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Three big questions

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If you work enough, you’ll never have to live with yourself – or with anybody else, for that matter. It is my simple solution to a complicated, existential problem that is best summarized by three questions: what IS worth it? What do I deserve? Is there loving, loyal and lasting love?

The first question is typically – and almost boringly – philosophical. I say that with all respect for philosophy (the one lasting love of my life). The question has become a tired one at this stage in my life. 31 years of living has seen at least a decade of serious contemplation over this question. It’s a cop out question. It’s a trojan horse stuffed with every important question, basically. Nonetheless, I will summarize it in short order. I’m not sure what is worth focusing my energy on. I don’t know that I won’t have a big epiphany later in life, which will force me to reconsider how I spent so much of my time. I feel like focusing more on the pursuit of knowledge, writing, philosophy and conversations with those I care about are three can’t-go-wrong activities until I figure the rest out.

The second question is morally weighty and somewhat ambiguous. I am a big proponent of individual responsibility (hello Sartre, I miss you!). Basically, if you do bad (or good) acts, you need to own up to them and take responsibility. Modesty is good, so I believe in taking more credit for the bad things than the good ones. Yes, that’s called being hard on yourself. I have done some terrible things to people I have really cared about. I feel a certain guilt for them, but it is no longer crippling remorse. Progress! I have found a mix of meditation, writing and having good, honest conversations with people, when I make a mistake that hurts them, is a great way to face my moral failures head on. I have managed to make amends with the mistakes I made in the past. I have strove to live a more genuine, good and helpful life since I went off the deep end morally and mentally last year. So far, so good (pun intended)!

The third question is messy, borderline disastrous and downright divisive. People of a conservative, romantic or stoic disposition will lean towards the ‘yes’ side of the argument. Radical, cynical or free-spirited lovers will side with ‘no,’ or ‘probably not.’ I’m boringly undecided. I have felt my share of love – that blessed, soul-rocking and life-changing  passion. I have also seen my share of loss, betrayal and that hollow vacancy where love once was. I’ve given, and I’ve gotten, to be honest. The question of love plagues me more as I move forward in my career. The intermittent stops – or layovers (pun intended) – in different cities will slow down drastically soon. And then what? Stay single, lonely and awesome? Find love and either live a passionate, playful life with someone, or settle in and raise a family? I’m not sure what I want. There are days where I crave security and miss having a ‘home.’ There are also days where I crave beautiful new souls to connect with and explore life with.

Life happens, even as we try to dodge it by doing anything else. It’s all life. The issue is whether I will continue to blur through it like an amateur on Photoshop blending their blemishes, or if I’ll admit my own blemishes and life the authentic life I carve.

IDFC

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I hurt all the people I want to love. I reach out to touch them and cut them instead of holding them. Edward Scissorhands. When the only tools you have are hammers, everything is a nail. It’s hard to hold someone with tender care when the scars of abandonment, abuse and alienation are fresh and multiplying.

I know they promised you the world, and the hurt of false promises carve deep holes into your heart and mind and soul.

I know I’m broken in all the tender areas I want to love with, and all of my busted seams can’t be welded back together again. Sometimes I reach out, and up, and outwards, only to feel the cold, razor winds of indifference against my infantile skin. I retreat back into my warm, comfortable persona and push everyone – off of balconies and ledges –  away from me. Sometimes I feel the savage cuts of knives when I reach out, the mockery, betrayal and failure coming home to roost. Sometimes I feel nothing.

Forgetful nights

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Sometimes I forget how to write. The words don’t dance or appear majestically before my mind’s eye. The busy flow of thoughts are turned off at the tap. Words that so easily distract and entertain my passive mind, no longer come out for my active mind. I am a failure and a fraud, and everything I have written is a parlour trick or cheap show of smoke and mirrors. Sometimes much less so than that even.

Fall’s failed colours

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Fall blew in, breaking leaves and hearts, in an inevitable march of death. The ravens crocked their piercing gazes as lovers grasped for freedom, unintended pain and hopeless dreams. The strong were demolished by weakness and pride threatened the walls of their castles. The weak hid in crumpled newspapers hoping to not be caught up as rebounds, short-term leased lovers or undesirables. The strong stood in plain view and emptied their corrupted hearts, pouring their souls into any vase that would hold them for a night. The night fell, hard. The sun woke up sleepy, dreaming of a moon forever out of reach – save the occasional one night stand of darkness.

We lived like this. I loved like this. Glimpses of love slapped me on the cheek. Eternal lovers were burned out in only years. No justice was found.  The cool air changed hot hearts, as the rain came in. And the rain did come in. Passion was drowned – a beautiful, illustrious bird trapped in a cage in a sinking ship called salvation. I swam away from the ship as only a captain could.

Memories of faces, interrupted by perfect breasts and sincere tears, haunted my pre-sleeping mind’s eye. The fathers and grandfathers die, slipping their souls into all of these ravens for me to look at, speechless. They look me in the eyes, unable to speak. Their dark eyes meet dark eyes of my own. The midnight days have pierced my sensibilities, leaving an overwhelming darkness. I live in there with all of my accomplishments and successes, but none of the people that love me.

I don’t remember feeling normal. I have always been an incredible overachiever, morally ambiguous and a good person. I love too deeply, forever and too fast. I am passion personified and sadness quantified. The red and the blue. The phoenix and the bluebird. I always get back up, and I always take my hits.

The fall came in to pull apart my life. It was deserved. It was surgical. It was just the beginning.

The something else

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"I didn't sleep two days this week, but slept for 14 hours on two others," I  told my fellow drunks.

"I'm not sure if the insmonia will be gone yet, but I'm hoping tonight I'll be able to sleep."

I walked home in typical winter weather for St. John's, neither too cold or warm, too calm or windy or snowing too hard. Much of the journey was undertaken alone, as my new company had departed at a fork in the road not far from the scene of the good, though strange, times.

I entered the condo and knew I should try my hand at sleeping, but felt uneasy about it and not quite ready. I decided to sift through a night's worth of emails and messages and settle in to play some FIFA 13. The emails and messages were not urgent and soccer dominated my mind for at least an hour.

At sightly after 3 in the morning, I chose to sleep. There is a big difference between intending to sleep, choosing to sleep and acutally sleeping, which I had become all too familiar with. Thankfully, the slight drunk I had was conducive to sleeping and I fell asleep not long after my head hit the pillow.

Suddenly, I was awake again.

Somewhere in the neighbourhood of two hours had passed, and there was nothing happening. The condo was still and silent, but something inside of me felt awful. It wasn't a physical pain or my stomach telling me that I shouldn't have drank, it was the something else.

It's easy to fall back asleep usually, especially when one is sleep-deprived and drunk, but there was no repireve coming from this something else I spoke of.

It sat in my guts. It occasionally pushed its way up to the back of my skull. It sat behind my eyes like a passenger sits shot-gun. There was no escape.

My thoughts turned to the same place they had been turning for months, and I didn't want to be there. I tried to suggest I wouldn't go, that I should turn in early and call it an evening, but the shadow self was not 'aving it. It fought me every inch of the way, to the point where I had to yell in my head. The echoes inside one's head can be so loud, sobering and jarring.

Still, slept never revisited me. I begged for it to haunt me like my memories were, to grab some tender piece of my soul and bring it to the land of dreams. It was hopeless. There was freedom to choose, but sometimes the body did not respond as one requested. There was a constant struggle between one's will and one's body until the day we return to the earth, deathd rive having conquered us.

It was in these nights the death drive was strongest, because sleep was the cousin of death. If I couldn't mingle with sleep, I always spend time with her cousin. There was certainly a desire for her company now, and wasn't sleep just a taste of death anyways?

One stops feeling, mostly, and ceases to exist in reality. Dreams take over, and it sounds like we may dream in death too. There is something comforting and reassuring about sleep, because it feels like a partial return home, a taste of what is to come when we finally kick up our feet and end.

Of all evil and of all love

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Nietzsche had a way with words that was not usual for a philosopher. Sure, he could often be difficult to read due to how abstract some of his writing was, but occasionally he delivered a gem. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he wrote:

"Of all evil I deem you capable: for that reason I want from you the good. 

Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who think themselves good merely because they have lame paws!"

I love this passage, and have since first hearing it. It represents something about all of us that many of us will never say. We are capable of any evil – we could steal, we could cheat on our lovers, we could destroy someone's reputation, we could kill, we can do any number of awful, evil things – and this is why Nietzsche is asking for the good.

This line has incredible importance in relationships, and in love in general. We are all capable of doing horrendous things, which are out-of-character (although that is an interesting debate – what is "out" of character? Are we not several characters at different times?), but we are also capable of treating someone well and with proper love. However, people are not good to each other, which makes this line all the more significant.

Should we except people to be good to us? Judging by the masses, no we should not, but we do expect our lovers to be good to us. The statistics are not in favour of us behaving well to our lovers.

 

In a 2007 MSNBC article, which surveyed over 70,000 North Americans, only 25% of respondents had never sexually fantasized about others, sent sexual emails to others, webcammed, given oral sex, had sex with others or romantically kissed someone else.

Half of respondents said they had been the 'other' man or woman in an affair, and almost half of the respondents had cheated at some point, with 22 per cent having cheated on their current partner. Nearly forty per cent of cheaters cheated with their children in the same home. So, don't talk to me about how good people are to their lovers, because if half of the people surveyed – and this survey is by no means an anomaly with its statistics – and yout ake into account that many people will not feel comfortable admitting to cheating, even digitally, then people are probably not as good to their partners as you are leading yourself to believe.

So where do we go from here? Well, the current dating landscape is often referred to as a post-dating world, and certainly my good friends over at The Gaggle have their fingers on the pulse of modern "dating" (if we can even call it that these days). I don't think the idea of monogamy is dead, or maybe to go back to Nietzsche, it is dead, "but considering the state the species Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which [its] shadow will be shown."

To be more optimistic towards love than Nietzsche's statements about God – and perhaps show off my romantic side with love – I believe a committed monogamous union of two people is possible. Both people must realize that they are capable of great evil, but trust one another to behave in a good moral fashion. We don't have to be draconian in relationships, but there needs to be a level of trust where both people are comfortable and do not worry about their partner committing evil towards them. Is that too much to ask?

 

 
In a recent MSNBC article, which surveyed over 70,000 North Americans, only 25% of respondents had never sexually fantasized about others, sent sexual emails to others, webcammed, given oral sex, had sex with others or romantically kissed someone else.
 
In a recent MSNBC article, which surveyed over 70,000 North Americans, only 25% of respondents had never sexually fantasized about others, sent sexual emails to others, webcammed, given oral sex, had sex with others or romantically kissed someone else.
 
In a recent MSNBC article, which surveyed over 70,000 North Americans, only 25% of respondents had never sexually fantasized about others, sent sexual emails to others, webcammed, given oral sex, had sex with others or romantically kissed someone else.
 
In a recent MSNBC article, which surveyed over 70,000 North Americans, only 25% of respondents had never sexually fantasized about others, sent sexual emails to others, webcammed, given oral sex, had sex with others or romantically kissed someone else.
 
In a recent MSNBC article, which surveyed over 70,000 North Americans, only 25% of respondents had never sexually fantasized about others, sent sexual emails to others, webcammed, given oral sex, had sex with others or romantically kissed someone else.
Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who think themselves good merely because they have lame paws!" -Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, p.103.

Anger and experience: Thoughts on love and loss

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Experience is the best teacher, and there's no debate about that. In love, one has to skulk through the gallows and be beheaded to understand loss, and how to be a proper lover. Some of us learn lessons quicker than others, and many people do not learn much. 

At 26, I've loved and lost many people in my life. I'm fortunate that way, because I've had the chance to be close to a lot of amazing people, and to learn a lot of harsh lessons. I've been cheated on, I've cheated, I've felt the desperation of another and I've been the desperate. I've spent nights holding someone I no longer loved while they cried in my arms, and I've been in their sad shoes too.

I've laughed and cried with lovers and ex-lovers, I've left people at the proverbial altar, and been left at the proverbial altar as well. I've been the one that couldn't let go, and let go of people too easily. Love and loss never get easier, if anything, they seem to be getting harder.

The loneliness grows, it does not rest. I could keep crawling in and out of beds like I used to, but that man is gone. That doesn't fill me up like it used, or like I thought it used to. Neil Gaiman is right about kisses and sex giving a piece of your heart to your partner, and one only has so much heart to give. For someone that loves intensely and with passion, this has always been a fact of warning for me.

At some point the jaded  feeling grows to dangerous levels, and loneliness is cancerous in your mind. What is the great seperator of lovers? How much did they all mean, and how do they compare? They do not compare, because every love is different. Some love dies early after the break-up – if these things can ever be said to die fully – and some smoulder in your heart for years – and maybe for life, although I'm far too young to say.

The pain lessens with time, but that is probably from one's pain tolerance growing as opposed to the pain itself lessening. Or maybe we do stop caring as much, but there is no way to gauge it. Either way the point remains the same: the pain lessens with time. Loneliness has a way of fanning the flames of past lovers in your sad heart, but that's the game of life. Humans are conflict-machines, and even our own heart tries to promote conflicts within us it seems.

The key is lessening conflict. Zen. Trying to live a more peaceful existence is not easy, nor always tolerable. Anger is a very righteous feeling, the primitive push for violence and war can be as strong as sexual desire. Anger does not solve problems. Anger eats love, and does nothing to combat loneliness, sadness or the pain of lovers lost. 

At the end of the day, you can be angry you lost someone, or that they don't appreciate you anymore, but that won't help you sleep away those lonely nights or get your mind right. If anything, anger will corrupt you, and make you toxic. Anger is a cycle that does not end, unless you force it to. The only thing anger understands is a violent, screeching halt, and that is exactly how it must be finished.

The difference a Christmas makes

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I have felt some of the lowest emotions of my short life in the past two weeks. This will not come as a surprise to my friends or family. Without going into details, few things worse than what have happened over the last two weeks could happen to bomb a person's life.

This is not woe-is-me. In fact, I want to speak wih hope and optimism for the future. Just over a week ago, I lost my mover and yesterday, I lost that friend. Not lost in a sense of detah, but maybe permanently lost all the same. What difference a Christmas makes.

Last Christmas I almost bought a ring, and this Christmas is driven towards a strong hatred. The hatred I have dropped, it has not been easy. I awoke this morning shaking with rage, I sat down and watched both hands shaking uncontrollably. There was only one way life could go from here, and there are less than a handful of moment spent here on the bedrock.

Ths hatred has gone, a steely resolve to move forward has taken over. The love remains, despite the events that have led to this circus. To be clear, the fult does not rest with any one individual. A multitude of failues and mistakes needed to take place for everything to come together as it did. Mistakes on my part, mistakes on her part, and that;s the nature of the beast.

We walk into commitment with our own failings as people, and we hope that we can somehow weather the storm. Sometimes the storm is too much, or it tears the roof off our houses. Sometimes the roof can be repaired, but occasionally it just gets patched up until it breaks again. It never ends.

In the end, there is only love. You can hate, and you can be betrayed. You can suffer and wallow in it. These things never overcome love, no matter how brutal they are. 

Stories in sports reporting

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It’s easy to go to a game, mark down the score-lines, the significant moments, and how every big play breaks down. It’s time consuming, but easy nonetheless.
It’s also basic to talk to the coach, a few players, and get some quotes to go along with your story.
Granted, there are long days with sports reporting. Some weekends you pound out a few articles a day, attend a handful of games each day, and run around like a chicken with its head cut off.
The difficult part is picking up on the stories behind the action. These are often referred to as human interest.
Now, sports reporting is not the same as it was. I am not beckoning for some past era of sports reporting, when Hunter S. Thomson drove Cadillacs while hopped up on handfuls of drugs, or anything of the sort.
It’s rare to get the true human interest pieces now. Sure, you get the stories about an athlete like Tim Thomas, and his hard road to the NHL, and the Stanley Cup> You stillg et some of it. My issue is that we aren’t getting enough of it. Stories make sports interesting to everybody, not just sports fans.
I believe anyone can read about someone like Thomas, and be interested. Someone can read about the age-defying Teemu Selanne and be inspired, not just because they like hockey.
However, the feature side of reporting seems to be drying up. It is the joy of sports reporting, and it is shrinking. I read a tonne of game summaries, and the hard news of sports; it’s my job, but it’s also my passion. I long for more sports features. Occasionally, one comes across an article, and video, like the BBC produced interview with Joe Cole. This is a short interview, but it reveals a lot about the athlete and the culture around soccer in England and France.

These are the sort of stories we need more of in journalism, and not jut with sports. Last night I had a great conversation with a man who had 17 years of journalism experience before stepping away from the field. He now works as an independent film-maker and makes corporate communication pieces. He enjoys making documentaries, because he gets to dive into a story and swim around awhile. He can wade around the water, dive to the bottom of the pool, or try and climb out wherever he would like.

Story-tellers need the space to tell the story fully and in their own way. Modern-day journalism focuses on quick hits, and hour-by-hour updates, as opposed to the whopping features and deep-digging stories of old. Some people say the audience has changed, and they no longer read the lengthy features. Some say the industry no longer funds journalists to write long stories. I believe complacency plays a role as well. I’ve seen a lot of journalists who are willing to call it in from the office, or get their quick story and get out. I’ve even heard ghastly rumours of template-using sports reporter.

In truth, there is a combination of things. Morale among journalists is low, funding is brutal, and maybe the audience has become less interested. There is no easy solution, but this is a plea for more consistent effort from all my colleagues in sport writing. Keep writing, and I’ll keep reading ladies and gentlemen.

Finding my way as a Newfoundlander

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Many Canadians will read the headline for this post, and instantly think of that six-letter word – newfie – which I have intentionally left out in favour of the politically-correct term.

While the word has always been something I have used in an endearing, affectionate manner, it is not often regarded as such by people hailing from Newfoundland. It isn’t akin to violently-offensive racist descriptions, but it also isn’t welcome. A solid post about the term can be found by Candice, a native Newfoundlander, over at Candice Does the World, so I won’t rant too much about the topic.

Now that we have taken care of that thought-progression, let’s get to the meat of this post – my experiences living in Newfoundland.

To begin, I will establish a timeline.

I moved here to attend MUN’s Humanities program – which drew me in from Sudbury, Ontario – on August 30. 2011. I viewed and selected a condo on September 1, 2001 with my love, Melanie Langlais. Notice the word ‘condo,’ which begs the question of how I am living in a condo as a student.

In terms of work, I accepted the job of Sports Editor with The Muse in the latter stages of the summer. I picked up a second job as a Graduate Assistant for my program shortly after arriving. I kept freelancing for my old paper, The Lambda. I took on a new job as a freelance writer for the Canadian Press covering the St. John’s IceCaps (see an example of that here), which is an entire-season contract, similar to my work for them last year as the Sudbury Wolves’ reporter. Today, I accepted another position that I can not announce yet, but it involves sports writing as well.

So I’m working something like five jobs, although an exact number gets a bit hazy when it comes to freelancing. I manage this along with being a full-time grad student. In a simple statement; I’ve been busy. I have also been saner and more-organized in the past, but some things must be sacrificed in the name of productivity.

I have found the amount of help given to me by certain individuals has been helpful for me, professionally and socially. On a professional level, I would like to thank Neil Davidson of CP, Dr. Jennifer Dyer from MUN’s Humanities program, and Shayne Menecola of MUN’s varsity athletics. Socially, I would like to thank the staff at The Muse, particularly Jessie Small, Marie King, Tim O’Brien and Paul Hussey, who I have become fast friends with. I would like to thank MUN soccer coach Scott Betts, who was the first person I met with upon arrival, and who has provided great conversation about the beautiful game and life. I would like to send a special thanks to my fellow IceCaps reporters, who have made the  job more enjoyable, and especially humorous. I would also like to thank Mike Rossiter of CBC who has been great to talk shop, and life, with.

A careful combination of professional and social life has led to a happy and productive life so far on the Eastern shores of Canada. I have now been here for close to three months, and although I am excited to return home to visit with my family and friends, St. John’s does feel like home  for me.