Tag: go vegan

purpose

I think a lot about purpose. That word is a big one for me, and if if I’m ever at a point of questioning anything, the word ‘purpose’ centers itself in my mind: “What is the purpose of this?” “What is MY purpose here?” and then to “act with purpose.” Similar words may intercede from time to time… ‘intention’ or ’cause’ perhaps… but I’m all about purpose.

I run with purpose – to achieve a goal (which is not always strictly physical but often one of alignment of body, mind and soul).
I write songs with purpose (which likely drives my girlfriend a little batty, as I seem to not be able to write a simple love song on command, but can spit out lyrics about the death of the ego, or the evolution of the mind, all to the high-speed train beats and thumping bass lines).
My job is one of purpose.
My art has purpose.
The way I conduct myself in public has purpose.
I am sober with purpose.
I eat, and choose what to eat with purpose.
I meditate with purpose.
I journal with purpose.

I am very disciplined at this stage of my life, and that means people ask me a lot of questions, the answers to which may be polarizing. Often people will ask a question and then upon hearing the answer, feel the need to defend or justify their different outlook… but I’m not here to judge where anyone is at.

Nevertheless, I am happy to have these conversations, and wish I could have them more. Make me think! Let me make you think! This is how community and growth are started.

It’s unfortunate that social media seems to represent the opposite. There’s a huge potential for the sharing of stories and ideas to take place online, but instead we fight. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one keyboard warrior change another keyboard warrior’s mind, and I doubt that I ever will. But to see someone, and identify them as a living being, and to converse with them in real time and space – there’s a potential for greatness.

So I pose the question – Social media… what is its purpose? I believe it was started with good intentions, but it’s become just like regular television. Television’s purpose is to show you advertisements between segments of entertaining content, except on facebook, you can interact and become more invested. Your friends and acquaintances make status updates that are essentially tabloid headlines in between ads for products you’ve recently searched for on google.

It’s become such a distraction from purpose that people believe it is real life.

I will likely maintain my social media presence, but I feel the need to build even more structure around it for myself. I don’t want to be completely out of contact, but I don’t want to be a slave to it either.

Maybe I can manage it.
Maybe I’ll eventually quit it.
But whatever I do… it’ll be with purpose.

distraction

I’m no theologian, and I’m certainly in no position to speak on matters of politics or social media. I have no formal education outside of highschool, and I can only speak from experience… but I do a lot of people watching, and I observe and analyze my own actions as frequently as I can, and I have undoubtedly seen some bizarre shit.

As I type this, I’m reminded of when I was in Calgary last week… I pulled into a very busy parking lot to meet someone at a restaurant, and about 50 feet in front of me I noticed 2 young girls, aged between 4 and 6, that had climbed into the trunk of a car and were attempting to close the trunk lid on themselves. While this was happening, the man I assume was their father was playing badminton with himself, in the parking lot. At the moment I was watching him, he lobbed his bright pink shuttlecock into a tree, and – again, the parking lot was full – started trying to knock the shuttlecock out of the tree by throwing his racket at it. By now, the children were securely trapped in the trunk, and I got out of my car and walked into the restaurant.

That story has no real bearing on anything, other than to state that I was early for my meeting, and that I obviously wasn’t staring at my phone, as this was far more entertaining.

I’ll often challenge myself not to look at my phone. Sometimes I lose, but that depends on the environment. In a recent pause for reflection in a dentist office waiting room, I listened to 2 clerks discuss the logistics of meeting a new online love interest one of them has, mentioning different work schedules as a challenge, among other things like dog stewardship and other hobbies as challenges. I’m not sure the experience enriched my life, but I was present and I think that’s something to be celebrated.

“Mindfulness” is a term we get to throw around a lot these days, but I’m reminiscent of a time when we didn’t have to put any emphasis on mindfulness, because we didn’t have a 24-hour casino, social hall, and strip-club in our pockets while we waited for someone to meet us.

We just waited.

And really, there’s nothing more mindful than sitting alone at a table with nothing but a cup of black coffee and your own thoughts to keep you company. We were mindful all the time… now we have the luxury of both tuning out and hitting the dopamine feeder-bar at any moment, to the point that some people do so while their waiting for a traffic light to turn green.

What’s more, is that although I am a slave to the social media as much as anyone else, I’ve started to (somewhat naturally) get my social media time dealt with in the morning before anyone wakes up. Sure, I get caught staring at my phone on occasion, but really nothing in my feed has changed from the early morning binge-session, so it’s pretty short-lived.

I’ve discovered that, although I am a staunch introvert, that I’d much rather connect with a human being or two in-person. I have no problem leaving my phone in my jacket pocket at this stage of life, and I’m thankful that my watch lets me know of certain correspondence because I really have no idea where my phone is half the time these days.

I don’t know if there’s anything to take from this… other than some affirmation that my droning on about being more present and in the moment over the past couple years seems to actually be taking root.

forty-two

Today I celebrate another revolution.

I don’t know how much I have to say about my birthday, really, other than to say that I feel younger and more vital than I did 10 years ago.

I’m happy to still be a vegan athlete and rock & roller, to have wonderful people around me, and to make the best music of my life. I’m more grateful, present, and productive than I have been at any point in my life so far and I don’t think I’ve capped out yet.

Forty-two.

I think I’ll give myself the morning off from blogging and go for a run.

Peace.

reactive

There are many aspects of life that are beyond control. As much as I’d like to think that I am in control of; well, anything… I have to take a step back and realize that I am not, and probably never have been. There are only a few things I can claim as mine in a creative sense, and for me they are all songs (though if I’m writing about something, even that level of control is questionable).

The truth is that I am reacting to most things.

I accelerate when the light turns green. I book musical performances when I am available to do them. I apply for funding when funding is available. I reward exemplary behavior. I buy shoes when they’re on sale.

I cannot truthfully be held accountable for anything that happens so much as I can be held accountable for how I react to those situations…

The neighbor’s dog got out. My kid forgot her bus pass. The grocery store ran out of tempeh. My guitar amp is crackling. I’m stuck behind a train that’s going to make me late for work.

Yes – but what am I going to do about it?
How am I going to temper my reaction to scenarios in order to illicit the best (or least worst) result?
And – is there actually anything I can really do to positively affect the outcome?

Almost unanimously, the quick answers to all of these questions is ‘I don’t know’ but beyond the initial shock of being presented with any scenario – be it good or bad – the possibilities are as limitless as the confines of imagination.

If my neighbor’s pitbull escapes the fence, and I am walking on-stage in another city, I must do nothing because not only can I not affect change from my current location, I must also not allow this scenario to take over the task at-hand. I have to resign to entrust the situation with my neighbor’s dog to the people that are able to do something, and I can’t feel regret about what couldn’t be done… especially when it can and will and does get handled.

This is ultimately why I don’t drink anymore. My decision making prowess suffers a devastating downgrade when I do, whether it means saying inflammatory things under the guise of attempted humour, or allowing my judgement around what I eat to slide, deciding whether or not to drive… the list goes on, and it primarily goes on because when I was drinking, I was drinking much more frequently than I should have been.

I am still bound to say inflammatory things and compromise my own judgement, but I do it with a sober mind. So, when my actions and reactions are called into question, I can be held appropriately responsible for them. It might sound a bit fucked, but I take solace in the fact that every poor decision I’ve made in the past 17 months has been made with intention. I don’t hide behind weak, hazy excuses anymore, and I own every smart and dumb idea… which is hard, because I’m fairly bashful and humble about the good ideas, and when the bad ideas come rolling out, there’s no excuse for me to hide behind.

The reality of the situation is that I am doing my best. My path is a spiritual one, and the actions, or reactions, I take are in keeping with the curves in that path that I need to bend with in order to stay upright.

4 years

I’ve been vegan for 4 years as of yesterday.

I vacillate between “it’s the least anyone can do” and “it’s not for the faint of heart” constantly, but in the end it’s worth every piece of bacon I didn’t eat or dairy product I didn’t consume. As a matter of fact, those things are fucking gross.

It started as a step in a health journey that was already underway for a while; partly a physical health decision and partly a spiritual decision, but quickly the welfare of our fellow earthlings became a priority as well.

To me, it’s astonishing that the best diet for my heart, the best diet for my liver, the best diet for my brain, and the best diet for all aspects of my body – including athletic performance – is the same diet that is best for the planet, and is also the best diet for the wellbeing of our fellow earthlings, the animals.

In an amazingly short time we’ve gone from “wHeRe Do YoU gEt YoUr PrOtEiN?” to “I’m reluctant to try (or gave up on) veganism because I’m not an athlete.” Both statements are sad and ill-informed despite the fact that they are polar opposites.

If you feel like you need to make a change, give it a shot.

If you do, I recommend you try it for 21 days. You can do anything for 21 days, and you can eat anything for 21 days. I know that, because you can literally eat nothing for 21 days.

don’t sell yourself short

I’ve been selling myself short for most of my life. You probably have, too, but I can’t speak to that other than to say that as a species, we seem to have a tendency to resign ourselves to our own misery, and as cheap compensation, we give ourselves a dopamine hit as frequently as possible.

I’m certainly guilty of this despite my propensity to ‘do hard things’ but for me there has historically been some disconnect between physically doing hard things that are maybe kinda scary, and doing hard things on a spiritually-fulfilling level, like saying no to shitty gigs, or being confident.

A few years ago, I cleaned up my act. I started giving my body the nutrition it needs to thrive and stopped numbing myself to life, and a crazy thing happened. I felt young. That’s not a tangible thing as I type it, but the only way I can explain it is to say that I removed the things in my life that were holding me back the most, and I started to become more energetic and vital.

Energy and vitality weren’t the only things that came back though… the dreams I had as a young teenager came back – those pie in the sky things that I’d eventually talked myself out of over the years came back, and I had the energy to prioritize them, and believe them, and chase them in a way that was impossible 25 years ago.

Nothing happens overnight, but I just returned from an international tour with my band, and our next move is to play the 2 Canadian dates with legit Psychobilly legends The Nekromantix next weekend, before we play with Luke Doucet’s (Whitehorse, Sarah Mclachlan) old band VEAL and play a handful of festival shows. Confusionaires are now booking into 2025.

This is all very small compared to where I see it going, but a few years ago it wouldn’t have only been unattainable for me, but I also would have had a massive chip on my shoulder about someone else having these opportunities.

I feel optimistic.
I feel love.

Thanks for sharing in my joy this morning.

hindsight

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the cliche phrase ‘hindsight is 20/20’ – the idea of looking back on an event, or series of events, and concluding that you have much more clarity about those events with the knowledge and understanding you currently possess, comparing it to having ‘perfect’ 20/20 vision.

I take issue with this. I think it’s wrong.

There’s a word, and it’s a popular one these days, that completely negates the idea that hindsight is perfect. That word is trauma. A great number of details have been misremembered and incorrectly associated with events surrounding trauma, causing what everyone around us might conclude is an ‘irrational response’ right here, in the present. I’m reminded of a situation in a music store, where a loud banging sound caused a war veteran who happened to be present, to dive onto the floor, before getting up, finishing his transaction, and bashfully leaving the store as fast as he could. As far as I remember, nobody in the room knew he was a veteran.

I suppose you could say that the veteran might have concluded, after hitting the deck, that in hindsight, he’d acted irrationally… but I’d wager a guess that if it happened again a day or week later, his response would be the same in spite of the fact that he is fully aware that he is not in a war zone.

Furthermore, there have been studies that show that when we remember an event that happened in our past, our brain networks change in ways that actually alter the memory of the event. This means the next time we remember it, we’re not remembering the event, but we are remembering the last time we remembered it.

When I was young, I had a difficult relationship with one of my parents. The fact that this is no longer the case has very little, if anything, to do with hindsight. Although I have the ability to see things differently now, it’s not because the passing of time so much as it’s because I get along with that parent much better now, to the point that I subconsciously don’t want to think of them in an unflattering light.

What can we do?

Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I believe that the answer for me is to do whatever I can to not hold a grudge, and to cherish positive memories. I want to give people, and myself, the opportunity for redemption for wrongdoings.

We like to believe that we can change for the better as we grow and learn, but somehow justify denying other people the same opportunity for redemption, like we hold the monopoly on self improvement. I’ve been doing that my whole life…

And in hindsight, that doesn’t make much sense anymore.