LDSTaoBro

Anyone with LDS standards or similar in the Santa Monica, CA area interested in learning and practicing while helping to preserve an almost extinct Taoist martial art? It has been guarded so well that it is nearly gone. I am not a Sifu, so the value here would be the art, and not the teacher, but I am sharing what I have learned over the last 18 years, and this is an unbelieveably amazing art. Similar roots to SSTT if you want to google that for some of the more esoteric details. I know most of those guys. I am in a couple of the videos getting pummeled or burned with the fire element. My approach is a bit different from theirs and unique even among the few who are attempting to share this. Defintely not your normal muscle and knuckle art. I had a brown belt in that type of art, but find this art much more fascinating. Just for contrast, lifting weights is counter productive to this art, and you can hit with just about anything except the first 2 knuckles.

No problem. I'm pretty literal sometimes. But I am puzzled a bit. Normally, if I like something, no way is it going to be very popular. My favorite flavors get "improved" or discontinued, etc. Sometimes I think investors could improve their odds just by avoiding the things I like. So I am a bit thrown off that this series is so popular. But I guess in my own defense, my reasons for liking the books are not what is making the series popular. The movies' popularity backs that up, as it only skims the surface. I am absolutely fascinated by the placing of so many spiritual analogies in such an unlikely setting as a vampire story, but have come to believe that the dream that started the books was inspired. I am particularly fascinated by the reality of the Fall of Adam, so I think that is where it begins for me. I have been quite inspired by reading the books, and I think they have motivated me to try to be a better husband, and to dig deeper into the gospel and focus more on the Temple. To me, Twilight vampirism is to mortality as mortality is to the pre-existent state, and yet at the same time, a hint of real immortality. Especially when "the fall" is by choice. So, somehow, I find myself wanting to more fully accept and do a better job with the mortality I am handicapped by, with a greater assurance that the effort will be worth it. No one can write a better story than the one we are currently living. In the Twilight series, yeah, there are times that I see plot inconsistencies, or I want to move through the books a bit faster, and skip some of the things (especially early in New Moon) that become tedious for me, but then I will catch a different set of parallels I hadn't thought of before. I have read the entire series twice (I have read very few books twice), and saw even more the 2nd time through. My wife and I have had many conversations about the whole story, and it all started at the insistence of our daughter who wanted us to read Twilight. But I am really not expecting a thunderous round of "me too's" agreeing with my perspective. I am kind of used to being an "out in left field" type of guy.

No attack intended. Directed more to someone making a decision to read or not to read rather than toward the comments themselves. I think there is value to the book which may be overlooked by some based on the creepiness of the vampire theme. The pedophile image sounds even creepier. The vampire creepiness, such as "vegetarian" vampires being associated with friends who regulary dine on humans, and whether or not they have to do so or should choose otherwise, is part of the delimma of the story. For those who might not know, I was clarifying that pedophilia is not really part of the story. The werewolves do have some rather odd matchmaking going on sometimes which in some cases could appear very similarly creepy, but in context is completely innocent. The theme of becoming a vampire appears to me to be similar to the Fall on one hand. Not really your fault, but you have to choose how you are going to deal with it. Things that really shouldn't be a temptation now become seemingly almost irresitable. Like an addiction. On the other hand, in some ways it is like falling up, or the resurrection and offers an opportunity to consider the possible benefits of becoming immortal. Some of the descriptions in book 4 are very cool. By the way, the 4th book is my favorite, but I really liked the glimpse of the same world Bella lives in through the eyes of Edward in the Midnight Sun manuscript, which offers the same chapter names and situations as Twilight, as far as it goes, but viewed from within the mind of the vampire. And it was kind of refreshing to have the chance to get out of Bella's head into someone else's. There are 2 other viewpoints, Edward's being the most interesting. Actually, there is a 4th viewpoint, from yet a different angle. Orson Scott Card did something similar by following Ender's Game with Ender's Shadow, covering the same story from someone else's head. I have not read the Harry Potter books, having some of the similar resistance to "not following the crowd" mentioned by a few others, but since most of my family has read them, and love them, I guess I need to try one. I have actually gone to sleep during some of the movies (I have seen them all). What people like in stories is very subjective, but for me, the Twilight series seems to get me thinking more.

To call someone with standards as high as "Edward's" a pedophile is bound to give someone the wrong impression about the book. I wish I could be that committed to doing the right thing under such extremely difficult circumstances, without the benefit of Gospel principles or practice. Edward's committment to Bella is such that marriage is the only way for him. In addition, sex outside of marriage is something he does not belive in, and about which he exercises great self control. Age to an immortal becomes somewhat irrelevant, and a hundred year difference doesn't matter much when you are physically frozen to within a couple of years apart. Additionally, Bella is accused of being too old for her age anyway. So much for defending the character of a fictional character. I find the entire series to be very well thought out, although the movies appear to be having a real struggle doing them justice. I don't care much for Twilight the movie, but the books are great in my opinion. They touch on such concepts as choice, lust, pre-marital sex, fidelity, addiction, insight into addiction recovery, individual responsibility, limitations of mortality, improvements of immortality, individual perspective (check out the Midnight Sun version of Twilight told from Edward's perspective available online) spiritual gifts, family commitment, and many other principles all weaved in a completely non-preachy way into the rather unlikely theme of vampires and werewolves. I have to give Stephanie Meyers 2 thumbs up.