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.

Ordinary Stories

   More entries coming soon, but I've been mulling some things, and that I'd like to mull about out loud to the Internets.

   Inspired by a recent entry on Julius' blog, I've been doing a lot of thinking about this blog's many autobiographical qualities.  As a rather direct chronicle of the past year, Dispatches and its previous incarnation, Jody's Quarter Life Adventure, tells the story of my renaissance, my new start in life after my divorce, and the new experiences I've had since.  Really, though, even the past year, the past decade, is but a part of my life overall. And I've had some interesting episodes to say the least.

   Like Julius, I'm fascinated and baffled by the motivation that inspires ordinary people to want to share their life stories with those who would listen, even those who could care less. Then again, some of the most interesting people I've learned about in the past year include Allie Brosh, who I've only learned about through her blog and who has really made me feel more all right with my own eccentricities (she has them too, and so do most of her 30,000 readers).  Though I only have 13 "official" followers, I know many people read my entries, and take something away from them that helps them.  That's my hope, anyway.

   Every person's story has to have some value outside of that person's own life.  You can't break everything down into objective, quantitative terms: do we all have to be John Nash to deserve to have our stories told? Howard Hughes? Temple Grandin? Out of six billion lives on the planet, does no one else have value? 

   If life has no inherent meaning - which I believe it doesn't - and if it's thus contingent upon us to assign meaning to it, then ultimately there are no ordinary stories. Very few boring stories: just maybe boring storytellers.


  Poignancy exists, and joy, in the words of obscure writers, of which I'm still one, though I hope it changes.  In the meantime, interesting, ordinary stories are everywhere.  And though they're each unique, they are also shared human experiences.

  A 21 year old woman in Britain is diagnosed with terminal cancer, so she moves up her wedding to her fiance in the hope of creating "the best day of her life".  But it's such a common tale - touching, heartbreaking, deeply rich in human experience - that when I google "terminally-ill bride" to get the link for the story, I find numerous other entries for different people touched by this same kind of transformative experience.  I first see the story on Yahoo! News one day, and I remember it.

   A few days later, I hear this song on the radio, and the vision of one such dying bride falling into the arms of her new husband and choosing this song for their first dance plays out in a cinematic high definition in my mind's eye.  And it's so poignant it hurts.  Imagine a moment of such...honesty, to be among those teary-eyed guests in the presence of two people, savouring each instant of time with each other before an end that could come anytime. 

   I just made that moment up, true.  But these real-life human experiences happen all the time.  And many of us never hear about it, save for those who are witnesses, and those who choose to share.

  How many of us have failed to be transformed by stories worth hearing because we never heard them?

  My experiences aren't, for the most part, all that dramatic, but they are notable, and over the next few weeks, you'll start seeing more accounts of my 29th year.  This has been so transformative for me, someone has to benefit from my story, even if it's just me telling it, and knowing someone else is reading it.

  That's the hope, anyway

Shadowy Seasonal Spin Cycles

Underlying the commercial side of Halloween is its origin. Samhain is the reason for this particular season, and I won't re-explain the significance of this (neo)pagan observance here. Its origins, however, remind us of the cycle of life and death. The harvest is as much a symbol for death as it is a literal reaping of the crops, where we reflect on what we've done and what's happened. 

Halloween was low key for me this year, with one party and a Sunday spent at home on a ghost walk through the beautiful Church St. Cemetery in Brampton with Mom and Dad.  During that visit, my mother and I watched a DVD from motivational speaker Debbie Ford called The Shadow Effect. Shadow work is a conscious acknowledgement and introspective study of all the qualities of your being that you hide from others. The parts of yourself that you're ashamed of - your fears, your past transgressions against others, your guilt, your regrets, etc..

According to Ford and other experts, whenever you react unusually strongly to a slight provocation; whenever you indulge in something that you rail against publicly (see NY Gov. Spitzer, or Rush Limbaugh, or the Catholic Church), or sabotage yourself, that's your Shadow getting tired of being suppressed and ignored.  Those are dramatic examples.  The rest of the time, the Shadow acts in millions of small ways that compromise you, leading to boredom, routine, the inability to escape from vicious cycles of behaviour, finances, health. 

That which we bury in the earth will grow back. Always. Don't believe me? Watch Dawn of the Dead.

I'm familiar with shadow work. Much of my twenties has been about looking at myself critically and as objectively as possible. This work is never done. It's not intended to "cure" all your ills or eliminate the darkness: those who war against their own darkness really war against themselves, and will never feel whole. Rather, it's to embrace the totality of your being, light and dark. It means understanding that for you to live in a nice house, every now and then you've got to take out the trash and sweep the floor. It's the way of things.

Monday being the start of a new month, I figured that some shadow work on myself was a great way to mark a new beginning. Everyone could use some honest-to-Zeus introspection.

Among the other creatures hiding in the dark, I discovered Stuckness. I was stuck. Existentially bored. And the goal wasn't to slay Stuckness, for he's a part of me, but to cure him.

Arriving at the Goodlife Fitness after work that Monday, I sauntered into the mall, up the stairs past the usual regulars, and into the locker room. I changed in the same spot near the same locker, and headed out to the floor to do the same cardio-resistance routine I've been doing for months.  All I could see was drab routine: my work, my exercise, my weekly calendar.  Blah, blah.....blah.  Was this really life? 

Then I saw that the spin class was starting in ten minutes.

I see it every time that I'm in there - seemingly crazy people, dripping with sweat, killing themselves on the bikes to pretty catchy techno music and rock and roll - and I'd always promised I'd try it once.  Still, the tricky part about a routine is that you're at once sick of the normal, and very comfortable with it.  I'd fought the impulse to go for weeks, despite having reached plateaued in my weight loss around 215 pounds. 

But Monday night, the thought of another boring 45 minute elliptical session kicked me in the ass, and I took the leap.  I walked in, met the instructor, set myself up, and joined in.

As I said on Facebook, Megadeth would be happy to know that I've found a 100th way to die....

And yet, it was worth it, not so much for the exercise - which was amazing, and which wore me out enough that I went to bed at 9:30pm - but for the sake of the New.  Suddenly, even though I'd changed absolutely nothing else in my routine, my life felt more interesting, and that's what ultimately counts: how you feel about your life.

I've talked about the Power of Now, but sometimes the solution to existential angst is simply to try something new, even if it's something small.  Spin classes, of course, are somewhat dramatic if you're not into exercise that much, but I realized that I am thoroughly missing new stimuli.  Time to embrace the Power of New.

A slide from the creepy DHARMA Initiative brainwashing film from LOST quotes the Buddha:

"Plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit". 

As Samhain ends, according to the Pagan calendar, those in the Northern Hemisphere lie directly opposite of Ostara, the spring holiday when we plant next year's harvest, when we sow new seeds, and start the cycle over again.

Naturally, we don't have to wait to re-create ourselves. Everyone has a stuckness monster living in their shadow.

And for people like me who, more than most, have to do regular inner work to prevent the monster from manifesting in yet another life crisis, sometimes all it takes is to do one new thing - plant one good seed no matter how small - to cure the hapless creature, shine a light for him to see, and set him free.