Tautological Esotericism

One of my friends was asked to write an 8 page essay for school on the topic of “Making a Difference.” There’s not a single person who wishes that they could go through life without being remembered for doing something good on behalf of humanity. However, it’s also true that we spend a great deal of time accumulating personal wealth, entertaining ourselves, and living what can only be described as a quite mediocre existence.

It’s so strange how certain things tend to preoccupy your thoughts during certain stages of life. I used to enjoy philosophy, and I still believe that it’s a subject most worthy of debate. I recently had a conversation with someone who has studied many different philosophies. He has come to the conclusion that you only ever find partial answers, and none of them even come close to satisfying all of life’s questions.

One of the biology professors at a university was giving a lecture on evolution, and was quick to point out that some people might have a problem with it based on their particular beliefs. He proceeded to tell his students that it would be better if they just left their religion at the door, but he couldn’t ask them to remove their head pieces because that would be violating the Charter of Rights.

Tim Hortons sends 17,000 economically disadvantaged children to camp each summer. It’s a most brilliant way to get the public to join them in securing future employees and customers.  - I guarantee that they aren’t feeding the kids McMuffins and Dilly bars.

I have an acquaintance that tends to make up very elaborate stories.  (I still have yet to see the new car that was purchased a year ago, or the quad, or the boat.) – The boat is still For Sale, I walked by it yesterday.  Someone asked me the question; Do you think that this acquaintance actually believes that he has made those purchases?   It had never occurred to me that an alternate reality might be the motivation and not the need for attention.

Statistics show that 73% people over the age of 50 are more likely to believe that there is an afterlife. You could argue that they had a more religious upbringing, but the reality is that they become much more cognizant of the fact that life is but a flash in the pan.

The most interesting aspect of human experience is that everyone gets to participate. Farmers have a saying “Sow in the dust and your bins will bust.” There might be something to it, but what they’re really saying is that no matter how bad things look, don’t give up. Despite our profound ability to mess things up, there is also a sequence of unforeseen events that bring order to the chaos.

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”               - John Foer

Manshiyat Naser

I’ll do my very best to write this in such a way that it’s relevant to everyone who reads it. The theme I will explore is community, how it works, and when it doesn’t. Our ever outspoken radio guru did a wonderful job of publicly telling town council that they’re a bunch of incompetent idiots.

The broadcaster didn’t bother to mention that we live quite luxuriously here, and that the majority of the world’s inhabitants would gladly switch places with us. There are plenty of jobs here, and most people choose to move back here after they’ve left for awhile.

That’s not to say that there isn’t good reason for making smart decisions and spending the taxpayer’s money in a responsible manner.  I’m very tempted to write a list of shortcomings, and rather alarming financial figures, but the truth is that nobody really cares. Of course people care, but only because they feel like they’re getting the short end of the stick.

Community only works when everyone takes responsibility and contributes to make living in it better.

This is a picture I took of the mess of garbage across the back ally from my house. It’s always a mess.

The Town introduced a by-law that will allow them to fine this individual $500.00 if they fail to clean it up when asked to do so.  They would never do that though, because the by-law officer sits at his desk all day.  One of these days I’m going to buy myself a pair of gloves and some garbage bags, because quite frankly the garbage blows all over my yard and I end up picking it up anyway. (Although I'm not sure what I'll do with it, because I'm not allowed to fill more than two barrels.)

Sometimes you just got to suck it up. It’s much like sending a lamb to the slaughter. The one that starts bleating about the treachery and injustice, suffers the same fate as the others. There is no such thing as a non-corrupt governing body.  - Whomever you choose to man the controls will do whatever they like whenever they wish to do so.

Democracy is merely a figment of the imagination.

Media is simply a tool that’s used to manipulate public opinion. Who knows, someday you might even be Mayor and have your own TV program, just like Rob Ford. If they can generate outrage and increase their customer base, they’ll say just about anything. Am I not right?

My challenge to you is this. Find a place to volunteer… there are plenty of things that you can do that will make life better for everyone.  Personally I’ve decided to only charge you $1.00 instead of $2.00 to swim in the Swan River this year… because the other dollar (along with many more) has long since vanished in the bottomless abyss.  

Ephemeral Truculence

Global domination is a rather tedious affair; it requires ruthless strategy, timely alliances, and a ridiculous amount of luck.  I was able to spend Sunday afternoon playing RISK with some good friends of mine.  It’s not that we’re all as geeky as we may at first seem, but it’s a good pass time when winter seems eternal. After the game was put away, I couldn’t help but think about how terrible it is to have applied so much effort into something that means nothing. Ok, so the bragging rights are worth everything… but that’s another story.

Life is just a series of choices followed by a series of consequences. 

I enjoy watching the economy, and I try to make smart financial plays based on the information that is available to me. I find it particularly interesting that there is two completely different schools of thought in regards to investing.  On one side you have technical analysts who are strictly interested in the historic data, and how it can be used to predict what’s going to happen tomorrow.  On the other, you have fundamentalists. They are like little school kids sitting in a circle during story time. They’re looking for positive signs of growth, stability, and always cheer for the hero.  The thing that surprises me the most is that both approaches make both groups of speculators quite a bit of money.

As I was walking through the grocery store parking lot this evening, I suddenly became cognizant of the fact that something was amiss.  Two guys were standing about 50’ to the left of me.  Another guy was walking towards me.  As I was getting nearer, the guy in front of me started staggering pretty severely. He took one final lunge at me, but ended up lying on the pavement, several feet short.   During those few short seconds it became very obvious that he was intoxicated. After he had fallen, his two “friends” started calling to him.  I feel bad for leaving him there, but self preservation won out.

I’m not going to even attempt to wrap up these various thoughts with one conclusive statement. Instead, I just wanted to drive home the point that sometimes things don’t have to make a whole lot of sense logically, in order to work out. Science tells us that falling space debris and genetic mutations are going to destroy humanity. They likely will, but there’s also a survival aspect to the whole thing, and it can never quite be accounted for. It means that my interests are your interests, and that your problems are mine.   You could say that life is a game of chance, or that it’s what you make it, but it's more likely that it's both or neither. 

There is this mentality in N. America that says that you have whatever you work for. Before it’s all over, you’ll invariably discover that everything that you worked so hard for wasn’t really all that important after all. It’s just about as inconsequential as the, nearly forgotten, RISK game.

Eventually all of the pieces will be put back in the box, and I'm perfectly confident that we will see things quite differently then.

  

Effigial Anaglyphs

I’ve been searching for new sources of literary inspiration.  I very much enjoy the ebb + flow effect of free verse, especially when coupled with a smattering of quick wit. I have found a couple of notable authors in recent weeks, but it's not as easy as you might think.

I do like this one though:

the same strings of words cascade from between
your lips every time you open them but
it's because you lock your surreptitiousness
deep down in the back of your throat…. By anobrain

The trick about writing something unique is that you have to think like Cobain and sing off key like Carrabba.

we could plant a house, we could build a tree
in the places that you've come to fear the most.

Yesterday I came across a rather peculiar gallery. After reading two or three pieces, I was beginning to see a pattern of hollowness emerge. The author claims to be a “recovering purging-type anorexic.” 

The theme seems to be more common than I would have ever guessed:

We look for the “truth behind the lies” and the “soul that lives inside.”  We waste our time on creating grand illusions, but the only thing that anyone else ever sees is the monsters in the shadow play.  

Self perception is the most curious of things. It makes you and breaks you; there’s nothing in-between. 

Ochraceous Genuflections

A friend of mine has a little brother who posted a video of himself driving one of his homemade racecars. His Mother secretly began supplementing the “view count.” Several days later he was excitedly telling his sister about all the views that he has got. She decided that the little brother needed a healthy dose of reality. As you might have guessed, he was more than a little bit disappointed to hear that. 

(He’s a smart kid. His genius creations will impress the rest of the world soon enough.)

One of the most popular blogs on the planet… is all about finding the stories behind the story. If you get the chance, check it out: A Grand Unified Theory of Pixar 

                       

 These are some of the reasons for why it has grabbed so much attention:

     -  Most people grow up playing with toys, and most of those people have watched at       least one of the Pixar movies.

    - It’s easier to imagine that everything can work perfectly when it’s being played out in   a fictional world.

    -   We love to see the overarching themes and stories that help to make everything fit     into its place. 

    -  As adults it’s easier to focus on the story when it’s being presented to children           because we have such an  awful habit of convoluting everything else.

Positive attention and affirmation play a crucial role in shaping the way we view ourselves. We’re not all born with good looks and most of us aren’t naturally good at everything. It’s easy to see how saying something to encourage someone else can be incredibly valuable. I’m not saying that it’s right to flatter people needlessly or telling them they’re doing great when they clearly aren’t.

There are millions of workshops and self help books that will tell you to “Just be yourself. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks.”  It’s all a load of crap. Certainly there is value in having self-esteem, but what they don’t tell you is that the reason you keep getting back up is because if or when you succeed people will recognize and applaud you for it.

   

It would be nice to think that it works that way, but it doesn’t. People are only interested in other people if they perceive them to be useful to themselves. This is where the Pixar theory gives us a little bit of insight to the human psyche.

Sometimes the things that really matter are far more important than the story that’s being told.  It’s amazing to think that somehow everything fits together, and that your story is my story… and maybe we’re all well on our way to Infinity and Beyond! 

Usurping Pallidity

There is a distinct possibility that I could come across as a Iugubrious melancholic, which, at the very least, should put me a step ahead of most of the vestigial miscreants. Despite being cognizant of the fact that the differences are nothing more than paltry technicalities, the advantage to being in the first echelon is that you don’t have to eat as much dust.

I’m going to speculate that whoever first coined the term “circle of life”… was also likely diagnosed with depression. There is really nothing worse than going around in circles. The rare exceptions might be figure skaters, and race car drivers, but for the rest of us we don’t even have the luxury of an audience. 

It’s not very often that I am able to reconcile the fact that my frustrations are closely associated with the limitations inherent to my disposition. 

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. - Thomas Carlyle

I would do well to recognize that there are distinct benefits of using the game theory as outlined by the Nash equilibrium, to my advantage.  - No player has anything to gain by changing only their own strategy.

It’s always so hard to move past the realm of the familiar and the comfortable, but it’s absolutely critical to gaining any sort of “measurable” success. The problem with success is that the minute you think that you have arrived, you realize that there is so much more that needs to be done.

There are occasions when life seems to be spinning out of control, but what we often fail to realize is that there are factors in play that are in opposition to uncontrolled chaos. The saving grace is that when we are pushed to the limits, centripetal force holds everything together. - We were never in control in the first place, and never will be.

Blindness isn’t so much the condition of being unable to see, as the opportunity to see the things that aren’t. I could spend my life chasing redundancies and dreams of improbability, but when it’s all said and done the best we can hope for is that it might vaguely resemble something akin to paradise.  I think I’d much rather move beyond the déjà vu, and enjoy life as much as I can.  

Eat. Sleep. Bleep. Repeat. 

Miscellaneous Trinkets

Several years ago I was presented with the joyous pleasure (note the sarcasm) of attending a trade school, which meant that I was required to take a technical writing course. It was incredibly boring, but it is very useful for daily communication in the work place.
(Everyone wants to know what's inside the box!)

I’ve spent a great deal of time helping a friend of mine with their English assignments. It’s something that I quite enjoy, but it’s still hard to believe that it’s a first year University requirement. - Why should a medical student need to spend so much time studying Faustus?

I’m currently enjoying my growing collection of thank-you letters from various news outlets for my editing contributions.  I try to avoid correcting the things that people write that aren’t addressed to a formal audience, but that’s not to say it doesn’t make me cringe on the inside.

Here are a couple of good examples of friendships that are worth more to me than perfect grammar/spelling.  

                            “…my buteffal girl that I love in this hole way world.”
                                                                  or                                                                                                                                                                          “Just had to say that hafe time show sucked big time….”

                                                                    ...

I started thinking about how a small element called tact is really quite important.

Is it right to voice your opinion about the lifestyle choices of the people that are closest to you?

We could examine the different answers in great length, but we would still be left with this question. 

How do you know when you should say something or shouldn’t? Good question. 

We all know someone who constantly talks about how bad their life is, but they don’t have any intention of doing anything to change it. 

Don’t bother giving them any advice. They just want you to feel sorry them. Just nod your head.

People who find themselves in an abusive relationship will be the least likely to listen to your advice. The best thing to do in these instances is to make sure that they don’t become more isolated than they already are.

Relationship advice is easy. Do your parents like them? Do your friends like them?

If not, you shouldn’t be with them.- Is it really that simple you may ask? Yes it is.

If someone has an addiction problem or is offended with someone else.
It’s perfectly Ok to say that you don’t agree, or that they should just let it go.
* Don’t ever advise them to “Be the better person.”

Why? There is no such thing.

Sometimes people don’t understand that you are trying to help them.
Sometimes we don’t always approach them in the right way.

Sometimes we overreact and sometimes we fail to recognize that we are in the wrong.

Sometimes I wonder if stuffing the coffin full of memorabilia means anything at all.