I feel unimaginably happy now that the weight of my Physics class as been taken off me. I’m so happy that I can’t repeat "I’m so happy" enough to the people I talk with. Working 40 hours a week is ten times easier than taking Physics. Working is like a vacation compared to taking Physics. When I leave work everything is done and I can relax. When I’m taking classes, I can never study enough. It’s probaby that way because I’m disorganized in my studies, but I have a hard time changing that. Now I can think, do, exist without worrying about exams or online homework. This is paradise.

Everybody told me taking Physics and working full-time was a bad idea, but I had no other choice, since I needed the experience of working full-time and I needed to take Physics. If I was going to fulfill both goals, I could only do it now. It’s behind me. I’m taking classes all spring and summer next year, but I’ll only work part-time. Life is complete bliss now. (italics because of the excessive triviality of these words)

Amazing freedom

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize

Nobody can imagine how happy I am that my Physics 240 E&M class is over. This has been the most brutal semester ever, because it’s difficult to work full-time, take a difficult + accelerated class and have hardly any motivation all at the same time. I’m motivated to do research, but not study Physics. I have one month more of my research fellowship. After that, I’m going to camp in Ashford, Connecticut. The camp I became a Christian at and haven’t been able to go back during my college years. I’m super excited about camp. I’m going to be a counselor for the teen boys. I talked with Ruth, an amazing elderly woman of God who is helping organize things at camp, this morning and ordered my plane tickets afterwards. After being at camp from July 21st to July 28th, I’m coming back to study for the GRE hardcore until I leave on August 19 (or 20)th for Mount Rainer, Washington to go backpacking with my parents. I’m really looking forward to having a lot of time to talk with them about life and maybe we’ll be able to do some Bible studies or the equivalent too. Now, that my hellish class is over, I’m going to be able to spend more time with people. I’m exhilarated about that too. OK, now I’m going go back to doing a transformation and some restriction digests in the lab. Wow, this is one of the few entries I didn’t try developing any ideas. How do you feel about entries like this? Interesting or not? Peace and love to everyone.

Freedom

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize

My coping mechanism is based on the optimism, love and truth found in Jesus’ teachings.

As I’ve been growing older, it becomes more evident what’s more important in life. It’s all about relationships. Right relationships.

As a student, it is very easy to have academic success be the primary purpose for life. For other people, their purpose alongside academics is having fun. Both academics and having fun are important goals which are a blessings in our lives; however, as the purpose for our lives, these goals are not enough and transient at best. Many people realize this and start believing their purpose is "to help others." Still others, realize marriage and having children is also their purpose.

All these goals are noble and serve important roles in our lives. However, after realizing these goals, a question remains, ‘Is there something more?’ This question ultimately goes to ‘What’s the leading purpose for all your actions.’ Is each action guided by isolated reasons or a larger unified reason? Are we powered by love, comfort, beauty, pleasure, knowledge, or something else, or a combination of everything? At this point, many people abandon their curiosity, falling back on their previous goals without probing deeper in the reasons for their goals. This happens for many reasons, such as a lack of confidence in ideas impacting their actions, no Truth existing, the business of life, or simply not valuing reasons for actions. The problem with not having a questioning and open outlook and settling with your previously established goals, lies in having contradictory views without you noticing them. Your goal may be to "help others," yet without deeply thinking about the reasons for a goal, you may actually be doing the opposite of your intended goals. Or you may believe you’re trying to find love, but are doing the opposite. This is where the idea of Pharisees (read my blog entry Pharisees for more about this) comes in. These people are confident with their understanding to the extent they don’t need to deeply question their views anymore, because they’ve ‘already found enough truth for now.’ These people don’t change much, because they’re ‘good just the way they are.’ Once a person is ready to abandon everything they previously understand for a newly discovered Truth, he/she ceases to be a Pharisee.

So, ‘What happens after I open myself to dramatically change?’ By being truly open, you’re on a great adventure and truly living life: discovering and living the Truth. It’s a dangerous adventure with many false guides, hence you should neither get too comfortable with a single guide, nor abandon a guide who’s always true to you. It’s difficult. Some people are their own guides, but based on my experience I’m neither always true to myself, nor always a good guide. Because of this, I look to a guide greater than myself and greater than anybody. This is Jesus.

One can say, ‘There are many good guides. What makes Jesus so special?’ I could go through what I understand from different guides and the many truths I have learned from them, pasting together a unified eclectic philosophy, but miraculously all the truths I learn from other guides are always uniquely present in Jesus’ teachings in one form or another. And most importantly, Jesus provides not only the true goals to pursue, but also the prime purpose for having any goals: love. Love is the unifying theme of Jesus’ teachings, as evolution is the unifying theme of biology. While there are many different reasons we can have goals, love is the only reason that can renewably sustain everyone and create a peace that transcends all understanding. It is in relationships where this power of love is expressed the greatest. Jesus, unlike anyone, had a particularly unique way of relating to others and seeing peoples’ hearts for what they are. When someone can see what’s truly inside your heart and reflect it back to you, it’s one of the greatest ways to understand the Truth, ultimately motivating you to change for the better, which is the greatest thing that could ever happen.

As to your question, ‘How do I cope? Do I have a small circle of friends?’ A small circle of friends is only as helpful as I am at peace with myself; when I’m at peace with love. Simply having friends does not help coping and can even be a source of disturbance. Being in community with God through Jesus provides amazing guidance in how to love, which helps my relationships with my friends be the best possible. Likewise, being in community with people provides experience in how to love, which feedbacks into the guidance I’m getting through Jesus. It’s an inseparable cycle of loving God and people that feedbacks on itself.

In the end, when I pursue academics, work, having fun, "helping others," falling in love, or starting a family, I try to deeply evaluate if my particular goal is done out of love. Since it’s Jesus’ unifying theme and Jesus is always a good guide, love is my unifying reason for doing everything. It’s sometimes difficult to know what love is, but by pursuing love without ceasing, it becomes more clear what love actually entails. I’ve found that loving entails many things not included or contrary to the popular status quo "helping others" perception. When I am feeling the lowest in life, the best thing to cheer me up is for me to show love to someone in need. My strength is found in helping others in their time of need. I’m coping the best when I understand this Truth and I’m passionately acting as a servant to others. The greatest blessings God has ever provided for me where moments when I got the gift of helping someone in serious need. "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Matthew 23:12)

My Coping Mechanism: Love as Jesus loves

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize

Celibacy before marriage is interesting. Abstinence is not interesting for me, because it includes sexual relations, but only ‘permissible’ sexual relations, which misses the entire emotional idea behind abstinence: it’s not about permissibility, but physical communication. Three reasons for  celibacy: 1) frees relationship from perception of commitment (i.e. true commitment is permanent, hence only in marriage); 2) frees relationship to focus on verbal communication; 3) frees relationship to continue after a ‘break-up.’ Notice, none of the reasons for celibacy include morality or fear of intimacy.

Communal living with relinquishing of private property is interesting. Being in a community teaches countless lessons on humility, friendship and service. By having common property, you are able to be in a community not only socially, but also physically since your physical welfare directly depends on the community.

P.S. I have only noted the bare-bone reasons for these views. My treatises usually come verbally (when I’m less sleepy) or when I have more time to write (when I don’t have exams, or when I’m not focusing on relationships but abstracting about them which is useful but only to a small extent).

Celibacy and No private property

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize

The Federal Reserve System is controlled by private interests (i.e. factions in terms of the Federalist Papers), not by the government (i.e. the People).  In the 1982 case Lewis v. United States, the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals stated that the "Federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of a Federal Torts Claims Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations."  The leadership consists of a board of 7 governors appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate for 14-year terms (12 U.S.C. § 241) with 14 regional banks. In the Constitution, only Congress had power to print money and set its value; however, Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 establishing a new independent branch of power to control the printing and value of money.  A few years after, Woodrow Wilson wrote,

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of  credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most  completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

To read what presidents before Woodrow Wilson had to say about a private national currency controlling system go to The Money Masters.

The existance of the Federal Reserve System means that when the government needs extra money, it has to loan it from the Federal Reserve with interest, rather than printing the money itself.  The Federal Reserve has the power to print United States dollars, not the United States government!  This is the reason we have such a huge national deficit, which is currently around $8 trillion, meaning about $27,000 of debt per US citizen.  If the United States government did not give the power to control money to a private, independent, highly secretive, albeit slightly monitored by Congress, organization, then the government would not need to pay about 40% of the national debt (in 1998 40% of national debt was attributed to paying the Federal Reserve or other government accounts).

National Debt as of December 1998

John F. Kennedy tried to fix this problem by passing Executive Order 11110.

Executive Order 11,110
AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289

AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:

Section 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended-

1. By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j):

(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12,1933, as amended (31 U.S.C.821(b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denomination of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption

      and –
2. Byrevoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof.

Sec. 2. The amendments made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.

John F. Kennedy
The White House,
June 4, 1963. 

It allowed the US government to print money independently of the Federal Reserve and backed it with silver (the Federal Reserve did not back their money notes with any commodity, thus they had fiat or fiduciary money), which would help repay the national debt and undermine the power of the Federal Reserve.  This reintroduced the United States Note (red seal and serial code), rather than the Federal Reserve Note (green seal and serial code).  Printing of the United States Notes began, but a few months later John F. Kennedy was assassinated and printing/circulation of the United States Notes stopped under the new leadership of Lyndon B. Johnson.  Future presidents ignored this idea for reasons unknown to me. People, such as Congressman Ron Paul, have tried working to change this, but nothing seems to have come out of it (speech to House of Representatives).

If there was no Federal Reserve, there would be no inflation. Our government would raise money solely through taxation without inflation. This would restrict the amount our government could spend, thus putting its financial policy in real-world terms. It would make it more difficult for the government to quickly spend massive amounts of money (binge spending), because it would have to just as quickly cut spending in other programs, similiarly to how normal budgets work. Why don’t people change the system? Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. explains thus, "What keeps the gold standard from becoming a reality again is the love of big government and war. If we ever fall in love with freedom again, the gold standard will once more become a hot issue in public debate." To learn more from him, read Our Money Madness, which enlightened me to how much sense it makes to use gold coins (or gold-backed money) rather than fiat money.

Federal Reserve Notes are green, United States Notes are red and Silver Certificates are blue

It seems hardly anybody knows about this.  The public needs to know.  What do you think?

Abolish the Federal Reserve System

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize

In The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Zosima’s young brother, Markel, comes down with deathly sickness and experiences a complete transformation. He begins to have loving madness. I first experienced this on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 and wrote about it. This is one of the greatest and most meaningful experiences I have ever had. This is the reason I became a vegetarian. I pine to keep experiencing this continuously. It’s very difficult to keep having this feeling and especially acting on it. Prayerfully, with time, I will be able to draw closer to loving like this. This is my meaning of life: to wake atremble with love.

"Light it, my dear, light it, what a monster I was to forbid you before! .. do not weep, life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we do not want to know it, and if we did want to know it, tomorrow there would be paradise the world over. … Why do you serve me, am I worthy of being served? If God were to have mercy on me and let me live, I would begin serving you, for we must all serve each other. … each of us is guilty in everything before everyone, and I most of all."

At that mother even smiled, she wept and smiled: "How can it be," she said, "that you are the most guilty before everyone? There are murderers and robbers, and how have you managed to sin so that you should accuse yourself most of all?"

"Dear mother, heart of my heart," he said (he had then begun saying such unexpected, endearing words), "heart of my heart, my joyful one, you must know that verily each of us is guilty before everyone, for everyone and everything. I do not know how to explain it to you, but I feel it so strongly that it pains me. And how could we have lived before, getting angry, and not knowing anything?"

Thus he awoke every day with more and more tenderness, rejoicing and all atremble with love.

…

"My dears, why do we quarrel, boast before each other, remember each other’s offenses? Let us go to the garden, let us walk and play and love and praise and kiss each other, and bless our life."

"He’s not long for this world, your son," the doctor said to mother as she saw him to the porch. "From sickness he is falling into madness."

The windows of his room looked onto the garden, and our garden was very shady, with old trees; the spring buds were already swelling on the branches, the early birds arrived, chattering, singing through his windows. And suddenly, looking at them and admiring them, he began to ask their forgiveness, too: "Birds of God, joyful birds, you, too, must forgive me, because I have also sinned before you." None of us could understand it then, but he was weeping with joy: "Yes," he said, "there was so much of God’s glory around me: birds, trees, meadows, sky, and I alone lived in shame, I alone dishonored everything, and did not notice the beauty and glory of it at all."

Book Six, Chapter 2, Part A: Of the Elder Zosima’s Young Brother

Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Loving madness

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize

The truth of loving everyone is in knowing that EVERYONE IS BETTER THAN YOU. Everyone is better than me. Everyone, please forgive me for hurting you. I hurt people all the time. Everyone reading this, please forgive me for hurting you. Even if we’ve never met, please forgive me for hurting you. You are better than me.

How can I be in a romantic relationship with anyone. I am no one’s equal. You are better than me.

Please forgive me gnat for killng you. Please forgive me cows, chickens, pigs and lambs for killing and abusing you. You are better than me.

Please forgive me for not working hard enough, ignoring you or not helping you. I want to love you.

Please forgive me everyone. I am so sorry. I love you all.

Loving Everyone

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize