Art Things - "Will"

Stagnant

It’s amazing to think

We call ourselves progressive,

Enlightened

Permissive

Yet we never land so far.

We congratulate ourselves

For reaching our goals,

Yet we never seem to realize

We don’t stand where we think

In this world filled with holes.

For the world has turned sideways

And up is now down,

But the fury of the past

Has not left our souls.

Instead it has transformed,

Light becomes dark

Sky becomes earth

Man becomes woman

And we believe, we truly do

That we have paved the road,

That our hearts and our minds

Are more advanced, more evolved,

Yet it doesn’t take long for that anger to show,

That anger of the past

Creeping like a shadow,

Lingering in the dark

Hiding just so

To let our beliefs become truth

But only in mind,

The belief that we accept,

That we love,

That judgement is a crime.

Yet that judgement now falls

On all who don’t believe

This new acceptance

We pride ourselves on

As the improved species.

And we try so hard

To prove the better way,

To show the world

The rightness of what we say.

And damn them all,

We whisper silently,

As we fall asleep in bed

Prideful of our humility.

Moving to Belgium and Existential Crises

It's not every day that an 18-year-old Canadian moves to Belgium. I should give you a bit of reference; Canadians my age think of and understand Belgium about the same amount as the rest of the world thinks of and understands Canada - i.e. zilch. So how did I come to live in a land I only cared for because of its chocolate?

You see, my father was offered a job in Wavre after presenting someone else's pitch. Of course a lot of other factors were involved, but you never know what going the extra mile will give you on a typical day at work. I instantly leaped at the thought of travel, and off we went.

I decided to use the opportunity to take a year off after high school to travel and write. Sounds like a dream, doesn't it? Perhaps not entirely. I soon discovered that moving to a new land is not as grand as it's cracked up to be. It's true that the architecture is jaw-dropping and the differences in culture enticing, but it doesn't take long for one to realize how utterly dull those things are once their friends are 3,523 miles away from them. As I am not working or in school, making friends was initially very difficult, and growing bonds with those friends has been even more so.

Perhaps the most difficult thing has been my growing sense of boredom. Think about it; the last time I had a year off was when I was three years old. Considering that I am the type of person who, after a long, exciting day, crawls into bed bored out of their mind, you can imagine that with no friends and time to spare, it doesn't take much to fall into an existential stupor.

Yet there is one thing that seems to break me out of that stupor - spending time with friends. Why is it that when knowledge, travel, and even creativity fail to pull us out of the vaporous pit of despairing pointlessness and disassociated self, relationship seems to destroy the pit entirely? Human connection has always been at the forefront of our development. Since the dawn of our days, we have used communication and integrative strengths to ensure our survival and progress. It is no wonder, then, that relationship is one of the largest factors that give our lives meaning. We work tremendously to establish our independence and understand our identities, but in truth nothing one does holds any importance if there is no one to share it with. Perhaps, then, we should focus less on attempting to impress people with who we are, and more on building relationships through our are. As Martin Heidegger once said, "Love me not for what I am [mind, matter, soul], but for my am." If we become conscious of our own being, we can understand the being that underlies everything, and can thus form irrepressible bonds, for experience is nothing more than just that - experience.

Perhaps that is the answer, perhaps not. One thing is certain - Belgium is going to be one wild, self-examining ride.