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.  

Conspiratorial Factualism

How is it that some people excel in many different things, while others might seem to only be capable of performing one particularly task?  There are many possible answers, but ultimately you will find yourself facing this rather ubiquitous revelation: You can only be as much of a nerd as they want you to be.

In other words… despite all of your peculiar and presumably profoundly interesting personal pursuits… eventually you will need to take responsibility for other aspects of life.  (Amidst awkward attenuations and annoying apocalyptic amendments; alliteration almost always aborts absurd Apollo aspirations.)

They say that it takes 10,000 hours to become a professional at something. That’s a rather significant portion of time. If that claim is true, it certainly doesn’t apply to the people that are good at everything, am I not right? Here’s the catch, happiness isn’t necessarily related to success.

Most people spend a tremendous amount of time looking forward to being able to do the things that they love to do. You all have found yourselves in the company of people who  obsessed about a particular thing to the point of obnoxiousness and after half an hour of listening to them, you're ready to jump out the window..  

Like it or not, your skills are being harvested and if society can’t find a use for you they will chew you up and spit you out. Hence, the rise of the nerd is rather like the hybridization of canola. Sometimes you get these really ugly looking plants that don’t at all resemble the ones that are desired. - It doesn’t necessarily mean that the objective of producing stronger and healthier plants wasn’t met.

The difference between talking about issues that are relevant and your favourite pass times is that they aren’t doing anyone else a single bit of good. Yes, you could argue that many people find volunteering to be relaxing and rewarding. You would be correct, but neither would you ever think about calling those types of people self absorbed egoists.                  
 

It’s not always easy to recognize where you fit, or that anyone else cares about you… but all of those feelings are rather irrelevant when you start viewing your life from a point of essentiality. A nerd can only be assessed on the basis of nerdines in the presence of his/her antithesis

Counting Crows + Other Things

It’s not very often that I write a blog out of compulsion, but being that it’s the first day of 2014, I feel as though I don’t really have a choice.  I was rather hoping to take a departure from some of my previous themes, but already I’m having difficulty withholding mention of my personal belief that choice doesn’t exist.  However, I will not pursue this path any further right now; doing so would nullify each and every one of the resolutions that all of you have so recently made.  – I will gladly open this topic up for debate in a month or two… just to see how well those resolutions are working for you!

Ever since making the transition from boyhood through adolescence my favourite part of the Christmas Holidays has been spending time with the friends who I don’t get to see very often. This time around was great, the only problem is that I was exposed to the gaping reality, which can only be described as my own demise. On two separate occasions the people I was conversing with challenged me by saying three very terrible words. “You’re getting old!”

Those weren’t their exact words, but they certainly didn’t bother to sugar coat them.  I’m actually thankful that they felt it necessary to be the goad that provokes me to take some sort of action. The truth is that they’ve heard me tell them about all sorts of thing that I would like to do someday, and they decided that it was time to give me a healthy dose of reality.

…

1. When the hue of truth comes shadowing over our bright ideal planet, it will not seem the planet’s fault, but truth’s. Reality is the offender, delusion the treasure that we are robbed of. Then begins with us the term of willful delusion, and its necessary accompaniment of the disgust of reality…

2.  Possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity.

-The Egoist, by George Meredith. 

…

Thus the world turns… and there are no guarantees that I will vanquish it… but rest assured… there’s a certain sense of fulfillment in knowing that the entertainment aspect, which I’ve so carefully cultivated, is essential to the mastery of the finer points of “the game.”  -If I were to divulge the particulars… it would be only to sacrifice one of the (many) perks of being a wallflower…     

Happy New Year! 

...

If you've never stared off into the distance then your life is a shame...

{The Circus is great... just remember to lock up afterwards.} 

or else

The elephants will get out and forget to remember what you said

or
The ghosts of the tilt-o-whirl will linger inside of your head

or
The Ferris wheel junkies will spin there forever instead

- Mrs. Potter's Lullaby, by the Counting Crows

Hockey Gloves and Oyster Shells.

If you wish to become an expert on the game of hockey, you would familiarize yourself with the game, and if you wanted to master it, you would practice every single day until you became proficient at it. Writing is different, because these steps of logical self improvement don’t work.  You can examine the great literary works of history, but it doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to replicate their success. The content has to be something original that comes from deep within yourself, but neither can it be so abstract that it alienates your audience.

Anyone can write anything at any given time, but it doesn’t change the reality that it’s impossible to create something out of nothing. The problem is that the more that you read the more likely you are to repeat the ideas and structures that have become familiar to you. I could continue to whine and complain, but it wouldn’t come anywhere close to matching the languid soliloquies of our good friend Sydney Carton; so I might as well quit while I’m ahead.

I’m currently reading the biography of Howard Hughes. The telephone hadn’t been invented yet, so people communicated with each other via telegram.  It’s not hard to see how easily the intended message could have been misinterpreted.  The most humorous of these incidents that had unintentional results are recorded in the book.  - You would think the advent of the telephone would have helped to minimize those errors… but no, nearly 100 years later our preferred methods of communication are limited to 100 characters of text or less.

My point isn’t so much that history is doomed to repeat itself, but rather to illustrate our swiftness to dispose of reason and to replace it with cacophonous revelries. We somehow think that we are more human than our predecessors. Yet, we traffic children, harvest organs, and find ourselves enslaved to many of the very same vices. 

The term self-protectionism technically doesn’t exist, but I think that perhaps it should. We isolate the outcasts of society, and prefer to be indifferent, because it allows us to maintain our comfortable lifestyles. That’s not to say that compassion isn’t being shown anymore, but I’m convinced that we have an obligation to do a better job of going out of our way when no one else will.

...

Proverbs 31:8  Open your mouth for those who can’t speak for themselves. Defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.

Romans 12:16 Get along with each other; don’t be stuck up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody. - Mother Teresa

Acoustics + Pickups

Thoughts abound as I walk down a winding path, in the twilight of an autumn evening. The reflection of the trees, in the dying moments of sunlight, etching themselves on water, only a murmured gurgle betrays the illusion of permanence.  Perhaps it is for this reason that the direction in which the mind travels when surrounded by nature allows for clarity to appear where there wasn’t any previously.

I don’t intend for this article to herald the intricacies of the correlation between mankind and the world he lives in. The danger is that it would be associated with the art of “new age” meditation. (My Mother certainly wouldn’t approve of that.)

I do, however, want to talk about the unique aspect of the human experience known as story arc and how it’s the only thing that validates our day to day existence. It’s impossible for us to see the future, but when we examine our past we are able to see how it has prepared us for things that we never would have expected to find ourselves capable of. It’s so easy to condemn the actions of another, but when we examine ourselves closely we discover that there’s a dark side that is most capable of unimaginable atrocities.

Shopping mall. Death tolls. Sarin Gas. Iran folds. 

Our tendency is to arrange everything that we experience as being relevant and necessary, if we wish to achieve our goals. The problem with this method is that our nature is insatiable. The point at which we become content with our arrival will never occur. 

In 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean blue.  Like it or not, the earth is round, and that’s reality. Your life isn’t yours to dictate, nor does the script allow for any deviations. I’m not saying that free will doesn’t exist or that you don’t have any control of your fate, but there’s no question as to the significance of being woven into an inter-generational narrative.

Quantum theory uses math to construct abstract probabilities and images. This process is similar to the methods of observation that are applied to acoustic resonance.  This is interesting to note because, the responses are altered when the frequency changes. It’s easy to say that life follows a basic ashes to ashes formula…  but it’s much more difficult to analyze the arcs within the arc. 

My concluding thought is this: If Musical compositions can be created with nothing more than mathematical assumptions, does it not illustrate that our existence is only as random as our inability to quantify it? 

Gesticulations + Vacillations

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot.  - Intro. to Huckleberry Finn

I have scribbled out enough "bubbles”  with various blog ideas more than a dozen times now. (You would almost think I was a little kid with a brand new wand and soap solution.) People talk about writers block, but what they don’t say is that it has very little to do with the inability to write. It has everything to do with writing something that other people would enjoy reading. You could argue that writing should be viewed like abstract art; it doesn’t really matter what it looks like, it’s all in the interpretation of it. - I’ve read enough terrible poetry to know that the beauty must be conveyed in the imagery.

It’s really hard to write while listening to music, but sometimes it’s harder to sit and think about what I want to say when all is silent. There are times when I look forward to having time all by myself, but most often being left alone with your own thoughts is quite agitating. We can’t ever escape from managing all of life’s affairs. There’s a certain sense that somehow everything will manage to make itself right and that eventually all of our hard work will be rewarded.
                        
I’m not convinced that it works like that. State of mind isn’t contained by emotional parameters. - It’s the unknown operatives at work in the recesses of our subconscious that speak the loudest.

Dido sings a song titled “Life for Rent” and we all know that paying rent isn’t exactly a winning strategy. However, since we are only allotted a very small amount of time on this earth, it’s logical to conclude that it isn’t a permanent residence.

There are always those moments of unexpected insight, where you understand that for all your efforts there’s nothing you can do that will allow you to hold on to everything that you’ve worked for. It’s just you and the computational orb that sits between your ears.

Am I happy? I don’t know. Does happiness even have a definition? I hate when people bring up “It’s all about the journey” nonsense.Either it exists or it doesn’t. You can’t tell me that it’s merely a summation of slightly more positive experiences than negative ones. 

I'm not sure if there would be any point in trying to tie everything together with a singular thought of resolution... so instead I'll list some of the more interesting quotes that I've invented:

The conclusions that are drawn aren’t always indicative of the pending outcome, yet we interpret the results in such a way that they prove the previous assumptions to be correct.   – N.Windsor

They say that ignorance is bliss... but they never accounted for the multitudes of ignorant that missed the memo.  - N. Windsor

History is nothing more than a string of ordinary events flourished with embellishments. - N.Windsor

…

I know that I may have skimped on my usual amount of original content, but I’ve managed to compile a list of curious juxtapositions: 


Fishermen in PEI were sentenced for killing some bothersome seals.
Seal Killers Receive Sentencing

...Yet, a group of aboriginal hunters slaughtered an entire elk herd in Manitoba without doing anything illegal. Elk Kill: No Charges Laid.


The  American Medical Association voted to recognize obesity as a disease.
... but you can’t call someone who is mentally handicapped “retarded.”

It is illegal to wear a mask or otherwise conceal your identity during a riot or unlawful assembly.
… but you can park a First Nation on a major transportation route and nobody seems to care. 


~ That's all for now. Thanks for reading.