What if, as a professed writer, I’m to simply write, and the profundity will take care of itself? Kind of like when we serve God without a clear sense of direction. One of the best pieces of advice I heard was by Pastor Erwin McManus: “Love God and do what you want.” Meaning that if you’re loving God, your desires will line up with His, so that what you want to do will be benefiting God’s kingdom. All this is by God’s prerogative, of course. So does the same apply to writing? If what I’m writing is not being written out of some sinful desire, then does it line up with God? If I am focusing my life on loving and serving and submitting to Christ, does he give me the words to say every single time? I would like to say yes, but I know that I, as a human, am imperfect and prone to deceiving myself. Especially when I am writing.

Profundity. The state of being profound. Maybe one day I will understand that supernatural quality which graces so many writers and captivates innumerable readers. Or maybe I won’t. I suppose we shall see.

~Voran

So…sentence fragments, eh? What am I to do with sentence fragments? Here in the Frozen Waste we call Minnesota, sentence fragments may be the only saving grace in the world. “HELP!”, “FREEZING!”, “FOOD!”, “SHELTER!”, “LOVE!” You get my point, yes? I mean seriously. There is no way on earth anyone in my situation would be shouting, “PLEASE HELP ME! IT IS SO VERY, VERY COLD OUTSIDE AND I COULD REALLY, REALLY USE SOME FOOD AND SHELTER! SOMEONE PLEASE LOVE ME!” I mean, that sounds totally desperate right? Especially the last sentence. Am I sounding cynical? Wow, I have ADHD. Maybe that’s why I do so well on long exams. Wait that doesn’t make any sense. Or maybe it does? I don’t know. Heh, I’m not speaking in sentence fragments. Short and quick seems to do the trick. Oh snap I’m rhyming now! Does anyone know a good therapist? AAAAAAAAAAAGH!

…

Okay, I’m better now. And it happened fast, let me tell you. I calmed down in the space of time it took me to hit enter,  type “—”, hit backspace three times, then type “…”. So like, all of three seconds? I’d love to tell you I actually got up and walked away and came back an hour later, but six people can attest to the contrary, so forget it. Gosh, now I’m rambling. I hope I haven’t caught oralemesis (Otherwise known as verbal diarrhea. Heh. Dye-a-rhea. Paint a big bird…moving on…) cuz that would bot be cool.

Well, if you’re still reading this, I am not having a nervous breakdown. I’m just very, very, very, very, very (did you know you can type “very” in more or less a repetitive circle?) tired. And I have a headache. And I’m hungry. Tengo hambre, mis amigos (or amigas, as the case may be). But there’s no food to eat until dinner, so you’re stuck with hungry, achy, tired me. But oh look, my computer battery is dying. Lucky you. Bye!

~Voran

Live with Heart, Run with Passion, and Choose the Better Way.

~Voran

Today we were decorating our Christmas tree, and we got all our ornaments and stockings out, but there was one vital ingredient missing. We could not find our Christmas tree lights. Well, the epic search began in which the whole basement store room was searched, emptied, turned upside down, shaken, power-washed, and repacked. It was during that process that “The Bin” was revealed. Disguised as an unassuming storage bin of the medium-blue persuasion, it was really a golden treasure chest, packed with close to 100 CDs dating from the early 90s to the near-present.

As our search continued, I began to rifle through the Bin and was immediately swept away down Memory Lane. I found myself as a young child, first discovering the music world and could hear again all the songs of the bands I grew up with. I found myself dancing with the O.C. Supertones, singing (brokenly) along with DC Talk, and drawing pictures to the melodies of the Newsboys. I found myself again pondering the satire of Five Iron Frenzy, being mildly alarmed at the heavy sounds of P.O.D., enjoying the aged songs of Petra, perhaps the first Christian rock group ever. The Insyderz, Bleach, Sonic Flood, Project 86, MXPX, Audio Adrenaline. These are the bands of my childhood. Not all are gone, but some have passed, and they are sorely missed.

My life has not been defined by the music I have listened to, but it has certainly helped mold my tastes and preferences for many things. As a writer, music helps me shape the mood and pacing of my scenes. I am very grateful for music. How can man say we are products of random chance and then go listen to a symphony weave melodies and harmonies? It is beyond my comprehending. Praise God for music. Praise God for songs. Praise God for instruments. Praise God for the ingenuity he has given to build and play instruments and write and perform songs. How awesome is our God!

~Voran

As a fairly new practitioner of Parkour, I am still developing how I view Parkour in my life. For many, Parkour is no more than a regular or even occasional activity. But for others, including some of the first and the best Traceurs, it is a lifestyle, a philosophy that drives them; that extends to encompass every area of their lives.

Parkour as an activity is not so complicated. By itself, it can be broken down into some core techniques that can be learned, performed, and moved on from within a relatively short space of tiem.

I view Parkour as more than an activity, though. Parkour, for me, is a philosophy in development. If you ask me what Parkour is, I could easily give you a run-of-the-mill answer, a generalization based on what is generally accepted within the community. But if you ask be what Parkour means to me, I would have a hard time pinning it down for you.

Given that today, (or yesterday rather) marks the first day of my first serious training regimen, not just for physical fitness, but in behavior, thoughts, and spiritual growth, I think the time has come to fully explore what Parkour means to me. You are more than welcome to come along for the ride if you want. I won’t say any more now, because it is now ten minutes after today and my bedtime was yesterday. But stay tuned, and maybe both of us will discover something new about ourselves along the way.

(And yes, I do actually hand write most of my posts before actually blogging them, so don’t think you are being lied to.)

As an update, I am going to release something of an outline of of what I am going to be discussing later today, and after I write the posts I will link them to this page for the reader’s convenience.

Cheerio!

~Voran

EDIT: Well, one difficult matrices take home exam and a trip to urgent care later, I am already behind my posting schedule. I’ve decided to post the outline for the my discussion. Hopefully tomorrow I will have the first section up.

• Parkour and Myself

• Fitness
• Discipline
• Overcoming Obstacles, Overcoming Fear
• Creativity
• Learning, Observation, and Discovery
• Fun!
• Activity

• Parkour and Community

• Service
• Preparedness
• Examplar
• Productivity
• Inspire
• Humility

• Parkour and God

That is the outline for what I am going to cover…so far. Hey, life philosophies need to encompass all areas of life.

I hope I’m not already boring you out of your minds.

~Voran (11/25/2009)

Water, Dihydrogen Monoxide, is the number one resource required for human life. Sixty per cent of the human body is composed of water.  This makes it very important that we drink enough water to replace what we lose during the day. This amount varies greatly depending on your age, gender, overall health, level of physical activity, geographic location, and numerous other potential factors. The Institute of Medicine sets the recommended water intake for males to be around 125 ounces (3.7 liters) daily. That’s pretty darn close to a full gallon. Daily. From my own experience, it is very easy to not take in enough water while simply being unaware of it. I went through a period of time where for about three weeks I hardly drank anything. A bowl of cereal, the occasional bottle of water for lunch at school, and whatever I felt like having for dinner, and that was it. Probably less than 40 ounces overall. Less than one third the recommended level for my demographic. My body quickly began to show the negative effects. Lack of energy, headaches, stiffness, and unreasonable soreness were all my symptoms. I was getting to the point of severe dehydration. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I had hardly drunk any water for a lengthy period of time. I postulated that to my apparent inability to function, and took steps to hydrate myself. The result was almost immediate. The very next day, my stiffness and soreness all but disappeared and headaches were minimized. I started bringing water to school. Not a little water, mind you: lots of water. Thirty-four ounces initially. But after some research, I realized just how much water was proper to drink every day. My guesstimate had been about half of that. After having tried to drink about a gallon of water daily for the past couple weeks, I have to tell you, it is hard. You have to have the presence of mind to get another bottle, refill that glass, pace yourself so you won’t feel nature’s urgent call during the middle of a big exam. It’s revolutionized the way I’ve been thinking about my life, really. I need to make accommodations where I hadn’t had to before, had to eat less salty foods, drink less soda, which only serves to dehydrate you. What does this have to do with anything? Well, like it or not, humans can’t live without water. I just want to give a shout out to Jesus Christ, who created the water that sustains us. I also want to share my story so that perhaps others won’t take for granted just how precious water is, especially clean, purified water like modern countries have access to. So, thank you, Lord Jesus, for your gift of water, and also for your gift of Living Water, that we may never thirst again.

Links:

Living Water: John 4:7-26

Institute of Medicine

They are called Boyz With No Elbows because, as I quickly discovered, the lack of elbows makes it very hard to pose these little Traceurs. Another source of frustration was the tiling on the platform. I am apparently missing a good number of my light bluish grey tiles, so I had to juggle the pieces around a lot until I found a configuration that worked. And fortunately, I was able to hold the tree in place too. Well, there isn’t really much more to say. If you’re not familiar with Parkour and want to know more about it, check out the article on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour

Enjoy! Play well and run free!

~Voran

The answer to my problem came to me one restless night. I thought about all the things I loved about LEGO: little details, colorful and meaningful minifigs, and meaningful stories frozen in time as a single scene. I decided to combine the three in a way that would not be time consuming, yet would be stretching at the same time. I, who chafe and writhe under deadlines, who doesn’t like to limit his creative abilities in any way, was going to set forth a deadline and set forth constraints on my building. The result has been my Vignette a Week project. Like all smart dreamers, I decided to start small. Like all dumb dreamers, I acted based on misconceptions about the ease of building a single vignette every week. Boy, was I to learn.

Three leaders gather for war...

The first vignette came easily enough. Three minifigs standing around a map is not hard to produce or pose. And constructing the minifigs themselves was quite enjoyable. I gave the orcs an Eastern flavor with their ninja cowls and samurai swords, and tried to avoid  the too-frequent use of “Crownie” minifigs. (I can’t lie though, those guys look pretty darn cool in their dark blue and silver!) My project had (and has) not gotten a whole lot of reception at this point, but the encouragement I have received so far has been just that: encouraging. Unfortunately, parts of the encouragement spurred me on to doing something very, very foolish.

I decided to make my project a story.

Ninja Orcs find a weak spot in the defenses

Being a writer at heart, putting stories into things comes naturally. My little doodles in philosophy class may not have names, but there is a story behind every stick figure there. But that’s another story. The vanity of having actually succeeded at my first vignette caught me off guard. I put off the construction, thinking I could slide something in under the wire. I was wrong. Strapped for time, I hurriedly conceived an idea and threw it together. For the minifigs, I fell back to using the ninja orcs I had introduced in the first vignette. Can you really blame me? Ninja + Orcs = Total win! But that meant I would have to answer some questions: “Is this going to be a story?” “Who are these ninja orcs?” “What is the connection to the first vignette?” (“Redcoats!!!! What are they doing in a castle moc???”). You get the picture. So, I slapped together something resembling a backstory and posted it online. The continuation of my vignette was well received, so I was forced to make the dreaded choice: either I would continue the story, or I would let my viewers down. I decided to stretch myself even further.

So that is where I found myself, constructing the third vignette, already two days behind schedule. And with exams creeping up, a convention over the weekend, and even more exams and papers due next week, it didn’t look like I would come up with anything. I pressed on though, and actually decided to write down a rough and whole backstory. That didn’t solve the problem of what the next vignette would be about though. And I didn’t want to rely to heavily on the backstory to fill in the gaps. I believe that each vignette should be a self-contained story, without requiring any explanation to convey what is going on.

The Breach has been made...what next?

Since my time was short, I didn’t spend to clean up the image, but I am rather proud of what I produced.  went slightly overboard on the figs, but war is chaotic, no? This is what ended up turning out, one way or the other. The knight in shining armor you may have noticed present in the first vignette. The infiltration team has let in a tactical assault squad. What is their goal? What is their mission? That, my friends, will have to wait for next week! In the meantime, you can view the full-size photos on my flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/voran/

God’s blessings be upon you!

~Voran

P.S. Please note I have no control over the suggested related pages at the bottom. I do not condone their linking and am looking in to getting them removed (if that is possible). Thank you for understanding.

God bless.

~Voran