Five Things That Make Me Stop And Think

Diner Girl posed this interesting question last month. I started on an answer then but set it aside to allow more time to, uhh, stop and think about it.

1) Isaac Asimov’s robot series
The stories were written in the 1950s and yet they contain themes that are relevant today. He created a world where robots performed most menial tasks that humans disliked. As the robot technology developed, they begin to take on more meaningful tasks. They are also blamed for stealing jobs, leading to unemployment. The Three Laws of Robotics prevented robots from hurting humans, but the story lines are often about the idea that robots could in some way break those laws and take over the world in a negative way. I think this is starting to sound a little familiar?

2) Love
Confusing, complicated, can’t live with it, can’t live without it, emotional, biological, been in it, been out of it. Love is the middle word in one of a person’s most powerful statements. Love can lead to babies. Love can lead to war. Just when I think I understand it I realize I don’t.

3) Country music songs
It’s poetic storytelling, y’all. Each contains a three-minute slice of real life. Songs that seem simple on the surface but touch something deep inside me on a personal level: Tim McGraw Live Like You Were Dying and Garth Brooks The Dance (life is short, live it to the fullest, don’t let it pass you by), Alan Jackson Drive (relationship with Dad), Alan Jackson Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning (reaction to 9-11), Rascal Flatts Mayberry (remembering a simpler time), Restless Heart I'll Still Be Loving You (love), and Lee Greenwood God Bless The USA (patriotism).

4) The beauty of nature
Everything from places with expansive, jaw-dropping views, like the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to places with a tiny view, like the center of a flower in my garden makes me stop and think.

5) Who or what is God?
I don’t buy into everything I was taught about a supreme being as a child, nor do I reject it all. I’m skeptical and inquisitive. I have more questions than answers and have at times belonged to a religious denomination that encourages the search. If I really stop and think about it, I question whether God exists or not. The universe seems too big and complex to be random, yet there doesn’t really seem to be a plan.


What makes you stop and think?