It was a bizarre dream.
Each day I had no idea what to expect. I could be filming a medieval fight high above Tibilisi, Georgia. I could be samping 25 year old Balsamic vinegar in Italy. Or I could be dodging a bull in the streets of the Azores, Portugal.
Of course, all dreams don’t last forever. And why would you want them to? That’s partly what makes them unique… they have to end.
Check out my favourite behind the scenes pics from 3 weeks on the Word Travels crew.
A few years ago, I decided to band together with my wife and become vegetarian. Prior to this, I hadn’t attributed much thought to my diet. (For instance, I would routinely return home after a late night DJ’ing and warm a few Pizza Pockets in the microwave).
My decision was motivated by a few reasons:
And so we tried it. We became “vegetarian.”
The following is an actual email correspondence between a Disney DVD “collector” (as they’re known) and an eBay seller that recently sold her a $37 copy of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.
Names have been changed to… who am I kidding, the buyer is my sister. I thought it was too funny not to post.
Hello,
I received my DVD today in the mail and was not impressed. I do not believe that this was a brand new DVD as almost all Disney DVD’s have the cover slip on them and sealed with tape that has the movie’s name on them, which this one did not.
Furthermore, the DVD was scratched on the other side and the title of the movie was misspelled leading me to believe that this is a pirated copy. I am not happy with this purchase and would like my money back, unless you can prove to me that this is an authentic Disney DVD.
An Open Letter to the Graduating Class of 1999:
It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since we walked the halls of Gleneagle. 10 years since we felt that high school would never end and we couldn’t wait to get out into the “real world” and start living.
Now it’s 2009. I bet a lot has changed. Maybe you’re married. Maybe you have kids. Maybe you’re still living at home…maybe not.
Maybe you’re on the fence about attending the upcoming reunion on May 23. Well here’s 7 reasons that will convince you to come.
1. Nobody cares that you don’t have an amazing job
This seems like the main reason people don’t want to attend most reunions. You feel like everyone else is a millionaire, celebrity, professional athlete, or any number of vague professions that are more glamourous than yours.
But chances are, most people are working a normal job. And besides, if you have one great – if you don’t reunions are great for networking.
Bogota, Colombia / Feb 2009
There’s an in-joke between web workers that goes like this: you’re allowed to have a neglected website that you don’t update very often.
Why? Because it means you’re too busy actually working on other projects. (This excuse works even when you’re not busy…just too lazy to update.
Thankfully, I use the excuse here as part of the former group. I’ve been spending my days and nights on a variety of work that has been interesting, fun, and rewarding. To prove so, I’ll outline them here:
As for the rest of the summer, I’m intending to complete the West Coast Trail and last at least a few days in the searing pit of Burning Man.
Am I excited? Yes…yes I am.
I recently came across this gem of a speech delivered by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.
He was in Israel, accepting the Jerusalem Prize, given to writers whose work deals with themes of human freedom, society, politics, and government.
An excerpt:
“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.
This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: It is The System. The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others – coldly, efficiently, systematically.
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on The System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them.
Judging by the comments on the speech, it appears the metaphor was lost on many of the readers. A Philosopher wrote:
…If the situation were reversed and the Palestinians were instead in possession of tanks, there wouldn’t be any eggs left in the middle-east.
The wall we build is exactly to protect us, as eggs, from the wolf lurking outside. And if the terrorists didn’t use their own eggs as shield, they wouldn’t break either.
Thankfully, at least one person understood. AT wrote:
Murakami isn’t suggesting that Israel is the system and Palestine the egg. The System is the Israeli government and the army and the dangerous ideas of Zionism; it’s also Hamas and Fatah and the networks of terror. The two aren’t exclusive.
The eggs are not just the Palestinian civilians slaughtered by the Israeli army for political gain; they’re also the Israeli civilians, and the soldiers sent to war, and the people convinced to blow themselves up as suicide bombers, and – perhaps most of all – the precious few on both sides crying “Stop! This is madness.”
Read the entire speech here.
Spend enough time on the internet and you can find information on just about anything.
For instance: did you know that the Apollo moon landing was a hoax? That 9/11 was an inside job? That flouride is a mind control substance designed to keep humans dumb and under control?
The list goes on. Some of these theories may, in fact, be true. The vast majority of them are more likely false. But given an infinite space as vast as the web, and the tools for anyone to publish any thoughts in their head, and you have the ability to refute or bolster any claim imaginable.
Therefore it is much trickier to believe that any worldview is “the truth.”
The problem with conspiracy theorists is they ask you to demolish your mental programming, but demand you replace it with their own.
The result is to exchange one unproven worldview for another. And unfortunately, basing your decisions on the conviction of “knowing” is responsible for many of the world’s ills.
The only real truth is that it’s impossible to “know” anything. And the only real method of making decisions is through probability.
Bonus: Michael Shermer on why people believe strange things
Ian MacKenzie is a filmmaker based in Vancouver, BC. He shoots video journalism, documentary films, and original webseries. He also blogs about pop culture, new media, philosophy, and religion. Read more →
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