Category: Life

This is a true story of two friends who met when they were five years old. They had similar interests, aptitudes and even home lives, for they both came from similar immigrant families. As they graduated high school, they even went into the same field and attended the same college.

But this is where their paths diverged.

One felt unhappy with the path he was on and sought fulfillment elsewhere. He took off from home and decided that he would say yes to any adventure that came his way, becoming a missionary, a student of philosophy and theology, a professional magician, teacher, writer and chaplain. Feeling the need to sow his wild oats, he met someone he loved, got married and started a familiy.

The other felt committed to a singular goal of staying put and creating happiness around him. He struggled for a few years to find steady work, but then landed an opportunity that finally secured his future. He built incredible financial independence, a home full of comforts, met someone he loved and decided kids would not be in their future. From the outside, it appears to be a fortress of solitude, but the inside is the fulfilment of a life dream.

The two remained friends the entire time and both came to the same realization around the same time as they reflected on their paths. They both realized, as they looked to the other, there was something to love about what they did, and there was something to envy about what the other did. But they both ended up happy and continue to push each other for even greater joy in their lives, closing the small gaps of malcontent that still remain.

Neither of them regrets their decision.

To live with regret is to romanticize the path of a decision that wasn’t made.

And no matter what path is finally decided upon, it’s the only one to find fulfilment in.

In the nerdiest plight I could manage, I started my summer by attending a physics lecture in cosmology at the local university. It was a public lecture on the origins and understandings of the cosmos, and the physicist, Dr. Neil Turok, did a tremendous job explaining an idea that more people need to hear:

The universe is remarkably simple.

We know enough about its laws to make accurate predictions about anything: positions of stars, movements of meteors and even where our planet will be a billion years from now. We can do all of this thanks to what we’ve learned in science. The details are what we’re still exploring because more discoveries lead to more questions and we’re just so curious as a species.

And this is what I want to defend.

We can predict when two stars are going to collide, the rotation of the galaxies and even when the next meteorite will come flying through our airspace, but you can’t predict what a person is going to do tomorrow. Humans are unpredictable despite the many years of behavioural psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, neuroscience… you name it. We haven’t come close to understanding humanity.

For those wanting to dive into the murky waters of the free will vs. determinism debate, sit tight because I feel we’re being forced into one camp.

The beauty (and ugliness) of humanity rests in our creative thinking and ability to change. Looking back on our inventions, art and ingenuity, we are beings who literally manipulate the cosmos for our own edification and understanding. It’s also remarkable how we can change, even quite drastically without notice.

A prime example is someone close to me who once remarked that being gay is a disease you should go to the doctor to “fix.” Several years later, this same person is defending gay people getting married by responding to a random stranger in line that everyone deserves love. It honestly shocked me.

But this is what’s great and can be wonderful about humanity—we can change our own trajectory.

And this is what concerns me deeply.

The powers that be want us to be as predictable as the rest of the universe. They want to hold the strings that will force us to behave in a certain way, respond on a clear path and follow a set script of their choosing. There is an underlying assumption that human beings are just as deterministic as the rest of the cosmos and therefore, we need to be monitored and spoon fed until we conform to such a way.

Of course, the problem is we’re allowing this to happen because we appreciate comfort and predictability. However, that’s not what we’re about, at all.

If human beings were just as simple as the rest of the cosmos, why haven’t we established a universal code of conduct? Morality is very dependent on culture and we clash over the best way to survive and thrive going forward.

What about Religion? This is the hallmark of my own studies where you find countless stories, ideologies and tenets to provide understanding, comfort and consideration for the unknowable. You will find much overlap in their tenets, but consider the breakthroughs in art and architecture to support these belief systems.

Then you have the arts, which undergo many evolutions as society and technology changes.

In my observation, one of our tragic flaws as humans is we always look towards a leader to guide us, or at least provide some semblance of safety/consistency in our lives. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of deifying our leaders and allowing ourselves be lead by those who embody ambition, corruption and a love of power. I don’t hide my feelings that all politicians are the same, regardless of what “values” they claim to have and uphold. You usually have to strain to think about “good” politicians who actually care for people, only to realize those are the exceptions and extremely rare throughout history.

However, despite this flaw of ours, we’re a pretty remarkable species. We adapt, we move, we create, destroy and rebuild.

We can change, sometimes out of nowhere. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes not. And all of us are great and horrible in our own ways (some tilt towards one side more than the other).

We’re not simple creatures and it’s time we stop pretending that’s the case. We’re complex, complicated and capable.

To be treated as anything less is to be miserable.

If there's one drug you can accuse me of being highly addicted to, it's nostalgia. I will absolutely accept that claim and put myself forward as a victim to its tantalizing lure, rich in memories of a time that felt like a golden era. 

After all, what's not to love about a time in your life when there were less responsibilities, more freedoms and the opportunities to recover from a night without worry?

But here lies the danger.

To suggest a time of the past was indeed the golden era of life that you need to live in again is to completely disregard where you are in the moment. It negates your responsibility to create a better future, not only for yourself, but those closest to you. It spits in the face of the advancements that have made life better for many (think of those with AIDS who can now live a full life thanks to medical research). It also casually ignores the many negatives from the years past, quietly sweeping them under the rug in lieu of the rose coloured lenses we put on. 

As much as I love my 90s music, I need to remember it was born out of a generation who was depressed, angry and disgruntled with the state of the world and this was their way of expressing it... or escaping from it. As progressive as we thought we were, I currently teach in a Catholic School where I have students who are openly gay and this barely registers as a topic of conversation among their peers. That would've been unheard of back then. 

Now, I do think we made some serious missteps in society, mainly social media. That particular addition has shifted us from caring about the argument to only focusing on who is saying it. This means it has given the opinion of stupid people with confidence the same voice as people who actually know what they're talking about, and we are all versed in who wins popularity contests. Mind you, that's just scratching the surface.

However, I can't live in the past because that's not how time works for us. The generation of young people are growing up in a world that is where it's at and we have to meet them in the moment. They have no idea what it's like to exist in a time of legacy media and "latch-key" kids. Asking them to join us on getting society back to some nostalgic time in our heads is the equivalent of our parents asking us to join them on their nostalgic trip back. There might be an allure to it, but we have to be honest in asking what's worth keeping from that time and what's worth fighting for now. 

In the meantime, nostalgia must remain a drug: an illusory feel-good escape that ignores the dangers of overdosing on it. 

At its very best, life makes little sense.

Sure, we can reflect back upon it and stitch together a coherent narrative, filling in the gaps with the best possible explanation. We can even go as far to say there was a purposeful path that it took or there was some kind of justification for everything that happened.

But let’s be honest—are we just lying to ourselves?

The universe doesn’t really care about your plans, luck is a major factor in all things and despite doing everything right, things can still go off the deep end. People don’t make sense on the best of days and their decisions, including ours, are usually baffling to most. Tell ten people they need to make a major lifestyle change or face death within a year and only two will do it.

A good story gives us comfort and if we have to do incredible mental gymnastics to make it work, then so be it. We’ve all seen people make incredible justifications for whatever narrative they believe in and we’ve also witnessed society follow nonsensical ones simply because there they were convinced enough.

There is no point where we’ve figured out life, achieved a perfect society or even really know what we’re doing. For hundreds of thousands of years, we were wandering nomads just trying to survive and figuring out ways to do that together against the elements, and sometimes against each other. Ten thousand years of civilization, where we repeat the same mistakes with different technologies, hasn’t really progressed us any further in our quest to make sense of the universe.

This isn’t a call to just give up and do with what we will, but to embrace the absurdity of our own hubris. To stop glossing over the inconvenient or negative details, or the ones completely out of place, see them for what they are and acknowledge them.

Let’s never stop trying to be better tomorrow than we were today, while also not letting yesterday define what that’s going to be. Sometimes, you just fall into things. Other times, you just get hit with a streak of rotten luck. It’s all simply the absurdity of what it means to live.

Please refrain from showing my mother this post, but in thinking back at the times I was at Church with her, there is one thing above all else that I am thankful it brought me:

The ability to be bored.

Don’t get me wrong. There were many wonderful things being a part of a Church community brought me and I certainly felt an overwhelming sense of joy at being a part of it, hence why I teach Religion today, but a child sitting in the second pew of a Catholic Mass just cannot comprehend what’s going on: 20 minute homilies, litany of saints, monotone readers… all of this added up to my brain working out every conceivable way to keep myself entertained without the sharp eye of an Italian mother ready to put me in my place if I acted out.

It was always a sigh of relief when the ushers gave the bulletins beforehand because I would have it memorized by the end of the hour. Also, it’s no wonder meditation was an easy transition for me.

More than that, however, are the studies out today on creativity that point towards boredom as the catalyst for sparking new thinking. It’s also a great workout for the brain and forces it to do some thinking and reflecting, which are two critical points we’ve given up on today in lieu of getting the machines to do that for us.

While I’m not against some assistance in filtering the noise in our heads, I take serious issue with failing to do the work itself.

And while I tongue-in-cheek pointed towards Church as the foundation for learning to be bored, we used to have many other natural moments in place to help with this cause: boring classes forced very creative solutions on how to pass notes, doctors/dentists offices with their grossly outdated magazine subscriptions had you thinking about other parts of your life and sitting in your friend’s basement with no screens forced some ideas to promulgate about what to do (which was the entire basis of “That 70’s Show”).

Unfortunately, we are stuck in a society with aggressive marketers and Napoleon-syndrome tech-bros preventing boredom from happening with their design principles of hijacking our attention for their monetary benefit. Despite knowing the need for boredom and the extreme mental, and physical, health benefits of forcing time away from their devices, they are determined to prevent any sort of boredom that might result in seeing through their smokescreen.

Now, the Church of my childhood is not the same as it is now and therefore, not my prescription (for boredom, anyway). However, I think we can dare ourselves to be bored a little more often and see where it leads.

Thanks to a martial arts injury as a teenager, I spent decades with tendinitis in my knees and an inability to do anything high impact with them. No matter how much I rested, stretched or did something worthwhile, they always gave out.

The more I read about the permanency of knee injuries, the more I resigned myself to thinking there was nothing I could do aside from low impact activities such as biking or yoga. Swimming seemed to be the only thing that I could feasibly do beyond that.

By the time I hit 40, it got to the point where I dreaded stairs. The pains were sporadic up until that point, but came with more consistenty the closer I crept to that “middle age.” Then, a few years ago, a friend of mine challenged me to do a virtual exercise challenge.

He had gotten into running as a way of staying healthy and losing weight, and wanted to take on something that we could do together. The challenge was to virtually walk/run the same distance as The Camino di Santiago, keep track of our distances and add it to the total. I told him in support I’d help him, but I’d have to walk.

Then something happened.

The effort to walk was feeling better on the knees each day I did it. The walking turned into periodic moments of jogging, then full on running. The one exercise that was supposed to damage me further was giving me new life.

Then I started setting my goals higher.
• Run a full 5k
• Run that 5k in half an hour
• Break the thirty minute barrier
• Run outside
• Complete a 5k race

This eventually led to outdoor runs where the kilometres kept going up and the feeling of it all just got better. That 5km led to 10km and is now leading to 22km.

However, I fell into a trap that many people do once they take on a new initaitve that was just for themselves:

I started researching metrics and comparing myself to others. Specifically, other runners who have been training for many years, if not most of their lives.

That moment hit me when I was finishing up a run and ran into my neighbour. He asked what distance I went that day.

Me, feeling slightly sheepish about my amateur number, said “Only 5k.”
He laughed.
“Only 5k,” he mocked. “I have asthma. I wish I could run more than a kilometre without it being an issue.”

To further solidfy the point, when I was gearing up for 10k run, I allayed my concerns to a friend about my pacing and finishing time. He asked if I knew what the world average was for finishing a run of that length.

“Before you think too long about it, the answer is zero because most of the world can’t run that long. You should be proud for just finishing it.”

Pardon the long garden path to get to my point, but the further entrenched we become in whatever it is we’re doing, the more we can lose sight of all we’ve done. There is no shame in telling people your goal is to “just finish” a run in the same way there shouldn’t be shame in “just finishing” any other project.

When you compare metrics against yourself, it should be a proud moment. In this case, I’ve been accomplishing something I have never been able to physically do and have been incredibly supported by my friends and family along the way. It’s not fair to compare myself against elite, sponsored athletes who spend all their time in training.

As that same friend who called me out also likes to say, “I’d rather be the world’s worst runner than its best couch potato.”

It’s easy to get sucked into a small bubble and think that’s indicative of how the entire world thinks and judges. Most people simply don’t care.

However, if you do have that competitive edge to you, then cooperate with others and compete against yourself.

For the longest time I put off reading the self-indulgent fantasies of Ayn Rand. A big part of that had to do with reading Terry Goodkind’s “Sword of Truth” series that started as an interesting fantasy adventure; then devolved into stream-of-consciousness prostelyzing of the virtues of selfishness.

In modern nomeclature, the series “jumped the shark” pretty quickly and never recovered. Feeling I had enough of Randian philosophy (“objectivism”), I had no interest in looking at the source material.

It wasn’t until the last decade that her work has come forward again and preached by advocates all over the social spectrum (teenage self-interest to senators in the highest levels of government), that I took a serious look at it. Perhaps it’s my attachment to the wonders of community and seeing how it benefits all of us that gave me difficulty with believing anybody could take this seriously. I mean, the basic summary is that selfishness is a virtue, we should all act in our own rational self-interest, altruism is for suckers and the only role of government should be to protect private interests.

In Rand’s dream world, private industry is the reason for innovation and would produce wonders for society while also extolling the achievements of humans. Ideas like romanticism, abstraction and subjectivism are tossed aside because they are not grounded in an objective world. It’s at this point that I could perhaps forgive Rand for what I assmume to be purposefully tone-deaf to the world around her and the very basics of human history that showcases how easily we are corrupted by power. She also didn’t have the foresight to know that she would eventually draw upon government assistance for her health issues late in life.

Rational self-interest depends on people acting… well… rationally.

I mean, if everyone acted rationally, we could just about make any system work just fine.

Unfortunately, this leaves us in a situation in a world where we celebrate the individual and denigrate the collective for our own personal gain. It also resulted in a system where people take advantage of the collective while also harshly judging it. I believe we call this talking out of both sides of your mouth.

“The government is inefficient and gets in the way of my progress…” while also begging government for subsidies to get this “private pursuit” going and providing a safety cushion in case it fails. This is why I roll my eyes when the financial industry tells us that we need to teach people financial literacy because they are the worst example of it. Wouldn’t we all love to just go YOLO on investments and then get a bailout in case it doesn’t work out?

All this to say, well done Rand. In your wild swing away from communism as a corrupt and wicked form of government, you’ve persuaded us to move towards a corrupt and wicked form of individualism.

How’s that working out for most of us?

It’s time for a new icon. We no longer need another Howard Roark or John Galt sounding the alarm of the downfall of society because we decided to help each other out, and we certainly no longer need the narcissism this type of behaviour brings.

What we need, is each other.