Tuesday, April 13, 2010
In Praise of Small Victories
Big victories feel great, but they come as the result of equally big struggle. Small victories are much less rare, and come from tribulation similar to bumps on the road. I like the small victories. They remind me that things could be so much worse. For a not-so-bad situation, I'm doing not-so-bad. If it's as close to perfect as I get, I'll be happy forever.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Procrastination: How to Put Off Doing Taxes
It's that wonderful time of year again. I've had my tax documents sitting on my desk since mid-March. I've promised myself to fill out the tax forms every weekend and twice a week for the last 4 weeks or so. The pile is still untouched. Here are some suggestions on how to further put off getting the job done:
1. Watch a Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew marathon. Try to change the channel or turn it off three or four times, and then hate yourself for not being able to turn away from such an evil and depressing show. Later, blame the marathon for your sudden urge to read the National Enquirer.
2. Try to beat a life-long aversion to fish. Cook it in a way that fish is the most scant ingredient in dinner. You can't go wrong with ODing on tomatoes, right? When dinner's ready, poke at the chunks of sole with your fork and second-guess whether or not it's cooked through. After dinner, curse that the tomatoes haven't overpowered the smell of fish in your home. Make a mental note to cook with more garlic.
3. Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Mistake several shadows for spiders. Curse the giant splotch of blue paint on the white stucco.
4. Watch the whole series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Try to function for the next half week with your brain on strike. When your brain cells start regenerating, watch the whole series of Fawlty Towers.
5. Lather, rinse, repeat.
6. Move your tax forms from the desk into a more visible spot, to keep that chore at the forefront of your mind. Wiggle your toes, just to see if you can. Resolve to lose 20 lbs by walking for two hours every night. Wiggle your toes again at the end, just to see if you can.
7. Decide that you really wish you'd learned more languages. Spend the rest of the evening online looking to order a copy of Esperonto for Dummies. Order 5 different For Dummies books in the process, because you'd never thought about them before but right now they seem like an excellent idea. Imagine putting your newly-acquired juggling skills to use.
8. Promise yourself you'll do the taxes just as soon as you've finished reading the Patent Act. Then decide that the Patent Act is a little thin in the plot. Look up a word in the dictionary, and decide the dictionary is also a little thin in the plot. Create a master plan to rewrite the dictionary as soon as you've finished reading the Patent Act.
9. Come to realize that you really don't swim enough. Head to the pool to squeeze in a few laps. Get bored after 20 minutes, and consider that maybe swimming wasn't what your life was missing after all. Change plans, and become a whisky connoisseur overnight.
10. Make a list of all the things you need to do or should be doing but aren't. Promise yourself to be more focussed and disciplined. Starting tomorrow. Then read the opening chapter of half a dozen books and ultimately pass out in an anxious frenzy over how there just doesn't ever seem to be enough time.
11. Kill the evening teasing the cat.
1. Watch a Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew marathon. Try to change the channel or turn it off three or four times, and then hate yourself for not being able to turn away from such an evil and depressing show. Later, blame the marathon for your sudden urge to read the National Enquirer.
2. Try to beat a life-long aversion to fish. Cook it in a way that fish is the most scant ingredient in dinner. You can't go wrong with ODing on tomatoes, right? When dinner's ready, poke at the chunks of sole with your fork and second-guess whether or not it's cooked through. After dinner, curse that the tomatoes haven't overpowered the smell of fish in your home. Make a mental note to cook with more garlic.
3. Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Mistake several shadows for spiders. Curse the giant splotch of blue paint on the white stucco.
4. Watch the whole series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Try to function for the next half week with your brain on strike. When your brain cells start regenerating, watch the whole series of Fawlty Towers.
5. Lather, rinse, repeat.
6. Move your tax forms from the desk into a more visible spot, to keep that chore at the forefront of your mind. Wiggle your toes, just to see if you can. Resolve to lose 20 lbs by walking for two hours every night. Wiggle your toes again at the end, just to see if you can.
7. Decide that you really wish you'd learned more languages. Spend the rest of the evening online looking to order a copy of Esperonto for Dummies. Order 5 different For Dummies books in the process, because you'd never thought about them before but right now they seem like an excellent idea. Imagine putting your newly-acquired juggling skills to use.
8. Promise yourself you'll do the taxes just as soon as you've finished reading the Patent Act. Then decide that the Patent Act is a little thin in the plot. Look up a word in the dictionary, and decide the dictionary is also a little thin in the plot. Create a master plan to rewrite the dictionary as soon as you've finished reading the Patent Act.
9. Come to realize that you really don't swim enough. Head to the pool to squeeze in a few laps. Get bored after 20 minutes, and consider that maybe swimming wasn't what your life was missing after all. Change plans, and become a whisky connoisseur overnight.
10. Make a list of all the things you need to do or should be doing but aren't. Promise yourself to be more focussed and disciplined. Starting tomorrow. Then read the opening chapter of half a dozen books and ultimately pass out in an anxious frenzy over how there just doesn't ever seem to be enough time.
11. Kill the evening teasing the cat.
Don't Read This If You Hate Feet
Sprained toe update: I really wish this thing would swell up or change colour or something. It just hurts. When I walk on it for awhile, it hurts more. And it's hard to wiggle. I'm not the type that would normally sit around trying to wiggle my toes, but these days it's become quite the preoccupation, as though if I were to wiggle it just right the pain would go away. It's not working, by the way. Just makes it more sore.
I've been taping the thing up since sometime last week, thinking that it might help to immobilize it. It does help. However, my foot is now twisting in some pretty impressive ways, and I can comfortably predict that the next injury will be either a sprained ankle or a fractured fifth metatarsal, which was only too much fun the first time around. Otherwise, it turns out that claustrophobia works on a micro scale as well as macro. In the same way that I get claustrophobic in elevators and walk-in closets (just the thought of them makes my head spin and my stomach drop), my toe seems to be rebelling in a huge way against being taped to its neighbour for any period of time. I've been so careful not to cut off any circulation and to space the toes with plenty of cotton, but it's not working... my toe is constantly trying to escape like a toddler in a carriage, and it's fighting hard.
A more humble person would take a few painkillers and make a more honest effort at staying off the injury, like using crutches. I'm much too proud for that. I even lack the shame that would keep me from rambling on about my toe on the internet.
:)
I've been taping the thing up since sometime last week, thinking that it might help to immobilize it. It does help. However, my foot is now twisting in some pretty impressive ways, and I can comfortably predict that the next injury will be either a sprained ankle or a fractured fifth metatarsal, which was only too much fun the first time around. Otherwise, it turns out that claustrophobia works on a micro scale as well as macro. In the same way that I get claustrophobic in elevators and walk-in closets (just the thought of them makes my head spin and my stomach drop), my toe seems to be rebelling in a huge way against being taped to its neighbour for any period of time. I've been so careful not to cut off any circulation and to space the toes with plenty of cotton, but it's not working... my toe is constantly trying to escape like a toddler in a carriage, and it's fighting hard.
A more humble person would take a few painkillers and make a more honest effort at staying off the injury, like using crutches. I'm much too proud for that. I even lack the shame that would keep me from rambling on about my toe on the internet.
:)
Saturday, April 10, 2010
My heart goes out to a lot of people today. The last time I was this upset over an overseas tragedy was when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Sometimes you just can't help feeling that something isn't right.
I'm really happy that I don't live in Europe. I'd like to visit some day, but the petty rivalries between Canada and the States are no comparison to the evil that lives between people and groups in Eastern Europe. I can't even bring myself to read the news out there more often than not, and whenever I give in to curiosity and take a look at what my fellow Slavs are saying I find myself angry and bitter and emotional. Sure, my education on the subject has been heavily influenced by my nationality. As has everybody else' from out there. It saddens me that we're all hypocrites in some sense or other, more so in that we can't change it. It seems like everyone out there seems to know a completely different history, and none of those histories is more true than the others. All histories are somewhat nationally and emotionally charged, and this is no secret (the winners write the history? Only too true). It's like a huge stalemate, where in affirming what we know to be true we deny something someone else knows to be true. In a group of countries that have all historically been aggressive, brutish, and essentially inhuman to each other for no objectively good reason, no one is "better" than anyone else, no country is "better" than any other (though one in particular is likely to try to change that before any other). Nationalities tolerate each other, some people love each other, but nothing I read from out there ever strikes me as genuine. How can it be, with so little trust among nations? And what makes this even more difficult is that I could not confidently say that any one country really deserves that trust in the first place.
I broke down in tears when I woke up this morning, and within minutes heard about the plane crash in Smolensk that killed the Polish president and elite. I'm not Polish, but I couldn't stop shaking and quivering as I watched TV Polonia for a few minutes. I was a little afraid. Maybe something in this situation, besides it being a terrible tragedy (and as has been alleged by many others, a sardonic sort of irony), really isn't right. Or maybe it's just a little too close to home.
I'm really happy that I don't live in Europe. I'd like to visit some day, but the petty rivalries between Canada and the States are no comparison to the evil that lives between people and groups in Eastern Europe. I can't even bring myself to read the news out there more often than not, and whenever I give in to curiosity and take a look at what my fellow Slavs are saying I find myself angry and bitter and emotional. Sure, my education on the subject has been heavily influenced by my nationality. As has everybody else' from out there. It saddens me that we're all hypocrites in some sense or other, more so in that we can't change it. It seems like everyone out there seems to know a completely different history, and none of those histories is more true than the others. All histories are somewhat nationally and emotionally charged, and this is no secret (the winners write the history? Only too true). It's like a huge stalemate, where in affirming what we know to be true we deny something someone else knows to be true. In a group of countries that have all historically been aggressive, brutish, and essentially inhuman to each other for no objectively good reason, no one is "better" than anyone else, no country is "better" than any other (though one in particular is likely to try to change that before any other). Nationalities tolerate each other, some people love each other, but nothing I read from out there ever strikes me as genuine. How can it be, with so little trust among nations? And what makes this even more difficult is that I could not confidently say that any one country really deserves that trust in the first place.
I broke down in tears when I woke up this morning, and within minutes heard about the plane crash in Smolensk that killed the Polish president and elite. I'm not Polish, but I couldn't stop shaking and quivering as I watched TV Polonia for a few minutes. I was a little afraid. Maybe something in this situation, besides it being a terrible tragedy (and as has been alleged by many others, a sardonic sort of irony), really isn't right. Or maybe it's just a little too close to home.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Enough To Pray
So the word's been out for a few years now. I'm perpetually finishing and rewriting a novel about war. It's been an equally difficult and rewarding project that sits forever in the forefront of my mind. The first question I'm always asked is on which war I based my novel. I didn't. In the course of my studies, my independent research and through interviews I've come to know several major incidents in several major conflicts throughout various periods in history. There isn't a single war that I can pinpoint that really captures the entire sentiment I want to convey. I've tried, and the closest I've come is to very loosely take an example from the Spanish Civil War, but there's always something more that needs to be said that just won't fit.
My obsession with the subject started in University, when I decided to compliment my major in philosophy with minors in history and English. One studies fact, the other ideas, the third art, and it didn't take very long to realize that the ideas really didn't always fit the facts and that artists have always been anguished by the incongruencies. It's a real problem with philosophy, and always has been. As someone who studied only because I had a genuine interest in these things, I found it agonizing when some aristocratic thinker had taken it upon himself to dictate how the world should be, with little consideration of what the world actually was. Not all philosophers were so flawed, but the frequency with which ill-informed ideas occurred is scary to someone who cares. The real trigger for me was the disaster that was the First World War, which I believe Vonnegut described best as something like 'humanity's first failed attempt at suicide'. The role that propaganda played in that situation, the folly that drove it from beginning to bitter end, and the absolute stupidity that "ended the war" are all unbelievable, and say something really important about human nature. We can deny the facts and feed ourselves golden lies to make us think that someone in that war was fighting for something, but the learned know perfectly well that it just wasn't the case. Dulce et decorum est, indeed...
As I was talking to people and reading and learning and thinking, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the hypocrisy at play anytime war comes on the scene. I find myself unable to tolerate many people's opinions of war, not out of disagreement, but rather because I can understand the triggers behind these opinions. There are good reasons for these wars to happen, and there seems to always also be a bad reason just the bat of an eye away. This applies as much now as it has throughout history. Propaganda annoys me because I recognize it when and where I see it. Don't be fooled -- it's everywhere. The more I see and the more I recognize, the less I find myself able to form an opinion of my own. In a very personal way I'm torn when it comes to the subject and it's best sometimes just not to ask what I think if one has any hope of leaving the table in less than an afternoon.
My book is called Enough to Pray. It is not religious, per se. It does not advocate any particular point of view on the question of religion. I created a place, created conflicting parties, created a war, and created an end to the war. The book's purpose is not to moralize, but rather to call a few things to attention. First, that we've lost sight of ourselves along the way. Second, that humanity is a beautiful thing that is worth saving and toiling over and ever improving. Third, that humans are capable of cruelty in the same degree that they are capable of good. And fourth, that we should never lose hope, we should never let go of joy, and we should never take ourselves so seriously that we forget how to laugh. None of these are new ideas, they've been expressed time and again by thinkers and artists and businesspeople and labourers and village folk and history itself. My book is merely a reiteration of what we all already know, placed in a light that I have made my own. It is a labour of love, and I've worked hard to make it into exactly what I want it to be.
It is forthcoming. I promise. Again.
My obsession with the subject started in University, when I decided to compliment my major in philosophy with minors in history and English. One studies fact, the other ideas, the third art, and it didn't take very long to realize that the ideas really didn't always fit the facts and that artists have always been anguished by the incongruencies. It's a real problem with philosophy, and always has been. As someone who studied only because I had a genuine interest in these things, I found it agonizing when some aristocratic thinker had taken it upon himself to dictate how the world should be, with little consideration of what the world actually was. Not all philosophers were so flawed, but the frequency with which ill-informed ideas occurred is scary to someone who cares. The real trigger for me was the disaster that was the First World War, which I believe Vonnegut described best as something like 'humanity's first failed attempt at suicide'. The role that propaganda played in that situation, the folly that drove it from beginning to bitter end, and the absolute stupidity that "ended the war" are all unbelievable, and say something really important about human nature. We can deny the facts and feed ourselves golden lies to make us think that someone in that war was fighting for something, but the learned know perfectly well that it just wasn't the case. Dulce et decorum est, indeed...
As I was talking to people and reading and learning and thinking, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the hypocrisy at play anytime war comes on the scene. I find myself unable to tolerate many people's opinions of war, not out of disagreement, but rather because I can understand the triggers behind these opinions. There are good reasons for these wars to happen, and there seems to always also be a bad reason just the bat of an eye away. This applies as much now as it has throughout history. Propaganda annoys me because I recognize it when and where I see it. Don't be fooled -- it's everywhere. The more I see and the more I recognize, the less I find myself able to form an opinion of my own. In a very personal way I'm torn when it comes to the subject and it's best sometimes just not to ask what I think if one has any hope of leaving the table in less than an afternoon.
My book is called Enough to Pray. It is not religious, per se. It does not advocate any particular point of view on the question of religion. I created a place, created conflicting parties, created a war, and created an end to the war. The book's purpose is not to moralize, but rather to call a few things to attention. First, that we've lost sight of ourselves along the way. Second, that humanity is a beautiful thing that is worth saving and toiling over and ever improving. Third, that humans are capable of cruelty in the same degree that they are capable of good. And fourth, that we should never lose hope, we should never let go of joy, and we should never take ourselves so seriously that we forget how to laugh. None of these are new ideas, they've been expressed time and again by thinkers and artists and businesspeople and labourers and village folk and history itself. My book is merely a reiteration of what we all already know, placed in a light that I have made my own. It is a labour of love, and I've worked hard to make it into exactly what I want it to be.
It is forthcoming. I promise. Again.
There's nothing natural about yoga. That said, it's amazing how after doing yoga for a little while your body starts naturally fighting spontaneous inclinations to twist into a pretzel. Like memory foam...
I woke up this morning to find 5 text messages on my phone, sent between 2am and 6am. From different people. I'm touched that you thought of me two hours before I had to wake up, but when do you sleep?
From dictionary.com: indefatigable\in-dih-FAT-ih-guh-bul\ , adjective;
1.Incapable of being fatigued; not readily exhausted; untiring; unwearying; not yielding to fatigue.
Or, Not Me.
I woke up this morning to find 5 text messages on my phone, sent between 2am and 6am. From different people. I'm touched that you thought of me two hours before I had to wake up, but when do you sleep?
From dictionary.com: indefatigable\in-dih-FAT-ih-guh-bul\ , adjective;
1.Incapable of being fatigued; not readily exhausted; untiring; unwearying; not yielding to fatigue.
Or, Not Me.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Rainy Thursday Randomness
1. This week I have read more of Wuthering Heights than of The Patent Act. I hope you can forgive me.
2. Sprained toe update: This is probably the single strangest injury I've ever had. The pain in the toe itself only registers 2-3 on a 1-10 pain scale, a discomfort, but the real damage is in the fallout. Walking on it for 3 weeks has led to knee pains and my entire leg essentially unhinging itself from my hip in protest. I've relented and taped my foot up, but having toes taped together is an altogether different interesting sensation, and I'm starting to think that what I need is a really pimped out cane.
3. Honeymoon in Morocco?
2. Sprained toe update: This is probably the single strangest injury I've ever had. The pain in the toe itself only registers 2-3 on a 1-10 pain scale, a discomfort, but the real damage is in the fallout. Walking on it for 3 weeks has led to knee pains and my entire leg essentially unhinging itself from my hip in protest. I've relented and taped my foot up, but having toes taped together is an altogether different interesting sensation, and I'm starting to think that what I need is a really pimped out cane.
3. Honeymoon in Morocco?
Dark Purple
So I was at Starbucks, and there was an old woman in line in front of me. She was wearing a dark purple shirt and pants and carried a matching dark purple umbrella. She ordered a coffee and a sandwich, and paid (I kid you not) entirely in dimes, nickels and pennies, and asked for a receipt. I got my latte and took a seat before Buddy behind the counter finished sorting through her change. All I could think of was how relieved I was to not have walked in earlier and been obligated to stand there and keep cool while watching her count out $9 in small change. And how little I like dark purple. The End.
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