Putting Your Best Foot Forward

For a variety of reasons I have spoken to people lately in a way which could only be called marketing. And by that I mean trying to sell myself. Sell myself as a writer, as an employee, as a business commodity... You know, the perpetual world of a freelancer with not enough permanent income.

I have come to some conclusions - first, people who interview people and deal with employees expect the worst. I am not sure this a universal truth, but I find it to be true. They think you are going to judge, they think you are going to try and cheat them, they think you are only in it for self-gain. I cannot blame them, they have probably seen the worst there is in people as they hire, contract, fire, engage and otherwise work with those who market themselves and their skills over and over.

As an aside I have found dealing with my kid's teachers to be like this - they go into every conversation afraid. I do not remember that being true when I was a kid... but now it is as if the teacher expects you are going to tell them they are doing everything wrong, or ask for special favours, or something that will make them hit the scotch and antacid when the meeting is over. When you walk into parent teacher and say, my kid won't listen to me, do you have any luck? the teacher is taken off guard.

As are the interviewees or editors or any other person higher up the food chain when you treat them with respect and try to take their stress away.

When I was a clergy person in the United Church I had heard it said that all a minister really needs to know how to do is interview well, then they can get whatever job they want. And it is true, if you wow them in an interview you get the job - the problem is, you do not keep the job and everyone becomes miserable if you are ONLY good at the interview.

So here is what I think successful people do - the ones who not only ace the interview but land and continue with the job - they treat the people they work for, and with, as human beings - and they are real about who they are and what they do. No games, no false ego - just.... I like it here, I like you, how can I help.

When we approach life, work and relationships with that sort of attitude, people respond. (but do not tell everyone - because the reason they respond so well might just well be that most people forget this golden rule of caring about the other person).

I have learned that I might not always get the job or assignment, but when I am trying to be me and to generally care about the other person  - I eventually end up in the right place.

The World We Live in

I grew up on the tail end of the Cold War. Just old enough to remember hiding under the desk in order to survive the impending Nuclear holocaust. I still cannot imagine who came up with that one...

Anyway – there was always that. Death from nuclear missiles. Which sort of occupied our minds in the background. But aside from that, do you know what I worried about? Nothing. Okay, that is an oversimplification I worried about what my parents would say if I did not do well in school or if I was not polite to their friends. The punishment for those two things was enough to make you never forget to say thank you.

That was not just them – it was everyone. We knew we had better not disappoint our parents, teachers, ministers, coach etc. Or God help you.

Still, this was the sum total of my fear. Someday the Russians (yes, it was always the Russians back then) would kill us all, and sometime nearer in terms of history, I was going to slip up and fail at something and get myself killed.

I want you to think back over the last week in Canada and tell me what sort of things you have been worried about? That a crazy crack addicted family of millionaires is going to once again take over Toronto, that ISIS is targeting Canadian soldiers, that terrorism is hitting close to home, that BDSM is becoming mainstream, and on and on and on it goes.

Life is not simple anymore. Some may argue it never was, but I am pretty convinced it was more simple. It was not better, or happier, or anything like that perhaps, but it was simpler.

Social scientists, religious leaders, philosophers, and all those people will tell you there is a reason for this. We live in a transitional age. Things are changing rapidly, and society does not yet know where it is heading.

Curiously this is a cyclical phenomenon that happens every 500 years or so. A quick and abysmally one-sided history lesson suggests they are on to something:

1500 was the Protestant reformation, the printing press was discovered, Leonardo Da Vinci wrote everything, Copernicus discovered the earth was the centre of the solar system and Francis Drake sailed around the world.

1000 saw the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches divide, the invasion of Jerusalem by the Muslims, the launch of the Crusades and the Vikings discovering and settling North America.

500 was when the Roman Empire finally began to lose its power, Arthur won Britain and Clovis won France, the Persians attacked Rome and the Vandal Hordes were storming in from the East. The Dark Ages began here.

You see my point – their point – the point. It seems true to say, oddly, that every 500 years everything changes. That is how long we can get along before society needs to readjust. And it takes about a hundred years for things to settle into a new way of being that no one every thought of before that point.

God only knows why the scandal between Jian Ghomeshi and the CBC brought this to mind for me, but it did. I think it is part and parcel of the millennial change in the way we as humans are going to exist on the planet – which for my money started about 1960 and will therefore resolve itself into a new era sometime after 2050.

Life for us caught up in this century is and always will be chaos. The world is changing faster than we can keep up, and that includes the way we think about things. Celebrity, sex, war, politics, morals, sexuality, family, religion – all these things are up for grabs and none of them will be the same in 30 years.

On the other hand, it is one hell of a ride.  

Terrorism

Formal definitions are not always the way to go...

Terrorism is something with a fluid definition - it seems it can mean anything you want it to. Some would argue it is an act of war committed against civilians for the purpose of de-stabilization. There is something to that.

Of course, when you say that - then a lot of things are no longer terrorism; like the attack in Quebec on Monday and in Ottawa on Wednesday. Both of those targeted soldiers. So technically they are simply military actions - and if they have a link to ISIS, they are actually military actions by someone we are technically at war with.

That they happened on Canadian soil is the hard part. Not many people get away with military actions against Canada on Canadian soil. The United States tried it some many years ago and we burned their white house to the ground to teach them a lesson.

But I digress, let's take a looser definition of terrorism  - an act meant to cause terror. More specifically, an act meant to make you afraid.

Pre and Post 9/11. Some of us can think that far back. Remember a world where no one would ever dare attack North America? Remember a time when we assumed violence and car bombs and the like happened over there, wherever over there happened to be. I was personally always worried about going to Northern Ireland in the 80's. But then someone did something that made every single person in the US and most of us North of their border take pause - they directly attacked civilians in what we would have seen as safe from warfare type city.

Now - to a lesser extent - we are given a reminder that it can be brought to Ottawa, or to St Jean sur Richelieu or to Norton... Anywhere in Canada... just as easily.

Terrorism is essentially bullying. So I am thinking about it the same way I do with my elementary school kids - we cannot let the bully win. And if the bully makes us afraid to live our lives the way we want to - they have won.

I have been in some dangerous parts of the world, and I have had a smattering of military and security training, and I can honestly tell you that if someone is determined to do something, and is smart enough to fly under the radar, they will accomplish it.

Any of us could buy a hunting rifle at Canadian Tire, hop in our car, drive anywhere and shoot anyone. Most of us would succeed - as the guy in Moncton who gunned down the RCMP sort of proved.

So no one is at fault here, and nothing really needs to be done - except perhaps make the door of parliament a little harder to open. Maybe someone should let you in? What we do need to do is not worry about this. Let's not fall apart and demand curfews and lock downs and security screenings. Let's not stop living the way we as Canadians have always lived.  Cause if we do - the bully wins.

And let's face it. implement whatever security measures you want. There are still going to be the crazy people with the guns willing to die for their cause. And we are still not going to see it coming.

Of Dream Jobs and Life

What do you do for a living? They say that people will do eight different things before they die. I am getting up there.

I have done the military, university, church, built fibreglass canoes and directed summer camps. Now I write and edit - and I do so because it is my dream job.

I see it as a way to change the world - to bring opinions and beauty and ideas to the fore in a way that captivates imagination and sets minds on their own journey of discovery.

But... and I do not say this lightly... it is harder than I thought it would be. This is a dream job dammit, life should just feel like cloud nine, everything should fall into place... I am doing something so few people get the chance to do and... I am blowing it.

Not that I cannot turn this ship around - but I have been getting lazy, sad, lonely, all of the things I have felt before in other jobs and other places - and so I am not putting my all into it like I was three months ago.

I am nothing if not introspective, however, and so I am offering this little discussion as a way to help those of you who find yourselves in my shoes (which, one day or another, is all of you)

Life is never going to be what you wish it was. Sure, there are days, weeks, months - for the lucky amongst us perhaps even years when things will be perfect. But that too will be fleeting. Life is real - and that means there is pain. Life includes loss. Life includes unhappiness. Life includes idiots cutting you off at the intersection.

I personally keep forgetting this. Perhaps I am the only one. Perhaps you are okay with this and understand the balance, the yin-yang nature of the universe. And so I find myself feeling that the world is letting me down and perfection is escaping only me. Everyone else is happy, right? Everyone else had the perfect day, right?

Luckily I have people in my life who call me on this bullshit way of seeing reality. But I wonder why I keep getting pulled back in. Do you ever get sucked back into the depression of seeing life as not fair? Do you ever start counting all the bad things that happen and forget about the good? Probably. I think we all do. But we need someone to come along and smack us upside the head and remind us that we are being babies.

So this is your wake up call. No one owes you anything. Life is not a bed of roses. The rain is going to fall... and.... it will be okay. Cause there is a rainbow. There is a flower garden. People will randomly do nice things for you... but you are responsible...

So get going. Don't just coast through this upcoming week - focus on making it better!

Banned in the UK

Okay, I love advertisements. I suppose that is a field I should have taken up. I would watch television shows just for the ads, and this is doubly true of the Superbowl, given that I have almost never in my life watched a sports game on television.

Advertising is the ultimate short story. Think about it, these people have 30 seconds to make you connect with a character, then make you connect with the product, then make you feel that you need it.

And we all know that controversy sells.

So Scarlett Johansson was hawking Soda Stream and the commercial was banned by FOX television. That is controversy. In fact, it probably managed to get the company so much more engagement than could possibly be gotten during a football game bathroom break.

Every man and most women on the planet would want to see something with Scarlett in it that is banned! She is the sexiest woman alive, and censorship reeks of sexuality! So why was it banned? Because at the very end, looking very sultry in her black evening dress, Scarlett looks at the camera and says, "Sorry Coke and Pepsi..."

The commercial was banned because she mentioned the competitors... and lets face it, Coke and Pepsi might just rule the world if you could manage to follow the paper trail. No one wants to make them angry...

But then... but then... Coca Cola puts the most heartfelt, most ingenious, most full of American Pride commercial out there into the televisosphere and gets slammed for it.

Their add features the song America the Beautiful sung in many different languages by many different Americans of various ethnic backgrounds. It makes a stunningly huge point about the whole "melting pot of nations" idea that the United States was founded upon.

And what happens? Millions of racist comments are made. Supposedly sane people start saying the wierdest stuff about how Coca Cola is racist...

If there is one thing growing up in the 70's 80's and 90's taught me it is that Coca Cola knows advertising and knows emotions. Hell, they invented Santa Clause.

But people, like Rush Limbaugh if you want to put him in that category, have been saying Coke is intentionally trying to make the states multicultural and that people should just learn English when they get here... After all, God spoke English...

I wonder what the racists would think if they were educated enough to realize that America the Beautiful was written by a lesbian... Katherine Lee Bates.

Well - it certainly worked. The ads make everyone talk. Unfortunately most of them are talking for the wrong reasons. Still, you know what they say any press is good press.

It is just disheartening. I mean, go ahead and google the Coke ad and forget about the advertisement, read the comments under the video, or under the news story... the majority of people are... well... terrible it would seem.

It makes you lose faith in this whole human endeavour.

I for one am settling my nerves with a nice bottle of Coke Zero before going out to buy my new Soda Stream.

Oh... and if you want to see most of the commercials, check them out here... SUPER BOWL ADS 2014

Pain

I have hurt myself a lot.

I am clumsy.

I deal all right with the pain of an instantaneous fracture, or cutting myself on a broken bottle. But last week something happened that drove me insane.

I got a headache. Again, this is not new. But this was the worst headache I think I have ever had. It accompanied some sort of flu and made me so sick to my stomach, so intensely uncomfortable that I could not sleep, eat, or even think.

I have never felt something like this before. It took the hospital, some IV's, and both narcotic and non narcotic pain killers to make it possible for me to relax enough to sleep.

That being said, on the other side of it all there are some realizations. And that is that torture works.

I would have literally done anything to make the pain stop. If someone had of told me that cutting off my hand would ease the pain, I probably would. I did not think about anything. Seriously I thought about nothing but ending the pain.

Right before the hospital I had decided that I should shoot myself and end the pain.

Kurt Cobain reportedly did just that.

I think we underestimate what true pain is. I am never going to think about torture, or about people who suffer from chronic pain in the same way ever again. Because we may think we are tough, resolute, and in control. But I know it does not take very much to tip the balance.

I guess it is a sort of "there but for the grace of God" realization for me. Since I have had pain before, from sore muscles through broken bones, even migraines and surgeries, I thought I understood what pain was. And I totally felt that people are wimps.

No more.