I Hope We Can Still Be Friends

There is no such thing as a clean break.  As soon as emotion and feeling come into play, there is absolutely no way to try to separate yourself cleanly - like velcro, with thousands of tiny hooks that stick in you where it hurts.  They tear and they rip as you pull them out, the split never as clean as you had wished.  Break ups are hard.

That said, I am not breaking up with you.  However, I will be going away for awhile.  This is hard for me.  I don't always show a lot of outward emotion, and that is probably the number one reason this blog is good for me, but I have gotten through the panic and excitement of the last couple weeks by trying not to think about the preparation as anything more than something to do.  Mindless tasks rarely elicit my panic response.

So I will make a request.  Let us, readers, not break up.  Let's keep in touch and be close.  I want to hear from you, I want comments, questions and ideas for things that I should try.  I will try and do things that will be interesting beyond me prattling on about how I feel.  I'll go for walks and take a camera.  I'll do challenges and I will take requests for topics.  There will be the standard updates, the routine pouring of my soul, but I encourage you to help me through this big transition in my life.  You guys lose me, but I lose everyone.

Commenting is easy; at the bottom of every blog there is an option to post a remark.  You don't need to sign in and can easily post as anonymous - but I hope everyone will leave their name after their message.  You can also reach me through email and let me know how you're doing.  I will take requests for postcards, but state up front that I'm not always great at staying on top of that kind of thing, and your date of receiving will be between now and next April (2013).  My email address is easy to find, and if you don't know it ask any of my close family or friends and I'm sure they'll send it on.

Everyone has been very supportive of me through this big period of transition, and I'd like to acknowledge how truly lucky I am to have such wonderful friends and family.  Mom and Dad, thank you for being willing to support me both emotionally and financially every step of they way, I could not have done this without your shoulders to lean on.  Jess and Kase, you are amazing and I expect to see you soon (bring Gryphon and Finny).  To all who came out for my goodbye party last Wednesday, I thank you, but am not sure all those shots count as friendship the day after.

If you have a google account feel free to subscribe via the little bar to the right of your screen.  Thank you everyone, I hope that through the coming year I give you something worth reading!

Lots of Love,

Sean  





  

Why Are My Children Tiny?

The title of this is post makes sense to me and maybe one other person. It is the result of late evening, summer musings on a cramped balcony; the warm night accented by the harsh smoke of bad cigars and that eerie, haunting, flickering light that only a candle flame, distressed by the wind, can create.

The talks were of life, where we were and where we might end up.  In the thick of it, I was told that there would be no surprise to see me living in the suburbs, with the condo, a wife and some 'tiny children'. The accuracy of this prediction aside, I couldn't help but ask: why are my children tiny? In a wine induced fit of laughter, I then set out to find why I had been blessed with a bunch of abnormally small children, and if there was any specific factor influencing my Thumbelina-esque offspring.

Now, joking aside, I suppose that it is a pretty standard expectation for a lot of people to hit the 'burbs when they get to the 20 somethings; add the spouse and the two and a half kids, call it a life. To be perfectly honest, that is where I always kind of saw myself going. Of course not recently, and yet, not really too long ago either.

I was never a driven kid, and I will say sadly that I never had high expectations for myself. There are people that manage to muddle their way through life; that was me. Do everything adequately, do what you need to do to survive, but never really self-improve outside of the set boundaries. Having a family with children is an accomplishment. That ability to procreate and provide is in every way an impressive feat, the ultimate commitment and sacrifice of self to create and raise new life. As a result, it is in many ways very commendable to make it to the point where marriage and kids are your sphere of reality. Yet, I think that the reason it was always one of those inevitable results to me growing up was that due to the unmotivated way in which I lived, it would probably have been the best I could have done. The absolute maximum of my potential, the top expectations of what I could picture myself accomplishing was the very baseline of normal society.

It is funny to reflect on your life and remember how much time you wasted worrying about really silly things. I can clearly remember that as I met new women, right up to the end of University, there was always this nagging voice in my head asking if she was the one. There was this really sad, omnipresent feel that if I didn't meet 'her' in school, I would be alone forever. How pathetic is that? What a really stupid way to live your life. School provided this really structured way in which to learn new things and create opportunities and of course meet women, that it felt like without that stable safety net to lean on and push off from, graduation spelt the end of excitement, and the beginning of the long haul to retirement.

However, this is a happy story. Due to a few factors, including my own, self-proclaimed intellectual renaissance that can be followed throughout this blog and an absolutely comical lack of an ability to have or maintain any sort of relationship, I find myself with the opportunity to push myself beyond the minimum, and do something that I think I wouldn't even dreamed of doing five years ago. My thirteen-year-old self's prophetic vision of me in the suburbs has been indefinitely delayed, as in the near future I am moving to:

More specifically, to the city of:

Where I will live a block from the largest non-airport transit hub in the country, the Nagoya Train Station, in a tiny apartment that looks like this:

and get to sleep on one of these...

(Woo?)


The apartment was finalized last Thursday, and with its confirmation, I ran out of preparations. I can honestly say that I really haven't spent even a fraction of the time worrying for this trip, compared to when I left for Africa. Yet, the preparations for this trip were far more in-depth, and as I jumped through the hoops, I was able to kind of keep the realization of moving half a world away at arm's length.

So with the end of prep comes the start of the waiting; and waiting for the unknown can be positively correlated with my ability to be nervous, over think, and second guess. There is no regret, and admittedly the nervousness is in truth a nervous excitement. It took me several years, a lot of patience and a good amount of money to get to where I am now, and I think I can truly say I'm ready to go. However, it does not mean that I won't continue to get hit with profound moments of realization while driving, the ones that cause me to shout "I'm moving to fucking Japan!" really loudly, and then sort of laugh hysterically for awhile until I calm down and resume singing alone to the radio. I guess this is happening.

 Thanks for reading,

 Much Love,

Sean


Quickly, I would like to add my thanks to all those who have read my blogs to this point, as I recently reached 10,000 hits. I do take this with a grain of salt, as many of them were probably me swinging through. Moreover, thanks to the stats tracker on blogger, I am aware that a big amount of the traffic I get are people using google image search to look for Haida tattoos, and you will notice that 'Ink'd' leads the list of the popular posts on the bar to the right.

That aside, the feedback for this blog has been inspiringly positive, and I would like to thank everyone that has lent me a kind word after reading a post.   I have never needed to be very creative to write most of my posts, but it has required this ability to remove my filter and attempt to be truly honest. It is that filter that stops most people from saying what they really feel.


Not so coincidently, I wrote this whole post while listening to the album 'The Suburbs' by the Arcade Fire.


 

The Prime of My Life

The reality that this post, which I meant to write with all good intentions weeks ago, has now come to feature prominently on the first of the new year may belie the constitution with which I made the resolution to post more frequently. Broken resolutions aside, this post is meant to be a summation of the year past, a review of the body of time referred to shortly as twenty eleven.

As a consequence of my birthday, the revolution of the Earth around the sun from one January to the next has always paralleled fairly closely with the passing of my age, give or take 24 days. The result has been that every year gets a defined age value, a set denomination of my longevity for every wall calendar purchased. As it turns out, the age for 2011 was twenty-three, which was, as the old idiom goes, effectively the prime of my life.

Now I say this affectionately, as it is inherently based on a corny joke that I continued to make throughout the duration of the year. If you, like me, possess a rudimentary knowledge of baseline public school math, then the concept of prime numbers (those which can only be divided by themselves and one) is something that you know of, if not have forgotten as it lost its need to be retained in the real world.

Now by no means is twenty-three the first time in my life that I was prime, as 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 17 and 19 may take offense if I was so inclined to exclude them offhand. Yet, I will say that it is the first time I've been so outside the range of the milestone birthdays, which can be defined as any increase in age that earns you the right to a societal privilege. Compound onto my bad joke that 2011 was the first time I really felt like I was living my life how I wanted to, and the true reason for the goofy pun emerges: in a year that was hallmarked by economic crisis and the death of countless evil societal figures, I finally reached an operational baseline for my existence that I was content with; my prime.

The year began with Africa, which introduced me to the harsh reality of the world outside the west. A world that desperately wants to join the future, grasps at new technology, but implements and relies on it without the infrastructure or resources to make it dependable. A world easy to forget, where your dollar a day builds a water pump or school that goes derelict in a year when they run out of money to pay the upkeep. I was put in a place where consumerism couldn't be viable, lived in it, with it, adapted to it and then wrestled with my own conscience as I returned home to slip back into old habits. I realized how weak people are when faced with comfort, how weak I am when faced with what's easy, and hoped that acknowledgement of a problem is the first step to a solution. Twenty-eleven was a year of shifting comfort zones, from home to the extreme, and then back in a blink of an eye. I won't bore you here with stories out of Africa; there are many posts dedicated to that trip that are easy to access and give you a better idea of my attitude at the time.

The second half of the year was a stark contrast to the preceding months, and predominately featured me jumping through the hoops to lock down another piece of my hazy and steadily shifting future. It was a time of relative ease, relative fitness and emotional annoyance. The end result however proved to be fruitful, and those fruits have turned out to be a job in Japan, one of the things I listed as a thing to do on my very first blog entry.

In past posts I'd been relatively shady as far as details, and as my last real post was on the eleventh of November, it was mainly because I had no real details on which to speak. With December came a job offer, and in this coming February I will be flying to Nagoya, and beginning my contract as a teacher of English for ECC second language institutes. Although I had made it clear that I was flexible in my placement, Nagoya was my subconscious number one in terms of cities to go to, and I can honestly say that I was thrilled to be so lucky. As a transit hub to the country, Nagoya exists as the industrious, laid-back, financial capital to Japan.

To be honest, I should probably be more scared. I've cast around for ideas as to why I'm so calm in the face of such a drastically life changing experience, and the closest I can figure is that I am all worried out. Between the time I spent freaking out over Africa, and the time I spent asking myself countless 'what-ifs' during my first round of interviews with ECC in the spring of 2010, I have effectively exhausted the amount of time I can spend worrying over traveling and Japan in general. My immediate future is locked, and I'm along for the ride. There is no malicious intent in this universe, just a way of things, and if you worry or don't worry about something, things will happen the same regardless. It is a lot easier to cope with existence when you assume that nothing is out to get you.

My goal for this blog in 2012 is to become a lot more active. Writing has become this great release for me, and I always kick myself for taking too long between posts. For letting good ideas come and leave without even giving them a chance to be written down. Maybe not over the next two months, but hopefully after I arrive in Japan, this blog will become a bit more of a daily activity. More of a play by play than a monthly memoir of an event or a feeling.

So with a freshly written post, a form that gives me a clean bill of health, and a list of so many other things I need to get done in the next two months, I'll leave you with a song that I've been singing today and wrote this post to,

Thanks so much for reading and for your patience with me,

Much Love and Happy New Year!

Sean




As a note, here is the list from my first post 'A Gratuitous Introduction':

- Teach English in a foreign country. I may have been turned down for Japan, but Korea may be in my future - and experience breeds opportunities later.

- Tree plant in Western Canada. Despite all the people telling me why I shouldn't do this, the few that had the guts to tell me why I should had much more convincing arguments.

- Somehow traverse a country by WWOOFing at different locations as I go along. Meet the people, save the planet.

- Go to Japan. I WILL be in Japan soon. Man I want to go there so bad. And as a tack on I want to backpack Asia as well.

- Volunteer in Africa. I am currently waiting to hear back on a position I applied for. Things looks good. And perhaps climb Mt. Kilamanjaro while there.

- Work Visa in Australia. The visa costs $200, the experience lasts me forever.


Looks like I'll go three for six shortly, not bad!

Clever Title

I have this inability to turn my brain off. I will over think and over analyze everything if left to my own devices, and tend to do so on a day to day basis. I think that is why I originally turned to writing. When I put something down, and leave it out there to see, it no longer becomes my problem alone. By sharing what I'm thinking I can relinquish my sole responsibility on its domain, and slowly let it go.

The problem is that I am also inherently embarrassed with my writings, and I'm far from able to really write down all that I would like to. Some things will just always be mine to stew in, and maybe that makes them special. The memories and feelings that I can't express will always be mine alone; unique and special.

I've recently had a bad week, and by my 'first-world' standards, it was fairly awful. Yet as it played out I noticed that I never experienced that soul crushing despair that can sweep you away. Underneath all the happenings stood this perpetual foundation of indomitable spirit, and a confidence that things will continue to play out just like they always have. The ups and downs that form the staccato timeline of youth tend to level into a more linear flow, that becomes less defined by what you do and instead who you are.

I can't expect the world every day. Everything I do and have ever done has been through a series of steps, and this will be no different.

Full steam ahead.



Thanks for Reading,

Much Love,

Sean

Marty Stouffer's Delicious Narrative

When I was a kid I loved nature documentaries. They weren't just something that I watched on television, or programs that I simply enjoyed more than others, but instead an obsession. In the days before we got satellite, when the antennae was in place and cable didn't reach the remote side roads of our township; when internet was a thing done over the phone and I got about as much normal mail as email, we got one really specific nature documentary on our limited array of channels: Wild America with Marty Stouffer.

The show cultured a very homegrown backyard feel that focused on wildlife specific to North America, and although it contained a few healthy dollops of the old 'Ra! Ra!' pro-American sentiment, the propaganda was lost on a youth that simply didn't care beyond the mountain goats. Sure there were no lions, elephants or sharks, but the exclusion of everything that didn't exist on my continent made every animal seem that much more attainable. These things could be in my back yard. Wild America could be my world. To top it all off it was narrated by Marty, who's voice seemed thick and rich enough to be served as a meal. Now you can understand my real sense of wonder with this show, as it was done before I could go on the web and have everything at my fingertips. Marty Stouffer's thick tongued narration of the wildlife of my conceivable world was my greatest portal to nature.

The withholding of this show was actually a good way to motivate and punish me. I can recall several nights of no Wild America being used to set me straight. You didn't have to tell me no television, ground me or discipline me further. It was enough. I'm not trying to come across as someone that was a fiend for television, or that I spent too much time watching it in my youth. What I'm really trying to make clear is that there have been times in my life that I have really truly cared about something less tangible than an object or a person; but instead in a goal, future or ideal. The world of Wild America was the one I wanted to become a part of.

Fast forward to today and I have a hard time finding that feeling. I like some things and love some people, but that deep seeded passion that ever existed in me, fired in me, offering me any sort of great drive or motivation seems to flicker at best, and not be present at worst.

There are things I would like to do, things I will do, and perhaps things I think I'd like to do because I'm stalling for time. Yet I have a hard time finding anything in my life that I have ever truly thrown my all into. My schooling never saw it, and I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that most employers to date have not seen me properly motivated.

I'd like to say that the pure enthusiasm for nature is eventually what led me down the road to my biology degree, but I can say that it is no secret that my beginnings in biochem at Guelph University were a byproduct of my top two high school grades being Biology and Chemistry. So when did it go? What killed it and how?

Stepping back, I'd like to suggest that this is bigger than me. Perhaps more a sign of the times than any specific problem with myself. In this age of North American consumeristic excess, the media likes to play up the angle of do less for more. On the internet, television and radio, everything is gratification now for a fee to be delivered later. Instant reward for delayed or ultimately avoided work.

The discovery stories of hidden talents and the serendipitous tales of big lotto winners perforate the news, and help move along this idea that the universe owes us something, or that we're due for our break and we just need to wait it out. The entitlement of the current generation is staggering, and although I get urges of it, I feel like by acknowledging the absurdity of some universal debt to me here and now I have a better chance of moving down a better course. The fact remains though: I cringe at the thought of the work-a-day life.

In my opinion people can be roughly split into very clear categories, and they generally go something like this: 1) those who know what they want and how to get it, 2) those who have no clue what they want and settle at first sign of stability and, 3) those like me who have no idea what they want but refuse to settle for anything; and instead slot in one plan after another waiting for either something to click or a handout from the cosmos so that they can join the first group.

I guess to sum up, I am blaming the world for my problems. Cliche, a little. It's just that some days it seems strange to feel like the only person in Brownian motion while the rest of society appears to flow downstream. I sometimes wonder if this truly unrelenting need to always feel like I'm working towards something is an inherently North American attribute, or a human condition. For the record I am going to Japan, and that counts as a thing I am working towards. I am excited. I am motivated to do well, and to give it my all and try my best. But then what?

I like writing, maybe I'll work towards that too.

Thanks for reading,

Much Love,

Sean



Doesn't this just reek of American small town values and patriotism? Hahaha! I love it.

Filler

I try not to get scared.

The question is whether that is really possible. Or is the real question what is there to be afraid of? I'm afraid of the dark, and not in the 'oh the lights are off' sort of way. I'm afraid of that slow count down towards the solstice, the inevitable march towards the early evening.

If you take it at face value it bothers me. I don't like short days. Yet, in a world where people put meaning where it isn't or shouldn't be, it denotes the tick tock towards the unknown. I'm a bit of a nihilist, but I recognize the need for some self imposed meaning in one's life to enable a semblance of progression, even if not on the grander scale. Find reason to exist in the now.

What I'm trying to say is that I get broody in the fall. Funky, but not dancing. In a funk. The evenings are long and I stew through them. I'm counting down to a placement that has been my focus for almost two years. Next year I should be in Japan working, for upwards of a year no less. This is exhilarating, the best news I've had in a long time. So why is it terrifying?

The opportunity is amazing, and beyond a shadow of a doubt I'm taking it. Yet people tether. Even when I don't mean to, or try not to, I root. Avoid all the intimacy and commitment you can and you'll still find yourself apprehensive to pick up and part. You'll miss the family, the familiarity and the feeling of a place at a time. I've learned in the past couple years that when you live in a world that can be dark and scary like ours, find what makes you happy and keep it close. Friends and relationships may often be fads and fleeting, but they are crucial for getting through the now. Much like the darkness, impenetrable by sight, there is always a fear of what is hiding in the future.

There is a quote by T. Harv Eker that reads:

"Nobody ever died of discomfort, yet living in the name of comfort has killed more ideas, more opportunities, more actions, and more growth than everything else combined. Comfort Kills."

In the words of me, the irony is that the biggest hindrance to you living your life is life itself. I'm not really afraid of the dark, or of the fall, or of being out of Canada. I'm afraid of living my life.

... but I try not to get scared.

Live through this and I won't look back.



A song on my mind: