This is it!

"We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all of our exploring
will be to arrive
where we started
and know the place for the first time."

-T.S. Eliot

I've been struggling with what to say

And what Gene says is not exactly what I might say, but it is, as ever, deeply valuable:

Read his blog here.

Unfortunately his old blogger account was hijacked recently, so there isn't much of an archive to read, but keep checking it as it'll grow again over time.

Background music for this post!

I feel like I've been saying good-bye ever since I made the decision to move home. And because I've worked and played with so many different people since I came to this fair city, it's actually kinda true. Every couple of days I see people who I wouldn't be seeing for another month or so, and as such, it's good-bye.

And it's different than my other two recent good-byes, finishing university and leaving home to come here, because this time I don't know when, or if, I'll ever be back. So for all intents and purposes it's good-bye forever. And I've left enough places to know that even for the small number of people I choose to stay in touch with, the relationships will change past recognition.

So for the moment, anyway, I've largely lost sight of my exciting new job, and am just overwhelmed with the grief of leaving. Which I suppose is its own kind of rightness. Knowing that I would have been leaving anyway in another six months helps a bit. As does knowing that another six months would have made it even harder to leave.

Random cultural observation: They really like Christmas parties here! I could have been partying like it was Friday night every night of last week, and on a few occasions, I could have done it twice over. It's freaking exhausting! The twelve days of Christmas before Christmas. I wonder why in Canada we've really embraced the idea of non-religious mid-winter festival, but here (despite being farther along the "post-Christian" road than most of English Canada) they still celebrate Christmas and send Christmas cards and eat Christmas pudding, often no matter what their religious or cultural background?

The Butterfly Effect

According to Sinfest.

still true

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the acts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward [people].” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, 16-17.

too long for a facebook status

I was just going to update my facebook status, but I realized it would have ended up being a paragraph, so I thought maybe I'd try a blog post instead.

I was just reading a letter from an old uni friend who is now in Afghanistan with the Canadian Armed Forces. As usual it made me think, and made me uncomfortable, though it also made me laugh. I appreciate the correspondence because it helps me to keep everyone human.

I also read some emails this morning from some friends discussing what's more important, happiness, wealth or fame. It only struck me belatedly that some how love hadn't made it into this list of top aims.

I guess it is just making me think about what it means to be human. I'm not even sure what I mean by that. Except that I think being human is very complicated, but there are moments when it also seems very simple. And sometimes it feels like sitting on a fence between murkiness and clarity. But it's always interesting, isn't it? And I guess I feel pretty lucky to have a quiet morning where I can think thoughts that have no beginning and no end and no point.

W.

I got to see a free preview tonight. I went with 3 Americans, a Brit, and another Canadian. I think our nationalities affected our viewing pleasure.

My biggest discomfort was (of course?) with the type of Christianity represented in the film. Though there was one moment in which I found a small hope for redemption (it was quickly lost though.) One of my American friends was disconcerted in similar way by the representation of the United States, because, as she said, it would just confirm people in their dislike for her country. It is interesting to note though, that the only scene that really showed "America" as a nation united (in my view), was during the peace demonstrations.

Anyhoo, I won't say anymore. See it for yourself if you fancy. But try and remember that it is a dramatization and not a documentary. In that light, I enjoyed it. And I also liked it (okay, I guess I'm saying one more thing), but I liked that Bush was painted as stupid instead of evil. It's a small concession, and still not as complex as the reality, likely, but I think that it's probably better to be stupid than evil, in this case.

It would be interesting though, to hear the story through a lens that tried to allow him to be neither dumb nor inhuman. I want to believe that it's possible. But I guess the scary thing is really, what justification could there be for the decisions that happened under his leadership?