Category: philosophy

yellow birds

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My sister-in-law wrote a book. She’s been in the game longer than I have, and thus, has much better connections, and so, it was only a little surprising to see the quality turnout at her book launch tonight.

It was fun, good to see people I haven’t seen in a while, surprising to see people I have never seen show up in abundance.

The power of networking, I suppose, of actually talking to people in the flesh.

Me, I’m more of a one-on-one kind of person, and I’d rather be alone than not.

Still, it was nice to see that people will still come out to support people, even when they’re only loosely connected.

My dream is of a world that supports art for the sake of art, and that it doesn’t need to be commercialized or branded; it can just be.

That was a nice reminder that this can still happen.

Target: 500 words
Written: 196 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: East Of West 32-35
Music: The Vanilla Tapes, The Clash

grandaughterin’

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We are off to see that baby bundle of toddler joy once again, on a long weekend celebrating my wife’s birthday, my Irish background and the fact of my granddaughter’s existence, a miracle unto itself.

Of course, that we’re here at all is a miracle of chance and collision, an order within the chaos, neither of which could have come without the other.

Target: 500 words
Written: 194 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max
Comics: East Of West 16-19
Music: Know Your Enemy, Green Day (I do - apathy and greed, consumerism and the overarching need to feed, feed, feed)

yesterday

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Sorry about that. I guess maybe we’re not in a place where green apple splatters and sexual proclivities are ready to be discussed.

But…

This is the thing about this blog. I never started it intending to pretend to be someone else. I spent too many years full of shit and now, I am doing my best to transition into being someone who is honest, open and compassionate, who always makes the effort to see as many perspectives as he can, while not ignoring the simple realities of things.

A softy without blinders.

A man of honest assessment, without pretense or bullshit.

Because I don’t want to be an icon. I don’t want to be a role model, though I know, if I can live the way I would like, it would inevitably set an example. Of course, every way anyone behaves sets an example; whether it’s a good one or whether anyone follows it are separate questions.

I want to be honest, and that means warts. That means too much information. That means nothing is out of bounds, save the desires of those around me not to be discussed (filtered where appropriate). I respect the privacy of others. I am a private man myself, despite my admissions.

I don’t want people all up in my business, but neither do I want to hide my foibles.

I suppose I shouldn’t hide my successes either, but damned if I won’t try to downplay them; I don’t live for praise. I would just like people to be able to see my work.

I’m not a good networker.

These things are all true.

These things are all filtered, as is everything.

Cognitive filtration is automatic.

Target: 400 words
Written: 341 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, Cranor/Fink (Fink/Cranor?)
Comics: Tokyo Ghost 9-10 (seriously - maybe the best comic of all time.  It deserves to be in the conversation with Watchmen, Miller's Dark Knight, etc.)
Music: The King Of Limbs, Radiohead

back to training

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I guess I’m doing something right, because I’m being trained on special tasks yet again.

It’s funny, when I was younger and more oblivious, I knew I was a hard worker and a smart guy, but I didn’t believe in my own fallibility; it was a problem.

When you won’t accept that you’re a fuck-up who can be lazy at times, no amount of nose-to-the-grindstone and feeling responsible for everything around you will help.

Now that I am older and officially know that I am imperfect and know very little about pretty much everything, I feel like I’m not being responsible enough.

And now I feel like it’s okay not to be responsible for everything.

Is wisdom actually saying fuck it? Let’s do what we want and let it ride?

Is true wisdom giving up control and accepting the peace of kicking back with a whiskey sour?

As the song says, “All I know is that I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t know nothing.”

Target: 400 words
Written: 2296 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: If Chins Could Kill: Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell
Comics: Chrononauts: Futureshock 1-4
Music: Kick Out The James, MC5

paths of glory

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I’ve taken to watching old movies (Stanley Kubrick’s early work) and (an) old TV show (The Adventures Of Superman) and I’ve stumbled upon Paths Of Glory.

I think we’re all more familiar with Kubrick’s bigger works, but Paths Of Glory is, I think, where we first saw how brilliant he could be. I mean, Fear And Desire had hints, but it was amateurish, early stuff, done on the cheap. The Killing and Killer’s Kiss were… okay. Kind of generic noir, to be honest, other than maybe the fight in the mannequins. Heist movie was not his forte; there wasn’t enough philosophy behind it. He disavowed Fear And Desire, but it was my favourite of the pre-Paths Of Glory films.

An exploration of human psychology, even done with clumsy hands, is always interesting. Some of the best movies come from B movies; for sheer entertainment or from sheer gall; the audacity of a movie about aliens or swamp creatures or men with brains on the outside of their heads to really take a swipe at the human condition.

But Paths Of Glory might be one of the best commentaries on war ever depicted in a movie; revolutionary for its time. It’s nothing short of brilliant, and not just because they’ve managed to capture the fact that Kirk and Michael Douglas are the same person.

If you get a chance, watch it; for its time, the scene where they try to take the ant hill is an pulse-pounding depiction of the futility of trench warfare; the disjointed juxtaposition of these trenchmen versus their generals, sipping cognac and throwing parties, is tremendous.

It reminds me of what I always think whenever countries want to go to war and what I would say to any leader who asked.

You first.

Target: 400 words
Written: 277 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: If Chins Could Kill, Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell (funny thing, synchronicity, and the overlap of Kubrick and the Evil Dead)
Comics: Chrononauts 1-4
Music: Kick, INXS (one of my all time favourites)

back to work

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No rest for the weary. No breaks for the forlorn.

No quarter given to the depressed.

Life is a cruel motherfucker. Part of me wonders if I died when I was younger and this was my own personal hell, offering me chance after chance for happiness, but then inflicting such insecurity and depression to fuck them all up.

Life gives us joy only so we know the pain of taking it away (thanks, Kelly).

Life shows us joy so we know what we’re losing.

Target: 400 words
Written: 1030 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Fire Starter Sessions, Danielle Laporte
Comics: Nailbiter Returns 2-5
Music: Various non-album songs, Tragically Hip (my personal muses)

return to the cape

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I can’t lose the sea legs. Every time I sit down, my head feels like I’m still on the waves.

I am not looking forward to sleeping.

I am also looking forward to sleeping.

Is that a metaphor for life or what?

Target: 400 words
Written: 247 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Power Of Now, Eckhart Tolle (so, so much to say about this fraud, but again, it's for a book idea)
Comics: Nailbiter 20-23
Music: Karma Police, Radiohead (I mean, these guys... not so much the later, more pretentious stuff, but everything up to OK Computer, right?)

bimini

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It’s hot here. There is sun and sand and the water is a velvet blue that’s almost unreal.

Naturally, I’m thinking about death.

Well, an afterlife. I don’t believe in religion or God or any of that, though I won’t entirely rule out the possibility of a divine intelligence. I just don’t subscribe to anything specific. For me, anyone who claims to know the mind of God is full of shit; if it’s truly an omnipotent, all-powerful being, then our ability to understand it is equivalent to that of an amoeba grokking cutting edge physics.

Times a million.

Anyone who claims to know otherwise is trying to take your money or control you; that’s it, that’s all.

I know, logically, we decay and separate into atoms which then float out into the world and become part of the fabric of the universe around it (stardust!).

I would like to think our consciousness goes to another place, a new “heaven”, where I get to live out an entire life at each crossroads. Every decision that could have been, how would that have been. Every potential friend, potential lover. Every potential job. What if I took the time to become a botanist, a doctor, a sculptor, a mechanic, a ditch digger, a porn star?

What would it all be like?

Imagine getting to know, really, really know, the people that passed through your life, no matter how minutely. How that girl you saw crying on a bench from the bus window’s life went. What was she crying about? What if you had taken that chance? What if you had made that mistake? What if you did everything right?

You could live an infinite number of lifetimes; the joy isn’t in exploring what would have been different, but in really digging and discovering what was going on around you when it was the same, and how your perspective was coloured by or ignored it. It’s not about the sex you’d have with all those random hot passersby, but taking the time to really understand who they are, what they want, what their past was like, how they think, how they feel and how to connect so completely with them that growing together into something wonderful is inevitable.

It’s about opening up the entire world; in infinity forever. And once you know all you want to know, when you’re done learning, when there’s no more curiosity, then, you can step out the door.

Target: 400 words
Written: 602 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Power Of Now, Eckhart Tolle
Comics: Nailbiter 16-19
Music: The Karate Kid (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), Various (don't ask)

beachin’

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I love returning to the ocean. It is the birthplace of all the life that exists on this world – all of it can be traced to those first few sparks of life in the depths of our water.

I’m a water guy. As a kid, you couldn’t get me out of the pool. You couldn’t get me out of the lake. You couldn’t get me out of the ocean.

The draw is palpable when I’m near water, but especially that natural feel of a lake or ocean, the chill, the sand, the mud and muck, things flitting about you, the salt on your lips.

Bless us, mother Ocean. From your depths, we rise.

Target: 400 words
Written: 190 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Unlimited Power, Tony Robbins
Comics: Cyber Force/Hunter Killer 5
Music: Jump Back, The Rolling Stones (you know, you forget, sometimes, just how many great songs these guys have and you have to wonder... is the devil real?  Did they make that deal?  Is that how Keith Richards is still alive?)

post scene one

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I was really hoping, thirty-seven days into this new year, that the first draft of the first novel (well, novella) I wrote in the canon of me would be a real banger.

Instead, it’s a steaming pile of dog feces.

I suppose we must walk before we run, crawl before we walk, and lay around screaming incoherently before that.

Weirdly, we end that way as well, most of us. We come in screaming, and go out spent, withered husks.

Hump day positivity, folks.

Target: 300 words
Written: 193 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Face It, Debbie Harry
Comics: Sex Criminals 13-16
Music: Jesus Of Suburbia, Green Day (like 3 separate singles)