ENDLESS BEGINNINGS
Warm faces and wonder, their absence stabs, your missing brow - its nuanced shape.
1. Magic - like a nymph made of colour splashed against the rock wall.
2. Joy - the smallness of knowing both online and off.
3. Strangeness - the echo of soul that emanates from the uncanny valley.
Warm faces and wonder, their absence stabs, your missing brow - its nuanced shape.
Magic - like a nymph made of colour splashed against the rock wall.
Joy - the smallness of knowing both online and off.
Strangeness - the echo of soul that emanates from the uncanny valley.
All time made focused, all of you and me, all but here and now. All smiles and shifting dreams.
High and low stacked together, side by side. Plucked memories, shaped into loose emotions and showered feelings. All pool at the feet of new beginnings …and beginnings, and beginnings.
THE LOUDEST ACTION
Words are like wind, they can be sweet and warm, and brief.
To belong is to have tangled roots buried deep below, for nothing is given free. The community we surround ourselves with and the stewardship of our legacy are the product of effort. It is only when we become the gardener, willing to dig in the dirt and tend to the thorns, that we reap the fruit.
Belonging.
3. The loudest action.
Words are like wind, they can be sweet and warm, and brief.
To belong is to have tangled roots buried deep below, for nothing is given free. The community we surround ourselves with and the stewardship of our legacy are the product of effort. It is only when we become the gardener, willing to dig in the dirt and tend to the thorns, that we reap the fruit.
Home will be what is made of it, and actions speak most loud. The loudest action is commitment, dedication to others, to what has been and what will come. It is a journey that demands constant vigilance and endless maintenance.
To be deserving of our place we must sacrifice to earn it. Through building relationships with others and with the earth we may finally arrive at our destination - arrive where we belong.
A WELCOMING CROWD
Food, laughter, and common cause. That is the cornerstone of a strong social network. It is the three legged stool of both blood relations and found families alike.
To be one, to be alone, is to be unmade.
Belonging.
2. A welcoming crowd.
Food, laughter, and common cause. That is the cornerstone of a strong social network. It is the three legged stool of both blood relations and found families alike.
To be one, to be alone, is to be unmade.
We are social creatures, wired for feedback, hungry for validation. Everything we build, we build with others. Who we build with, reveals who we are - greedy or giving, driven or despondent.
When we are with our people we are given place. Finding or building a welcoming crowd is essential. It is a journey with a million false starts and dead ends. But while love and friends may come and go, home is where we are known, where we are wanted and where we are valued.
A HILL TO STAND ON
There is a place we are each from. The land our ancestors tilled, actual earth our histories are rooted in. But the world has become small and as we move across it the physicality of belonging has become lost but for some, for others it remains.
Belonging.
1. A hill to stand on.
There is a place we are each from. The land our ancestors tilled, actual earth our histories are rooted in. But the world has become small and as we move across it the physicality of belonging has become lost but for some, for others it remains.
Those still in their place, still cradled in their homelands, radiate a sense of self that is alien to the visiting other. Those with a hill to stand on, ride at the end of a long and unbroken blade of grass, while those uprooted dig desperately trying to re-plant themselves.
The journey for both is one of preservation, to pass on their place to the next generation. Home is where we are rooted, it’s where we have always been and always will be.
A NON FUNGIBLE MARKET
The success of money - its fluidity, its ability to facilitate complex economies - is an incredible demonstration of our capacity to make abstract the concept of value.
In my head, work feels a lot like playing the slots. I pour in fractured stretches of duration like quarters - hours, days, years - then pull the lever and receive my fate in the shape of an assortment of numbers in my bank. Some pulls get me more, others a lot less. But those numbers are everything, I bundle them up and give them away for a roof over my head and food on my plate.
Money went from in hand, to in mind and now that we’re online a new kind of market has arrived in the form of a commodity beyond time.
The success of money - its fluidity, its ability to facilitate complex economies - is an incredible demonstration of our capacity to make abstract the concept of value.
In my head, work feels a lot like playing the slots. I pour in fractured stretches of duration like quarters - hours, days, years - then pull the lever and receive my fate in the shape of an assortment of numbers in my bank. Some pulls get me more, others a lot less. But those numbers are everything, I bundle them up and give them away for a roof over my head and food on my plate.
Money went from in hand, to in mind and now that we’re online a new kind of market has arrived in the form of a commodity beyond time.
Nearly a decade ago I was part of a group that hosted a “Free Market” every two weeks in east Vancouver. Every second Sunday a gang of us would gather together clothes, things, books, and food, and pack it all into a sprinter van. We would then cruise down Commercial Drive, laden with irony, and deliver our payload like an erupting clown car to Grandview Park. When we arrived we were met by more singularly inspired ne'er-do-wells who would help unpack and set up our Market.
We were all volunteers and everything was free, you could give, you could take, skills were shared, poems were written, free advice was given.
In organizing this circus every two weeks during the spring season we paid each other in non fungible time. What I mean to say is we made / spent / shared irreplaceable moments and memories. Not just the “end product” of the Markets themselves but also the planning meetings, the errands, the baking and the collecting.
In comparison, at the same time I organized the Free Market I also worked as a delivery driver. I spent 32 hours a week dropping off and picking up bins of varying sizes and weights. In retrospect my memories of my many months of work have all melded together in my mind. Unlike the time I spent with friends my sense of my paid labours has been reduced to a singular clump of precious meta metal that I exchanged for 0s and 1s.
I transferred so much of my singular time for ubiquitous cash, but I always kept the Free Market memories for me.
Now, Non Fungible Tokens want a piece of that action. Through NFTs the meta-sphere is buying and selling the abstraction of uniqueness and in so doing we have unwound our collective conception of value one notch further.
The unspooling I’m feeling is the gravity of convention giving way - it leaves me dizzy but still standing, always still standing.
The tides of time bring only change, so says me, and so agrees the boiling frog.
THE LARGER WORLD
Every time I see a plane I think about all the times I’ve flown. All the people on board, myself on a righteous adventure. Each one of us journeying through the skies represents an entire life lived - hopes, dreams, and sorrows.
Yet every plane I see is equally full of other people with their own lives lived - it’s a stark reminder of the larger world that is mostly unseen but remains deeply impactful in our lives.
Every time I see a plane I think about all the times I’ve flown. All the people on board, myself on a righteous adventure. Each one of us journeying through the skies represents an entire life lived - hopes, dreams, and sorrows.
Yet every plane I see is equally full of other people with their own lives lived - it’s a stark reminder of the larger world that is mostly unseen but remains deeply impactful in our lives.
I’ve found that if you live long enough in a small town you start to get the idea that you know the place. That you understand how all the pieces fit together, how the airport manager and customs officer work with service contractors to meet emergency aircraft, and how you might be able to convince them to let you ride along.
But then an Antonov An-225 arrives, a beast from another world, full with people and lives lived and lives to be saved. Sitting on the tarmac, it’s nose yawing open it reminded me of a great bird of legend, regurgitating it’s treasure.
When the small world of neighbouring Pangnirtung lost their generator in the middle of winter, the larger world of the Antonov steped in. Flew in, wedged in its belly, a specialized helicopter, the only vehicle capable manoeuvring a new generator to the mountainous Pang.
Thundering rescue, all further crisis averted.
It’s hard to fathom the machinations of millions - their reaching hand the deus ex machina that puts food on our plates and saves small towns from freezing.
STRANGE FICTION
I’ve been spending a lot of time reading recently.
The twist in the story I just finished is that one of the characters, the bad guy as it turned out, realized the world was ending and that humanity had to leave the planet. But as a species we did not have the technology to travel through space so they built a series of great bunkers for people to live in for seven generations… as they travelled in time.
I’ve been spending a lot of time reading recently.
One of the twists in the story I just finished is that one of the characters, the bad guy as it turned out, realized the world was ending and that humanity had to leave the planet. But as a species we did not have the technology to travel through space so they built a series of bunkers for people to live in for seven generations… as they travelled in time.
Time is a funny thing. One moment and then the next, like a story. Moments leading to changes - our bodies, our environments, all filtered through the shifting nature of now into then.
It’s all very daunting, the ultimate finite resource - but only in a sense, only when seen through our warped and subjective perspective.
One moment and then the next - not all moments always.
I remember this one perfect evening, camped out on a small lake in northern B.C. The wind would come in gusts, barrelling through the trees, sounding like gods racing each other through the forests. As the sun set all became calm, the water a perfect mirror in which we were the only ripple.
That moment lives forever.
All that has happened exists, all that will happen exists. We get to own both, forever and always. We forget this, can’t see it trapped as we are on the rails of now, bound to an arrow travelling in just one direction.
Enter the palace of our mind, enter the “I” watched by the eye of “me.” Here, thought and emotion mix with solid metaphors and are given place, memories walked through and future divined.
We are, if not infinite then infinitely more than now - strange comfort and stranger fiction.
COME READY
Winter came ready this year, snow as far as you could see, white like the world I left.
Its feathery assault was amusing and playful, arriving as it did on a Friday night. Nowhere to be early Saturday morning, the powder swam thick like soup, wrapped around my ankles as I made my way to the post office.
Winter came ready this year, snow as far as you could see, white like the world I left.
Its feathery assault was amusing and playful, arriving as it did on a Friday night. Nowhere to be early Saturday morning, the powder swam thick like soup, wrapped around my ankles as I made my way to the post office.
Everyone is a new friend after I’ve spent so much time alone. No one minds having their picture taken now that the world is functionally monochromatic. But it doesn’t last, and that’s what really kicked me. Two weeks later and its spring already.
I was hunkering down, I was getting ready to hold tight for the long months and longer nights. The winter that reaches deep and lulls you in, the cold that reddens your thighs and squeaks when you walk on it.
The drifts of snow comfort me, they are the edges of memories, they are the creases in my paper thin sense of home, they are the folds that form me into a crane.
The crisp cold memories of a clear and calm night - here on a weekend walk. The semblance of belonging both lost and found, a bundle of sad starts and even sadder endings, always looking for a fresh beginning.
A clean slate set.
FULLY EMBODIED
To be known, to be seen let alone call attention to myself, that has always seemed like a dangerous proposition. Better to hide, I told myself, better to be silent, blank and unknowable.
But it’s time to strip naked.
To be known, to be seen let alone call attention to myself, that has always seemed like a dangerous proposition. Better to hide, I told myself, better to be silent, blank and unknowable.
But it’s time to strip naked.
To be laid bare is to be vulnerable, and to reveal self is to be judged. Yet in the same breath I desire connection and validation, I want to make my minds matter a matter of many minds.
I can not do that by hiding. I can no longer tuck myself away. It does not make me a fortress - it leaves me impoverished. The stings of judgment, true or imagined, are glancing blows, whereas the shame of self-loathing cuts much deeper.
By this and starting now I will embody myself, flat backed and foot forward.
There is no room left to hate, no room for fear. We are only one, may we sing to many.
FLATTENED
Incoming and outgoing - all of it mediated through my own personal, two dimensional, wrinkle in space time. A world of faces, my own witless visage at it’s centre.
Incoming and outgoing - all of it mediated through my own personal, two dimensional, wrinkle in space time. A world of faces, my own witless visage at it’s centre.
I can’t help but see my own oddities - too serious, awkward angle, dumb hair.
I didn’t sign up to to look at myself, that is your misfortune... at least it was. I face inward enough. Even if only momentarily can we let our meetings return to an absence of self.
CITY SCOPE
I am not entirely sure what I am doing living in a box so far from the ground.
“Fuck you Vancouver Island,” screams the man ten stories below.
I am not entirely sure what I am doing living in a box so far from the ground.
“Fuck you Vancouver Island,” screams the man ten stories below.
I can see the corner of my neighbours kitchen, they use it so seldom. By contrast the couple across the street always keeps their light on, oblivious to the salsa dancing two doors over and one door down.
There they are, the other, the stranger, looking out their window back at me - I am frozen, like a deer trapped in the glare of surging modernity.
Looking out to the city, all of it’s corners and stores, layered identities and everything in between, everything at my fingertips, anyone I want to be is a short walk away.
Cool vintage clothes, check.
Board games galore, check.
Self actualizing, nature loving gear guru, all dollars and no sense… check.
How lucky can one guy be.
Me.
JUMP OFF POINT
What am I doing here?
What am I doing here?
I am jumping free from my shell, the homesafe holdback that has kept me from having to try too hard. I am going to explore, I am going to create. I am going to make sure I am writing and thinking, reading and producing.
Here today. Hear tomorrow.