Vancouver Drift

slow down to think.

pause in between sentences.

create sentence fragments.

breathe.

listen.

i believe that life is a perpetual scavenger hunt where you are desperate, but have no list of what to find. there are clues. along the way. signs, notices, crazy old women who calm to be prophets. be they false, true, or deluded. there is agency, as well as the clues that push and pull. but in the end, there is agency. the point of decision, leads to more decisions. a hierarchy of decisions.

think of a maple tree at its infancy. each choice you make extends a branch with several subbranches. certain choices close of certain branches in your life. but these are your choices. as the tree grows, you mature. its branches become thinner, while your choices are more determined by the previous choices you have made. agency is in a way diminished. your character sets in. the tree takes shape.

the tree gets older. it is your choice to make it flourish with bushy leaves or leave it thorny and wirey. now stop.

zoom out one time.

we see two or three other trees around yours. branches and roots slowly coming closer to yours. some may shelter your tree's leaves from the sun, but leave you with less nutrients. others may house small animals that help fertilize the soil around your tree to help it grow.

this certainly infringes on agency. equality and freedom. a classic tension its true. but this is how you solve it: without equality, we have no freedom. and without freedom we have no equality. we are not just individuals. we are in community. pause and consider that. it's more ying yang than it first appears.

zoom out again.

a forest of trees searching for the Sun.

zoom back in.

this is life.

there are way too many problems in the world i am trying to solve! right now i'm trying to figure out whether human rights can be achieved under an authoritarian regime without first becoming democratic. for example, burma is an authoritarian regime that has a disregard for most human rights. blatent disregard.

and then you have singapore which is substantively authoritarian but democratic in procedure.

argh. mind is so muddled.

help.

religion, a poem.

religion is stupid.
relieve yourself of your religion on the side of a tree,
i started a cult
so follow me.

the end.


people, please release ur religions and atheisms and find your faith.
i guess you can only stop living in fear when you know what you really do fear.
the adventure begins.

i have a tendency to idealize the interesting people i meet. i have a tendency to find the endearing qualities about them and then magnify them. i set about this task by building boxes with cardboard walls and bubble wrap floors. i allow for home improvement, renovations and the such. but i take it that the center will hold.

and i never fail to be surprised when the cardboard is paper thin in the ubiquitous winds.

i guess it's partly my fault, but i really did and do expect more. go figure, crazy idealist.

still alive. still fiesty as ever. just really damn tired. finished presentation today. worth 20%. i think we kicked some butt. lots to say, but so tired.

still alive... still busy... more later.

fifty percent of us are reported to have some form of depression. less twentysomethings are voting each year. and if the problems of a generation can be garnered from popular culture, we are starting to see a culture that says, i don't care, i will not conform. of course we don't conform by purhasing clothing with spikes or dog collars creating a subculture as well as a not-so-niche market of mall goers. everything seems relative these days, the lines between rights and wrongs have become sinusodial and ever-so-permeable. "she's a slut! she sleeps around with everyone!" "no, she's just expressing herself. she is freeing her body". to be a purist, an idealist, a priest, is just not kosher anymore. we must turn 1000s of yrs of a flawed history of excluding and persecuting homosexuals because being homosexual is not "wrong" anymore. i tell ya, it's a time of real confusion.

why, you might ask, is it so hard priests, or devout religious dudes of all faiths having such a hard time now? sure, there's the whole seperation of church from state, and western imperialism hoo ha and such, but i think it's more abstract that that. values. absolute values. to be religious requires you to live by strict moral standards and your values are supposedly unwavering.

our generation is a generation in transition. take a snapshot, we are the pendulum at 40 degrees. we are liberal, we hold on to values of individualism, freedom of expression, free markets (some of us). these are important values, and agreed on quite readily in our societies, but where is the morality?

morality, man that's a harder one. we get into issues of universal truths and cultural relativism. how can we seperate them? must we? should we could we? wee...
it's quite a pickle this morality. we're back at the start. or are we? how do we reconcile morality? priests and preachers can't do it any more man, it's a tough gig judgin what is moral and what is immoral.

children and parents are confused. what bit of truth can we really hold onto? what do you teach your children. is it okay to have picture books where gay couples live happily ever after? or do we just ignore that reality.

ours is a generation, disenchanted. very much like the beat generation after the war, the lost generation. the bomb the bomb thebomb. living in fear.. more so disgust at the previous generation. the generators of the bomb. the bomb the bomb. us, we're disillusioned by politics, by the media. at least the forlorn looking ones. i'm sure others have accepted the thin description of life. they water ski on the pond in the cave imitating each other's shadows, without a care in the world, refusing to look down into the depths of the pond. unable, unwilling, undisenchanted, to see the schools of fish in entropy.

although the media is ostensibly a liberator, our generation is starting to realize that it is a generator. ourbombourbombourbomb. so we become disenchanted. lacksidaisical.

our academics, yours truly, baudrillard, foucault, derrida, lay in bed (seperately) and find it hard to get up into another day to be shaped and molded by the electrons and whipped into shape into a simulcratic game of pillsbury doughboy. no tahnk you. i'll stay in bed if it's fine with you. where do we go from here.

more later.

lacksidaisical: Lacking spirit or liveliness; showing lack of interest;
languid; listless.

i've been acting and feeling quite lacksidaisical lately. i am slowly getting out of it. today was good. got two readings done at the coffeeshop, interspersed with post-modern blabbering with hannah ( the human palindrome, second only to bob ). i feel that was pretty good.

then headed over to church at the point. honestly, i didn't realize how much i missed going to the point (the point is a church on the hill of death known as bby mountain). the pastor is actually quite amiable. i really do appreciate the atmosphere he creates with his services. very nonchalant but still very tuned into God. i really should give him a compliment, although i am not one very generous or timely with my compliments (most of the time).

what did he talk about today... he talked about how the church should not be caught up in hypocrisy. it was a simple message, but the discussion questions that were considered in small groups were basic but quite pertinent: do you act hypocritically in your life? with your faith? a question that stumps both christians and others... heh. it's tough. hypocrisy is hard to see from the point of view of the hypocrite. but you, the reader, should try. be honest, think earnestly, what are you in your life hypocritical about? this is a step in becoming more real. then we can get along better. ;)

peace.

on one hand his amibtion to show the world what life is like from the eyes of a thug living in the ghetto was like was poetic and noble. a wake up call to a generation silent on the disparities of daily life. but on the other hand, he was quite an asshole. i guess i'm just annoyed at the rhetoric-action gap that was apparent in his rich life. he realized his situation, the situation of his "thugs"
(watch tupac ressurection for the definition), but it was like he was strapped in a car, writing about his situation eyes wide open seeing and feeling. but at the same time, he couldn't control the car as it accelerated towards a brick wall. rushing towards that wall, fully aware, throwing poetryrapandrhyme out the windows hoping someone would listen. a martyr. this is my situation, look listen, it's too late for me but let's make it not too late for you. watch me, do as i do, and maybe one day "you" won't do as i do.

i won't deny it, i'm a straight ridah, you dont' wanna fuck with me. got the po-lice fuckin wit me

so after a week of business and lack of creativity, i bring to the table... more uncreativity.

have you ever realized the wonder of a wide clear wooden table? or any table for that matter. my table is usually cluttered with books, tea stains, dust, papers and bills. when it gets too much, when i get too overwhelmed, i have a habit of finding a new table and leaving the old one.

it is quite refreshing. right now i'm plunked on a chair behind the living room table enjoying salmon and pasta and reading the bluest eye. now you must understand, i've been spending the entire day in a period of agonizing soul delay - my body seems offset from my soul and my greatest fear is to lose control. so i sit in neutrality in agony behind tired eyes and an oily bridge watching the 24 frames on the tv screen nervous that i will clone my days and my slouthful ways.

a new table, i discovered, a new peace. my body still displaced, but falling back into the cushion of my soul. slowly, surely, back and forth, but it will get there. the table is my tabula rasa, salmon running thru my veins and toni morrison waiting patiently in the oprah book club.

running out of tables, better get my act together.
p.s. comments are gasoline for my fingers. fill me up.

as i recover from the loss of my movie review, i leave you with some pictures.

yesterday my parents, some family, and some friends came over for a thanksgiving dinner/ brother's bday party. it was great fun. here's some pics for you moses. i love turkey leftovers... mmmm.

i'm really mad. i just wrote a 1 pg review for howl's moving castle. and when i tried to send it into blogspot it just erased everything and told me to log in again...

i am disgruntled..

friday night and all i can think about is that
i am the endless chronic, the forever blunt
always half lit, passed around
disinterested halfbaked halfeyed faces
eyes filled with dreams of sexlove and whatever is sexy at the time
a bag of doritos and coke slush with a top on
711 always open
me only broken.
i long to die out
to burn out
smeared on the ground
planted, ready to grow
back to the earth wind and fire
but i fear
only to blaze again?
---
- i need to get a social life. hah.

a presentation and half an essay later, i'm barely surviving. i've started writing several previous posts to this one, but i always seem to be deluged in a bath of ADHD. ( ps. it took me like 7 tries to get that acronym right. variations included: ADD, AHDA, ADAH, etc.) most of those posts never made the screen, however, i am sure they will get squeezed onto it soon enough, once the cacapohny gets lonely.bah, baloney. ( i Am actually aware my jokes seem lame, but to me, they are great. )

this week is crunch week, and next week is the week i am probably gonna hear the crunching. did well on my essay for last week i guess. 12/15. i guess that's good. actually, pretty happy with it since i heard he is a tough marker, although i think this sets a rather ominous tone for the midterm because i know it's gonna be hella hard. midterm is next weds. when is me gonna start study? friday hopefully... if all goes to plan, rarely the case.

for now, i have to finish up the journal/critical analyses for sociology. funfunfun. to give credit to my courses, the readings are all very engaging and deserve much more focus than i am currently giving them. i am starting to love the theory course i did this summer which is helping me say smart things in my transnational human rights class. off i go, writewritewrite.

two nights in a row i've had dreams involving me fighting in some sort of ultimate fighter situation. what could this mean?!! maybe i am called to something great.

ufc... my destiny to become ultimate fighter will soon be realized.

so, i have 2 semesters left before I graduate from university. i am more involved in sfu life than i have ever been in my 4-5 yrs at university. i am actually enjoying my classes at sfu and meeting quite interesting people. my plan was to graduate as fast as possible so i could go teach in japan and make some money to pay off my student loans. so i printed out the JET forms the day after they come out online and start to go thru them. everything seems quite procedural and unproblematic until i come to the part where they require 2 reference letters. 1 from a professor at my university and one from an employer. i am stumped. do i know a professor well enough at my university to even have the guile to make them write a letter that they have probably no basis to right from? (previous sentence seems quite flawed, but i'll ignore it for now).

and a job?? the last jobs i had were working for my mom and dad. granted they have a non-profit charitable organization, but i'm sure there's something against that. and before that? i was a safeway delicatessen clerk. so i served meat. what to do now?

i figure... i need some experience under my belt. and maybe the way to fix that is to take this degree a little slower and do a co-op term or two to make some contacts. this would also give me time to aquaint myself with my professors this semester which are quite excellent their own ways (truly). this seems like the intelligent way to go. but it hurts my pride.

this way i could get more involved, write for the paper, get more work experience, do more volunteer work. seems like the smart decision. but i'm still hesitant. i am lingering.

before the movie, i thought, man this is gonna be a great movie!
after the movie, i said, this is a great movie! by far, one of the best movies i've seen this year. go out and watch it. even if you haven't watched the brief series, the movie is just great. it's got action, spaceships, western music, big guns, cannibals, beautful females, and the driest humor this side of the atlantic (or pacific, i never know which is which).

kudos to joss whedon for creating an amazing world where geeks like me can jump into and reclaim ethic, value, and most of all, heart... haha heart.

great movie. great humor. go see it!