Re-visiting old journals

I recently pulled out some of my binders of writings from my late teens and twenties. As I have mentioned before, full of teenage angst and frustration. I did find the following, however, to be quite intriguing. Perhaps it set the tone for my future connectivity (or lack thereof) with dedication to employment. (I wrote the following at the age of 18. I had a summer job in the Canadian north doing mineral exploration.)

When working up here you are not learning a living in the generally believed meaning of the phrase, you are prostituting yourself to a cause alien to yourself. This is all the more evident in that although you are living in the land of wide open spaces, you are actually ina prison like atmosphere since your lines of communication with reality are almost completely severed. It is not so much loneliness but a feeling of frustration at your inability to be a meaningful influence on your environment.

June 10, 1969, Stag Lake, Manitoba.

One of my biggest regrets is that I have not been able to find a sense of vocation in my employment. Rarely has it been a source a satisfaction, feeling instead far more like a weight than something that inspires me. Oh yes, there have been moments of "inspiration" at various times, but they have been surrounded by a sense of so much drudgery and desire to be doing something else.

Reflections on a Decision

It was about nine years ago, mid December, 1999, that I made what has proven to be a momentous personal decision. I decided to leap off the cliff of security and give up a well paying job for a large multinational corporation. I had worked for UPS for almost twenty years, the first ten as a driver, then the next ten in management.

I made the decision at the time based on the improved value of investments I had made in the company stock. I decided I didn't want to do it anymore. The job had essentially always been to me a means to an end. I had never felt particularly attached to it as a vocation with meaning. So, I left. They had no strings with me, I had no strings with them. I cut the cord of security.

The last nine years have been interesting, to say the least. I now live on a very limited income, and have drawn down much of my savings. I have watched over the years as the value of my investments have crumbled. I have embraced the concept of simple living. Some of this change in attitude, of course, has been driven by necessity. I don't have a large income to spend, so, in the words of one of my grandparents, I have to cut my cloth accordingly.

I do miss the financial security. However, I have enjoyed so many other riches by choosing the path that I did. Let's just say, no regrets.

Conversations Missed

I have developed an abiding interest in documenting my genealogy. Such research has, at times, lead me to consider the "conversations missed".

After my mother passed away a couple of years ago, I became the informal family "archivist". I now have in my possession several boxes of family photographs, as well as various and sundry documents, including birth certificates, passports, and newspaper clippings of family events dating back more than 100 years. I have catalogued and scanned many of them and have uploaded them to a family photo website.

As I put together the family history I now recognize the missed opportunities for family conversations. Particularly poignant for me were a series of photos I found in an envelope that I don't recall ever seeing before. They were never put in a family album for display. Instead, they were, quite literally, placed in the bottom of a shoebox for decades. Theses pictures showed my grandfather's emigration from England to Canada in March of 1949 aboard the Ascania.
That's him on the left, with three of his Lancashire buddies. He was the oldest of the group, age 43. Their adventure was documented in the "Bolton Evening News" under the headline

Three Bricklayers Seek New Life in Canada

So, what was going through his mind as he peered down into the lens of the camera? Here he was in the wide open sea, going to an unknown world. Did he have any idea of what Canada would be like?

Was he prepared for this when he stepped off a train in Riviere du Loup?What was he thinking as he arrived in Toronto in late winter, 1949, with all his worldly possessions in one battered steel case? (I still have this case, bottom left, to this day.)

It would be great to speak with him now about all that went on for him during these very tumultuous times.

Revisiting Lives Lived

Perhaps it is something to do with my age, but, as I continue the trek toward my late fifties (I am now 57), I note the increased desire to record my history. Perhaps I am beginning to recognize the limits of my own mortality, but , for whatever reason, I want to leave my story behind.

I am the only one who knows what has gone on inside my head for these past 57 years. Yes, I have told stories, gone to therapy sessions and wailed about this or that and shared many of life's hopes and dreams with others, but, really, I am the only one with the full depth of knowledge of these 'conversations with self.'

I have, perhaps, been more prolific than many others in documenting my thoughts. I have binders full of hand scrawled (and some typed) notes dating back to the late sixties. They are full of the angst of a teen struggling with his sexuality. I go on and on about existential struggles with feelings of emptiness. Screaming in my journal back then was my outlet.

What I would like to do, at the very least for myself, is to put my life into some sort of perspective. I want to come to terms with the path I have chosen over these past several decades. It is yet another attempt at self disclosure. But, where to start? Should I transcribe these writings and lay bare these puerile rants? Or, should I simply reflect back? As I recall writing so many years ago, "I want to be known."

One memory I have of this is back in the early seventies. I had just completed university, and was a living out of a small, one bedroom apartment in one of the numerous three story brick buildings of Kingston. I had recently acquired a typewriter of "dubious" pedigree and poured my heart out on it almost nightly. However, I also took to the habit of taping these thoughts onto my exterior door in the hallway. Late one evening I heard the person next door coming home with his girfriend. She made passing reference to my plastered door, to which Peter proclaimed, "Oh, that's Leonard. He puts his life on his door."

So, maybe I want to revisit that process. I want to bring out my binder of scribbles, as well as the poster notes of memory fragments that are floating around between my ears. I want to understand who I am, and how I got here.

Religion, Faith, and Other Sensitive Concepts

Although ostensibly raised in a traditional "Anglican" home, I was never inculcated with any particular faith as a child. God was a non-subject as I grew up, at least in my home. I essentially viewed it as one more subject of study, which I did, taking a survey course on religion and ethics offered by the Department of Religion at Queen's University while I was an undergraduate.

During my early twenties I developed an abiding interest in Buddhism, and have written about it previously. I cultivated a fond appreciation of its non-theistic approach to explaining reality. It spoke to my search for a sense of moral compass without insisting that I accept any particular dogmatic preaching. I realized that I could be "moral" without the requirement of "faith".

Just a couple of weeks ago I picked up an interesting textbook during one of my regular prowls through my neighbourhood Sally Ann. Titled simply "World Religions - Western Traditions", it is edited by Willard G. Oxtoby and first published in 2002. Some of it I find tedious, as I can't always follow the various names and tribes that are mentioned. (Will I ever understand the diference between the Kenites, the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites?) However, much of it is quite enlightening, as history.

I was reading this book this past weekend as I traveled by bus back from Toronto. A young man sat next to me, and we soon struck up a conversation. He was immediately curious about my reading material, particularly fascinated in that it covered his own religion, Islam. I conveyed how I was learning more about how Jews, Christians and Muslims all prayed to the same God, that they were all "of the book".

The conversation then turned to the question of my own "faith". A peaceful smile came over his face as he told me how important it was for Jews, Christians and Muslims to appreciate how their faiths are inextricably linked through God. Apparently, he had assumed I was Christian. I mentioned my interest in Buddhist philosophy, but decided I didn't want to delve more deeply into the issue. At this point I reminded myself of another chat I had had with a Muslim acquaintance, who was quite shocked and distraught when he heard that I didn't actually believe in a supreme being. "You must believe in God!" he exclaimed, incredulously. The term "non-theistic" had no place in his reality. It was only the intervention of our mutual friend that directed the discussion to safer ground.

I tell this story because for me it relates to how sensitive many of us are about the issue of faith and religion. It clearly touches deeply within the core of many. I mean no disrespect to others when I reject the concept of religious or spiritual "faith" in a "higher power" or "supreme being". I simply don't have it.

For some, it seems that being without "faith" is equivalent to being without morals or direction. If I don't believe in God, I must be misguided and lost. From the perspective of many, I need to be saved. Well, I don't feel lost at all, thank you very much. I may have more questions than answers, but I actually think that is a very healthy way to engage in the world. I view questions of ethics and morality as fundamental to every step I take on this planet. I may not always make the correct choices, but I question my behaviour every day on issues that matter.

I usually find myself shying away from discussing this topic, particularly with my friends who "believe", largely out of fear of being disrespectful of their "faith". I do not wish to be shy about this any longer. I find it so curious how over countless centuries humanity has developed its entire belief structure on a collection of stories handed down, re-interpreted and re-transcribed over time based on dreams and visions described by a handful of influential and perhaps unusual individuals 2-3,000 or more years ago. We argue incessantly over the correct interpretation of our daily news, yet Christians, Jews and Muslims accept on "faith" what has been passed on in their various holy books over a millennia or more. We then proceed to kill each other over conflicts between these various interpretations of who "God" gave or did not give some land to, or who he hold in highest esteem. Incredible. And to think we call ourselves civilized.

When I read, for example, the story of Abram's conversation with God in Genesis 17 it is just that; A Story. It, and the rest of the Book of Genesis tells a fascinating tale, but I don't believe for a minute that it in anyway relates to real conversations that someone had with "God" or with the beginnings of the universe. God didn't create the universe in seven days a few thousand years ago. People were not visited by "Angels" nor have conversations with "God". They had dreams, quite powerful and perhaps really scary dreams, but dreams nonetheless. Being good story tellers, and quite likely influential members of their respective communities, they were able to weave such experiences into a developing belief structure as to the nature of the universe. They sought a way to explain the unexplainable. Bertrand Russell describes it well in Roads to Freedom:

What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

I have dreams every night. I always feel that I have a much more refreshing sleep when I know that I have been dreaming. It is an important means by which I work out the trials and tribulations of my day. Through my lifetime, I have experienced a handful of powerful, emotion laden dreams, some of which I have retained as a conscious memory. At no time, however, did it occur to me that I was in conversation with God or any other ephemeral being.

In Biblical times though, that was the standard interpretation given. Dreams were seen as messages coming from beyond the mortal world. God, angels or the devil were speaking to us. What other explanation could there be?

Emotional experiences really do have the feeling of touching us in our "core". We physically feel it. Who hasn't woken up from a powerful dream, shaking or sweating? When afraid, we may often feel the hair stand up on the back of our neck. Others around us may view it happening. We feel the "knot" in our stomach and physical observation can detect changes in one's body chemistry.

The explanations offered for these very real and powerful experiences three thousand years ago made sense in the context of the time. They do not make the same kind of sense today.

I am attracted to and interested in all religions for the moral teachings they have to offer. Being without religious faith should not be seen as justification for immoral behaviour.

...to be continued.

So, Why Blog?

The concept of blogging, for me, at least, speaks to a desire to simultaneously understand myself and be known.

People have written in diaries, and journals, for centuries. Even before more formalized writing, we passed down knowledge and views through story telling. Some become immortalized in legend, while others are forgotten before the hangover subsides.

I have a collection of several binders full of writing that date back to the sixties, when I was in high school in Toronto. Squirreled away, I bring them out periodically, to review their contents. They tell a story of who I was then. The fact that they remain in existence tells another story of who I am today.

I hold onto things, and ideas. I am a collector, a note taker, who at times finds it difficult to let go. Blogs, as they are evolving are perhaps another way of holding on to who we were, and may help us redefine ourselves into the future. They also are often full of much prattle about nothing; a whimsical walk through our daydreams and fanciful thoughts, desires, and regrets.