Guilty of Being White, Sentenced to Work on Enjoying the Best Life I Can (in a Pretty Messed Up World)

What a clumsy blog post title. I must be out of practice. 

So I am bringing a child into this world. Well, technically my wife is, but I am a part of that happening, and will be a large part of the time (25-55 years) that follows. Honestly, I am a very very excited man, who is joining his wife for her first scan tomorrow.

This is all happening to 2 young, white, professional Canadians in a developed city that has access to emergency services, clean drinking water, heated insulated homes, toothpaste, free-ish medical care, and high speed internet. You know: the basics.

Despite all of our favourite alarmist documentaries, non-fiction books, movies /TV shows released over recent years such as: Watermark, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, Manufactured Landscapes  featuring the photography of Edward Burtynsky, No Impact Man, The Cove, Earthlings, George Monbiot's "Heat", The Handmaid's Tale, plus the podcast series The End of the World with Josh Clark, and, well, countless others, I am excited.

Despite Trump being the POTUS and Canadians being almost (not quite) as politically divided, and Albertans coming up with stupid ideas like "Wexit" and my own City's mismanagement of funds, inability to plan, and having sold basic infrastructure utilities like power, water, and drainage being run by for-profit companies: I am excited!
The economic demands of the world and the methods of achieving it through exploitation can be very disheartening for even young parents-to-be. These past few months I have become especially weary of  the ads for depression in men, as well as real-life sad stories related to peoples' mental & physical health. The media (social and mainstream) certainly don't make things any easier. I have previously maintained that all them tree-loving hippies are out of touch with what the world needs, and that rather a "punk" anti-establishment burn-it-all-to-the ground philosophy is the mentality - if not the approach that we needed to have in any hope for a better world. Now that I am going to be a father though, I have come up with a couple of necessary secrets to happiness --- no, not "ignorance is bliss" but rather:

Accept things for what they are, 

and

Minimize my own individual negative impact that I am placing on this world in the short time I'm here.

The name of this blog is called eternalhappyness, with that being an underlying theme since its inception. The pragmatic parent-to-be/engineer in me has come to realize that I can likely be most happy AND take care of my family the best if I do a few things:

1 - Acknowledge that we are indeed living on a planet that is beyond repair, effectively putting us into the start of the Sixth Great Extinction.

2 - Surround myself and my family in the healthiest environment (biophysically speaking) that can be afforded

3 - Give myself and my family the opportunity for self-reflection to facilitate each of our mental and spiritual health and growth. Spiritual, in a sense, that we are organic entities in a physical world, and we can all seek to understand our place in that. 

4 - Be gracious and respect my privilege and opportunity, with whatever it is that I already have or may happen to go.
 

SO many people have lived the most wasted lives and worked for all the wrong things. This includes religion, money, and power. It still miffs me how I wrote a whole blog post about Pascal's Wager, which (obviously) was already a well-defined philosophical idea.  It miffs me more how the most powerful people seem to be assholes and exploiters. Sure, I want increased income  - but mostly so that I can comfortably provide for those dearest to me and support  those who have less than me. I want freedom and independence where I am not holden to anything except for my family. Perhaps this is a big ask in such a jaded world, but I do want these things, and will continue to work towards getting them as best as I can.

Minor Threat, 1984

One Post A Year, OK?

2018 had a post. Good job. Now it's 2019. So I better make another post. About 2018. ...But there's just so many other things I ought to be doing rather than blogging! Life always gets busy. I know there's ways of freeing up more time -- only if I ever used that will power to commit to it. Accomplish more. New Year's Resolutions, yes, and just all the other day-to-day crap that would make my life easier if I purged the needless crap from it. But sometimes a guy needs to just decompress. Get that "cerebral scrub" -- as I am sure that I have written about in this blog previously. Just: something.

But like I said, I wanted to write a little about 2018. Just over a year ago, I posted about all the ways that 2017 wasn't all that bad, and now I am here intending to do the same. 

Some of the highlights included hanging out with my wife: it doesn't matter if it were watching Netflix or going to the movies, or walking the dog, or decluttering & minimal-izing, or skiing in the mountains, or hiking around rain forests on Vancouver Island.  We got to see our friends in Falher and we got to share food & drink with other good friends all through the year. We did a couple fun things like seeing Book of Mormon and Craig Ferguson's stand-up show. We went to a Murder Mystery party, where we had some pretty great costumes. We went to a handful of Bears' games and the occasional Improv. Mostly though, my favourite 3 (non-concert) experiences of the entire year included our ski trip to Panorama/Radium/Fernie, which included a half meter of fresh snow when we skiied Fernie, eating blackberries off the bush and visiting the hole in the wall on our trip to Port Alberni, annnddd: finishing our basement. Well, more or less. Touch-ups remain, but on the whole, it's been a great space for us to watch our shows and play our games.

In 2018, Netflix really has exploded. Their movies are now eligible for Academy Award nominations. That said, I've certainly enjoyed watching "lesser" things on there, like FUBAR with Deaner & Terry or Big Mouth.  Thankfully, Netflix picks up network shows so my wife & I can binge-watch This Is Us and Gilmore Girls repeats as well. We really liked the series Broadchurch — even Season 3 with Hailie from Coronation Street was good! We watched the 1st half of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 4 in May, as the 2nd half was just released this past weekend. It's pretty great tho! Sadly, I didn't check out Gore's An Inconvenient Sequel, until 2019 (and apparently it was released in 2017). It was a pretty environmentalism documentary though.

Some of those network shows have been ok too. We continue to loveThe Goldbergs and Fresh Off the Boat especially.  Crazy Rich Asians starred FotB's Constance Wu! She's just great. In anticipation of the final season of Game of Thrones, we’ve been re-watching it all from the beginning. It’s probably even better the second time — maybe even better than Gilmore Girls and This Is Us.

A few other notable movies we caught together at the theatre included Wreck-It Ralph 2, The Incredibles 2, Dead Pool 2, Jurassic World 2, The tragic Infinity War, Ready Player One, Isle of Dogs, Black Panther and Small Foot. Out of all these, Crazy Rich Asians was my fave.
 


Last year included a bunch of concerts.  There were a crapload more that we didn't get to, but the ones we did were pretty memorable experiences. These included having a VIP Lights experience at the Winspear Centre in March, then seeing her again on a nice, small stage @ the Station on Jasper Avenue a few months later. Dear Rouge opened one of those shows, and played their own headlining shows later that year also. Future Islands was a rad show at Union Hall. That guy can dance. Last year we also got to see A Vulture Wake open for Good Riddance, Propagandhi play with La Armada & Mobina Galore,  Strung Out play with The Bombpops and Counterpunch, Rise Against play with AFI and Anti-Flag.  The slightly smaller shows included Belvedere with Downway, A Wilhelm Scream with Daggermouth, The Resignators with Fire Next Time, Joey Cape with Brian Wahlstrom, Seth Anderson, and Ben Sir,  The Bronx, 88 Fingers Louie, Ignite, Worst Days Down, Dave Hause, Jesse LeBourdais, and Mandible Klaw were all great too.

Top Shows of 2018

When I wasn't watching things, I was listening to things.  Sure, music (see below), but also since June 2018, I have burned through more than 200 episodes of the Stuff You Should Know podcast. It's just really well produced, and gives some insight into things that I am happy to know (more - or anything) about. I spent half the year following the new releases, I have been catching up on older ones they release via SYSK "selects", and I have been working backwards through the episodes and am almost done all of their 2017 releases. I tried making a list of my favourite episodes from 2018, though many are just as good as these:

1. How hand gliding works, 2. How Trickle Down Economics Works, 3. What Are False Positives?, 4. The Unabomber: Misguided To Say The Least., 5. North Korea: What's the Deal?, 6. How Drowning Works, 7. A List of Games You Would Surly Lose to a Computer, 8. How Occam's Razor Works. 9. Roundabouts: The Problem Is You. 10. Can Anarchism Work? 11. Skyscrapers: 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky. 12. The Disappearance of the Yuba County 5, 13. The Dylatov Pass Mystery, 14. Seriously: What is Dark Matter? 15. Recycling: How's it Going?

There's a small handful of other podcasts like PunkAnormal, Mable Syndrome, Anxious & Angry, and Daniel & Jorge Explain the Universe, which consumed some of my 2018 as well.

Another way that any year doesn't especially suck is if a close friend or family member passes away. Otherwise, we mourn the losses of other significant contributors to our planet, who typically happen to be artists, or occasionally scientists - and rarely - politicians. A friend of a friend named Chad O'Quinn died this past year at far too young an age. Otherwise some significant losses in 2018 included the likes of Stan Lee, Aretha Franklin, Burt Reynolds, John Mahoney, Dolores O'Riordan, Steve Soto, and Stephen Hawking. A few others including Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade reminded us the importance of addressing mental health.

2018 had some pretty big news stories. Some of these included BC forest fires, the Canadian government buying the TransCanada pipeline, continual cross-nation environmental/ pipeline protests, the legalization of pot in Canada, troubles in Syria & Yemen, and the Humboldt, SK bus crash. The Oilers were not news. The fact that I played summer hockey in an organized league for the first time in 16 years is news. It's a lot of work, but hockey's great. It's a great motivator and good way to balance out my life. Especially if I have as much time as I do for the time being.

I did a couple more lists for the best music from 2018 too. They are summarized in picture-form here.

     

Top 10 Non Punk Releases of 2018 and Top 9 EPs of 2018.

Top 25 Punk Releases of 2018.

(the top 5 are satanic surfers, pennywise, turnspit, no fun at all, and a vulture wake)

As you can see, the energy I've put into blogging has been minimized and translated into a visual depiction of varying amounts of interesting goings-on in the form of instagram posts. 442 posts, actually. Maybe I'll do a bunch less in 2019.

k bye see you next year