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!
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Timshel
I find myself in the thick of another work week. You are looking at me sardonically. You are trying to figure out why this is note worthy at all, and why I'd even mention it.
Well, I mention it because, despite the matter of fact tone and the lack of any indicating punctuation - I was complaining. This week is paticularily bad because last week I was on vacation; spending hours in the lake and enjoying beer-thirty every time the clock struck the half hour. I love my family camp. It is too far away to be convenient, usually too crowded to be comfortable and yet I love it unconditionally. There are not many things in my life that get that kind of affection from me. The point of my digression: this week has been taking its time.
One very nice thing about being there is the chance to catch up on some of the reading that throughout the year I put off and convince myself I don't have the time to finish. This year's book to finish was one recommended to me way back in the winter by a friend, with confirmation that it was their favourite book ever. John Steinbeck's East of Eden.
Whenever someone tells me something is their favourite, before putting it in my hands, I always find that there is this great pressure to find it as great as they do. I feel almost obligated to like it, and then in revolt of being forced to like something, I enjoy it less than if I had just approached it with an open mind. However, this is an exception to the standard rules of my twisted brain. Although I won't say it is my favourite book, or one of my favourites - it is certainly one of the best I've ever read. It is really that good.
The book's theme can be loosely be summed up in a word, 'timshel' which in the book is said to translate to 'thou mayest' in English. The word is introduced in the book after a discussion on the proper translation of the story of Cain and Abel from the bible. It is concluded that what God said to Cain was "Thou mayest conquer over sin", in regards to the conflict of good and evil. Now I don't want to sound like I'm going off on some religious tangent, I am not religious. However, I do feel like one can walk away from this message with more than just some holy revelation. The concept of timshel as a basic Human 'attribute' is amazing. Thou mayest.
The book follows the life of a man named Adam, and further in the life of his son's Cal and Aron (who not coincidently mirror Cain and Abel). Throughout the story, you observe this delicate balancing act of good and evil that is occuring through the actions of the characters. Great feats of evil always seem to be counteracted by some equally good outcome, and vice versa. It is written superbly, such that in a way you don't really realize it is happening until late in the book. I won't spoil it, read it.
Let me get to the point. The moral as I took it is that in our lives, we have the power to make it what we want. Thou mayest achieve whatever you want. There is a character in the novel called Tom Hamilton, who Steinbeck implies is on the edge of achieveing greatness in his life. Tom's life is filled with moments of great courage and great cowardice, the latter as deep as the former is high.
I don't know if it is selfish of me as a reader, or simply that I am just human, but I wanted to relate to this character so completely. I did relate to it completely. I can't claim to be on the edge of greatness, but I don't know who out there doesn't feel that their life is this balance of choices - with the options in essence being a flip of a coin between cowardice and courage. Which path do you choose? Short answer; you have the choice to make your life whatever you want it to be.
I suppose the biggest criticism to this would be if you told me that there are factors out of peoples hands. That where someone ends up in the world is ultimately based on the cards they are dealt from the beginning. This is a fair point, and I agree that some people's places in life are out of their hands in the most general sense. However, this is not what I meant, not really.
How you should view my interpretation is in a much more 'spiritual' sense, spiritual used loosely. I mean to say that it is 100% your choice in how an event effects you. You have the power to choose how you treat others, or to decide whether that traffic jam in front of you really is the worst thing that has ever happened. Although these small personal choices probably won't get you a mansion and yacht on their own, I do believe they add up in a different way.
One doesn't have to be stoic and immune to emotion to make these choices either. All you need to do is approach everything a little more rationally - how important is this really? Is it in my best interests to take every bad occurence that occurs as a reflection of my luck and who I am? IS treating a stranger like dirt truly necessary? In some way, everything in your life is partially your choice.
Is that not freeing? I'm in love with the concept.
To anyone that cared about the last post regarding Africa, I'll most likely be going at the start of January. I emailed someone a description of what I would be doing earlier today, so I'll just put it down again here:
The location of the study is the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in the volcanic mountain regions of Uganada. While there I will be working with the endemic golden monkey species.
The monkeys have never been properly studied to a great extent, and although the gorillas in the park are protected, the monkeys are still poached to some degree illegally. Snare traps, local domesticated animals and illegal harvesting of their forest habitat's bamboo (a food source) are all threats to the monkey's continued survival.
Since these monkeys are only found in this small region, and their population sizes and ranges are so small, an effort is being made to study them and observe their behaviour before it is too late. The hope is that by providing the Uganda goverment information about the monkeys, they will use them as a target for tourism and conservation - thus protecting their numbers more actively and effectively.
The organization I'll be working with is still in its fledgling states, as it is only a year and a bit old - so I get to come in on the ground floor to help acclimatize these monkeys to people and conduct preliminary studies and observations.
I am also required to help teach conservation to the local children by spending a day a week in the classrooms teaching. Very exciting.
Again, thanks for reading,
Much Love,
Sean
Well, I mention it because, despite the matter of fact tone and the lack of any indicating punctuation - I was complaining. This week is paticularily bad because last week I was on vacation; spending hours in the lake and enjoying beer-thirty every time the clock struck the half hour. I love my family camp. It is too far away to be convenient, usually too crowded to be comfortable and yet I love it unconditionally. There are not many things in my life that get that kind of affection from me. The point of my digression: this week has been taking its time.
One very nice thing about being there is the chance to catch up on some of the reading that throughout the year I put off and convince myself I don't have the time to finish. This year's book to finish was one recommended to me way back in the winter by a friend, with confirmation that it was their favourite book ever. John Steinbeck's East of Eden.
Whenever someone tells me something is their favourite, before putting it in my hands, I always find that there is this great pressure to find it as great as they do. I feel almost obligated to like it, and then in revolt of being forced to like something, I enjoy it less than if I had just approached it with an open mind. However, this is an exception to the standard rules of my twisted brain. Although I won't say it is my favourite book, or one of my favourites - it is certainly one of the best I've ever read. It is really that good.
The book's theme can be loosely be summed up in a word, 'timshel' which in the book is said to translate to 'thou mayest' in English. The word is introduced in the book after a discussion on the proper translation of the story of Cain and Abel from the bible. It is concluded that what God said to Cain was "Thou mayest conquer over sin", in regards to the conflict of good and evil. Now I don't want to sound like I'm going off on some religious tangent, I am not religious. However, I do feel like one can walk away from this message with more than just some holy revelation. The concept of timshel as a basic Human 'attribute' is amazing. Thou mayest.
The book follows the life of a man named Adam, and further in the life of his son's Cal and Aron (who not coincidently mirror Cain and Abel). Throughout the story, you observe this delicate balancing act of good and evil that is occuring through the actions of the characters. Great feats of evil always seem to be counteracted by some equally good outcome, and vice versa. It is written superbly, such that in a way you don't really realize it is happening until late in the book. I won't spoil it, read it.
Let me get to the point. The moral as I took it is that in our lives, we have the power to make it what we want. Thou mayest achieve whatever you want. There is a character in the novel called Tom Hamilton, who Steinbeck implies is on the edge of achieveing greatness in his life. Tom's life is filled with moments of great courage and great cowardice, the latter as deep as the former is high.
I don't know if it is selfish of me as a reader, or simply that I am just human, but I wanted to relate to this character so completely. I did relate to it completely. I can't claim to be on the edge of greatness, but I don't know who out there doesn't feel that their life is this balance of choices - with the options in essence being a flip of a coin between cowardice and courage. Which path do you choose? Short answer; you have the choice to make your life whatever you want it to be.
I suppose the biggest criticism to this would be if you told me that there are factors out of peoples hands. That where someone ends up in the world is ultimately based on the cards they are dealt from the beginning. This is a fair point, and I agree that some people's places in life are out of their hands in the most general sense. However, this is not what I meant, not really.
How you should view my interpretation is in a much more 'spiritual' sense, spiritual used loosely. I mean to say that it is 100% your choice in how an event effects you. You have the power to choose how you treat others, or to decide whether that traffic jam in front of you really is the worst thing that has ever happened. Although these small personal choices probably won't get you a mansion and yacht on their own, I do believe they add up in a different way.
One doesn't have to be stoic and immune to emotion to make these choices either. All you need to do is approach everything a little more rationally - how important is this really? Is it in my best interests to take every bad occurence that occurs as a reflection of my luck and who I am? IS treating a stranger like dirt truly necessary? In some way, everything in your life is partially your choice.
Is that not freeing? I'm in love with the concept.
To anyone that cared about the last post regarding Africa, I'll most likely be going at the start of January. I emailed someone a description of what I would be doing earlier today, so I'll just put it down again here:
The location of the study is the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in the volcanic mountain regions of Uganada. While there I will be working with the endemic golden monkey species.
The monkeys have never been properly studied to a great extent, and although the gorillas in the park are protected, the monkeys are still poached to some degree illegally. Snare traps, local domesticated animals and illegal harvesting of their forest habitat's bamboo (a food source) are all threats to the monkey's continued survival.
Since these monkeys are only found in this small region, and their population sizes and ranges are so small, an effort is being made to study them and observe their behaviour before it is too late. The hope is that by providing the Uganda goverment information about the monkeys, they will use them as a target for tourism and conservation - thus protecting their numbers more actively and effectively.
The organization I'll be working with is still in its fledgling states, as it is only a year and a bit old - so I get to come in on the ground floor to help acclimatize these monkeys to people and conduct preliminary studies and observations.
I am also required to help teach conservation to the local children by spending a day a week in the classrooms teaching. Very exciting.
Again, thanks for reading,
Much Love,
Sean
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