You stub your toe. You curse your teacher, boss, lover. You swear at the Lord up above (or below) for your misfortunes.
What comes out of your mouth?
Words?
What kind of words?
Bad words.
Where do they come from?
Well, they...come. They emerge. They exist. They are. You don't question their source, shape, texture. An emotion is triggered; a feeling is born. You need a way to express that feeling, preferably quickly, preferably now.
Out comes the word.
I think language is wild. We take it for granted. We are born with it, raised with it, live with it. It expresses who we are and what we want. It gives voice to those primitive, primal impulses that dwell within our hearts and souls, lurking, begging to be released.
But what is it? Language itself, in all it's manifestations?
It's strange symbols on a page that are no longer strange (at least to us), and sounds emerging from our mouths.
That's all.
I like words. Love words. I think when you grow up with a love of reading, you don't pay attention to the lanuage too much -- you're in it for the story, the high, the kick that you get when you come to the end of the tale. (Not realizing, of course, that it's the language that makes all of this possible.)
Comic books helped me to read. When I was twelve, I discovered Stephen King, and, literally, read everything that he wrote, one book after the other, until there were no more books left to read. (I know, I know -- he published, like, a book every six months back then, but still -- six months is a long time to wait for a twelve year old.)
But I liked his brand of horror and humanism, terror and fantasy; I wanted more. And I noticed that his name could often be found sprawled across the backs of other books by other authors, one of whom was Peter Straub, a fellow fantasist, and so I read his books, and they were, well, harder. The language and storytelling was more layered, more intricate. You had to work a bit more.
And thus it begins -- the life of a reader. You start to pay attention to the language. You start to identify authors by the way they do things with the language, deciding that Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell and James Herbert, being Brits, have a distinctly formal way with the language that somehow particularly suits the gothic nature of dark fantasy, while Stephen King and Harlan Ellison and Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury have a flowing, American looseness to their prose that somehow suits what they do well, while, in more lit'ry circles, Joyce Carol Oates has a manic, go-for-broke pace that never compromises the story she's telling or the way she's telling it, and Norman Mailer has a muscular solidity to his style that creates a wonderworld of a phrase every page or so, and Elmore Leonard's style is so transparent that it's almost invisible (which is usually the hardest kind to do, this type of 'effortless' writing), and Toni Morrison has a simultaneous grace and resoluteness to her prose that makes it dense, and Alice Munro has a way of telling a story that never allows language to intrude on her themes, her emotions, even though you do notice, now and then, the way she handles a phrase, the wisdom in the phrase, and you gotta give her some props for that.
In other words, you respond to the writers you like based on the way they jiggle and shake and piece together the words, the letters, the English.
And then I moved to Japan, avoided studying Japanese the same way I once avoided Full House reruns, for two whole years, before finally giving in and taking three-times-a-week, ninety-minutes-per-session- group lessons at the Association for Japanese Language Teaching (www.ajalt.org) in downtown Tokyo, where I slowly, incrementally started to get off on the fundamentally bizarre strangeness of acquring (or trying to) even the most rudimentary basics of another language.
You start off as a child, basically. You don't know how to read, write, speak. Then, eventually, you begin to see how it is that we learn language, how it is that we start to build vocabulary.
In the beginning, for example, if I was excited in Japanese, or angry, or dismayed, well, there were no words for those feelings inside of me. There was no outlet in Japanese.
Then you pick up a word here, there, everywhere. You listen to the radio. You eavesdrop on schoolgirls' conversations on the last-train-home. You begin.
It's fun and fascinating and frustrating and just downright cool, this learning of another language (even if I've forgotten a lot of what I learned). I believe, now, that you are missing out on something fundamentally human if you only speak one language. You are exempt from the shades and tones of perception that another language allows you to possess.
Those same 'shades' are what make Japanese such a fascinating language, a maddening language, a complex language. I have the utmost, super-duper respect for the dudes and dudettes who translate Japanese literature into English, and vice versa. They don't get enough credit. Even beginning to learn about why and how different languages express emotions and ideas in different ways has been an experience for me; as someone who loves to read, who can read some (rudimentary) Japanese, even imagining what it would take to shift back and forth from one language to the next, trying to preserve the author's original integrity, is mind blowing.
One of the translators of Marquez put it much better than I can: That when you translate, it's like looking at an eclipse; the English word and the Spanish word for 'horse', for example, each share a similar meaning, but there's another aspect, a slight nuance, that is only available in the original language, that they don't both possess. There is an overlap between the words, but there is always something left behind, too.
If nothing else, being aware of ideas like this, being conscious of other languages, trying to utilize them in your everyday life, simply gives you touchstones, moments of connection, that you can't find in your own language. Six months ago I stood on a streetcorner here in Phnom Penh, chatting in Japanese with my Cambodian Japanese teacher, when I had a sudden, almost out of body experience: Me, this Canadian kid in Phnom Penh, talking in Japanese, with a Khmer.
Life (for me) doesn't get much weirder than that, friends and neighbours.
(Unless, of course, I started to study Khmer in earnest. But it seems so hard...)
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
WHAT I LIKE
Burt Reynolds in The Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II. He has a love of performing and a palpable glee that the camera loves. (Kevin Spacey has it, too, but it's distracting in a drama.)
Running in the five a.m. darkness of a Phnom Penh morning.
Sleeping in and not running in the five a.m. darkness of a Phnom Penh morning.
The hot fudge sundaes you get at Mcdonald's. (Actually, everything you get at Mcdonald's.)
The sound of the starter's pistol.
The moment before the present is unwrapped.
The smiles of Cambodian children.
The moment the airplane takes off, and you realize that there's no going back.
The moment the airplane lands, and you realize that you're here, you've made it, it's real.
My parents.
Waiting for my INBOX to open.
The first drink of Gatorade after a run.
When the lights go down in a movie theatre.
The smell of books. New books, old books, used books, bad books -- all smell great.
Dreams, as in the sleeping ones.
A blank screen.
My grandparents.
The comic books of the 1980's.
Dreams, as in the aspirational ones.
The black-and-white Spider-Man suit that caused quite the controversy when I was a kid.
The original Spider-Man suit.
The fact that I won the 1991 Southern Ontario Junior Boy's Cross-Country Championship on the same course, on the same day, that my brother won the Southern Ontario Senior Boy's Cross Country Championship, because he was my coach, and he deserved all the fruits of those successes, his and mine.
The smell of root beer.
My brother and his wife.
Pushing buttons. (Literally.)
Speaking words in a foreign language, forgetting that it's foreign, not noticing that it's foreign.
Listening to words in a foreign language and not understanding what they mean.
The original final episode of Magnum P.I., before the producers found out it'd been renewed, where Magnum is shot and he wanders around limbo and he gets to see how much his friends love him.
The episode of Magnum P.I. where they (plausibly) brought him back from the dead.
The memories of going to the comic book store with my mom.
www.awfulplasticsurgery.com
Meeting celebrities and having them be very, very cool (or at least civil) to me (Samuel L.Jackson, Oliver Stone, Al Pacino, Pierre Trudeau, Norman Mailer, Charles Bronson, Spike Lee and Tom Hanks).
Meeting regular people and having them be very, very cool (or at least civil) to me (too many to list -- almost everybody, really, except my Grade 11 Math teacher, who I still don't really like).
Taking out your winter coat in the fall and finding a five dollar bill in one of the pockets.
The cinemas of my hometown.
The goodwill of orphans.
The writers who inspire me.
What failure teaches you.
The cinemas of Tokyo, because, when you buy a ticket, you can look at a little map and choose where you want to sit because they have numbers on them, the seats do, and that's cool.
The green fields of Cambodia.
The streets of my hometown.
The fact that people sometimes take a chance on you, even though you don't deserve it.
The last couple of pages of The Autobiography of Malcom X, where he says that he wished he had studied languages more, because he thought that Chinese and Arabic would be the languages of the future, because it makes me wonder what kind of a man Malcolm would have been had he only lived to forty, and beyond, and what he would have done with his time.
The kindness of strangers.
John Irving's The Cider-House Rules.
The feel of a good indoor track beneath your feet.
Do the Right Thing.
The last line of a book.
The first line of a book.
Japanese punctuality.
www.artsandlettersdaily.com
All of Oliver Stone's stuff.
Joyce Carol Oates.
The last couple of pages of Don Robertson's Paradise Falls.
Pierre Trudeau, especially his "Just watch me."
Trying to remember Japanese kanji.
www.moviecitynews.com
The Canadian flag.
Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, probably my favorite movie.
Forgetting Japanese Kanji, then remembering it again, then forgetting it again.
The fact that when J.FK. visited Berlin, to express his solidarity with the Berlin people, he said, famously, "Ich bin ein Berliner", when he should have said "Ich bin Berliner", because 'ein Berliner' was a casual term for 'jelly donut', so what he actually said, translated, was something like: "Let the word go forth, that the proudest thing a man can say is that today, I...am...a jelly donut!"
Writing.
Reading.
Having someone read what I've written.
Running in the five a.m. darkness of a Phnom Penh morning.
Sleeping in and not running in the five a.m. darkness of a Phnom Penh morning.
The hot fudge sundaes you get at Mcdonald's. (Actually, everything you get at Mcdonald's.)
The sound of the starter's pistol.
The moment before the present is unwrapped.
The smiles of Cambodian children.
The moment the airplane takes off, and you realize that there's no going back.
The moment the airplane lands, and you realize that you're here, you've made it, it's real.
My parents.
Waiting for my INBOX to open.
The first drink of Gatorade after a run.
When the lights go down in a movie theatre.
The smell of books. New books, old books, used books, bad books -- all smell great.
Dreams, as in the sleeping ones.
A blank screen.
My grandparents.
The comic books of the 1980's.
Dreams, as in the aspirational ones.
The black-and-white Spider-Man suit that caused quite the controversy when I was a kid.
The original Spider-Man suit.
The fact that I won the 1991 Southern Ontario Junior Boy's Cross-Country Championship on the same course, on the same day, that my brother won the Southern Ontario Senior Boy's Cross Country Championship, because he was my coach, and he deserved all the fruits of those successes, his and mine.
The smell of root beer.
My brother and his wife.
Pushing buttons. (Literally.)
Speaking words in a foreign language, forgetting that it's foreign, not noticing that it's foreign.
Listening to words in a foreign language and not understanding what they mean.
The original final episode of Magnum P.I., before the producers found out it'd been renewed, where Magnum is shot and he wanders around limbo and he gets to see how much his friends love him.
The episode of Magnum P.I. where they (plausibly) brought him back from the dead.
The memories of going to the comic book store with my mom.
www.awfulplasticsurgery.com
Meeting celebrities and having them be very, very cool (or at least civil) to me (Samuel L.Jackson, Oliver Stone, Al Pacino, Pierre Trudeau, Norman Mailer, Charles Bronson, Spike Lee and Tom Hanks).
Meeting regular people and having them be very, very cool (or at least civil) to me (too many to list -- almost everybody, really, except my Grade 11 Math teacher, who I still don't really like).
Taking out your winter coat in the fall and finding a five dollar bill in one of the pockets.
The cinemas of my hometown.
The goodwill of orphans.
The writers who inspire me.
What failure teaches you.
The cinemas of Tokyo, because, when you buy a ticket, you can look at a little map and choose where you want to sit because they have numbers on them, the seats do, and that's cool.
The green fields of Cambodia.
The streets of my hometown.
The fact that people sometimes take a chance on you, even though you don't deserve it.
The last couple of pages of The Autobiography of Malcom X, where he says that he wished he had studied languages more, because he thought that Chinese and Arabic would be the languages of the future, because it makes me wonder what kind of a man Malcolm would have been had he only lived to forty, and beyond, and what he would have done with his time.
The kindness of strangers.
John Irving's The Cider-House Rules.
The feel of a good indoor track beneath your feet.
Do the Right Thing.
The last line of a book.
The first line of a book.
Japanese punctuality.
www.artsandlettersdaily.com
All of Oliver Stone's stuff.
Joyce Carol Oates.
The last couple of pages of Don Robertson's Paradise Falls.
Pierre Trudeau, especially his "Just watch me."
Trying to remember Japanese kanji.
www.moviecitynews.com
The Canadian flag.
Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, probably my favorite movie.
Forgetting Japanese Kanji, then remembering it again, then forgetting it again.
The fact that when J.FK. visited Berlin, to express his solidarity with the Berlin people, he said, famously, "Ich bin ein Berliner", when he should have said "Ich bin Berliner", because 'ein Berliner' was a casual term for 'jelly donut', so what he actually said, translated, was something like: "Let the word go forth, that the proudest thing a man can say is that today, I...am...a jelly donut!"
Writing.
Reading.
Having someone read what I've written.
EVERYTHING ELSE, IF ONLY FOR A NIGHT
The other night I dropped by the university where I used to teach. It's just down the road from where I live, near the Independence Monument, in the 'heart of Phnom Penh', as the tourist brochures would say.
I'd always vowed that I'd never be a teacher, and yet it's the first real thing that I did after graduating from university, teach, for four years in Japan, one year here in Cambodia. (Okay, I did do a summer stint at the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology in Toronto, and a stint washing dishes at Caddyshack's Bar and Grill in Manotick, Ontario, but I'm not counting those. And you shouldn't, either. Please.)
I think it's always good to do the things that you said you would never do, because it points out aspects of your character that you wouldn't have unearthed otherwise. It's also pretty wild to do these things in foreign countries. Through the students you learn about the culture and the language, the customs and the history. You see what young people are like, people who have never heard of Brad Pitt or Johnny Carson or even John F.Kennedy. (Although most young Cambodians do know David Beckham.) You enter into a world where it's possible, even probable, to have twenty-one year old students ask you what the blue part on the map means.
So I stood there, outside of the school, letting the warm Cambodian night do its familiar dance across my skin. The students were pleasant, and kind, and smiling, as Cambodian students always are. They talked about their future, unsure of what to do next. (As I once did; as I do now. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it doesn't get any easier, although I wish somebody had told me that.) They asked about my new job, and how it was going, and why I left the university. They told me they missed me and liked my teaching, which made feel good, made feel as I'd created something lasting and resonant. I said good-bye as they drove off into the dark and busy streets on their motos, eager to escape academia, if only for a night.
It was just one of those nice moments, that's all. A series of them, actually.
Watching the news on a daily basis, it's so easy to get the impression that the world is a cesspool of danger and despair, of heartache and agony.
So it is; I'm not denying that.
But there's everything's else, too, the stuff that doesn't make the news -- students carrying books, chatting with old instructors, wishing them good luck. The stuff that fills up life and makes it tolerable, if only for a night. The everyday, trivial, real and lasting human stuff that bobs and weaves between the darkness, unwittingly giving off light, and texture, and meaning.
I'd always vowed that I'd never be a teacher, and yet it's the first real thing that I did after graduating from university, teach, for four years in Japan, one year here in Cambodia. (Okay, I did do a summer stint at the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology in Toronto, and a stint washing dishes at Caddyshack's Bar and Grill in Manotick, Ontario, but I'm not counting those. And you shouldn't, either. Please.)
I think it's always good to do the things that you said you would never do, because it points out aspects of your character that you wouldn't have unearthed otherwise. It's also pretty wild to do these things in foreign countries. Through the students you learn about the culture and the language, the customs and the history. You see what young people are like, people who have never heard of Brad Pitt or Johnny Carson or even John F.Kennedy. (Although most young Cambodians do know David Beckham.) You enter into a world where it's possible, even probable, to have twenty-one year old students ask you what the blue part on the map means.
So I stood there, outside of the school, letting the warm Cambodian night do its familiar dance across my skin. The students were pleasant, and kind, and smiling, as Cambodian students always are. They talked about their future, unsure of what to do next. (As I once did; as I do now. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it doesn't get any easier, although I wish somebody had told me that.) They asked about my new job, and how it was going, and why I left the university. They told me they missed me and liked my teaching, which made feel good, made feel as I'd created something lasting and resonant. I said good-bye as they drove off into the dark and busy streets on their motos, eager to escape academia, if only for a night.
It was just one of those nice moments, that's all. A series of them, actually.
Watching the news on a daily basis, it's so easy to get the impression that the world is a cesspool of danger and despair, of heartache and agony.
So it is; I'm not denying that.
But there's everything's else, too, the stuff that doesn't make the news -- students carrying books, chatting with old instructors, wishing them good luck. The stuff that fills up life and makes it tolerable, if only for a night. The everyday, trivial, real and lasting human stuff that bobs and weaves between the darkness, unwittingly giving off light, and texture, and meaning.
Monday, February 28, 2005
I DARE YOU: BECOME THE HERO OF YOUR OWN LIFE
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show.
-- Charles Dickens
DAVID COPPERFIELD
A few years ago, when I worked in Japan, I was waiting to take the late-train home from Shin-yurigaoka, where I worked, to Sagami-Ono, where I lived, when I suddenly saw a drunken Japanese salaryman stumble and fall onto the tracks, the light from the oncoming train creating an eerie glow of doom that lit up the night.
I thought: This is the time, the moment, when my authentic humanity will be tested, where I will be called upon to sacrifice myself and my life for a total stranger. I will have to crawl on the tracks and hope that there is time, enough time, to push him and me out of safety. I will see what I am made of, or die trying.
Didn't come to that. The drunk dude quickly rushed to the side of the platform and hurled himself over its edge. The train was still a little ways back. His life might not even have been in danger. Hard to say.
Still.
Made me think.
Am I living the life I'm supposed to be living?
Recently, there had been a Korean exchange student who had actually died doing what had only been a brief, almost-happened-but-thank-God-didn't interlude in my mind, rescuing a Japanese man who had fallen onto the tracks, giving up his life in the process of saving another.
He died a hero.
How do you live as a hero?
Isn't there something arrogant and self-serving in thinking that you can go around and right wrongs, make people's lives better, make a difference in the world? Who the hell are you, anyways, to think such thoughts?
There is the need to distinguish oneself from the pack; there is also the need to become a part of the pack. And in between those two needs is something else, this third, separate sense of self that is a combination of the two -- a martyr crossed with a hermit, a selfless soul who lives for others and an inward isolationist who exists for himself, and himself alone.
We always battle those two forces. We either hold the door open for someone, or we don't. We either thank the saleslady at the A&P, or we don't. We jump onto the tracks, or we don't.
It's a matter of degrees.
We may not be writing our own memoirs, as Dicken's Copperfield did, but the days and weeks and months and years we pass through will be the pages that show whether or not we will be the hero of of our own lives.
The only conclusion I've come to, the one that makes the most logical, moral, ambitious, human sense is: Do it. Be the hero of your own life, however you define 'hero'. Be the one who holds the door, even though nobody says 'thank-you'. Be the one that gets on the plane. Be the one who works where others won't, teaches where others won't. Be the one that steps out of the life of quiet desperation that your peers seem to expect, if not embrace. Be the guy or girl who doesn't park in the handicapped spot. Be the one who doesn't roll their eyes in sarcasm at someone else's kooky idea. Be the one who chooses blind optimism over unthinking cynicism. Be the one who believes that the Oscars are a good and noble thing. Be the one who walks through the open door into a strange and tempting room. Be that guy on the six o'clock news, the feel-good story they always end the broadcast with, the one that returned the money he found on the street, even though he could have kept it and become rich. Be the one who jumps on the tracks to help the girl who fell. Be the one who does the unnoticed things every day that nobody ever gives you credit for. Be the hero you suspect you might be capable of becoming someday, which may be today, for all you know. Why not?
"We're all here to do what we're all here to do," the Oracle tells Neo in The Matrix Revolutions.
I'm not sure what that means, to be honest, but it has a wonderful, ringing, koan-like logic to it.
We are here to do what we are here to do.
So do it.
Be the hero of your own life.
I dare you to.
-- Charles Dickens
DAVID COPPERFIELD
A few years ago, when I worked in Japan, I was waiting to take the late-train home from Shin-yurigaoka, where I worked, to Sagami-Ono, where I lived, when I suddenly saw a drunken Japanese salaryman stumble and fall onto the tracks, the light from the oncoming train creating an eerie glow of doom that lit up the night.
I thought: This is the time, the moment, when my authentic humanity will be tested, where I will be called upon to sacrifice myself and my life for a total stranger. I will have to crawl on the tracks and hope that there is time, enough time, to push him and me out of safety. I will see what I am made of, or die trying.
Didn't come to that. The drunk dude quickly rushed to the side of the platform and hurled himself over its edge. The train was still a little ways back. His life might not even have been in danger. Hard to say.
Still.
Made me think.
Am I living the life I'm supposed to be living?
Recently, there had been a Korean exchange student who had actually died doing what had only been a brief, almost-happened-but-thank-God-didn't interlude in my mind, rescuing a Japanese man who had fallen onto the tracks, giving up his life in the process of saving another.
He died a hero.
How do you live as a hero?
Isn't there something arrogant and self-serving in thinking that you can go around and right wrongs, make people's lives better, make a difference in the world? Who the hell are you, anyways, to think such thoughts?
There is the need to distinguish oneself from the pack; there is also the need to become a part of the pack. And in between those two needs is something else, this third, separate sense of self that is a combination of the two -- a martyr crossed with a hermit, a selfless soul who lives for others and an inward isolationist who exists for himself, and himself alone.
We always battle those two forces. We either hold the door open for someone, or we don't. We either thank the saleslady at the A&P, or we don't. We jump onto the tracks, or we don't.
It's a matter of degrees.
We may not be writing our own memoirs, as Dicken's Copperfield did, but the days and weeks and months and years we pass through will be the pages that show whether or not we will be the hero of of our own lives.
The only conclusion I've come to, the one that makes the most logical, moral, ambitious, human sense is: Do it. Be the hero of your own life, however you define 'hero'. Be the one who holds the door, even though nobody says 'thank-you'. Be the one that gets on the plane. Be the one who works where others won't, teaches where others won't. Be the one that steps out of the life of quiet desperation that your peers seem to expect, if not embrace. Be the guy or girl who doesn't park in the handicapped spot. Be the one who doesn't roll their eyes in sarcasm at someone else's kooky idea. Be the one who chooses blind optimism over unthinking cynicism. Be the one who believes that the Oscars are a good and noble thing. Be the one who walks through the open door into a strange and tempting room. Be that guy on the six o'clock news, the feel-good story they always end the broadcast with, the one that returned the money he found on the street, even though he could have kept it and become rich. Be the one who jumps on the tracks to help the girl who fell. Be the one who does the unnoticed things every day that nobody ever gives you credit for. Be the hero you suspect you might be capable of becoming someday, which may be today, for all you know. Why not?
"We're all here to do what we're all here to do," the Oracle tells Neo in The Matrix Revolutions.
I'm not sure what that means, to be honest, but it has a wonderful, ringing, koan-like logic to it.
We are here to do what we are here to do.
So do it.
Be the hero of your own life.
I dare you to.
POST ALERT! POST ALERT!
I posted three new free, extra-strength posts below the one entitled 'What I Want', ones you may not have read yet, assuming there's somebody out there reading this particular post, or any of my posts, for that matter, which is never a sure thing, but if there are, and you're bored by the latest Danielle Steel or Everybody Loves Raymond or even the latest Updike, who, let's face it, can be pretty boring sometimes, simply scroll down.
In any event, please read and feel edified, revolted, charmed or bored at your own discretion.
In any event, please read and feel edified, revolted, charmed or bored at your own discretion.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
WHAT I WANT
I want to find out who really assassinated J.F.K. (I think Oswald had a hand in it, but I think elements of the Mafia and the Cubans under Castro played a part.)
I want to publish a novel.
I want to run the Nagano Marathon, because I trained for it three years ago while I was living in Japan, only to blow out my knee a week before the race, and I vowed I'd go back and redeem myself.
I want to change the world. (A little bit.)
I want to visit North Korea, because Canadians can actually go there.
I want to read all of Shakespeare. (Just not tonight.)
I want to be happy. Forever.
I want to travel across Canada by train.
I want to go to Tianeman Square in China.
I want to visit the JFK Assassination Museum in Dallas Texas, housed on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository Building, where Oswald
was said to have fired his fatal shots.
I want visit the hotel room where Martin Luther King was shot.
I want to visit the Audobon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was shot, because they've just turned it into a museum or archive of his life, I think.
I want to visit all of the above places to connect with moments of history that involve great men.
I want to pass at least Level 3 of the Japanese Proficiency test, which I failed a couple of years ago. (But I was proud of my score, 'cause any score on a Japanese proficiency test, even a score of 1, is pretty good for a kid from St.Catharines, Ontario, I think.)
I want to be more humble.
I want to become the change I want to see in the world.
I want to visit India.
I want to meet Nelson Mandela, Vladamir Putin, and Bill Murray. (Doesn't have to be in that order.)
I want to know if ghosts are real and if UFOs are real. (I kind of suspect they're not, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.)
I want to become reasonably fluent in Japanese.
I want to become reasonably fluent in English.
I want to know where we go when we die (if anywhere).
I want to help people who need help.
I want to meet Stephen King and ask him why, in his novel IT, he has most of the characters remember Stanley Uris saying "The turtle couldn't help us", but nowhere in the flashback sections of the book are these words actually spoken (unless I missed them).
I want to be a leader, not a follower. (Unless I'm in North Korea, because there's only one Dear Leader allowed, and I think he'd be a little pissed.)
I want to know if cracking my knuckles will really give me arthritis in old age, but I'm scared to find out.
I want to go on a tour of the White House.
I want to understand Canadian and Japanese political systems.
I want to see the Cambodian people live in a (relatively) corruption-free society.
I want to see if I have what it takes to have what it takes.
I want to know if having seen almost every episode of Who's The Boss and Different Strokes and The Facts of Life and WKRP In Cincinatti will have any long-term emotional and spiritual consequences, in this life or the next.
I want to know my entire future, just for a moment, and then forget it all.
I want to see if the new Superman movie coming out next year will enhance or diminish my love of the Christopher Reeve movies.
I want to read Roots.
I want to go to England and discover my own roots.
I want to see how they're going to do the stretching effects on Mr.Fantastic and the fire effects on The Human Torch in the new Fantastic Four movie coming out later this year.
I want to read One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I've started a couple of times, but never finished.
I want to read Yukio Mishima in the original Japanese, because I've heard he's amazing (but that ain't going to happen).
I want reincarnation to be true, because it seems the coolest of all the after-life options.
I want to fully embrace (or at least a little bit) the Buddhist notion of non-attachment that Anakin Skywalker had so many problems with in Attack of the Clones, where we recognize that the glass we're drinking from is already broken, where we realize that that which we are drawing close to us is already pulling itself away, that nothing is permanent, including impermanence.
I want to not want so much.
What do you want?
I want to publish a novel.
I want to run the Nagano Marathon, because I trained for it three years ago while I was living in Japan, only to blow out my knee a week before the race, and I vowed I'd go back and redeem myself.
I want to change the world. (A little bit.)
I want to visit North Korea, because Canadians can actually go there.
I want to read all of Shakespeare. (Just not tonight.)
I want to be happy. Forever.
I want to travel across Canada by train.
I want to go to Tianeman Square in China.
I want to visit the JFK Assassination Museum in Dallas Texas, housed on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository Building, where Oswald
was said to have fired his fatal shots.
I want visit the hotel room where Martin Luther King was shot.
I want to visit the Audobon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was shot, because they've just turned it into a museum or archive of his life, I think.
I want to visit all of the above places to connect with moments of history that involve great men.
I want to pass at least Level 3 of the Japanese Proficiency test, which I failed a couple of years ago. (But I was proud of my score, 'cause any score on a Japanese proficiency test, even a score of 1, is pretty good for a kid from St.Catharines, Ontario, I think.)
I want to be more humble.
I want to become the change I want to see in the world.
I want to visit India.
I want to meet Nelson Mandela, Vladamir Putin, and Bill Murray. (Doesn't have to be in that order.)
I want to know if ghosts are real and if UFOs are real. (I kind of suspect they're not, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.)
I want to become reasonably fluent in Japanese.
I want to become reasonably fluent in English.
I want to know where we go when we die (if anywhere).
I want to help people who need help.
I want to meet Stephen King and ask him why, in his novel IT, he has most of the characters remember Stanley Uris saying "The turtle couldn't help us", but nowhere in the flashback sections of the book are these words actually spoken (unless I missed them).
I want to be a leader, not a follower. (Unless I'm in North Korea, because there's only one Dear Leader allowed, and I think he'd be a little pissed.)
I want to know if cracking my knuckles will really give me arthritis in old age, but I'm scared to find out.
I want to go on a tour of the White House.
I want to understand Canadian and Japanese political systems.
I want to see the Cambodian people live in a (relatively) corruption-free society.
I want to see if I have what it takes to have what it takes.
I want to know if having seen almost every episode of Who's The Boss and Different Strokes and The Facts of Life and WKRP In Cincinatti will have any long-term emotional and spiritual consequences, in this life or the next.
I want to know my entire future, just for a moment, and then forget it all.
I want to see if the new Superman movie coming out next year will enhance or diminish my love of the Christopher Reeve movies.
I want to read Roots.
I want to go to England and discover my own roots.
I want to see how they're going to do the stretching effects on Mr.Fantastic and the fire effects on The Human Torch in the new Fantastic Four movie coming out later this year.
I want to read One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I've started a couple of times, but never finished.
I want to read Yukio Mishima in the original Japanese, because I've heard he's amazing (but that ain't going to happen).
I want reincarnation to be true, because it seems the coolest of all the after-life options.
I want to fully embrace (or at least a little bit) the Buddhist notion of non-attachment that Anakin Skywalker had so many problems with in Attack of the Clones, where we recognize that the glass we're drinking from is already broken, where we realize that that which we are drawing close to us is already pulling itself away, that nothing is permanent, including impermanence.
I want to not want so much.
What do you want?
THE HAPPY DAYS SYNDROME, or WHY WON'T YOU JUST GROW UP?
I have a theory that the reason why so many people in my age bracket (thirty and under) have a difficult time adjusting to adulthood is because the people we grew up with on TV and in the movies were actually significant older than the characters they were portraying.
It's the Happy Days Syndrome. You've got Richie Cunningham and Ralph Malph and Potsie, and they're all supposed to be in, like, Grade 10 and 11, and they're played by people in their early to mid-twenties. So by the time that I get to be fifteen and sixteen years old, I look in the mirror, and I see this young little twerp, not looking anything like Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (who was twenty-four playing seventeen), or Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez in The Breakfast Club (also somewhere in the mid-twenties range) and so this weird, out-of-body dislocation takes place. My age doesn't match my image of what that age should be, so I instantly regress.
(The exception to this was the Canadian TV drama Degrassi Junior High, which used real ugly and average looking teenagers, not Beverly Hills 90210 supermodels. And I have my own Degrassi story, if you want to hear it, which is that when I was getting hired to go teach English in Japan, there was a training session in Toronto, and one of the people they brought in to motivate us was a former teacher who was back in Canada after finishing her contract, and she was a girl of about my age, twenty-three or so, short, pleasant, Canadian, and I couldn't figure out where I had seen her before, until I suddenly realized that this was Spike, the girl on Degrassi who got pregnant, the girl with really spiked-out, whacked-out hair, hence the name 'Spike', and I thought oh, so this is where former Canadian TV stars end up, and all of the other new teachers on the break realized simultaneously that we had a Degrassi alumnus in our midst, and that was a fun moment, a real moment, and I think she is back on TV on Degrassi: The Next Generation, which I've never seen because I've been away, and I'm not sure I want to see it, truth be told, because it's somewhat cool but somewhat sad, too, to see the same students who were on the show ten, fifteen years ago returning to play older, wiser versions of themselves. Sometimes the past should stay the past, I think, but I know that bills have to be paid, too.)
Spielberg once said when promoting Saving Private Ryan that if you go back and look at what seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year olds looked like back in the twenties and thirties and forties, you'll see that they simply look older than those in the same age brackets today. I think that's true. Take a look at pictures of your grandparents when they were in their twenties. They look, I don't know, adult. Mature. Advanced. Whereas we have shows like Friends that seem to glorify extended adolescence into a near-religion.
We all advance at different speeds from each other, anyways, but I think the media, its reflections and distortions of who we are at various points in our lives, have more sway than we're usually willing to admit in determining how and why we grow the way we do.
That's my excuse, anyway.
It's the Happy Days Syndrome. You've got Richie Cunningham and Ralph Malph and Potsie, and they're all supposed to be in, like, Grade 10 and 11, and they're played by people in their early to mid-twenties. So by the time that I get to be fifteen and sixteen years old, I look in the mirror, and I see this young little twerp, not looking anything like Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (who was twenty-four playing seventeen), or Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez in The Breakfast Club (also somewhere in the mid-twenties range) and so this weird, out-of-body dislocation takes place. My age doesn't match my image of what that age should be, so I instantly regress.
(The exception to this was the Canadian TV drama Degrassi Junior High, which used real ugly and average looking teenagers, not Beverly Hills 90210 supermodels. And I have my own Degrassi story, if you want to hear it, which is that when I was getting hired to go teach English in Japan, there was a training session in Toronto, and one of the people they brought in to motivate us was a former teacher who was back in Canada after finishing her contract, and she was a girl of about my age, twenty-three or so, short, pleasant, Canadian, and I couldn't figure out where I had seen her before, until I suddenly realized that this was Spike, the girl on Degrassi who got pregnant, the girl with really spiked-out, whacked-out hair, hence the name 'Spike', and I thought oh, so this is where former Canadian TV stars end up, and all of the other new teachers on the break realized simultaneously that we had a Degrassi alumnus in our midst, and that was a fun moment, a real moment, and I think she is back on TV on Degrassi: The Next Generation, which I've never seen because I've been away, and I'm not sure I want to see it, truth be told, because it's somewhat cool but somewhat sad, too, to see the same students who were on the show ten, fifteen years ago returning to play older, wiser versions of themselves. Sometimes the past should stay the past, I think, but I know that bills have to be paid, too.)
Spielberg once said when promoting Saving Private Ryan that if you go back and look at what seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year olds looked like back in the twenties and thirties and forties, you'll see that they simply look older than those in the same age brackets today. I think that's true. Take a look at pictures of your grandparents when they were in their twenties. They look, I don't know, adult. Mature. Advanced. Whereas we have shows like Friends that seem to glorify extended adolescence into a near-religion.
We all advance at different speeds from each other, anyways, but I think the media, its reflections and distortions of who we are at various points in our lives, have more sway than we're usually willing to admit in determining how and why we grow the way we do.
That's my excuse, anyway.
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