If you don’t already know where I live, I’ll mention firstly that it is a small basement suite in the Kitsilano area of Vancouver. It is by no means a castle and is – like so many other student housing – completely temporary. As you can see from the picture, that is not my backyard.

My backyard can barely be called such. It is so infinitely tiny that if I stretched out on the ground with my arms and legs extended, I might just be able to reach the fences on both sides. The people upstairs are supposed to keep it neat and tidy, but I have to say that they’ve failed completely at their job. The grass is uncut, weeds grow practically everywhere, and any semblance of landscaping has been abandoned in favour of a more ‘natural’ look. Essentially, it is the epitomy of sublime, and the complete opposite of picturesque.

And perhaps it was because the sun was shining in on my tiny backyard in just the right way, but I think I actually managed to enjoy it for just a second.

The reason I enjoyed it is (unfortunately for you), somewhat philosophical and mostly sociological. Let me explain:

When I see my backyard I see lots of things that I don’t like. As I previously mentioned there are weeds everywhere; the shrubs barely deserve the description of ’shrubbery’; there is actually moss intermingled with the grass; there are no flowers and immensely grand bushes block the sun for most of the day.

I began to think that basically, my backyard is the world.

There’s lots of stuff in the world that I dislike. People killing each other, politics, death, disease, starvation, and the struggle of daily life. I don’t know how many times that I’ve said the phrase ‘life sucks’, and I also don’t know how many times I’ve heard my friends say that. I’m sure that at one point or another, everyone has thought that life is tough. Various theological arguments were created just to dissuade the idea that our live’s are meaningless. If life is tough and meaningless, why put up with all the hassle?

But in my backyard, among the dirt and the weeds, there are things that I really like. After a fresh rain, when I walk outside I am greeted with the smell of wet grass. In one spot the sun actually manages to shine clear through, and on one particularly hot and sunny day, I was able to sit in that spot and play my guitar on the grass. And on occasion, it seems that the people upstairs do get their act together and manage to plant flowers in completely random spots and in amazingly small numbers. But if you look real close, they’re there. Sitting among the weeds and the dirt, reaching for the spot between the trees where the sun slips through.

And just like my backyard, there is an infinite number of things about the world that I enjoy. To quote the film, life is beautiful. Unfortunately, it’s often hard to see because it is filtered through all the things we dislike and our human disposition tends to focus on what is negative and what we want to change, making it more reflective of ourselves, rather than what is already great.

So while my backyard is not an endless meadow of short cut green grass surrounded by blooming flowers and trimmed shrubbery, it’s not bad. To get the good things out of it, I have to look past the bad things that make me wish for those endless meadows. And while I do plan to do my own form of landscaping this summer, creating the tiny backyard that is more fitting to the image in my head, at least I have something to start with – because it’s not all bad.

This is an adventure – Steve Zissou

Yea, so I decided to change the site template. Added some nifty links on the side, including what exactly a Zouave is.

If you like or dislike this template, please make sure to tell me using the comments feature.

That’s all for now.

Expect another update after Thursday as all my major papers will be finished.

Cheers.

Life is full of paradoxes. They are all around us, everyday, at all times. There are things in this world that when put together do not make sense.

Even life is a paradox. We are born to die. And somehow, we manage to lead lives while all this is going on somewhere in the back of our minds.

Yet, one paradox that I am personally in conflict with throughout my own life, is that of the gym. That’s right, the weightroom, gym, fitness centre, or whatever you want to call it. It’s another one of those crazy life paradoxes.

I’m sure you’re wondering how that could be. It’s just a gym right? What’s the big deal?

But have you really ever thought of how bizarre it is that we go to a gym in the first place? For me, the paradoxical nature of the gym is essentially due to human progress, and the lack of forward mentality.

Actually, I don’t mean the lack of forward mentality, that seems too strong. Let me explain:

Essentially, the human populace at one time was a lot more “fit” than our current population, right? Life was tough. People had to labour on farms, manual labour, et cetera, et cetera, just to survive – the bottom line being that physical energy was constantly exerted in your average day.

And we created innovative technology to help us deal with these pressures, right? No one likes hauling logs from one place to another and then having to build your own house. So, we hire people to do it for us, we create new ways to make houses including things like concrete, shaped wood, plastic siding, et cetera. And all these things allow us to ease the burden of physical labour on our own lives.

But now, because we are not forced into labour just to survive, we have to mentally force ourselves to take time out of our days to actually go do all those things – even though we created other things so that we could avoid doing them.

I mean, I take time out of my day to lift really heavy objects repeatedly. I sit in a room with a bunch of other people and all we do is lift stuff, stretch ourselves, and climb an infinite set of stairs. It sounds kind of strange, doesn’t it? Especially since we spent all this time inventing really cool stuff so we wouldn’t have to do this.

And of course – as current studies seem to be showing – a majority of the people have decided that those new inventions were made so that they could avoid physical labour, and are doing thusly so.

I’m not encouraging these people by any means. I think it’s extremely important that people keep fit and healthy, and all that other stuff. I truly believe that.

…But. You do have to admit that it’s a little funny, right? We create things so we don’t have to do them, and then we go and make rooms where we can create all these other things to mimic doing all those old original things, but now it’s your choice whether you want to subject yourselves to that sort of labour.

That’s what I meant when I said humans have a lack of forward mentality. And as you would probably agree – as I did – that the original term was a little too strong.

Regardless, I must admit that I thought of this while riding the bike in the gym today. Pedalling really fast and going absolutely nowhere, and hoping I can just keep going nowhere really fast for 5 more minutes and then it will all be worth it.

And maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Who knows.

All I can say is that I think that people who regularly go to the gym can honestly, and utterly relate to the image of a hamster and a wheel and how when you really think of it, it’s all pretty silly.

Or maybe it’s just me. But, I give you my word that tomorrow I’ll be back. Pedalling as fast as I can, to absolutely nowhere.