Winter Wonderland

So the time of year is coming that many Canadians either love or hate. That’s right: super snowfall season!

I’m indifferent to the season mostly because it has its ups and downs for me; on one hand, it’s pretty amazing, and can produce absolutely beautiful scenes. Not to mention, it happens right around Christmas in the northern hemisphere. The downsides involve the cold, the wet and the just plain ugh.

Despite all that, my only real qualm about the Winter season is not the cold, or the fact that I’m getting sick…it’s more that people won’t stop complaining about it, which makes it worse.

Honestly, you have no control over it, so stop complaining about it.

Can I Still Be Thankful?

I’ve been through a lot over the past year and a half. I’ve had so many ups and downs, and for each of those times I’ve been thankful. There have been people who have helped me become a better person, and there have been moments that have taught me about my capabilities and my limitations.

Yesterday, I realized that even though I’ve received a lot, I do still continue to receive a lot, and have a lot to be thankful for, but I’ve often thought that there must be some end to how thankful I can be. But then again, emotional physics kind of correlate with real world physics, and despite my limited knowledge, I do know of the principle of conservation of mass and energy. In emotion and expression, it works the same way. The projectivist writer Charles Olson once wrote of the projectivist poems that whatever energy you take in, must go in in equal amounts, and basically, must be evident in poetry. In that same way, whatever you receive must be returned in equal amount, and so long as you have something to feel thankful about, you should express that gratitude.

It’s a basic principle that guides the world; it’s one of the basic ideas in physics and chemistry; whatever goes in, must come out in equal amounts. It’s like balancing a chemical equation. You can’t have an equation that reads H₂+O₂ = H₂O, you need to balance it to say 2H₂+O₂=2H₂O. It needs to balance out one way or another.

Anyways, I still have a lot to be thankful for, that I know I haven’t quite balanced out properly. I’ll start with “thank you for reading this.”

A night sky in August. The faint starlight was a rare sight.

PS. I can’t believe I actually used a chemical equation.

What Does Success Mean?

I recently heard the phrase “C Students in Life” (courtesy of Philip De Franco – video at the end) and was led to consider what it means to succeed in life. Now, De Franco describes a “C Student in Life” as someone who basically “half-asses their way to mediocrity"” and says he can’t respect someone like that. He raises an interesting point; life isn’t really worth anything, regardless of the end result, if you half ass your way through life, and end up not really earning it. This is the kind of thing that leads me to ask why people who work so hard end up living merely mediocre lives.

On the other hand, supposing you were born into, or undeservingly were given a great life, with money, people, and a myriad of happinesses, and you decided you wanted to work to earn it as an afterthought, or a thank you, by giving to charity, and helping people left and right, or opening your fortunes to the world (such as starting a software company, or, in a more abstract way, using your gift of a beautiful voice to sing and entertain people) then I can respect that.

I think in this same way, success has a lot to do with whether you’re grateful for where you are, or not, and how much you relate this gratefulness to that which you enjoy doing.

Via Philip De Franco (YouTube)

It looks like Autumn is finally starting to set in.

Has Anyone Else Noticed This?

Has anyone else noticed the fact that people at this time of year try to keep summer around as long as they can?

One of the biggest things is that people will try and make their lawns look greener than it ever was in the summer time. Oddly enough, it looks more like summer than it did in summer, in some places.

I think the true beauty of the seasons lies in the amazing colours of twilight – that’s when you can tell that it’s really autumn.

I have to say, the colours are absolutely a big part of the season for me, because it means that I get to take pictures of the world showing off. Even more than that though, I think autumn has helped me realize how much I wish it were summer still. I’ve done quite a lot of things with my friends despite it getting cold out, but I still want to do more with them.

View Full Album

My album consists of pictures from school, a trip downtown, Art Side Out, and other random things that happened in the past two months. The season’s not over yet, and Canada’s weather is completely unpredictable, but one of the things that often gets me moving and thinking about how opportune we are to be living where we do, and to get the chance to see the things that we do, no matter how small they are, is always a great time. If you’re interested, you can check out my other album, full of pictures taken of the autumn sky.

Cheers!

P.S. I’ll be blogging a lot more now, hopefully, because I think this is quite a relaxing hobby for me. If I don’t keep up, any of you are free to email and bug me to post something.