Victor's lament

Victor is depressed at the realization that life can be viewed as a ditch leading from birth to death — a grave with the ends kicked out, if you will. I well remember the first time I had this kind of thought . . . it was shortly after I started my first full-time job. The feeling that I'd have to do the same thing every day for the rest of my life (let's just say that my first full-time job wasn't quite intellectually fulfilling). It's a horrible sensation, and I don't have any easy answers to offer that don't sound trite or even condescending.

The world is the same size... There's just less in it.

I guess you could say I'm having an existential crisis, but not quite. I've recently woken up to the fact that life itself has become rather pointless. I don't mean this as a "I'm going to kill myself" kind of way, but life just doesn't seem to have as many opportunities for one to fulfill himself if he's thinking like me.

We go to school. Why? So we can get good grades and get accepted into University. We get into University, college, etc, and we study the higher learnings for what? a high paying job which will hold up you and your family... In my opinion, there's something missing there, and I realize it's why I always have a part of me that at its very core, isn't happy with things. Where is the freedom? Where is the ability to choose one's own destiny, over the established norm of society? [Captain Jack Sparrow in} Pirates of the Caribbean had it right in regards to the corners of the map being filled in.

I want adventure, as deviant as I sound for saying so, and I don't want a desk job that pays 25$ an hour. I have looked at the offerings that society in general gives, and I'm not impressed. I've looked at the various artistic industries, like music, and there's no creativity left in it. None at the surface, at any rate.

So, I ask the humble users of Facebook, hell, even approach me in real life to talk about this.

What is there left to live for?

What is there to do?

Why have we accepted this monotony, this boring and dull life? Our ancestors would be laughing at our pampered lifestyles. Why has humanity faltered on it's foot path to glory and enlightenment? This stretches beyond politics, beyond religion. This is pure human nature. The nature that fought, tooth and nail to achieve dominance over it's domain. Why has it stopped? Have we actually conquered all there is to conquer? Is there no true challenges left, beyond helping out the poorer nations to achieve power, and the causes to fight diseases that haven't been cured? This isn't what freedom is. This is monotony, this is... Incredibly boring.

What we have entered is a Fools Gold age. We are at our technological peak, it would seem, and our production of ideas and innovations has stopped, beyond what can get me easier to the grocery store, etc.

The renaissance had it right. The mindset was impeccable. The pure creative thought of that time period is admirable, and I yearn for such an age where we stand now. With the advances the original renaissance made, we could probably take on anything, should humanity actually stop this monotonous cycle, which discourages creativity in favor of cold knowledge.

Children in classes, who prefer to dream and learn about what interests them, rather than focusing on, say how to find the curve of best fit are frowned upon, deemed slow, or stupid. They aren't. They're the truly smart ones in this time, and with a little encouragement, maybe we could reach the legendary second renaissance. If we encouraged dreaming, and encouraged culture, more than encouraging people to fill desk seats and not to dream.

Sometime over the last hundred years, we've been taught to not look at the stars, instead to keep our eyes on our feet, and on the path laid out for us. Adventure is left broken behind, ideas are few and far between. Is there no way to end this age of monotony, of robots, mindlessly doing their jobs?

I appreciate the fact that we live in a relatively safe society, and that we're in the age of knowledge. But the more I look around, the more I realize that we aren't in the age of knowledge. We're in the age of "because we've reach a comfortable level of not needing to think for ourselves."

I'm sure this will be met with either protest or agreement, for those of you who read the whole thing, and please do let me know. Knowledge and experience are everything, I'm interested.

Originally posted on Facebook, reposted here with permission. Comments are open on this post (until the spammers find it).

Feeling my age

I got out to play badminton last night . . . for the first time since May of last year. I was heartened that I could still play — somewhat — but clearly I'm still not fully recovered from my shoulder injury from August.

I only played two full games, plus warm-ups, and I'm certainly feeling the results of too-long-delayed exercise this morning. My elbows and knees are creaking like haunted house door hinges, and I'm moving at about 2/3rds normal speed.

The first game went exactly as I feared it would: final score 15-1, and the "1" flattered us. I was terrible, and my partner had everything he could do to try to keep us in the game. I found, as the game went on, that I couldn't extend my left arm out quickly without pain, so I started holding it closer and closer to my body. By the time we were down 5 points, I was doing a creditable ham-actor Richard III imitation. This severely limited my ability to serve, as I couldn't put the shuttle out far enough from my body to get a clean serving swing . . . and I kept putting it directly into the net. I also had a spectacular pratfall, as I tried to regain my balance after swinging too hard at a fast return, and sprawled on the ground at mid-court.

The second game went much better, as I'd started to figure out the mechanics for serving so that at least I could put the bird into play (even if we weren't scoring points off my serves). We were down 8-3 when we started to recover — my second partner was doing an excellent job of covering the parts of the court I couldn't reach — and we got the score level, then moved ahead 9-8 before losing the serve. We swapped serves a couple of times before either team was able to score, but at the end, we'd won 15-12.

After that, of course, I was pretty much wrung out and decided that two games was more than enough to start my season off.

I'm glad I get a couple of days to recover before the next playing night. I need 'em.

Happy Birthday, Victor

It's Victor's 18th birthday. Congratulations!

In memorium

A simple recognition of some of our family members who served in the First and Second World Wars:

The Great War

• Private William Penman, Scots Guards, died 1915 at Le Touret, age 25
  (Elizabeth's great uncle)
• Private David Buller, Highland Light Infantry, died 1915 at Loos, age 35
  (Elizabeth's great grandfather)
• Private Walter Porteous, Northumberland Fusiliers, died 1917 at Passchendaele, age 18
  (my great uncle)
• Corporal John Mulholland, Royal Tank Corps, died 1918 at Harbonnieres, age 24
  (Elizabeth's great uncle)

The Second World War

• Flying Officer Richard Porteous, RAF, survived the defeat in Malaya and lived through the war
  (my uncle)
• Able Seaman John Penman, RN, served in the "Destroyer Equipped Merchant" fleet on the Murmansk Run (and other convoy routes), lived through the war
  (Elizabeth's father)
• Private Archie Black (commissioned after the war and retired as a Major), Gordon Highlanders, captured at Singapore (aged 15) and survived a Japanese POW camp
  (Elizabeth's uncle)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

Word cloud

I was curious what a word cloud for this blog might look like, so I visited Tagcrowd.com and fed in a representative sample (actually, this old post):

Funeral tonight

Belated confirmation for Dea Heron's funeral. This is copied from the Facebook event page:

Dea Heron's funeral service has been confirmed for tomorrow (Tuesday) August 19.

Visitation: 7:00 PM
Service: 8:00 PM

Service will be held at:

Brooklin Memorial Chapel
5295 Thickson Rd, Whitby, Ont

This is north of the 401 off the Thickson Rd Exit.

If you can't get a ride and want to take transit, get off the GO Train at the Whitby station and take the 302 Brock/Brooklin bus. Get off at the corner of Winchester and Thickson; the funeral home is about 1000 m SOUTH of the intersection.

Nicholas and Elizabeth Russon will be hosting a simple gathering afterwards, from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM. Their home is a couple of minutes away (north) in Brooklin.

My apologies for the late notice/confirmation. External bureaucracies are running our lives.

Blessed Be,
\Brian

Funeral tentatively set for Tuesday evening

We're still waiting for confirmation, but Dianne Heron's funeral is tentatively scheduled for 7:00 Tuesday evening at Memorial Chapel Brooklin.

Dea Heron, RIP

I've been careful to avoid discussing Dea's long-running problems with the health care system here in Ontario, even with anonymizing her, as the details could have been traced back to her and made an already insanely frustrating experience that much worse. I no longer need to worry about that, as Dea is no longer with us. She died in her sleep on Monday night or Tuesday morning.

She'd recently been in hospital for an operation (one of several that may have been necessary), and appeared to be recovering rapidly. Elizabeth had taken her home from the hospital on the weekend, and had talked to her on the phone on Monday. During that conversation, Dea said that she was sleeping a lot, which was understandable after several days in the hospital.

After several attempts to contact Dea on Tuesday, Elizabeth had the building manager try to knock on her door. There was no response, but the manager said that the cat was meowing quite loudly. When the manager used her key to enter the apartment, she found that Dea had passed away in bed while reading a book.

As Dea had no relatives in Canada, it is not yet clear what arrangements will be made for her funeral.

Darrell Markewitz has a brief note posted at his blog.