Replacing reality

Within my apartment complex, church building, workplace and classrooms, I have found people who need me. I have cheered souls. I have impacted lives. 
But I have also overlooked real people to engage with the internet. Though valuable interactions occur via the internet, these interactions fall short when used as the primary source of companionship. Cyberspace interactions are designed to mimic reality; that doesn't inherently make them real. As Elder Bednar said, "A simulation or model can lead to spiritual impairment and danger if the fidelity is high and the purposes are bad." So be careful. Don't allow those around you to go ignored because your cyber relationships are more important to you. Cyberspace is a supplement to relationships, not a replacement.

Secular Inventions Drive Spiritual Work

Technology was not created to drive genealogical work. The personal computer was not created to allow thriving personal genealogies. The internet was not created as a platform for genealogical research. Databases were not created to store and consolidate genealogical documents. Wikipedia was not created as a model for reducing error in genealogical data. Though the inventors never had genealogy in mind, inventions drive progress in genealogy because someone recognized an application. This process promotes the work of the LDS church, whose goals include connecting families through the generations. Though the inventions that drive this work are entirely secular, they have been put to spiritual purpose. Technology brings ancestors out of the obscure past into the tangible present of descendants.

Fail in Order to Succeed

This is a painting.

I have created a lot of poor drawings. My goal, as I have often been instructed, is to fail fast in order to get over the failure and move onto success. In creating these poor drawings, I have been able to learn from my mistakes and create better drawings. But no one else benefits from my failure and my progress is slow. I fail only on my own small scale. In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky shows that individual failures like mine can lead to communal success. Through new social media efforts, the failure of one individual can still contribute to the success of a community. It's as if many people like me created poor drawings and yet still as a whole created a masterpiece.

What has happened in social media translates to something like this in painting: There are hundreds of people all working on one canvas. A few people paint and produce awful work. Others paint over the original failures with some of their own failures. Eventually a few people in the group translate their knowledge of these failures into successful segments of the painting. In the end, a masterpiece is produced. In practice, hundreds of people cannot work at one small canvas nor can one artist cover up the failure of another perfectly. But in other applications, this is exactly what social media is doing.

Social media allows hundreds to fail in order for a select few to analyze the failure and create success. Clay Shirky speaks the idea clearly: "Failure is free high quality research, offering direct evidence of what works and what doesn't." My failures in drawing people, writing stories, programming graphics, organizing parties, or generating good ideas have only benefited me. But as I share them, my mistakes and the mistakes of many others can be combined into one collective knowledge channeled into success.

So start failing and more importantly, sharing your failures so that the world can benefit.

I testify...

"I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet to share the gospel and to explain in simple and clear terms the message of the Restoration." 
-Elder Russel M Ballard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

God lives and cares about his children as He has always cared. He speaks to His prophets as He did in the days of the Bible, to give us aid throughout our lives. He spoke to Joseph Smith, his prophet, and restored the same organization that existed when Christ was on the earth, an organization built on love and family. He restored the possibility for loved ones to remain together after death, through the atonement of Jesus Christ. His son, Jesus Christ suffered for our sins in Gethsemane two thousand years ago , but also for our pains and sorrows so that He could know how to aid us now. Jesus Christ lives and loves his children today. I am a child of God. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I am grateful for the blessings and freedom that membership brings me.