many of the movies we have been to. I'm sure we will see a lot more of The X-Men (and women). Andrea and I chaporoned a Stake Dance in the evening, and I wrote this this morning. It is now 11:36, and once Andrea proof's the text, you will have another Thoughtlet. I do hope these provide insights continued."