A cacophony of random thoughts mingle in my mind. It seems that they are the same thoughts every day, but in varying degrees. Some days one series of ideas will be most prevalent, and other days an entirely different set will take over; often filling me with doubt at the thoughts I had before.
To-Day: It was dark out. The sky was clear, cobalt blue nearing black and stars pin-prick-popped their way into sight the farther I got from the city lights. Each time I drove to the top of a hill I glanced in my rear view mirror to catch the giant pumpkin orange moon swaying above the horizon before it disappeared as I descended into another valley. Two things popped in to my mind, one so familiar and comforting I'd forgotten how often I overlook it. The other an oddity I've never given much thought to, but all the same was once a source of great worry for me. As long as the sky is clear on my drive home I can steal a few glances out my drivers side window and see, without fail, Orion's Belt hovering close enough to the top of the Sooke Hills that it isn't obscured by the roof of my car. Every time I have looked for it, it has been there; unwavering, unassuming, concrete; a presence I can count on. And I do. Like a parent it's there when I am looking for reassurance and support. What terrifies me is the day, too, will come when I can no longer see either. A few minutes before I reach my home I pass a giant rosary. Where this rosary comes from, why it is where it is and the purpose for putting it there have all eluded me. I can not, however, pass the rosary without remembering the man who so diligently sat at it's foot, day in and day out for as many years back as I can recall, holding a card board sign counting down the days to the world's end. Many times I marvelled first at his ability to endure below freezing temperatures so early in the morning, before I realized his sign read one day closer to Armageddon than it had the day before. As an eight year old, as a nine year old and as a ten year old I grappled with the idea that one particular man could be so accurate in judging something so final. One day his sign declared that the next would be the day on which the world would end. I was petrified. Having never been a religious child I prayed to Allah, God, Jesus, Buddha, Zeus, Athena, and my dead cats for good measure. The day after the world was supposed to end started like any normal day, as did every day after. The man never returned and I have always wondered; just where did he go?

The other thing I have been thinking about is this quote by Thoreau:

"Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played."

I think of this quote, and then I think about all the conflict in the world, all the oppression and disarray and I wonder how he was able to isolate himself enough from such anarchy to appreciate the unabashed beauty around him. Was he an idealist? Did he prefer not to see that which he did not want to acknowledge? Or was it the opposite? Did he feel that by placing emphasis on beauty it would help people to overcome their differences? To unite over the simplicity of life and the appreciation of a force greater than human disruption and disturbance. The cynic in me wants to scream, to get angry. Why all this idealistic bullshit while pain and suffering rise exponentially all around? Why close your eyes and imagine fields and flowers when all surrounding you are mud flats and smoke stacks. Smoke stacks from fires, set by hatred and despair.
"Under the rocking sky...tottering crazy on its smoking columns." -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

But life as well is about choices; decisions made, decisions left behind. Every time we come to a cross road we must choose the path our life will take. Sometimes it is the right choice, often it is not. Perhaps it is only in retrospect that we can truly see what we have left behind.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
For it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

--Robert Frost

Oh, life and its deviance's. Where will this path take me next?

Help me to understand hatred. I want to know where it comes from. What breeds hatred, who was the first person to hate? Why is it that everyone hates someone, or at least something. Every society has it's biases, every society has its own view of who to love, who to worship and who is the enemy. White people and black people, the history of slavery of maltreatment and of hatred. Israeli's and Palestinians, they hate each other because somebody else divided up their country? What about our North American hatred of Native peoples? and their's of us. Everyone hates. Everyone feels disdain towards another group of people or culture. Homophobia is hatred, of what? the unknown? Because you may not go into the bedroom with the same intentions as somebody else? Is that relevant? Is it important? Should somebody's sex life govern your opinion of them? Who knows what goes on behind closed doors, it is the most unpredictable way to distribute your trust. Muslims, Christians and Jewish people; this confuses me. How can three religions with so much in common have so much contempt for each other? The stories are uncannily similar yet they fight. Why do they fight? Because radical religious leaders preach cases that dictate people's beliefs. Hatred is a method of control. It is an ancient human instinct that can be funneled and honed, not unlike irrigation. Directing the emotions of minions to fight battles so the people at the top don't get their fingernails broken. Every person has a story, every person has a terrible idea in their mind of somebody else, many people haven't witnessed these atrocities for themselves. So where is the line between truth and fable. Where do we distinguish between true events and a drive to separate people so they are simply easier to control. What is fact and what is a myth?
People always fight, when one society has power another wants to steal it from them. What I don't understand is how everyone can be so numbed, so ignorant that they comply with these ideas, spoon fed to perfection like ridiculous drones moving in and out of consciousness. Since when has it been all right to accept an idea as it is without questioning from whence it came. Watch your mind jump specifically to radical Islamism, shake your head in wonder as you try to understand how these people can just accept everything they are told. But how different are you? In your comfortable society that gives you everything you want to hear. The fuckups are on the other side of the planet, not here, right? You would know the difference between the truth and dictated lies if you heard them? I wouldn't be so sure.
The worst part is amidst all the chaos, the hatred and the treachery, where do we begin to rebuild? At what point must we drop our gloves and scream over the deafening sounds of war, and will we be heard? Is there anything in one little voice that could ever make people listen? The problem with the world is we've all stopped listening to everybody but ourselves.

I'm procrastinating. Again. Actually I'm putting off procrastinating until I have finished writing this. I'll do that later too. It's become an art in itself, something I get so wrapped up in avoiding that I inadvertantly spend all of my time doing it. Even things that I enjoy doing get sifted to the bottom of the pile in lieu of more frivolous tasks like looking up Osama Bin Laden on google (who doesn't want to know his life story) and calling people I don't even want to see.
So after writing all that about procrastinating I was avoiding putting on paper (kind of) something that needs to be put in a hard copy, and that is a New Years (or in this case five days after New Years) resolution. This year it is just one idea, but it covers a lot of different areas. This year I resolve to Be More Involved. Not just in the obvious areas, like the gym (ahem), school and family, but more importantly in events. Don't just go to events, make them. Find ways to immerse myself in projects and shows, get to know people...really know people not just light hearted chit-chat that never really scratches the surface. Go climbing more and get other people involved in climbing. Learn more about my favourite artists, writers and musicians. Get involved in politics, understand what they are talking about and have a real opinion on who should be running this country. Above all else Read.Read.Read. Finish "War and Peace"(Tolstoy), and "The Great War for Civilization"(Fisk), read work by writers I know as people but not as writers. Read poetry. Dare I say read a book a week? I don't know if I'm ready to be quite that committed yet...small steps.