Attention

Hey, readers.

I'm moving to wordpress. I've found I like the layout there a lot and I like the general feel of using the dashboard a lot more. Hope to see you there! http://biteyourownteeth.wordpress.com/

I'll still be using Blogspot for my artwork, so I won't be gone completely.

Opinions Are Truth

One of the cool things about what I do here is that I don't have to back anything up. This site is just an emotional and philosophical dumping ground where I get to feel smart for ten minutes before I get back to feeling unbalanced and out of sync with reality. I don't have to answer to anybody and there are few consequences if I do or do not decide to defend what I'm saying. I get to say stuff without getting history, medical journals, textbooks or great thinkers to agree with me. In some ways a philosopher (which I am not) might be the only type of intellectual who is allowed to use anecdotal evidence to support their views, as it's often a matter of whether or not what they say resonates with you. In such cases experience is not only acceptable evidence in the spectrum of reasoning out what is and is not so, but it is deadly to dismiss it's value.

There have been many times where a medical or scientific study reaches a substantial and seemingly decisive discovery, yet one group will say that the philosophical implications of said study are the opposite of what conclusions a different group has reached. Failing that, one group will claim that it was a biased study and should be ignored. This is naturally not always the case, or people would never lose their faith ideals, nor would anybody ever be converted. However, when our views are challenged, we get our backs up almost without fail.

Most times it would seem opinions are still driven by emotions. We cling to principles first and justify them with reasons second, no matter how much we convince ourselves otherwise. We all believe we are correct, that's what an opinion is, but we must always enter discussions willing to be convinced that our opinion is false or else truth will never be ours. When a Christian begins to talk to me about atheism, I enter into the conversation with the mindset that they are trying to trap me and I put up a defence. I am already unwilling to listen before they even start talking. Likewise, when an atheist speaks to a Christian they will often feel that the atheist thinks they are stupid for believing what they believe, resulting in the conversation swiftly deteriorating into both people trying to prove their own intelligence without any mutual respect and nothing interesting or important happens. No new opinions are formed, old ones are reinforced. All that happens is that there are now two people who are a little bit more pissed at each other.

If I could just get past my own insecurity, if all of us could, I think we would understand each other much better. This particular type of insecurity makes us have long conversations without listening, and then we try to negate other people's experiences. We observe the world and make decisions based on our knowledge of it, but we also observe ourselves and reach conclusions from our feelings and experiences. To shut yourself out from the wealth of knowledge that is other people's experience or to say that yours are somehow more valid than somebody else's is to become ignorant to an integral part of nearly all aspects of the humanities.

He's Talking to Himself Again

We are on a constant lookout for ways to ease our suffering. Sometimes people manage to find ways to cope with their problems, others change their lives for the better, most just find a way to deal with things in the immediate moment. Even the most prudent person has lived day-to-day for a large part of their life. At least, that's what it seems to me; prudence was never one of my strengths.

A popular and mostly healthy way of dealing with stressful issues is thinking in terms of two possibilities:

a) There is something I can do about it so I will and therefore I won't worry.

b) There is nothing I can do about it so I might as well not worry about it.

I try to keep these things in mind, although it's one of those things that's easy to understand intellectually without really feeling that it's true. It's easy to know that you can't do anything about your terminal illness but it's hard not to worry about it just the same. So, why do we tell ourselves that? It's been my experience that we say this to ourselves because if we think that we can't do anything about it then that will somehow change the outcome; that things will work out for the best somehow. Like a misguided hope, we can fool ourselves into justifying aloofness and irresponsibility (I speak from experience). We all know, intellectually and experientially, this is not always the case.

We say that we can do something about it, so we WILL, doggonit. However, we don't always pick up the guitar and write a hit song or study hard and win a Nobel Prize because frankly, we can't always be bothered. It almost never works out that way and there are far too many outside forces to truly take into account.

Still, reality has a way of running ahead of you, whether you are determined to move ahead or surrender yourself to happenstance. You can't do anything about and you can't not do anything about it; reality just runs at a steady pace and you are powerless to stop it or slow it down. In both cases I think there's a possibility that the thinker has separated themselves from Happening. I think that's why people should practice deep meditation.

Meditation isn't just a relaxation technique. If it were then it would just be called "sitting relaxation". I've heard a few people tell me that it's great that I've started meditation, but that it's not for them. How many people reading this think that they can't sit still for that long or that they simply just can't quiet their minds for any period of time? Anybody who knows me should be aware that I'm a fidgeting ball of thoughts that jumps from topic to topic. It's especially that type of person that should be slowing down and letting their intellectual and emotional dust settle. It's not easy at first; there's a reason I call it my "practice". The reasons behind it aren't to stop thinking about your problems, or let your muscles relax; those are happy side-effects. I'm beginning to realize that the real reason is to stop thinking in words for a little bit of the day.

Let me be clear. I love words and language, the most beautiful of inventions.

HOWEVER
Words bring clarity but also confusion. They compartmentalize but also obfuscate.
To those that think I'm just spewing new-age piffle: well, I kind of am. I'm kind of stating the obvious, but it's been a revelation to me. To think of things not as letters on a page or as a sound from one's mouth to my ear but as real things and experiences, is to look at the same thing and see something else and it's kind of humbling in a weird way. Shit, I'm getting tangential again.

The great modern Hindu sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi, once said, "Meditation depends upon the strength of mind. It must be unceasing even when one is engaged in work. Particular time for it is meant for novices." He describes meditation as, "Sticking to one thought. That single thought keeps away other thoughts; distraction of mind is a sign of its weakness; by constant meditation it gains strength."

What I take away from that, is to stop thinking in terms of what you can and cannot do about your daily troubles but to live as a part of Happening; as a part of Now. Dividing your issues into things you can and can't fix is a good way of looking at it as long as it's not a trick to make you feel better, but a cessation of distracting and unnecessary worries. After all, if something's going wrong it can be painful even if you have no other option. It's not as easy as just putting it out of your mind. That's why I have been meditating for nearly a year, and why I won't stop until I am not.

Everybody and I mean everybody, is at war with themselves. I believe that pain comes from distraction by the past and future and is not escaped from, but overcome by constant participation in the Now. I do mean constant participation. You will never have "made it," you will never be "done," but it's going to be ok.

How Santa Ruined Religion

One of the problems with trying to describe yourself is that one word attributes just don't cut it. So sometimes it's better just to give examples.

I think one of my defining characteristics is best illustrated by my reaction to being told there was and then later wasn't a Santa Claus. I never thought he existed, at least I can't remember ever believing. However, there was always this terrible feeling that there was something going on and that there could actually be a Santa Claus. I like to call it optimistic pessimism. Besides, my parents told me he was real and that was the story they were sticking to, so that was good enough for me.

So good, in fact, that I would defend his existence to the more skeptical kids in the neighbourhood. As a point of honour, I would fiercely defend something I wasn't sure I believed but wanted to so badly. I got made fun of and roughed up a bit over it, but it was so worth it at the time.

Time passed and my suspicions were confirmed when one of my parents broke the news to me in passing (I was old enough that it would be safe to assume I had outgrown these things) in a very, "but of course, you already knew that," type of manner. This was fine, of course. I did already know that. I'd known that for a long time but now; now I could feel it. Sometimes, confirming what you already knew can still make your heart sink.

Fast forward a decade and a half and I'm frying much bigger proverbial fish. I have had life changes a-plenty mostly revolving around my moral structure and beliefs. Not an easy thing to adjust, kids. Yet, it still seems like I'm wresting with the same issue under a different name.

Say you wade through the treacherous muck of trying to reason through whether there is or isn't a God. Say you make it through to a totally solid, unwavering conclusion with your sanity still intact. Say that conclusion is that there is, indeed a higher power and Creator. What now? So all of creation is too wondrous and magical to have been the product of circumstance. So God made it. Who's God? Your God? The Christian God (among which there are many different versions)? The Druidic gods? Allah? Yahweh? Shiva? Amaterasu? How do you know it's yours?

I don't mean to be challenging anybody or their beliefs, although in essence that's probably what I'm doing anyway. It's more that I don't get how anybody can be certain of their God. I don't have a distaste for organized religion from a belief that it's inherently wrong/unethical/evil (although I do find it a little unnerving); I have a problem with it because I don't see how any rational person could pick one. I honestly, truly do not understand. Not because I think I'm any better, more clever, or more insightful than the next person. I just don't know how anybody could think their way through it without a suffocating amount of doubt.

Some might say something like, "oh, you haven't felt His love," or, "open yourself to His word and you'll understand," or something equally presumptuous and insulting to my own religious experiences. Too many times have I been told that if I could only feel Him like they do, it would all suddenly make sense. I have felt it. I feel it every fucking day. You know what I haven't felt? The need to go to Mass. The need to find a mosque. The need to visit a stupa. (These are all very cool places and a neat experience but I haven't personally found any spiritual significance in any of them.) They are places where Santa Claus lives. They're places for me to go for me to feed that part of me that wants an easy explanation to why Santa (God) exists even though I don't trust a single one of them, mainly because there's way too freaking many of them.

I mean, seriously. It's hard enough already trying to figure out whether or not God is a real thing. Now I have to sift through the umpteen trillion versions and find out which one makes the most sense? God's not a "Him," by the way.

UGH

Every religion, at some point in it's doctrine or mythology, says something an outsider would consider pretty outlandish. Transubstantiation? Nirvana? Heaven and Hell? Slow down, buddy, we have a lot of ground to cover. Also, many religions like to look at other religious institutions and point out how silly and far-fetched they are while totally ignoring the part where they say the can make things change form without changing physical attributes.

And that the form is human blood and flesh.

And that the blood and flesh is to be consumed.

But look at those Yoga freaks with their Chakra! Silly hippies!

Another thing is that, with a couple of exceptions, each religion bases it's beliefs on it's God(s). Whether the philosophy came first or the God did, the teachings mainly boil down to, "because God said so." Most of them have some common ground: don't kill (but we have special cases when it's allowed), don't steal, don't be dishonest. However, some start to differ in drastic ways ranging from diet to worship techniques, prayers, attitudes, relationships and philosophies. The differences seem to be inextricably tied into who and where the people were at the birth of the belief.

Some might claim their religion simply follows the law of nature and that's proof enough that it's the right path. From Taoism to the Tridentine Rite, but rarely do they actually explain what that means outside of their own terms. Natural law is still the religious law. What do you mean by "natural"? Do you mean the way things are or the way they are supposed to be? Lots of people believe in Fallen Nature, and heck, I'm inclined to believe it. People are capable of nasty things but how is our refusal to give into our inclination towards nastiness following the law of nature? I mean in nature, animals shag all the time and don't even call the next day, all the while never feeling the slightest twinge of guilt. It's natural. So why do believers of natural law believe that marriage is so important and sacred?

I don't not believe in marriage and I am not by any stretch of the mind promiscuous or polyamorous (full respects extended to rationally promiscuous people and polygamists), but I can't get it to make sense in my head. I don't want to dwell on the marriage thing too long, as it's only an example and not my real point. It just all reeks of design by committee. Several committees. Over several hundred years. Not by God; I guess that's my point.

Bleh. I'm running on too long with this. My point is, you can't just say, "My God makes the most sense," and give me endless, convoluted reasons why. Well you can, but they had damn well better be good, different reasons.

C.S. Lewis once said this:

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

Which is totally awesome and astute and everything, but that doesn't just go for Christianity. It goes for just about everything except nihilism. It's true for every single bloody religion on this planet. If any one of them is true then it's very important that we all try and figure that out. Which kind of makes the quote not mean anything at all. I mean, come on!

DAMN.

Belief is Scary

So something I've kind of fibbed about is my comfort in my beliefs. I guess it's more of a fib of omission. You see, I'd been worried for a long time that despite my honesty with myself and what it is that I fundamentally believe in (the "what" at least; I'm still working on the "why"), there has been a terrifying thought in the back of my head that this is all a form of escapism. I worry that I have retreated from God and Society under a false pretense of enlightenment or a phoney spiritual pride that makes it OK to ignore the responsibilities of adulthood.

It's occurred to me that these fears are not unfounded. I believe that I am quite guilty of escapism in a few ways, but maybe not the ones I expected.

It hit me when I spotted something I disagreed with from one of my favourite philosophers, and was very distraught. Trying to justify it or figure out what it was he meant, because I must have been misunderstanding him. I was scared that I hadn't found the answer after all, after having come so far. I had also begun to worry about money yet again. After all that mental conditioning I've put myself through, after telling myself that it's all going to be OK, I still freak out and have panic attacks. All that work for nothing, it would seem.

Of course, the very same philosopher (once again, Alan MF-ing Watts makes another appearance in my ramblings) said, "To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float."

Herein lies the answer to those that accuse the "take the path of least resistance" approach as escapism. The mistake that is usually made is the misinterpretation that it means to give up, or be lazy. It is, in fact, escapism to not take that approach because to open yourself up to possibilities, to the harshness of life, and to the fact that no matter how much you learn, to matter how much you deliberate and contemplate, there is always the possibility that you are mistaken; it requires a commendable about of courage. What a terrifying beast doubt can be, and yet it's so fundamentally important to the search for truth. It is when doubt instead becomes this kind of faith that peace can be found, I think. Of course, that's something I still violently struggle with and it's a source of great frustration for me. It's hard to hold on to faith. Everybody knows that.

I had nearly forgotten that this faith is what pulled me out of that self-destructive mindset in the first place. How hilarious is it that it's the same thing that is now a new source of anxiety? The excitement of thinking about things from a new angle has worn off, meditation has become a routine (which I guess it's supposed to be) rather than a new and exciting exercise, and my beliefs are becoming just that: beliefs. Faith brings liberation, but beliefs become ingrained into your very being and eventually confusion when confronted by that faith you had at the beginning.

So, doubt became faith, which became belief, which became doubt again, and now I guess after this self-revelation I'm at the faith stage again. So how does one stop this strangling cycle and stay at the faith part? I wish I could be like the axle of a wheel; fixed in place and part of a whole, but unstuck to the machinations around it.

Then There's THIS Guy

I didn't really get to know my Dad's Dad (something I sincerely regret to this day) nor did I ever get the chance to meet his Mother. My fondest memory of my Grandad was perhaps the only chance I got to really see what part he played in turning Dad into who he is today (I don't claim to know what did it for sure, I wasn't around then but I'm hazarding a few guesses here); it was when he came to visit us on Kelly Island, shortly after we had moved to Southern Ontario. He sat down at our little electric organ and played Barnacle Bill the Sailor, singing in a deep bass voice. Suddenly this serious, ex-military, and as far as I was concerned phenomenally old man was a weird, bouncy thing. There was a spring in his rhythm and a spark in his eyes, and I remember thinking, "This is where my father came from."

My Dad is a poet, although I had no idea until I was a teenager.

My Dad is an artist, although I had no idea how much of it he had put aside for his family.

My Dad is a man of nature, although I had a difficult time understanding what that meant.

My Dad is inquisitive, and by God I'm glad he passed that on to his children.

You see, we all used to poke fun at him for reading every plaque he crossed, or sometimes we would be on vacation and he'd be struck by a certain type of tree and he would ask the locals what it was called. This sometimes embarrassed us, but it was usually just an "Oh, Daaaaad," moment. Now that I'm grown (more or less), I find myself walking through the Mount Pleasant park/graveyard, struck dumb by the Red Japanese Maple trees there, and being driven to find other interesting things and find out what they are. It suddenly dawned on me that were it not for my father, I might not be experiencing the joy of nature and discovery. My Dad taught me many things, but the biggest, most important thing was how to look (and I'm not just talking about nature anymore). How to really see things. How to let myself be mystified.

After having studied Zen for a while, I've been getting obsessed with trying to spot people's true selves (counter-productive if you know anything about Zen, but shut up, it's interesting), and whenever I see my Father laugh it is, without a doubt, Who He Really Is. It's one, loud guffaw. A "HAH!" followed by several, much quieter guffaws. Whenever he laughs I have to restrain myself from saying "There you are!" When I come home to visit, no matter what troubles he is having, his face will always light up. I believe he sees something in his family that few others can see.This photo is a picture of eyes that, whether they know it or not, see God in everything.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. Thank you.

I'm Not a Doctor, But...

I'm here today to talk about something I know nothing about so that I can draw a parallel to the rest of life and come to my own conclusions. So, this entry is really just like any other. Except I'll be talking about ADD/ADHD. No, no, put down your medical journals and baseball bats, I'll try not to make any sweeping generalizations. At least, none that I don't think aren't true.

There's kind of a split of opinions on the topic. Some people think it's a serious condition that needs special care and attention and some others think it's imaginary or a way to excuse medication that makes your kids shut the hell up and sit down. Most of the people of the former opinion are doctors and scientists so I, for one, am inclined to agree with them for the most part. However, there is one other school of thought on the subject: it's both. I came across that article while trying to look up studies and symptoms of ADHD for an online conversation I was having on the subject. It struck a chord with me because it kind of touched on a few undeveloped, abstract thoughts I've had on mental "disorders." Let me make it clear that I'm not talking about severe mental illnesses or psychosis here. I'm talking mainly about ADD/ADHD, and to a lesser extent, things like dysthymia, Aspergers, and high-function autism.

First off, I've never been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD but it has been suggested by a professional that I get checked out for adult ADHD. (I never bothered, I kept forgetting. What's that tell you?) I have, however, met several people with it and with similar problems. Conditions that don't stop them from living, communicating and interacting with other people like any normal person, but every once in a while you see a little bit of the anguish they're in bubble up when they're trying to concentrate, or when they have a seeming inability to empathize with people, or even doing something simple, like packing a box of stuff when they are moving to another apartment. There are some things they just can't do. That's fine, right? Nobody can do everything. Well, what if these are things necessary to living properly in modern life? Well, I'm beginning to think that a huge reason, if not the only reason, that these people are in so much pain is because we haven't made any room for them.

There's one thing I've noticed about people with ADHD: they're often way more interesting than other people. Sorry if I seem to be trivialising it, but it's almost more of a charming personality quirk than a damaging mental illness to me. Dampening the penchant for energy and jumping from subject to subject is almost tragic to me. Of course, there are extreme cases where the person can't function. I obviously understand the necessity of curbing and strengthening the attention span; but what about a bit of change in our world as well? Wouldn't it make more sense to meet half-way and figure out what it is these kids are good at, rather than label their personalities as handicaps and fill them with ritalin (which has fantastic uses, I know) and call it a day? I can say with both anecdotal and scientific-ish evidence that kids with ADHD are good at and enjoy sports and games and that they can even help treat the condition, even if they suffer academically.

Unfortunately, in most schools you have to do well academically to stay on the sports team or in the chess club. You fail history, you're off the football team. Well, what if football is your life's dream and you think history is bullshit? You shouldn't be required to give a damn about every single subject just so you can do what you love. In the first article I mentioned, in a hunter-gatherer society, ADHD would be an actual advantage, which is why it would have been preserved in evolution. Yet, now that things have changed, it's a burden on your shoulders and there's no place for you unless you play by our rules.

What I'm ultimately trying to say is, in the words of Bruce Banner when he had to deliberately turn into the Hulk to save the day, "We can't control it, but maybe we can sort of aim it."

Stop calling it a problem and start working with it. Even the greats had their issues to tangle with, but it's what made them great. I knew one artist who had ADD and instead of taking medication, he used his art as therapy and eventually became an incredible cartoonist and one of my biggest influences. Because of his short attention span, he'd draw fast, flowing but twisted and anarchic sketches. In fact, he inspired me to deal with my own lack of an attention span in a similar way. You see? We can even learn how to deal with our own, non-diagnosed problems in the same way.

I acknowledge that sometimes medication is necessary or at least preferable, but the ruling thought behind it is not always admirable. I'd love for people to stop trying to help these people fit into a world where there's no room for them by changing or fixing their problems. Rather, it would bring me great joy to see people turn their "problems" into something that changes and fixes the world.

That's what life's all about, after all; taking what you've been given and carving something out for yourself.