Gaining Ground Above the Banalities of Life

I feel like I have just been to outer space and back. Or as one friend described it, as though I just experienced a lifetime of emotions in two hours. I would agree, and say that I just experienced the most painful and the most ecstatic feelings of life all in the same moment.
The occasion was Godspeed You! Black Emperor! a show that I never anticipated on seeing in my lifetime. They were broken up before I ever heard of them, so to see them live in Vancouver was a once in a lifetime experience.
The show took me on a roller coaster of emotions, back through time in my own life when this music was the only solace I had during a deep depression. While GYBE!’s music hardly needed any additions, their choice of entertainment couldn’t have suited them better. Each of the band’s dark, melodic compositions were carefully highlighted by a series of images projected through an old-school film projector. The images were obviously chosen with care to highlight the mood of each song. The set opened with a simple projection: Hope – reminding us all why we were there. Peaceful images from a summertime road trip provided the backdrop Storm, while more dystopic images such as decaying buildings and junk yards were chosen to highlight the climatic anxieties of songs such as Static.
Though the images reflected the inherent consciousness of the songs they complemented, I also felt there was a certain continuity that could be drawn between all of the projections. A deep sense of nostalgia for a more simple, less chaotic world seemed to tie all the projections together. Whether images of protestors juxtaposed with the stock market, or a grainy shot of daffodils blowing in the wind, the images allowed us to experience the mundane realities of life through a romantic lens.
The image that had a most lasting effect on me, is also one I see frequently. The shot of a power pole captured high in the sky with no relation to the ground. Just a simple pole and transmitter, set against a fading sky. I’ve wondered as of late why this is such a popular image. You see it frequently, especially in photographs from Vancouver photographers. Why this fascination with such a mundane piece of everyday reality? Well, as mundane as the transistor seems, it also offers us a symbol of hope. Light after darkness. Power to help us find knowledge and escape reality. It is so everyday, yet so extraordinary at the same time.
Perhaps I am just as guilty of painting a romantic glaze on the banalities of life, but isn’t that what art is for? Perhaps that is what GSYBE attempts to do with their music. Heighten the emotions of the everyday so we can remember to live, so we can remember that beneath the ordinary lies the extraordinary. It’s time to re-awaken our souls so that we can peer a little deeper and remember why we are alive, and what makes life worth living. Whether it’s to enjoy the inventions of modern man, or to take a drive to that far away place where wind blows the daffodils into stillness, there is so much beauty in the world not worth forgetting. Tomorrow I will wake up and try to remember that, but if I can’t on my own, then I can always reach for my ipod to help me get through the day.
Tonight, GSYBE helped me to remember this and I will go to bed feeling a little more at ease knowing there is so much beautiful simplicity to look forward to when I wake up tomorrow.

Matt Berninger eats my soul

Tonight I had the pleasure of seeing one of my favorite bands live for the second time. And as before, they left me in a state of complete bewilderment.

Matt Berninger is a captivating performer, but not in the traditional sense by any means. This time around I was not fearful for his life as he stumbled around stage, coming dangerously close to the edge many times. Despite the many cups of white whine he devoured throughout the set, each song was delivered with ease and unbelievable passion. It's as if Berninger enters another world with each song, bringing his audience with him. You can't help but feel as though you are being transported back in time to a certain emotion - the emotion that was the initial spark for the flame that burns strong within each powerful song. Forget the other musicians on stage, when Berninger is front and centre I found it hard to move my eyes away from him.

Each song seems to paint a different Berninger and a different relationship. His songs are precariously detailed with sentiment that seeps through the mundane details of a day that is illuminated through a nostalgic sense of hope. Fake Empire is a perfect example of the everyday coming to life through Berninger's talented prose:

Stay out super late tonight/Picking apples, making pies/Put a little something in our lemonaid and take it with us/We're half awake in a fake empire/ We're half away in a fake empire

Another saturday afternoon? Or a dream world? For Berninger it seems as they blend together to created the nostalgic world of song that drives the very meaning behind his existence. All his songs are crafted around one main ingredient - heartache, but its assembling is done in away that makes you want to fall deep in love and have that love fall completely apart so you can write a song about it. However, this process cannot be romanticized in a way that takes away from Berninger's craft. His songs are not about meaningless old loves that were capitalized on after the fact for good story telling; the depth of each song highlights the immense about of emotion that Berninger feels for all his characters - whether those are past loves or past selves. For each song he becomes that past self, reminding us all that as much as we try to forget life's most painful memories, those are scars that we will carry with us throughout life.

Perhaps that is what Berninger (and his band) does best - remind us of our own scars and painful memories that are what makes us who we are and what makes us human beings. At the same time that we are singing along to Berninger's melancholic view on the world we are also singing the tune of our own melancholic lives and through this sense of unity there is a sense of hope that no matter how hard life seems sometimes, no matter how many times we may feel our hearts shatter into a million pieces, there is a sense of hope that we are all in this crazy ride of life together.

Lost.

It's been a while, and that is always a scary thing. It's always a scary thing because whenever I take a break from writing its usually because I'm afraid of what I have to say to myself and this time around, I'd say that was true as well.

Until about two days ago I was in complete denial. Denial about my life, the changes that are about to take place and the lack of control that I have over situations at the moment. I'm also afraid of who I am, who I have been and who I will become. I feel as though I have lost touch with the person I have always wanted to be, the distance goal, the sketch of humanity that I plotted out, slowly connecting the dots. Somewhere along the way my pencil went off track and now I have no more dots to follow.

Most of this anxiety stems from being in a relationship. Not that this relationship is tumultuous or even remotely unstable...in fact its far from being anything but stable and that is exactly what scares me. What scares me is that for the first time in my life I see myself becoming a person I never possibly imagined for myself - the content, satisfied and happy human being.

I have always seen myself as someone who would never be happy. I don't mean that in a depressing way at all. Instead, I mean someone who was never content with her life, always craving more and never being satisfied. This state of unhappiness stems from a place of unsatisfactory, not a place of true misery. However, somehow in the past few months or so I have drifted across barriers of unconsciousness and been able to glimpse a view into a state of possible happiness - a place where I am content, though not necessarily satisfied.

This glimpse of happiness has scared me because it has at the same time forced me to confront the multiple dimensions of myself - that person I once was, the person I aspired to be and the person I am now. While there is a parallel that can be drawn between all these selves, the difficulty in drawing this continuity causes me to question whether or not there is any linearity to being, any sense of direction that one can truly aim for.

Am I a feminist? A fleer? A scared individualist or a coward? These are the questions that cause me to sink back into a state of paralyzed anxiety today. What will I become? But more importantly, is what I want to become and authentic representation of myself or merely a projection of my immediate experiences? Am I becoming the person that I have always sought to be, or do I now ascribe to a narrative of being that relies on me being an extension of someone else? How do I separate the I from we?

While these questions will eventually work themselves out, I am afraid of the process which is to come. I cannot describe the sensation of my current existence as anything less than weight, immense weight that brings me to a level below all reality, one where I am able to examine everything above from almost a removed context and perhaps that is where this sudden numbness arises from. The numbness is a necessary state in order for me to gain any sort of perspective on the situation - the situation of me.

I don't want to lose you, but I don't want to lose myself either and right now I feel that there is a danger of that. For many months now, I have felt like I do not know myself. I do not know who I have become and before I can accept that change of state, I need to get to know this person. The scary thing is that my core being may not truly accept this change and for that reason it may be necessary to move on.

The only constant in life is change. That is a truth I have come to recognize. I cannot control the outside change, this I know for sure. But internally, this is a process I have control over, but only as long as I choose to engage with it.

Success through experience

Today I embarked on a new journey. One that is likely to lead me to new places, new forms of consciousness and hopefully a new understanding of self, though where exactly this journey might lead I will not know, well at least not for another 1,000 pages.

Yes today, after having it in my possession for almost one year, I finally cracked open the incredibly formidable Infinite Jest, the literary masterpiece by the late David Foster Wallace. Last summer, after a number of consequential coincidences, I decided it was time to purchase this book. As an employee of the corporate book monster Chapters (Indigo) at the time, it also seemed like a ripe moment to cash in on the employee discount and purchase something that might one day lend itself to challenging my mind in ways that The Shopaholic Series couldn't hope to comprehend.

Today was the day, and like other moments in life where the threads are all woven together in one inevitable direction, I felt an uneasy sense that it was time to see what the genius of DFW was truly capable of.

After being only 27 pages in, it is easy to see that this book is no ordinary book, and as Dave Eggers gracefully explains the the novel's recently scripted forward, the strength of the novel lies in its ability to find balance between that which simplifies the simple mind, and that which twists and turns even the most challenged of minds into the dark tunnels of human imagination, genius and foremost - madness. For Eggers, it appears that Infinite Jest is almost a right of passage - a novel that not only speaks to an age in time, but one that also speaks to an demographic, that of the early to mid twenties which is perhaps the most perplexing of ages to be, especially now in the 21st century.

As I have been many times in the recent past, today I was perplexed by my ability to pin point the exact moment in time that fits the daunting challenge of not only beginning, but finishing this novel. This is why I feel that it is not improper to purchase books that one does not always read right away. There is always a time, a sentiment, a conversion of ideas that seem to magically lift a novel of its shelf and into your hands.

Infinite Jest did not fit on my shelf - instead it has been lying dormant on my floor for many months since I first moved into this apartment. Lying there face up, it has remained quietly waiting for the day I would open it, yet also patiently reminding me - with its vivid colour - that it should not be forgotten. Perhaps the stars in these early summer nights aligned tonight, or perhaps it was the subtle voice of my sub conscious whispering "its time" - whatever the reason, I feel as though today I have begun a journey that will invite in new experiences to shape the direction that my own confused journey on the road of life is taking me.

Returning once again to the weighty acclamations for the book written by Eggers, I am reminded that the journey of life is not simply lived in the physical world, but also in the world of the mind as well. If experiences shape reality, then who is to say that experiences stop with the turn of a page?

The importance of experience - not only in and of itself, but also in its ability to shape the substance, direction and changes of a human being were recently re-illuminated for me by a young and bright mind that I have been fortunate enough to become acquainted with over the past year. This young seventeen year old girl became especially taken with the journey of Sean Aiken, after I shared his experiences as the "one week job guy" with her. Like many recent graduates, Sean experienced the familiar sense of anxiety that one collides with soon after finishing university. However, instead of running away from his angst into the safety of 9-5, Sean decided to do something different and set out to find his passion - one job at a time. This journey to try 52 jobs in 52 weeks not only made for a good experiment, but also for a good story as well and as a result experience was followed by a book and a soon to be released documentary. (details can be found at wwww.oneweekjob.com)

In a recent conversation this bright student of mine suggested that she knew that Sean found what he was looking for, she had figured out his passion. Assuming that she had read the book, I asked her what it was and she replied, that from her own observations (she had not read the book, but merely the website) she was sure that he figured out his passion was not for any one job in particular, but rather for experience.

While this observation may be one student's opinion, I found it to be a monumental reminder of the importance that all experiences - good and bad - play in the formation of our selves, and until we resign ourselves to an existence that isn't expanding, thirsting for change or new experiences, we will never stop growing.

The thought that all experiences add dimension to our being, and further a new layers to our humanity, gives me hope. It gives me hope for the future to which I belong, and hope for the future which I will play a role in creating.

So, it is with this new realization, the insight of young student's bright observation, and a myriad of directive coincidences that I will begin my new experience - the experience of reading Infinite Jest, and what an experience that is likely to be.

What does the face of humanity look like?

What does the face of humanity look like?

This is the question I am asking myself as I prepare to go forward and write a new chapter in my life. It is also a question that I believe we should all be asking ourselves as humanity itself prepares to face a future full of uncertainties, broken promises, unaccountable corporations and indeterminate governments. This is the question that I want my generation and future generations to ask, for as broken as the world that lies before us may seem, we are the ones who will bend down to mend its cracks.

In times of conflict, the question of humanity faces a daunting answer. This became apparent to me today during a discussion about the war in Afghanistan and the role of the red cross in delivering aid to citizens. Do we, as a country of Canadians, have the obligation to separate the enemy from the innocent when it comes to delivering aid? Or do we, as citizens of this world and members of the human race have the obligation to look past political ties and religious belief into the eyes of humanity in its most raw form? This is a question that I will personally wrestle with as we move forward and one that I do not have the answer to.

All I know at this point is that my generation faces the enormous task of trying to re-define humanity within the globalized framework of the 21st century. The 20th century saw the worst of humanity, many times over, and through that process I imagine that much faith in what our species is capable of was lost. Despite the conflicts that engulf the world today, I have faith that the brighter side of growing up in a globalized world positions the world's youth in a unique place - one that allows us to look back into the recent past, learn from the mistakes and move forward into a more hopeful place for the future. However, despite this sudden faith, I believe that we also face the challenges that come from living in an increasingly radicalized world - one in which reason is often eclipsed by passionate greed and an unstoppable faith in one group's interpretation of a higher power. Evermore, we face the challenge of peeling back the layers of society, religion and culture that often engulf the human being leaving veiled from her true human self, and thus vulnerable to the powers granted by discrimination.

As I prepare to move forward into the murky territory of the unknown future and as I prepare myself for the task of trying to understand who I am in relation to everyone else, I will constantly stop myself and remember to ask "what does the face of humanity look like?" One does not have to look towards the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Oil tycoons in the gulf of Mexico to struggle with the tensions bound up in this question. While these groups have more than enough requirements to fill the categorical definition of human destruction, we need not look further than our own back yards to answer this question.

When is the last time you stopped to have a conversation with your neighborhood homeless man? When is the last time that you stopped to look him in the eye, rather than walking casually by? And when is the last time you felt the tension between guilt, pity and sorrow when you decided to stop?

These are not easy questions to answer - nor is that conversation easy to have. Though on this rainy June day in Calgary I have hope that the sun will come back soon. I also have hope that humanity will remain resilient in the centuries to come. We will remain compassionate towards our fellow man and we will remain determined to create a better future for our children. Better not as in more progressed or more understood, but better in that we live in a world where any one can ask the question What does the face of humanity look like? and confidently answer that humanity looks like all of us, for wherever we came from and wherever we are going we always have the opportunity to reach out and shake our fellow man's hand.

Endings bring new beginnings.

This past weekend was one full of profound endings, however, it also opened way for the possibility of new beginnings.

Through the cold and rain that was yesterday morning, I accomplished one of my greatest feats thus far - my first half marathon. This great accomplishment was the climax of months of training, however, it also brought with it the feeling of something new, that I am about to embark on a new beginning, a fresh chapter in my life. While I may have been training seriously for the past four months, my journey towards the finish line began almost two years ago when I took up running as a way to re-gain the emotional strength I had lost at the hands of someone else. With all emotional strength gone and little hope to gain it back, I decided to pursue a new course and focus on developing my physical strength instead.

Little did I know, but that quest to build muscle and stamina in an effort to fool myself back into confidence was far more successful than I ever could have imagined. In addition to eventually building up my endurance to do a half marathon, I also gained a surprising new sense of confidence that came from over coming what I once thought to be impossible.

As someone who has never been considered my others or herself as an athlete, becoming a "runner" took more effort than simply putting on my running shoes and heading out the door. I was also forced to shed some old attitude and delve deep into the psyche of the runner - which is more than half the battle when it comes to sticking to a regular running regime. Through my determined efforts to build my strength, I became accustomed to the amazing doses of positive energy that I would always return home with. No matter the emotional pain I was experiencing before hand, or the distance that I was able to traverse, as long as I gave 110% and accomplished what I had set out to do, there was nothing that prevented me from feeling better about myself.

Slowly but surely, I saw the improvements - both physically and mentally. My distance increased, as did my speed, but more importantly so did my attitude towards the act at hand. Rather than viewing running simply as a tool to get in or stay in shape, or a way to feel a little less guilty about all those beers I was consuming, running started to take a more permanent place in my life - part of my weekly routine.

Next to the weekly doses of professional therapy I was receiving at the time, running became my own sort of therapy. A safe place I could always go to and shed the negative energy that was weighing down my soul. At my lowest point, there was little that any of my friends or family could do to bring me back up out of despair, but somehow, I always found the strength to pound the pavement. These brief moments of physical relief became my sanctuary that I turned to when I just needed to be alone. Alone and free outside of my existence. Apart, yet fully engulfed by life and the euphoric feeling that I could, with time overcome.

Yesterday, with less than 3km to go, when my legs were throbbing unforgivably, and my ankle felt as thought it was going to collapse any minute, I remembered why - what had brought me to that place of pain in the first place. All those emotions, all that emotional pain - scarred over, but forever with me - that I had managed to overcome, and through that painful nostalgia, I found the strength to carry on. Flooded with emotion, I pushed ahead, 2km, then 1km to go I remembered how far I had come, and how far I had yet to go. With these thoughts in front of my, I pursued the finish line with every once of strength in my body, and with these thoughts I crossed the finish line with an incredibly sense of pride.

I have come a long way and I found the strength to cross the finish line from within. Yesterday was not just the end of a race, it was the end up something much more. That finish line - my first finish line - drew an imaginary divide between my life now and my life then. Then has passed, you are gone and I am stronger for it. Now is the time to look forward to a future based on personal strength, determination and courage to face all that I do not know. Now is the time to look towards new beginnings.

I can already see my next finish line.

That which lies beyond point zero.

There are moments in life when you can no longer avoid the unavoidable. When imagination collides with reality, releasing all anxieties and fears out into the open like a jar of spilled jelly beans. A rainbow of colours below, tempting you with their nostalgic fruit-like textures, yet also warning of the impending sickness that will come with consuming them all in one single trail.

The sense of awakening I am currently experiencing can be likened to nothing other than nausea. This is the true Heiddegarian angst - the moment when the truth is peeled back and I am left staring into its deepest core.

This moment - like other moments profound existential moments I have experienced in life - was the narrative climax of a long winding process. An intricate web of experiences, personal thoughts, literary inspirations and finally memory. At this moment I am being reminded of the true concerns and liabilities that lie within me, but now the incurring is problem arises: what do I do next?

My fear is that struggle with stalling panic. The desire to run is unleashed, but without a place to run to I am stuck treading in my own anxieties. In thoughts like these, thought truly does stall action as I fondly recall the words of Sartre, however in this instance I refuse to become immobilized.

This current sense of anxeity has been accumulating for some time now - months perhaps - yet I must congradulate myself on doing a fine job of ignoring the details. However, after reading Chris Hedges article "The Zero Point of Systemic Collapse" - published in adbusters - I was fully awakened to the truths I have been hiding my sensitive mind from for so many months now. I don't want to run any further - and can no longer run - but instead am ready to face the necessity for action and a motion to move forward into a new unknown territory.

While Hedges article - so poignantly encompassing the sentiment of collapse that is presently consuming me - can be held responsible for this blog post, there are several other incidences that are worth recounting, such as yesterday's ride in transit where I finished Yann Martel's new novel "Beatrice and Virgil." Charmingly titled to encompass the central compassion of the story, Martel's novel is a brilliant attempt to take yet another attempt at explaining the ultimate form of the unexplainable - the Holocaust. However, rather than simply attempting yet another single person narrative, Martel uses his form to explain the absurdity in any attempt to unlock the secrets behind mankind's greatest and most horrifying mystery.

In reading and finishing Beatrice and Virgil - I was left feeling with my own curiosity as to why any human being full of sense even attempts to grapple with these horrors. Through these shamed curiosities (for, as one who is living in the century beyond this time of evil what right do I have to even try to understand?), I recalled some non-fiction encounters I had with the holocaust, notably with those of Bruno Bettelheim whose own work brought me to tears through a true understanding of suicide. While some may view suicide as the ultimate renunciation of hope for humanity, his interpretation brought light to the power of suicide to act as one great last action of self determination, one final moment of glory in which one displays the ultimate form of resistance, a resistance against life itself.

Resistance is at the core of Hedges' article. Though this is not a resistance against life, but rather a resistance against the systematic life we are told to live - the life we are sold and the life we willingly consume.

Systemic living - this is the life I run from, and the one I fear will consume me against my will. The life I try to resist, yet often find myself gravitating towards through fear. Fear of not belonging, fear of never knowing "happiness," fear of failure.

And yes, failure is possible - this is a reality I must learn to confront, though Hughes' realism reminds use that "we must continue to resist, but do so now with the discomforting realization that significant change will probably never occur in our lifetime." The real fear lies in not knowing - not knowing whether what you are doing has true value or not. In a hyper-material culture all we know is what we see, though resistance is the ultimate form of alienation, all we know is who we are without the mirror of society to view our reflection in.

On the verge of hopelessness, Hughes does end with a moral compass that redirects us towards the invaluable hope of a moral intellectualism: "to give up acts of resistance is spiritual and intellectual death. It is to surrender to the dehumanizing ideology of totalitarian capitalism. Acts of resistance keep alive another narrative, sustain our integrity and empower others who we may never meet to stand up and carry the flame we pass to them."

And with these words of I will sleep tonight. It may not be a peaceful sleep, but it will be a hopeful one wherein lies hope for a de-systematized world where we are free to uncover our humanity, not buy it; where a sense of spiritual intellectualism reigns free as the highest order, not capitalism; and finally one where we are taught to value that internal truths are what define us, not our ability to give into the systemic powers that enslave us.