The Ponder Nook

The Super Bowl has become an unofficial holiday in the United States, and beyond. People gather together at the homes of friends and family or bars and pubs to partake in a raiment of chips, dips, burgers and excessive amounts of alcohol or soda pop while cheering on their favorite football team as they compete for the title of champion for that year. As for myself, I’ve never been entirely interested in watching sports. I root for my Utah Jazz basketball team whenever they make it into the playoffs, but I still don’t like to watch the games mainly because they give me crazy amounts of anxiety, which I can’t entirely explain, but have always felt that it derives from the double finals defeat of the Jazz when I was a kid in the 90’s .                At this point, you must be thinking, what does any of this have to do with Lord of the Rings? Well, bare with me, I’m getting there.      Though I don’t care much for watching the ...

“Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss.” - Paradise Lost, 1667.          In the epic poem, Paradise Lost, John Milton reexamines the Genesis story of Adam and Eve along with an in-depth interpretation into Satan and his motive as the biblical events play out. What I find interesting is that, having grown up a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we are taught that the fall of Adam was God's plan all along, and that it was necessary for humans to fall in order to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth"; but in this version, as well as most mainstream Christian belief, the Fall of Man is considered a great tragedy that could have been avoided if our primordial ancestors would have only listened to God's commandment not to partake of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. In the latter interpretation, I find it strange that God seems to be so ...

  What does it mean to be human? On the surface it doesn't seem like a very complex question. Clearly there are major differences between us and the rest of the animal kingdom. We have opposable thumbs coupled with fine motor skills that help us manipulate our environments, elaborate languages and ways of communicating measurement such as math and science, the ability to understand the past, present, and future, aesthetic appreciation of art, and technological capabilities all make the differences a stark contrast. In my mind, however, everything I brought up are mere branches of a trunk that serves as the core of everything else. The core that I speak of is consciousness.  All living things have consciousness to some degree. Even early micro-organisms had a basic environmental consciousness that told them to swim to the surface of the ocean for sunlight in order to photosynthesize, and to dive down deeper when it became too hot. Human consciousness, on the other hand, is far ...

     Have you every had an idea that you can't seem to get out of your head? Like an antique nightstand you discovered at a swap meet that you can't seem to find a spot that fits in your house, but is just too cool to consider getting rid of it. Well, in the spirit of the metaphor, I sometimes feel as if I have an entire collection of subjectively stylish furniture rummaging around in a tiny studio apartment that is ready to burst at the seams. For me, creating this blog is like having an entire warehouse to organize and showcase all the stuff that has been piling up in my head. Not only is this a way to clear out the clutter in my brain, it is an opportunity to present some of my more unorthodox viewpoints and hypotheses to friends, family, and the curious in general.      As per the title, The Ponder Nook is my little corner of the cyber-verse where I aim to write my thoughts and opinions on a plethora of topics and share them to all those who care to rea...