Unnameable Randoms - July 7th, 2010

I have three alarm Writer's Block.

No movement on the novel.  No movement on "From the Battery to the Heights".  Not even on this blog.  Must be the humidity...

Gah!

Time for Declaration Salad. 

Declaration Salad

This is a new game that is precisely twenty seconds old as of the original draft of this sentence.  In it, I make single paragraph declarations about anything that comes to mind, accompanied by pictures.  Game on!

G20:  This is one of those things I've been trying to blog about, but can't, only because there's too much to write about.  So, here's my main beef: police who knowingly mislead the public.  My conservative buddies, naturally, side with the cops, saying that misleading or omitting the fact that the so-called "five metre arrest rule" around the perimeter of the fence didn't actually exist was a means to an end.  To what end? Giving the police greater perimeter control over the violent protesters.  Protecting property.  Protecting "the people". 

Sadly, the police, indeed all democratic institutions in the First World, cannot be a "means to an end" type of entity. The "means" portion very much matters, because the "means", in this case, is a little thing we call "due process".  This ain't Mexico, and it's very much a valid slippery slope argument to ask, once you start skirting the law to enforce the law, finding loopholes or just flat out ignoring existing statutes, what's to stop you from doing so in other situations? And if it came as a directive from Queen's Park, then I see no logical difference between this and the investigation of former Premier Mike Harris and his connection to the OPP killing of protestor Dudley George at Ipperwash.  You'd think any conservative worth the blue in his blood would get behind investigating a Liberal premier on this matter, instead of automatically retreating, sheep-like, to the default ideological position of police worship.

Ironically, for conservatives to reflexively side with the police force and the government in this matter is to compromise another fundamental tenet of their own ideology, a basic belief goes beyond this ideology, that has gone out the window in the Harper era, and that hasn't been a practiced part of the lunatic Republican scene States-side for two decades: government accountability.  I look forward to seeing the independent civilian inquest of Toronto Police Services in this matter. 

(And because this is such a dicey topic, prone to distraction and sleight of hand by the Limbaughs and Becks and Parentes of the blogosphere - yes, Julius, I'm calling you out, buddy - I will repeat: I am not criticizing individual police officers or government officials.  When I say "police", I am referring to the institution, not those who serve them, and by extension, us.  I'll leave it to the inquiries to find out which individual officers conducted themselves illegally during this event.)

(And yes, I realize I just broke the single rule of Declaration Salad: one paragraph only.  Call me hypocrite if you wish, but at least I'm not in command of people with guns and batons and jails.  I trust my point is clear.  Moving on.)

Personal Boundaries and Rules:  They suck.  They serve you at times when you're not comfortable, but when you're looking to grow as a person, they just hold you back. They become habits that prevent us from growing, and when we do try to look for new experiences in life, we run up against them and we have no idea why we're feeling unhappy, or not having those new experiences  Paulo Coelho writes in The Valkyries that many people are like trained circus elephants: we're given shackles when we're younger, then chained to a massive tree that we can't escape with all of our strength.  Eventually, we give up, and we grow up chained, except when our trainers say it's okay to wander, or when they need us to perform. And even when we're clearly strong enough to get away, our trainers can shackle us to a twig and we'll still sit there, just because we got used to it. This is what's been happening to me lately.  I've got boundaries and rules for everything: love, sex, jobs, exercise, diets, politics, attraction...and they're no longer serving me.  Almost none of them.  Revelation the other day: the only reason I keep them around is because I worry about what someone would think of me if I broke them. 2nd Revelation: these rules and boundaries in question come from a time when I was a different person looking for different things.  Like the GST, they no longer apply, so I've junked them.  I can't write about the changes happening inside Jody's life - I've tried - because they're ongoing, and they're new.  I don't know what to make of them yet, but I'm watching the flow.  Stay tuned.

(And yes, I realize that I just adhered to the single rule of Declaration Salad. Call me a hypocrite if you'd like, but at least I'm breaking a rule that I made up. It just didn't serve me anymore. I trust my point is clear. Moving on.)

Planning: My former mother-in-law who reads this blog - hey, Pat - used to say that "people don't plan to fail, they fail to plan."  Tellingly, though, I think some people do plan to fail - a few health and safety officials at BP can testify have testified to that - but really, success or failure is entirely contextual.  In plain English, if all intended to do was run a marathon, then as long as I kept running from start to finish, I succeeded.  If I intended to win said marathon, though, anything less than coming in first would be a failure.  Would the latter force me to do more, be more, push myself more?  Sure, but that's the point: it's not all about what you want to accomplish, but who you want to become in the process of accomplishment.  That means, on occasion, abandoning the plans you had if you're not happy with who you are in relation to them.  That's not to say you can't have goals: they're two different things.  One is the thing you're after, the other is the way you accomplish it.  And really, the goal is to feel joy and happy, no matter what specific thing we feel we have to do to get it.  I'd love to be a bestselling author in my thirties, that's plain to read, and that plan is simple: write the damned book, start networking and speculating for an agent. Beyond that, I have no clue.  According to the original life plan, I'm failing.  No house, no more spouse, no six figure income, no kids. Like the boundaries, though, the plan doesn't apply.  It's getting junked, too, along with, interestingly enough, my romantic plan.  Yes, indeed, it's a Jodyist Revolution around these parts....

Momentary Living: Because I've been having a lot of different conversations about living in the moment.  It's such a platitude, it's beyond a cliche.  What the hell does it really mean?  Logically, it seems to set up a dichotomy with planning, conjuring up images of idle loafers who never figure themselves out, but who indulge every second in something deeply pleasurable versus noble denizens of Squaresville who never have much fun, but who brush their teeth precisely thirty-three times per session and run their lives with the efficiency of a Pratt and Whitney turbojet.  It's clearly a false dichotomy: no one is a precise "type" of person.  The solution is to just have a single goal and then release it to the universe, and then....live your life, day to day, moment by moment. Quit overthinking things and just do epic shit if it feels right in the moment and it won't hurt anyone else or yourself.  Kiss that girl - or just ask her out - even if she isn't your stated type: don't give a shit what you said or what your friends will say.  Take wrong directions on purpose, play hooky for no reason except for a day off to do whatever. Apply for that Hail Mary job, take up karate even though you're 300 pounds overweight.

Do a flyby on the tower, even if the pattern is full.

Whatever.  And just know that every action, legitimately savoured as it's happening, will lead you there.  Don't abandon a dream and a goal: just get rid of the addiction to the plan.  Abandon the model.

Buckminster Fuller said it best:  "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."  Be a little stoopid.  Nuff said.

XKCD: You ma-ma-ma-make m-me h-haaaaaa-py......

Aaaaand....blockage is still there.  Shit.  Must be the humidity after all....

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