The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, but as someone who is always thinking ahead, a question popped into my head today. What are we going to do with all these cloth face masks when this pandemic is done? Fortunately, for me, a few answers also popped into my head, because I hate having good questions linger around in my head like lost ghosts of thoughts haunting me until I could bust them! More fortunately, one answer stood out more than the others, but let’s start with the others.
Writing
The Downtown Monk
I live downtown like lots of people. However, I hardly exhibit the traits of a typical downtowner who wants to live close to work, near lots of amenities, including fine dining and entertainment, and is living the good life through spending of money relatively freely. I don’t even exhibit traits of a student with some budget who’s living reasonably close to school, but is out and about a lot, and has home amenities like the others of cable or subscription TV, lots of tech, that many of their fellow students don’t. Compared to them, for lack of spending, lack of socialization, lots of learning and spirituality (often involving life philosophies), I led the lifestyle of a monk, though I am far from a real monk. I’m just far enough from them in lifestyle that I would be like a monk in comparison.
What If Cross-Genre Covers Were More Prominent in Literature?
In music, there is a thing called covers, where musicians perform their own interpretations of pieces. Often, these are songs, by different artists other than the original ones, and in the same genre, so rock covers are still rock. However, covers could involve instrumental pieces like classical, jazz, or other wordless compositions. They could be by the same artists later in their career. But for me, the most interesting and fun covers, whether I like them or not, are ones in different genres. For fun, I’d like to share some examples from a Switched on Pop podcast I recently heard on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and wonder why such covers aren’t more prominent in literature with the classics now in the public domain. The podcast episode was the third of four, but the entire series was magnificent and I would highly recommend it!
Two Greats’ Birthdays
January 26th is Wayne Gretzky’s birthday. Happy birthday, Wayne! If my memory were correct, it’s a big birthday year for you, 2021. Arguably, the greatest hockey player of all time, you are, not arguably, my favourite hockey player of all time. Yet, on your birthday, while I’m happy for you, I’m always a little wistful for me from a little chance incident back in my childhood as a nine year old refugee in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
What is Your Metaphor for Life?
Yesterday, I read the free sample of a book called The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren, and holy fuck! Talk about a book I would NOT recommend!!! That was like an anarchist manifesto full of false promises in the blindest manifestation I’ve yet seen of faith! I read it from a mention by legendary swimmer Michael Phelps, on a pretty good episode of the Tim Ferriss podcast with him and Grant Hackett, given I have the intent to sample at least a book a week as a resolution in 2021 I’ve yet to post. Michael described it as a book he’d recommend, introduced to him by former football great Ray Lewis, who I knew was more passionate about his faith than his football. Yet, I like to learn about approaches to finding purpose in life enough that I thought I’d give it a try, even one with the Christian approach if it came via Ray Lewis and I am not religious… and am not planning to become religious any time soon. But before I get on with things, I should redeem Michael Phelps with the other book he recommended, which’s sample I also read, and have put on my “to read in the future” list. That was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, by Mark Manson. Interesting, the two books were about the same thing, how to focus your life on the things that matter most. One was just things in a prison cell, the other was things in the rest of the world.
Digital Citizen 