failed meditation while watching a fire

I stared too long at the fire and now, looking up,
the stars are dimmer

I burned the map and watched as the ashes rose
and got caught in the trees

An idea begins to form inside me:
(and we're all just fucking swirling matter, and it doesn't matter at all)
But before I can grasp it, it's gone
Gone to ashes in my hands
Burning through my palms

With new holes to see through
I hold my hands up to my eyes
And for an instant I am calm
I feel, for one second, an inner stillness

(I watch the fire die, every last ember
And still there is so much more to burn)

Grasping at a moment of clarity
Trying to focus on the way the embers seem to breathe
Like they're alive
Like a lung

I try so hard to clear my mind
To feel only the breath on my lips
and in my lungs

Absolute clarity, so close
Absolute calm, a breath away

But I am clouded

I am indistinct

on being among the last generation to not have internet during childhood

I was born in 1990. I remember my family getting our first computer when I was 6 or 7. It was gigantic, ran Windows 95, and you had the option of starting it up in DOS. We didn't have the internet - I mainly used the computer to write stories on Microsoft Word, paint in Paint, and to play Pac Man. 

Then, in primary school, when we moved to the suburbs from Scarborough (east Toronto), we got The Internet. I don't remember the exact moment we acquired it, but I remember it quickly became a big part of my life. I remember waiting for it to dial up (I can hear the sound in my head right now), and needing to ask mom and dad if I could use it in case they were expecting any important phone calls. If I wanted to download anything I had to do it over dinner when they didn't want to receive any phone calls anyhow. 

I remember using it for MSN (a messaging platform from back in the day). I remember running home from school in grade 7 and 8 to chat with my friends, and to live my life on there, free from the prying eyes of teachers and parents. 

My first email address was broken_beyond_repair02@hotmail.com. Yeah, I was that angsty.

My parents were practically Luddites, so we were never a very technologically advanced family. To give you an idea, I didn't get my first cell phone until after graduating high school at 18, and I didn't get my first smartphone, with internet access/data (a used iPhone 4 S which I still use to this day, thank you very much) until 2016. 

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the internet ruined my life, or that it has ruined life in general. Since you're here with me, I'd hazard that you already understand the benefits - the democratization of knowledge (especially with websites for free learning like Khan Academy or Coursera); social media to connect with family and friends who we wouldn't ordinarily be able to be in close contact with (shout out to my fam in Australia, who I have on What's App!); making more things more accessible to people with disabilities; the mobilization and amplification of a variety of marginalized viewpoints that would not otherwise have platforms; hell, there are even examples of social media being used to organize and mobilize revolutionary and rescue initiatives. 

I'm also not going to sit here and tell you that the internet hasn't ruined aspects of [my] life. I spend wayyyyy too much time on social media wasting my dwindling hours endlessly scrolling through shit I don't care about when I could be doing literally anything else; it makes me compare myself to others (to my endless pointless suffering); it makes me feel like I'm missing out on things all the time; it mobilizes and amplifies a lot of hateful viewpoints and provides a platform for hate groups to organize; it spreads a lot of misinformation; there's the idea of omniscience fatigue wherein we are so overloaded with instantly-accessible information that information itself becomes boring, etc. etc. etc. 

I remember my pre-internet brain. I remember playing with my friends in elementary school in the school yard, sans phones, sans internet, pretending that we were witches or the Spice Girls and going on crazy adventures while hopping over snowbanks. I remember needing to go to the library and look at books to do school projects. I remember teachers needing to ask if we had computer/internet access at home. I remember hanging out with my cousins with all the kids on their street, and stringing all of our toy cars and anything with wheels to the backs of our bicycles, putting barbies and beanie babies in them, and racing down the street, trying our best to make the toys fall out on a sharp turn. I remember making people out of pipecleaners, attaching them to plastic bag parachutes, and chucking them out the second-story window. I remember being excited to play lego and creating elaborate circuses with roller coasters and rides.

Not that this stuff doesn't happen with kids these days, of course. But I think that all of that wholesome, non-screen-related play and discovery is important to development. And back then, it wasn't an option. It was all we had. The negative implications for screen time on attention span, obesity, cardiovascular health, etc. are well documented. I don't want to be one of those old-timers who hearkens back to the glory days before invention X or Y, but I guess that's what I'm doing.

I think that my generation is unique in being among the few that straddles the Great Internet Divide (I'm calling it that, deal with it). I remember my pre-internet brain, and I didn't have the internet during many of my formative years. At the risk of sounding prideful, I'm pretty grateful for that. I think that I have a greater appreciation of nature, of face to face conversation, of creating art, of sticking my hands in the dirt, of the value of imagination and story-telling. All of this is of course anecdotal - I'm sure there are lots of folks born after the mid 90s who can lay definitive claim to these attributes as well. But I can't help but wonder if there's something inherently different about those of us who grew up without the internet, compared to those who cannot remember a childhood that was internet-free. 

I think even more jarring is the fact that we grew up in some of our most formative years without the internet, and then, boom, there it was. We were very lucky to have grown up along with it - it makes it far easier to understand technology and to be able to carve a worthy place out in the modern technologized world. I'm glad to have had my years as a young tot internet-free, and I'm also glad to have been able to learn how to live in this internet-laden world as I grew up. It's pretty much a win-win in my books.

I think this developmental history, wherein formative years of my childhood were internet-free, and my preteen years onward were internet-saturated, creates a strange neither-here-nor-there-ness in my identity. Unlike kids who grew up only knowing the internet, I feel like I long for my pre-internet brain. I'm nostalgic for it. More was a mystery in the world, I didn't feel bogged down with every single tragedy, and I didn't feel addicted to something that (like every addictive thing) both giveth and taketh away. People who grew up only ever knowing the internet may understand and appreciate its destructive potential, but they can't yearn for a life that existed previous to it, not having known it at all. At the same time, I am also so grateful to live in this time where information and viewpoints are so accessible, where I can be so connected with others, where I have access to so much. 

I don't think I would give this up if I could, and still part of me wishes that I never had access to any of this in the first place. Much of the inner workings of my mind include coming to terms with conflicting aspects of my identity. (Examples here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) This, it seems, is no exception. 

city living, the institutionalization of nature, and primitivist tourism

I fucking love camping. It's January 3rd and I'm already looking forward to camping this spring/summer. (This -15ºC weather is certainly a factor in my being so forward-thinking.)

I didn't start camping until about five years ago. And I've only been portaging/backwoods camping one time (which involved a long paddle in a rainstorm with two friends and their friends who thankfully knew what they were doing and had the gear and know-how to not get us killed). (It was awesome.) My parents didn't camp. My dad dabbled in it as a youth but I don't think you could have paid my mom to sleep on the ground with the bugs or be anywhere you couldn't plug in your curlers.

I know a lot of people who are super into camping, and it's no wonder: The benefits of being in nature and, by contrast, the neurosis-inducing nature of city life are phenomena that are well-documented.

Most people, I think, benefit from/deserve access to natural settings. But there's something about being immersed in a forest, or being on the shore of a vast body of water, or standing at the foot mountain that feeds the soul in ways that a simple visit to the park won't do. (And here in Toronto we are very lucky to have access to relatively ample greenspace and water for an urban environment.)

One really shitty thing about working that 9-5 life is the scarcity of available time in which one can camp. Long weekends involve a mass exodus of cars to reaches (barely) further north. The time spent on the highway is often (always?) worth it but it's pretty counterproductive to the whole reason people go camping in the first place. Plus, campgrounds, gear, outdoor equipment, and the like are very expensive, increasingly so. So it's a shame that most people can't really access immersive natural experiences. One, they're far away and hellish to get to, and two, a lot of people just simply can't afford it.

In this way, the natural has become institutionalized. It involves booking campsites months and months in advance in order to get a spot among the throngs, booking precious time off of busy work schedules to get time away from urban environments, paying exorbitant fees and prices for a plethora of camping gear, and bumper-to-bumper pilgrimages on crowded motorways. The natural world has become embedded in the capitalist, workaholic, consumerist, urban landscape, despite being (supposedly) miles away from it.

This is further complicated when one examines the demographics of the typical camper. The population of people who can't/don't camp is, I think, largely made up of people of colour/immigrants.* Part of the reason for this might be cultural reasons (ie. hobbies and interests are mimetic, and if no one in your culture camps, you're not going to know about it or adopt it). But I think that a lot of this has to do with a) financial barriers to camping and the racialization of poverty, and b) the fact that a lot of immigrants to Canada who grew up in countries without the Canadian 'standard of living' and/or in conflict areas probably came to Canada to try attain a life that meant having reliable access to precious things like a roof, a bed, running water, heat, and electricity. I'm sure the idea of paying to not have any of these things is absolutely ludicrous to some.

Which brings me to my next point: I think that camping is really just a 'lite' form of primitivist tourism.

A lot of people in urban areas in the developed world like going away to wild places and seeing ancient structures on indigenous land. Some tourism companies and endeavours strive to incorporate indigenous and perspectives in tourist practices, and some even pay them a living wage. (Hold your applause, please.) In short, people will pay to leave their developed country to sleep in tents alongside indigenous tribes on protected land next to ancient structures. They will marvel and speak to one another in reverent tones about how "simple and beautiful" the lives of these people are, and they will fetishize certain aspects of more 'primitive' cultures while ignoring elements of hardship, shortened life-expectancy, exploitation, and ecological devastation. A lot of the time, tourism is part of the perpetuation of these harmful elements, no matter how 'ethical' it is. It's a matter of trying to balance costs and benefits (both of which are plenty).

I marvel in the joys of camping, I think, because I never have been forced to sleep on the ground, with no heat, with no electricity, no amenities. Camping is nice because I can leave and go home. The same goes for primitivist tourism - I'll pay to sleep in a hammock in the jungle, being led to an ancient structure by an indigenous guide through indigenous land, and I'll marvel at the simplicity and beauty of the life there - and then I'll go home to my first world country with my first world dwelling and my first world life. I love it because I get to leave it behind.

As I so eloquently began this entry, I fucking love camping. I also fucking love travelling to places and doing amazing things. I am extremely privileged to be able to experience both, a few times a year. I have to accept that camping is a form of primitivist tourism. And I have to accept the fact that all primitivist tourism comes from a place of privilege. And that a lot of tourist practices, despite their many benefits, can also be very harmful. And I need to sit with that. It's fucking uncomfortable, but I'm going to keep camping and travelling, so the least I can do is acknowledge my role in potentially harmful systems and do my best to mitigate the ill effects.

I would so like for immersive natural experiences like camping not to be institutionalized like they are when they are near to urban environments. But I guess the only way of doing this is to move way out into the boonies where I can camp in my backyard for free. But alas, I'm not about to move from the city any time soon. So I guess I'll keep spending time in the institutionalized part of the natural world that I am lucky enough to have access to.

Which reminds me: It's January! I should get on booking my campsites for June.

*Although: These days I am seeing more and more POC and foreign-born people partaking in camping. As I believe camping is a sign of relative affluence, I think this change in demographics (if it is indeed happening and not just anecdotal) is a sign that foreign-born people in Canada/POC are gaining more access to rites of passage that were previously relegated to Canadian-born, upper/middle-class, white Canadians. We are seeing this demographic shift (veryyyy slowly) in other realms of our society as well.

Everyone is Anxious: Depathologizing Existential Anxiety

It seems like everyone in western society is anxious about something, particularly people in my age bracket living in urban areas. Most of my peers seem at least somewhat dissatisfied with their current position in life. This dissatisfaction is not in itself problematic, because at least a little bit of dissatisfaction with one’s current position is necessary for ambition to take root. A healthy dissatisfaction with one’s current situation is necessary in order for one to move towards progress and positive change. What is problematic is the at times crippling anxiety that often accompanies this dissatisfaction.

mixed media, Reality, by me

I would consider myself success-oriented, and I’d say that most of my peers are as well. And you don’t need to be a ‘career person’ in order to be success-oriented. I have a pretty liberal definition of success - I define it largely by being able to do something that you don’t mind doing (or even like doing), in order to live in this world, ie. having a job that you like wherein you make enough money to pay the bills and live well. Others may have more constrained definitions of success (eg. making X amount of money, having X amount of notoriety, being an expert in one’s field, etc.). However in my mind, success and happiness are deeply intertwined, and as I like to consider myself as someone who doesn’t need that much to be happy, accordingly my definition of success is quite tame. ‘Living well’ has its own definition. For me it is synonymous with having fun, because as long as I am having regular fun - going on adventures, dancing, spending time with people I love, laughing, being playful, making music, being silly - in my view, I’m living well.

I often wonder if the current conceptualization of success in our society (ie. born out of a capitalist, North American, individualistic, etc. culture) is what leads to so much anxiety in the first place. In our world, we have to pay exorbitant amounts of money just to live - this is especially true for people in urban areas. This is exacerbated by the fact that the Baby Boom Echo (my generation) is largely made up of people who were raised with the message, “follow your dreams”, who, because of a forced narrative of career-oriented success and the commodification of the education system, became overeducated, and are now struggling to find meaningful work in an oversaturated job market. As Douglas Copeland put it so elegantly through the voice of one of his characters in The Gum Thief, “Earth was not built for six billion people all running around and being passionate about things. The world was built for about two million people foraging for roots and grubs.” We are tasked with living in a society with huge expenses, a terrible job market, and the idea that “doing what you love” (eg. working in a job and getting paid for what you love) is the main mandate of our generation. It’s what our parents suffered for, after all; for us to have better lives than they did.

So yes, sometimes I wonder if our widespread dissatisfaction and anxiety with our current situations is borne out of this socioeconomic climate. But I also think it’s born out of our current ideological climate, one that puts career and money and success as paramount. These are the narratives that were forced on us from a very young age. I’ve actively tried to reject this as I’ve grown older, and as I’ve said my main goal is to have a job that I like wherein I make enough money to pay the bills and live well. I’m doing okay by that standard. I don’t prioritize notoriety or monetary gain as much as others do, so why am I so anxious just like everyone else?

Here, as in most times of internal struggle, I turn to existentialism for answers.

I have, since I was very young, been acutely aware of the passage of time and the imminence and inevitability of my death. I believe that I understood the necessity for finding meaning and fulfillment from a very young age and experienced a lot of anxiety around the prospect of not living a meaningful, fulfilled life. I still suffer from this anxiety. I take part in a great many activities that are meaningful to me - I have amazing conversations with friends, I make music, I have wonderful relationships, I love immersing myself in nature, I love caring for others, and so on - and yet I constantly feel anxious about the future. I usually feel unfulfilled, like I should be doing something more to improve my current situation. The greatest source of this worry comes from being able to have a meaningful career and work-life-balance so that I’m able to do the things that are important to me (eg. care for others, have fun, travel, spend quality time with those I love, make art, be in nature). I worry constantly that I won’t be able to achieve this, and I constantly wish for more for myself, especially in the face of others’ happiness and perceived sense of fulfillment. I am plagued by uncertainty with respect to the future and I fear constantly that I will never be fulfilled.

collage, Happiness, by me

So it does not have much to do with monetary success, notoriety, or anything of the sort. I long for fulfillment, to be touched and transformed by my experiences, to feel like what I do matters, to feel like I matter, that after I die, I will have mattered. I sense a discrepancy between where I am, and where I want to be, and this causes me anxiety. It motivates me to make positive changes most of the time, but sometimes it throws me into despair.

Victor Frankl, father of Logotherapy (an existential form of psychotherapy) understood human beings to be spiritual beings, and the main motivating factor behind all human action as the Will to Meaning. We strive for meaning more than anything, we want our actions and existences to have purpose, to matter. In this conceptualization, what is most troubling to us is the existence of what called the Existential Vacuum - feeling like one’s life or actions has no purpose or meaning.

But the way I see it, the pursuit of meaning and fulfillment is necessarily asymptotic. Unless you believe in the kind of spiritual enlightenment espoused by certain systems of belief, Buddhism for example, it is difficult to conceive of a state of being of pure satisfaction and fulfillment. The spirit always strives, no matter what.

So in a sense, existential anxiety is completely normal. If fulfillment is necessarily asymptotic, and if the will to meaning is the main motivating force behind human action, then it is no wonder why we experience anxiety and dissatisfaction. However, contrary to being pathological, existential anxiety - or, experiencing the discrepancy between where one is and where one wants to be, in terms of fulfillment - is the hallmark of being human. Frankl called the power of the spirit to strive for meaning, even in the direst of circumstances (Frankl himself was interned and brutally tortured in concentration camps for six years during WWII) the defiant power of the human spirit. The human spirit strives, no matter what. Even when plagued by amotivation, the depression and anxiety that accompanies it is proof that the spirit is still striving, albeit ineffectively. The only time the spirit does not strive is in death, or conditions close to it such as coma.

On the subject of pathology, Logotherapy grants that there can be pathological anxiety in the psychological realm (eg. in the form of preoccupation and rumination), and in the somatic realm (eg. in the form of overactivation of the stress-response hormone, cortisol, in the experience of PTSD). However, the aims of Logotherapy differ from other psychotherapies. Whereas other psychotherapies aim to reduce tension between the current situation and desires, Logotherapy seems to honor this tension. It does grant that this tension between the current situation and desires can and should be minimized in the somatic or psychic realm. But in the realm of the spirit, which is the wheelhouse of Logotherapists, this tension between current situation and desires, between present and future, is honoured and nurtured as a breeding ground for growth and development. In this way, it “depathologizes” anxiety and points it out as an essential aspect of being human.

What makes this complicated, in my view, is that psychological, somatic, and spiritual anxiety are so intertwined. However, I personally understand the root of my anxiety to be existential. Yes, I feel like I have a faucet that’s constantly on, pouring cold fire into my chest. Yes, I have a destructively ruminative style of thinking. But I think that’s attributable to my constant awareness of the passage of time, of the inevitability of death, and my soul-deep desire to live a good life, to feel fulfilled, to contribute, to feel the whole world all at once with the measly capabilities of my tiny self in this one tiny measure of time.

I hope that with this understanding of existential anxiety as not just being normal, but necessary, as the hallmark of being human, I can begin to renegotiate the relationship I have with my own anxiety. Perhaps I can learn to accept it and honor it, and in doing so, I can just hope that the related psychological and somatic manifestations of anxiety will diminish with time and further self-reflection.

My mother's name

My mother's name is Mahjabeen.

Mahjabeen means moon-like radiance and it's translated from Persian. My mother was not Persian but she does have a history as wild as her name.

"Mahj," I'd say. "Like a spoonerism of Taj Mahal."

There is a picture of my parents in front of the Taj Mahal in our basement and my mother's black mane is blowing crazily in the wind. She's wearing a wine-coloured sari and my dad is wearing acid washed jeans and shaggy blonde hair and a grey windbreaker and glasses like Hunter S. Thompson.

Mahj. A strange sound in some mouths.

At work in Toronto she went by Marina. People would call the house and ask for Marina and people from her office would call her Marina and her friends would call her Marina and I wondered who this other lady was at first.

She told me once that she started going by Marina because her name sounded too foreign to be taken seriously for any worthwhile opportunity.

For her it was nothing but a strategic move, one that worked quite well.

i was with her

i held her hand. i put my face next to hers and counted her breaths. she hadn't been speaking for at least a day. she had been unconscious for a number of hours. her breaths were so shallow. i held her hand. i told her i loved her, that i was there, over and over until the words became meaningless.

at one moment, she was there - a flicker of life, weak, but still there. and the next moment, she was gone. 

i had expected there to be some sort of grand realization. some sort of grandiose shift in the metaphysical fabric of reality. but it was so quiet. one moment there, and one moment gone. 

what is it?

what is this life that can be, at one moment, present, and the next, gone? it can be dwindled, too, i saw it dwindle. but there is a perceptible moment when it leaves. gone. what is it?

consciousness that emerges from patterns of electrical activation, in synchronicity with the swirling chemical maelstrom of the body. a history. a voice. feelings, chemicals. sensation. perception. internal monologue, thought. the future, like a path unfolding from your chest.

what does it feel like to have it winked out? what does it feel like to not have a future? in her circumstance, did it narrow, or fade, or slowly dissociate?

did she know i was holding her hand?

  

when i try to reflect upon my own consciousness i experience something akin to what you see when you place two mirrors facing each other. except this time my face and the back of my head aren't in the way. i can see the path leading all the way in. but i can't look into it because the depth of it makes me shut my eyes. i can't look into it too far, because i can't begin to comprehend. 

i of course reflect upon my own mortality. time. the fact of dwindling, which is the act of aging. the inevitable experience of knowing just what it is like to have no future. an answer known, and never shared.

what is it like to live your last second in that knowing?

i worry about those that i love. i am snappish and snide and sarcastic at times. do they know that i love them? how can i protect this blaze of life inside of them? how can i cup the flicker in my hands? how do i know that when i say goodbye, i will see them again? what if i'm not there to hold their hands?
 
  

the grief rolls and roils. it is eternal, because death is eternal. and we manage, because we have a future. there will be another moment that follows this one. and another. and another.

and another.

when you live inside dissonance, it also lives inside you

I am a world of opposites coinciding and colliding. 

Swirling inside of me are a million conflicting sentiments. Inside my mind, a million distinct realities flash before my eyes and vanish instantaneously. The fact that I can actualize only one shakes me to my core. I am a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions that I can't begin to understand.

What the hell are emotions, even? Strange halfway things between thoughts and chemistry. Halfway between mind and body. A script running through your head coupled with the roiling of your guts. Irrational, inexplicable, and inevitable. 

How can so many conflicting thoughts and feelings reside within one person at one time? Yet this is normal. It's normal to feel X and Y at the same time, to feel happiness and sadness intermingled, to sense the kaleidoscope constantly refracting inside of you, creating shapes and patterns that are as senseless as they are beautiful. I keep reminding myself, it's normal, it's normal. 

I feel the opposing aspects of myself swirling around each other like snakes. 

It's my 26th birthday. If my 20s are a hill, I've crested and am rolling down the other side. Due to the nature of aging, the years seem shorter, and will always seem so. I'm grateful to be older, because it means I've survived this far. Also the wisdom that age and experience affords is immeasurable and I know it will only increase exponentially. I am much more secure than I ever have been, in many ways. But in other ways, I am more terrified than I have ever been. The future gapes like a treacherous and breathtaking valley. I don't know if I can weather the terrain but I have to try because there is no other way to get to the other side.

I've been living in Trinidad for the past six weeks. God it's beautiful here. Everything is so vibrant, even the colours are brighter here. I've been working here, getting to know people who I've come to love, soaking myself in movement and music, enjoying the sun and the ocean, the mountains lush with green, everything all at once, everywhere. And I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss home, terribly and profoundly. I miss home, and I don't want to go home. I want to stay here in this strange new universe, and I want to go back to what I know and love. 

I am terrified, and I am excited. I am optimistic, and I feel doomed. I am calm, and I am exploding. I am healthy, and I am pathological. I crave the cradle of ocean, and I am unnerved by its vastness.

And I just keep reminding myself, this is normal, this is normal.