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I have certainly been blessed since the divorce. Does this mean I condone divorce, and want to be used as an example to justify divorce? Absolutely not! Another paradox.15
A few years after my marriage to Andrea, at a geophysical convention
in Salt Lake, a friend and I were discussing divorce and the impact it has. He said,
"Roice, you are much happier now," and said it with what appeared to be self-justification for
choices he appeared to be making. My response was and is to describe how it tears me up when I
see the impact of divorce on my 6 kids and my 4 step-kids. I see that impact too regularly.
Sure I can say I didn't want the divorce, and describe how I did everything I could think of to
stop it from happening. As did Andrea, when she found herself divorced 10 years before me.
What I know is when I point fingers at another person's mistakes, there are always three fingers
pointing back at me, reminding me of my contributions to family rupture. This is a most
personal reason why faith is so important to me. I would not have survived the experience
without faith. Thankfully the scriptures teach us we all make
mistakes,1.30 and it is only by grace that we
are saved, after all we can do,1.31 yet another
paradox.16
Having been open and vulnerable about
family, money is also a hard subject for me to write about. I have not handled investments very well. I made a lot of money through Landmark Graphics Corporation,. I lost it all, and a lot more, through the next company. HyperMedia Corporation was formed in 1991. For computer geeks, HyperMedia productized an X-Windows, MOTIF, client-server, hypertext engine which was designed and prototyped in 1988, several years before Mosaic, and, of course, even more years before NetScape and AOL and Windows Explorer browsers were available. We started selling the HyperEdge family of products just as Mosaic became available for free. Even though the HyperMeia product provides better tools for geoscientists than any of the world-wide-web browsers available in 2005, and even though I continue to use HyperEdge in my professional work, including in the preparation of illustrations for this book, we were unsuccessful in selling HyperEdge for US$10,000 against free copies of Mosaic and then NetScape and then Explorer. Our only significant sale was to some very enlightened geoscientists at Saudi Aramco, and, even there, HyperEdge was later replaced by the free software. Lessons learned include the importance if diversification, not to guarantee business loans with stock which can go from $23/share to $8/share, and it takes more than telling the truth and good technology to create a successful business. Ever the optimist, I continue to seek financial security within the following scriptural framework:
"Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you. But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good - to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted." (BoM: Jacob 2:17)
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paradoxes