Signs of burnout

Hearing Christmas music at Home Depot while buying a tree makes you cry.

Someone walking too slowly in front of you on a sidewalk with no room to pass makes you cry.

A repeat of Modern Family when you were expecting a new episode makes you cry.

Homicidal internal dialogue because you're convinced everyone but you is a complete idiot.

Fast and Furious 5 seems like a good movie to watch.

When mortality stops by to shatter our illusions

Earlier this week, a 33-year-old female cyclist was killed in a traffic accident about three blocks from where I work. When I heard of the accident, I was immediately taken aback. It happened so close to my office, on a street I've cycled and walked on numerous times to someone who could have been me. A thirty-something woman on her way to work on a bike.

A "ghost-bike", painted entirely in white, was set up in her honour where the accident happened, and bouquets of flowers have piled up on and around it. I followed this story in the news, from the initial report of the accident, to the identification of the victim, to the notification of family members, to details of her funeral service. I felt compelled to walk down that street and see the memorial for myself. Upon approaching that ghostly, silent, white bike, I turned off my iPod, and suppressed tears. 

Why do I care so much about a stranger? Someone I didn't even know? Because on some fundamental level, we're all the same, in this human condition, experiencing life and facing death.

I struggled with the fact that someone died, on this busy city street, and now, life hums along, as if nothing had happened. I thought about her family, who had seen her just the day before her death, Thanksgiving Day, and who probably assumed they would see her again. 

I think of her, getting up that morning, getting ready for the day ahead, brimming with life and possibilities, not knowing what was about to befall her. None of us do. But somehow we think we'll know, that death won't surprise us, that we'll be ready, that it'll be expected. But we're just deluding ourselves. We don't know anything for sure.

I think of what must have been her last moments, lying face down on hard asphalt after having been hit by a car door that unexpectedly opened directly in her path, throwing her  into oncoming traffic, where she was run over by another vehicle. She was surrounded by strangers who tried to help, lifting the car under which she was pinned, calling 911. 

I think of the person who opened that car door, in a moment of carelessness, and of the driver of the car that hit her, and how their lives are also forever altered. Perhaps there are worse things than death, like figuring out how to continue living after having killed someone, how to get past deafening guilt, how to forgive oneself. 

In the blink of an eye, everything can change.

Raging against the machine

You can only fake it for so long. Then, truth starts to seep out through small crevices or squeeze its way to the surface like a cheese bubble on freshly baked lasagna.

Sometimes, I just can't fake it anymore. I feel claustrophobic or bored senseless and I gotta break free. Free from the prison of repetition, narrow-mindedness, inane rules, someone else's control issues. Peculiarity breeds contempt, and contempt I have bred, all in the name of thinking outside the box.

Occasionally, my "wild" ideas clash with the status quo and the shit hits the fan. I want to scream. Others want to "keep me in line". I feel powerless, silenced, surrounded by incompetence and rigidity. What are people so f*cking afraid of?

It's all about balance, and in North America, we don't seem to get that concept. We worship at the altar of workaholism, our sense of self-worth wrapped up entirely in outward achievements and our ability to comply without asking for too much. 

We have a miriad of remote communication devices at our fingertips, yet some still perceive that we must be chained to desks, trapped within cubicle walls, seven or eight hours a day, five days a week. And if we have other ideas of what constitutes a well-balanced work day, we must be lazy or unmotivated. 

I don't mind being on the fringe and floating new concepts but I was reminded this week of what I'm up against: deeply entrenched, antiquated ideas of what managing people consists of and a complete lack of understanding of what generates productivity. 

But I stay the course because, for me, this isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. I know where I'm headed,  and I'm well on my way to getting there. This is just a stepping stone, and when you're thinking long-term, you gotta bear down when the shit storms hit, stay the course and play possum.

Time to wake up from our collective coma

It kinda feels like our world is coming apart at the seams, the "free market" showing its gaping flaws, the middle class getting restless and tired of being f*cked up the ass by corporations and governments. Across the globe, countries are buckling under the weight of their accumulated debt. Unfettered consumption, it seems, has a price.

We've been good little consumers, brainwashed, distracted and molded into walking corporate advertisements. And we willingly continue to do so. Until the shit hits our own, personal fan. Then we start to question, to re-evaluate. Do I really need that second car, that 27th pair of shoes, that 10th pair of jeans? Whose "ideal" am I trying to live up to? Mine? Or someone else's marketing ploy? 

If you buy this, you'll be "cool". Can't afford it? Use your credit card! You don't need to save anymore! Saving's for suckers. Buy it now! You know you want it. 

The question is: who's determining what's "cool"? Why can't we each have our own individual ideals of what constitutes the "cool" factor? I heard somewhere once that true fashion is each individual's expression of themselves. Pure fashion is not "trendy", it is unique to each individual. Trends have a homogeneous effect on us which is exactly what corporations want. Don't think for yourselves! Let someone else tell you how to dress and eat and behave. 

When did we give up our originality? Our independence? Our creativity? When did we start to believe that we weren't inherently enough, by our very existence? That we needed "stuff" to feel good about ourselves? That we had a right to judge or ridicule those who didn't have the "right" stuff?

We've become corporate automatons, sipping our Starbucks latté, oblivious to the destruction of the natural world and sound, democratic political systems. We're in a trance, and judging from the current climate of international financial affairs, we'll be forced to wake up soon.

The divine in me salutes the divine in you, unless you piss me off

I've written previously on my sister blog Sassy Stylings about my views on yogic/spiritual wisdom. I'm kind of on the fence about a lot of the concepts presented in yogic philosophy and what I learned during my teacher training.

I've read quite a few books on spirituality and I don't really know that they've made any difference in my life. I can actually recall some really great novels that had more impact. When I started practicing yoga, I was all gung ho and shit, wanting to go to every workshop and read every book, and balance every chakra. However, I wasn't about to give up eating meat, or drinking coffee or alcohol. I mean, I want to enjoy life.

These days, I'm very picky about which workshops I'll attend because frankly, most of the ones I've attended in the past were disappointing. There was no new knowledge or wisdom shared. It was actually kinda bogus. 

I've pretty much given up on "searching" for spiritual wisdom. When I go to a yoga workshop these days, I simply expect a great physical workout and some new ideas for my own classes. Anything beyond that is a bonus. Besides, spiritual "A-ha!" moments usually happen when I least expect them to, sometimes during a yoga practice, sometimes when I'm drunk. You just never know.

All this to say, click here to read a fabulously irreverent blog post about "spiritual wisdom" and its commodification. The videos at the end of the post are priceless. Do yourself a favour and don't skip over them.

Peace out.

I hate it when I'm right

So... It's been a few days since I've taken a break from playwriting and lo and behold, the shit wave has arrived and just keeps on coming. I've got some rage, people. Rage over my seemingly lost twenties where I wandered about, not sure what the hell to do with my life, working crap jobs, pursuing the odd theatre gig, and falling into a depression at age 29 that required therapeutic intervention. 

And now, I'm surrounded by incredibly focused, high-achieving youths who seem to know exactly what they want to do and exactly how to get there. If only I had had even a modicum of this kind of clarity at that age. 

I knew I was an artist very early on and my passion was, and still is, theatre. However, I totally lacked the self-confidence back then to continue pursuing this passion and did what we artists call "selling out".

And boy, did I pay the price. I dated the wrong people, worked jobs I loathed and was constantly ill. I hated my life. Now, my biggest enemy is regret. Having teenage stepchildren reminds me of my own youth, and when compared to theirs, mine was a train wreck. 

I mean, I was a high achiever academically speaking. I graduated with honours from both high school and university. But my professional life since then has been less than stellar, a constant underestimation on my part of what I'm truly capable of and now I'm stuck with the byproducts of mediocrity.

When I think of the hope and excitement for the future inherent in the university experience, it saddens me to feel rage at this point in my life over a patchwork career path that has failed miserably to live up to my expectations. However, I have no one to blame but myself. My current situation is a product of choices I made and if I'm not where I want to be, it's my own damn fault.

Unfortunately, that still doesn't make this bitter pill any easier to swallow. I guess I'm a late bloomer. I finally decided, I mean really dedicated myself, in my early thirties, to pursuing goals I'm truly passionate about. I'm trying to tell myself that becoming a professional artist will be easy despite the commonly held belief that it's excruciatingly difficult. I have to tell myself that. Otherwise, I'll go mad.

I must be ripe for spiritual growth because I'm sitting in a big, steaming pile of my own mental shit and choosing to stay for a while, even though it's thoroughly unpleasant. What's that saying we use all the time in yoga? Learning to sit with sensation. I'm sittin' all right.

Staring at a big, gaping abyss. I need a drink...

So... it's come to my attention that I'm creatively burned out. You see, I'm a playwright, and for the past few years, I've been writing non-stop but lately, I've had to admit to myself that I'm tired and I need a break. It's not like it would disrupt my income or anything since I'm still an emerging playwright looking to have my scripts produced and I do have other sources of income because I'm not writing full-time.

The caveat here is that my whole sense of self worth is wrapped up in my writing. If I take a break, what will happen to me? Will I become "ordinary"? And in becoming ordinary, will I simply disappear into the crowd, unnoticeable? 

My spiritual teacher pointed out to me that those assumptions are very arrogant, that I'm basically assuming that "ordinary" people aren't lovable. Taking that one step further, "ordinary" is simply a judgment I'm projecting onto others. As she put it, "there are no ordinary people". I just "think" there are and I don't want to be one of them for fear of not being loved and adored.

This is somewhat tragic because it means I'm constantly striving to stand out. Do you know how much energy that sucks up? And for what? What would happen if I just allowed myself to go with the flow, to coast for a while and enjoy the everyday little joys my life brings me instead of constantly hungering for and grasping for what will set me apart from others? Life would be so much easier if I could just "be". 

But I see an opportunity in my creative fatigue. I certainly won't stop blogging since that's fun and demands a different kind of creative energy, one I pretty much always have on hand. But writing plays, that's a little bit different, and sometimes the soil must lie fallow and I need to respect that. 

I must also remove "ordinary" from my vocabulary. It's a purely subjective notion that serves only to deter me from the immediate present. 

In my quest to avoid "ordinariness", I'm constantly projecting into the future. I mean, it's good to have goals and visualize what you want but it has to be balanced with a strong sense of "presence", of showing up for your actual life instead of disconnecting from it in favour of a fantasy self that may or may not come to pass.

I'm actually looking forward to this period of rest, of emptiness since it will leave room for other "stuff" to come up, perhaps some long held, negative beliefs keeping me from my own happiness. It's time for me to get out of my own way, and chill.