Saturday, June 23, 2012

Essential life advice

I've lived a pretty quiet life.  I sometimes wonder if I've missed out on the sage advice that is supposed to come from elders to keep you from screwing up or to guide you.  I think our generation gets most of its words of wisdom from television, movies and books.  Nothing wrong with that, I just feel that I can be thankful that I have one poignant moment in my real life of advice.  And I have some nameless guy to thank.

It does make for a striking image.  The three of us sitting around a camp fire in the pine wood forest, the light from the stars barely illuminating the dark water of the lake through the trees.  Just me and my childhood friend sitting with a guy who must have been in his mid to late twenties. The light from the flames not big enough to see clearly inside the rim of his hood and under his baseball cap.  I think he knew my friend but I can't remember if his name was ever said.  There he sits in my mind hunched over actually saying the words "I want you to know something important, something I wish I had known"  The advice was to my friend, this young boy.  I think we were fifteen at the time... maybe a bit younger.  My friend was staring blankly into the fire and I was right next to him trying to stay as still as possible.  It felt like I'd stowed away along on some ritual right of passage for boys and if I moved at all the guy would stop talking.  I don't even think my friend was listening to him.  The guy said for my friend to find a woman who kept surprising him.  Someone who would say lets go horseback riding rather than go to a movie. 

I can't remember if he added anything to it passed that but I remembered walking away thinking that in order to find someone who surprises you, you have to be a person who is just as surprising.  To be a person worth that person's time.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Inspiration and mountains

Sarah and I have been swapping links online for a while now to give each other a taste of what has been capturing our interest.  Each of us looking at a little project to do, videos that make us happy and so on.  The vlogbrothers and zefrank making up a big chunk of what we share on youtube.

 Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts class of 2012 is the most recent thing we've been watching. In his speech Mr Gaiman talked about his mountain or goal in life. Choosing to do things that get him closer to his mountain.  It made for an interesting talk yesterday.  On a long ramble around the lake we got talking about what our mountains were.  Both of us are sitting in a time of flux trying to find what we want to strive for... so the mountain is pretty hazy.

Sarah has a much clearer view of what her mountain is not.  I thought about looking at a mountain at night with stars shinning on either side.  You can see the mountain because it blocks out other things.  While the stars are beautiful they are not your mountain.

I was thinking more along the lines of building my own mountain... but now I'm wondering if that was a misdirected answer.  I'm still doing it but I'm not sure where it is going... like finding a few boulders that have bounced down the mountain towards me and I'm thinking that putting a few together would make a pretty good hill to climb.  And being from a prairie province a hill is pretty impressive.

But for now I'm writing down all the little things that I love to do and I'm putting them up on my wall in a hope that eventually I'll look up and see what direction these boulders have been coming from.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Badass step one

So I've quit my job to focus on becoming a more rounded and interesting person.  Not someone who just has dreams but might actually be able to go about accomplishing a goal.  I've had this plan for a while, this mythical time when in the future I would have all the inclination to read, practice and learn new skills.  To basically, take a level in Badass.

That time is now and yesterday I felt like I really started down that path. 

Two classes that have me already looking forward to next week: Yoga and fencing.  I've done yoga before and thankfully this instructor follows the same idea that my last one did, don't take yourself too seriously. It was a great class of seeing how far you could push your muscles and reminding them that the day in day out work they do is not a tenth of their potential.  Later that night I went to my first fencing lesson.  We're working with rapiers and everyone seems like really great people who are enthused to share their knowledge and have new members join.

So I walked away from my evening feeling energetic and ready to take on the next stage, information.  Today I went to the library and picked up a few book "Arte of Defence: An introduction to the use of the rapier" "Fencer's start-up: A beginner's guide" and "By the Sword: A history of gladiators, musjeteers, samurai, swashbucklers, and Olympic champions"  They seem like really interesting reads and should give me a better understanding of what I'm doing with my blade.

Best part of the yoga/fencing combo?  my muscles don't feel sore at all today.
I hope to keep a consistent log of what I get up to over the next few months... it might even become part of my attempts to improve my writing.