Unjoined thoughts and a funny, funny story

- I was worried for a day or two that the only gift I would receive for Valentine's day was this free condom from some people at the University of Waterloo. The only thing I can think of doing with it is leaving it in the common lounge, to make people laugh awkwardly. I wonder if that's grounds to get fined.

- I keep on caving into camera lust and going on kijiji. I also keep on dreaming these wonderful things I could do to better people's lives with a camera. i.e. giving professional-kind portraits to people who would otherwise be unable to get something like that (i.e. homeless people, maybe I should approach pregnancy centers?? hmm...). Having a really stellar picture of yourself is something you can keep for years. Since the temptation and glitter of a nice camera is so strong for me, I keep on thwarting it with ways I would use it only to glorify God. And I think I've figured out how to afford it...

But now, a funny story: Rob Halpin is my very good friend Anna's older brother, and probably one of the silliest people I know. This youth event that our group went to every year in Cornwall called Journey to the Father (one of my favorite weekends of the year) gave out these water bottles to people every single year. They were the most awkward water bottles that I had ever seen in my life. Not only had somebody decided in 2003 that ordering 3000 water bottles WITH THE YEAR PRINTED ON IT was a great idea, so that in 2004, they would hand them out, with the 3 crossed out and replaced by a 4, then in 2005, they would hand them out with the 3 and the 4 crossed out, and 2006 they still had these water bottles left, with all of these numbers being crossed out, but the bottles themselves had the slogan, "Save sex for marriage: you are worth waiting for!" printed in big bold letters on the front. Basically these were water bottles that would be used for a weekend, then hidden away in a random box for countless years, until they appear one day, provoking a lot of questions and laughs. But not the kind of water bottle that you would bring to a soccer game, or a bike trip. I can only imagine the comments that slogan can elicit. But apparently Rob used the water bottles on his bike races. (these bottles also tended to multiply, because you would get a new one every year you went to this event. And if you had siblings that went to the event too? Oi.)

I hung out with Anna and Allison last night, and Anna was telling us about how after one of his bike races, Rob had an interview at Zellers or Wal-Mart or something like that. The people interviewing Rob asked him about what his values are, and I guess Rob was thinking about the awkward water bottles, because he responded to them by saying, "I'm going to save sex for marriage!"

wow... Even typing it out is making me laugh. When Anna told the story I laughed so hard I cried. It has to be the funniest story I've heard this year thus far.


- And now, one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen. I only wish I had taken it...

My Human Sciences Essay

I'm still not sure if I like how I concluded it, and I hope it's understandable. Feedback is welcome because I have yet to hand it in!




The Tragedy of Sisyphus is the ultimate tragedy of humankind for the reason alone of his discovery of meaninglessness in his punishment to eternally bear the boulder up the hill. The meaninglessness in his punishment nullifies all philosophical questions, because in his punishment, all that there is to account for humanity and life itself is meaninglessness, and nothing more. “Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards.” The world is meaningless, and thus the sacred does not exist but is a figment of profane’s imagination in this punishment.

The boy had snuck into the palace of the Fairy Queen after it was dark, and after the world had gone to sleep. He crept quietly down the long hallway with its rich colors and tall ceilings until he reached an ornate throne. The sight of the throne itself, even in the dark, moved him to awe and great fear, but still with trembling hands, he ascended the pedestal, and moved forward to seat himself on the throne. But suddenly, he heard a voice.

“You must not seat yourself upon that throne.”

The Fairy Queen had entered the darkness, and faced the boy.

“Why not?” He asked, indignantly.

“Because if you were to ascend that throne, you would destroy all that is sacred, and you do not want to do that, I can guarantee you.”

“Why do I not want to do that?” He asked again. “I don’t understand why I am unable to ascend the throne. Why am I different from you, and what ethics are in order that decree that you can sit on this throne yet I am prevented from doing so?”

The Fairy Queen nodded sadly. “I am composed of the same substance as the throne is, and you hold reverence for that substance. I know you to hold such reverence because you crept down the hallway, and you did not stroll. You regarded that throne, composed of wood and gold leaf, out of fear and awe and your hands trembled with the thought of even laying your hands upon that wood. You regard it yourself as a desecration for you to touch that throne, yet you still seek to do so, and I say, for your own sake, not for mine, but for your own and the sake of the world, heed that desecration you regard.”

“I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it.” In this dialogue, neither is the Fairy Queen sacred or the boy profane. The boy lives with the long-held ideology of the distinction that exists between him and the Fairy Queen, and he is attempting to bridge that distinction. What Sisyphus has proven in his quest to be like the gods, is that there is no distinction, and that he can be like the gods, and seek immortality and trick them and win. In doing so, he shows that he has the same power as the gods, and that the gods are useless, and there is no need then for the sacred. If the boy were to touch that throne, he would discover only that the throne is nothing more than a chair, no more sacred than any other chair, and doing so would bring about the death of the Fairy Queen, the death of the throne, castle, and of the reverence the boy held as he crept up to the throne, moved to terror and awe. The Fairy Queen is urging him not to touch the throne not for the sake of her own life, but for the sake of protecting him from the knowledge of what substance it is she and the throne are truly made of.

“Why,” The Fairy Queen asked, “Do you wish to sit upon the throne?”

“Because I believe that there is nothing that separates me from you. I am no more special than you are, and because of that, I possess as much authority as you do to dwell in a castle, and be seated upon a throne.”

“What is it then,” She asked. “That formed this distinction between you and I in the first place? Do you value that distinction, and treasure the fact that you regard the throne and I to be composed of a different substance? If you did, then why are you seeking to destroy that substance in seating yourself upon the throne?”

“Why is it that you believe that if I were to seat myself upon the throne, the action would destroy you and the substance you and the throne are composed of?”

“Because in doing so you would unmask the substance for what it is really made of.”

The marriage of sacred and profane is an uneven union, because while both rely upon each other to exist, the profane can exist without the sacred, while the sacred cannot exist without the profane. The entire world cannot be sacred, but it is possible for the entire world to be profane. The profane, if it threatens to assert that the sacred is no more than just profane set apart, will unmask the sacred from what it is; intellectualizing the Body of Christ to be nothing more than bread and wine, the Holy of Holies only worth it’s weight not in sacred and spiritual, but monetary, physical value.

She led the boy down a corridor and into a room with a large window. Inviting him to look out the window, the Fairy Queen pointed in the distance to a deep valley. A solitary figure was in the valley, pushing a boulder up the hill. He toiled, and sweat under the weight of the boulder, and dust built up underneath him. When it finally seemed he was close enough and could reach the top, the boulder proved too heavy, and refused to cross the threshold. It toppled back down and rested finally in the valley below. With a resolute sigh, the lone figure descended the valley, ready to roll the rock up back again.

“This is Sisyphus,” The Fairy Queen said. “He tried to thwart the gods, and was sentenced to an eternity of rolling the boulder up the hill: an eternity of a meaningless existence. His tragedy is not rolling the boulder up a hill, however. Sisyphus could have been sentenced to an eternity of flying hot-air balloons, or traveling with gypsies. The tragedy is that he now knows that all things are meaningless. His life, as all the life of all humanity, has as much meaning as rolling a boulder up a hill, because you are all mortal, and all actions are equated with the same amount of eternal significance – nothing. Life is absurd, and that is all the meaning it is composed of.”

The boy looked at Sisyphus in his eternal struggle, and started to cry. “Why then, is there significance in the throne?”

“The significance exists because you attached significance to it. If you sit on the throne, the throne would become no different from any other chair. This is why you do not want to sit upon it. You would unmask the substance it is composed of to be nothing at all, and that would kill the chair, the castle, and myself in doing so. The significance that is attached to the mediocrity of the world is where the sacred can exist.”

“We must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Camus dares to put forth the idea that since everything is meaningless; the only meaning to be found is in the outlook upon the meaninglessness. Sisyphus must be happy, in order to live life, and the first step then to find the joy in life is to recognize the tragedy life is and find joy in it. In this notion, he strips all that is sacred away, because he asserts that everything has the same amount of meaning as pushing a boulder up a hill, so that there is no real existence of the sacred. The sacred only exists in the hope that the sacred must exist – it only exists because the boy had hope that the throne is more sacred than any other chair. When humanity tries to attain power like the gods; when the boy tries to sit on the throne, only then does humanity discover the tragedy of life, and the ultimatum of having joy in that tragedy, which is how one then has no choice to live. The boy is free to sit upon the throne now. In his action to try and be like the gods, he has discovered the tragedy that life is: that everything is meaningless, and that one has no choice but to take joy in the meaninglessness: tragic happiness.

The boy sat deep in thought for the remainder of the night. He sat at the window and watched as Sisyphus continued his eternal journey up the valley. He sat quietly until the sun rose in the sky and night gave way to daytime. When the sun spread her rays across the dark cool ground he knew then what was sacred, and went to find the Fairy Queen, who was sitting at the throne.

“There is nothing sacred about living in a joy one has no choice but to live because everything is meaningless. True joy cannot be found in that if one cannot choose to be joyful.” He said, looking at the Fairy Queen. “There is indeed a sacred that does exist, and it exists in the order of things. The sacred exists because the sun rises everyday and goes to sleep at night, and it is that continuous ritual that is essential to the survival of everything. It is the rituals, and the placement of everything in its rightful place that is sacred. Sisyphus should continue to carry up the boulder, because it is right, for if the sun abdicated her rightful position in the sky and refused to rise the next day, we would all die. You, as the Fairy Queen, and the throne are sacred because you are meant to be so, and it is not right for me to dare to touch it. Meaning is found in the pursuit of those rightful places in the world, and the achievement of that is the continuation of life itself, and that simplicity is a sacred ritual in and of itself, which must be preserved, preached, and remembered.”

The Fairy Queen, seated upon her throne that was sacred because it was right for it to be so, smiled.

Mormons, disappointment/forgiveness, and being a girl

The other day, I was standing at the bus stop, when I saw two Mormons at the bus stop. They were very easy to distinguish. If their black attire and black nametags didn't give them away, the fact they looked absolutely frozen while I was content without hat or mittens gave away the fact that they were Mormons, they were missionaries, and they were definitely not from here. (I was also secretly proud of myself that I was actually not that cold in the weather, when usually I'm always cold, and bundle up in at least one more layer than the average person during this season. Anybody up for moving to a tropical climate for the winter??)

I love religion, and studying religion, so in my mind, there was definitely a childlike excitement. (Real-live Mormons??? Oh boy oh boy!) They didn't do the best job of answering my questions though, and most of the time I felt like they were trying to convert me. I felt bad, and told them to give me a call if ever they needed help navigating the city, particularly the bus routes (I'm almost proud of how well I've figured out that system.) and they did call me again! But it was different Mormons this time! And they tried to convert me again! I wanted to start talking to them about the Catholic church in the same way they were talking to me, but I felt kind of awkward doing so. It was a good opportunity to get a free Book of Mormon from them though, to add to my growing collection of free religious texts.

Two things completely shocked me though. One, was that I had no idea that they didn't believe in the Trinity. Mostly all Christian faiths I've interacted with have a very strong belief in God being present in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and this had never concerned me. To have people suddenly question just that one detail, like, not the existence of God, or the divinity of Jesus (though, this was about the divinity of Jesus to an extent) but just the TRINITY, threw me for a loop. I like to think I've questioned deeply a lot of things in my faith, and put myself in situations where I am seriously tested, and made to doubt what I believe in, to see if it is true. And it always has been. It kind of made me feel like I've forgotten to question this, and I didn't realize how fast I held onto that belief. The second thing that caused me great question was that it was strange to interact very closely with people of such conviction for something that many people around me believe very firmly is WRONG. In fact, it's bogus. But like, the Mormons and I prayed before we started talking, and the one Mormon girl pulled out her Bible/Book of Mormon (they can come in a two-in-one form!) and it was full of sticky notes, and little flags and bookmarks, so it was definitely well-read, and by someone who fully and wholeheartedly believes it. Encountering conviction such as that, humbles me, because I know I have that same kind of conviction, but I was disappointed as well because they said may times to me that they were SURE. You can never be sure. Faith isn't about knowing. And it's audacious of me to say that I'm CERTAIN, but I do hope with all my heart, and it is the hope that we have that is most important, and most desperate. Never sureness, but hope.

I think I've had the girliest week that I have ever had in my life. Not only is today the worst day (and only some people may understand what that means. It's not a bad day at all. Just a worst day) but Matt Harrison gave me a haircut. If Matthew Harrison ever ran for Prime Minister, I would vote for him. He seems to be the person I've ended up calling in times of trouble. He came when I crashed my car, and when I needed someone to give a boost to my mom's car, he was the one I called. I posted on Facebook that I needed a haircut, and he responded. I took up his dare, wanting to see what would happen, wondering if I was going to leave my haircut with longer leg hair than head hair. He picked me up, bright and early, and then took me to a very fancy hair salon at the mall, and bought me a professional, and one of the best-done haircuts I've ever had in my life. I was floored! What a surprise! And it turned out wonderfully, though my dreadlocks are now gone.

The next day Wendy gave me a makeover. I have a dare with a few girls on my floor that in exchange for them giving me a makeover, they'd have to go with no makeup like I do. I just like to have the freedom to touch my face whenever I want, and I also feel like I look fine without having to add anything. But I looked SO DIFFERENT. And a lot of people noticed. It was a positive feeling, for sure, and I understand a bit more of why girls do it. I definitely don't want/need to though. After my super-girly week, I just wanted to hang out with GUYS. There's just something about just sitting and playing a videogame with a bunch of guys that honestly makes me feel some form of normalcy. So I went and saw Avatar last night with a bunch of guys. It helped me feel a bit more normal, for some reason. Not to mention that was an excellent, and imaginative movie! Wow! I would see that again in a flash, and I can see why it is so well-liked.

Tonight though, I had a gig. A friend of mine invited me to play at a monthly art and music gathering called The View From Here, at a community house called The Branches. I was deeply excited, and touched that a friend that hadn't even heard me play invited me to be a featured guest at this event! This was huge! And I told all my friends about it because I was so excited. But only one of my friends ended up coming, and the majority of them made awful, awful excuses for not coming. Things like, "Oh, I have school," "Oh, I have a sore tummy." and "Oh, I'm making dinner." were said to me. I was very disappointed. I wish I could write them all a letter. And I would have appreciated it if they were more honest; it felt like they were just making up the worst excuses and that hurt more deeply than if they had just said, "No, I don't want to come." because at least in that situation I could be honest back, but instead I'm socially forced to smile and say "It's alright, I hope you get better." when I would much rather say, "Stop feeding me BULLSHIT!" It's something deeply personal to me because I've studied piano for the majority of my life, and performing and playing my music for people gives me such intense joy. I love to play for people, and I love it when people want me to play for them.

But I don't want revenge. I thought about it on the bus ride (which, when you're angry/disappointed on the bus, it makes the ride infinitely longer) and I thought I could just shake my fist at the air and say, "Someday people will be paying hundreds of dollars to hear me play! mwahahaha!" (I didn't really do that. If I were to be completely honest I'd say that I was on the verge of crying, and trying to coach myself to do a good job, nay, a BETTER job, and thoroughly enjoy it, for the sake of the ones I care about who didn't care to come) But I don't expect that any time in my life, I would reach a level of musical ability where people would pay hundreds of dollars to hear me play, nor do I want to, but that's beside the point. Last week I was confronted with the opportunity to deal with a conflict, but after a lot of thinking, praying and discussing (from a few people, too) we realized the best thing to do was not only to forgive, but to pray for them to be blessed, and hope for goodness in their lives. That needs to happen more often. There is a time to confront yes, but every single time we must forgive wholeheartedly, and that means even going so far as to genuinely hope for the best in the lives of those who wronged you. You will be wronged. You will be disappointed, and let down. None of us can perfectly fulfill that, and I've only realized that the more you know a person, and love a person, the more deeply you can hurt each other. Because you will be wronged, you must never seek to do wrong back, but do MORE good, because it is RIGHT, and that reason alone is sufficient. If they do not come to hear you play, then the next time the opportunity arises to play your heart out, you invite all those who did not care the first with the same excitement as before, because it is RIGHT and that is truly forgiving. Not only does it give second chances, it forgets about the first mistakes. Truly loving does not react out of spite for the wrong done. It can't.