2019 Trimmings

Bits and fragments I've accumulated over the last year but haven't posted. It's like that crack between your desk and the shelf that eats to do lists on sticky notes. Don't worry, in five years when you move the shelf you'll find all the notes and be simultaneously horrified at how you don't recognize what any of your scribblings refer to and how life just seems to be an endless source of minor tasks.

I apologize in advance for the anxious overtones and existential angst.

---

2019 was terrible. I guess I've been laid off twice within the last year, and somehow I managed to jump straight into a new position each time. The pay has been getting worse, but at least it's something, right?

I've been pretty unsettled and, dare I say, rather unhappy the last year. I've been working hard but not finding any fulfillment professionally, monetarily, spiritually, or otherwise. I guess things have been okay in my personal life, technically, but the work scenario is definitely whittling away at my sense of self worth.

As they say, though, if you're not happy in your life, MAKE A CHANGE! Drained, though. I'm drained of my drive and hope and belief that I'm even capable of being happy. I oscillate violently between thinking maybe I can make it through life with this simple little career versus being squashed by the weight of feeling like I'm not fulfilling any potential.

Heh, potential. When we're born it's our most plentiful currency. We start by trading it in for speech and first steps and feeding ourselves using a spoon. These days I'm trading it in for savings accounts and health benefits and Other Such Sensible Decisions. Potential ain't a renewable resource, folks. Maybe its wallet is deeper than we think, but we make a withdrawal from it each day whether we like it or not.

Dear 2020, please, for the love of life and all that's holy, give me something I can work with in spite of myself. Either the ability to find peace in my station or a miraculous opportunity from above to lift me up and forward. I'd even settle for a patch of fertile soul soil with a planted seed of self-determination to make the changes I need.

Please.

---

I went to two Christmas parties in particular this year. One was at a business consultant's place, and was a small affair. By that, I mean that there were only a dozen of us there. The space itself was an open, multi-level corner penthouse with a view of downtown. Apparently the owner had already bought another penthouse on this floor he was about to move into, but when this one with the killer view came up for sale he just had to have it. So he bought it as well.

The other event worth mentioning was in a beautiful heritage home, and was technically called a 'cocktail party'. We just got back from it this evening, and by looking around the room and then out at the cars parked along the curb, I'd estimate that the average household income was probably a solid $250,000 a year. Lots of VPs and lawyers and department heads and such.

Both left me feeling a bit uncomfortable, as if putting on my good pants and a nice sport coat was an exercise in playing dressup for a poor person. Just doing my best imitation of someone that belongs, and knows which one is the salad fork, and pretending that it's totally natural to drink Perrier when you just want water.

And thus this season I've seen how The Other Half Lives. Nice things everywhere, a relaxed air of confidence and security, and lots of nice white people chit-chatting about nice white people things.

I don't want a massive penthouse or a heritage home, I don't want seven kinds of scotch on hand, I don't want host catered parties with little prime rib sandwiches. I know money doesn't buy happiness, but I certainly didn't see people stressing out about their job security or retirement contributions. It'd be nice to go to Paris or Dubai or whatever just once, not every other year like some of these people do.

At one point I was giving my usual background speil to someone I was engaged in small talk with. The kind of person who I don't remember the name of two hours later, and they certainly won't remember mine. I mentioned I returned to Calgary after school in New York, and got the inevitable, "Why on earth did you come back?". In this setting with all the other well-travelled guests it made me quite aware of my lifestyle and career shortcomings.

In the car on the way home my girlfriend remarked that she hopes I can get into a situation where I can take some time off so I don't burn out.

Here I am, with my full-time job paying me a junior's salary while I balance two or three freelance clients on the side to get me back up to par. Compared with these other people, I'm burning myself out over table scraps.

Could be worse, yes, I know. Part of me wishes I wouldn't have attended these parties, because it's stripped me of the ignorance of just how far down the food chain I still am.

---

I saw The Star Wars and there are many rambling thoughts that no one really has the patience for. But I will mention two things. First is how blatantly obvious it was that they tried to distance themselves from everything Last Jedi. This was quite disappointing, because that movie laid a lot of interesting groundwork.

Second was the Rey/Palpatine reveal (fun fact: my first inclination was to spell it as 'Papaltine', raising some interesting religious commentary). If they were going to discard a lot of the Last Jedi, I found this shared Emperor lineage to be an interesting premise, albeit absolutely botched. I think it could've been really powerful if the rest of the trilogy a) foreshadowed this twist and b) didn't rely so much on nostalgia of the original series. Imagine if they had gone through the whole series until the last half of the final movie and then they reveal how shadows of the original trilogy were lingering and pulling the strings in the new sega. Could've made a more interesting reveal and a chance to properly confront and deliberately cut ties to the previous films. Instead it just felt like they were desperate to include every primary character, secondary character, and off-hand reference to those movies everyone seemed to like from A Long Time Ago.

Imagine if they had done that and embraced the themes from Last Jedi about how the force doesn't pick sides, it just tries to balance itself out. We get to the end of Rise of Skywalker (don't even get me started on the name/family thing), and Palpatine and the Skywalker Good Time Gang are all dead, and only Rey remains. Then she needs to confront the fact that if she chooses to be a Boy Scout Jedi the force will raise a Sith of equal magnitude to create balance in the galaxy. Does she go all noble and be a Jedi and risk creating a new evil? Or walk away from the force as Luke had. Sure, that might create balance for a time, but someday down the line another force user might arise and restart the whole process anyways.

It'd make for an interesting dilemma for the character to confront and elevate the universe above JEDI GOOD, SITH BAD.

It was a great popcorn flick with lots of spectacle and favourite characters. On face value it was good entertainment. The longer I chew on it, though, the more it feels like Game of Thrones and the finale turns sour in my mouth.

---


I have a problem.

A few years ago I started using Spotify. I really enjoy the Discover Weekly feature, and I've been using it to find lots of good tunes. And when I find one, I favourite it (to further refine my discovery algorithm, as all modern society now operates), and manually type the track name into a separate list I keep.

From there, every six months or so I go through and try to source/download all the songs in that document, so that they can be added to my iTunes library and synced to my iPod. This is, afterall, the way I've been managing my music since I was a teenager.

I've been using Spotify more and more and don't particularly enjoy the arduous task of re-downloading and tagging songs so that they could be added to my other library. That library, though, has a lot of music Spotify does not. So now I'm stuck with two collections - one of convenience, and one of personally curated, immaculate depth. That I don't really find myself wanting to use (iTunes has long since passed its days as a piece of well-optimized behaviour).

What, oh what, to do...

---

As kids we were tought the Three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In that specific order, too: first you should concentrate on using less stuff. Next most important is to repurpose what you can instead of throwing it away. Finally, if you can't use something any more, hand it over to the Blue Bin Gods, who do whatever it is they do with the random bits of almost-trash you discard in the right place.

Funny, then, that there's so much emphasis on recycling. You seldom hear about the first two R's, and I have a theory why: they're bad for business. Sure, recycling is great if you no longer want/need the thing you have. But buying less and using the same item more than its intended? That makes for bad business. We can't have people buying less. That harms the economy, don't you know. You need to be a good consumer.

Buy all the things, use them up, throw them away at your first convenience. But make sure they go in the right bin! That's what really matters to a progressive company.

---

I saw a thing on the internet today. It said: Attend school to learn, not for the GPA.

Well there's a little piece of advice that's a few years and several thousand dollars too late. I definitely focused too much on getting the grades and meeting the course curriculum. I wish I wouldn't have been so terrified of receiving crap marks every once in a while - it might've given me the breathing room to experiment a bit more, soak up the knowledge around me, and enjoy the process. Instead I went through four (five/six) years in a soft terror, striving to deliver projects that'd result in that sweet, sweet first letter of the alphabet.

Yeah, I definitely had a sweet GPA at the end of it all, but I can't help but wonder if that was the wrong motivation and target.

---

Let's say you own a Imitation Muffin Shop. Boy oh boy, when it comes to muffins that are made out of non-muffin materials, you're at the top of your field. People come from all around to sample your handy work.

Now let's say your local flavour of alt-right political party comes to the store and orders a flat of your individual-sized non-baked products. They're throwing a big shindig to celebrate their Immigrants Bad & Walls Good: A Manifesto of Many Other Grievances. Are you within your right to tell them to piss off and get their non-muffins from somewhere else?

My first inclination is that, yes, you can turn away service to people you don't agree with. It's a personal freedom that you don't have to do business with individuals at odd with your values and you shouldn't be forced to overstep your beliefs. I'm not anti-abortion, but I even think that doctors shouldn't be obligated to perform these kinds of procedures if it's against their moral code.

Hell, let's switch the tables around: say you want to order some Display Purpose Only Cupcakes for your hippy dippy Gathering of Peace, Love, and Progressive Things. If you stroll into a local branch of Neo-Nazi Non-Consumables, it'd only be fair that those business owners can turn you away as well.

That's what this whole 'free market' thing is all about, right? Find another organization that shares your beliefs and give them your dollars instead. If no one shares those beliefs, the business goes under. Those that support societies' values float to the top. It's natural selection of the capitalist variety.

But what if instead of turning someone away because of their outspoken political beliefs, you turn them away because of their skin colour?

That's where this whole things falls apart, and I can't quite reconcile the two views. Because the reasoning behind "You don't need to provide services that cross your boundaries" and "Don't discriminate against a person's inherit attributes" intersect in some pretty awkward ways.

I want to say that if a church or minister thinks it'd be against their beliefs to marry a gay couple, the they shouldn't be obligated to do so. But what about when churches refused services to people just because of their skin colour? That was objectively wrong, wasn't it?

I don't know the answer to this one. While it's easy to take up a position when you're dealing with extremes, inevitably you'll have to deal with the shades of grey. That's where it gets sticky, and points of view don't hold up the same. I'd like to say that, no matter what you believe, we can at least be decent and respectful to eachother.

Some days that seems like a less and less realistic expectation.

---

I have this reoccurring fantasy about an omniscient Doctor Manhattan-esque person who suddenly appears in our world. They'd know exactly where to look to find incriminating proof against the crooked politicians and CEOs exploiting the system, and deliver unavoidable justice. It'd feel so good to know that all the crooks would get what's coming to them, and they couldn't weasel their way out with money.

Recently it dawned on me that I started having this particular fascination around the time I began losing my faith. This means the whole 'divine justice' idea is essentially me wishing that there was a God. It's sad that my loss of religion means a surrender to the fact that people can be awful and never face consequences. In an ugly non-religious reality, divine justice is just a construct for those who can afford it.

---

Maybe we should have a vote, and let all the neo-Nazis go off on their own. We could have completely separate societies, so we wouldn't have to put up with each other's bullshit. Except that, you know, segregating society to get away from the people you disagree with is a pretty Nazi-ish thing to do. Anti-Nazi Nazism.

--

I have a question. Please read it devoid of any pretensions or grand concepts or preconceptions:

Will everything be okay?

I'm straddling this weird line between unemployment, stalled career, and job security. I don't know where anything's going, and any hope I grasp turns to sand and filters through my fingers. What am I doing? Where am I going? Every day I freak out that I'm in a downward spiral that will lead to a financially and professionally and personally unsatisfying trajectory. I don't know where to look for help.

Will it be okay? Maybe I'll end up basking in the faux-self-worth of being a fast food shift manager while in my 30's. Can I survive my life on just-better-than minimum wage? If I'm not capable of anything more, will I be able to avoid a retirement spent panhandling at busy intersections and sleeping under a forgotten overpass?

There are things I want to do. I want a cat. I want join the Big Brothers program and give a kid a hand like the one I was given during the soupy-thick fog of my adolescence. I want to join a community band and pick up the sax again. Right now I keep telling myself that I need to wait until my employment stabilizes, so that I can focus on one thing at a time. Taking on more than that would be irresponsible, wouldn't it?

But if everything will be okay in the end, maybe I can do those things now instead of later. Maybe I can find a way to contribute something to the world on a personal level, and find a patch of shade in my tumultuous desert of uncertainty. And then I can travel onwards.

---

Here's an idea: this is heaven. We're in it. Like, now. In front of whatever sized screen you're staring into, while trying to put off paying the bills after cleaning up from another bland dinner that makes you worry about your weight.

This is all based on the notion of living in a simulation: My guess is that, if such a thing were to be possible or even likely, the simulation itself would need a bit of built-in discomfort to keep us engaged. Maybe the real world is 2000 years in the future or whatever, and we have it all: resources, peace, technology, perfect health. Everything except adversity. There's nothing left to do, so we all plug into this experience that is, quite frankly, kinda unpleasant. So we play it all the way through, and once we run out of lives, we get dumped back to the surface where we compare notes on how we did and discuss how this vintage-themed MMO on steroids is progressing.

We are God. Some of us go into the simulation just try try living a different style of life as a poor kid in the slums of Bombay, and then take it easy the next round as a office worker in Versaille. Sometimes we play as assholes, sometimes we play as people-pleasers, and sometimes we play with the Self Confidence slider set all the way to 0.

It makes sense to me that if this were all a simulation we'd need a source of conflict to maintain engagement. It think we'd get bored if it was just one big sandbox with infinite resources.

---

When I die, I hope people won't hesitate to speak ill of me, if that's how they genuinely feel. If there's a sandpaper grudge lurking between their skin and soul, it doesn't need to be repressed under the guise of 'respect those who have passed'. Screw that. Death is the one, final, ultimate catharsis. And it doesn't need to be limited to the person that moved on to the big summer cottage in the sky.

Speak your piece, whether uplifting or not. I'm dead. Not you nor anyone else owe me anything. Hopefully by bringing all the ugly things to light it'll help others steer a more peaceful course through their existence and make the world the tiniest bit better.

---

I went to dinner with my girlfriend to her best friend's home. We got to talking after, and her husband mentioned how he keeps a living bucket list. Among other things, he wants to read all of the New York Times best sellers and wants to see a baseball game in every MLB stadium. He freely admitted that he doesn't expect to ever complete these goals - the idea is just to give him something to keep an eye out for when opportunities present themselves. He's not taking leaps and bounds with his life, but stretching himself just a little bit when and where he can.

I don't want to write down my bucket list. That means I need to admit there are things I want to do that I might never get to. If I have an actual, factual list, there's a declaration of intent to live a full life and that there are things I want. And if I admit I want something, it obviously makes it harder to cope when it doesn't come together.

We can't have that now, can we? I'm much too busy collecting meager paychecks and watching the weeks slip past me.

---

I've discovered the secret, two-step process to guaranteed weight loss! 1.5 pounds a week! Doctors HATE me!

First Step: Just be hungry all the time.

Second Step: When you do eat, make sure it's something you don't like.

I've been eating a lot of carrots. Boy, do I hate carrots.

---

Lately I've been putting in some pretty late hours. Essentially my full time job pays me, shall we say, below market average, so my paycheck's momentum slides me right up to the 'barely making do' marker. Not much further. So now I feel like I need to be taking advantage of every freelance/side opportunity I can clutch in my spiny, greedy little fingers. It's the only way I can feel like I'm not falling behind.

That means, inevitably, that all my freelance income goes into the bank and stays there. It stays there until it smells kinda off, and it stays there until it starts growing some fuzzy green... What is that? Ew, it looks like it's collecting some kind of... interest.

My younger self would be appalled at the concept (but that's a lie, and we both know it).

So I'm working stupid hours and chucking everything in the back of my financial fridge. It's boring, and I wish there'd be a more immediate and tangible benefit to the long hours I'm putting in. I mean, I'm obviously just tired and burned out, but that doesn't really matter. Instead I find myself thinking, 'as soon as a freelance check clears, I should be spending, say, $100 of it on something fun'.

But on what?

Another video game? I'm working so much that I'm slowly becoming less interested in staring at screens (now that would appall my younger self). Junkfood I can't or won't eat? Tickets to movies I don't want to see? Tools I won't use, books I won't read, clothes I'll maybe wear once?

An entertainment budget is an honourable intention, at least.

---

I inject pure kryptonite
Into my brain
It improves my kung-fu
And it eases the pain during
Acceleration
When the pedal hits the floor
This thing burns nitroglycerin
And powdered C4

And I will always love you

Dan Reeder - Clean Elvis