Category: philosophy

we are not who we think we are

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It’s common in Taoism, Buddhism, etc., to assume that the mind is not who we are, that we are something beyond our conditioning, our monkey minds, the trappings of our social circles and belief systems.

That there is something, someone beneath all that, so completely in tune with the universe that it can, if we can fall back into it, blow away all the bullshit of our selves and lives with a gentle breath, to reveal the bodhisattva at the centre of it all.

I believe this to be largely true. I’m not a religious man, but when I’ve sat and peeled layers, letting each go in turn…

I’m in there. I’m at the centre, not matter how rotten the layers get as we head toward the outside of me.

And that centre is everything.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2105 words, comic: The Stuff #1

Read: The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. "DawggyDawg" Salinger
Comics: Cinderella: Fables Are Forever 4-6, Fables 102
Music: With The Beatles, The Beatles

2026

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Well, a relaxing night last night amidst weird changes – I’ve become convinced I’ll be rewriting the penultimate scene before the climax and epilogue of Boor & Aghast. We’re enforcing sobriety on someone, in the hopes that they won’t kill themselves or others driving.

We’ve lost most of our friends, inexplicably, and the ones who’ve stuck with us are true.

I’m not sure what the rumour mill is, or the allegation, or whether it’s just people tired of me not kowtowing to right or left wing hardlines, despite being entirely anti-Trump.

Sorry, but outrage is a terrible way to live, and proportion is a conversation that must be had.

We end people’s lives over stuff that isn’t actually all that traumatic. A micro-aggression is no reason to blow somebody up. It’s a polite conversation for understanding; not a social media smear campaign designed to destroy families, careers, relationships, and ultimately, probably radicalize the individual in the opposite direction.

If a kid swears in front of his parents, we don’t treat them like a murderer; we talk to them about the appropriate use of language.

Perspective and proportion, always. You don’t use a tank when a flyswatter will do.

Anyway, happy new year; here’s hoping this is the year some sanity returns.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 765 words, short story: Perspective

Read: The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger
Comics: Fables 99-100, Jack Of Fables 48-49
Music: Winning Days, The Vines

we are all going to die

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I mean, probably. Well, definitely. The question is really when and how.

Is it when Trump starts the end of the world? Is it a pandemic exploding through us because morons think vaccinations are somehow worse than the disease they’re designed to protect against?

Is it climate change?

When I write, I’ve often dreamed of it as being read still hundreds of years hence (I imagine that’s true of many artists). At this point though, hurtling toward climate collapse at least, I’d be happy if we still had books at all in twenty years. Or if anyone was around to read them.

Maybe someday, aliens will settle our barren, self-destroyed plant, and find our written missives and using supercomputers we haven’t dreamed of, translate them and think, Jesus, what a bunch of fucking assholes.

And they blew it all up.

Damn, dirty apes.

(A story, as told by a fatalist, using cultural references aliens probably won’t get, because I don’t think we ever beamed Charlton Heston to space. We are the monkeys, man! The monkeys are us!)

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1071 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Tesla: Man Out Of Time, Margaret Cheney
Comics: Fables 40-43
Music: The White Stripes, The White Stripes

truth telling

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I mean, I know we all think we know the truth, but the reality is that the truth is what it is and we are not always aware of all of the aspects of it. Multiple things can be true at any given time.

I have not lived an exemplary life. I’ve lied, I’ve cheated (my family and all my friends banned me from playing Monopoly) and probably worse, if I’m honest about it.

I am still not entirely honest with myself and the people around me, because I feel rejection. I have issues with insecurity and depression.

None of these things means I’m a horrible person by necessity, but neither do they make me an exemplary one.

Truth and perspective are the two things I chase most in my life, and as I get older and open myself up to that more, instead of living in safely comfortable fictions and denial, I find the truest thing I know is that truth and perspective are often not in accordance, but more of one inevitably creates more of the other.

Enough perspective and truth is revealed; how could it not be?

Truth knocks us out of our fictions, our blind spots; it provides perspective where none may have existed.

More truth. More perspectives. These are the only things that matter.

There is truth. There is perspective.

These things are not mutually exclusive. But one perspective, held without truth…

Well, there’s the rub, isn’t it?

Target: 1400 words
Written: 791 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel
Comics: Fables 5-8
Music: While You Were Out, Soul Asylum

reminders

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This book is reminding me of why I love the Hip, and Gord Downie in particular, and why my heroes went from being rebels who gave everyone the finger, to nice people who weren’t afraid of hard truths and dark places.

Loudmouth boors be damned.

Give me a soft-spoken purveyor of real things, dark and light, any day.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1407 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v6 4-7
Music: Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?, Harvey Danger (one of my youthful favourites)

remember

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Now, more than ever.

Remember.

When the masks come off, it will be the face of the hopeful that shine, and the face of the condemned that bleed with fear.

Remember.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1623 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Quiet: The Power Of Introverts, Susan Cain
Comics: Shattered Image 1-2, X-Force/Youngblood 1, Extremely Youngblood 1
Music: A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight, Beck

how proper can we get

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How precious? How far are we willing to sacrifice our happiness to hypocrisy, cruelty or outrage?

How many concessions must we make to others’ feelings?

Is there a limit to empathy? Is there a limit to courtesy?

Sometimes, joking about farts or shit or cum or dicks and boobs is just fun.

What happens when we live for the microaggression, so we can live for our offense? So we can satisfy the dragon of outrage?

Or should the focus be on live and let live, taking a stand when it truly matters, like ICE or concentration camps or the oppression of the minority vote?

Sometimes, a U-turn is strategic, not sexist. That’s all I have to say about that.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1275 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Faded Sun: Kesrith, C.J. Cherryh
Comics: Bloodpool 2, Riptide 1, Youngblood v2 1, Chapel v2 3
Music: The Weirdness, The Stooges (yikes, downhill, guys)

downtown trick-or-treating

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That’s actually a really cool idea. Kids going store to store. The stores get good PR and publicity and karma (and maybe sales) by doing it. I wonder why we don’t do that here? It was a real hit in Belleville.

Plus, they had Burger Revolution, which somehow equated Che Guevara with dead cow.

I’m torn on Guevara. I know he’s an icon for t-shirts and all, but he wasn’t exactly a great guy. I mean, he was Castro’s right hand man, and Castro was a piece of shit. Death squads by both and the whole bit.

Sort of a nice in theory, terrible in execution icon, like communism or vegans.

Anyway, fun day. Good burger. I love me some caramelized onions.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 697 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Faded Sun: Kesrith, C.J. Cherryh
Comics: Brigade v2 25, Violator Vs. Badrock 3, Bloodstrike Assassin 2, Chapel v2 1
Music: Weighting, Rollins Band

you know what would be cool?

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If there were like, only a few million people on earth. Enough so you’d have someone to talk to, and stuff to trade, but otherwise, you’re mostly left alone to do the things you want or need to do.

Also, if they could all be cool, that’d be great.

It is an issue, though, this overpopulation. We’re breeding ourselves out, and we’re ignoring it completely.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2672 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Farley Mowat
Comics: Bloodstrike 18, New Men 10, Brigade v2 16, Team Youngblood 17
Music: Ween Essentials, Ween (ween ourselves right out)

edith, you tear me apart

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I’m torn between Edith Piaf songs. Mon Dieu or Le Vieux Piano?

Which has cachet?

Which is a starter?

Which would you use on opening credits, for a book about fighting and dichotomies, and things that could never end well, because militancy rarely does?

Moderation in everything, save freedom, which is inevitable anyway.

We are all free, always.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1324 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Farley Mowat
Comics: Brigade v2 15, Badrock And Company 5, Extreme Sacrifice 1, Supreme 23
Music: We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, Modest Mouse