In his book, The Degradation of Man, C. S. Lewis makes the case that observing the world around us based on anything other than objectivity reduces individual’s capacity for realization. He is particularly distraught with how education has become an indoctrination of looking at our world through other people’s lenses or frameworks. C.S. Lewis is right. How can I say that? Because I take on the responsibility, obligation, and right, to be the final arbitrator of what I deem fact, truth, and moral.

Interest is way to increase a store of wealth over time. Typically banks pay compounding interest on your savings account, where you get a little bit of money paid to you for lending your money to the bank to store. If you plug a little money away, you could theoretically become rich just by allowing a bank to use your money.

If you take the time to run out compounding interest in a spreadsheet, you will find that a positive compounding interest rate eventually compounds at such a fantastic increase that it becomes mind boggling. One small period of compounding increases the sums so much it’s hard to believe. This is where inflation comes in. The rate of inflation in the US is such that the “real” exponential is always negative. The US cannot allow individual people to receive compounding interest because one individual could “break” the bank.

So it is good to save, you have to. But do not believe that compounding interest will make you rich because the scoundrels that run the financial system of the US are greedy and will steal your money with inflation.

I guess I have reached middle age. Many of the things I used to do have changed from how I used to do them. For instance I’m a little slower getting in and out of a car. The body just doesn’t fold as easy as it used to. But the changes that really bother me are the continued disintegration of the social fabric around us.

Now I spend a little more time looking around to make sure people are acting safe. If there is trouble, I still go help out. A stranded motorist, for example, I’ll stop and see if they need a hand. At the stop light, I look carefully when it turns green before proceeding across the intersection. Mostly that’s minor stuff.

At work I often have to struggle through contract negotiations. It’s a painful process because many people have been bitten by some odd thing and so they’ve put on their attorney hat and written a contract. Many of their stipulations I simply can’t sign because I cannot agree or guarantee what they’re asking. So we end up going back and forth trying to get to a place where I’m respecting their wishes and needs, and they are asking reasonable things that I can guarantee.

The overall point, though, is that these little things add up to tremendously wasted time. It takes a lot more energy to do simple things than it used to. I do not think our “leaders” think about this when they’re adding ridiculous constraints to business. We get laws, and rules, and policies, and procedures, and processes, all requiring just a little tiny bit more energy.

Eventually that crashes. The energy required to do something simply becomes too much. We find alternate paths and different ways to do things. So it may seem that a simple push to “green energy,” a typical gross distortion of truly green energy by crazed leftists, is a good thing, when the net impact could very well require more energy than before.

I wish for the simpler days, when yes meant yes, and no meant no. Integrity is a key factor to more efficient society.

Does God experience time? There’s a scripture in John that says “and without Him nothing was made that was made.” Like many of the gospels, significant portions of the meaning have been lost. Some through translation, some due to time.

One philosophical debate I’ve heard about God goes something like “God doesn’t age, He isn’t bound by time; therefore, He does not experience time.” The principle that we cannot judge motive or intent holds true when seeking God’s motive and intent. We don’t know what He experiences.

I do think that it’s logically incorrect to assert that God doesn’t experience time based on His age. Just because God is not decaying doesn’t mean that He doesn’t experience time. I think quite the opposite is true. I think God is keenly aware of His capabilities and allows humans to decay so that we gain the same level of awareness and respect for making value-based judgments.

Saying it differently, cause and effect may not be God’s creation. Not that God is bound by the universe or time, but to God, cause and effect must be a lesson we cannot forget. God may not have “created” cause and effect but it appears He uses cause and effect to His advantage.

This is a plinth suggesting that goals, objectives, achievement, and competition are Godly. It may be that God created time, cause and effect, or even experiences what we call time more acutely than we do. Is cause and effect, causation, so foundational to God’s children that we take it for granted?

We spend a significant amount of our day just floating along with life not considering our surroundings. I approach this with my coworkers: “Are we doing good work? More importantly, are we doing the right work?” Most people can answer the first question, we are making value decisions all the time. Very few, often nobody, can answer the second question.

I challenge us to use our senses to engage with our surroundings. Specifically, one major element of life that we all take for granted is time. Time passes whether we want it to or not. We cannot “take extra” time to enjoy the present. It passes. What do you think we are supposed to learn from this?

I suggest that time surrounds us to focus our attention on productivity. I do not mean that every moment must be spent in the pursuit of some initiative or expending effort to achieve some outcome. Rest is good. I do mean that refining our ability to add to the collective human experience in every moment is of penultimate importance.

Whether we are spending time appreciating the work and effort of someone else or expending our own energy and talent to produce an appreciable work, both expand the human experience. It makes the next moment, the next generation, the next century better because of our appreciation.

Time, then, may be one of the most important principles of the universe that we live in. It is a constant and a constant reminder that everything is transitory and what we appreciate and contribute sets the foundation for the next moment.

It’s like our mothers said, “use your time wisely.”