Returning from abroad is exhilirating. It is energizing. It is exhausting. It is like a beginning to the shining middle and an end to that rotten beginning. It is also rather dangerous because this very illusion of new found hope starts to get you dreaming - dreaming like you might have scarcely dared to before.
It fills you with a vigour upon whose pace you travel with such speed and motivation that it scares even you. That feeling of expanse and a deep connection with the earth, real, hard, terra firma can do that to you. It is rather dangerous, really, all the things you see yourself accomplishing and daring to hope as you might have never hoped before.
Change is a very organic substance and is, I believe, the base of every single thought, phenomenon and action in this world. The difference brought about by change; Derrida, he was on the right track. That idea of difference is the power that change grants and there is no power so heady nor so combustible or useful as change. It fuels originality in thought, in design, in life, really; our need for change makes us think, wonder...so I quirk one eyebrow up and ask the most quitely dangerous question: what if?
What if, indeed. What if - so many things! Where to begin, and where to go once the beginning has been determined? And it has...my beginning has been 20 years in the making...but whence to proceed from here? There are about a million and one possibilities and iterations and I almost wish I could send out a dozen copies of myself to take different tracks and report back to me upon merger 40 years later.
I promised myself that I wouldn't be overwhelmed and inundated; that I would relax and take it as it comes. So far, that is proving to be the right thing to do, even if it is rather (read horriblee) hard for me to do. I keep having to shift my mind away from the niggling thoughts but I think eventually that will become second nature. There is really just so much to tackle: pick your cause. I'm having a hard time (or was) picking mine. Which is funny because no one really asked me to pick in the first place; everyone assumes students will eventually leave their shelter of hallowed halls and change the world in new and wonderous ways. The problem is that I love it all too much. I love it all, I'm passionate about most things and am far too interested and curious for my own good. Also, I don't trust our generation to be the same way; very few of them are and of those few, you must weed through the self-proclaimed, arrogant and pseudo-intellectuals to reach the actual stars. So I feel it is encumbent upon me to pick all causes and save the world - oh, I almost long for the days to come when I'm 28 and disillusioned and bitter like Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson.
I find myself lingering on every sight and sound that passes my way with a new energy that has been missing for almost four years now. It is surprising what a new wardrobe can also do. Filling one's life with only the pieces that make you happy and energized and...important. There is nothing like it. And if I sound unbearingly optimistic, I don't apologize but only hope to re-iterate that I am a realist - who is currently on a high.
It seems strange to say it as a marker of what seems so right these days but my skin seems softer, my sleep feels deeper and hair looks nicer, even if I've tumbled down from bed. Maybe this feeling will fade and maybe it won't but, as of now, I'm not too worried either way. Yes, I am sunk in debt; yes, I am not nearly as mobile as I would like. But...its not like those things seem any smaller; only more doable- more changeable, more manageable. More likely. This life seems more likely, no matter what track.
As a sign, when my mind starts to wander and ponder on the various alternations of futures that could be and makes mini, start-plans as to how to get there, I instantly feel nauseous. But now I am really enjoying going through all the what ifs and thinking further, without the strain of actually trying to make it happen. I guess I am saying - I'm happy to be in the moment, allowing myself that luxury (for once). The what-ifs don't come accompanied by can-dos. They just stay their lovely old states of what-ifs.
What are the what-ifs? Good gosh, too many.
What-ifs to scripts and novel ideas. What-ifs to getting published. What-ifs to volunteering and teaching in Macchu Picchu and exploring the Himalayas. What-ifs to leaving civilization for a few years and changing the face of education and misguided mindsets. What-ifs to writing for Conde-Nast and National Geographic (*faint*). What-ifs to Brown and Rhodes, browsing beaches in Maine, to Carnegie Mellon. What-ifs to street theatre, kathak dancing, scholarships to Delhi. What-ifs to curating or publishing or designing or working at the MMoA/Bartle-Bogle-Hegarty. What-ifs to dual citizenship and splurging rent money on Jimmy Choos. What-ifs to working for idols and invitations to premiers at Leicester Square. What-ifs to changing the face of inspiration. What-ifs to meeting and falling in love to changing lives and healing them. What-ifs coming to terms with all the past and forgiving and moving the fuck on.
So here's to all that was- that can be, that will be and, mostly, that is.
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
That Great Philosopher, Mick Jagger
Last night, Singapore time, I was trying to sign up for my classes. And I found that, thanks to some stupid technicality and the fact that I am a mere 3 creds away from being considered a third year student, that I cannot take third year courses. Even though I am a third year student. I kept panicking. I kept trying to call the English Department, I kept getting impatient and angry at their lack of knowledge, their response. That I, the student, had to outline to these dunderheads my situation and then light the path of solution and problems with the solution FOR them. That I had to wait for a response from people who seemingly sit on their ass and do nothing while a whole ocean and several countries or a whole ocean and half of america separate me from Toronto.
So I raged. I cried. I stormed. I left a long, detailed, slightly-shaking-with-anger message on the Undergraduate director's answering machine. After thinking bitter, surging thoughts of the level of incompetency in departmental offices of academia, I fell asleep.
They say everything looks better with sleep, but this is rarely, if ever, true. I was just as angry, just as annoyed and panicking jsut as much in the morning. But the plight of the situation and my own mental neuroticies spurred me to think of another way to reach the same goal. I couldn't do anything; I might as well sit back. I realized, I was re-evaluating, as we must do, when things aren't going our way.
I knew my end goal and decided that, before freaking the hell out, that I might as well see if there were any way to get what I wanted, what I needed, to be done if I took another tack. I'm not going to give up by any means - I am still going to rage and storm and push until they give me third year classes. But...I will be okay and the world will not collapse if, in some bizarre and alternate universe that I don't get these classes.
Mm, perspective, it is a lethal weapon. Would I be able to breathe were in toronto? Would I have ben able to let the matter lie so quickly and decide to search for an alternate solution so quickly had distance and three time zones not separated me? Probably not. I would've charged over there the next day and demanded to be seen, and then using my Inherent SuperPowers of Rhetorical Persuasion (also known as annoying persistence like that of a housefly), I would've gotten what I wanted.
But then I remembered those famous words, bless their drugged british rock hearts: you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes...you get what you need.
Which allayed my fears only slightly but worked to calmm me. Speaking to a friend this morning (her night), she updated me on her life. Telling me that she was going to be coming to the same university as me and then outlining her thoughts, her goals. I started to think...gosh, I didn't see that happening. Who would've thunk it? Could I have ever honestly imagined that, a year later, she would be at the junction where I was, a year earlier, emotionally mature and ready to explore? No. Again, time and space grants you many boons; one of them is this. As ecstatic beyond words I am at the fact that she will be in toronto, that I will get to see her and that FINALLY she will be purusing what she wants, I realized again:
What she wanted changed so dramatically. A year ago, if you had asked her what she wanted, it would've been something completely different. And yet, here she was, standing at this crossroads, ready to take the plunge. She tried to plough through...then she tried to change her life. And maybe it's not what she originally wanted. But she got what she needed baby. She got what she needs. I am proud of her - and equally astounded with the veracity of those words.
Seeing this in action...sort of blew me away. Filled me with disbelief and then gratitude that I could see these eternal words in play. Put things into perspective further for me.
Because you can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes....you get what you need.
Ohhhh baby.
So I raged. I cried. I stormed. I left a long, detailed, slightly-shaking-with-anger message on the Undergraduate director's answering machine. After thinking bitter, surging thoughts of the level of incompetency in departmental offices of academia, I fell asleep.
They say everything looks better with sleep, but this is rarely, if ever, true. I was just as angry, just as annoyed and panicking jsut as much in the morning. But the plight of the situation and my own mental neuroticies spurred me to think of another way to reach the same goal. I couldn't do anything; I might as well sit back. I realized, I was re-evaluating, as we must do, when things aren't going our way.
I knew my end goal and decided that, before freaking the hell out, that I might as well see if there were any way to get what I wanted, what I needed, to be done if I took another tack. I'm not going to give up by any means - I am still going to rage and storm and push until they give me third year classes. But...I will be okay and the world will not collapse if, in some bizarre and alternate universe that I don't get these classes.
Mm, perspective, it is a lethal weapon. Would I be able to breathe were in toronto? Would I have ben able to let the matter lie so quickly and decide to search for an alternate solution so quickly had distance and three time zones not separated me? Probably not. I would've charged over there the next day and demanded to be seen, and then using my Inherent SuperPowers of Rhetorical Persuasion (also known as annoying persistence like that of a housefly), I would've gotten what I wanted.
But then I remembered those famous words, bless their drugged british rock hearts: you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes...you get what you need.
Which allayed my fears only slightly but worked to calmm me. Speaking to a friend this morning (her night), she updated me on her life. Telling me that she was going to be coming to the same university as me and then outlining her thoughts, her goals. I started to think...gosh, I didn't see that happening. Who would've thunk it? Could I have ever honestly imagined that, a year later, she would be at the junction where I was, a year earlier, emotionally mature and ready to explore? No. Again, time and space grants you many boons; one of them is this. As ecstatic beyond words I am at the fact that she will be in toronto, that I will get to see her and that FINALLY she will be purusing what she wants, I realized again:
What she wanted changed so dramatically. A year ago, if you had asked her what she wanted, it would've been something completely different. And yet, here she was, standing at this crossroads, ready to take the plunge. She tried to plough through...then she tried to change her life. And maybe it's not what she originally wanted. But she got what she needed baby. She got what she needs. I am proud of her - and equally astounded with the veracity of those words.
Seeing this in action...sort of blew me away. Filled me with disbelief and then gratitude that I could see these eternal words in play. Put things into perspective further for me.
Because you can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes....you get what you need.
Ohhhh baby.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Love...And Other Disasters.
It seems inevitable. You know that thing...that phenomenon? The one where, as soon as you become acutely aware of something or a realization occurs, that thing starts to show up everywhere? You notice it everywhere you go; or it really becomes that ubiquitous, as though the universe may be trying to setting up Vegas-style neon coloured signs of what to focus on. For me, all signs point to single-girl-dom and city-life.
After sightseeing for a few days, I hunkered down to a spate of movies, courtesy of HBO and Star Movies. I caught Love and Other Disasters. Others may scoff at her but I think Brittany Murphy is a top-class actress and totally underrated. If you look past the blonde locks and breathy voice, you'll see that she nails her characters with an air of unpractised ease. In Love and Other Disasters, she was playing a 20-something American intern at UK Vogue and I thought she pulled off the in-between accent so well. You know, the one that's hardest to do - because she was in the middle of an American accent but aptly stressed the right words with just the right amount of inflection. And she was consistent. Also, her choice of movies = impeccable and interesting.
Anyway, the allure of the movie (besides Santiago Cabrerra...dear god, I could just spread him on a cracker...) was the city of London. Which, of course, is vastly different from New York City. The main practices are the same - fashion, love, sex, nights out, local watering holes, gay roommates and sky-high rent - but the people, the attitudes are worlds apart. Which I thought the film captured silently and particularly well. You could spot it if you were looking at it.
Being in Singapore, which is a perpetual city and damn proud of it, reminds me of the lonliness of being within a city crowd. The consuming ache you feel after you step back on to the curb, after having just been in a crowd of poeple crossing the road and yet wanting absolutely no one to jostle you.
The shopping here is...unbelieveable. I've been to new York so many times now that the shopping just doesn't faze me - plus some of the hype is just that: hype. You have to know where to look, where to shop. And while that is true even of Singapore, where Fendi and Vuitton lives near vintage, somehow, it seems like everything is alot more accessible here in Singapore. Probably because I could catch a ride and cross the country in less than 20 minutes. Me, myself, I've been gorging on the piles of one-of designs and dresses, nameless t-shirts, funky shoes. Appearance here is a huge deal. I'd wager that, on average, Singaporeans spend at least 100/wk on shoes and clothes. Easily. And that is just the low end. Shopping is the national pastime here.
The level of safety is also amazing. I can catch a cab at 2 in the morning, hop up to a eating centre (yes...this is Singapore's second national pastime...and yet somehow everyone is super skiny. You thought French women were elusive...but these people are just magical - or very scary) and not worry about where I am or what time it is. As a chick...it's refreshing. Because, yes, you could hop a cabbie in NY or T.O. but there are always places that you know you shouldn't be going. It's not really like that here.
I don't know if I've spent money wisely perse, but I certainly know that I've bought from the heart. Each and every single one of my purchases has been completely whimsical, instinctual, with the speed of love-at-first-sight, not paying heed to the amount of money remaining until it was all gone. In my defense, I did take the time to feel slightly guilty (also known as Post-Shopper's Guilt Syndrome) but then rationalized that this is what I had set the money out for in the first place. And even though I got a few items for a...larger amount of money, I'd rather have quality than have multiple copies of the same shitty t-shirts. So many dresses! It was every girly-girl's vintage bohemian dream. I really must post pictures of my finds...they're like treasures.
When the money was gone, I spent a day in mourning of all the shoes and dresses and skirts that would never know a home in my closet and then moved on to sightseeing. Not really much to see - this is my second visit here. And the allure of the animal zoos, bird parks, butterfly conservatories has now been replaced with the grown-up 20 year old realization that zoos are hot and smelly (and how many variations of an elephant can you see?), birds poop alot and butterflys are beautiful but giant INSECTS. So I focused more on my surroundings, the people, the places, the smell. The good, the bad, the facades, the lights.
I missed Singapore Fashion Week so the Marc by Marc Jacobs exhibit was gone. But I did pay a visit to the National Museum of Singapore, the Ancient Civilization exhibit and the Singapore Art Gallery. Nothing really compared to the National Reserve Library, though. The nerd in me (which is 99/9% of my being) screamed for joy and was shamelessly and lustfully infatuated by the gorgeous library of glass and mahogany and steel. I finished off some research for my Saudi project, got a few sources. Nothing could parallel the feleing of immense...belonging and peace that settled over me as I got back to academia for three hours. Wow...guess this is proof beyond doubt of my hermitaged future.
I also hit the (Eye of London) Singapore Flyer. I insisted we go at nighttime, because city lights are what my heart soars highest for. Pictures to come, I had a shitty disposable with me so once that gets developed...=( but anyhow, it was nothing short of magical. Granted, I kept trying to super impose my beloved NY skyline on the view at the very top but Singapore is really booming - and beautiful beyond words at night. I reckon that in a couple of years, they'll have a killer skyline of their own. Of course, NYC shall still eternally pwn them. The cabin itself was gorgeous, especially at night, all lit up and spacious. My girlfriend kept telling me with a pang that though she loves being single, she wished had an on-call boyfriend to spend romantic moments like this with. I kept telling her I wished I had a digital SLR for moments like this. She told me my priorities were worrying.
The quiet days are now coming to an end, what with my three younger cousins returning but not before I had a chance to visit Chinatown, wherein I proceeded to buy dirt-cheap crap for friends and Little India (wherein I got stared down by women and ogled by men like the foreigner I am). After some healthy haggling in Pagoda Street, I ended up getting some fabulous kimono-type bathrobes for Mother and I. If I spoke like that I would say that they were really quite a steal - that is a big if, however. In Little India, it started to rain, thankfully, so people ran out of sight and into shops while I stayed out and got drenched but got some lovely shots of alleyways and gaudy Christmas lights strung over shops. Amazing.
I also applied for the TIFF as a volunteer but ended up doing the most effing STUPID thing. I hit the submit button without sending my resume in. So after freaking out for three minutes, I then filled out another application and realized that, if I were the interview people, I'd disqualify me just for erring in such a large way, taking it as an ominous sign of volunteer incapabilities. Fuck man. Fingers crossed though - hopefully, they won't notice; besides, there are so many Sarah's in the world, bless their souls. It's easy to get mixed up, right? That's what I keep telling myself, at least.
OOh! I also got a chance to see the very cool, very hip, soul-pumping, adrenaline-chugging band, Voodoo Singapore. In front of Paragon, a group of six or seven boys smashed the living daylights out of drums and various percussion instruments in an unbelieveable coordinated effort and produced some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. I'm making it my personal mission to spread the word about them - it was so capturing, like nothing I've ever heard before. It made me wish I was their manager or I was the daughter of some hot-shot music producer or record label head honcho bloke because then I could totally pass on their music. The way they jsut had SO much fun working off each other, working the crowd, killing the beat on those drums - unbloodybelieveable. I'm in love. With music. Again. Sigh. Open air music gigs are alot more fun than those within an arena or club or indoor space. I guess it depends on the bands and their audio acoustics but I could say without fear of argument that percussion was made for an outdoor jam session. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/VoodooSG. I keep trying to find some vids on youtube...so far a no-go. But the outdoor busking is sure to continue and, like a true groupie, I shall surely follow.
There is alot more to come, I'm sure. These past few days have been quite and lazy. Still, there's to weeks more before I return to reality and do things such as apply to OSAP and argue when I get turned down because my father makes to much, trying to swing the fact that I am an independent and no longer a minor, look for places to live in T.O., and scrounge up money for living. =)
Tune in next time as Sarah tries to look for an internship in 2010 at Conde Nast and Mirabai Films.
cheers.
After sightseeing for a few days, I hunkered down to a spate of movies, courtesy of HBO and Star Movies. I caught Love and Other Disasters. Others may scoff at her but I think Brittany Murphy is a top-class actress and totally underrated. If you look past the blonde locks and breathy voice, you'll see that she nails her characters with an air of unpractised ease. In Love and Other Disasters, she was playing a 20-something American intern at UK Vogue and I thought she pulled off the in-between accent so well. You know, the one that's hardest to do - because she was in the middle of an American accent but aptly stressed the right words with just the right amount of inflection. And she was consistent. Also, her choice of movies = impeccable and interesting.
Anyway, the allure of the movie (besides Santiago Cabrerra...dear god, I could just spread him on a cracker...) was the city of London. Which, of course, is vastly different from New York City. The main practices are the same - fashion, love, sex, nights out, local watering holes, gay roommates and sky-high rent - but the people, the attitudes are worlds apart. Which I thought the film captured silently and particularly well. You could spot it if you were looking at it.
Being in Singapore, which is a perpetual city and damn proud of it, reminds me of the lonliness of being within a city crowd. The consuming ache you feel after you step back on to the curb, after having just been in a crowd of poeple crossing the road and yet wanting absolutely no one to jostle you.
The shopping here is...unbelieveable. I've been to new York so many times now that the shopping just doesn't faze me - plus some of the hype is just that: hype. You have to know where to look, where to shop. And while that is true even of Singapore, where Fendi and Vuitton lives near vintage, somehow, it seems like everything is alot more accessible here in Singapore. Probably because I could catch a ride and cross the country in less than 20 minutes. Me, myself, I've been gorging on the piles of one-of designs and dresses, nameless t-shirts, funky shoes. Appearance here is a huge deal. I'd wager that, on average, Singaporeans spend at least 100/wk on shoes and clothes. Easily. And that is just the low end. Shopping is the national pastime here.
The level of safety is also amazing. I can catch a cab at 2 in the morning, hop up to a eating centre (yes...this is Singapore's second national pastime...and yet somehow everyone is super skiny. You thought French women were elusive...but these people are just magical - or very scary) and not worry about where I am or what time it is. As a chick...it's refreshing. Because, yes, you could hop a cabbie in NY or T.O. but there are always places that you know you shouldn't be going. It's not really like that here.
I don't know if I've spent money wisely perse, but I certainly know that I've bought from the heart. Each and every single one of my purchases has been completely whimsical, instinctual, with the speed of love-at-first-sight, not paying heed to the amount of money remaining until it was all gone. In my defense, I did take the time to feel slightly guilty (also known as Post-Shopper's Guilt Syndrome) but then rationalized that this is what I had set the money out for in the first place. And even though I got a few items for a...larger amount of money, I'd rather have quality than have multiple copies of the same shitty t-shirts. So many dresses! It was every girly-girl's vintage bohemian dream. I really must post pictures of my finds...they're like treasures.
When the money was gone, I spent a day in mourning of all the shoes and dresses and skirts that would never know a home in my closet and then moved on to sightseeing. Not really much to see - this is my second visit here. And the allure of the animal zoos, bird parks, butterfly conservatories has now been replaced with the grown-up 20 year old realization that zoos are hot and smelly (and how many variations of an elephant can you see?), birds poop alot and butterflys are beautiful but giant INSECTS. So I focused more on my surroundings, the people, the places, the smell. The good, the bad, the facades, the lights.
I missed Singapore Fashion Week so the Marc by Marc Jacobs exhibit was gone. But I did pay a visit to the National Museum of Singapore, the Ancient Civilization exhibit and the Singapore Art Gallery. Nothing really compared to the National Reserve Library, though. The nerd in me (which is 99/9% of my being) screamed for joy and was shamelessly and lustfully infatuated by the gorgeous library of glass and mahogany and steel. I finished off some research for my Saudi project, got a few sources. Nothing could parallel the feleing of immense...belonging and peace that settled over me as I got back to academia for three hours. Wow...guess this is proof beyond doubt of my hermitaged future.
I also hit the (Eye of London) Singapore Flyer. I insisted we go at nighttime, because city lights are what my heart soars highest for. Pictures to come, I had a shitty disposable with me so once that gets developed...=( but anyhow, it was nothing short of magical. Granted, I kept trying to super impose my beloved NY skyline on the view at the very top but Singapore is really booming - and beautiful beyond words at night. I reckon that in a couple of years, they'll have a killer skyline of their own. Of course, NYC shall still eternally pwn them. The cabin itself was gorgeous, especially at night, all lit up and spacious. My girlfriend kept telling me with a pang that though she loves being single, she wished had an on-call boyfriend to spend romantic moments like this with. I kept telling her I wished I had a digital SLR for moments like this. She told me my priorities were worrying.
The quiet days are now coming to an end, what with my three younger cousins returning but not before I had a chance to visit Chinatown, wherein I proceeded to buy dirt-cheap crap for friends and Little India (wherein I got stared down by women and ogled by men like the foreigner I am). After some healthy haggling in Pagoda Street, I ended up getting some fabulous kimono-type bathrobes for Mother and I. If I spoke like that I would say that they were really quite a steal - that is a big if, however. In Little India, it started to rain, thankfully, so people ran out of sight and into shops while I stayed out and got drenched but got some lovely shots of alleyways and gaudy Christmas lights strung over shops. Amazing.
I also applied for the TIFF as a volunteer but ended up doing the most effing STUPID thing. I hit the submit button without sending my resume in. So after freaking out for three minutes, I then filled out another application and realized that, if I were the interview people, I'd disqualify me just for erring in such a large way, taking it as an ominous sign of volunteer incapabilities. Fuck man. Fingers crossed though - hopefully, they won't notice; besides, there are so many Sarah's in the world, bless their souls. It's easy to get mixed up, right? That's what I keep telling myself, at least.
OOh! I also got a chance to see the very cool, very hip, soul-pumping, adrenaline-chugging band, Voodoo Singapore. In front of Paragon, a group of six or seven boys smashed the living daylights out of drums and various percussion instruments in an unbelieveable coordinated effort and produced some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. I'm making it my personal mission to spread the word about them - it was so capturing, like nothing I've ever heard before. It made me wish I was their manager or I was the daughter of some hot-shot music producer or record label head honcho bloke because then I could totally pass on their music. The way they jsut had SO much fun working off each other, working the crowd, killing the beat on those drums - unbloodybelieveable. I'm in love. With music. Again. Sigh. Open air music gigs are alot more fun than those within an arena or club or indoor space. I guess it depends on the bands and their audio acoustics but I could say without fear of argument that percussion was made for an outdoor jam session. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/VoodooSG. I keep trying to find some vids on youtube...so far a no-go. But the outdoor busking is sure to continue and, like a true groupie, I shall surely follow.
There is alot more to come, I'm sure. These past few days have been quite and lazy. Still, there's to weeks more before I return to reality and do things such as apply to OSAP and argue when I get turned down because my father makes to much, trying to swing the fact that I am an independent and no longer a minor, look for places to live in T.O., and scrounge up money for living. =)
Tune in next time as Sarah tries to look for an internship in 2010 at Conde Nast and Mirabai Films.
cheers.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Fresh Eyes
Being here in Singapore is not merely giving me a chance to explore a new country. It is also allowing me some much required brain space, breathing time, peace and quiet from the regular, tumultuous cataclysms that is my life in toronto.
I keep writing posts and then not publishing them because they are too long-winded, too detailed. And yet, they work; they slowly draw out the emotion into words like pulling at a loose thread in a spool and watching it unravel. The heap of thread is still there...but it is not so tightly wound.
So it is that these words make me feel. Anyhow, something short and sweet; not resolutions but decisions that I have made in my life, about my life that is going to and will change. In no particular order...
I am going to move out. I must. It is essential if I hope to stay alive and not jump off a cliff. This will entail applying for osap, maybe dropping my cellphone service to a monthly top-off, picking up two extra jobs through the summer and applying more rigorously for scholarships, looking for a roomate and starting the house-search now. Buying furnishings and keeping them stocked fro the day I move out. Which will be by May 31st 2010.
I am going to work out, in a strict regime, every single day. Either a workout or cardio or both. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. No more stupid, fat, body. It is so unattractive not because thin is in...but because its just a sign of how much I don't give a shit. No more apathy. I still love food...shall always love it. But...time to get healthy and not be a couch-rhino. Basically, the idea is to stop ignoring me; to take care of me. Not be lazy...be proactive. Sounds so New Age, I know, but I've been driving myself into the ground and quietly sitting in bed. NO More! I'm going to pay attention to my hair and skin.
I am going to be more organized. Because, in order for these things to fall in place, to get those jobs and pay attention to me, I must be organized. And I will be. No more age-old procrastinator...still going to be laidback, not uptight or dragon-lady about things. But just...care more. Not put things off.
Be more passionate. Well...express that passion instead of just merely bottling it up. Goodness knows I've got oodles of moxy; moxy is practically pouring out my ears.
Treat myself with something classy every once in a while. Not worry that it is frovolous and materialistic. The day will come, I am sure, when I completely shun society and go to live in the mountains like a monk (goodness knows I've been contemplating that over the last year).
Save up enough to retake driving lessons and get my G.
Not be so elitist. Somethings, however, like Miley Cyrus and the new 90210, are unforgiveable.
Stop running away. Stop being so angry. Or...being proactively angry...not explosively so.
Smile more.
Leave in peace. Live in peace. Try not to get bogged down by stupid family shit. Because, soon, that will all be gone. Or at least, the DVP will separate us.
I keep writing posts and then not publishing them because they are too long-winded, too detailed. And yet, they work; they slowly draw out the emotion into words like pulling at a loose thread in a spool and watching it unravel. The heap of thread is still there...but it is not so tightly wound.
So it is that these words make me feel. Anyhow, something short and sweet; not resolutions but decisions that I have made in my life, about my life that is going to and will change. In no particular order...
I am going to move out. I must. It is essential if I hope to stay alive and not jump off a cliff. This will entail applying for osap, maybe dropping my cellphone service to a monthly top-off, picking up two extra jobs through the summer and applying more rigorously for scholarships, looking for a roomate and starting the house-search now. Buying furnishings and keeping them stocked fro the day I move out. Which will be by May 31st 2010.
I am going to work out, in a strict regime, every single day. Either a workout or cardio or both. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. No more stupid, fat, body. It is so unattractive not because thin is in...but because its just a sign of how much I don't give a shit. No more apathy. I still love food...shall always love it. But...time to get healthy and not be a couch-rhino. Basically, the idea is to stop ignoring me; to take care of me. Not be lazy...be proactive. Sounds so New Age, I know, but I've been driving myself into the ground and quietly sitting in bed. NO More! I'm going to pay attention to my hair and skin.
I am going to be more organized. Because, in order for these things to fall in place, to get those jobs and pay attention to me, I must be organized. And I will be. No more age-old procrastinator...still going to be laidback, not uptight or dragon-lady about things. But just...care more. Not put things off.
Be more passionate. Well...express that passion instead of just merely bottling it up. Goodness knows I've got oodles of moxy; moxy is practically pouring out my ears.
Treat myself with something classy every once in a while. Not worry that it is frovolous and materialistic. The day will come, I am sure, when I completely shun society and go to live in the mountains like a monk (goodness knows I've been contemplating that over the last year).
Save up enough to retake driving lessons and get my G.
Not be so elitist. Somethings, however, like Miley Cyrus and the new 90210, are unforgiveable.
Stop running away. Stop being so angry. Or...being proactively angry...not explosively so.
Smile more.
Leave in peace. Live in peace. Try not to get bogged down by stupid family shit. Because, soon, that will all be gone. Or at least, the DVP will separate us.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Moving Pictures
I'm very grateful. For music, for art, for pictures, still, moving, for imagination, for creativity, for immportality, for this plane of existence.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Rampant thoughts on a mock European bus
Thankfully, I caught the ghost bus this morning. The Viva, which is Toronto/GTA's pseudo-european answer to express bus service in an area only recently cultivated for the housing boom but was previously acres of desolate farmland, is usually jam packed in the morning, especially by the time it gets to Woodbine & Hwy 7.
The ghost bus was characteristically quiet this morning. Not too many occupants, and empty seats. I stretched my legs at leisure and piled the adjacent seats with my so-heavy-could-be-carrying-a-corpse backpack. So there I sat, with bright, sharp morning sunlight streaming in and hiding the fugitive wind of a cold March morning, blaring my John Mayer.
Whether or not you mean to, it's always fun to listen to people's conversations, and hard to miss if they're talking particularly loud. There were two guys talking about...anything and everything. Aah, just my type of conversation (no sarcasm intended). I paid no attention - they were talking about the Bible & hypocrisy (man, is that a tired topic) - but then the words "Loan payback" drifted to my seat and tapped me persuasively on my shoulder. And so the volum on my ipod dropped to a hum.
I didn't care much for the particulars: the amount of his loan or anything like that. These guys were talking about being students and their plans for LIFE. It's been plaguing my own mind for a long while now so I decided to learn what I could.
They were just as green as me, of course, not really veterans in being homeless/penniless students but...their approach was different. Their outlook was what I like to adopt and stick to on good days and that I hopelessly drop and succumb to fear on bad days. Naturally, for me, there are more bad days than good; funny how that works. They figured, whatever happens, happens.
So this was the gist of the conversation:
Boy 1: ....and I've got my OSAP loan and line of credit. I figure I can at least pay off my line of credit
Boy 2: How much is your line of credit?
Boy 1: Oh...like 18, 20K? Yeah, it's not too bad...it's a mountain but it's a doable mountain, you know? Like I could work for a year straight and just pay that shit off so it's not too bad. Like, right now I make all the minimum payments...and there was a point in time where I'd make like a full payment....yeah, me and my parents were really good at that time. We'd talk and all, our relationship got better and I kept paying the full amount for like six, seven months straight. But then...man, I don't even know what happened but I stopped paying full...and I even missed a payment. So my dad got really pissed. Whatever man.
Boy 2: Hah. Shit. So what do you think?
Boy 1: Seriously, man, I don't care. My parents are all like, what the hell are you going to do with your life, you're not getting an actual degree of use, you're going to be homeless and live in a hole. And I'm like, what the hell? How do other people live? Like, there are so many kdis with Arts degrees and they're actually doing stuff with their lives, you know? They figure things out, I will too.
Boy 2: Mhmm...
Boy 1: Like, they work, pay, go to school. They travel. Okay, there's this guy I know. He's in university and this summer he's going to BC 'cuz he's writing this book. Artists and Life Art or something like that. And he's doing this project, you know? And he's like, if I'd come out and help him with research and editing, he'd pay for my flight ticket. Crazy, right? But here he is, doing something with his life. Stuff like that.
Boy 2: For sure man. Like people just get caught up in work and jobs and whatever.
Boy 1: Exactly. There's this girl I know. All she does is work for a year, saves up as much as can. Puts half toward her tuition and then save the rest for traveling. That's all she does: works and travels. And then the next year she goes to school. Like that's amazing you know? She fucking knows how to live her life.
Boy 2: Are you serious? She just...travels?
Boy 1: Yeah man, she takes like 3 or 4 jobs through the year and earns all she can. It's crazy. And so awesome. But you know what, that's the way to be! Like, I'm not worried about stuff. There's no rush for me, and people figure things out, you know? Just because you're an Arts grad, doesn't mean you're going to be broke. It annoys me when people think that way or say that to you.
-----------------------------------------------------
I found this to be...not quite an eye-opener, because I've met and talked to people like this before. But to have this to consider in the morning, when I've been thinking about this all along...to have it come from strangers was...thought-inducing.
Because it's something that is hard for me to grasp or fully apply to my own life. I'm torn between being an idealist and just being...practical. And the biggest struggle for me right now is, yes, the money, yes what the hell am I going to do in the future, but also, when the hell is it going to finally happen. There's honour...doing the right thing at the right time, finishing a degree in four years getting a job, making some money to pay back those loans. And then there's freedom where someone like the aforementioned girl works and lives her gawdamn life!
I don't know the answers to anything yet, and my head was swimming, hearing this. It wasn't a new sentiment. It's been expressed before. But in trying to apply it to my own life, I'm held back by fear. Great and immense, bottomless fear that doesn't usually tinge my behaviour or my thoughts.
A very big part of me is still stuck in that room in Waterloo, worrying about honour and freedom and the cost of pursuing your dreams and the tradeoffs, the sacrifices, the depression, the idealism, the follow-through and the potential for failure. A big part of me is still that timid girl crying over the phone, is still battling with my father, is still lacking coherency and stability. Is still missing in action in a very big way.
And as though my ipod could read my mind (and I swear it does this often), their conversation prophetically ended to the beginning of Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Life is so uncannily stylish, sometimes, it's scary. Take Five indeed.
The ghost bus was characteristically quiet this morning. Not too many occupants, and empty seats. I stretched my legs at leisure and piled the adjacent seats with my so-heavy-could-be-carrying-a-corpse backpack. So there I sat, with bright, sharp morning sunlight streaming in and hiding the fugitive wind of a cold March morning, blaring my John Mayer.
Whether or not you mean to, it's always fun to listen to people's conversations, and hard to miss if they're talking particularly loud. There were two guys talking about...anything and everything. Aah, just my type of conversation (no sarcasm intended). I paid no attention - they were talking about the Bible & hypocrisy (man, is that a tired topic) - but then the words "Loan payback" drifted to my seat and tapped me persuasively on my shoulder. And so the volum on my ipod dropped to a hum.
I didn't care much for the particulars: the amount of his loan or anything like that. These guys were talking about being students and their plans for LIFE. It's been plaguing my own mind for a long while now so I decided to learn what I could.
They were just as green as me, of course, not really veterans in being homeless/penniless students but...their approach was different. Their outlook was what I like to adopt and stick to on good days and that I hopelessly drop and succumb to fear on bad days. Naturally, for me, there are more bad days than good; funny how that works. They figured, whatever happens, happens.
So this was the gist of the conversation:
Boy 1: ....and I've got my OSAP loan and line of credit. I figure I can at least pay off my line of credit
Boy 2: How much is your line of credit?
Boy 1: Oh...like 18, 20K? Yeah, it's not too bad...it's a mountain but it's a doable mountain, you know? Like I could work for a year straight and just pay that shit off so it's not too bad. Like, right now I make all the minimum payments...and there was a point in time where I'd make like a full payment....yeah, me and my parents were really good at that time. We'd talk and all, our relationship got better and I kept paying the full amount for like six, seven months straight. But then...man, I don't even know what happened but I stopped paying full...and I even missed a payment. So my dad got really pissed. Whatever man.
Boy 2: Hah. Shit. So what do you think?
Boy 1: Seriously, man, I don't care. My parents are all like, what the hell are you going to do with your life, you're not getting an actual degree of use, you're going to be homeless and live in a hole. And I'm like, what the hell? How do other people live? Like, there are so many kdis with Arts degrees and they're actually doing stuff with their lives, you know? They figure things out, I will too.
Boy 2: Mhmm...
Boy 1: Like, they work, pay, go to school. They travel. Okay, there's this guy I know. He's in university and this summer he's going to BC 'cuz he's writing this book. Artists and Life Art or something like that. And he's doing this project, you know? And he's like, if I'd come out and help him with research and editing, he'd pay for my flight ticket. Crazy, right? But here he is, doing something with his life. Stuff like that.
Boy 2: For sure man. Like people just get caught up in work and jobs and whatever.
Boy 1: Exactly. There's this girl I know. All she does is work for a year, saves up as much as can. Puts half toward her tuition and then save the rest for traveling. That's all she does: works and travels. And then the next year she goes to school. Like that's amazing you know? She fucking knows how to live her life.
Boy 2: Are you serious? She just...travels?
Boy 1: Yeah man, she takes like 3 or 4 jobs through the year and earns all she can. It's crazy. And so awesome. But you know what, that's the way to be! Like, I'm not worried about stuff. There's no rush for me, and people figure things out, you know? Just because you're an Arts grad, doesn't mean you're going to be broke. It annoys me when people think that way or say that to you.
-----------------------------------------------------
I found this to be...not quite an eye-opener, because I've met and talked to people like this before. But to have this to consider in the morning, when I've been thinking about this all along...to have it come from strangers was...thought-inducing.
Because it's something that is hard for me to grasp or fully apply to my own life. I'm torn between being an idealist and just being...practical. And the biggest struggle for me right now is, yes, the money, yes what the hell am I going to do in the future, but also, when the hell is it going to finally happen. There's honour...doing the right thing at the right time, finishing a degree in four years getting a job, making some money to pay back those loans. And then there's freedom where someone like the aforementioned girl works and lives her gawdamn life!
I don't know the answers to anything yet, and my head was swimming, hearing this. It wasn't a new sentiment. It's been expressed before. But in trying to apply it to my own life, I'm held back by fear. Great and immense, bottomless fear that doesn't usually tinge my behaviour or my thoughts.
A very big part of me is still stuck in that room in Waterloo, worrying about honour and freedom and the cost of pursuing your dreams and the tradeoffs, the sacrifices, the depression, the idealism, the follow-through and the potential for failure. A big part of me is still that timid girl crying over the phone, is still battling with my father, is still lacking coherency and stability. Is still missing in action in a very big way.
And as though my ipod could read my mind (and I swear it does this often), their conversation prophetically ended to the beginning of Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Life is so uncannily stylish, sometimes, it's scary. Take Five indeed.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Sunehri
Even if I descend into dementia or if depression should finally receive an elimination envelope in my name, I will never forget the depth of these words.
"I will tell you something that your priests don't know. The Gods envy us. Everything is so much more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be more beautiful than you are now. We will never be here again."
"I will tell you something that your priests don't know. The Gods envy us. Everything is so much more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be more beautiful than you are now. We will never be here again."
Saturday, January 10, 2009
I Go Back to May 1937
I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still opened behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say, Stop,
don't do it -- she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.
- Sharon Olds (from The Gold Cell)
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still opened behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say, Stop,
don't do it -- she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.
- Sharon Olds (from The Gold Cell)
Thursday, January 1, 2009
In the Here. And Now.
These are not New Year's resolutions. Personally, I think new year's resolutions are silly and one dimensional and I'm simultaneously amused and aggravated by the need for a new year to come so that change can be spurred.
However, I'm not completely closed off to the infectious reborn spirit that tingles the air.
The past few weeks have been...tumultuous. I have sunk from one low to the next and have wrote such depressing posts that they are fit only to be unpublished and I hope they never surface and see the light of day. I think that was really important though. I surrounded myself with every single thing, thought, notion and aspect that would overwhelm me in mourning and grief. Music, places, feelings, thoughts, artifacts, plans, pro-con lists. I spread it all around me and devoured every last one.
There are two points in a mourning period. One, in which your grief overwhelms you; the more you think about lifting your head, the farther it drops. You want to grieve, you want to be depressed. And the other is when you completely shake off this feeling - not only of the grief, but also of that feeling of wanting to drown in its swell. People say that this is when you get over it. But that's not true. This point is when you meet the grief head to head. When you've sunk so low that you can finally meet that grief and come to terms with it.
In a manner of speaking, I was grieving. I was grieving for a good many things, good people. The loss seems like a death of sorts - death of a love, death of a dream - and the unknowing: not knowing, as I stand at this crossroads, which path I should take, how much I trust myself, where to turn and whom to turn to. How to pick what it is I want to do, or change or be when there's just so much to do and change and be.
I have finally reached a point in which I no longer want to grieve. I no longer want to sink and wallow and tread. I am still in the process of discussion with that grief; we're still setting out the terms. But there are certain things that we - I - have absolutely established beyond a modicum of doubt.
Firstly, what is past...truly is past. It is gone. It is neither touchable through memory nor through time. It is gone. What could have been will always be rosier than what is now. That is a given. Secondly, from what is gone, something can always be rebuilt. I think of this like the rebirth of a phoenix or the remains of a hurricane. A phoenix dies by erupting into flame and as a piece of matter that once was, it leaves behind other matter - ashes. The death is heartbreaking but it is organic. Because there is always matter left in the wake of the destruction with which to rebuild oneself, to be reborn. The baby phoenix rises from the ashes. A hurricane ravages and eats and completely consumes people's homes, their livelihoods and any ounce of sense they have been able to understand. But once it quietens down, the remains of wood and debris, of cables and clothes, are the symbols of destruction with which people's lives are rebuilt.
Matter begets matter. One is never left with absolutely nothing. One is never washed ashore with nothing. In the chasm between what once was and what is now, there is a vaccum for the birth of what will be.
I'm not yet sure what it will be. But I think that I've been putting way too much emphasis on what it should be and setting myself up for disappointment. There is nothing exploratory in an absolute projection of a future. Telling myself, internalizing, that things will be this way and that, that I will be this way and that, is silly. It makes no sense. I'm not getting out there and doing it, fulfilling it - whatever it may be. Instead, I'm moping that it's not happening and I'm not there. But I didn't know where exactly I wanted to be.
I'm going to go really slow. Intrinsically, that is very hard for me - in fact, is goes against the very definition of me. I'm impulsive and emotional and heady (Aries, after all :D). I jump from one thing to the next. But I'm really going to take the time to take it all in. I'm not going to ride the constant adrenaline wave because, really, I can't anymore. I've lost all sense of direction and I need to regain it. Well, I need to gain it because who knows if I had it to begin with. Everything seems illusatory and dream-like these days.
Anyhow, these are some things that I have carefully thought in what seems like my time in exile. Not hasty, impulsive decisions, but real, actual actions.
I'm going to volunteer. One of my problems these past few months have been that I've been completely overwhelmed. I'm absolutely, mentally swamped with everything - the state of the world. There are just so many causes to take up, so many ways in which to advocate those causes and yet still many more places in which they plague. There's injustice everywhere. How do you tackle it all at once? How do you save the world from it's own catatonic self?
I'm going to write a letter to him. It will not be a silent one. It will not be a disasterous one like the rory-writes-dean-a-letter-and-he-gets-thrown-out. It will be an apology letter. It will be a letter not because I have no courage to face him but because somethings are better said in print. With such fragile memories as people have come to have (slight sarcastic undertone), a letter would seem to have greater longevity. And brevity. The boy I knew is done and gone now and there is nothing so relieving as that lingering note of finality. He is - in a manner of speaking - dead and this new person is a stranger to me. I have no intention that our lives should ever cross again but if it does, I want there to be no bitterness.
I'm going to take dl.
I'm going to create. I'm going to give life to all those ideas. I'm not going to leave them half-baked. I really do think creation is complete immortality and beauty intertwined and forgive me for my follies/vices but I do want to be part of such a beguiling thing.
I'm going to see the city.
I'm going to learn one new thing every single day. No matter its triviality.
I'm going to be wrapped up like this - cautious and deliberate - for a while, until I figure everything out. Most importantly, I'm going to be in the here and the now, Now.
However, I'm not completely closed off to the infectious reborn spirit that tingles the air.
The past few weeks have been...tumultuous. I have sunk from one low to the next and have wrote such depressing posts that they are fit only to be unpublished and I hope they never surface and see the light of day. I think that was really important though. I surrounded myself with every single thing, thought, notion and aspect that would overwhelm me in mourning and grief. Music, places, feelings, thoughts, artifacts, plans, pro-con lists. I spread it all around me and devoured every last one.
There are two points in a mourning period. One, in which your grief overwhelms you; the more you think about lifting your head, the farther it drops. You want to grieve, you want to be depressed. And the other is when you completely shake off this feeling - not only of the grief, but also of that feeling of wanting to drown in its swell. People say that this is when you get over it. But that's not true. This point is when you meet the grief head to head. When you've sunk so low that you can finally meet that grief and come to terms with it.
In a manner of speaking, I was grieving. I was grieving for a good many things, good people. The loss seems like a death of sorts - death of a love, death of a dream - and the unknowing: not knowing, as I stand at this crossroads, which path I should take, how much I trust myself, where to turn and whom to turn to. How to pick what it is I want to do, or change or be when there's just so much to do and change and be.
I have finally reached a point in which I no longer want to grieve. I no longer want to sink and wallow and tread. I am still in the process of discussion with that grief; we're still setting out the terms. But there are certain things that we - I - have absolutely established beyond a modicum of doubt.
Firstly, what is past...truly is past. It is gone. It is neither touchable through memory nor through time. It is gone. What could have been will always be rosier than what is now. That is a given. Secondly, from what is gone, something can always be rebuilt. I think of this like the rebirth of a phoenix or the remains of a hurricane. A phoenix dies by erupting into flame and as a piece of matter that once was, it leaves behind other matter - ashes. The death is heartbreaking but it is organic. Because there is always matter left in the wake of the destruction with which to rebuild oneself, to be reborn. The baby phoenix rises from the ashes. A hurricane ravages and eats and completely consumes people's homes, their livelihoods and any ounce of sense they have been able to understand. But once it quietens down, the remains of wood and debris, of cables and clothes, are the symbols of destruction with which people's lives are rebuilt.
Matter begets matter. One is never left with absolutely nothing. One is never washed ashore with nothing. In the chasm between what once was and what is now, there is a vaccum for the birth of what will be.
I'm not yet sure what it will be. But I think that I've been putting way too much emphasis on what it should be and setting myself up for disappointment. There is nothing exploratory in an absolute projection of a future. Telling myself, internalizing, that things will be this way and that, that I will be this way and that, is silly. It makes no sense. I'm not getting out there and doing it, fulfilling it - whatever it may be. Instead, I'm moping that it's not happening and I'm not there. But I didn't know where exactly I wanted to be.
I'm going to go really slow. Intrinsically, that is very hard for me - in fact, is goes against the very definition of me. I'm impulsive and emotional and heady (Aries, after all :D). I jump from one thing to the next. But I'm really going to take the time to take it all in. I'm not going to ride the constant adrenaline wave because, really, I can't anymore. I've lost all sense of direction and I need to regain it. Well, I need to gain it because who knows if I had it to begin with. Everything seems illusatory and dream-like these days.
Anyhow, these are some things that I have carefully thought in what seems like my time in exile. Not hasty, impulsive decisions, but real, actual actions.
I'm going to volunteer. One of my problems these past few months have been that I've been completely overwhelmed. I'm absolutely, mentally swamped with everything - the state of the world. There are just so many causes to take up, so many ways in which to advocate those causes and yet still many more places in which they plague. There's injustice everywhere. How do you tackle it all at once? How do you save the world from it's own catatonic self?
I'm going to write a letter to him. It will not be a silent one. It will not be a disasterous one like the rory-writes-dean-a-letter-and-he-gets-thrown-out. It will be an apology letter. It will be a letter not because I have no courage to face him but because somethings are better said in print. With such fragile memories as people have come to have (slight sarcastic undertone), a letter would seem to have greater longevity. And brevity. The boy I knew is done and gone now and there is nothing so relieving as that lingering note of finality. He is - in a manner of speaking - dead and this new person is a stranger to me. I have no intention that our lives should ever cross again but if it does, I want there to be no bitterness.
I'm going to take dl.
I'm going to create. I'm going to give life to all those ideas. I'm not going to leave them half-baked. I really do think creation is complete immortality and beauty intertwined and forgive me for my follies/vices but I do want to be part of such a beguiling thing.
I'm going to see the city.
I'm going to learn one new thing every single day. No matter its triviality.
I'm going to be wrapped up like this - cautious and deliberate - for a while, until I figure everything out. Most importantly, I'm going to be in the here and the now, Now.
Monday, December 29, 2008
The Promised Land
So I was talking to a friend last night at this pre-new years reunion party thing. She goes to Berkeley in San Fran. San Fran, land of the Andreas fault line, Golden Gate Bridge, many gay people and Full House. Land of the no less than 20 degree weather, surfing and bleached blondes. Land of the - well, you get it.
The last time I spoke to her, she was thinking of switching into Linguistics but totally bailed on it when she realized that Linguistics had more to do with syntax and sound than with the socio-economic and anthropological backgrounds of the language, which is what she was looking to gain. So she decided to take Economics as her major, which sounds drab and commonplace , but of course it's not because she's at Berkeley.
So she's taking a course called Crisis Development, being taught by an actual memeber of faculty who's a UN ambassador. And the format of the class is as follows. This brilliant ambassador bloke will state an international crisis; for example, the president of a major country gets shot. Every person in the clas sthen gets assigned a role in the internation community. Thus, someone could be a CNN reporter, the vice president to the late President, a leader of neighbouring or trade relations country, head of the UN, etc. Then they have debates, convene at summits and UN headquarters and discuss a strategy to calm the masses, to implement on the country, and the social, economic and political consequences of their decisions.
I don't know about you, but I think that sounds absolutely amazing. See, this. This is what I pictured university would be like; full of amazing classes and dynamic faculties, with life-changing experience. I'm envious of her, I'll admit, because she gets to meet people like Simon Hurst and the Guy Who Invented the Laser .
I know that in the grand scheme of things, no one need pity me and that this complaining is rather ungrateful of me, yes? I have the chance to even attend university and for that I'm humbled and grateful, and the experience must and can only be what I make out of it what I will. In other words, I must take my learning in my own hands.
But there is more to university than that. It is a lifestyle; it seems to be a mindset. This physical place somehow molded into a train of thought in my mind and the minds of others. You cannot run away from it: the studying is tied in with the people. The lifestyle is varied; that is, you can make of it what you want. If you want to party, you party. If you want to study, you study and if you want to do a little bit of both then you rely heavily on coffee and sparks notes.
The last time I spoke to her, she was thinking of switching into Linguistics but totally bailed on it when she realized that Linguistics had more to do with syntax and sound than with the socio-economic and anthropological backgrounds of the language, which is what she was looking to gain. So she decided to take Economics as her major, which sounds drab and commonplace , but of course it's not because she's at Berkeley.
So she's taking a course called Crisis Development, being taught by an actual memeber of faculty who's a UN ambassador. And the format of the class is as follows. This brilliant ambassador bloke will state an international crisis; for example, the president of a major country gets shot. Every person in the clas sthen gets assigned a role in the internation community. Thus, someone could be a CNN reporter, the vice president to the late President, a leader of neighbouring or trade relations country, head of the UN, etc. Then they have debates, convene at summits and UN headquarters and discuss a strategy to calm the masses, to implement on the country, and the social, economic and political consequences of their decisions.
I don't know about you, but I think that sounds absolutely amazing. See, this. This is what I pictured university would be like; full of amazing classes and dynamic faculties, with life-changing experience. I'm envious of her, I'll admit, because she gets to meet people like Simon Hurst and the Guy Who Invented the Laser .
I know that in the grand scheme of things, no one need pity me and that this complaining is rather ungrateful of me, yes? I have the chance to even attend university and for that I'm humbled and grateful, and the experience must and can only be what I make out of it what I will. In other words, I must take my learning in my own hands.
But there is more to university than that. It is a lifestyle; it seems to be a mindset. This physical place somehow molded into a train of thought in my mind and the minds of others. You cannot run away from it: the studying is tied in with the people. The lifestyle is varied; that is, you can make of it what you want. If you want to party, you party. If you want to study, you study and if you want to do a little bit of both then you rely heavily on coffee and sparks notes.
I was talking to Ter and we were just bitching about the stupid people on her residence floor. It reminded me of how I myself hated not only where I lived but the people whom I lived with. And compared to Western, Waterloo was fairly tame. Yet I was still aggravated. I think I would've been the psychotic shoots-everyone kid if I had to be at Western. It's so strange, she told me, because everyone had basically been lying to her all her life. I understood. How was she to blame for being coaxed into loving this place, this notion of university? This living breathing revolutionary thought it had become through no fault of her own. People like us, we saw it as a light at the end of our very very dark tunnel, almost like a salvage and not quite as the prize but not a stepping stone either. More like a place of quenching the thirst, the restlessness. They told her she would meet like-minded people but maybe the fine print was, like-minded people provided you attend university in with your brain off and not inspect too closely.
I feel bad marginalizing because not everyone's brain is off, by any means. But a majority of the people I've had the neutral experience (or thorough displeasure) of meeting have been either completely unremarkable or so remarkably ridiculous so as to blip on my radar for their intense stupidity. It is rather unnerving, I sometimes (I lie: often) think that these people will someday be running countries and making grand decisions for the so-called betterment of society. I only can feel thorough distaste and then I feel guilty for feeling that because, really, it is this society that has caused them to be such mind-numbing idiots.Then someone such as myself thinks, well, these kids are idiots, the mainstreamers, the engineers, the healthsci or environment kids but maybe there's a small collective underground group that keep to themselves, scholars who'd rather not be marred by the reps of The Others. It's all very hush-hush and the dark, artsy, underground thought appeals to me. And I even find them. But of course, like everything in university, this too requires closer inspection and is a play on the original words. I see, really, that their underground is more the basement of someone's house and their dark artsyness gives way to misinformed, ill-opinionated pretentiousness. I'm rather shocked at their naievety and am somewhat offended at how ignorant they are. In the end I grieve that I ever leant them that much credit and think, well I'd rathr be with the numbskulls anyway: they might not have an opinion but then that means you don't have to put up with the close-minded pretentious crap either.
The Amish have this ritual for 19 and 20 year olds. It's like a coming out or something. Before they transition for adolesence to adulthood, the ducklings are released into the wild so they can have as much promiscuous sex and alcohol as they want, experiment with drugs and the like and basically havea kickass life for one year before they return back to the homestead. Upon their return, most renounce those years as Satanic and move on to their quiet furniture building existence (joke XD) but some - few mind you - decide to head back to what we big city folk call "real life". This is almost like that....except without the hope of these people ever withdrawing.So what exactly am I trying to say? A good many things here. I'm trying to say...I feel a little cheated, no matter how childish that sounds. I feel different; I am not like these other people who worry about whether a boy likes them or whether he'll call them or who wore what or what club event is going on. I feel very tired and bothersome when friends try to tell me about what she said or he said and why that matters at all. I really cannot seem to connect on the same points as others around me and perhaps that is my own fault for being too uppity in my arse. Perhaps not. It just...shocks me a little and I feel like a...blind, lost soul, grappling for the next crevice of rock to hold on to, to take the next step. I'm sad not because this is a lonely existence but because the Soul of this World seems to be entrapped in something else entirely.
When my friend from San Fran tells me about all these wonderful things she has the opportunity to experience I'm in awe but I'm jealous too. She attends an American University and so she has a broader base, a wider spectrum with which to confer from. I'm bordering on attending three universities by now and I have to say that the experience is pretty much the same, with varying degrees of insanity. There is no depth, there is no importance; there is only frustration and anger at the atmosphere. There is a sense of loss and sense of detachment. I just felt like...this was supposed to be it. It was supposed to be the centre of my world, an overprivileged slice of real life. People looked forward to high school, I looked forward to second year university.And besides Queens and Western, universities are pretty effing ugly.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
In Comprehension
I don't understand people who get married early in life. Youth marriages. I mean, I want to keep an open mind and not be judgemental and I'm trying very hard not to be but I cannot help that quizzical brow and the wrinkling of the nose, so automated in its reaction to the words "getting married - young".
I don't know why I'm so averse to it, but its understandable, I suppose, what with all the socialization, western thought and technique and sacrifice of family for the sake of progress. We seem to be bombarded by those. The accomplishments and milestones, the set courses in life that you must run. Times have changed and so have goals. Along with those, man's ambition has evolved in pockets of the world. Globalized, urban pockets, that is. Anything else is backcountry, right?
That sort of dismissive mindset really disgusts me. That progression is the only thing that is right, that the corporate culture is the only one with sense. Humans are individual and with their own sensibilities so the lifestyles they live are only a reflection of that. Youth marriages are hard enough without the rest of the Western world casting a pathetic look in your direction.
I might not be a look-caster but I am most certainly a nose-wrinkler. I feel a sort of distaste or a gap in comprehension when I hear about people within this western society, this immediate metropolitan atmosphere, who sign their lives at 18. It is as though there is a fence, then a chasm and then another fence and I can't seem to make the jump of recognition from one fence to the other.
Of course, the first thing I try to do when synthesizing a foreign practice is place myself, free of inhibitions, into it. That's where I believe understanding and tolerance comes from. Acceptance. And to a certain, extent, I completely understand. Objectively speaking, I am able to make that leap of comprehension. But when I apply my character and my understanding of this western youth's character to the concept of early marriage, something doesn't click. Something is amiss and I can't take the leap of faith, though comprehension is there.
Yes, most youth on this continent are serial monogamists or one-night-standers or experimental. In antiquity, the cap on life was 27. Then, it was 35. Now, it's 75. The more time we take to "get settled", the greater our obsession to prolong our lives. And it is this same society who falls prey to these preset notions of when one should have a job/car/mortgage/whitefence/children that creates these standards. So as life prolongs, so to do our list of things we wish to accomplish or must needs do before we can be married or settled or tied or however else one may wish to see it.
Marriage takes up responsibility and most kids (I use this term to encompass teens and the early twentysomethings) run far, far, far away from something even remotely resembling or reeking of responsibility. They cannot lift their heads enough to take responsibility of their own world. How might they ever hope to raise a family unit? Some people are judt dumb and walk into marriage blindly, like its a cakewalk. They don't realize what sort of committment it requires, and how much sacrifice it calls on. Then they file for divorce and when they're 30, they use it as an anecdote at weddings and when they've popped back one too many. Others do realize it and are willing and ready and eager. They are sincere and fully understanding of what marriage entails.
That is what scares the bejeezus out of me. That, knowing what it takes and what it entails, the amount of sacrifice and such, they still walk into it and try and make it work. Quite a few early marriages are residues of unwanted pregnancies. From those, only about half survive and end in bitter, closeted resentment or boring, routine lives anyway. The rest are mutual and steeped in love but aren't able to face the storms without being weathered down in sanity.
The thing is...I don't look down upon early marriage. I just feel...there is so much of the world to see and experience. And yes, seeing it with the one person you love...why would anyone deprive themselves of that? They shouldn't and they wouldn't. But that rosy picture is only there for a moment. My own distrust of early marriages, I confess, might have something to do with my distrust in marriage at all. But I'm not allowing that to cloud my thinking. I'm saying, maturity is something one cultivates in hindsight. And marriage is not a game...it's a real collaboration of two people, as different as one another, and is binding. Early marriages often lack maturity, especilaly when surrounded by the metropolis. Because then you must tie in ego and colour the picture red with ambition and lust and gloss. Working together is hard enough...but working through all that - does one in this western culture really have the maturity to deal with something like marriage?
No. Yes, I will give my sound opinion on this: the answer is no. The evidence? The amount of divorce. Okay, so you cannot distinguish which of these divorces are the result of early marriagae or not. But that is not my point. I'm saying, that the rate of divorce is so high is very telling because, if those married at a later point in life cannot hope to make it through without calling it quits, what is the guarantee that the younger ones will? Yes, there is no guarantee. And yes, age does not necessarily equal maturity. But the thing is, out here, it is so easy to file for divorce. There is little to no cultural stigma attached to getting a divorce or being the child of a divorced parent and a part of a blended family. This is not true for all cultures or all parts of the world. The very fact that the rate of divorce is so high speaks only of the fact that people are just not willing to try and give their marriage a chance. Divorce is like their rainy day colouring book. People use it not as a last resort but as a first, one-way ticket out of a sticky situation. It's like a Get Out of Jail Free Pass.
So early marriages freak me out because, personally, I am selfish. I couldn't imagine giving up my life before I had to. Personally, I am never going to get married, but I do envy those people that have a leaning towards the white-picket fence life. I love that there are people around me who do want to have a husband or wife and share a love that is founded. I am skeptical of such a love - but for myself. I believe that this love is there for other people - I am just not born with that luck nor feeling.
But anyhow, my freedom is very precious to me. I cannot even be in a relationship that doesn't get me antsy past one month. I'm notorious like that; everyone knows a runaway bride like me. Fine. The situation of early marriage could never appeal nor ever synthesize with a character like mine because everything I've fought for in my life goes against the very statement of marriage. Plus, I've never witnessed a marriage ever actually work, thus my skepticism.
But when I apply the theory of early marriage to myself, ignoring my character, I find that it makes sense. As long as you know what you are in for, it makes perfect sense that you not waste time and start living with the one you love, for you will do it sooner or later. And why later than sooner? It still, however, scares me to no end.
It's not the sex, it's not the finances, it's not the thought of kids, or routine or eternal happiness & mediocrity. Well, it's not just that. It's the fact that the cap on life has changed. Even in culutres around the world, even in traditionalist, or rural areas, humans lives have changed. The time we have on earth has shifted. Someday, it might shift again. Maybe I am the byproduct of the ambition so secretly bred in this metropolitan atmosphere. But I just feel that in this long life, with this shift and change in time, there is so so so very much to see and do. There is so much to touch and feel. You could make your own personal imprint in the world. Or you could make your own personal imprint on the world.
All I can think of when I think of early marriage and this concept of a grander life and the fact that I view marriage as an end of an era is this:
Thetis: I knew they would come for you...long before you were born. I knew they would come. They want you to fight in Troy.
Achilles: Mother. Tonight I decide.
Thetis: If you stay in Larisa, you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman. You'll have sons and daughters, and they will have children. And they will love you. When you are gone, they will remember you. But when you're children are dead and their children after them, your name will be lost. If you go to Troy, glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories for thousands of years. The world will remember your name. But if you go to Troy, you will never come home. For your glory walks hand in hand with your doom.
I don't know why I'm so averse to it, but its understandable, I suppose, what with all the socialization, western thought and technique and sacrifice of family for the sake of progress. We seem to be bombarded by those. The accomplishments and milestones, the set courses in life that you must run. Times have changed and so have goals. Along with those, man's ambition has evolved in pockets of the world. Globalized, urban pockets, that is. Anything else is backcountry, right?
That sort of dismissive mindset really disgusts me. That progression is the only thing that is right, that the corporate culture is the only one with sense. Humans are individual and with their own sensibilities so the lifestyles they live are only a reflection of that. Youth marriages are hard enough without the rest of the Western world casting a pathetic look in your direction.
I might not be a look-caster but I am most certainly a nose-wrinkler. I feel a sort of distaste or a gap in comprehension when I hear about people within this western society, this immediate metropolitan atmosphere, who sign their lives at 18. It is as though there is a fence, then a chasm and then another fence and I can't seem to make the jump of recognition from one fence to the other.
Of course, the first thing I try to do when synthesizing a foreign practice is place myself, free of inhibitions, into it. That's where I believe understanding and tolerance comes from. Acceptance. And to a certain, extent, I completely understand. Objectively speaking, I am able to make that leap of comprehension. But when I apply my character and my understanding of this western youth's character to the concept of early marriage, something doesn't click. Something is amiss and I can't take the leap of faith, though comprehension is there.
Yes, most youth on this continent are serial monogamists or one-night-standers or experimental. In antiquity, the cap on life was 27. Then, it was 35. Now, it's 75. The more time we take to "get settled", the greater our obsession to prolong our lives. And it is this same society who falls prey to these preset notions of when one should have a job/car/mortgage/whitefence/children that creates these standards. So as life prolongs, so to do our list of things we wish to accomplish or must needs do before we can be married or settled or tied or however else one may wish to see it.
Marriage takes up responsibility and most kids (I use this term to encompass teens and the early twentysomethings) run far, far, far away from something even remotely resembling or reeking of responsibility. They cannot lift their heads enough to take responsibility of their own world. How might they ever hope to raise a family unit? Some people are judt dumb and walk into marriage blindly, like its a cakewalk. They don't realize what sort of committment it requires, and how much sacrifice it calls on. Then they file for divorce and when they're 30, they use it as an anecdote at weddings and when they've popped back one too many. Others do realize it and are willing and ready and eager. They are sincere and fully understanding of what marriage entails.
That is what scares the bejeezus out of me. That, knowing what it takes and what it entails, the amount of sacrifice and such, they still walk into it and try and make it work. Quite a few early marriages are residues of unwanted pregnancies. From those, only about half survive and end in bitter, closeted resentment or boring, routine lives anyway. The rest are mutual and steeped in love but aren't able to face the storms without being weathered down in sanity.
The thing is...I don't look down upon early marriage. I just feel...there is so much of the world to see and experience. And yes, seeing it with the one person you love...why would anyone deprive themselves of that? They shouldn't and they wouldn't. But that rosy picture is only there for a moment. My own distrust of early marriages, I confess, might have something to do with my distrust in marriage at all. But I'm not allowing that to cloud my thinking. I'm saying, maturity is something one cultivates in hindsight. And marriage is not a game...it's a real collaboration of two people, as different as one another, and is binding. Early marriages often lack maturity, especilaly when surrounded by the metropolis. Because then you must tie in ego and colour the picture red with ambition and lust and gloss. Working together is hard enough...but working through all that - does one in this western culture really have the maturity to deal with something like marriage?
No. Yes, I will give my sound opinion on this: the answer is no. The evidence? The amount of divorce. Okay, so you cannot distinguish which of these divorces are the result of early marriagae or not. But that is not my point. I'm saying, that the rate of divorce is so high is very telling because, if those married at a later point in life cannot hope to make it through without calling it quits, what is the guarantee that the younger ones will? Yes, there is no guarantee. And yes, age does not necessarily equal maturity. But the thing is, out here, it is so easy to file for divorce. There is little to no cultural stigma attached to getting a divorce or being the child of a divorced parent and a part of a blended family. This is not true for all cultures or all parts of the world. The very fact that the rate of divorce is so high speaks only of the fact that people are just not willing to try and give their marriage a chance. Divorce is like their rainy day colouring book. People use it not as a last resort but as a first, one-way ticket out of a sticky situation. It's like a Get Out of Jail Free Pass.
So early marriages freak me out because, personally, I am selfish. I couldn't imagine giving up my life before I had to. Personally, I am never going to get married, but I do envy those people that have a leaning towards the white-picket fence life. I love that there are people around me who do want to have a husband or wife and share a love that is founded. I am skeptical of such a love - but for myself. I believe that this love is there for other people - I am just not born with that luck nor feeling.
But anyhow, my freedom is very precious to me. I cannot even be in a relationship that doesn't get me antsy past one month. I'm notorious like that; everyone knows a runaway bride like me. Fine. The situation of early marriage could never appeal nor ever synthesize with a character like mine because everything I've fought for in my life goes against the very statement of marriage. Plus, I've never witnessed a marriage ever actually work, thus my skepticism.
But when I apply the theory of early marriage to myself, ignoring my character, I find that it makes sense. As long as you know what you are in for, it makes perfect sense that you not waste time and start living with the one you love, for you will do it sooner or later. And why later than sooner? It still, however, scares me to no end.
It's not the sex, it's not the finances, it's not the thought of kids, or routine or eternal happiness & mediocrity. Well, it's not just that. It's the fact that the cap on life has changed. Even in culutres around the world, even in traditionalist, or rural areas, humans lives have changed. The time we have on earth has shifted. Someday, it might shift again. Maybe I am the byproduct of the ambition so secretly bred in this metropolitan atmosphere. But I just feel that in this long life, with this shift and change in time, there is so so so very much to see and do. There is so much to touch and feel. You could make your own personal imprint in the world. Or you could make your own personal imprint on the world.
All I can think of when I think of early marriage and this concept of a grander life and the fact that I view marriage as an end of an era is this:
Thetis: I knew they would come for you...long before you were born. I knew they would come. They want you to fight in Troy.
Achilles: Mother. Tonight I decide.
Thetis: If you stay in Larisa, you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman. You'll have sons and daughters, and they will have children. And they will love you. When you are gone, they will remember you. But when you're children are dead and their children after them, your name will be lost. If you go to Troy, glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories for thousands of years. The world will remember your name. But if you go to Troy, you will never come home. For your glory walks hand in hand with your doom.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Siesta
Perhaps the most perfect thing about my time here is that in one moment I can absolutely love life and totally curse my existence for different and overlapping reasons.
That, in one moment, I am utterly thankful for all the stupid small things and completely unhappy with the state of things at large.
That everything - music, colours, life, love - is, beyond a shade of doubt, tumultuous and yet alive in every notion and aspect.
That I am who I am and though I totally hate who I am, I wouldn't change anything. That I can look forward to silly feel-good movies, and dream and talk and retain a shine and twinkle. Possibly, I am describing some sort of bipolar attitude here but hey! What is the point of all of this - all of THIS - if one cannot feel every single expression and emotion that may come their way?
I'm completely lost and I dont know what the fuck I'm doing with my life. I know I'm meant for great things but that definition is relative. All I know for sure right now is that everything is imperfect and perfect and beautiful but destroyed.
And you wouldn't want it any other way, no, because then neither could you appreciate the beauty without pain nor pain without beauty.
May the beautiful destruction never end. And if it must, may every last drop of love and emotion and thought be expressed before everything finally shuts down for the turn of the era.
That, in one moment, I am utterly thankful for all the stupid small things and completely unhappy with the state of things at large.
That everything - music, colours, life, love - is, beyond a shade of doubt, tumultuous and yet alive in every notion and aspect.
That I am who I am and though I totally hate who I am, I wouldn't change anything. That I can look forward to silly feel-good movies, and dream and talk and retain a shine and twinkle. Possibly, I am describing some sort of bipolar attitude here but hey! What is the point of all of this - all of THIS - if one cannot feel every single expression and emotion that may come their way?
I'm completely lost and I dont know what the fuck I'm doing with my life. I know I'm meant for great things but that definition is relative. All I know for sure right now is that everything is imperfect and perfect and beautiful but destroyed.
And you wouldn't want it any other way, no, because then neither could you appreciate the beauty without pain nor pain without beauty.
May the beautiful destruction never end. And if it must, may every last drop of love and emotion and thought be expressed before everything finally shuts down for the turn of the era.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Why? Because.
A very very close friend, so close to my heart that they might be my heart itself or I am their soul. Understood, as the understanding that comes with these sorts of relationships. Asked myself, why? Answered, because. Sent this my way so that I had all my incoherent words once again articulated. Or else, I saw that shining thread that bound all these thoughts and a resounding recognition that I could not ignore etched deep in these words. Believed once more, for a moment, in the Soul of the World.
Why Study the Arts & Humanities?
Because, that's why.
Because a man downtown with a voice like the sea against the rocks told me I should.
Because my mother told me not to. Because she said mathematics, female engineering - engineering female. Because she spends so many nights in paperwork, dreaming herself into fairytales.
Because of the bruises etched into a Grade 4 spelling partner's cheek each week by his father.
Because television sets are alive and sucking patience out of brains like electric leeches. And it could take hours to perfect this sentence.
Because the average Canuck consums 140 percent the caloric intake required in a day.
Because KKK.
Because Chagall's 'Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers', did not quite make it into the Saturday morning comics.
Becase Adolf Hitler and Staling are the only two I've learned about.
Because it's been scientifically proven that listening to Mozart sonatas improves bad hearing.
Because the Burmese government is carbonated in every can of Pepsi Cola.
Because East Timor is on channel 3 and my brother is watching The Simpsons.
Because painters did not build atomic bombs. Because poems dissect them.
Because advertisement agencies are calling themselves creative.
Becayse a beautiful woman is a dress and a breast size and no longer compared to a summer's day.
Because no one's homophobic but alot of people stared when a girl kissed a girl at the bus stop.
Because sometimes even starving artists like to eat dinner.
Because time spent with family is marked between 6 and 7 o'clock in the daily agenda.
Because Picasso would tell you that skyscrapers do not quite equal the beauty of all the daffodils they have swallowed.
Because two boys in a coffee shop carried out a complete conversation and say nothing.
Because I don't know whether I'll be clubbed for saying Black People if I should be saying African Americans.
Because the government runs on monotone thought.
Because a successfully cloned sheep.
Because.
Because sometimes you see yourself more clearly in the characters you are writing than when you look in the mirror.
Because ulcers are nibbling away on stomachs everywhere.
Because graffiti is getting a little bit repetitive.
Because I'd rather be short than vertically challenged.
And if that's not quite enough...
Then because I can write these things to you and go to math class tomorrow and pretend that they weren't written for myself.
Why Study the Arts & Humanities?
Because, that's why.
Because a man downtown with a voice like the sea against the rocks told me I should.
Because my mother told me not to. Because she said mathematics, female engineering - engineering female. Because she spends so many nights in paperwork, dreaming herself into fairytales.
Because of the bruises etched into a Grade 4 spelling partner's cheek each week by his father.
Because television sets are alive and sucking patience out of brains like electric leeches. And it could take hours to perfect this sentence.
Because the average Canuck consums 140 percent the caloric intake required in a day.
Because KKK.
Because Chagall's 'Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers', did not quite make it into the Saturday morning comics.
Becase Adolf Hitler and Staling are the only two I've learned about.
Because it's been scientifically proven that listening to Mozart sonatas improves bad hearing.
Because the Burmese government is carbonated in every can of Pepsi Cola.
Because East Timor is on channel 3 and my brother is watching The Simpsons.
Because painters did not build atomic bombs. Because poems dissect them.
Because advertisement agencies are calling themselves creative.
Becayse a beautiful woman is a dress and a breast size and no longer compared to a summer's day.
Because no one's homophobic but alot of people stared when a girl kissed a girl at the bus stop.
Because sometimes even starving artists like to eat dinner.
Because time spent with family is marked between 6 and 7 o'clock in the daily agenda.
Because Picasso would tell you that skyscrapers do not quite equal the beauty of all the daffodils they have swallowed.
Because two boys in a coffee shop carried out a complete conversation and say nothing.
Because I don't know whether I'll be clubbed for saying Black People if I should be saying African Americans.
Because the government runs on monotone thought.
Because a successfully cloned sheep.
Because.
Because sometimes you see yourself more clearly in the characters you are writing than when you look in the mirror.
Because ulcers are nibbling away on stomachs everywhere.
Because graffiti is getting a little bit repetitive.
Because I'd rather be short than vertically challenged.
And if that's not quite enough...
Then because I can write these things to you and go to math class tomorrow and pretend that they weren't written for myself.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Life & Times
He needs no introduction, no smarmy paragraph, no twist of words, no dollop of shine.
He is Dan Eldon.
Who is Dan Eldon?
One may never know. Despite leaving behind a legacy of journals that catalgoued in 3x5's the world through the eyes of a human, despite expelling ideas in letters and exclamations of adventure, humanity and observation, all physical presence and active action have perished young, as the thinker himself.
But you know you are looking at true magic when faced with immortality; when the thinker dies but the thought lives on forever.
There are many wonderous things and marvellous people in this world who come into being and leave their mark, leave us wondering and hungry for more. There is a quality in these things and these people that transcends our understanding, something that we classify as unique or different, for lack of a better word. But the truth is, these are mere adjectives, poorly defined and designed to give life to a feeling produced that's small and quiet but incomprehensible in its wonder.
Succumb to what makes up a small percentage of the infinite world of the Internet, Wikipedia and read for yourself what it is that Dan Eldon accomplished. Many describe him as a blazing comet, a rush of adventure, a trailblazer with a human heart. I will describe it in one way.
Question: What does it mean to be human?
Answer: Dan Eldon.
Does this mean that he is the only human worth being considered? No. Not by any means. Hundreds of nameless, faceless heroes are changing the world in small (and large) ways everyday. But I mean to say that he was (and is, for he may be no more but actions are continual and ring true forever, turning over in a cause & effect chain that changes the future; think The Chaos Theory.) humanistic in his faults and his actions. A spotlight on Dan Eldon, then, if you please.
I, myself, confess to being endlessly fascinated by things of this nature: by people and events that have this immortal, human, moralistic streak, a heady, raw and earthy aura, an idealistic-to-a-fault edge, a small observation giving birth to a larger philosophy. Perhaps that is what drew me and what I try now, almost in vain, to describe. To catalogue. Fail though I may, at least I am cataloguing. And that is exactly what Dan Eldon did. But on a broader scale, with effective methods and more grandiose consequences.
Now think about it. Once you're done that, ask yourself and consider this: why is it that millions of people clamber and crowd for an autograph of their favorite star or celebrity or guru or what have you, inked in notebook lines and palm lines alike? Why it is merely the taste of immortality. Of course, that is what it is. Is it not? Everytime they flip the pages of that book open or open the plam of their hand, they can see and recall the exact moment in which that certain idolized person spared a minute to cast their signature. A signature is unique, identifiable and branded. An immortal brand.
These wonderous people of renown, forces in their field to be reckoned, long gone, have somehow and in some erascible way made their mark and signature upon humanity. Case in point: Vemeer and the Art of Painting, who's very work was hoarded by the love-to-hate, hate-to-love Adolf Hitler himself. Yes, I will gladly get to the point. Dan Eldon lived in Kenya with his mother, father and sister, as you already know, Google whore that you are.
He traveled and visited 46 countries, could speak 7 languages both self-taught and through school, and raised 5K for the open-heart surgery of a young Kenyan girl who later died due to hospital neglect. Though he was initially sent to a british school, he convinced his parents to allow him to attend the International School of Kenya, socializing and forming friendships with the local children of Nairobi.
Living in Africa as he did, Eldon met with with terrible beauty: the cross and clash of two paradoxes. The beautiful, rugged landscape of Africa and the poverty and suffering it housed on its soil. Armed with observation, wit, humanity and what is described to be New York telephone directory sized books, Eldon began cataloguing his surroundings at the age of 15.
Eldon kept taking time off from school to work and experience his surroundings. He accepted a job working for a magazine in New York and even got to work as a third assistant to the director on a movie called Lost in Africa. In January of 1989, he and friend drove a Land Rover across the African plain, spanning five countries. What's amazing is that he returned to school, all the while planning his next trips, purchased another land rover for a trip to morroco, planned to buy and sell bracelets in America. He spent time in Morroco and then shipped over 5K worth of goods to America, which he then proceeded to sell on the beaches of Southern California.
Through his photographs, his comments, his thoughts and feelings, he has created an imprint on the world - his imprint - in a very quiet but fitful way. He planned and felt and calculated and executed, only to die at 23. And yet he did all that he could, things that we, I, could only dream of having the courage to do in five lives.
Forget his double spreads, forget the fame or the so called greatness of his actions. I am blown over by the humanity in them. I am stunned by the immortality gained not by internationally acclaimed photographs but by the words he says through those photographs. The actions he has taken, sensibilities he must have possessed.
Especially now. I look around now and all I see are the apathy-filled idiots of North America. These kids, the half grown child-adults who think that they have a right to everything from education to entertainment. It hurts my heart when I think of the strange shadow, mere illusions of our selves that we seem to have become. And then I hurt to think that souls like Dan's leave so quickly, but make footsteps so grand. A global theme, goodness is always downtrodden, always conquered by evil, always squished at a young age.
But it is golden, because that goodness is immortal. And in the face of death, you will always see life flashing past you.
Here's to life. Here's to Dan Eldon, a pillar of that true-veined life. And a time that will someday return and sustain.
He is Dan Eldon.
Who is Dan Eldon?
One may never know. Despite leaving behind a legacy of journals that catalgoued in 3x5's the world through the eyes of a human, despite expelling ideas in letters and exclamations of adventure, humanity and observation, all physical presence and active action have perished young, as the thinker himself.
But you know you are looking at true magic when faced with immortality; when the thinker dies but the thought lives on forever.
There are many wonderous things and marvellous people in this world who come into being and leave their mark, leave us wondering and hungry for more. There is a quality in these things and these people that transcends our understanding, something that we classify as unique or different, for lack of a better word. But the truth is, these are mere adjectives, poorly defined and designed to give life to a feeling produced that's small and quiet but incomprehensible in its wonder.
Succumb to what makes up a small percentage of the infinite world of the Internet, Wikipedia and read for yourself what it is that Dan Eldon accomplished. Many describe him as a blazing comet, a rush of adventure, a trailblazer with a human heart. I will describe it in one way.
Question: What does it mean to be human?
Answer: Dan Eldon.
Does this mean that he is the only human worth being considered? No. Not by any means. Hundreds of nameless, faceless heroes are changing the world in small (and large) ways everyday. But I mean to say that he was (and is, for he may be no more but actions are continual and ring true forever, turning over in a cause & effect chain that changes the future; think The Chaos Theory.) humanistic in his faults and his actions. A spotlight on Dan Eldon, then, if you please.
I, myself, confess to being endlessly fascinated by things of this nature: by people and events that have this immortal, human, moralistic streak, a heady, raw and earthy aura, an idealistic-to-a-fault edge, a small observation giving birth to a larger philosophy. Perhaps that is what drew me and what I try now, almost in vain, to describe. To catalogue. Fail though I may, at least I am cataloguing. And that is exactly what Dan Eldon did. But on a broader scale, with effective methods and more grandiose consequences.
Now think about it. Once you're done that, ask yourself and consider this: why is it that millions of people clamber and crowd for an autograph of their favorite star or celebrity or guru or what have you, inked in notebook lines and palm lines alike? Why it is merely the taste of immortality. Of course, that is what it is. Is it not? Everytime they flip the pages of that book open or open the plam of their hand, they can see and recall the exact moment in which that certain idolized person spared a minute to cast their signature. A signature is unique, identifiable and branded. An immortal brand.
These wonderous people of renown, forces in their field to be reckoned, long gone, have somehow and in some erascible way made their mark and signature upon humanity. Case in point: Vemeer and the Art of Painting, who's very work was hoarded by the love-to-hate, hate-to-love Adolf Hitler himself. Yes, I will gladly get to the point. Dan Eldon lived in Kenya with his mother, father and sister, as you already know, Google whore that you are.
He traveled and visited 46 countries, could speak 7 languages both self-taught and through school, and raised 5K for the open-heart surgery of a young Kenyan girl who later died due to hospital neglect. Though he was initially sent to a british school, he convinced his parents to allow him to attend the International School of Kenya, socializing and forming friendships with the local children of Nairobi.
Living in Africa as he did, Eldon met with with terrible beauty: the cross and clash of two paradoxes. The beautiful, rugged landscape of Africa and the poverty and suffering it housed on its soil. Armed with observation, wit, humanity and what is described to be New York telephone directory sized books, Eldon began cataloguing his surroundings at the age of 15.
Eldon kept taking time off from school to work and experience his surroundings. He accepted a job working for a magazine in New York and even got to work as a third assistant to the director on a movie called Lost in Africa. In January of 1989, he and friend drove a Land Rover across the African plain, spanning five countries. What's amazing is that he returned to school, all the while planning his next trips, purchased another land rover for a trip to morroco, planned to buy and sell bracelets in America. He spent time in Morroco and then shipped over 5K worth of goods to America, which he then proceeded to sell on the beaches of Southern California.
Through his photographs, his comments, his thoughts and feelings, he has created an imprint on the world - his imprint - in a very quiet but fitful way. He planned and felt and calculated and executed, only to die at 23. And yet he did all that he could, things that we, I, could only dream of having the courage to do in five lives.
Forget his double spreads, forget the fame or the so called greatness of his actions. I am blown over by the humanity in them. I am stunned by the immortality gained not by internationally acclaimed photographs but by the words he says through those photographs. The actions he has taken, sensibilities he must have possessed.
Especially now. I look around now and all I see are the apathy-filled idiots of North America. These kids, the half grown child-adults who think that they have a right to everything from education to entertainment. It hurts my heart when I think of the strange shadow, mere illusions of our selves that we seem to have become. And then I hurt to think that souls like Dan's leave so quickly, but make footsteps so grand. A global theme, goodness is always downtrodden, always conquered by evil, always squished at a young age.
But it is golden, because that goodness is immortal. And in the face of death, you will always see life flashing past you.
Here's to life. Here's to Dan Eldon, a pillar of that true-veined life. And a time that will someday return and sustain.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Tired of Waiting: When will it be my turn?
"SILENT DANCE PARTY
Tonight at Midnight in Yonge-Dundas Square!
Bring your favorite MP3 player. Arrive in Yonge-Dundas Square at midnight sharp for the countdown and press play! Over 200 individually controlled LED lights hung over Yonge-Dundas Square will interact with the music, transforming the space into a silent dance party like never before. Right-click here to download the set"
Shit man. Shit. The essence of my life.
And of course, I can't go.
Tonight at Midnight in Yonge-Dundas Square!
Bring your favorite MP3 player. Arrive in Yonge-Dundas Square at midnight sharp for the countdown and press play! Over 200 individually controlled LED lights hung over Yonge-Dundas Square will interact with the music, transforming the space into a silent dance party like never before. Right-click here to download the set"
Shit man. Shit. The essence of my life.
And of course, I can't go.
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