In case you missed it, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, Michael Jeffries, is a jerk. He was recently quoted as saying, “A lot of people don’t belong in our clothes, and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”

Not surprisingly, this has left people outraged. And rightly so. It’s pretty shocking that we even need to have a conversation about such dated use of the phrase cool kids. Seriously, Mr. Jeffries, we live in a world that’s trying its damnedest to be accepting, and to expand its definition of cool to include such acceptance.

But all is not lost. This guy has revealed himself as anything but cool.

Last night, I watched Baz Luhrmann’s awe-inspiring and truly remarkable rendition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. And it struck me: We are all responsible for Michael Jeffries’ unattractive sentiment about attractiveness. Perhaps, underneath it all, that’s why we’re so outraged.

Let’s be clear up front – I don’t like what this guy said. But I am of the opinion that it needed to be said.

The Great Gatsby is a story about the cool kids. It’s about pretty things, and nice clothes. It’s about being part of the crowd, and living a lifestyle. And it’s about so much more than this, of course. There are depths and layers to this timeless work of fiction that transcend any conversations to be had about clothing companies and their CEOs. But if Jay Gatsby were of the 21^st century, one would not be surprised to find the man in an Abercrombie & Fitch polo on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps I’m pushing it a bit, but nevertheless, Gatsby was a character defined by extravagance, and he was one of the cool kids.

The problem is, we’ve all bought into the same system (or most of us have). There is a great hypocrisy afoot. The same women who are outraged by Jeffries’ ugly words read Cosmo and Vogue. They watch movies about pretty people who have nice things, and they enjoy these movies. It’s all airbrushed. Everything is made skinnier, smoother, tighter, and more perfect, and we all keep buying it, despite the obvious manipulation. By reading those magazines, by endorsing that music, by buying this or by shopping there, we’re supporting Jeffries’ interpretation of the world – no, we’re creating it. When was the last time you saw an overweight woman on the cover of a fashion magazine?  When was the last time you listened to a song performed by an unattractive singer? When was the last time you saw a clothing ad that lay outside of Jeffries’ vision of the world? Consumerism is a powerful force, and we’re all consuming the stuff of cool kids and pretty people and jerks like Jeffries. We’re buying in, and every time we buy in, we’re voting for more Abercrombie & Fitch and the like. We’re voting for more exclusivity.

Some real honesty is needed in all of this. Jerks aside, we support a world where the pretty people reign and the cool kids still have a better shot. Abercrombie & Fitch is one company in a sea of thousands that does just what Jeffries described, no matter how convincing their public image campaigns may be. The only difference is that this jerk has been honest. Are we all beautiful in our own ways? Sure. Do we all feel alone at the end of the day, after we strip away our individual attempts at coolness, after we wipe away the makeup and wash our hands clean of the pretenses? Maybe…but let’s not carry on as if we’re innocent in all of this; as if we don’t really get it, or as if we don’t look at ourselves in the mirror every day and want to be part of it all. At its core, being one of the cool kids is about belonging. Who can blame us?

Sometimes seeing beauty in the world is hard. But it doesn’t have to be. Jeffries is a man who has lost sight of true beauty. We have similarly turned our backs to it, supporting all that is contrary to acceptance and inclusion, despite the sudden emergence of our morals and ethics once challenged. Indeed, there is something great about morals and ethics that hold true without opposition – the kind of thoughts that keep us progressing even after we think we have it right. In this case, however, we have clearly missed the mark. Greatness, of the Gatsby persuasion or otherwise, requires an awareness of intent and a recognition of responsibility. Greatness requires honesty.

For his honesty, I applaud Jeffries, and ask us all to be a little more honest with ourselves. This is an issue that extends well beyond the shelves of Abercrombie & Fitch, into all persuasions of coolness and status quo. If F. Scott Fitzgerald taught us anything, it was that greatness also requires a little character, no matter the extent of the extravagance.

We have become complacent. And in error, we desire to be content, above all else.

In my early twenties, I had come to the conclusion that judgment was indeed something to be avoided, at least consciously, in so much that I had no right to compare my losses to those of others; no right to judge my experiences as better or as worse. By extension, I had no right to offer advice either directly or narrowly, for to do so required a judgment of what was best for someone else. Such judgments once seemed reckless, for who was I? Whether it was complacency per se, I am not quite sure. But despite its original intentions of respect and political correctness (as well as a recognition of the natural variability in human experience and perception), my commitment to all suggestions absent of shoulds and should-nots has begun to resemble more of an easy way out. There is no risk in highlighting options; no potential harm in the suggestion that all choices made are the correct ones – so long as you go with your gut, or follow your heart. Mere passing instincts, wrapped in poetry.  Responsibility has been removed, or perhaps evaded.

We have given up on each other. We have turned our relationships into meaningless binaries of human interaction in which neither person is entirely forthright; or dare I say it, in which no one is relentlessly and selflessly protective of another. We have become cheap counselors of sorts – therapists who offer nothing of real substance in fear of a malpractice claim. We want to sound enlightened without ever being labeled otherwise, even temporarily; without ever being doubted, or questioned, or belittled by failure. We are ignorers of the homeless and the helpless and the scared, forever bound by our insecurities.

But what good are we to each other? What good are we if all we do is lay out options, recommend sound decision-making practices, and suggest purpose in all possibilities? What has happened to real advice? What has happened to wisdom?

We have all lived, and therefore we have all had experiences worth sharing. Should you decide not to impose those experiences upon a friend or a colleague does those experiences a mad injustice. Yet even if we are unable to endow our experiences with any true value (a sad state, most certainly), we still have morals to share. We have values, and beliefs, and insights…don’t we?

We have become complacent to one other. Standards have been abandoned. Morals and ethics have been diluted and nearly washed away. But it won’t stand for long, because it’s not good enough. You aren’t good enough. None of us is doing the best that we can. When was the last time you did something because it was the right thing? When was the last time you sacrificed your own needs, turned your back on ego? When was the last time you fought for what you believed in, defended your life lessons, or shared your wisdom? When was the last time you acted – no, felt – wise?

It’s time to man up – or woman up, or human up. It’s time to put aside ego and be responsible to one another again. It’s time to think about things like honour, respect, and justice. It’s time to think about loyalty and trust. Indeed, it’s time to be an idealist, for without our ideals we are something less than human; surely, we are something less than decent. It’s time to get really bothered, and it’s time we started bothering one another. It’s time to be worth something again.

I’m a romantic, but not in the way that’s restricted to love and relationships. I’m a romantic in the most traditional sense of the word – I have a spirit for adventure, a need for excitement, and an eye for mystery. I want to see things that have never been seen, do things that have never been done, and feel things that exceed the ordinary and mundane.

I want to scrape the stratosphere with the soles of my shoes, dance with the darkness of the deepest seas; I want to climb the highest mountains and keep climbing higher, for to stop is to become complacent, and complacency doesn’t mix well with adventure. Nor does the modern world.

From what I can tell, the world has all but extinguished real opportunity for adventure. Discovery is a near relic of times past, now restricted to the endeavors of science and technology. There are too many of us, and we’re all too distracted by our gadgets and gizmos to make good on our curiosities. Of all the human emotions, our sense of adventure is by far the most repressed. Adventure has become an impracticality of sorts, a kind of social defect, at risk of being labeled escapism or defiance.

But it’s not dead. In fact, I think it’s nowhere near extinction. It has simply been silenced, muzzled by a world that appears to have all the answers – and a thousand diversions when it doesn’t.

Since I was young, I’ve wanted to go on an adventure. A real adventure. I’m not alone in my thinking, of course. I know there are others out there like me. As for everyone else? Well, they just haven’t realized it yet. I’m convinced that adventure is what we’re all searching for. At the end of the day, after all the frivolous purchases and predictable social interactions, after the back-breaking and mind-numbing labors of our comfortable and familiar routines, we’re still left feeling empty. This stuff of our daily lives simply won’t cut it. I’ve been alive for nearly 32 years, and I’m still searching for adventure. Life can be described as such, I get it, but so can a walk across the street if I play my imagination right. It’s a bit of a copout. I need something bigger. I need to stare death in the eye, to fight for my survival, and to know what it’s like to love and lose and love again. I need to abandon all of this stuff, to rid my life of possessions; to truly be of the world. My heart is bound for adventure, there’s no mistaking it.

In truth, we are both bound for adventure and bound against it, caught in a constant battle between stimulation and stability; between risk and refuge. In all its sterilized security, the modern world has separated us from our instincts and detached our minds from our souls. It has constructed concrete fences between us and nature, and it has surrounded us with distractions of the most elaborate sort – telephones and movies and video games that highjack our senses and leave us begging for more, never completely satisfied. Never fulfilled. It’s all a distraction, and its meaning and purpose are only as great as its emptiest contender. Be it in our reconnection with the natural world or in our reconnection with the deepest parts of our selves, the importance of adventure cannot be overlooked. It is where true meaning lies. And by extension, it is where true purpose is discovered. It is in real adventure that we discover ourselves.

I will have my adventure, someday. How will I find it? I’m not sure, but I know it’s out there, calling in silent screams; beckoning from the grasslands of the Serengeti, or from the jungles of Peru; or perhaps, if I should be so lucky, from some distant corner of the universe yet to be met by human eyes. This is my angst.

“When early explorers first set out West across the Atlantic, most people thought the world was flat. Most people thought if you sailed far enough West, you would drop off a plane into nothing. Those vessels sailing out into the unknown, they weren’t carrying noblemen or aristocrats, artists or merchants. They were crewed by people living on the edge of life: the madmen, orphans, ex-convicts, outcasts like myself. As a felon, I’m an unlikely candidate for most things. But perhaps not for this. Perhaps I am the most likely.” (From the 2011 movie Another Earth – highly recommended.)

It’s Monday afternoon, and rather than working, I just watched last night’s episode of The Walking Dead.

In my humble opinion, I think it’s the best thing to happen to TV since LOST. I may be biased, of course. I tend to be drawn to stories about survivors; strangers coming together in hard times and working towards a common goal – or against a common enemy. Perhaps it’s the complex Lord-of-the-Flies-esque social allegories that arise, or the raw and decomposed emotions elicited during extreme survival situations. Either way, it’s difficult to deny that The Walking Dead has some of the best writing on TV.

That’s right, Real Housewives of Who-Gives-A-Fuck, it’s a show that has writers.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Walking Dead, it follows a group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies, appropriately referred to as walkers (the result of a deadly and widespread virus – trust me, this show is not another rehash; it’s incredibly smart). This is in contrast, of course, to the handful of reality shows about bored rich women (inappropriately referred to as housewives, since they don’t do very much housekeeping) living in a post-industrial world overrun by – oh, right, overrun by the rest of us. The Walking Dead is about losing everything and what it means to be human. The ongoing Real Housewives saga (or anthology?) is about having everything and what it means to be something that hardly reflects the average human experience in any way. Last time I tuned in to one of these shows, I was inundated by one of the housewives repeatedly referring to “ingredients” as “ingedientses.” Enough said.

All joking aside, there’s a reason that the former is one of the highest rated shows on cable television. And there’s a reason that zombies have really struck a chord with their living and breathing predecessors. Perhaps it’s our fundamental fascination with death, or our relentless curiosity for all things end-of-the-world. My grade seven science project, titled Will the Earth Ever End?, reviewed everything from viral epidemics and global warming to the limited life of the Sun. Regardless of what happens to us humans, whether it’s a zombie apocalypse or a full-blown nuclear attack by mad rich housewives, the Sun will become a red giant in about 4.5 billion years. And long before that (a couple billion years from now), it will be too hot for life to survive on the surface of the Earth. A romantic story, no doubt – filled with life, and survival, and us.

Whether we all know it or not, our fascination with zombies far exceeds any love for guts and gore. When it comes down to it, this pop culture phenomenon gets at what matters most. It gets at our humanity. It eats at it, both literally and figuratively. It makes us question our morals and ethics; it makes us ponder our true nature, after all the bells and whistles of our manufactured lifestyles have been ripped away, and we’re left vulnerable to the world once again; it makes us wonder what we would do if all of this were suddenly LOST.

Seriously, what would you do if all of this were suddenly lost?

It’s an important question, and it’s one that gets at the heart of what it means to be human. At the end of the day, we’re all lost, even where we stand now. We were lost before we started, thrown into a world that gets off on fake smiles and shiny cars; a world addicted to people who don’t really matter, while accepting a lifestyle of mere walkers – zombies of sorts, living without purpose and hungry for a glimpse of others’ misfortunes (the literature is clear on this – downward social comparison can be a powerful coping strategy). But to question is to get closer to a life that is not zombie-like whatsoever, nor is it one that resembles anything of the Housewives persuasion. To question is what sets us apart and makes us truly human.

So, what would you do?

Gender is an issue that has long been a bother – to me and to millions of people around the world. It’s a complicated subject, and it only seems to get more complicated. It’s the F in M/F, or it’s the M, depending on perspective; it’s the T in LGBT; it’s the pink and the blue, the doll and the truck; it’s both penis and vagina, both John and Jane; it’s who we are and yet not even close, a mere product of socialization; an evolutionary relic, forged in binary minds with eyes blind to all that lay outside the box.

When I was a kid, I struggled with my lack of conformity to the male gender role and all its macho stereotypes. Most of my friends were girls and while I enjoyed my fair share of action figures (and still do) I loathed sports and had a hate-hate relationship with gym class. I identified as a boy, no doubt, but I wasn’t like most boys. The later realization that I didn’t like girls in that way offered a sound enough explanation at the time, but today I recognize that gender and sexuality do not go hand in hand, no matter their degree of association. There are gay men who enjoy sports, straight women who bring home the bacon, and even lesbians who wear dresses. As politically incorrect as the stereotypes sound, we can all attest to their everyday occurrence. And in many settings and situations, they’re nearly impervious to logic and reason.

The reality of the issue is still difficult to swallow for most. But should we dare trust the progressive social scientists whose heads have risen above the edges of the box, gender actually shares one important characteristic with sexuality: it too exists on a continuum, not at all limited to its poles; not nearly so binary. This answer is obvious, really, if you actually live in the world.

But the issue of gender exceeds the need for acceptance of not-so-macho men and hard-headed-problem-solving women. (And even these roles are socially constructed.) Indeed, there is a need for the acceptance of gender variance and nonconformity, and for the notion that we may have gotten it all wrong. Our old moulds are cracking, and they desperately need to be crushed – not replaced.

At the end of the day, I don’t have it so hard. I may forever feel different, but I’m far less threatened by a room full of guys than I used to be (although some degree of threat remains). There are many whose nonconformity amounts to a life-threatening (if not only health-threatening) status – simply because they live in a straight-as-an-arrow world hell-bent on binary constructs. To not conform to one’s gender role is one thing. To blow it out of the water is another, and it’s undeniably dangerous, no matter where it takes place. While the stats are still unclear, it’s been estimated that 1 in 12 transgendered women are murdered in the U.S., with an even higher rate of incidence for trans women of colour. Trans bashing and transphobia are real things that make real people feel like shit – a point that’s easily overlooked by those who carry their genitals and identities in the same pocket. Even many of us gay folk, the ones who know of a similar hatred and intolerance, are uncomfortable with the notion of gender nonconformity (never mind the obvious gender segregation that occurs in much of the gay community). It’s everywhere, because it’s entirely perpendicular to the grain. It’s unfitting with the propaganda of our youth.

When I led seminars for an advanced psychology course a few years ago, I always ended the debate on gender identity disorder by showing a page from an 1857 encyclopedia on race and ethnicity. On this page were 3 hand-drawn skulls. At the top of the page was the skull of a Caucasian man. Below this was the skull of an African man. At the bottom was the skull of a male chimpanzee, with the text suggesting that the chimpanzee and African man were more closely related than the African and Caucasian. This was quite clearly a case of Caucasian superiority, an antiquated perspective on race that marked white people as genetically superior and more intelligent compared to all other races. My point? Science doesn’t always get it right, and if science can be wrong, so can the masses that it represents. Just as gender identity disorder so clearly pegs gender nonconformists as abnormal human beings, a social system which only has room for girls and boys or men and women automatically excludes those who don’t fit the binary. Or worse, such a social system forces those who are different to participate in roles that are unbecoming of their true nature.

The truth is, gender can be bent. It can be borrowed, it can be pink, and it can be blue. But what constitutes who we are as human beings? None of it, because it’s all manufactured. It’s all a product of the system. It’s a product of inferior minds and, quite simply, a lack of understanding. Whether you identify as man or woman, transgender or cisgender, conformist or outcast, no one has a right to tell who you are or who you are not. Gender is a construct, nothing more. It is malleable. It is changing. It has changed. It’s time we all got up to speed.

Do we all want the same things?

I’m 31 years old, and I’m not sure of everything I want.

But I am sure of some things…

I want adventure. When I was young, I wanted to be a paleontologist, an astronomer, and a zoologist all in the span of five or six years. My nights were spent dreaming of space, and my days were spent sketching dinosaurs and building sewers out of cardboard for my Ninja Turtle action figures. Today, adventure is dreamed up a little differently, as something closer to seeing the world. Ideally, I would save it, if such an adventure were possible.

I want stability. The most stable time in my life was when my parents were together and I never knew of loss. I remember feeling this extreme sense of sadness and grief over the mere thought of losing my closest family members – my inherited allies on this adventure called life. When I was 21, my grandpa died. My parents had already divorced. My brother no longer lived with me. My grandma was alone, in nearly every sense of the word. We all need a little stability in the chaos, and in the adventure, should we ever find it.

I want to feel, deeply. I want to know true happiness, and I want to know the pain that reminds us of what that happiness looks like. I want to be shown all the sides of life, all that this world has to offer, so that I may know myself better. I want to know the depths of my consciousness, and of my soul, should such a thing ever be known. There is much sadness in the world, but it is not to be avoided.

I want to write, and I want my stories to be read. I want my thoughts to be heard, my actions to be noticed, and I want others to find beauty where there was once only suffering and pain. I want to show them. I want to show you.

I want love, real love, the kind that grips you from the start and never lets you go. I want to wake in the morning smiling and spend my days dreaming of the one who knows me, and gets me, in ways that no one else ever could. I want to fall asleep in that same grip, legs interlocked with adventure and arms held stable. I want a love that can give me both. I want a love that fills the emptiness.

One day, when I was six years old, my first puppy died tragically at the hands of a teeter totter. When I was 14, my aunt committed suicide in her garage, unable to handle the realities of her adulthood. And one day, when I was 28, I had to grow up all over again. We are all broken, shattered by the daylight; shattered by time. We all know of emptiness.

Do we all want the same things? Indeed, I think we do.

So fill the emptiness wisely. Fill it not with bright lights and cheap tricks; not with anger or hatred or despair. Fill it wisely! Fill it with music and art and friends and books and words – and stick to those words as much as possible, except when you find yourself lost, or broken. Fill it not with loneliness and regret. Fill it with kindness and laughter and love. Fill it with love stories – small ones, and big ones, and love stories in between if you must.

Whatever you do, fill it with at least one love story.

Whatever you do, fill the emptiness with love.

I’m 31 years old, and I’m not sure of everything I want. But I am sure of some things.

The challenge in life is not to give into rules and regulations; to abide by some call of duty; or to follow script. We are not bound to such social devices. We are bound only to each other, and to the moment.

To give into this reality is the challenge.

I knew early on in life that I was someone who did not take well to rules. I was not a rebel by any means. In fact, detentions and grounding were uncharacteristic of my youth. At an early age, however, I was somehow confident that rules and regulations were in place for people unlike me.

Pretentious, perhaps. Self-righteous, probably. But I don’t care how it sounds. I don’t need to be told that stealing is wrong, or that it’s dangerous to speed through a school zone. No manslaughter? Got it. Public disturbance? Obviously not allowed. No smoking indoors? Makes sense, if respect for others means anything.

Despite the obvious nature of these examples, all rules and regulations have their contenders. This is why we need them, of course, just as some need the 10 Commandments to remind them of how shitty adultery and slander really are. Right.

From an evolutionary perspective, it’s all quite unnecessary – or should be. Even experiments with monkeys indicate that stealing, for example, is an inherited faux pas. Left to our own devices, are we really so incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong? Are we all really so incapable of empathy? Maybe some of us are, particularly in terms of our behavioural urges.

Yet my discomfort with rules and regulations extends further, to a point where laws become inadequate and social norms fit like straitjackets. Kohlberg’s post-conventional stages of moral development remind us that individual perspectives and universal ethics can always trump laws, or at least beg their reconsideration. At the lowest level of my discomfort is the perspective that laws should be ever evolving in order to reflect an ever evolving society. At the highest level, I recognize that life isn’t simple enough to fit into preconceived packages and programs of human behaviour. There are always exceptions, individual or contextual; there are always outliers. And sometimes, rules and regulations just plain suck (see Canada’s ban on blood donations from gay men, for example).

As social creatures, we are bound to one other – not by the hands of the system, but by our mere social nature. We are bound by loyalty and trust and respect and decency and love, palpable constructs that have real weight and substance, no matter their degree of abstraction.

If not on a social level, then we should strive to strip our personal experiences of rules and regulations – and of scripts and formulas – whenever possible, wherever practical, and at nearly all cost. We are bound only to each other, and to the moments in which these things called our lives play out. We must be who we are capable of being, nothing less. And we must strip our lives of the need to satisfy all formulaic expectations.

We are bound only to each other, and to the moment. To give into this reality is the challenge.

In my time spent as an actual adult (which has really only been about a third of my life), my perspective on time has experienced a remarkable shift. Days are no longer only escapist opportunities for future wonderment and anticipation. While some distortion of this remains, days are also opportunities for deep reflection and reminiscence – the stuff born of more mature realities. The stuff that regrets are made of, if you have dared to digress.

I don’t know what to do with it all, really. After five big moves in five years, a lot of loss, and a few heartaches to wear on my sleeve, I feel surrounded by it. The residue is thick, and the remnants plentiful. I look around my place, and it’s right there, in everything I see. It’s in both new and old, both bought and borrowed, both fought for and stolen. It’s in the beginning, the middle, and even the end, should I let myself go there.

It’s hard not to go there.

A third of a lifetime isn’t much, but it’s everything nonetheless. Loss comes in many forms and hurt has a hundred faces, and so the world turns. New days are offered up like free Costco samples on a Sunday afternoon, and yet they’re limited. We know they’re limited.

And this is what I have realized. All the remnants and the regrets – we need them. We need them more than we need the wonder, for to ever truly grasp the dreams of our youth we have to know what to look for. Inside every memory, inside every piece of furniture and iPhone camera roll, there is something to be used. There is something to be gained.

My perspective on time has indeed experienced a shift. But it is not one of complete despair. Within the realities of adulthood – all the change and the heartache and the hurt – there is wisdom to be had. There are things to be learned, and new perspectives to be born. The biggest mistake of adulthood is the assumption that we know who we are just because we’ve gotten here. Science tells us that our neural pathways and synapses are capable of change across the lifespan. Our hearts tell us that we can do more and be better, if only to keep at it.

The triumph of the human spirit is not reserved solely for historical occasions. No, indeed it is capable of so much more, in this moment and every moment in between. Listen to the remnants of your past, and carry them forward not with regret but with reverence. They are you, plain and simple, stripped of all the expectations and impositions of adulthood. Learn from your past, wipe the residue clean, and rediscover your wonder.

Now that a full week has passed since the world didn’t end (to everyone’s surprise, I’m quite certain), I thought it appropriate to reflect on the year – and in particular, on something that has me quite bothered.

I’ve never been a fan of watching the evening news, or reading the morning newspaper. While I like to stay informed, I can’t stand the way the news is edited, filtered, and truncated into mere seconds of information, as if hearing that “a new study has found a link between coffee and prostate cancer” is valuable information in and of itself. Add to this the trend of running useless gossipy celebrity stories before hardly relevant local ones, and I simply don’t have the patience.

Our short attention spans have only become shorter, and they have resulted in the near silencing of real, honest news – or a deafening, one might say, of the public to what really matters. Ask the average person what’s bothering them, and that’s what the news focuses on. Challenge people too much – or worse, make them think – and they’ll just turn away.

An important story in 2012 Canadian news was the ‘death of evidence’ protest by scientists on Parliament Hill. Back in July, the federal government made a number of significant cuts to science programs throughout the country, as well as legislative changes that would reduce the flow of scientific and statistical information to the public, essentially silencing the voice of science in Canada. As many protestors suggested, the motivation for this may have been a desire to filter information to the public.

Conspiracy theories aside (although science is frequently manipulated and construed with self-interest by governments, businesses, and individuals alike), the attack on science reflects a larger social condition that extends well beyond the Canadian government.

Quite simply, people are giving up on science. We are less intrigued by the natural world than by our iPads and Honey Boo Boo’s. We awake in the morning not intrigued by life but indebted to a manufactured lifestyle, and we face the world not with curiosity but with contempt for the things we must do. Wonder is a thing for children, diluted in puberty and dissolved in adulthood.

To this point, here are some news-worthy stories of 2012 you (probably) didn’t hear about: In August, NASA’s rover Curiosity (essentially a portable car-sized laboratory) landed safely on the surface of Mars, beginning its two-year exploratory mission. Around the same time, liquid water was detected at Mercury’s poles, possible only because the planet closest to the sun has nearly no rotational tilt. Moving on to physics, a theoretical particle known as the Higgs boson (predicted nearly 50 years ago) was believed to have been discovered accidentally by European scientists in July. The Higgs boson is responsible for giving all elementary particles their mass, and it’s the only particle in the Standard Model of particle physics that hasn’t been detected or observed previously. Its discovery, if validated, would have a huge impact on our understanding of the universe (including its origins). In the field of biology, six other molecules besides DNA were found to store and transfer genetic information, while stem cells were discovered in human ovaries back in February, suggesting that women may be able to produce new eggs after they are born. In the summer of 2012, our understanding of the natural world grew a little more, with the unearthing of a 47 million year-old fossil of two mating turtles and the finding that elderly termites develop explosive crystals on their backs that are activated when the nest is threatened. Just a couple of weeks ago, a team of British paleontologists utilized new computer technology to determine that 90 million year-old dinosaur senses were far more complex than previously believed, and may have contributed to more dynamic social behaviours in herbivore species. On the environmental front, Arctic sea ice reached a record low in September, while a November report from the European Environment Agency warned of worsening effects of climate change for all European nations, at a much faster rate than previously estimated. Returning to space, yet another potentially Earth-like planet was found just 12 light years from our solar system, and the largest black hole to date may have been discovered by researchers in Texas – about 17 billion times the mass of our sun. Oh, and Curiosity? In early December, the little rover uncovered traces of carbon in Martian soil samples, although further analyses are needed to determine their origin – and if they could be ingredients for Martian life.

And there’s more – tons of it. But this isn’t the stuff of daily news. No, indeed it would seem that science has become boring to most, replaced by intrigue over Britney’s latest facial expressions on The X Factor. (To the surprise of scientists everywhere, Britney Spears is capable of manipulating her facial muscles in just as many ways as the average member of our species.)

Science is definitely under attack, but the problem starts with us. As individuals, we need to reignite our excitement for science and reclaim our intuitive wonder of the natural world. There is more to us than the stuff of morning print and evening news. There is more to us than our daily delusions of what living really means, or what it could mean – and what it could offer. Lasting purpose is found not in the plastic fads and trends of pop culture, but in the organic ebbs and flows of the natural world, and in all the space that surrounds us – and defines us.

I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. If you identify a change you need to make in your life, I believe that you should always start now, regardless of the year, month, or day. But if I were to propose a collective resolution for 2013, it would be to inquire more. Inquire, and give science the respect it deserves.

Let’s face it – we all need to get bothered.

If you are not bothered then you are complacent. If you are complacent then you are part of the problem. As David states right up front (thru the brilliant words of Ray Bradbury), “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while.”

If you’ve ever read my blog 42stillnoclue (www.42stillnoclue.com) you’ll know that I spend a disproportional amount of my time being bothered, bugged, annoyed, disgruntled and/or generally pissed off. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to glimpse inside my (slightly) twisted mind then I apologize in advance if I offend you.

I should probably mention that I am missing some filters.  You know, the ones that most people have that prevent them from spewing forth whatever is on their mind. Subtle as a sledgehammer is not a term I am unfamiliar with. I am only respectful of my husband’s privacy and (occasionally) that of my family and friends; otherwise it is fair game.

See, I like to talk about the things that nobody wants to talk about, the things we hide from each other which fill us with doubt and self-loathing. The things we do in the dark, the ones our parents taught us “not to talk about” because they were trying to protect us, the ones society would rather keep hidden under the rug so it doesn’t have to confront its inherent intolerance and unfairness; all of them.

We’ve all had to shit in a plastic bag because our toilet is plugged and a volcanic eruption of liquid napalm is about to burst out of our ass – metaphorically speaking.

So where does this need to hide come from? When and why are we taught the concept of shame? Who are we so afraid of?

To answer the question you must be brave enough to ask the question.

Which brings me to David Bothered.

On his blog David tackles the big questions with deft precision. Where I am asking you to look in the mirror and laugh, he is asking you to look and keep looking. His route to enlightenment (if that is our goal) is much more cerebral than mine – a surgeon with a scalpel vs. a toddler with a hatchet, if you please. He is not content with letting you off easy. He wants you to think. He wants you to examine. He insists that you hold your gaze for as long as you can.

Like David, I grew up gay in a world that wasn’t ready to change, a strange and dangerous place where I knew I was different and bad. The only options were to blend and hide and deny. I used humor as camouflage, as a way to deflect attention away from me and on to somebody else and as a means to keep my enemies close –after all, everybody loves a clown.

As Alan Moore so perfectly put it in Watchmen:

“Heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, ‘Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.’ Man bursts into tears. Says, ‘But doctor…I am Pagliacci.’”

I may have been the funniest guy in the room but I was also the loneliest.

It took me most of my life to turn things around. It started by learning to laugh at myself and continues because I have found a voice in what bothers me.

It bothers me that gay teenagers are killing themselves in record numbers. It bothers me that depression and mental illness are stigmatized. It bothers me that our planet is on a path to environmental disaster. It bothers me that people kill each other in the name of an invisible God. It bothers me that the barista at my Starbucks can’t grasp the concept of “light ice.”

I love David’s blog and admire his commitment to staying bothered.

It helps me to keep focused. It reminds me to keep talking and to keep asking the questions that need to be asked. It gives me hope in the face of adversity and monumental effort. It confirms the suspicion that I am not alone in my need to change how people look at themselves in the mirror.

I wish everyone would get bothered or bugged or pissed off.  I wish everyone would stop hiding and start talking. I wish everyone would stop and stare in the mirror for a little while…

My grandfather used to say to me: “Robbie, wish in one hand and shit in the other. See which one gets full faster.”

CLICK

Mahatma Gandhi was famously quoted as saying, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” But we have a love-hate relationship with change, us humans. We try our damnedest to embrace it, to go with the flow. Yet on a very fundamental level, perhaps evolutionary and definitely mechanistic and instinctual, we despise the thing. We try to avoid it at every turn (which is ironic in itself, since turning is an act which necessitates a change in perspective), especially when things are going well, or even (dreadfully) when things are just good enough.

Rationally, of course, I could imagine a world without change and it would be all too boring and horrible: No one would really learn, because there would be nothing new to learn from. People would never progress, or invent anything, or determine solutions to the world’s problems, because all of these things would require change. There would be no growing up, no journey into adulthood and old age. By extension, there would be no wisdom. There would be nothing, really, since it all started with change – one big bang of it.

That’s the rational side of change, of course – the side that we appreciate intellectually and stuff into our bedside drawers with self-help labels and publisher trademarks. That’s the side of change we try to hold onto as we navigate our daily lives, as we wade through all the realities of change, barely keeping our heads above the water. These realities know no reason. They are cognitively raw and emotionally disturbing. They are the kind that rip us from our expectations and leave us naked once again. They suck, to state it most plainly.

If we look to psychology, major life stressors are often conceptualized based on their implications for change. The more changes that result from a particular event or experience, the more stressful it typically feels. The death of a spouse or child might feel the worst, especially when the point of comparison is catching a cold.

But despite all its rawness, there is more to be done with change than simply the rationalization of its requirement for existence. You see, such a rational perspective speaks of a giving up – a throwing up of one’s arms, a knee-jerk had-enoughness that places change next to death and taxes on the shelf of life’s inevitable annoyances.

The third perspective, the one that involves more than an intellectual appreciation or pessimism over the inevitable, speaks of a giving in. And there’s a big difference, because giving in to change is where the true embrace occurs. It implies a deeper understanding of how the world works, and a surrender to the truth that good often comes from bad, and that change always leads to wisdom if we so allow it. Beauty is not only found in the breakdown. Beauty also resides in change, and in all that keeps us moving and propels us forward – and teaches us. At a very basic level, one might find beauty in a spilled glass of milk. But if we truly give in to the notion of change, and embrace it, beauty might also be found in loss, and even in death.

In order to embrace change (either in the moment or upon reflection), one must accept the deepest truth in life – that everything changes. Whether the milk spills or the relationship ends or the money is spent, this is the way of the world. And in this way, lessons are learned, new opportunities are created, and paths are carved that can only be dreamed and imagined, but which may in fact lead to some conception of better.

Stable systems have only two options: stay the same, or become unstable. But unstable systems (particularly those of the human variety) are always capable of returning to a state of stability. We must see change for what it is. It is birth, death, and all the moments in between. It is both heartache and beauty, both turbulent ocean and tranquil sea. It is that which drives us, and keeps us on our toes, and makes us wake every morning to a new day.

Change is potential, even when it sucks. Use it wisely…

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. So today, I’m keeping the words to a minimum.

Images can move us, but we mustn’t avoid images that make us feel uncomfortable.  We live in a complex world, full of both good and bad; positive and negative; gain and loss. And while nature necessitates balance, such a concept has been misconstrued by our species. We are forever doomed to tilt. In our relentless quest for progress, we continuously find ourselves falling backward, ever the error-prone stewards – hardly stewards at all, hardly human by our own standards.

Living is easy with eyes closed (so the Beatles song says), but I don’t want easy. I won’t have anything to do with it. Eyes wide open, all the way…

Look at these images. Let them anger you. Let them sadden you. Let them move you. Our world is not always what is seems, and our perspectives are always limited – especially when they’re fed to us through our television screens.

Look and you’ll know better. Think and you’ll be better. Take action, and you might just find yourself saving the world – eyes wide open.

Since I was very young, I’ve been preoccupied by space. It’s pretty cool stuff, when you think about it: dark, mysterious, incomprehensible in size, and littered with little green men and spaceships and other worlds with other beings with dreams of their own – dreams of us, perhaps.

Very early on, I came to the firm conclusion that we weren’t alone in all this space. What a ridiculous idea, really, to imagine mere humans as the only stewards of so much emptiness. (To pay homage to Carl Sagan’s Contact, it sure seems like an awful waste of space.)

As an adult, my romance with space has increased tenfold.

Today, we know that space isn’t really space at all; that there is a fabric to the cosmos, comprised of dark energy and dark matter, elusive constructs that give substance to the nothingness. We know that black holes are born of dying stars, forged from the infinitely dense weight of imploding supernovae; that these space-bending vacuums form the centers of galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Gravity is no longer some mysterious force, but rather understood as a consequence of the presence of matter, which causes a curvature in the fabric of spacetime (the Moon, for example, simply travels around the curvature created by the Earth). And the universe isn’t expected to slow down – it’s expanding at an increasing rate. In a hundred billion years from now, the night sky of some distant life-bearing rock will find itself starless, for everything will be pulled too far apart.

We take for granted our location in spacetime, yet we are ideally positioned for intelligent reflection of both the cosmos and of ourselves. The anthropic principle posits, after all, that in order for conscious observation to occur, the physical laws and age of the universe must be compatible with its observers. If the universe were too young or too old, life wouldn’t be possible, and so conscious observation necessitates now (it also necessitates here, at this ideal distance from the Sun – what is referred to as the Goldilocks Zone). Similarly, it is of no coincidence that we find ourselves in a universe fine-tuned for life, for conscious observation cannot occur otherwise. If any particular law of physics were off by a single unit, matter itself would cease to exist, and observation would be impossible. We’re the lucky ones, you might say. To observe is to live where observation is possible.

And to dream is to believe that stars are more than gas and fire.

When I think of space, my head hurts. And it should. Have you ever tried to imagine the edge of the universe? Or what’s beyond that edge? This is head-pounding stuff, and rightly so. Today scientists speak of a multiverse, where other more poorly tuned universes drift alongside our own – in order to explain the perfectly unique built-for-life characteristics of the not-so-nothingness we find ourselves in. But our minds aren’t built for this stuff. They’re not made to hold all of this. We are mere observers, nothing more.

And nothing less. Be it our greatest gift or our ultimate frustration, we must continue to observe in awe; to observe, and to reflect on our observations – to wrestle with wormholes, to fall in love with white dwarfs, and to pin our dreams to the fabric of the cosmos. To observe is to fulfill our greatest purpose as a species, should we ever have one.

The course is set, the destination unknown. Eyes forever to the starlit wayside.

Pick up any first year psychology textbook and you’ll learn about self-actualization, a pinnacle stage of psychological development defined by the realization of one’s full potential. According to Abraham Maslow (the theory’s author), less than 1% of the human population will ever self-actualize. This is surely to the disappointment of nearly 7 billion fragile psyches…

But you see, the realization of one’s potential isn’t about bringing home the bacon. Indeed, it’s about something much deeper than that, something with much more substance – more muchness, as the Mad Hatter might put it.

Self-actualization is about YOU in the truest sense of the word. It’s about digging as deeply as you can dig. It’s about wading through all the garbage – the expectations, the pressures, the demands, the insecurities, and the hurt – and realizing the most authentic version of you. Theory then requires that the successful self-actualizer live a life which is authentic to his/her own newly found muchness. It is the recognition of and commitment to one’s soul, some might argue (and I think rightly so, within or outside of any religious framework).

Ever since I was young (I’d say 12 or younger), I’ve experienced this gnawing sensation. Gnawing is the best way to put it, really. It’s a deeply rooted feeling of having (or needing?) to do something big with my life – something like saving the world (which is pretty big, I think).

In a previous description of this feeling, I noted a burning in my abdomen, something knot-like. There’s a mild sense of panic, I lose sight of my surroundings, and my mind gets lost in what is best described as truth. Time stands still, and all at once I feel frustration and passion, excitement and despair. And somewhere in my mind is an image of doing something – an action that I try to grasp, but that inevitably feels too large and nebulous. I question everything in these moments – everything about who I am and what I am doing with my life.

Are these peak experiences? I think so. In his study of self-actualizers, Maslow identified the tendency to experience moments of clarity similar to what I’ve described above. Moments in which potential reveals itself to the host. Moments in which the curtain is raised, the fog clears, and behaviour and conscience unite in some kind of synergistic cognitive burst. Moments in which the word truth becomes meaningless because it’s all there is.

I value these moments, but the frustration and despair that result are difficult to manage. I want to change the world, after all. And ripples aren’t enough. I need waves. Big ones. Tsunami-sized. Nothing less would be satisfying. Nothing less would offer relief.

As I grow older, the gnawing becomes more frequent and intense. I don’t believe I have self-actualized, but I do believe I’m being shown my full potential, somehow.

Let’s be honest, a 1% chance is pretty terrible. But it nonetheless offers possibility – a potential for potential, you might say. These odds are less a condition of our individual shortcomings and more a condition of our broken world. We have done everything in our power to suppress, subdue, and subjugate the non-material aspects of our existence. We have silenced our voices and muted our potentials, all the while suffering from an epidemic of meaninglessness and purposelessness. It’s time to lift the curtain. It’s time to dig deeper. It’s time to fuck the expectations and reclaim what’s inside – to know it, to live it, and to scream it in everything we do.

(Then, and only then, may we move onto self-transcendence…)

In a previous post, Knowing Who You Are, Myths 1-3, I outlined 3 prevailing myths associated with modern identity formation. Very roughly, these myths ascribe the following conditions to knowing who you are: 1) this state requires consistent and predictable behaviour, as perceived by others; 2) this state is impossible without mainly logical and rational examination and exploration of life; and 3) this state is optimized by the commitment to a single life trajectory or career path, which, after all, typifies a strong sense of self.

As I previously indicated, these perspectives are bullshit, remnants of an immature and entirely uninsightful stage of human development. Things are never so black and white.

There is a fourth myth, but this one resides somewhere between identity formation and identity resolution. The fourth myth is simple, really. It is the idea that self-knowledge and the strength gained therein are undermined by defeat; that the act of giving in neutralizes and essentially negates any previously developed state of knowing who you are. You’re already thinking it (hopefully) – bullshit.

This myth is a highly contagious one, infiltrating minds at very early stages of existence. For men, it’s the “tough it out, don’t cry, be strong” crap. For women, it’s the “break the glass ceiling, you’re strong because you’re more self-aware” crap. For all of us, it’s the “don’t back down, stick with it, you’ll get through it and come out better for it” advice we’ve heard over and over again. Sometimes it’s good advice. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s just crap.

But it’s always there – the pressure to see things through, to push oneself, to find strength in hard times, and to never give up. I’ve been guilty of kneeling to this pressure more often than not, and I consider myself a proponent of pushing oneself into uncomfortable and strange situations. The opportunity for growth is too great, I’ve learned. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes – you got it – it’s just crap.

Nevertheless, this stick-with-it-ness has become an essential feature of our identity. It has the ability to strengthen it, when it’s at its best.

In psychology, a handful of researchers study what is called goal disengagement. It refers, very simply, to disengaging from unattainable goals. Surprisingly or not, this behaviour has been linked to improvements in psychological well-being, for without disengagement, that which is unattainable becomes a source of pure angst. The problem with this perspective, of course, is that we’re not all goal experts, and the objective assessment that a goal is unattainable is not always possible – we’re not fortune tellers. So disengagement may result in the loss of something that was indeed attainable despite all its apparent unattainability – or something to that effect.

But the suggestion that staying relentlessly and unequivocally engaged is a key aspect of our identity is, by and large, bullshit.

In truth, a strong sense of identity involves knowing when to play your hand AND knowing when to fold. Not all hands are dealt equally, and sometimes passing is the best opportunity for growth. Sometimes you need to know when to give up, when to call it quits, and when to disengage. Sometimes you need to know when to walk away.