TOW: Feeling Helpless

I've very sorry I haven't blogged since I-don't-know-when.  Between my move and work, life has been very busy.  And I thought it would be good to share here my feelings over my new apartment. 

I loved my apartment the first week I had it.  It was quiet here, the people seemed to keep to themselves, and I was looking forward to living in a nice, new, safe area.  I had made myself a new home, and it was a liberating feeling.

Then I discovered my apartment was infested with bedbugs.  And, my life is officially over for the next year and a half.

For those of you who aren't aware, bedbugs are a small, non-flying bug that feed on you in the middle of the night, much like a mosquito.  The only difference is that mosquitos are noticeable and have a fairly short life cycle. Bedbugs, on the other hand, can live for years and breed at a rate of up to five bugs per day, and are resilent and nearly impossible to kill unless you see an adult bug, and you kill it, right then and there.  Even better, they hide in your mattress, destroying it as they infest it, since they will defecate right after they eat, then breed in the same spot.  In a word, they are vile.  Vile beyond words and images.  Very few creatures, even in the kingdom of bugs, crap where they eat.

I discovered them 10 days after moving in.  A day after my birthday.

I have thrown out half of my belongings, everything else is in garbage bags, quarantined.  I am sitting here, in my only ikea chair, which I have sprayed with chemical before, and I have just found out today that bedbugs are living inside of the cushion of my chair.  I now know why I would see them crawling across my pant leg as I worked on my computer.

They were definitely here before I moved. because my previous landlord has had no complaints about bed bugs in my previous apartment.  I have never had them.  The new landlord has been very...threatening.  He will not pay for pest control.  It's been a rough couple weeks.

I'm going to be out several thousand dollars by time this process is finished, with or without a lawsuit, and I haven't slept more than 3-4 hours a night in a week, without waking up, turning on the lights, and searching for bugs.  I can't go anywhere without ironing the inside and outside of my clothes to the point of nearly burning them for fear of them leaving the apartment with me.  I have no idea what I'm going to do if another tenant blames me for them, even though, it is not my fault, and I handle everything I do with the utmost care within my unit.

And this week, I want to think and write about how helpless I feel.  Not quite at a breaking point, but helpless.  I'm sluggish, indecisive, and more emotional than I'd care to admit.  Going to bed is a coaching process.  Pretending everything is alright so I don't have panic attacks is also a process.

Being in this situation has started to remind me of one of the books that has most impressed me, The Plague by Albert Camus.  In it, Camus writes about a community that is quarantined and the medical workers, priests, and mafia that exist in the hellish space of dead bodies, searching for a cure, all while the people die and no one is allowed to leave.  Anyone who attempts is shot by the outsiders, who are keeping the town quarantined.

The defining moment in the novel for me was as Dr. Rieux, the protagonist, attempts to treat a young boy, Jacques Othon with a serum he is developing.  The child is in his death throes, and the scream he lets out as he dies is so horrific that it affects both Rieux and his colleagues.  The serum is ineffective for the youngest, the most vulnerable, perhaps the one most in need.  The scream, the feeling of pain, the moment of death, all wrapped together in a sad moment of sickness. 

My apartment is like a sick person.  Everything that it touches becomes sick with this problem.  Everything that enters this apartment slowly goes from 'clean' to 'infected.'  Much like the plague, I am isolated and contained, and I have not yet developed a cure, if there even is one available.  Some of the characters involved are innocent bystanders, wondering what could happen.  At times, I regard people around me in the apartment building with both suspicion, fear and paranoia.  Some observers of this issue tell me I have nothing to fear, while others within are completely oblivious to the dangers present. 

Such is my situation, a plague of my very own to contend with.  I am my very own narrator in an absurd encased world with very little hope of making rational sense of why this happened to me, or where this problem could have arisen.

The one beautiful thing, if still absurd at the end of The Plague, is that it ends.  The plague ends, partially due to careful medical care by professionals, and partially due to the absurdity of life, in that eventually diseases go away, even epidemics.

So, too, do I consider my situation to be one like The Plague.  It is a situation that promises to be a true trial, no matter what path I take.  Nothing good can come of this situation.  The only good thing that might arise it things returning to the way they were, or could have been, before I had this problem. 

The other scenario is that they follow me wherever I go, much like the plague.  For I too, am now part of a general infection that no one wishes to speak or think about.  I too, am something to be cleaned, cured, and fixed.

And such a feeling can only leave one feeling helpless.


 

Getting ready for brother's wedding

TOW: Getting Older

So it was my birthday last Sunday. 

And like most birthdays, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Starting with the worst of things:  One of my best friends got embarrassingly drunk at my party and left in the middle of it (while alienating all my other friends), I was both hungover and puking from food poisoning on my actual birthday, and I discovered bed bugs in my new apartment the day after my birthday.

The best things:  I had 14 people come out to my birthday.  And they all wanted to be there and they were all really happy to see me.  I can tell you how much that meant to me.  When I first arrived in Toronto for the first two years, I had the same people come out to my birthday, every time.  And every time, it felt a bit sad because I felt like I wasn't trying hard enough to make new friends.  Now I know lots of people that I can trust and that I care about deeply in this city.  (Even if I don't care deeply for this city.)

I got tons of phone calls and texts.  So many that I couldn't answer them all on my birthday, and so many happy birthday wishes on Facebook it just made me feel really, really great.

I got to sleep all day on my birthday.  It felt amazing.  (Although I was sick as a dog, I still loved it)

A random friend showed up on my birthday to crash at my new place and he brought me food and drink and we had a little picnic in my furniture-less abode.

Overall, it was one of the best birthdays I've ever had.  It had a little bit of everything:  Friend drama, feeling close and loved, a party for many, a party for two, a day of rest, a day of sickness good things, bad things, birthday presents, birthday cake...it was all good.

And all this time I'm getting older, I can only think of one thing:  I like being older.  I like most of the things that being older brings.  I will always miss certain things from my youth, but I think we all miss things we don't have anymore...but generally speaking I'm really happy with the way my life is, and somewhat happy with the direction it's going. 

And I think the key to happiness for me these days is to enjoy the getting older bit, and to treasure the moments as they pass, and I feel like I've been doing a really great job of that lately.

Now if only I could get rid of those bedbugs. 

TOW: Let the Universe Give You a Hug

It's often said in 'The Secret' that the law of attraction will get you far in life, and positive thinking attracts positive things your way.  But there's something missing from this equation.  I like to call it "Let the Universe Give You a Hug."


This principle is very simple.  Whenever something bad, untoward, or unlucky happens, immediately stop, and think about how much you wish someone would tell you everything is going to be alright.  Then tell yourself, instead of everything is going to be alright, that you deserve a big hug, and that even though it's not perfect life you have, the universe loves you anyways. 

The reason this is so important is because positive thinking doesn't work well when something bad happens to us.  Humans are cautious by nature, and feel like they can expect bad things over time.  During a 'bad time' or 'a stroke of bad luck' we still need a way to weather stormy times.  Because positive thinking doesn't always bring good things our way.  Sometimes it brings bad things our way. 

From the thinking side of things, it's important we think about why things happen to us so we can move on with our lives.  Otherwise, we repeat the same mistakes, over and over again. And that's bad.

From the practical side of things, I find the desire to get a giant hug from something bigger and paternal key to making this make me feel infinitely better.  Because I think love is what you need to be happy in life, and how we should measure ourselves is not when things are great, but when things are difficult.  We all need a little love from something bigger than us when things are hard. 

So let the universe give you a hug.  It's feel really nice.

VOW: Water Harp (Friggin' Adorable)

TOW: Adult Fears

"Ostensibly healthy life is interspersed with a great number of trivial and in practice unimportant symptoms [...] neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity."  -Sigmund Freud

It's funny how the things that you disliked as a child or teenager become things you hate and fear the older you get.

For example, I used to dislike bugs when I was a child, or messes, when I was younger.  Now that I'm older, I find that even seeing a messy kitchen or a messy room can stress me out, and bugs in general I scream like a little girl whenever I see them. (Although maybe that wasn't that different than when I was a child.)

Back in the day, I might have had a slightly negative reaction, but the older I get, I find my reactions to negative events in my life to be more and more extreme.

And it's not just me who feels this way.  There's the cafe mocha drinking-lady who starts yelling at the streetcar driver if she misses her streetcar, dashing in high heels while carrying a Starbucks pastry of some kind.  There's the old lady who doesn't get on the subway because it's too full of people.  There's the businessman who won't talk to his female colleagues because he's intimidated by them.  And most of these things are things that happened in childhood, or young adulthood, and have become pressure points for us. 

Freud called these neuroses:  they were things that we couldn't process because they caused us pain, and we can only now go on to start to deal with them.  Maybe that old lady had a traumatic experience in a crowd when she was younger.  Maybe the businessman was laughed at by a group of girls during high school.  We all create mechanisms or warning signs to stop up from having unpleasant experiences.

And herein lies the kicker: We want psychological cues that protect us from events, but we want them to be black and white.  There can be no good crowds, no good events of missing the streetcar, no good can come from treating your female colleagues well, etc. We have our frame of reference, and flawed or not, we feel better holding onto it than changing it for the better.  Most of the time, this is a fairly harmless way to live.

The problem is when our neuroses stop helping us achieve a normal, pleasurable life, and start taking away from it. The neurotic person that needs treatment simply has more debilitating symptom-formations that prevent enjoyment and active achievement in life.

As an adult, we all have fears.  We all have things that we wished hadn't happened to us, and we wish we had done.  But the crux of a happy life resides in being able to shape our own bad habits into something useful to us, a weapon against all the bad things that happen to us.  Otherwise, those protective elements in our lives stop protecting us, and simply cut us off from the society we should enjoy.  To live life well is a life with fewer fears rather than more fears, and a good life is one that is free of those fears that stop us from achieving success in our personal and public lives.



 

VOW: Overly Attached Girlfriend

TOW: Nature

I have been reading Walden lately, and there's one quote that sticks out in my mind, more than any other:

"Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind [...] When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what does he want next?  Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous incessant, and hotter fires, and the like [...] there are some that complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty.  I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden and silver fetters."

Thus, the story of Walden begins, as an adventure into the desire to shed oneself of the fetters of society and mankind that displace us from regular, human activity.

While I won't go into detail into Walden, (for I honestly think Thoreau is a bit of a stuck up hippie) the premise of Walden is something that I think is universal in desire among most serviceable human beings: the desire to communicate with nature in such a way as to better our humanity.

I spent a really nice time up near Mount Forest in Ontario, and had a chance to fish on some very clear waters, muck about in a cave and sit under a waterfall (which has been one of my favourite experiences this year).  Alas, I had to return to the big city, to find it unchanged.  The people are still unfortunate, the activities here are still fairly benign, and for the most part, I would rather be in a more natural setting.

While I love my friends here, and I love the work opportunities that I have in a city like this, I definitely feel like there is something missing in my life, and I think it is the closeness of nature in my life.  As someone who has spent long summers out in the so-called wild, whether in Cold Lake, Alberta, or in Saskatchewan, it makes me realize how much I miss having those natural comforts close to me in my life.  Thoreau was right about one thing in regards to being part of the middle class...the heat that you experience from the societal pleasures in life often are the kind of heat that makes life unbearable, not the kind of heat that warms our hearts.

Most of my happiest memories have been in a natural setting, amongst trees, and wildlife, etc.  There are still some things in modern society that I enjoy (like the ability to e-mail, or use a map connected to GPS) but more than anything I wonder if my life would be better if I lived somewhere that I didn't have most of these things.

For now, there's not much that I can do except live here.  I have a job, I have a life that I've made here, and that's that, as they say.  But someday, maybe I'll live somewhere a little more...natural.

VOW: In Honour of the Olympics

TOW: Creativity

You know, my new job requires me to be creative at work.  And by creative, I mean really creative.  I come up with themes to marketing campaigns, I do graphic design, recently I've become somewhat of a no-name Youtube star for the videos I'm creating , and I edit everything, do all the technical side of things, and tell a story with pictures, videos and words.  And I do it all several times a week.

What I realize from doing this is that creativity is very much like a muscle.  If you over-exert it, you'll strain or even injure you're ability to be creative.  This is essentially every hipster-esque art piece that was trying so hard to be something, it went full circle and went back to sucking.  Maybe it could have been really 'real' or 'moving' had it not included every artist reference to everything and its non-committal boyfriend.  But, like most works of art, it's trying to say too much, trying to be too much, trying to be 'the artist' before the art.  Works of art like this are strained.  It's not a healthy piece of art.  It's just as unpleasant as watching a bodybuilder lift his max weight.  It's all grunt-face and quivering muscles that can barely hold up 350 pounds.

But if you don't exercise you're creativity, you'll lose it.  You will be sluggish, unaware, unfeeling to the world around you.  You become a consumer, instead of a maker.  It's good to consume art and culture, but it's important to make things, to be, to live in the moment that is the 'artist's moment.'  It's good to exercise your creativity.  It keeps you mentally strong, awake, and feeling good about yourself.

I have been working on a couple projects that are taking a lot of my time, and some days I don't have the creativity, the will power, nor the sleep allowance that allows me to create anything of value.  Because creativity requires that I have some kind of energy to give, to infuse into my activities, and when I come home tired or drained, there's not a lot to give.  The creative spirit requires nearly boundless energy, drawing from that inner well that always replenishes itself as long as you save time for introspection, reflection, and productive creative activity.

Create, do, be.  Unless you are satisfied with a creative piece, it doesn't matter what other people think.  You have an obligation to yourself to put that energy in you, in things in the world until they make you smile, until they make you happy, and that you can see in the world, things in yourself that you've always wanted to share.  Because the world we live in, the world of constant, nearly suffocating connection, demands of us that we share only the best of ourselves.  The masters of our world are always the ones that are creating the content in it, the sights, the sounds the smells, the feelings.  It's up to us to curate that content, and to reflect something of ourselves onto the world that can make others know us for who we really are.  That's creativity.

VOW: Cat Hates Lemon

This video made me laugh for like 10 minutes.

How I'm currently feeling

TOW: Canada and Racial Diversity

Lately, I've been feeling a bit sluggish mentally.  So, I've decided to do myself a favor, and started doing the New York Times crossword puzzle.  It's a good exercise, and I'm forcing myself to look up every answer I don't know and research it.  One of the answers on the crossword was the poem, "I, Too." by Langston Hughes.  Given that it's Canada Day weekend, I thought it would be good to post a political poem. 

It's sad to think that less than a hundred years ago, racial segregation existed.  In 1910, Woodrow Wilson segregated the Federal Government of the United States.  (Say what?)  Restaurants could be shut down for serving both black and white people. 

Rosa Parks, the woman who wouldn't give up her bus seat for a white person, only happened in 1955.  Black people, in my grandparents time, were considered less than people.  The Klu Klux clan was practically a political party.

Canada has a rich history of diversity...but this poem makes me think of all the things that still have to happen, and change so that all people can have fair opportunities in our great country.  Racism, segregation of populations still exists, especially between white people and immigrants here in Toronto, as well as indigenous and Western Canadians.  We have a lot to learn.  I hope for change in the future.

I, Too

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes

VOW: Everything You've Wanted To Know About Canada

TOW: Anchoring and Moral Judgment

I have been spending the last two weeks thinking about what anchors me, and what keeps me going, day after day.  When I feel strong, I feel like I can count the number of friends I have, the beauty of the good things in my life, and all the things that keep me stable in the changing winds of fortune.

In Consolatio Philosophiae, a lot of thought was put into the value of fame, fortune, and happy middle-class living.  Because of the whims of political fortune, Boethius, a famed scholar and thinker, was to be put on trial and put to death. He often sat, for a time, talking to the muses of art and poetry, in hopes that they could heal his pain.  What he came to realize over time, however, is that all men and women are subject to the Wheel of Fortune:

"I know how Fortune is ever most friendly and alluring to those whom she strives to deceive, until she overwhelms them with grief beyond bearing, by deserting them when least expected. … Are you trying to stay the force of her turning wheel? Ah! dull-witted mortal, if Fortune begin to stay still, she is no longer Fortune."


We are all subject to deception of living well.  We think that if we have this, we have that, we will feel 'safe' in life, only to lose those things and be brought down again.  I have acquired the bad habit of counting the good things in my, the bad things in my life, comparing and contrasting.  This is modern psychology's view of how to get by in life.  It's a stop-gap for all of us, when, for a reason or another, we cannot engage in a higher level of moral thinking.  It's not necessarily a bad thing.

For example, almost all Hollywood movies are the concept of Rota Fortunae.  The hero begins with nothing, rises to prominence, and the credits close with him or her at the very top of that wheel, riding into the sunset.  No one hears about how the soldier that won the hand of his lady/man got cancer a year later and died, and his/her fiancee committed suicide.  That wouldn't be a good movie.  (Well, maybe in Russian cinema, but not here.)

We love to see people succeed.  There's something very nice about that.  Human nature wants to focus on the good, it really does, even when it can only see evil, lack, want.  We still want to count all the good things we have seen.  Morality becomes a counting game of moral banking.

Those things we can count without cost, without measure, those things are the most valuable like love and inner peace.  But even these, during our dark times, Fortune will take from us.  The true measure of a man lies in those moments, in what he can perceive, in what he can push himself to be.

I have picked up the Bible lately again, and I have been doing a lot of thinking about who do I trust to represent a fair vision of myself, of who I am, who I can trust with my mirror's image.  It used to be my family.  As I grow older, I realize I have to be able to hold that reflection up to myself, and do my best to really wonder if I'm satisfied, if I'm a happy man, if I'm a good man.

The best lives, I think are those who have been to the lowest point in their moral scheme, those who can say that everything that made them feel they were a good person was taken away from them, and they can still continue.  In other words, a foolish person who can hope beyond hope when bad things happen.  This picture has been in my mind as I go to sleep over the last few weeks.

The image is of three Belgian men, standing atop the rubble of what used to be their homes.  They are covered in soot, the war is over, and there's nothing to do but rebuild.  And they did.  And eventually Flanders became a beautiful, modern, human place again.  But not without sacrifice and unnecessary death and loss.  They lost everything, absolutely everything, and they rebuilt.

So, when you lose both your fortune and your happiness, there is nothing left but to rebuild.  And no matter what point of life that comes to for us, we can only rebuild, and remember.  And instead of counting blessings, we can only marvel at our own strength, and ability to succeed again, in the face of failure.

VOW: Domino

Love the backgrounds in this video.

TOW: Relationships

It's funny how relationships change over time.

We always think people will be in our lives forever.

But the truth is, relationships change, people do things differently than in the past...they're often trying to figure out what makes them happiest. 

In my life, as long as I'm not have a cynical moment...I think everything changes.  Life goes on...children are born, friends and family members die...life goes in a cycle. 

In my brighter moments, I sometimes think about the phases of life, and what sort of phase I'm currently in.

I know that the relationships in my life can't all stay the same forever.  They have to evolve, or die.  Behavior that repeats itself over and over is probably negative behavior.  Positive relationships don't stay the same...they evolve with the people who are constantly changing, aging, healthy or sick, smart or not-so-smart, wise or unwise in their lives.  Negative relationships ask us to always remain the same, and never change.

But we can't stay the same...for our relationships, and our inner selves deserve better.  We all need to be able to evolve and find ways to be happy.

Life isn't worth living without great relationships.  But great relationships really only exist when we evolve with those relationships.

VOW: Father's Day

TOW: The Creative Process

I have been thinking a lot about what makes me a creative individual and what I need to do to be creative.  I have decided I need a couple things:

1. Inspiration:  I need to feel inspired.  Usually I look at pictures for ideas, or I surf the web, letting my mind wander before I choose an idea.  Some of the best ideas I have had have come after discarding several ideas.

2. Process:  I need to fiddle in a workspace for a while on a backdrop that makes sense.  Whether it's a t-shirt mock-up, a sketch, or some kind of website item, I need to have some kind of paper or some area I can just let loose for a while. For work, I prefer to use Illustrator when doing digital graphics.  When writing, I (now) like to make charts and diagrams to refer my writing with.  I find it helps to keep a consistent narrative in view.

3. Designing:  Once I have an idea firmly in place, I try and provide several variations of the same idea.  So, this could mean I do a graffiti art piece (like today) and I do versions with different colour combinations and different item placements, but generally with the same 5-6 items.  This way I can decide where things belong, and think about what makes the most sense visually, or on page.  This applies to my writing process as well.  I find I'm constantly moving sections of words for placement value.

4. Editing: I mock-up several designs into a one sheet item (writing includes this, give or take) which I then print off to look at.  Sometimes the print really helps me decide on whether I like an item or not.  It helps to do this in varying sizes if I'm only considering slight variations to one design item. 

5.  Revamping:  I then take the one item I'm pleased with and I work on it until I feel it's a finished piece.  This includes writing.  For illustration, I find this is about 3 edits.  For writing, I find it takes me 5-7. Not sure if this has to do with my skill as a writer, or if it's because writing is more subjective than graphic design.

6.  Finalizing:  I then choose the item to present for approval or to use in day-to-day use.

This process can take me anywhere from 1 hour to 1 year.  On an average, however, this process usually takes me a week.

VOW: The Just City

The Just City from The Lifelong Friendship Society on Vimeo.

Snow White

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TOW: Lazy versus Happy

There's one line in a song called "Is the Where It Ends," I always remember from the Barenaked Ladies:

She's like a baby
I'm like a cat
When we are happy
we both get fat


Now, this is not a post about body image, but this is about the link between being content, and being lazy.

I have been pretty lazy these last few weeks.  There have been bursts of craziness at work, and yes, it's been busy here and there, but the real issue is that when I get home, I have been turning on the internet tv,  maybe going to the gym, and just settling into a pattern.  I don't mind patterns, but I've been complacent lately.

And it's because I've been content.

A lot of great things have been happening.  Work is going well, I have low amounts of drama in my life, my family isn't calling every five minutes asking me to move into their basement because they miss me and generally things are pretty swell.  Life is good, and I've been wearing a smile on my face more often.

But what I have found is that when I get complacent, a lot of things start to take a turn for the worse.  I don't exercise as much.  Personal projects (I'm looking at you, iPhone game) get flung to the side and sometimes forgotten for a while or slowed down to the point where there's little progress.  You get lazy.

It's true that the devil work is in idle hands, but more than that, I sometimes find myself slipping into a routine where I go past relaxing, past 'me time' and straight into lazyville.

Oddly, I seem to thrive on chaos, conflict and disorder to propel me into something better.   The last couple years there has been a lot of change in my life, and I think it has to do with the fact that I've been striving for something better.  When I'm mad, or upset, or feeling weird, I feel the need to act, to make change, to do something, anything, to make things better.

When I get happy, it's hard for me to see how much better the quality of life could be if I got another job, got a raise, won some kind of award.   I guess I'm content when I have very little.

But happiness for me springs from being active, and doing things in the world.  My happiness comes from activity, not the absence of it.  So I guess I can be content with very little, but my happiness requires that contentment is never enough.  Happiness has to be a state of being, working, living, changing, and evolving.  And sometimes we don't evolve for the better when we try to change things, but I still think that's better than being a very specific kind of complacent.

VOW: Serbian Eurovision Finalist

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the moms who are my buddies and family, I wish you the best day.  I had a great conversation with my mom this morning.  I love her more than anything. :)

MAN

I haven't posted on here in FOREVER.

I've just found myself really, really busy on Sunday and Monday nights, which is usually when post things here.

I'll be working on a better update schedule in the near future.  For now, though, I just need to focus on getting back on track with some things that really matter to me.  Like writing, for example.  And not just business writing, which I have been focusing way too much on in the last 3 years. It's really hard to write well when most of your thoughts have to be branded and less than three sentences.  Kind of kills the creative process when you're only working for one client.

Writing really matters to me, and though I'm not very good at it, when I am, I really feel like I've accomplished something.

So, I plan to write here more....I've just been on hiatus for a bit!  ^_^

TOW: Buddhist Circles

Sometimes in life, you feel like you're going in circles.

No end, no beginning...just a place in the middle.  You think you're getting good at something, and then something new happens in your life, and everything changes.  Then suddenly you're back at the beginning.  You're never quite finished...well...until you're finished, as in, C'EST FINI.

....

The Buddhists have a sacred art form called 'Mandala.'  They create intricate, beautiful circles in the sand.  

But these circles, even if they're the most beautiful thing that's ever existed, once a mandala is finished, a monk sweeps it away, and starts anew.

Nothing matters in life some much you can't start again and change.  Buddhists use this tool for spiritual meditation, but all humans have the idea of a circle, propelling them deeper and deeper into themselves.

Lately, I feel like, in some way, I'm at the start of a circle. 

In other ways, I feel like I'm near the end.

Buddhists mandalas say a lot about spiritual health and the good life.  The good life is being in the middle of things.  The middle is where it's at.  End are alright, and beginnings can be exhilarating, but for me, save me for the thick of things, the good right in between so many different things.  It can be beautiful, it can be good, and it's almost always meaningful.

VOW: Robbie Williams and One Direction

I'm not huge into these guys, but I kind of love the duet they did.

Holy Moly!

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted here!  Yikes! 

Things have just been so insane lately.  Work, life, etc. is crazy and running two businesses isn't helping.

But I'm managing.  Slowly, but surely.  :)

TOW: Belonging

It's been a rough couple weeks.  I've had not enough sleep, not enough exercise, too much to do, and not enough time to do the things I want.  But, all this 'missing time' has got me thinking about things that I love doing, and things that I'm currently doing.

On the bright side of things, I'm currently doing a lot of the things I love.  I had a great night tutoring a new kid (he's in grade 1) and went for a great run and the work I'm doing at work is interesting, different and challenging.  I have great friends, and lately I've been so social I've been double-booking myself.  All is well with the world.

On the not-so-bright-side, there's a lot of change around me, and not all of it is a good change.   I have never felt so good at what I do while still feeling like I don't really fit in.  I don't fit into this city, I don't fit into the culture, I'm not sure how I'm fitting in at work these days, and I'm eventually not going to fit into these jeans if I keep eating myself out of every emotional crisis I have. 

Sad to say, I'm at one of those times in life where you feel like you don't fit in, you don't belong, and you don't know how to fix it. 

I think if this had happened to me in university, I would have found a way around it, and turned it into a good thing.  I did more than this, and I think I surpassed my expectations in this regard.

I think if this had happened to me in Belgium (and it did happen to me in Belgium) I would find like-minded non-fitters....and I did.

But Toronto is a big city.  You could almost call Toronto the city of people that never fit in.  They never seem to say things quite right, the people I meet here are friendly but distant, especially for Canadians.  I'm getting older, and I don't have too many more 'reinvent your life' phases left in me.  I've used up about three of them in the last five years, so I'd really rather not go back to that.  I want to start building a life that feels significant to me.

In some ways, I'm in the adult phase where it's like puberty all over again.  Your body doesn't make any sense to you, you always seem to say the wrong thing, you don't feel good or confident and everything just seems to be changing too fast for you to finesse things in a way that would make you appear, nice, wise and good.  Instead, you come off looking like a pretentious, stressed-out, stuck-up something-something with rage issues.  (Yes, I'm talking about me.)

But right now it's all about how well the things in my life fit with my vision of a good life for me. 

And very, very select few things are holding me together these days.  I think I'm ready for some positive change.

VOW: Dawson Loves to Dig (Cute)

TOW: Work Habits

Sorry I've been so absent from this blog.  Between me making a video game for iPhone (long story) and the new job that continues to get more interesting by the day (to say the least) I've had my hands full.  Add in some friends, some social engagements and I'm busy.  But most of the time I'm working on the video game...it's pretty much a full time job on top of my full time job.

I'm doing better at managing my workloads with the game, but the truth is, there's still a ton to do.  I'm teaching myself coding, while I go along and work on my graphic design skills (which have gotten exponentially better over the last couple months) and find out business stuff I need to know to develop on the iPhone.  It's time consuming because once I finish one thing, I just start on the next.

But I've learned a lot about how to switch gears quickly thanks to my job, and to this project.

I'll try and keep things updated here, but between blogging and tweeting for the video game account it's keeping me busy.  And busy is good, even if it's stay-in-your-room-and-don't leave busy. =)

VOW : Kids React (This is How I Feel about Minecraft)

TOW: It's not what you have...

Sometimes living in a big city, you compare yourself and what you have to what other people have.  I know that I often find myself caught up in a race against other people and the things they are doing.  Often the feeling you are left with is, "Why does this person have so much, but I have so little?"  It's not the comparison that bothers me, I find, but the feeling your left with.  The feeling like there's a big hole where all the appreciation for what's in your life should be.
I find myself often thinking, "Yes, I have this, this and this, but I don't have this, this and this."  And the focus always seems to be on the things I don't have, on the problems in my life, on the little failures that don't actually mean anything.  And finally, I often ask, "Why can't I be happy, with all the good things in my life?"

Sometimes, when life gets off track, the one and only thing to remember is that happiness comes through trying, not through hoping happiness will arrive.  More than that, I realized that for the last couple years, I have been focusing on the problems that are in my life, on the things I wish that weren't in my life.  It's kind of like focusing on what you hate, about yourself, about your life, about your day.  And then I would try and pull myself out of some deep hole I was in by focusing on what I love and trying to busy myself with that.

What is strange is that when I thought back to those times when I was truly happy, I realized it wasn't because I wasn't focusing on what I loved, or what I hated.  Those two things are constantly in a battle for my attention, but that's not how we can be happy.  Instead, when I was happy, I was focused not on things, but on people.  And not on people that I love, but on the people that love me. It's not what I do, but what others do for me that makes me happy.  We can do all the good deeds in the world for our friends, and yes it can give us a kind of happiness.  But it's not what we do for our friends, or our families, our peers or strangers.  It's what they do for us.

It's not what you have.  It's what you are given that makes you happy.

VOW: Jaane Kyun

From my new favourite Bollywood movie.

TOW: Lenten Values

This Lent I'm not working on giving things up.  This Lent I'm working on readjusting a few things. 


Lent is a time for giving up, it's true, but it's also a time of spiritual strengthening.  We do our training during the desert time of Lent.  And the beauty of that is that with time, we become, much, more fulfilled people by what we gave up or resisted.  It's like a very specific self-help program, once a year.

But the focus of Lent has always been, and will always be for me, about values.  What things, people, ideas, and causes do you value?  What kind of people do you want in your life and what values do they have? 

Lent is a celebration of becoming better, so that when the worst things happen, we can become better people overall.

VOW: Girl Problems

Giving up versus giving in

Probably one of my favourite Dragon's Den episodes of all time was one where a woman came on and tried to get investors involved in her spice-making business.  The woman had lost nearly $100,000 in it, had spent several years trying to make the business work, and she was looking for investment in something she thought could be a big hit with the right leadership.  The idea was so bad, and it was so poorly managed, that one of the dragons told her, "You're being stupid.  Stop investing money in this business.  It's ruining your life."  

The woman wouldn't give in.  She said she believed in her business, and that it was a great idea, and that

There are times in our life when really, the smartest thing we can do is give up. And sometimes, giving up something doesn't mean we're losers.  Sometimes it means we're giving up the things that we making us losers.  That woman was interviewed a year later...and she said the show gave her the best advice of her life.  She was throwing away her life, and she realized she didn't need to try and make something that didn't work.  She gave it up.  And she was happier.

Giving in is slightly different.  When we give in, we're letting go of our willpower to believe that something is possible, or to give in to what other people want.  Giving in is often a negative choice, and we should never give in, if we can help it.

As we start Lent, I will be giving up a lot of things.  These are conscious decisions I'm going to make to positively impact my future, and to show spiritual fidelity.  It's not easy to make these choices...people will often ask me to give in because it suits them.  But Lent is a time of spiritual renewal.  It is not an easy time nor often a happy time for Catholics.  It's a time to reflect, to be in our 'spiritual desert' so to speak, and to contemplate the greater mysteries. 

So, here's to giving up.

VOW: It's a SNAP!

TOW: Valentine's Day

The funny thing about Valentine's Day is that everyone wants to be in love, but no one wants to be in a commitment or have responsibilities. 

VOW: Valentine

TOW: Being Talented

There is no such thing as talent. There is pressure.
Alfred Adler

You know, I watch a lot of reality tv these days, but probably my favourite reality tv shows are competitions like Project Runway or Hell's Kitchen.  

It's hard to say what's so alluring about pitting several different kinds of people together for some kind of reward and watch as many struggle and fail, while others struggle and shine.  Seeing people under a certain kind of boiling point pressure tells you a lot about that person and how they achieve their own kind of success, whatever that means.

 

I think what these shows tell us about human nature is that the best performance, in our minds, are the ones that happen under pressure.  When beautiful and amazing things can come out of difficult circumstances with dire consequences,  we often feel the result is better than if it took an average amount of time, or longer.  Mastery and expertise seem to be about being talented, but what is talent?  Talent is the ability to consistently perform, regardless of circumstances.

 

Our circumstances are always changing, we can't do anything about that.  We're bound by time constraints, deadlines and surprise events that make our lives easier or harder.  But life is not about the circumstantial issues that come and go, rarely staying for but a moment.  We show our ability to be truly talented by demonstrating how we perform under the pressure.  That, seems to be to me, the measure of a person.

 

VOW: Crazy Cows

Why I didn't get much done this evening

TOW: The Chariot of the mind

In Plato's Phaedrus, he talks about one of my favourite philosophical myths, the Allegory of The Chariot of the Soul. 

The soul is like a chariot being driven by two horses.  The first horse is a noble, wonderful horse of the best breed.  It does exactly as the master asks.  The second horse however, is like a horse that has never been broken in.  It bucks and tries to go where it wants, and is wild.  The soul has a goal in mind towards higher enlightenment and it traverses a long journey to get there.  We are often slowed down and frustrated not by the first, but the second horse.

The allegory of course, is one of the human mind/soul.  We often know what we want, but we are frustrated by our lower desires which take over now and again and take control of our lives.  We feel like we're getting near the top, near the best of what we can accomplish every day, only to tumble down the mountainside the next day all the way to the bottom, and it's like we have the build up the discipline all over again.

When I read The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was actually a very intricate story that extrapolated on the Chariot Allegory.  Our minds are directed towards thoughts, while it is distracted by certain kinds of feelings.  It's our choice to accept those feelings into our lives.  If we let a wild and desirous part of ourselves take over, we often end up unhappy.  But the funny thing is, when we exercise even the smallest bit of emotional control, we often are able to turn bad situations into better ones, and sadness into a positive outlook. 

The key to happiness is not being lucky in life, having everything you want, or being successful, but counting yourself as successful, feeling like every day alive is a good day, and knowing that having everything isn't everything.  And we can only feel that way when either a) everything is going right for us, or when b) we direct our minds and desires to positive things, and not to negative things.  We are, to a certain extent, our thoughts and our feelings.  When we give our desires the reins, we often end us places we don't want to be.  Our feelings should never be the centre of our lives.  Our feelings contribute to who we are, but if we let them have control, we often feel helpless in the face of normal life situations.  The only real victims in life are the people who are victims of their own emotional states.  (Speaking from experience of myself, here.)


I think this week I have spent a lot of time feeling happy, and really good, and it's because I've been working hard, and things have been going well as a result of that work.  Hopefully, my hard work will pay off.  Even if it doesn't (at least in a financial sense) it will pay off in a life value sense, which was always worth more, anyways.

VOW: Stupic Cat (NSFW)

How I feel about cats, most days.

It's been a good week

I can't remember the last time I was this busy....but officially....I'm overbooked-Brennan again.  =)

TOW: Happy New Year

The year has turned from an old man into a baby again.


We often think about this time and make New Years Resolutions. 

But, I think I made mine (not that I make them, I don't believe in them.)  some time in December.  I had read the book the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, and in the midst of reading it, I realized that I was causing myself a lot of unhappiness, over nothing.  My life could be inherently positive, even in the worst circumstances, and I think I knew that a LONG time ago, maybe when I felt things were a bit easier, a bit better, when I was a bit younger, but dealing with difficult situations as a working adult is much different than learning to deal with negativity as someone who is a student, studying, or in academia.  The problems of academia are big, but they don't always hurt as much as when you're a working person. 

This year, I plan to try and embrace that positivity, and just keep it running throughout.  I've spent a lot of time in Toronto, thinking a lot of negative thoughts about the city (most of which, are probably true) but I haven't helped myself find good things, things that made me feel good, happy, or safe until sometime this year.  I feel like I'm starting to make better decisions overall.  Hopefully, over time, things will continue to get better.  I feel like there are a lot of really great things and great people in my life.  Now it's just a question of upkeep, versus a question of how much finding the right things to put in my life.  I've started to have a lot of a really cool things happen to me and for me lately,- and I'd like to just continue that trend as the year continues, and I think it will. 

Just got to keep up the good vibe.  ^_^

VOW: Dr. Tran Quiet Log Time

Ian's Christening

Russ ad Dez looked so good today.

I got pretty close to these guys before they ran away

Me and mom shopping

Having fun!

Merry Christmas

I know it's yesterday technically... but Merry Christmas.  Thanks to everyone who reads this. =)

Merry Christmas

TOW: Going home

You see much more of your children once they leave home.
Lucille Ball

I'm going home for Christmas.

It's definitely been a while, and between September and December, a lot of things have changed.  Going home for me this year is a truly happy time.  I get to have a vacation for the first time in two years...I can sleep in for more than two days at a time and it will be quiet for a straight 8 hours in the night.  (I can't tell you how awesome that is going to be without foaming at the mouth a bit.) 

 

Coming home is going to have a lot of personal pleasure associated with it, but I'm not going home to a place, I'm going home to family.  Because I haven't had my childhood home for several years now, and I don't think of houses and being home for me anymore.  Which is weird, because I used to be the opposite way.  I used to think my childhood home was where people gathered and it was the place that mattered more, since that's where I spent all my time.  I wasn't wrong, but I wasn't exactly right, either.  People need a place to gather, but an empty house is just that...empty.

Going home now, at this time of my life, is light years of difference than two years ago.  Two years ago, I was living off a line of credit, working 2 part time jobs and going to school full time.  The second day I was home I went to the doctor because my chest hurt.  

There was nothing physically wrong with me.  I was having panic attacks.  I went for a walk outside after that and I couldn't even cry, that's how tightly wound I was. 

The worst wasn't the panic attacks, although they were bad at the time.  The worst, I distinctly remember, was going for lunch an hour later and telling my parents what was wrong and seeing the look of disappointment on their faces.  I think they felt like they did something wrong, or worse, that I was going crazy.  (No argument there...ha...ha...eh heh.  Sigh.)

 

Going home at Christmas for a while was really sad because I felt like I had a lot I had to prove, and also people didn't understand why I didn't just move back to SK if I was having such a hard time (more on that later, some time). Truth is, I wanted home to be a safe place for me, somewhere I could run away to once or twice a year when things got really bad, and I was pretty sure I was going through some kind of phase that I needed to get out of my system and that doing it closer to my family wouldn't actually help me in any way.  I wanted my family to be able to be a refuge for me.  They were my home, wherever they were during the last three years.

 

And I think I've finally realized, in an adult kind of way, what the value of a home means to me.  It's not just about being happy wherever you are...it's also about feeling that you will find a way to keep yourself and those you love safe in your own way, as much as you can.  Because being an adult means being able to create that feeling of safety and happiness in your life for those who matter and being able to do it consistently, even when things are hard.  And as I grow older, I realize just how much having a place and people to return to is so valuable.  Not everyone has that, and it's a gift when you do have it.  Some people don't have a family that they trust or even love.  Some people don't have anyone to call friend.  Some people are very,  very alone in life.

That's why it's good to create a place where people can feel welcome, whether they be family or friends.  Love is a gift not to be squandered.  Home, as they say, is where the heart is.

This is how I feel today

Wow.

Gift from Thane,  the grade seven kid I tutor. Super touched. Best gift I've gotten in a long time.

Space Cowboy Hat time!

TOW: Life Phases

You know, I had a really good talk with my friend Robert last night.  We talked a lot about life phases, and about how things were changing for both us, mostly for the better.  I mentioned that my life had taken a lot of turns in the last four years, and it seems to me that things are finally starting to be where I imagined that they would be when I first started down this new career path idea.  It only took four years for me to get there!  Er, yay, I guess?


I think it's more that there's so much adjusting to do when you move to a new city, take up a new life, new friends, new challenges, new problems of a variety of kinds.  What's interesting to me is that I seem to go through Life Phases, where I repeat things over and over again.  I've managed, in my mind, to repeat several life phases, go through several of the same problems I've had in the past, but I've repeated them in the future. Why is that?  Shouldn't I have learned my lesson the first time?

Instead of quoting a philosopher, I think the answer is much simpler than that.  The challenges you face as a youth, as someone still growing into life are not the same as the challenges you face as an adult.  No matter if you've faced a problem a million times as a child, as a teen, as anything other than someone who is really striving to become themselves as they grow older, you won't be able to apply the same solutions to your childhood problems that you did when you were a kid.  When you were a kid, your parents may have bailed you out at the last minute if you did something really stupid.  Maybe it was your friends as someone in your young twenties.  But as people get more insular in their older ages, there's not a lot of support.  There's you, maybe there's your spouse, but really, there's you.  Just you.  You and your life.  And you have to decide how to live it.

Being an adult is hard.  It's not easy to do new things as an adult.  When you were younger, safety nets existed to catch you when you fell.  What you realize as an adult, is that some of those safety nets have disappeared, but there's still a crowd of onlookers, watching to see if you'll fall. 

I'd like to think that my life will eventually be less of a tragic fall from above and more of a direct path towards the other side of the goals I'm seeking.  I'm sure most people feel the same way.

VOW: Stupid Cat

Loved this video. But there are swears, so just be careful where you listen to this. ^_^

Shopping Adventures

Out with Liz's Parents for Lunch!

Unpacking.

Christmas time is soon!

It's the first day of Christmas.  Here's a Christmas videos to get you in the season.

TOW: The Power of Love

No, this isn't a Huey Lewis and the News Song.

Again, I think because I've been going on dates, and also because it's something more serious about things I'm reading lately, I'm starting to think about what it means to love other people, and how I love other people.

Today's quote from Plato on love:  "Love is a serious mental disease."

And, in a way, Plato was right.  (But when isn't Plato right?)   Love is like a (sometimes) happy infection, spreading through our mind, and at times our bodies, awakening feelings in us that didn't exist before, or making us feel in ways we don't always normally feel.  Love is not easy, and love is messy at times.  But more than anything loves moves us to do things, to say things, and act in certain ways that we never imagined we would, could, or perhaps should.

Love is something that moves us, and St. Thomas Aquinas talks a lot about this when he talks about the way the First Mover (or God) loves the world.  God was moved by love to create.  He was in a relationship with the world that was to come to be, and he just sort of moved towards it, and created all things living and things in the universe.  It's an interesting idea.

And from these ideas is where I have been putting a lot of my thought lately.  Love is something that interrupts us, that moves us in an unexpected, but often good direction.  Love is not something easy (for movement, as any good physicist would tell you, is not something easy or even 'normal' by physical standards)  because love often interrupts our routines, our needs, and our wants.  But that's a good thing--because love takes us to places we don't want to be--it takes us outside of ourselves, outside of our little backyard of our minds, and into the wider world, where people need us.  And love answers our own needs by serving others, and by being present to the love that's needed in the world. 

It's a powerful thing when you think about it.

VOW: Two Angry Camels

Because everyone needs two angry camels in a car.

TOW: Singularity of Purpose

I have been thinking a lot about one or two things lately, and I have most recently picked up from the library The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.  So far it's proving an interesting read, and it reminds me of, and is having a similar effect on me as the book The Alchemist did.  Both The Alchemist and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari are based on the premise that society, especially Western society, has a sickness that needs curing, and can be cured by looking inwards, person by person.  And that cure comes in the form of a singularity and productivity of purpose.

If you were to read them in the order I have, it's almost like The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is a sequel to The Alchemist.  The Alchemist tries to deliver the message to a young boy that the universe wants you succeed in life, but not without trying.  And the monk learned the same thing when he gave up all his possessions.  Goodness, and true life greatness, comes with a a heavy price.  Unless we are willing to give up certain things, we cannot achieve new things, have new patterns, and lead a new life.  As the monk says, "How can I fill your cup with fresh tea when your cup is already full?"

Not only can we only focus on one task, but we can only ever really focus on one attitude in life.  We can either be inherently negative, or we can be inherently positive.  I think we all know people that seem to never stop being gloomy, never stop being petty, and never stop grandstanding.  These people live most of their lives in a way that makes themselves and others unhappy.  They have made their singular purpose about being unhappy and about judging other.  Often, it's a sign of something missing in people's live is why this happens.  They haven't found, or want to ignore, things in their own lives that need changing, and focus on other people's problems.

The only way we can fix our own problems, according to these two books, is to learn what it is in our lives that is a truly good and productive for us, and to pursue those things.  And our dreams don't have to be big.  One of the characters was janitor who swept up the temple every day, but he was content in his life, and he liked his life.  The point was that he was productive and he gave his own life meaning and that meaning gave him happiness and made him content and at peace.   

True productivity comes from enjoying the moments we are in, and focusing on goals we have for the future.  We don't need to be productive in the sense that we produce more than other people, that we do more than other people.  We need to know that every task we do, and do right, deserves our full attention, and we have a duty to ourselves and to others to give our attention to the present moment, every day, as much as we can. Because it's a sad life to live that focuses on dreams that could never exist, instead of focusing on dreams that should exist in our lives, and trying to bring them to fulfillment.  



The point being, we are all called to some kind of higher purpose. 

VOW: Video Games

Haunting song, I sang part of it while I was hanging out with Liz this eve.

Parents at the Banquet of Champions for the Canadian Bowl 2011

Well great

I just slept through a doctor's appointment (flu/fever/not sleeping) and I called in to ask if there would be any issue with them billing me, and the lady on the phone pretended she had no idea and hung up on me.


Really?  ={

TOW: Love

I've been thinking a lot about love, and relationships and such lately.  I'm not sure why, I think it's because I keep having people who are not good matches/creepy people asking me out. I guess sometimes I think "What is love?" and this might have a lot to do with the fact that I read too many advice columns and most of what I see are people in misery and people falling in and out of love.  I know I'm hopeless because I believe things like love is forever, and that you can love friends and family forever...although I think that says a lot more about me than anything else.  But at the same time I think I'm somewhat realistic because when some people go through certain life phases, you can't go with them.  That might mean you can't be their friend or be in contact with them, at least in the conventional sense.  (But maybe that's another thought for another time.)

When I get nostalgic about love in general, Plato is someone I always think back to when I wonder what 'feeling' one should have to be in love.  Plato, beyond being great at thinking about everything in general, wrote a great piece called the Symposium in which a bunch of very well-spoken intelligent leaders of Greek society get together and have a speech competition. called an enconium where each speech giver must give a speech in honour of the goddess Eros. 



The speech I love the most is the one by the poet Aristophanes.  Aristophanes was one of the most revered classical comedians, and was considered a genius of his time.  Aristophanes begins by telling a story about how people used to be, in primal times, double-bodied beings that were attached in such a way that they were spherical creatures that rolled around.  (This is, of course, meant to be funny and it really is when you think about it.) 

They were powerful beings that challenged the gods, and Zeus, who had pity on them, decided to separate them into two halves instead of destroying them outright.  He made their skin tight and stitched them up, and made them always feel that they were looking for their other half.   When two people who have been separated find each other, they never want to be separated again. Aristophanes said that as long as we work with the goddess of Love, we can again find wholeness.  The piece is meant to be comedic, but comes off with a strong sense of truth to it.  I think a lot of us feeling like we spending our lives looking for something, or someone, to complete us.

And whenever I think about the feeling of love, I think about that.  I think we always think we are half of something, and not a whole something.  We're always searching for that one person, that one activity, and that one object that we can love with our whole hearts.

And sometimes I wonder, where do our feelings reside in this search for the one thing that will rule us all?  When you have a crush on someone, is that part of love, or is that something else?  When you feel turmoil, or you read poems of people that can't sleep, can't eat, have the jitters, is that feeling love, or is that something else?  Or when you think romance, is that enough to call that love?

I think in English we use love to mean many different things, but I always wonder if love isn't about the greatest goods in our lives.  Love should be edifying.  As in, love should make us feel whole, should make us feel more than ourselves, just alone.  I feel that true love, the best kinds, are the kinds that make life worth living, and make life 'good' not necessarily always 'exciting' in the same way that a romantic partner is, but love is something stable and useful in human moral life. 

 But I still wonder, when do all the other little forms of love, of those overflowing feelings we have for romantic partners, for friends, for strangers, turn into that better thing?  And what feelings are red herrings, that we think are good for us, but actually harm us in the long run?  (Like those romantic feelings that cloud our judgment.)

I don't really have an answer this week to what I'm thinking about in that sense and I don't think I'm required, especially at this point of my life, to have an answer to a question like that.   But I do think it's always good to love all people....and by love I mean to try and provide those moral goods in other people's lives, in hopes it enriches their happiness and sense of well-being.  Because we all need to be loved, even if it's just a little, sometimes that's enough when your day has gone wrong and everything seems upside down, sometimes people just need to say that they care, or show that they care, to make sense of things.

VOW: Hal The Misinterpretive Porn Star