Worth Keeping

   There's only one resolution ever worth keeping, New Year's or otherwise.  It's the resolution to be authentic to yourself.  Temet nosce, in the non-traditional Latin of The Matrix.  "Know thyself".

    Get to know who you really are.  Decide who you want to be and go be it.  Embrace the persons, places, and things that will lead you there; and rid yourself of the persons, places, and things that no longer serve you.  A simple formula, even if only the tinest minority of the population actually goes through with it. 

   Every year that passes by represents, in the personal history of somebody somewhere, a time for taking out the trash and cleaning house.  The places and things are easy enough, but when it comes to the persons, this is where most of these individuals in transition get hung up on the whole process.  After all, nobody sets out to be an asshole, even when the people in question are really holding you back, intentionally or not. 

  This is where the inauthenticity kicks in.  You get used to appeasing those who would put up a fight when you take risks, people who quietly judge and dismiss you, who are only tied to you through some shared history and with whom you create nothing new or valuable.  Maybe you're conflict averse, afraid to get into a dust-up with those closest to you, for fear of losing them, even though you're legitimately pissed with decisions they've made. Because certain individuals haven't acted in a way that demonstrates friendship and loyalty to you. Maybe you've just made appeasement a habit.

  In any relationship, even those with places and things, there's a point where you just get sick of self-censorship for the sake of being sociable and appearing upbeat, a good employee or happy-go-lucky buddy, where you're tired of playing Chamberlain to the unintentional aggressors around you in the false hope of a just peace. When you're just going to do what you want.  Fuck the world. 

  Yes, in case you haven't already figured it out, I'm starting the last day of 2010 in something of a foul mood.  But as always, this is mostly just me taking out the trash in the best way I know how: the written word.  And I may as well vent it out before I party down tonight.

   One of my mentors once pointed out the importance of noticing the symbolism of your outer life.  Handing in the Form N9 the other day to my landlord, I took a moment to appreciate the number of my apartment building on my street: 360.  A full turnaround, where you end by returning to the beginning.  I prefer to think of life's cycles as an upward spiral: you eventually come back to where you started, but at least one level higher up in three dimensional space.  Life cycles involve continuous growth, though at each stage of that cycle, you shed the dead cells and let them fall away. 

    Michael pointed out to me the other day that in at least several entries now, I've said some variation of the phrase "I could give a damn what people think".  Of course, that sends the exact opposite message, especially when you repeat it across several entries.  And the truth is, up until this point, for much of 2010, I have given my power away to others.  I have cared what other people think of me, too much so.  Of everything I've learned about myself in 2010, I believe this is the quintessential root cause of my own self-created obstacles.  I'm grateful to Michael for pointing this out, obviously.

  But you know, of the plethora of concepts I've been meditating on over this holiday break, it's that true family, blood relations or not, will give their input and advice, warn you about potential injury, and otherwise be completely free to disagree with you while not sacrificing your relationships in the process.

  They'll see you experience major traumas like betrayal and shock and not lose respect for you if your reaction to all of it doesn't meet their expectation of what's "appropriate". They'll come around and support decisions that you've made even if they advised against them during your deliberations.  They'll walk their talk about loyalty and friendship and rectitude and not equivocate to suit their thinly concealed personal agendas.  They'll have your back, even if they don't understand you.  And they'll push you to better yourself, in a way that demonstrates high compassion.

  But if you don't test your relationships when you have to, when the occasion calls for you to be authentic to yourself even when it's inconvenient, awkward, or downright offensive to your greater family, you're betraying yourself.  And that's the highest and most damaging betrayal that exists. 

 That betrayal then affects everything you do, from the career paths you take to the friendships you keep to the romantic relationships you find yourself in.  Then you get stuck in vicious cycles of your own creation that hold you back, making the same mistakes and repeating the same patterns over and over again, until years pass by and your hair goes gray and you wonder why, for all of your smarts and ambition, you were never able to figure it out. You become, as the movie line goes, "an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone." 

  In 2011, resolve to be loyal to yourself.  To get into a dust-up when a dust-up is called for, if it means that you express yourself authentically.  To give yourself permission to be intense or angry or sad or afraid if that's how you feel at the moment. To stop apologizing in advance to those who care about you for actions and decisions you know are right for you.  To surround yourself with persons, places, and things that are aligned with your own vibrations and allow, with gratitude, everything that isn't going your way to bow out of your experience and fall away naturally.

  In 2011, resolve to put into action all of the things you've thought about doing for so long, to break out of the patterns that society expects of your and actually build an infrastructure for the ambitions everyone else says are impossible.  To give legs to your fondest dreams, that you may end next year in a place far beyond the mundane expectations of what we think life actually is.

  In 2011, resolve to be authentic, inside and out.  It's the only resolution worth keeping, and probably the hardest to keep.

  Personally, I resolve to begin fulfilling these resolutions one day early.

  And how about that?.....I feel better already.

Splashdown

  Everyone belongs to a statistical club.

  Of course, the statistic is never the full measure of a person - I still consider most math and numbers part of the Axis of Evil - but if I were a statistician, I'd almost like to think a person's numbers is like a membership in one exclusive club or another.  Sorta like the Yacht Club. Or the Stonecutters.

  For instance, I'm part of the "Young Author" club, very exclusive, as only one in ten people will ever write a book in their lives, let alone two.  I'm part of the "Divorced by 30" club, a little more populous, as four in ten first marriages will end in divorce in Canada.  You can also throw me in for the Canadians of Trinidadian and Tobagonian ancestry, 50,000 people and counting, representing 0.15 of the Canadian population.  Of that, I'm one of only two authors in this group - Neil Bissoondath being the other - and may in fact be the next Ian Hanomansing if my acting and TV work progresses well. 

  And, within a few months, I'll be joining another growing club, one which includes 41% of the population aged 18 to 36 in its membership: the Boomerang Club. 

   Friends, Romans, Countrymen...I am moving home.

   (And yes, I'm aware I didn't provide accurate citation format for those numbers.  Citations are for Democrats.)
  
   This is a tough decision, but it's a necessary next step to accomplish some of my bigger life goals. 

   Normally, this is the point that I spend a ton of time and wordspace justifying my decision.  Strangely, I could give a crap what people think about this today.  My one year lease is up at the end of February, and while I could leave it alone and go "month to month" on my apartment, there is a window of opportunity to walk away.  And walking away is what I'm going to do.

   I've been living away from home for a decade now.  I moved out to live on residence in 2000, moving back home for the summer of 2001 only to head back out to my apartment with my ex for our third year at McMaster.  I've been away from home ever since. And, of course, for the past year, I've been living completely on my own. 

   It was all time well spent, and with a few tiny exceptions, I have no regrets about my independent living.  At this point in my personal development, it's hard to go back and say it was for nothing.  It all served a purpose, and just like other parts of life that have fulfilled what they were meant to fulfill, it's time to let it go....

  Okay, I can see this won't get much further than flowery New Age affirmations without some more concrete explanations.  And there are two: I need more spending cash now on things other than renting a place where I spend most of my time sleeping; and freeing up my apartment enables me to not feel like I'm held hostage by my current day job.  Now to explain the explanations.

   The advantages are clear: more money means debts paid, savings boosted, vacations - the type of travel I spent all my twenties fantasizing about but never actually got to do - and more of the material "stuff" that I've gone too long without. 

   Moving home with the 'rents and my sisters isn't a permanent thing. Frankly, our egos are all too big and our lifestyles too different for that to be sustainable for too long. It will also involve some commuting to work for a while. The disadvantages are clear. But whether I go home for four months and return to a cheaper rent, or whether I stay there a year, I'm still going to have to take this first step regardless. This simply happens to be the time that the opportunity has presented itself.

   Then there's the matter of my work anxiety.

 I suppose this is mostly my fault.  After all, I've been trying to find my niche in the economy for the past five years, ever since I got my first full time job.  Each time, I found something to complain about, and in two such cases, it was enough for me to leave the position altogether.  However, just as the Boy Who Cried Wolf learned to his regret, I'm now being serious when I tell you that this position is starting to undermine my self-confidence.  I simply am not a "fit" where I am, and everyone senses it. It really is only a matter of time before my bosses turn their full attention to replacing me.  The wolf is gonna get me sooner or later. Serious this time.

  Moving home provides immunity against my fear of losing everything in the event that they go for the "sooner" option. It gives me flexibility and a sense of freedom that I'm not risking everything by speaking up and speaking out. It will remove the feeling that I must stay put in a job, give me the feeling of freedom to pursue other opportunities.  There's nothing worse than feeling trapped.

   Moving home also lets me interact with more people in my day-to-day who aren't work colleagues.  Much of the time, the only people I interact with are the ones who are busting my butt.  I get chewed up, spat out, and made to feel like an idiot all day, and then I go home to an empty apartment, stressed out with no one to talk to.  Hanging out with friends helps, but it's not enough.

   My family, for our differences, is my tribe, my community.  I can at least go home and interact with a group of people who I know love me unconditionally, who believe in me, who appreciate my abilities, and who have much the same living conditions I do: very clean, no big parties, no drugs or alcohol floating around, no debauchery.  Some guys can feel at home in a party house: I'm not one of them. 

   And yes, moving home gives me the freedom to quit, if it comes to it, and still have a place to sleep. Some of my former in-laws and friends somehow managed to take the two instances in my otherwise uninterrupted 14 year work history where I quit jobs that were making me unhappy and declared me "unable to hold a job".  As such, I've had an axe to grind in putting up with the crap in my current workplace.  But it's making me miserable and the concerns of former in-laws and former friends are pretty low down on my priority list.  Moving home opens up the possibility of a rest period while I pursue other opportunities.

  Of course, my apartment is lovely.  It's in a great neighbourhood that I love, with good, friendly neighbours, and I do love where I currently live.  Most importantly, it is mine.  But I get the sense that this place has served its purpose in the greater scheme of my own life.

   Had I decided to move home a year ago, when my marriage ended, I would have felt all the more the failure.  I had another axe to grind: I had to show to myself that I could survive completely on my own.  Now that axe is pretty sharp, and I don't need to worry about proving my ability to live independently to others, or myself.  I can go home knowing that I'm able to come back out here again when I choose to.

  Had I not moved here, I doubt my book would have been finished, or turned out the way that it did. Burlington is a nexus of prosperity and a high quality of living, and the downtown around Brant and Lakeshore provided me with prime inspiration for my protagonist's own life, even if it's not by name.  An artist needs a vibe of prosperity, and that's what I got while I was here.

 Had I not moved here, I never would have taken that walk through the vendors at Ribfest and gotten involved with Film/Comm Talent, starting this new journey.  Had I not moved here, I never would have dated that girl who lived around the corner, and had that kiss that really renewed my own feeling of worth as a good partner. 

  Make no mistake.  This place helped manifest the best case scenario in a transformative year.

  But now, I am here, and the things I want to accomplish require me to say goodbye to Burlington, with thanks.  This will be the first time I'm leaving a place that I'm still in love with, heart and soul.  As I said, one of the toughest decisions I've made in recent years, and those years have had their moments, that's for sure.

  Too often, we hold onto things that served us in the past when they're well beyond their expiration date.  That doesn't invalidate their previous benefits: just means you need to get a new carton of milk is all.  

  Ironically, by choosing to pack it in for a while and go home, I feel even more empowered than I thought I would be, because it's a clear choice that I am making for myself.  In so doing, I avoid joining other statistical clubs: the Society of Working Poor; the I've Never Seen Europe Support Group; not to mention the Ancient Mystic Society of Unhappy Office Workers. 

  This isn't a failure to launch.  This is a deliberate de-orbit, a time to come back to earth for a while for a refit, so that I can land among the stars the next time I head up there.  And reach them I will.

  Splashdown's in two months.  Time to get ready.

Second Tier Dreams

    There are simply too many artists sacrificing the present chasing future dreams.

    As I wrote earlier, many aspiring writers, actors, animators, singers, what-have-you are waiting tables, pouring coffee, pushing papers, or lugging boxes to make ends meet.  The justification is that they're just "paying the bills", and this is true.  But one thing they don't consider is that they're not necessarily making the best use of other talents they may have in the interim.

   Take someone like myself - university educated, leadership talents thanks to the Fraternity and other organizations, intelligent, with high technical skill - and put them doing something from 9 to 5 that makes little use of these other talents - like administration or other entry level posts - and what do you have?  Work dissatisfaction.  Personal stagnation.  Stress.  Anxiety.  Feelings of malaise and disappointment. 

   Why do we do this to ourselves?  "Why," we say, "I'm just doing this until [fill in the lucrative artsy career goal], nothing more."  Why do we do this?  "It's just what I've always done." And every word of it is true, but eventually, working below our potential on a daily basis will cost us those other talents. They will atrophy. 

   As such, it's important to envision a second-tier dream, while bigger ones are pending.

   Artists usually don't do this, especially if they, like me, use tools like the Law of Attraction and intention-based mindset practices to fulfill goals.  "If I go after something else, won't I be compromising my dream?  Won't I be spreading myself too thin if I get a job that's too involved?"

   The questions makes sense, and the answer to both is, well, yes and no.  Yes, because no longer is your vision of seeing your book on the bestseller's shelf at Borders or winning a Grammy going to be the only one you have.  No, because the second-tier dream runs parallel to the main one: in fact, the second tier dream underlies the first.

   You see, Aspiring Career Artist, you're going to have to work a job no matter what until you get to that moment of fulfillment.  That means you have an opportunity to not only pay the bills, but to develop other skills that you might be sidelining in favour of your chief talent.

   Cindy Crawford may be a world-famous model now, but she had won a scholarship to study Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University. Mind you, she only studied for one academic quarter before modeling took off, but the point is that she definitely had talents that she would have applied in the working world.

  Twin career pursuits can lead to cross-fertilization that can only enhance your bigger dreams.  For instance, if you become a team lead in some capacity at a company, you'll build leadership and organizational skills that you can then internalize enough to help keep you on track with your novel-writing.  Sales skills garnered anywhere from furniture stores to the financial sector can enhance your abilities to read people, which you can then translate to better character portrayals as an actor.

   If it's that simple, why don't more people have twin careers?  That's the thing: they do.  In my modest thirteen year work history, I've met several dozen individuals like this, each with their own "thing on the side".  And many, if not most of the people I've actually talked to about their bigger dreams, feel as though they're not normal, that they're deviating from what society says they "should" be doing. That's because we're conditioned as children, especially boys, to think about one career only. 

   "What do you want to be when you grow up?" isn't typically a multiple choice question, but it should be, because most human beings aren't one-trick ponies.

   We spend 40 hours a week at a full-time job.  A third of your day, at least half of your waking life (assuming we're splitting the 24 hours three ways, including sleep).  If it's making you feel miserable, if you feel like a misfit, that's a sure sign that you should be looking to trade up anyway, artsy career goal or not.

   But if you are an artist, take it from a guy who worked at three different places in the three years it took him to start and finish his first novel: don't suffer the present for your future needlessly.  Don't stagnate at a place just because "it's a job".

  You've got other talents, and if you can explore them at a day job that helps you grow in those directions, that will put you (back) in a mindset of confidence, leadership, ambition, and excellence, then that's where you should be looking. 

  That's what I'm looking for.  After finishing the exercise that my ex gave me the other day, I concluded that what I'm looking for boils down to a few key elements: a leadership role in a big private sector company; a large team environment where I interact with lots of people each day; a Monday to Friday day shift; at least 10k more a year in take-home money than what I'm making now; a fair, consistent, and people-centric management philosophy; and someplace that has a strong participatory corporate culture (i.e. company teams, events, parties).   That's broad enough that I'm sure I can find such a place in my area, but specific enough that I reduce the risk of repeating past mistakes in approaching a potential job.

  To my friends who are still in school, high school and up, do yourselves a favour: set yourself a secondary, as well as a primary dream.  Contrary to what your parents, educators, and physics may have taught you, you can be in two places at once. 

   And who knows?  You might discover that your second tier dream is actually the thing you really want to do for your working life.  Of course, today, that's not me.  Definitely not me....

Please Note

  At 7:48pm, EST, on Sunday, December 12th, 2010, I finished my novel.  I was in my apartment in Burlington, Ontario. 

  Convergence is 311 pages (8 1/2 by 11), and the first draft is 127,511 words as of the end of writing.

  I've finished my novel. 

  Huh....isn't that something?

Soul Mates, Stunt Doubles, and Other Realities....

  Watched Will Smith's Hancock the other day for the first time.  I enjoyed it. Grittier than I expected, and Jason Bateman's performance inspired me to push Michael to become a PR guy: I think he'd be spectacular at it, personally.  Michael and Bateman's character Ray share that quality: they can persuade you to do good, functional things simply by talking to you, not by raising their voices or pushing you around, just talking.  Theirs is a subtle power, one that's far more effective on me than "C'mon! Go do it!  Do eeet!".  But that's neither here nor there.

  What most caught my attention was Charlize Theron, and who could blame me? Oh, Charlize....

I thought her role in this movie was especially poignant.  The only other "superhero" in the world, Hancock's wife for over three thousand years.  Built, like he was, to have her superpowers diminish and immortality fade when she chose a mate, so that they could live and die together, as normal people, if they so chose.  The only way they can be "superheroes" is to be apart. 

  What powers do we lose when we're in love? 

  It's coming up on a year that I've been single.  I've had the privilege of meeting so many others, some in my boat, others paddling alongside me in their own, who were in wonderful relationships, and are now out of them, floating along this unexpected river. 

  Some I've only known as single men and women, others I met when they were just out of a relationship and in the "crazy" stage.  A few are still "recovering", years later, from what happened to them. A few of them went the other way and are now in relationships whereas before they were single.

  For some, life lessons need to be taken internally.  No matter how much people will give you advice on relationships, early on and well after you've fallen out of love and gone back on your own, you have to learn numerous things completely through your own experience.  The old "I'll believe it when I see it" adage applies to some people more than others.

  From a year's worth of owning the whole bed to myself, I can say two things for sure: I know who I am, and I know who I'm waiting for.

  But first, one random point:

Stunt Doubles

 Lining up for Harry Potter  a few weeks ago with Michael and Aaron, we were talking about the new "See Friendship" function on Facebook.  I off-handedly remarked that Alice had said that our "friendship" was so epic that you'd swear we were dating.  "Aren't you?" teased Michael.  "Yeah, she's like a part-time girlfriend for you," said Aaron.  "You need to consider getting an actual girlfriend and not just a female friend."

  Checking this with Alice through our preferred medium of BlackBerry Messenger afterwards, she concurred:

"Yeah,you should get a full-time girlfriend soon. As much as I enjoy our friendship, it'll be a lot more fun for you ;)"

 The next day, I met Pam for coffee at the Indigo bookstore in Stoney Creek.  When we were walking to our cars afterwards, I mentioned the conversation of the previous night.

   "Oh, you mean stunt doubles," she said.

   "What?"

   "Well, it's like an opposite-sexed substitute for either an existing partner or none at all.  You know how sometimes if a boyfriend wants to go somewhere that his actual girlfriend doesn't like, he'll sometimes get a female friend to go with him?"

    "Yeah?"  Pam nodded.

    "Yep. Stunt double.  A fill in for an actual partner."

    Not a new concept for me, for sure. One of my favourite movies, Elizabethtown, featured the idea prominently.  As Kirsten Dunst's character Claire says of her friendship with Orlando Bloom's Drew Baylor:

"We're the substitute people."

 

   Being a stunt double or sub for an actual partner's supposed to be something of an insult, but that usually presumes that one of the people involved wants to be more than that.  This is what my ex's current boyfriend used to be: in the end, he got his wish, rightly or wrongly. 

   But for myself, the (re)discovery of the concept made me realize something new: most of the female friends I'm closest to serve as substitute people for my ex.  They're part-time girlfriends, totally platonic, but serving the same functions. And we're all cool with this arrangement.

    Pam and Alice are the two primary stunt doubles I have, I think. Even my ex herself at times...well, the new version of her, anyway.  Each serves different purposes.  Pam's like a big sister who thinks much the same way I do and who really *gets* it; Alice shares many of the same interests and quirks that I do and has a knack for kicking my ass in a good way without meaning to, very effectively; and whenever I need historical perspective, I go to my ex, because after all we've shared, she remains the one human being outside my family who knows me best and longest - fourteen years now and counting.  And, of course, my guy friends provide buddy time and act as a rational, more social contrast for me to measure up my crazy introverted ideas. 

   Again, it is what it is, but I find it remarkable that I had to find at least six substitute people to provide the emotional satisfaction I used to get from just one. 

   It goes to show that none of us are truly functioning under our own power.  We all need those social connections, and those emotional ones in particular, wherever we can get them.  And though we'll occasionally burn our friends out with our whining, complaining, and venting, they'll be back for more, because that's what good friends do. 

   There's more I want to say on the subject of stunt doubles, but I want to touch on something else first, so we'll return to this later.

  Who I'm Looking For....

   Personal value and self worth are often the first casualties of a breakup or divorce, provided you didn't lose them already in the time leading up to the split. Thus, you might feel inclined, as I did for about seven months, to look for a new relationship way before you've managed to put yourself back together again.

  They'll tell you "you're not ready to date", and sheer ego will keep you from listening.  But you aren't, you really aren't, until you know you can be on your own.  It's old news, it's what everyone tells everyone else who is suddenly single.  And yet, as I said earlier, you've got to learn this from your own experience to really believe it.  As Ke$ha says, love is indeed a drug, and when you're jonesing for a hit after you're stash has run out, you'll say anything to get it.  That's what desperation does. 

  Hell, they may even have to tie you to a tree.

   So then, how do you know you're ready?  Same way you've got to prove to the bank that you don't need the loan in order to get it.  Same way that you need work experience before you can get that first job.

   You're ready for a relationship when you can feel the same love for yourself as you would if you had a partner to love you. 

   I thought I was ready in April.  Then again in June.  And in August, I was actually dating a girl for a bit, and I though I feel this is when I became emotionally ready, I had a ton of career-related challenges - namely French classes and studies that I needed for a job-saving bilingual test - that would have interfered with any new relationship for at least a month and a half.  

   Those may have indeed been self-deceptions, false Buddhas on the road to Enlightenment, but if you'd asked me then if I was ready to fall in love again, I would have said yes.  Not that it would have been a giant lie, but I wasn't as ready as I am now. 

   Because now, when I think of meeting someone, I'm willing to wait for the right person.  I have a surprisingly clear and ever-evolving idea of who she is, and anyone less than that would always be second rate.  That wasn't the case before, when I was willing to date every kind of girl just for the validation. 

   Love costs you your superhero powers, if not applied correctly.  That subplot in Hancock is a great metaphor for what it does to some people, and what it would do to me if I fell in love with anyone less than the right girl. 

   That's who I'm looking for.  Her and only her. 

   Most women out there don't interest me.  My buddies tell me I have to approach them, say hello, and I'm really good at doing this now, but I choose not to most of the time because there's only one kind of experience I'm looking for, and it's not a casual lay.  Most women don't interest me because I'm not interested in most women. Just one.

   Right now, I'm functioning at an overall peak performance in many aspects of life.  I've improved so much and I'm working on elevating the other parts, career in particular.  I'm as sure of myself as a self-reflective ENFP lone wolf author can be.  My ideal mate is someone who would not cause me to revert back to who I was before, and thus undo this evolution in progress.

   I'm uniquely positioned among other men in my social circle to be able to declare this.  For starters, my sex drive is not nearly as elevated as most guys, meaning I'm not going to go skirt-chasing at bars because I can wait for someone special to share that experience with.  I love myself more now than I ever have, not conceit, but a healthy love of self.  I'm more willing to define social boundaries and not give up my time, attention, or beliefs just to get people to like me.  Most of all, I'm living for things that are bigger than me, primarily art and storytelling in the form of writing, and acting when that gets off the ground. 

   As such, the only dance partner I'm willing to take for a spin will be the so-called "One".  Soul mate. Twin flame.  Whatever you want to call her, she's the only one I'm willing to go and get.  I'll know her when I see her.  And since I'm waiting for only one particular girl to show up, I don't need to waste my time chasing other ones around the ballroom.

   That way, when I do fall in love, I won't be giving up any of my power. The love-drug makes you do so many stupid things. Given the right circumstances, you can fall in love with just about anyone: it's how you explain the "why is he with that bitch?" or "why is she with that asshole?" scenario. When you're with the wrong person, you can damage yourself for life, lose your abilities, sometimes forever. Love isn't enough.

   In a relationship with my soul partner, however, we can only add our powers together, because she's the optimal match for me. She doesn't have to be a complete copy of me - she'll have her differences, obviously - but we need to be in the same wavelength in life, giving off the same type of vibration, for this to work right.  Call me picky if you wish, but why the hell would I settle for anything less than the best for me?

   There's a girl out there right now who's everything I'm looking for, and for whom I'm everything she wants to have.  In a way, we're already together, we just haven't caught up to the reality.  And if we're already destined to meet, then in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy today as much as I can, do my utmost to maintain positive energy as work does its thing and the holiday stresses mount and the cold closes in. 

   Who is this girl, though? My equal and complementary spirit? What does she look like?  What is her story?  Does she enjoy Babylon 5 reruns as much as I do? (Scratch that question: of course she does!). 

   I have no answers to the detail questions yet, but however, wherever, and whenever we meet, I'll owe Serendipity a drink at the bar for all of her hard work. 

  Can't buy it now though: Serendipity's busy working as I write this, and there's no drinking on the job.

  Until then, read this.  I thought it was rather sweet.  A page from Serendipity's portfolio right there.

Stepping Stones

  This week should see my first calls from the agency for acting auditions.

   It seems like I've been waiting on this forever, ever since Labour Day when I happened to chance upon the two recruiters in Burlington.  Sometimes I get a small worry that I've oversold this to people.  I mean, I had one person in the last week ask me "besides acting, what do you do?" and yet I haven't even been to an audition yet!  Still, if ever there was an application of the "act as if" principle, it's this.  I'm going to take this one heads on and see where it leads.   I'm excited!

   Creative people are difficult to place in a capitalist economy.  It's probably why so many artists grativate towards socialism or communism: if the basic necessities of life were taken care of by the community, then it would free up artists to explore their craft without fear of homelessness or starvation, whatever it might be.  I can definitely see that appeal.  Sadly, while that could be the way things go in the future, at the present, creative men and women are still having to wait tables, serve coffee, lug boxes, or push paper in offices to support the basics of life to follow their dreams. 

   When they do succeed, though, they succeed big.  It's the difference between Harrison Ford the Carpenter - the job he held to pay the bills; he'd met George Lucas when the director hired him to fix his cabinets - and Harrison Ford the A-List Film Star.  If you look at the percentages of artists living almost obscene affluence thanks to their craft and those struggling for rent and food....well, I'd rather not.  As one of Ford's more famous characters, Han Solo, once remarked:

"Never tell me the odds."

    Off the top of my head, I've held something like nine jobs in my fourteen year work history.  Two were logistics clerk positions; one was a warehouse co-ordinator for a marketing company; one was as an office customer service rep; two were pure administrative clerical gigs; two were as a warehouse material handler; one was as a virtual concierge (in an office, but not doing administration); and one was in sales. 

   Out of the nine, I was happiest in the concierge and the sales gigs.  I only left the concierge for the better shift and pay of government work, and - I'll admit - the presence of a union to keep the man at bay (my new thoughts on unions are a whole other entry altogether).  I only stopped working the sales job because the company itself was shady and disintegrated, resulting in a layoff (I enjoyed the work, though).

   I liked them because they appealed to my creativity, because they challenged me to think outside the box, to use my unique talents.  It's a satisfaction I can't get in government.  Here, there is nothing outside the box.  The box is everything.

    There's a lingering convention in the way Western culture - and the American workforce paradigm in particular - views careers, and that's the idea that you're supposed to find one career for life.  It's that 1950s ideal of the man who works for a loyal company, for fair compensation, who gets rewarded for his efforts if he shows effort.  He sticks with the company for 40 years, then retires with a good pension. 

   Flashforward to the Great Recession...hell, even before.  The 1950s vision is only a memory, and a laughable one at that.  Not only has the economy grown more unstable, but several new work paradigms have emerged.  One of them suits the artist very well: the job as a growth experience, as a stepping stone. 

   You start a job with a great level of excitement, stay as long as the gumption stays with you.  Enjoy your time.  When the gumption runs out, and the job feels like an existential drag, or when you no longer see any chances to move up, start finding something else.  Send out the resumes, do the interviews, and when you get an offer for a new place, tender your resignation at the old, and start again.

   In a way, it's more natural than sticking with the same job for decades.  In nature, there are many species of fauna that will habitate one place for a while, and then migrate to greener pastures when the habitat no longer supports them.  Western culture, for all its greatness which I do admire and defend, seems wont to impose artificial expectations on work, as it does other aspects of life.  Why should anyone stick with something long after it's outlived its usefulness?  When it not only stops providing satisfaction and a feeling of purpose and belonging, but actually starts working against your happiness? 

  The reflex of the traditionalists, of course, is to slap back with the other extreme: you don't want a string of fifteen jobs on a resume.  You don't want to show you're non-committal.  To them, I say this: employers are non-committal.  Way more than their workers.  They won't hesitate to let you go if it serves their interests.  You shouldn't hesitate to drop them in favour of something new if they no longer serve your interests, as long as you do so in a professional manner that prevents too much damage on either side of the arrangement.

   When we say we're in a new economic reality, we need to appreciate that this reality now changes on a daily basis, not a generational one.  Most of the gray hairs for whom I work and who still cling to the old 1950s vision of career will never accept that, nor will their younger disciples for whom life has indeed been a straight and narrow path of relative ease.  Adaptability and knowing when to leap are two qualities I'd advise any young person entering the workforce to develop, no matter what they studied in school, at no matter what level. 

   Above all, I say to these kids: don't look for your career to define you as it has previous generations.  Instead, try to resist the tendency to label yourself and others you'll meet by what they do, and focus instead on the experience of life as a whole, in which "career" is only one thread in the tapestry.

   Your career, like your relationships, like your health, like other parts of your life, should all have one thing in common: they should be accurate reflections of the strongest version of Who You Are. Present tense. That is, they put you in the zone and give you a zest for life, make you excited to wake up in the morning to face the new day.   Doesn't matter what the job is, whether it's in your trained field or not, as long as it contributes to your overall joy.  When it stops doing so, look for something else that's more in line with Who You Are, however you define it, wherever you find it.

   I'm mindful that I'm now as excited about acting as I was about starting my current job, as I had been about the virtual concierge, about many of the jobs that ended up burning me out over the years. I haven't left my day job, and don't plan on it, for all of the shortcomings it has of low creative satisfaction and the social isolation. But I'm no lifer: my boss knows that, and if this new adventure turns out to be lucrative and personally fulfilling enough, I'd be silly to stick with a sure thing that fails to satisfy on both counts.

   How this turns out remains to be seen. That's why it's called "risk". Stay tuned.

***UPDATE: For those of you who have expressed concern, even criticism, that I shouldn't write this for fear that current and future employers may Google me, read this.  Frankly, any employer who would seek that much control over my thoughts and feelings does not deserve my services.

Confidence without Douchebaggery

  The following is a recounting of something Jody witnessed, and may not have happened exactly as depicted, though that's totally okay, because this version's been sexified by Jody's awesome imagination.

 The Phidelts had Wing Night this past Sunday in Westdale.

 After gorging on the delightful parts of some hapless, mass-produced chickens, me and the younger guys chill for about ten minutes before they head off to another pub. 

   During that time, two lovely young ladies emerge from the restaurant, walk past the bunch of us, and get into a car to light a cigarette.  Long story short, one of our entourage - driven by courage, apathy, and a deeper fortitude located somewhere in his pants - walks over to the driver's side.  I have no idea what he says - I'd later find out he opened with "I'd like to see some ID" - but the girls seem to enjoy it and the rest of us are quite entertained.

  "I love the way he sauntered over there," I say aloud.  "It's such a balls-out approach."

  At that point, a brother - who I shall deem "The Moustache" until he gives me formal permission to reprint his name publicly - responds with a cool point. 

"The trick is not giving a shit if people think you're a douchebag". 

  Think about it.  How many "nice guys" worry about looking like anything but "nice guys" when it comes to impressing the ladies?  That's why nice guys fail so frequently and so hard when they try to be less "nice" at bars and at parties: they're aware that they're putting on an act.  They're too afraid of saying something wrong that will make them look like complete assholes to the women.  Their fears become their focus, and thus become their experience.  There's nothing as confidence sapping, as emasculating, as the feeling that you have to choose between being a dick and being the Pillsbury doughboy to succeed at dating, and life.

  The trick is to lose yourself in the part.  And also to eliminate the word "douchebag" from your self description.  All you're doing is just walking your confidence. 

  Much like Jack the Clawless Tabby did in 2006.

  Call it a biological Napoleon complex all you want, this cat is one mean pussy.  Never once did it occur to him that the bear cub could easily take him out with the slightest of swipes, or that he was about five times smaller. The cat had his turf to protect. 

   Jack the Clawless Tabby never dwelled on his shortcomings: instead, he pushed his natural strengths to the max and harnessed them behind a single goal: telling a wandering bear to get the fuck off his property.

 Issues of confidence are rampant in my daily existence, mostly in the assertion department. Assertiveness remains a challenge for me, especially in the presence of stronger, go-getter personalities who are way more cock and balls than I'll ever be.  They give me little room to maneuver: if you push, I'll either dig in my heels or I'll just walk away, start some lone wolf time. 

  Or, if you're really being direct, I'll push back a little more out of proportion to what's called for, but that's a last resort.  I don't much care for pissing matches with people, but if you're on my territory - my home, my office, my arena - I will do what's necessary to protect my sovereignty.

 And yet, in situations where I'm not forced to beat my chest, I'm damned good at the confidence game.  I've landed a couple of jobs where I only barely met the requirements, based mostly on the interview.  Aaron pointed this out a couple of times when I've had moments of doubt: he's one person who sees that strength, and he's one of the most confident guys I've ever met. 

  We have an archetype in Western culture of the disgruntled office clerk.  That person who occupies a lower station in a greater organization who is so much more capable than what he's getting, if only he had the guts to just speak up for himself.  Frequently, the place where he paralyzes himself is one concept, this all-too-familiar fear:

"I don't want to be an asshole."

  Nor is it just guys.  Alice remarked to me today, in a somewhat related discussion, her own qualms with self-assertion.  After showing her the story on Jack the Orange Tabby, she said this:

   I'm always afraid that I'll look like a bitch if I assert myself like that.

    Back to the Moustache for a moment.

    "You know," I say to him, back at the parking lot of the restaurant after Wing Night, "I've always struggled with issues of authenticity, especially when it comes to meeting girls, but you know..."

     I steal another look over at Mr. Ballsy, chatting up the two girls.

    "It's nothing new.  I've summoned that kind of confidence at job interviews, why not here?"

    The Moustache agrees.  "Real douchebags don't care what people think.  That confidence is attractive and they know it.  You can be a good confident person without being a dick."

    Plus, as much as pretty girls can't initially tell the difference between an asshole and a confident good guy at a bar, I'm willing to bet they enjoy the process of sorting them out.

    Simple concept, right?  And yet, so many people fret over it.

   Losing yourself in the role doesn't mean putting on a show.  It's the acquisition and continued accumulation of a genuine feeling, and then just running with it.  It's like summoning a comic book superpower and then swaggering around. 

  Easiest way to summon this power?  Do what Ben Affleck's character talks about in Boiler Room - which Michael is watching over at his place as I type this:

"Act as if". 

   Assume you're a superstar, then lose yourself in the part.  I do this a lot lately as part of my visualization for acting.  Since I started, not gonna lie, my swagger's gotten more attention from all the right places (and a few of the wrong ones).

   As that superstar, walk up to someone today and strike up a conversation like it was nothing.  Unless the other person has some malfunction in that moment, I promise it'll go smoothly.

  If anything, that other person should feel anxious talking to you.  Be polite, kind, say whatever comes to mind, thank them, shake their hands if the chat was meaningful, then make your way out. 

   As you leave, notice that feeling - high, energized, certain - and carry it with you as long as it lasts. 

  And remember it the next time you see that cute girl you've been dying to talk to.

  To the naturally confident, extroverted A-types, this seems so basic, but to guys like me, it's always a new revelation, like a monolith from 2001.  Some people need to have this literally beaten into our skulls with a proto-human femur bone to make sure we never forget.

  And yes, lately I've been following my own advice and doing this with women.  More on that in a later entry.  Back to the novel, in the meantime.

Dare the Universe

Blog Evolution

To make any blog more searchable, it helps to include a few words about what it's about.  It's also preferable not to have those keywords all appearing at once in the title banner.  Hence, why I've resorted to the tag cloud, visible in the module on the upper right corner of the homepage to Dispatches.  I did a quick skim of all the entries to date and tagged according to what I saw. By the numbers, this isn't as much of a divorce blog as I thought it was.  We'll see how it evolves from here.

The Secret, on Amphetamines

Thursday, I returned home from work.  Another busy week, yet more mediocrity. 

The reason I'm perpetually unsatisfied in most jobs I've held is that most of them have been office work without much room for creativity, and I'm a creative person.  The most creative office based job I ever had was at the virtual concierge where I worked before lucking out on the government position.  Even that gig was heavily regulated due to the nature of the service we were providing.  I stick with administration for the same reason that food servers with other passions stick to waiting tables: it's the only means of making money to support their basic needs they've ever done while bigger dreams are still pending.

I'll also flat out state that the Public Service, from a creative standpoint, is a zombie apocalypse.  It does many things well, but encouraging innovation, imagination, and outside-the-box thinking is not part of the deal.  Nor should it be: you need to conform to existing processes and suppress all independent thought or desires to change the system, because there's only so much you can change.  Again, nothing inherently wrong with that.  But  I can decide is where I want to stand in relation to it all.  I'll do my job, but I need to get out before I, too, get zombified.

So, I returned home from work and decide to pop in The Secret. 

Now, most of my science-y friends and more rationalistic buddies don't necessarily buy into the Law of Attraction, or the way it's presented in The Secret. Fair enough. What you have to realize is that this DVD was my introduction to the concept.  I have it practically memorized. So even though I have my own doubts from time to time,  The Secret is part of my own belief system. Thus, telling me not to watch it, or to discount it on empirical grounds, is like telling a Catholic not to attend mass, or a Muslim not to bow to the east. Many scientists are devoutly religious, keep that in mind.  And I have had some rather anomalous experiences the methodology that prove, in my subjective experience, that the Law of Attraction exists, and works as advertised.

And one such experience occurred that night. 

I decided to do some visualizing of my own.  Scheduled to pay a visit to my talent agency on Saturday to activate my profile and start getting auditions for film and TV work, I started to fantasize about such a gig. 

Since this opportunity landed in my lap, I've had various fantasies and daydreams of success in commercials, film and TV which I won't share here, frankly because I don't trust that some well-meaning but skeptical readers won't shoot them down on practical grounds.  Watching The Secret, I decided to indulge in these daydreams. 

Two minutes - two minutes! - after I began my reverie, the phone rang.  It was the agency.  On a hunch, they wanted to see if I could audition for a major restaurant chain the very next day!  Normally, they'd wait until I was completely set up, but they were in a bind and were willing to chance a long shot.

I was stunned.  Chalk it up to coincidence all you want, it was a wake-up call of the biggest sorts. 

And I ended up turning them down.  A manager at my office was retiring the next day, so my absence from the office would have been conspicuous.  Or so I told myself.  They said "no worries", and I hung up the phone.

Next day, I went back to work.  Long story short, I wasn't nearly as needed as I thought I was. 

Today, I went in, and finalized my setup.  And I found out I had a great chance to have landed that part had I gone to that audition.  Major.  More where that came from, sure, but I've learned a few lessons from this.

First, office work assimilates people: people become bureaucratized quite easily. This happens in the private sector, sure, but government's particularly nasty at that because everything's hyper regulated and monitored.  Just visit any family court.  Remember the episode of The Simpsons where Homer actually files for divorce from Marge?  Who could forget the immortal words of comfort of the court clerk (who looked suspiciously like Lunch Lady Doris)?  "These things happen. Eight dollars".  This lady actually exists, I'll tell you.

As physically safe and mentally simple as government work can be, it steals the spirit of the artist, one bit of ectoplasm at a time, until you're nothing but an overweight, cardigan-wearing zombie, more concerned with potluck parties and the weekly lottery pool than trying to do anything more creative and passionate.  Don't rock the boat. Don't ask too many questions. Don't take risks.  That becomes your life, if you can call it living.

Second, bureaucratization causes you to lose sight of your own big picture.  No adventure would be considered risky if you weren't willing to lose everything, but it takes balls of pure adamantium to actually do it. 

Had I gone for that audition and booked it, it would have been worth the one day off and the potential wrath of my boss to get the start of a new career and several thousand dollars which would help me pay debt and travel.  But on the phone, having to make a split second decision, the reflex to play it safe that I've developed over a year of government work was all too automatic. 

In order to be an actual risk taker and not some guy who blogs about it from his all-too-comfortable swivel chair on his lunch break, you've got to actually take risks.

Finally, there's always more where that came from.  I'm not only talking TV auditions, here.  I'm talking full-time jobs.   In retrospect, I got everything backwards ass.  I took the risk of leaving full-time work to pursue my passion when I was supporting my ex, and now play it safe as a single guy with no one depending on me. 

Switching that around means daring the Universe.  It means being willing to sacrifice a sure bet for the slippery chance at your own fairy tale.  It means knowing that just as you step over the chasm, a step will rise up just as you're about to fall and catch your foot.  And another, and another, until you reach the other side.

The last time I decided to really take a risk was in 2007. That was when, supported by my ex, I quit my job at the distribution centre where I had worked since high school with nothing else lined up to replace it.  And all along that chain of events leading me to this writing, never once did I end up starving, or on the street, or having to tuck tail and move back in with Mom and Dad.  On the contrary: money and work always showed up somehow, in various forms, just in time to keep me going.

That's not to say it didn't have a price in debt or stress, but overall, Serendipity has looked after me.  I just forget about her in weaker moments, as do we all.  Fortunately, Serendipity is a forgiving lady. And hot to boot.

I'm not quitting my office job, to be clear, nor am I going to slack off.  But I am extending the same rule I had when I started: never let it interfere with my greater ambitions.  There are always other jobs, but precious few big dreams, the latter of which have only the narrowest of opportunities to become reality.

I have no illusions that I will become a major Hollywood star or anything, nor am I giving up writing to do this, but I am definitely open to the possibility, and am willing to be passionnate about any work I get and see where the passion leads me.

And next time they call, I am saying "yes" to whatever gorram audition they have for me.

Eames the Forger says it best in Inception: "You musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling". 

Surely,  I can dream bigger than my desk.

Randoms - November 17 2010

  It's been a while since I've done one of these.  Here goes:

Migration

  This is a shout out to all my mainstream, naturally-born, predominantly Anglo-Canadian homies, as well as my multicultural, foreign-born, predominantly non-white new Canadian and landed immigrant peeps. 

  Fellow citizens and residents, please be advised: some of us are far from being fresh off the airplane.

  Since Lester Pearson's time, Canada has enjoyed moderate to large scale immigration from many countries. For those who are historically challenged, that's the 1960s, people.  That's when PM Pearson removed the last racial prohibitions on immigration, essentially making Canada the world's first nation not to give a crap what colour your skin was if you wanted to find a better life here. 

  A half century has passed, so you'd think you'd be running into more visible minorities like....well, me.  No accent, no "multicultural" clothing - I don't even know what constitutes "Trinidadian" wear for dudes, anyway.  Maybe a pair of swim trunks, thong sandals, and a big red shirt with a picture of a Coke bottle?  I know if I were living there, I'd be dressed like that 24/7 - and no discernable body odor (this is a biggie: I myself do not partake of the "curry BO" that seems so popular with many of my complexion.)

   Trinidadians in particular have a rather unique place in Canada's migration story, given that they themselves come from a former colony that's barely 50 years old.  Indo-Trinidadian Canadians - and that's as far as the string of hyphens will extend - are often indistinguishable from Indo and Pakistani-Canadians at a glance, and in places like Brampton where the latter two populations are large, are frequently taken to be part of them.   Of course, Trinidadians are themselves quite visible when they're flying the colours - the flag, the roti shops, the calypso, Caribana, etc. - but even those displays are positively dwarfed by the sheer number of émigrés from the ancestral lands. 

   These are some of the reasons why the public perception of people with my pallour as being "fresh off the plane" or "boat" never quite goes away.  Caucasian strangers will still sometimes speak slowly to me as though I'm ESL, and other Trinidadian and South Asian arrivals will assume I'm one of them still getting to know this "cold" place.  All based on what I look like.  Then I open my mouth and remove all doubt.

   So my question: after half a century of immigration - from the Caribbean, from South Asia, and other "visible minority" nations - where are all the so-called "whitewashes"? 

   Where are the kids - now approaching their 30s - who grew up with Hull and Gretzky and Gilmour on the CBC during winter nights? Who listened to rock and techno and grunge as teenagers? Who prefer mates outside their own race? Who show up to Remembrance Day ceremonies with absolutely no sense of historical irony?  The ones who were Arts and Social Science majors at university? 

   Where are the others like me?  There are so few of them that after 50 years of migration, it seems quite the anomaly.

   I frequently get mistaken for being South Asian, or a new Trinidadian.  I don't mind it anymore, but it really used to bug me.  And now that I've grown up some, now that this aspect of my identity is more concrete, this question of finding others like me is no longer as personal as it would have been even five years ago. Instead, I truly wonder, from a preodminantly intellectual standpoint, why it is that I've "integrated" so much while so many others, even when they're born here, have found it so difficult?

   There's a book in this somewhere, so close I can taste it.  Not gonna lie, it kinda tastes like curry...

 Mind Wanderers Do It Melancholy

  Science finally catches up to what spirituality has known for centuries.

  A Harvard study recently concluded that the majority of people's attention in any given day is elsewhere.  That lack of focus on the present moment creates a sense of unhappiness, generating a feeling in the brain that makes the subject feel as though "they're not where they're supposed to be".

    I won't bother re-quoting much of the article, except that it notes that places where people's mind wander the most - and where they are, thus, most unhappy - tend to be at work, resting, or using a home computer.  Eeeep....

   By contrast, the activities and places where people are most focused on the now are sex, exercising, and conversation.....Meat Loaf summed up my position relative to these activities best: "two out of three ain't bad".

   Speaking of melancholy....


SAD Season is Here

  From now until the first day after the Winter Solstice, the nights are longest.  For this blogger, it means the onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Though I've never been officially diagnosed, winter's been a crap ass season for me pretty much since I was 12 years old. My family, my ex, and some of my friends can attest to its impact on me. 

   For the past two years, it hasn't been as bad, but only because I've had major crises to keep my mind occupied (in 2009, revising my first book and layoffs at work due to the recession kept me on my toes; in 2010, it was my marriage ending, moving apartments, settling into the new job and life). 

 This year, with most things more or less stable, I've noticed the energy drain almost immediately.  Much of this has to be because I'm at the gym three to four times weekly now, so I'm physically tired, but it's definitely there, in the lack of sunlight. 

  I'm not as bad as some sufferers, but the SAD creates a climate where I'm far more susceptible to being bummed out by little things.  Hopefully, an impending pay raise at my current job, the start to my talent work - as early as next week if I'm really lucky - as well as the Christmas season where I can get away from the routine will all help. 

   In addition, I'm pre-empting the Blahs by registering for ballroom dance classes in January that will run for six weeks - i.e., through most of the crappiest months - and introduce me to new friends and the like. 

  Then again, there's a benefit to hitting rock bottom. In Debbie Ford's The Secret of the Shadow, Ford writes of one of her clients who always held onto false hope, burying the reality of her life's negatives in seminar after seminar, self-help slogan after self-help slogan. Years later, she's still just as frenetic as ever, not realizing that all she had to do was let go, wallow in the crapulence that was the reality of her situation, and then rebuild. 

  The advantage to not caring is if it all falls apart, I hit my credit limit, my car stops working, and so on is that I have the chance to start over.  You get another hand after you fold, right?  That's what the "Airplanes" song says, anyhow.

  For now though, I'm just tired and blah and meh, not necessarily in that order, and should be until the days start pushing back the night again, on December 22nd.

 The Plight of the Shy Guy

  I read Owl City singer Adam Young's blog almost religiously.  He's closer to my true personality type than most other entertainers I see, preferring to explore imagination, romance, and love than indulging in the pimpin' and the drinkin' and the "what what" of the more stereotypical male crowd. 

  Young posted an entry a few weeks back that I recently caught that describes exactly the feeling of angst, frustration, and hope that guys like me have when we see a beautiful woman, but can't approach them for our own crippling shyness.  I couldn't have said it any better myself. 

  Why is this notable for me?  Because Young is the only other straight male in the creative industry I've encountered who still believes in soul mates, and won't settle for anything less.  And he's not afraid to tell people about it. That makes Adam Young, in my mind, a way ballsier motherf***er than I could ever be.

  ***

  All things said, it's a crazy transitional time for me at present. I expect the next two weeks to see major changes to my life.  More thoughts on that as they develop.

"The Healing of the Nations"

   As a public servant, this is my second year in which I've had Remembrance Day as a statutory holiday.  Last year, being bedridden due to the flu, I watched the service from Ottawa on TV.  This year, I was able to walk three blocks to Burlington City Hall for our service. Working for the Province makes this no more or less my civic duty, though it does make it easier to serve.

   Near the end of the ceremony, a Fransciscan friar took the podium. By this time, many in the crowd were footsore from standing for an hour or so, and after the laying of the wreaths at the cenotaph, a few were starting to leave.  Carrying my laptop on my shoulder for over an hour, I was tempted as well, but I chose to finish what I began and hear him out.  I'm glad I did.

   The friar told the story of his visit to Assisi, Italy.  A pilgrimage for his Order, the trip to Assisi revealed to him the beauty of the city, and the energy that resides there.  I've spoken with people who have made the trip, both Catholic and non-Catholic, who have reported that feeling of sacredness there, of the sensation of God and spirit that defies the often hate-filled dogmas of the fundamentalists that taint what should be a religion of peace and forgiveness. Spirit and light in Assisi....

   ...and yet, not far from the city, in the surrounding lowlands, the Assisi War Cemetery sits.  945 Allied soldiers from World War II lie buried there.  50 of them are Canadian. 

  The friar spoke slowly and deliberately of the contrast of the joy in the city atop the hill and the sombre mood below where the graves lie. Googling Assisi in World War II, after the ceremony, I learned that his Order had worked to save over 300 Jews from being sent to the extermination camps by dressing them as priests and nuns, at one point forging Nazi documents so well that they managed to convince the Nazi garrison that Assisi was an open city, thus saving it from destruction.

  Imagine: a single beacon of human spirit shining through a landscape darkened not merely by war, but by the dark shadow of mankind made manifest in the Third Reich.  The Nazis were a particular evil that saw entire peoples decimated in the name of racial and ideological superiority. 

   Growing up in an age of moral relativism, where there is no longer automatic consensus to tar and feather a wartime enemy as absolutely evil simply because the government says we should, there is no way anyone in my generation can not see the scourge of Nazism for what it was.

  Ditto for the Taliban, and al Quaeda, who remain an Islamic version of that kind of oppression, destruction, darkness, and suppression of the human spirit.  The shadow of humanity manifests itself time and again in many places, in many faiths, in many ideologies.  Every nation, every faith, every person, is susceptible to the shadow. 

  And half a century ago, an alliance of free nations - in all of their shortcomings, civic imperfections, and checkered histories - recognized the shadow for what it was and sent their best to liberate and protect places like Assisi from the darkness.

  The friar's admiration of our troops was clear enough, but what caught me was his concluding quote from the Book of Revelation.  I was struck by the following:

  "In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bore twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

  The reconciliation of humanity with its own shadow is no mere New Age metaphor, but a real experience, a physical battle that takes place throughout the world.  And sometimes we ourselves play the role of shadow, as all the controversies of the past fifty years of foreign policy bear out. 

  Elements of the darkness that our troops continue to battle also appear within our borders: in the political and fundamentalist demagoguery we see appearing on the news; in new political and religious movements that embody anger and intolerance poorly disguised as meaningful change.  The National Socialist German Worker's Party began as such a movement; the Taliban and al Quaeda emerged in houses of worship.  As both examples demonstrate, under the right conditions, the men who shout at the rain from their soapboxes today become those who manifest genocide in the world tomorrow.  Sometimes all too easily.

  But in those who embrace life, and love, and spirit, and compassion lies all of our hope.  Peace is possible by acknowledging our dark sides as individuals. "A world of individuals at peace with themselves is a world at peace", as Dr. Dyer says, but it all starts with you. What will you do to acknowledge your own darkness, and thus prevent it from taking over?

  Remembrance Day has grown far beyond its original historical purpose - to commemorate the British war dead of World War I - and is not the celebration of war, but the acknowledgement of a fundamental paradox of the human experience: that we must sometimes fight for peace. 

    That we should prevent horror by addressing human grievances before they take root and grow into something far more sinister and deadly.

   And most importantly, to remember and thank those who stood, and stand, between us and the darkness that grows too big and dangerous to mitigate by non-violent means.

   And as the Franciscan stated so eloquently, today does not belong only to us, but to all, that the leaves of the Tree of Life that lives in us all will heal us all, that all nations may live in peace.

  To those who stood and stand for that peace, and to those who fell in its name, with all of the gratitude that one soul can muster....thank you.

Whiting Out The Scarlet "D"

  In the previous incarnation of this blog, I talked a lot about divorce.  As I've said numerous times, this blog wouldn't be around were it not for the end of my marriage.  I've had numerous people approach me to say what an eye-opener it's been for them to read about my divorce experience, and how I've navigated through it.

  And yet, I don't particularly relish leading off with my marital status all the time - who would, really? - which is why for the last while on this blog, I've focused strictly on other aspects of my life experience. 

  I even have one or two readers and Facebook friends who only ever seem to comment whenever I talk about divorce.  I appreciate the words of sympathy and support, I really do, but I'm light years past where I was this past winter.  I know it's not the intention, but the commentary has this almost condescending "That's it, Jody, way to go!" feel, like what you say to a six year old when he finally goes a week without wetting the bed.

  The other part was that up until last month, I was heavily involved in online dating. 

 That's a tricky endeavour when you're divorced because the medium sends the wrong message to would-be companions.  You can meet someone in person, see what they're really like, interact with them, fall in love, and maybe a few weeks into it learn about their previous marriage.  And if there's clear charisma between you, if neither of you have any particular religious or personal issues with it, you'll move past it.  Or, you'll end the relationship, but at least you had those weeks of experience.

  But when all you have to go on is what the person's written on a dating profile, you look for any red flag.  And that's when you walk into the Catch 22 of divorcee online dating disclosure. 

  If you don't disclose your marital status, the person may find out later and determine you're a lying scumbag or "not over your ex".  If you do disclose your martial status, the person may determine that they appreciate your honesty,but that they're looking for someone with a little less baggage and that you're "not over your ex". 

  You can thus understand why I abandoned online dating in favour of the harder, much more satisfying route of meeting actual girls in the real world.

   So....yeah, talking about divorce for me is touchy, but not for the conventional reasons you might think.

  Nevertheless, every now and then, I come across something that lights up my synapses and motivates me to put fingers to keyboard and make divorce the front and centre of my attention.  Here's one such instance.

 Doing Divorce Differently

  The Huffington Post recently created an entire section to Divorce.  In the words of founder Arianna Huffington:

  "I've always thought that, as a country, we do a lousy job of addressing how we can do divorce differently -- and better."

  Only a few days old, the section already features numerous opinion pieces from various commentators and writers that essentially outline the points I've been trying to make in my much more limited writings. 

   Articles I'd like to suggest include the following, which closely parallel what I've written on the subject:

     - Why Divorcees Make The Best Dates and The Case for the Starter Marriage by Sascha Rothchild, author of How To Get Divorced By 30. 
     - The Scarlet "D", by Joel Dovev, Comedian
     - The Stigma of Divorce, by Jennifer Cullen, Blogger

 Friends and neighbours, I strongly suggest you read these articles.  Especially considering how little my own writings on the subject have been able to convince some of you that my approach to this experience has been beneficial.  

  That really bugs me, by the way.  By the reactions and input I've observed from a few particular individuals, I've been made to feel that they think I've somehow been permanently compromised by the experience. That I have no perspective whatsoever on what's happening to me, that everything I say is just part of the transition phase.

  And because I dared to defy some of the established conventions of divorce - forgiving and building a new friendship with my ex, choosing not to become Barney Stinson, pursuing reconstruction instead of self-destruction, deciding to express my feelings rather than addling them in booze and drugs and false machismo - some people have declared - and I ain't namin' names or anything - "See? Jody's not better!  He needs to man up! He's not following the rules!".  (Well, sentiments to that effect, anyway).

   Anyway, venting complete.

Throwing Out the Standard Rulebook 
  
  I didn't follow the rules of divorce because, right from the beginning, I had no rulebook to follow for this experience. My parents are still together: for much of my reality, divorce was something that happened to other people.  Hence, no rulebook.

  When colleagues started citing at me from the Standard Rulebook for Divorce, I looked at the consequences - litigation fees, months of hostility, self righteous chest-beating in and out of court over who was more in the wrong, who's going to hell; substance abuse, porn addiction, stress, general recrimination - and decided, "nope, not for me".  I needed to be able to at least feel neutral waking up each morning in the new alternate reality I was suddenly living in.  I couldn't do that if I was waking up just to fight the same skirmish each and every day, over and over again.  Divorce as a war of attrition didn't appeal to me.

  As it happens, making this up as I go along has been the most optimal approach I could have taken, and while I'm not as bubbly about my divorce as Sascha Rothchild is about hers, I definitely prefer this to the Standard Rulebook for Divorce that has lawyers and counsellors reaping millions from people's suffering.

  The Huffington Post has really done well to open up this topic to enlightened discussion past the expected orthodoxy of divorce as an exclusively negative experience. North American society has had decades to trace and re-trace the "Scarlet 'D'" onto the page, and I don't presume to be able to white it out with a single stroke.

  But I will continue to try.  And now I can provide citations that prove to the hardest skeptics that I'm not alone in that pursuit.