Despite having spent most of the past year confronting the limitations of rationality, I am still struggling to comprehend that much of the time, the challenges that life throws at you can't be solved using a linear model of logic.
The lack of linearity offer by life's winding paths appears to have stumped me as I look towards the direction I am heading for the fall. Yes, I understand this is not a life or death situation, but on the other hand, in some ways it is.
It is a life or death situation on a metaphorical scale; for what I choose to do now will likely be how I occupy the larger part of the next 12 months. Will I spend these months toiling away with purpose, or will I fall victim to my own depressive tendencies and instead spend the next year of my life wallowing in confusion.
I expect that confusion will inevitably continue to follow me around like an annoying child, but at this moment, its hold is incredibly strong as I struggle to use my rational mind to find an answer to a "problem" that really has no answer.
Whether I choose to stay in Calgary or move, there will be an emotional pull. My heart strings are rooted here, but my true feeling of home lies in Vancouver. It might be time to go back to my roots and find out what I left behind there.
Either way, this decision comes down to a decision of meaning; a decision as to where I want to derive meaning from for at least the next 12 months of my life. As someone who takes great pleasure in pondering life's big questions, this decision is not just a matter of where I will live (Calgary or Vancouver), but rather it is a question as to what makes life meaningful.
Does having a secure job make life worth living? Earning a decent salary? Being independent? Being in love? Being free to travel, free to write, free to discover WHO I AM.
Perhaps that's what the problem is. I am afraid of staying in Calgary, because I know who I am in this city...but what if that isn't me? This sounds strangely similar to the Sara who left Vancouver four years ago to find her true self.
She thought she found her, but now look, she's running away again.
I am running away from who I am, because I am afraid of being finished, or getting stuck. I'm afraid of settling into a comfortable life, because the longer you stay in that comfort zone, the harder it is to leave.
I know I'm not ready to settle - in any sense of the word - just yet, but part of me also doesn't feel ready to leave Calgary. I feel as though this city has a lot more to offer me, as do I to it.
Yet Vancouver is also full of mysterious pockets just waiting to be explored.
What if the person I am supposed to be is waiting in these pockets?
But wait, that "person" that ideal person that I keep hoping to uncover doesn't exist.
I am constantly in the process of being made - or becoming as Heidegger would remind us - and the fact of the matter is that I will continue to be made in this city or any other.
The real question is just determining which city can provide the best mold to shape my future existence.
I don't know the answer to this question, and I'm never going to know because there is no answer.
All there is is time and chance, and its time for me to start embracing both of these before its too late.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
This is my first live blog
This is my first live blog.
I don't know if anyone will ever read this, or if I will even have anything of importance to say. Actually, I will never have anything of importance to say. Just what is one my mind, what is confusing me, what makes me wonder why we all struggle to find happiness when it is just something that we as human beings have constructed to provide meaning to our measly little reality.
As you may notice, I have named this blog "From the moon's surface, we are all one." This titled is both arbitrary and meaningful at the same time.
Arbitrary because I had to choose it; meaningful because today I read an article in the Globe and Mail celebrating all the men who have been to the moon and back, and I now have that infamous picture taken of earth from the moon's surface as the my desktop background. Also, tomorrow is the next full moon.
I have always had a deep interest in the mystery that lies behind that cloudy grey mass of rock that becomes our guiding force of light at earth's darkest hours. The guidance provided by the moon never ceases to amaze me, and continuously offers up a humbling expression of what I can never be: a guiding force to mankind.
There are very few human beings on earth who have or ever will possess the ability to amaze or inspire the majority of billions living on this planet, and only these individuals deserve the same type of cudos that we may grant to the moon.
Outside of these select few, the moon acts as a reminder of our humanity, or rather, or lack of infinity. Our inability, as human beings, to transcend our mortal existence on this planet. While for many conquering the innate transience of our lives may be depressing, or rather, a thought that never crosses their mind, for me, this transience symbolizes our continuous struggle to uncover and hold onto those moments that make life meaningful. This struggle is continuous and also immanent. It exists only in the here and now, with us, as our existence ticks away on this tiny plantet. It is a struggle we will all encounter in our lifetime, and one that none of us can hope to over come.
The reality of our lives is transience; the reality of the moon is not. It moves in and out of our days; swinging from a crescent to a beaming ball of light and back again.
While life's moments slip through our fingers like the sand in an hour glass we can only hope to retain the memories that make life worth living.
The moon, however, in its cycles remains constant: a constant reminder that we are in a continuous state of flux moving ever closer towards death.
I don't know if anyone will ever read this, or if I will even have anything of importance to say. Actually, I will never have anything of importance to say. Just what is one my mind, what is confusing me, what makes me wonder why we all struggle to find happiness when it is just something that we as human beings have constructed to provide meaning to our measly little reality.
As you may notice, I have named this blog "From the moon's surface, we are all one." This titled is both arbitrary and meaningful at the same time.
Arbitrary because I had to choose it; meaningful because today I read an article in the Globe and Mail celebrating all the men who have been to the moon and back, and I now have that infamous picture taken of earth from the moon's surface as the my desktop background. Also, tomorrow is the next full moon.
I have always had a deep interest in the mystery that lies behind that cloudy grey mass of rock that becomes our guiding force of light at earth's darkest hours. The guidance provided by the moon never ceases to amaze me, and continuously offers up a humbling expression of what I can never be: a guiding force to mankind.
There are very few human beings on earth who have or ever will possess the ability to amaze or inspire the majority of billions living on this planet, and only these individuals deserve the same type of cudos that we may grant to the moon.
Outside of these select few, the moon acts as a reminder of our humanity, or rather, or lack of infinity. Our inability, as human beings, to transcend our mortal existence on this planet. While for many conquering the innate transience of our lives may be depressing, or rather, a thought that never crosses their mind, for me, this transience symbolizes our continuous struggle to uncover and hold onto those moments that make life meaningful. This struggle is continuous and also immanent. It exists only in the here and now, with us, as our existence ticks away on this tiny plantet. It is a struggle we will all encounter in our lifetime, and one that none of us can hope to over come.
The reality of our lives is transience; the reality of the moon is not. It moves in and out of our days; swinging from a crescent to a beaming ball of light and back again.
While life's moments slip through our fingers like the sand in an hour glass we can only hope to retain the memories that make life worth living.
The moon, however, in its cycles remains constant: a constant reminder that we are in a continuous state of flux moving ever closer towards death.
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