An extra day...

So, we've got an extra day to spare this year. Yes, it's a leap year, so this Sunday, February 29 is a bonus for us. Of course, I don't often think of it this way. What is another day after all? But, maybe it's time to change my outlook, maybe I should examine what I do with my time!

I, like most of the rest of the human race, spend a lot of time -- wasting time. I anguish over the things I'd rather be doing and fret away moments that I could constructively use for my own self-development and growth, in whatever direction I desire. The whole point is not to have a concrete goal, but to attempt to make every moment meaningful. Easier said than done, when most of my daily life has been reduced to maintaining a bare existence. Performing the tasks that allow one to stay alive, but not necessarily live.

Living and being alive are fundamentally two different states and my goal is to be in the former state as oppossed to the latter. It's my life, it should be spent fulfilling my own wishes. This isn't a selfish view, although it could be taken as self-centered. Fulfilling one's wish does not necessarily mean that the wish is for the benefit of oneself alone. A wish may be beneficial to more than the individual who desires. My wish may harbor a fair dose of sharing, of including others. Who knows? What's your wish?

This year, we all have an extra day to think about what we are doing with our lives. Why not use it to contemplate, to evaluate, to redirect our lives. If you want to document and share that vision, join the others at a day in the life: the leap day.
- posted by the Tourist @ 03:15UTC - want to

 
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. ... In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable
-John Steinbeck

Just meandering about in the electronic universe, trying to come to grips with my own life in some way. In that meandering I came across this quote from the site of Gavin Gough, a traveller, someone who cashed in his comfortable life to risk acheiving his desire. Cheers to him, my applause for following the dream.

Inside myself there is an itch, some burning desire, unexplainable as to the details, but the general jist of it is this; there is something within which I yearn to express. Somehow, I don't feel comfortable in the life I lead, there is more to my life than I am currently experiencing. I know it, my heart knows it, my brain knows it. Problem is I'm not sure how to satiate my own desire, because I cannot (as of yet) put my desire into words. It exists as a feeling, undefined, intangible. Not until this feeling becomes defined will I be able to walk its path or quell the fire within. Desire is a strange feeling. Burning desire is near soul destroying. How do I discover the unknown, sing into existence that which resides in the recesses of my soul?
- posted by the Tourist @ 14:40UTC - want to

 
Psychiatrists, politicians, tyrants are forever assuring us that the wandering life is an aberrant form of behaviour: a neurosis; a form of unfulfilled sexual longing; a sickness which, in the interests of civilisation, must be suppressed.
Nazi propagandists claimed that gipsies and Jews - peoples with wandering in their genes - could find no place in a stable Reich.
Yet, in the East, they still preserve the once universal concept: that wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.
-from The Songlines, written by Bruce Chatwin

It's an interesting idea! Chatwin spends much of 'The Songlines' discussing the idea of a wandering life and going so far as describing the settled life as the downfall of man. Man, he claims, must keep moving, or fall prey to a doomed life. There is, inherently, in us an urge to wander, to explore, to walk. Movement keeps us sane, it keeps us grounded, understanding of our place in the world.

I agree with this sentiment. I myself feel the urge to move, to travel and explore new places. It doesn't have to be exotic. I don't necessarily need to travel to far-away places to stay sane, although those trips definitely create a lightness in my heart, a feeling of invigoration. No, to stay sane, I just have to keep the scenery a little different. Change is good, moving change is better. To keep myself together, I just need to walk outside, take a new path, see the world unfold in front of my eyes in a new way. Look at something previously unseen.

It's the walls of our comfortable living that drain the life from the soul. Being inside a concrete bunker, with the artificial fluorescent lighting and re-purified vented air, is the downfall of man.
- posted by the Tourist @ 02:17UTC - want to

 
Ain't that the Truth...

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...
Thomas Jefferson (The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)

I think the time is right.

Somewhere it seems these words have been misplaced, or rather, their meaning has gone misunderstood. It is the people who decide a government, not just some person or persons, but the masses. Maybe that's where the smugness arises in our current governments. It seems our masses are bored by their own ability to make a change, so they decide to do nothing. Sit idly by and watch what happens rather than making an active decision and choosing what they want. It's time for a change, it's time to make a choice.
- posted by the Tourist @ 02:13UTC - want to

 
Modern What?

Last night was a visual feast, an audio delight, an emotional rollercoaster! I was privileged enough to have a partner who wanted to see LaLaLa Human Steps and I conceded, bought tickets, and... was amazed. How can this show be described? It's been characterized as modern ballet, but I think it's hard to compare this to any ballet, even considering that the movements are from ballet. That's about all the resemblance. I'll leave the real critics to review it, if you want to read some, go here.

What did I feel? It was emotional for me, for sure. It was hard to clearly see what was happening on stage as my eyes were welling up with tears for much of the performance. The tears come for me usually with music that seems to resonate with me emotionally and the music for Amelia, as this performance is named, definitely fit that bill. It was a combination of violin, cello, and piano for most of it, with a middle section of electronic ambient. The sound of the violin tugs at me and hence the emotional up-welling. The ambient section was infinitely appropriate for the movement on stage. The dancing is impossible to interpret, indeed Edouard Lock refuses to provide any interpretation himself. You are just supposed to watch, revelations will follow, unless you try to interpret. It's the kind of thing where you are simply meant to observe and associate with at random.

Myself, I associated the dance with transformation, with an individuals desire and steps towards becoming unique, towards achieving their personal voice, whatever that may be. It gave me a sense of power towards my own development/transformation. In watching the dancers, I thought about what it means to create something unique, something that expresses oneself. Both the performance intoned that feeling and also the fact that I was watching physical human beings who had taken the steps to allow themselves to express their own talent through a medium as unique as dance. There are many avenues of expression available in the world. Although not all may be common, all are possible, all are valid. Self expression only has to be validated as far as allowing the individual the freedom to become their own being. It doesn't matter what that is, only that the steps are taken.

Me.. well, I'm still developing my voice, I'm still trying to figure out how to express myself, but inside there is a burning core that wants out! I just need to shake off decades of social conditioning designed to keep us all towing someone else's line.
- posted by the Tourist @ 20:00UTC - want to

 
Always a Boy Scout!

I've always been a Boy Scout at heart and I live by the motto 'Be Prepared'. I try to be the one who has thought of everything ahead of time, to look ahead and see what may be necessary to complete the task at hand. One of my 'rants of preparedness' finally came true after all these years!

I always maintained that you should know how to drive a 'stick', know how to drive an automobile with a standard transmission, because you never know when you will be asked to drive one in an emergency. Even if you have an automatic, you should know how to handle the other.

This weekend, a group of friends and I went out for a bit of skiing (snowboarding in my case). Late in the evening, one of my friends had an accident and tore up his knee (not quite sure how bad it is yet). He had to go to the hospital, he had to go now and of the five of us, only two, himself and I knew how to drive a standard. We had two standard cars, one driver, one injured person, and three other people to get to the hospital and then home again. It happened, my rant came true. Everyone should know how to drive a 'stick'!

I ended up driving my friend to the hospital in one car, dropping him off and then taking a cab back to the hill to collect the other car and the three stranded friends. After the hospital, it was back home; at least two more hours of driving, with two cars. So, one of our friends was drafted into the position of student, as I gave them a quick lesson in how to handle the 'stick' and off we went. The beginner in the car ahead and myself in the other car behind, tagging along to make sure things didn't get out of control. In the end we all made it home safely, but still, it could have been much worse. There you have it, the Boy Scout lives through an adventure/emergency and I stick to my motto, 'Be Prepared'.
- posted by the Tourist @ 21:21UTC - want to