hi. i'm dave.

Self-discovery feels so good.

Lately I’ve been rediscovering and discovering so much about myself.  After having my heart kicked in the ass early this year I was left hollow.  Blah blah blah…no I’m not complaining it’s just a fact at this point.  I’m over it now and am so much the better for it.  But the fact of it is that at that point myself was intertwined with herself - and when that disappeared everything in my life came into question.

About a month and a half ago I met someone who challenged and inspired me with the strong person that she was herself (I briefly mentioned it in an old post), and this was the turning point that has been pushing me to go down this path of self-discovery.  This chance meeting re-lit the fire under my ass and I’m so grateful.

I’ve come to realize that this past summer I’ve subconsciously been keeping myself busy to avoid dealing with some of these important things.  Why?  Honestly it was because I was scared to.  I look back now and often wonder why I was so blind - but to do that would be to trivialize a situation that was not quite so simple.  The fact is that thinking on these things was exactly what I NEEDED and there was nothing to be scared about.  This weekend, I did a lot of reevaluating my goals in life.  A lot of meditation and conversation…the where-I-am-now and where-I-want-to-bes, including a serious check on my priorities.  They were not where they should be.  But now that they are I feel like life is back on track again.  It’s taken me a long time to get to where I am now but I’m so happy that I am.

One surprising part of myself that I’ve come to discover is the desire to settle down.  A friend of mine just recently bought a house.  I helped him move in one night and it seems to have kindled something inside of me that wants to settle down.  Now I’ve always sort of thought of myself as transient: my home being where I lay my head to rest - and I know my friends will back me up on this.  …So to say that the inclination to settle down made me check myself would be an understatement.  I always knew I’d want to settle down eventually…create a home, maybe have kids, start the next chapter of life, but I always sort of just sort of resigned it to some time in the future.  I never actually thought at which point my desire of lifestyle would turn…and apparently it’s turned just like *that*.  More than once I’ve found myself walking down the street these days, peeking into other people’s living room windows as I walk by wondering..wondering..wondering.  This is all new to me.

Life, love, happiness…I’m optimistic.  I find myself going back to my old mantra: “True friends, close family, and love.  Focus on these three things and everything else will fall into place.”  It’s a little simplified for where I am in life now, but I still think it’s a good starting point.  Here’s to the future.

Wanderlust

Mother earth is so ruggedly beautiful.  I’m itching to explore her nooks and crannies, stand on her mountain tops, wander along her ocean pathways, and set sail to new places I’ve never heard of before…

I also want to go snowboarding, bad!  This flick is the “Planet Earth” of snowboarding.  Love.

Let it snow…  Happy Monday.

Weekend Update

Do you ever acquire lucidity in the middle of a dream and are convinced, even for but just a moment, that what you’re experiencing is reality?  With this perception that this is a reality you experience everything as if it were real…but then as your mind analyzes the self-constructed reality you start to get this feeling that something’s a little off.  You then question if you’re in a dream…perhaps even realizing you are and then taking off into the air like Superman in a lucid dreamworld where you are in full control.  This kind of parallels how I’ve been feeling all weekend, well at least the “something’s a little off” feeling.  I kind of felt like a waif floating from one thing to the next.

That said, this weekend was great.  I’m probably just tired to the point where I’m a bit light-headed.

Ashtanga with Shivaun kicked off Friday night - always my favourite way to start the weekend.  Wandering home in my zen state I came to find my vehicle not where I left it.  After a couple walks around the block and questioning my own sanity I ran into a friend on the street w/ an apartment right nearby.  We got to talking and it turns out last week they cleaned the leaves off the streets in the neighbourhood and moved around a bunch of vehicles from one night to the other to clean where they were parked.  I don’t drive much…I had no idea.  So I called Winnipeg 311 (handy service by the way!) and they confirmed that they had moved it to 102 Langside.  Sweet - I had over there.  Shit - there is no 102 Langside.  Where the fuck did they put my car?  Another phone call later I find out they wrote down the wrong location and had no idea where my car was.  Solution: bike around the neighbourhood for a few hours until I found it a ways into Wolsely.  Needless to say I was late to the moving out party and things were well under way once I got there.  I wish I had got there earlier so that I would’ve been able to help out with things a bit more.  Oh well, as incredulous as I was about losing my vehicle earlier in the night I found it and everything worked out alright.

Saturday…typical lazy morning spent lounging, reading the paper, and a nice home made breakfast.  I checked out SkeptiCamp at Aqua Books in the afternoon - Arthur Schafer (an old philosophy prof of mine) was speaking on belief and I really wanted to hear what he said.  In class he had always simply dismissed religious based arguments and said that those arguments were beyond the scope of the class, so I was really interested to see his stance on not just general belief but religious belief as well.  In a half hour talk he couldn’t delve too deep into the details of his argument but he presented his conclusions.  I don’t really agree with his conclusions but found it an interesting point of view and now want to spend some time studying the work of William Kingdon Clifford.  We grabbed some good eats at Eat Bistro afterward and had some good discussion, then headed over to the exchange for some thrifting (Andrea was looking for some costume stuff and I wanted to find some old philosophy and film theory books).

Saturday night I was serenaded by the music of Peter Katz and Ben Whytinck.  Close friends, new friends, great talent, and an intimate venue…I wish every Saturday night could be like that.

Sunday was full of bicycle rides in the nice weather, reflection, long overdue errands, good conversation, great company, and scary movies.  Paranormal Activity 2 was a lot of fun - first scary movie I’ve ever seen in the theater.  I was a little apprehensive about not being able to pause at my own pleasure, but I really had a lot of fun.  It was a really good day and nice end to the weekend.

Anny is in town tomorrow!  I am excited - long distance friendships are a little easier with Skype BUT it sure as hell is no substitute.  We had a shoot lined up after work tomorrow but it’s supposed to rain.  I was so looking forward to it, I haven’t clicked the shutter on my camera in over a week and it makes me kind of sad.  I’ve been taking a bit of a step back and refreshing myself for when I do feel the need to pick up my camera again…that or doing some sort of tantric practice before my new camera body gets here! :P

Well there’s a little glimpse into my weekend…life is good.

Peace and love.

Russ Chimes - Midnight Club

These are so well done! :)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Make lots of memories and take lots of photos.

I love looking at photos other people have taken.  It gives me a glimpse into how they view the world, and I find it so exhilarating.

Sunday morning inspiration [and randomness on the mind].

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here.  Sorry to all my long distance friends I haven’t been in touch with lately, life has been a bit hectic lately and I just haven’t been feeling like being on a computer when precious downtime does come up.  What’s been keeping me busy? the day job at the Canadian Network for Public Health Intelligence, volunteering at Moksha Yoga, volunteering at the bike dump, hiking/camping, delving deeper into the arts community (Pecha Kucha, poetry slams, this sweet underground arts cafe that has such intimate live shows..), online travel journalism classes, just started going back to boxing, poi, camera geeking (ordered a Nikon D7000 =D ), reading, drinking tea, wandering, and dreaming…  I love all that I do, but I think I’m stretching myself too thin right now.  That, or maybe just the whole “day job” thing is just getting in the way of everything else. :P  But yeah…I’m working on it.  Gotta figure out the priorities.

You know how meeting somebody new can totally rock your world?  …Maybe open your eyes a little more, challenge you, inspire you?  It’s refreshing and oh so good for the soul.  I met one of these wonderful spirits last night.  I woke up feeling pretty damn good this morning, optimistic and ready to take on the day.  Life is good.

On the opposite end of the spectrum: I’ve seen a lot of drama lately.  Notsomuch directly in my own life, but in the lives of my friends around me.  I’m empathetic but feel helpless at being able to help sometimes.  Such drama is so unneeded but yet it seems most people carry the burden around without even realizing there’s an option to let go and move on.  I really hate seeing it drag friends, not to mention the people around them, down…

In my ongoing search for a career that fits I’ve been drawing on the inspiration of Mr. Jobs.  I wish he was the speaker at my graduation - Gary Doer just didn’t inspire.  Anyways, my friend Randi randomly sent it to me this week again and it couldn’t have come at a better time.  I had been struggling with finding the purpose in my day job because I don’t think that simply working for the sake of working is no way to live.  I’ve seen this speech several times and every time a different piece of wisdom jumps out at me.  This is what jumped out at me this time around:

If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.
…
I look in the mirror every morning and ask myself:
“If today were the last day of my life would I want to do what I’m about to do today?”
And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row I know I need to change something.
…
Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life…Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you want to become.  Everything else is secondary.

( http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html )

In other (completely different) news, today is finally shave day!  All bets are in and it DOES look like I can grow a thicker beard in a month than Dylan can in a year.  I’m not sure if I should be proud of that…but it is what it is! :P  Gah, why I agreed to this sick experiment is beyond me.  I imagine that shaving is going to feel much like the day I cut off my dreads, pretty much bliss.  You know who to talk to about winnings!

A random post…but my mind is quite random at the moment and I thought it was due.  Time to go wander the Seine River with Karen, a couple cameras, and maybe a couple musical instruments.  Goal of the day: finish off the roll of film that’s been in my camera since Morden Corn & Apple Fest!  (And to not overeat at the Thanksgiving potluck after!)

Peace and love.

The darkness of night gives way
To the darkness of morning storm.
There is beauty in these empty streets,
Under my solitary red umbrella I walk.