What is your perspective?

How important is perspective? How important is attitude? Can one overcome the other? Are they the same?

I would insist that we all have different perspectives on life, politics, religion, sports, family, banana cream pie, teatherball, compost piles, milk jugs, and Marfan's syndrome. We develop our perspectives from within and without. We can only partially affect them. We don't choose what we see, or even always in what light we see it, but our attitude can spin it for us, and even change reality as we know it. Here are a few good examples to frustrate you:

Is it a cube? Is it a box? Are you a cube? A box? Or a square? 

The answer is yes.

On which set of stairs do you find yourself? Do you even take the stairs? Did you know that going up stairs is better on your knees than going down? Are you bald with no face like Escher's people in this drawing?

Are you looking at the painting? Or is the painting looking at you? Or are you looking at a painting of someone looking at a painting that is also looking at him, and possibly you? Do you prefer nyquil or codine?

Think about it. Just like the Flight of the Conchords prescribe.

Stop and smell the Roses

Paraphrasing T. S. Eliot, we are becoming 'distracted from distraction by distraction.'  And it is a worrying trend. All the world is a stage, and there are no players. People are much more content doing everything and nothing at the same time. Children and adults alike have no attention spans any more. Fewer people can sit and be content reading long news articles, much less novels. And this ADHD society we live in is only getting worse. It's not like people don't have the ability to focus, it's that we're being marketed to death by the masterminds of distraction.

Every new gadget, be it the iphone, flat screen HD TVs, and every new program, from leopard to random applications for PDAs are pulling us away from reality. Some may argue, and perhaps successfully, that with the technology and information age that we are becoming closer, more cohesive, and we can absorb much more information than the past.  But, many new studies are proclaiming that we are being stretched too thin psychologically.  I read this article in the London times about it.  Turns out multi-tasking, which is the expectation and the most praised thing in modern society, is bunk. When you attempt to multi-task, you do a whole bunch of things poorly, as opposed to one thing at a time well. You are not more productive, you're not saving your company money, or making things easier on yourself, your family, your friends or co-workers. It comes down to distraction.

You get tons of emails, phone calls, text messages, and talk to people daily. You try to respond as best you can, but rarely take the time needed to do something thoroughly. We are all guilty of this. Social networking sites, (as cool as they are, and as much as I use them) can degrade and submerge the quality of our social interaction, and our ability to gather and retain useful information. We become so often caught up in the storms of gossip and banter that we idle our lives away while not gaining much more than superficial pleasure and a relief from our self-induced boredom. 

Life is exciting. There are great books to read, projects that need to be done in the yard, games to be played with sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, and every task deserves its own time and a high level of attention to be done well. I have always been and avid supporter of stopping and smelling the roses, breathing in the air, getting away from the world to understand it. If we can't take the time to digest our world, we'll just keep vomiting, getting sicker and sicker until we starve. We need to know the foundations that made what we have now possible. Works of art, literature, philosophy, science, and long books, trips, and talks are all important. We shouldn't give in to the whirling, spinning, superficiality and trendiness that is fleeting. I call for us to stop and smell the roses, and maybe, buy a few, or start our own rose garden.

*****

And, on another note, I leave for Brazil tomorrow, and my friend will be taking over for the next two weeks. I do this because I practice what I preach. It's time for a break. I love you all. Ask me to bring you back something, and I'll do my best (no promises).

Picture taken from this site.

The New Draft!

Due to new demands on the military and low recruitment numbers, the President has re-instituted the draft. And there is no beer involved this time. Anyone who's name rhymes with Dick, Rupert or Marv is now called from the spinny wheel thingy. And all of you draft dodgers from Vietnam who lived in Canada for the war, or those of who still call yourselves Canuks are now called to report to service. This also means wildlife. All moose, geese, and pheasants must get in line too. Mounty's behind them.









The draft will go on indefinitely as the President sees fit. Don't cry about it; you can still bring your Molson Ice and maple syrup. You will be assigned to report to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Your mission will be to fight the enemy. The enemy being either the Cubans or whoever we have imprisoned there without cause. Good luck men. Serve with honor and you will get extra rations of beans and Marlboro lights.

I Love Big Hair

One of the joys of life that is simple and yet wonderful, but often overlooked for "more important things" is BIG hair. I know you're probably all thinking Afro puffs and dreadlocks or even Goldilocks. Well, I'm being more general. More basic. More obvious. I love big hair.



I know many of you women have discovered, after cutting all your hair off, that you are no longer referred to as "hot" or "beautiful" but rather as "cute." And in my mind...rightly so. The only ladies that can pull off the no-to little hair look are cancer patients and Halle Berry. For the rest of you, keep your beautiful cascading locks of loveliness. If it's too much for you to handle, and you wish you had been born a boy, so you wouldn't have to be the object of ridicule or the Goddess of Pantene Pro-V or Herbal Essence shampoo, tough luck.



Flowing locks though, do not have to be just for women however. Remember Duncan McLeod? The Scottish Highlanders are famous for their big hair. And guess, what?! I am one. So I am allowed, and should even be encouraged to grow my coiffeur even longer. That being said, let us remember Fabio. I can't believe it's not butter, and I can't believe you still haven't cut your hair after all of these years. Remember how he was riding a roller coaster at an amusement park and got hit in the face by a goose? That was a great story. But his hair saved him. It always did. It took the attention away from his squashed face and put it on his gorgeously conditioned golden locks.



You might ask yourself, what brought this post on? Well, yesterday I was transfixed when I saw a big haired Goddess walking down the street. I felt it only right to pay tribute.

Attention Spans

Well, I know that we all have tons of spare time on our hands to read inordinate amounts of posts, articles, blogs and the like all over the internet, but I decided I'd write a little blurb just to experiment with the attention span of any of my readers. That means I am making this post short so that you all can do those really important things like add ridiculous facebook applications like 'Knighthood' and 'What Beatles Song Describes Your Life Right Now.' Wait, maybe I'm the only one who does that. Do you want to know how pathetic that is(rhetorical, do not respond)? I think that daily I sift through hundreds of news articles, blog posts and facebook profiles a day. I think for sports stories I read anywhere from 10-15, for odd news stories probably 30 or so, and for the rest (politics, world news, celebrity gossip, etc.) I usually top the 100 mark. Now you might think "How does he have the time?" Well, it's easy when you have classes that so often bore you to tears and you take notes on a laptop. Not to say that I don't also take notes, but I've learned how to multi-task. In fact, my last post on this thing was done during my Political Science class on international terrorism. There is a blog to that here It's kinda lame and jargon filled, but it's interesting nonetheless. So anyway, let me know if this post was too long for you, and tell me how much news you tend to digest daily. Or just tell me how much you read, because I'm also reading another 5 books simultaneously and just finished 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini, which I strongly recommend.