#2 “A Few Correlations”

I just like this one and wanted to dig it up, out of the blogging attic. It was good to bring back some old memories, struggles and laughs.

This is going to be a fun blog. Now, as a preface, I am fully aware of my personal limitations in several areas of the human experience. Two major issues I will not touch with a thirty nine and a half foot pole are: 1. Dispensing authoritative relational advice to people on matters involving the opposite sex. 2. Mathematics.

When it comes to math with me, things just don’t add up. People tell me to get into groups of three, I start to panic…

“Numbers!”

That’s what I say when I stub my toe or hit my thumb with a hammer.

However, just this once, I will boldly venture into the math spectrum for a brief blog here when it comes to correlations. For the lay person, a correlation is a mutual relation of two or more things. This is what I understand from the grade 10 math class I endured in high school. Correlation helps find out if things are linked in some way. Ie. As lung cancer decreases, do smoking sales go down? Do moms with screaming babies feel more open to going shopping on a Saturday morning when a Wal-Mart is brought into a town?

Those are questions of positive or “direct” correlations.

Correlations can also be negative or “inverse”. Ie. People who have more years of education have fewer years in jail. That’s a negative correlation; one variable went up, the other went down.

Look at how educational jonmorrison.ca is becoming. Aren’t you glad you are reading this?

My Correlations

I have found a few correlations in my life that I thought would be worth displaying to the world wide web for some reason. Here they are:

Direct/Positive Correlations

Remember, when one activity goes up, another one in relation to the former goes up as well.

-I have found a .86 positive correlation between the toothpaste splatter marks on my bathroom mirror and the weekends that I am out of town.

-There is a direct correlation between the dirty dishes in my sink and the amount of after 5pm appointments/ commitments I attend.

-The clutter of crap laying on the floor around the house is directly correlated to the clutter of crap floating around in my head.

-There is a direct correlation between the frequency of notes in my study notebook and the excitement I feel about preaching my next sermon.

-Being a friend is positively correlated to having friends.

-My experiences of sheer excitement or total disappointment with God are positively correlated with the freqency of journal entries I write.

-Nights at Potters Place Mission and my conviction that every middle class North American needs to regularly visit theDowntown Eastside for a little perspective and adventure.

-Listening to Colbie Caillat is dramatically correlated to my desire to move to California.

-There is a positive correlation between the amount of loose paper on my desk at the office and the burden of administration that I carry around from working in a big church.

-Though I claim to not venture into the realm of opposite gender relationships, whenever I do on this blog site, there is a .92 positive correlation between the amount of comments I receive.

-As my Aeroplan points gained from using my credit card go up, as does my itch to go and travel somewhere new (Africa coming up in mid January!)

-My belief that blogging is a worthwhile employment of one’s time and postings on jonmorrison.ca; as one goes up, so does the other.

Negative/Inverse Correlations

In review, these are the activities that as one variable goes up, the other goes down.

-There is a .98 inverse correlation, as noted by one of my friends recently, between me dating a girl and the amount of cartoons posted on jonmorrison.ca. (From a purely logistical point of view, of course, this is simple to understand. In a relationship there are a lot fewer Friday nights available for drawing cartoons…like most 27 year olds, it is girls or cartoons! What else is there?)

-Reading my Bible is indirectly correlated to the amount of lies I am believing about myself, others, and the world.

-Going for walks outside with Jesus are inversely correlated to my anxiety about life’s circumstances.

-Having meaningful relationships full of open, vulnerable conversations is negatively correlated to feelings of suburban loneliness.

-Making stupid, assinine comments in a mature company and my confidence in the fact that I may one day be able to make a valid contribution to adult society.

Those are the ones that come off the top of my head. That was fun. Hope you enjoyed it.