Parallels

There some funny parallels between electrical engineering and life.  Like the title of a book I've begun at work - "Grounding and Shielding".  A book that most of you would not find so interesting, but the parallels are. 

If you were grounding yourself you would be doing something that would be bringing you back to earth. But if you are grounding out, you would be turning off your brain.  You are not going to be able to think.   

If you were shielding yourself wouldn’t you be protecting yourself from something bad or threatening?  Or hiding from something like what’s real or truth. 

I just got back from a Lutheran Synod Gathering last weekend where I witness a lot of shielding and grounding going on. In this case some people had grounded out their brains.  Checking their brains at the door like you would check a coat at the cloak-room.  To ground out is to kill potential, to eliminate all energy from, to short out consciousness.  It was very sad to see in action.   Thank God it was a small minority of people.

I wonder how someone becomes so engrained in a viewpoint that they cannot see beyond their myopic views.  Is it their shielding, or their blinders?  Maybe it's fear.  Maybe it's lack of curiosity or ambition.  They surround themselves with like-minded people breeding contempt for others who might think differently. 

Please let me know if you detect any of that in me, because the picture of this does not look so pretty.