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.