Idea

I think I have an idea! I'm actually feeling excited. I'll let you know more about it when I finally can't keep it in. This book might happen.

TSN turning point

Everyone's been wondering where I've been, wondering why I haven't written for so long. The truth is, I've been a victim of myself for a long time now. Everytime i set my sights on writing something I hesitate or fall asleep. Part of me feels my mind is trying to tell me to save my thoughts for a more prestigious forum. Blogging like all other internet ventures is subject to overkill. Too many people blog; it would take a person a lifetime to surf through any blogging forum. Doing so would hardly make for an entertaining ride. There's only so many posts a person can read about lost love and the vague thoughts about life that arise from it. Pictures of memories I wasn't a part of, anecdotes about adventures I never had, thoughts about songs and books I've never heard or read, I find myself horribly uninterested in reading other people's blogs.

I find it interesting that companies are using blogging as the new forum of discussion. Companies are too interested in numbers and not at all interested enough in substance. People really don't want to read 'blogs' on carpet cleaner, tupperware and other small business projects. Blogging was popular because it was personal. Far be it from the global world of business to respect the need for individuality.

The blog world is largely a glorified closet of diaries, some more precioius than others, and it has served me well. It has given me a means to express myself to myself in hopes that I might hear myself and understand myself. Along the way I've invited you all to listen in on my monologue. But it has been just that, a monologue. I've wanted to see my thoughts in script and see people responding to them, rather than to me. The explosion of ideas hasn't stopped although, they still plague my wafeful life and I think I need to organize them, and work on them. But even if I were to compile the sum total of my thoughts and lay them out on blogspot to the effect of critical acclaim from my friends and other onlookers, I would not be satisfied, because it just seems as though I'm still here talking to myself out loud with a microphone. In Cuba, while watching the entertainment reenact Les Mis and Phantom I thought about how there is so much wasted talent in the world, and how it's sick that we give so much accreditation to those with far less ability but far more makeup. I take Cuban Talent over American Idol anyday. Anyhow, talent plus opportunity together should never be wasted, so I think I ought to use the former to find the latter.

Henceforth, I'm only going to dabble witih introspection and churning out ideas online; The Book of Jam will be more of a story, a story of how things are going, what I'm up to. As university has drawn to a close for the majority of my friends, and soon enough shall for me as well, I think it would be nice if those who tune in every couple months can catch up with me without having to catch me. I forsee a lengthy period of cooking up something crazy in the lab; the Book of Jam is now my periodic messages that I slip under the door to let the people know what's good. I wouldn't want to keep the 3 of you worried.

That being said...

Bob Marley - Acoustic Medley (revisited)

...
Comma, comma, come back here,
My-y young lady;
Comma, comma, come back here to me,
My-y young lady, yeah!
Jus' while I thought
Everything was running smooth,
She left me
While I was in the mood.
Now I'm callin' to you,
...

Honesty

It seems like honesty triumphs over all. You know, I could think of a 101 posts, 101 ways of saying that I'm depressed, but it wasn't until I just admitted that I was flat out depressed that I was afforded a means to climb out of my depression.

I'm feeling better now. Things are coming together. Optimism has its virtues, and I think I'm starting to see them. Even opaque clouds will dissipate.

The truth is...

There's no better way to put it really. I'm depressed. I am in an opaque cloud of despair, so I'm not the best person to ask whether or not there is a silver lining. It's scary saying that I need help, so I won't, even though I just did.

If you laughed at that I hope you're not the one who offers me help; from you, I don't want it.

Just short of the mark

I'm 178 cms tall. 5 feet, 11.27 inches. So close to 6 I can just taste it. So close to success I can just taste it.

I wish I had the words to write my essay that was due 3 days ago. I wish I had the words to successfully write a post on blogspot worth reading. I wish I had the words to win over the approval of my professors. I wish I had the words to win over the approval of that special someone. I wish I had the words to anger myself enough to get out of this rut. I wish I had the words to tell the world, "Here I come!"

I'm short of words, short of enough words to do any of these things. I'm just a bit too short.

100

I'm still here.

99th post! On election day. Talk about Canadian pride! Get it? Gretzky!

They're all attempts. Attempts at being a man, attempts at being successful, attempts at finding happiness, at getting in shape, at being responsible, at finding a balance between dreaming and living. Everything I do is just an attempt, a trial, a run-through!

'Keep moving, keep trying,' the voices tell me, some of them my own voices. Try again doesn't seem any more convincing in situations that matter than it does on the bottom of a bottle cap or the underside of a coffee cup rim.

Seems like an epistemic gap. Am I punching a wall or cutting down a tree? Here's the process. Try, fail, try again, fail, try again, fail, but is there progress? Am i simply mashing my flesh against brick? I haven't trained my flesh for long enough, the brick will surely withstand the test of my wrath. Or, am I chopping away at the tree with my axe, and every failure is a small victory; soon the tree will topple over and I will dance! Inspiration suggests it's the latter, but Inspiration is biased, I don't trust him much. I guess I'll never know. The gap increases until my fist breaks.

Then the sun shines down on me and says to me, 'Don't worry fella, there are bigger problems out there, like the fact that you're not a man.' I lack the guts to hurt a man. I shoulda fucking punched that bouncer in his face and broke my glass over his skull. Then, when he would proceed to lay it on me with his superior expertise in offering an ass-kicking, then my crew who was right behind me could gang up on him and lay into him swiftly. A man would've done it. A man would've ruined his friend's birthday on account of having been challenged. A man would have the guts to tell someone off to their face when the news might crush them too. I'm not a man. The real question is, 'What will I do when it doesn't make sense not to fight?'

I lack conviction. Today's election day. I don't care. I wish I had the courage to be wrong about my choice. It must be nice sometimes to go to sleep thinking, 'I don't care, abortion is wrong and should be illegal,' or to say, 'Every women deserves the right to choose, even if she's misguided and using the clinic as a contraceptive.' People who can say either must get more sleep than me. For every conclusion a man with conviction comes to, I come to three; that he's right sometimes, that he's wrong sometimes, and that there must exist a balance between the preceding conclusions.

I hope all three major parties get exactly 30% of the votes, and the others share the remaining 10. That would be my choice. Three parties, three conclusions, that's my idea of a fair Canada.

We elect a party for the same reason we appoint a dictator - it's faster that way. Decisions are made faster, and the country moves forward in one direction, not three. We have 4 years to decide whether we enjoyed the majority of the leading party's past decisions, and then decide to be ruled again, either by them or the next best thing. Every now and then, they make a major screw-up and we speed up this process. That's what we're doing tomorrow, or today rather.

I've never liked multiple choice tests; it never really seems like you get to display your true knowledge in a course that way, what you've learned, what you believe. I've never liked multiple choice ballots; it never really seems like you get to display your true voice on a topic, what you agree with, what you believe in. Either way, you mark an X in the box, give the sheet to whoever's in charge, and then get a result you're probably not going to like. I wish we used our supercomputers to process the feelings and opinions of eligible voters by scanning through 30 million essays. Wouldn't that be better? Or wait, here's my timely third conclusion, what if we at least just had a choice? That would make everybody happy, those who prefer multiple choice exams and those who prefer courses with essays could stand together and hold hands in unity.

There's more, so much more on my mind and on my chest. Sadly, there's even more on my desk. So I ought to get to work at clearing that off.

It's 2006

There will be no retrospective look at 2005 from me. I spent most of 2005 reflecting on 2004 and the years preceding. 2006 will be mostly about focusing on the present. 2007 will be mostly about looking towards the future. To all my readers (both of you) and to all those randomly searching through blogs, I hope you all had a happy holiday season.