Creativity

I realized how much a difference one year makes. There is a saying that goes something like, "it takes one second to completely turn your life around". If one second equals one opportunity, then there are so many chances for me to do something worthwhile with my life.

I always hated it when people said that they wanted to do something meaningful in their life. It's interesting if I think about it and ask what it all means in the end, to create some sort of meaning. It is not that I am nihilistic...I just feel that trying to make meaning is almost meaningless sometimes. Leaving this world being satisfied with whatever accomplishments I have reached makes me feel as if there is something more. Well, that thought is for another discussion.

People can be both predictable and unpredictable. It's what makes us so interesting. History of past events and narratives may help us to make better decisions in the future, but sometimes it is sufficient to go simply by feeling, or a random thought, and other times it is about making the most rational decisions. It's about balance.

This is a blog. Sometimes it feels more like a space in which I can let all my ideas out. I guess that's the epitome of a blog for some people.

"I can walk, and I can provide"

Short Story

"Dad! You have to slow down a bit! It's only been a week since you came home!"

Dad looked at me but said nothing, as he continued to limp around the room.

"C'mon Dad...I worry about you!" I said.

He turned and said, "Son, I'm trying to concentrate on my walking, and it's difficult to do that with your yelling in my ear with every other step".

"Well I'm trying to take care of you," I replied.

"You have your duty to go work in the field while I am injured. I have a wife who can attend to my needs, you know," he said.

It happened a month and a half ago, when we received a letter from the Lower Canada Militia saying that my father was injured. The worst came to mind, as I pictured my hard-working dad without an arm or a leg. I remembered the day when he was called by the Militia commander, asking my father for his services in the War of 1812.

It was greatly difficult without him, and I was only 15 so I was not allowed to join my dad in the army. What I was left with was the job that my dad had before leaving to fight for our country: working on the farmland. I had always helped out my dad, but never taken on the entire job of plowing the field, tending to the animals, and cleaning the barn. I never realized how much my dad worked hard for our family, in which included him, my mom, my younger sister Molly and myself. Some days I worked over 12 hours; it was not because there was an excess amount of work to be done, but because I could not do the job as effectively or quickly as my father could. It was even more tiring because I had to wake up early the next day to prepare for the work ahead.

"Don't worry, Dad. I've been working on the field for nearly a year now, and I know the field almost as well as you do now," I said.

"I know you've been doing a good job. No 15 year old boy should be working 10 hours a day to put food on the table for 3 people three times a day, everyday. But I know you're tired after each day, and now that I am back home, I have my job to go back to," he replied.

It was a relief when our dad showed up last week with stitches on his right thigh; his injury was two bullet, one that pierced his right thigh and another that cracked his right shinbone. However, the commander sent him home, saying that it was nearly impossible for my dad to be effective in the battles any longer, and that he had fufilled his duty as a Militia soldier who deserved to be back home with his family.

Of course, this was great news. The bad news was that he needed time, a lot of time, to be able to walk properly without the cane. In order to do this, he had to walk around, but not overwork it because the injury may last even longer.

"Son, I know what you're thinking. But I need to become healed. If I'm healed, I can walk. If I can walk, I can work. If I can work, I can go back out on to the field. If I can go back on to the field, I can provide for my family. It's what I have always been doing, and it's what I will continue to do. Provide for my family. It's hard work, but it's what I need to do. Do you understand?"

During that time, I just wanted him to rest, that was all. What he was said to me, I wasn't sure I understood back then. Now that I recall upon this memory, this event in my life, I am beginning to understand what he meant. To provide for my family.

Just a Thought

So I got another opportunity/call to play drums this summer, this time at the youth retreat in August. Now that my EXTREMELY DIFFICULT VISUAL ANALYSIS ASSIGNMENT FOR DESIGN AND METHODS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH FOR COMMUNICATIONS. But I'm actually proud of what I have done, I think I've come up with a pretty good analysis on "Madeline".

Anyways, I'm not that rusty, but I still need to practice techinique every day, and listen every day as well. My goal to shape and design my creativity, skill, and technique will be for August 9th, 2 days before the retreat.

It's not to show off, or to do the best I can simply for the sake of doing it, but because I need the motivation, I need that purpose, and I simply need to get better. All the routines and rudiments that I've been practicing over the years, I must be much better at them.

I took a look at my overall GPA for my university career, and it showed a 3.4. Wow that sucks! Especially when last semester I had a GPA of 3.7. I realized that the two courses I'm taking during the summer semester must not be taken so lightly. So far, I'm doing pretty well, I think...got an A- on that last midterm, got a B+ on that ridiculous profile assignment, and I'm hoping to get an A in the EXTREMELY DIFFICULT VISUAL ANALYSIS assignment thing.

I've been thinking...there are ideologies and principles through which we choose to see and understand the world and ourselves. What we think is good. What we think is cool. What we think looks nice. What we think is this, what we think is that.

There's the whole idea of "being entitled to your own opinions", but if your opinions are based on principles that you believe to be a fact, does that not mean that you believe that your opinions are CORRECT, or TRUE?

If I believe that this musician sucks, based on my principles of what I believe is good music, does that not imply that my belief that the musician sucks mean that I believe it to be a fact?

In this way, opinions don't really exist; they're merely what we believe to be facts.

If you keep on thinking about it, does that not mean that there are no REAL facts? Truth?

This reminds me of Descartes' famous quote, "I think, therefore I am". It really makes sense, and I believe that I'm proposing a branch of his thinking.

I'm gonna write a song now.

This summer

I feel that it's going to be a memorable summer. I feel as if something amazing will happen. And it won't be a specific, defining moment or anything, but small things.

Advertising & Year 2080.

I am really impressed with all the marketing that is going on these days. They are glamourous, memorable, funny, and whatever similar adjectives you can add on.

On the other hand, the more I am impressed, the more I can understand why I am impressed, which eventually leads to my breaking-down of advertisements. After about two and a half years in learning how to "read" advertisements and its effects, I hope I have enough knowledge and understanding to write my own successful discourse analysis one day, and even learn more.

Just like most people in this wealth, satisifed world of North America, I have my own little problems, obstacles, and whatever else. I guess you can break it down into different aspects, such as social life, school life, spiritual life, health(?) life, and whatnot.

However, I am slowly realizing that despite the arbitrary borders and barriers we may put around these different areas of life, they are all complicatedly and intricately connected. In this sense, I can even go further and say that everything really comes down to one focal point, which is me as a whole, human being.

A Thinking, Feeling, Knowing, Questioning, Understanding, Seeing, Listening, Watching, Hearing, Breathing, Living creature.

It all comes back to who I am as a whole. Not as separate parts in which I must divide my spiritual, mental, psychological, physical, and emotional being towards various areas such as my friends, family, school, church, home, work, wherever.

It is such a simple concept, yet so difficult to grasp. Even as I am writing this, it is nearly impossible for me to say that I understand exactly what I am talking about. However, such a dichotomy is a...motivation.

I was just sitting in the back row on Friday, listening to the guest speaker, who is apparently famous in Britain. At one point, this one old lady, grasping what I assumed to be her grandchild of 16 years of age, walked slowly and sat down in front of me. I guessed her to be around 90 years old.

I don't really know why it got me started thinking about my future as a 90 year old man. But I did. And I thought bluntly, I wonder what it feels like to be this old, and have everyone, every SINGLE PERSON to whom I am close, dead.

No one will be alive to share my memories of my life.

The Saturday BBQs.

The crazy weekday nights studying at school with 3 other friends.

Ridiculously chasing after that girl in high school.

The summer retreats.

All the outdoor activites.

Moving from North Van to Kelowna.

Not even those types of memories, but everyday activites.

The car ride home from my friend's house.

Picking up my brother from work.

Getting on the skytrain to school.

Sharing a drink with my buddy.

Praying that I will pass that final exam.

Talking on MSN late at night.

Talking on the phone.

Having coffee with a friend.

Working out an hour and a half per day.

Even driving to GO workout.

All these little things. All these bigger memories. And I thought, at that moment, that what if there was no one in my life to whom I can recall these times?

I would see all the elementary school kids running around, the highschool teenagers trying to keep up with the trends, the motivated college students either partying or studying, the passionate young singles working in their early career life and having fun on the weekends, the newly weds with their 6-month old infants, the older married couples...

And no one would really care to ask, "how was your life, Simon?". Of course, they want to live their own lives, and create their own memories. Yet, I was just thinking, for that one moment, how would it make me feel if I was a lone elderly person still living in this world, with all my family and friends passed away?

It is an experience of which I may not necessairly want to be a part.

Technology that recreated the world

I don't like to see myself as a technological determinist, but there are times when technology really impacted the world. As a refreshing of my memory, I want to list some that really changed the social, political, economic, and cultural life in the world. These are brief, one or two sentences that would require long papers to give justice to each technology, but this is a blog. C'mon, contrary to Walter Ong's ideas of the characteristics of oral and literal culture, this is one place where I can be additive rather than subordinate in writing

Clock: Measuring time that led to standardization. The act of dividing up something into equal units allowed for scientific revolutions, and rational mathematical equations. The world became completely driven by the clock, as labour, mealtimes, and even qualitative times.

Writing: Perhaps the technology that is taken for granted, although the great scholars such as Marshall Mcluhan and Plato had pessimistic and even nostalgic views regarding writing. They both saw the negative consequences of writing. Not only did it allow for preservation of information, but bureaucracy, standardization, rationality, individualization, commodification, rhetoric and persuasion, rational thinking and self- reflection, democracy, capitalism, internet, everything else. There's so much to say about writing.

On a side note, Plato saw writing leading to democracy, which he did not want, because he thought of the disastarous consequences once democracy was established. We can sort of see this now. Seriosuly, some opinions are really stupid. And democracy never works anways.


Roads: Allowed for messengers to carry messages, which led to the mail post system, which led to earlier forms of telegraph, then the telegraph, and so on.

Railways: It allowed for unity of a nation, not just transporting goods. The mere act of transporting goods allowed for a centre and a peripheral, as they became dependent on each other. The railway was certainly space-binding (to get into the context of Harold Innis), as it allowed greater economic life which (dare I say) dictated political and cultural life.



Electricity: Medium is certainly the fricking message with electricity. The definition of shopping, sports games, clubs, parties, dinner times, etc, were cocmpletely revolutionzed due to electricity. Oh of course, all the other wonderful stuff electricity has allowed us to do.

Radio: The first medium that allowed for mass broadcasting, which also allowed for advertising to a wide audience. I forget all the details, but it all started in a garage.

Internet: The first medium that challenged the idea of broadcasting, where a horizontal level of social networking and communication was allowed to take place, and it was no longer the few that were feeding information to the many. Advertising, blogging, chatting, dating, gaming, economics, businesses, and (in my opinion) most importantly, the merging of the oral and literal aspects of human beings... and everything else was shifted to the internet in some form. And to think, the internet was first invented for military purposes...

Issues arose as well. Copyright laws, ideas of privacy, ideas of conservation of information, dissemination of mis or disinformation, etc...

What next? Are we continuing to move into a progressive, innovative pattern in which we cannot help but endulge? Is this really good? Was the the invention of the televission really a positive thing? (NO! I have reasons, but now is not the time). Why are we always striving for 'better' and more technological inventions, when these technological trajectories can lead to terrible consequences from which we may not be able to pull out?

Although, I reallly really really like the internet.

Hello.

I should have expected this theme to come. Throughout my entire university career, one of my major focuses was on the subject of justice; the anarchy of American corporations, the irony of the American Dream, the hypocrisy of people's morals and ethics. Ever since my first university semester, where I learned of the realities of people not just abroad in Africa or in other third world countries, but the local area in which we reside was as much filled with poverty, insecurity, and darkness as the other "poor" countries.

I did help out a bit at Mission Possible. I did a few things down at East Hastings and Downtown. Yet I know that the few actions that I have taken are not close to being sufficient. I know that one of the most crucial factors in helping out the poor, caring for the community, etc, is consistency. Anyone can be temporarily fired up to feed a hungry group of people, or bring them to a shelter for a day or two. But how many are there that can devote much time, even their entire lives, to fight against injustice?

I know my friend works at Mission Possible now part-time. I know there are opportunities. I hvae been using excuses such as not having a car, East Hastings being too far, etc, to avoid the opportunities. I have felt just a glimpse of what being homeless is like after being there in person and talking to some of the unfortunate. Really, they are unfortunate, despite the mistakes and wrong decisions they may have made in the past.

I always challenge the comments such as, "They deserve to be in the streets if they became addicted to drugs or alcohol or whatever". The thing is, you expect them to be perfect human beings, while those who make these types of comments have made countless mistakes in their lives. In fact, the "forunate" ones are the ones who are more addicted and more in darkness because of the commodities that we value and the realities in which we live. Computers, iPhones, entertainment, etc are just a few broad things of which many of us have become slaves. More specific issues like pornography, video games, electronic accessories, raves, etc control many people's lives. Not all of these are necessairly "bad", but it can lead to terrible results if it becomes the centre of our lives.

With that in mind, how different are the homeless compared to us, the more lucky ones? When Susie talked about injustice, some of the points she made are from the same studies that I have stumbled upon in my Communications courses. I can understand why she also majored in Sociology, because Sociology has direct connections to Communications in the area of justice, ethics, morals, and the harsh realities of life that we most often choose to ignore.

And the fact is, Vancouver itself will be even worse as time progresses, due to the 2010 Olympics. The issue is that Vancouver wants to represent itself as a peaceful, calm, beautiful city in which many happy people live. They want to get rid of the homeless as if they were a pile of garbage and place them in a place where they can be overlooked and forgotten. There are a few minority government and NGOs that are attempting to prevent this and make other Vancouverites aware of these facts. However, it is extremely difficult. To stand up against the Olympics is an extremely difficult task, especially if the Olympics is so widely accepted all around the world. Even though some people may be aware of these harsh facts, the reality is, they are not WILLING to move into action.



When we die, can we really say that we have impacted the world? What do we want to be known as? Someone who went to school, got a job, married, had kids, and died? Everyone has the potential to change the world. Only a handful really see the opportunities to do so. And only a few take upon such opportunities.

I suggest starting with Mission Possible. It will really open up your eyes to see what being homeless is really like. Some of them DO have apartments and jobs. They just don't have enough finances to pay for every meal. For their kids. Some of them are married, but have no home. Everyone has a story, as both of the LTW guest speakers have mentioned. It's always different, shocking, intriguing, moving, saddening. Do something.