After I had completed my B.Sc. in Computer Science in 2003 I got a fairly decent job. The pay was satisfactory and the responsibilities where, for the most part, fair as well. I felt I should of been content with my situation at the time; but, as it turned out I was often restless and questioning what my actions where contributing to my community and the world at large. I took up reading and studying a selective set of religions, philosophies and self-help techniques in an attempt to make sense of my purpose. I had over simplified my expectations and as a result was looking for an easy way to accomplish my goal of finding purpose and living a purposeful life. In the process I had made an honest effort to practice Buddhism for about 4 months. Many things failed to reconcile with me at the time and I ultimately blew it off as a idealistic philosophy on life with some disagreeable dogma.

At the end of my explorations I arbitrarily decided that I should teach English overseas. Seemed like everyone was doing it and nearly everyone came back happy and rich. I figured my service to others in this way would both give me purpose and compensation. When the decision was made, I quickly became discontent with my present situation (which was still just fine). Still not experiencing what I thought I craved, I was eager to get this moving and made a few mistakes (burned bridges, etc) as a result of my impatience. Not too surprisingly, I got quickly distracted by a chance opportunity to work in the video game industry. I immediately dropped my previously “noble” plans and jumped shipped to Winnipeg. I was convinced I would derive my noble purpose by doing this.

Not surprisingly, I did not find much purpose in Winnipeg. If anything, things got worse very quickly for me. Ultimately the company couldn’t continue and I was out of the job. Longing for what I had previously, I made post haste back to Saskatoon. I spent 6 months collecting employment insurance and looking for a job. I eventually got one 2 hours south in Regina. This time around, I had resigned myself to just doing the best I can do at what I do. I would let purpose “find me”; and so I had given up. I dabbled and volunteered a bit in teaching English. It was enjoyable and rewarding, but not my “calling”.

I again grew restless and started to make plans to do something extreme. I thought perhaps I had misread/misinterpreted Buddhism and needed a more direct approach. I looked for monasteries that taught in English in Inda/Thailand. Found one and started a dialog with them to arrange my studies. It wasn’t long after I started that process that disaster struck and they were part of the collateral damage of a local terrorist attack. Shaken by this, I dropped the idea of being a monk for a month all together. So I again looked for something slightly less extreme and more “local”. I found a few retreats in North America, but they were often expensive and full. Most also seemed to cater themselves to hipster business people as more of an “experience”. I grew frustrated and stopped looking for nearly two years.

This takes us to about 8 months ago, I was randomly googling for guided meditation audio files and happened to come across the site for Dhamma. I read about it a bit on and off the site; but more importantly noticed they had centres all across North America. This set the gears in motion for me. The hardest hurdle for me to jump was to find 10 (more like 12) consecutive days off to take the new student course. As a partner in a company, I felt I couldn’t take myself out of the operating picture for that long. In retrospect that was a silly notion to have, but it did drive me to do a few exciting things in the mean time.

While on vacation with my fiance and parents in Hawaii, I set in motion (mostly with resolve) three things:

• I would resign as partner at my job.
• I would start my own company, Sliced Projects.
• I would registered for the spring Vipassana course at Sylvan Lake.

All three if these events came to pass around the same time. I had to resign to feel like I could take the 10 days was the biggest part of all this. Again, in retrospect I could of done it without resigning. Starting my own company had motivations of it’s own as well, but ultimately the end result was that I felt I had enough control of my life to take 10 days off. That’s how I ended up going to a Vipassana meditation course.

The Course

My better judgement tells me that the best details of my experience of the course should be told in person. As a new student in the technique I’m not fully able to explain the more subtle aspects that are also the more profound. I should mention my state of mind immediately before entering the course, since I believe it played a very important role in the end results. I consider myself a skeptic about most things I haven’t witnessed first hand, so coming to this course I decided to come with not expectations and an open mind. By open mind I don’t mean willing to listen, but willing to following immerse myself in the instructions of the technique. Turns out in the first discourse video your highly encouraged to do this anyways, but I think I helped set myself up for the best possible experience.

Day 0

Having grossly overestimated the travel time, my ride share companion and I arrived many hours early. Fortunately, there were many people already there. Any interesting tension was in the air, many of us were new students and were not quite sure what to expect. It seemed like all the old students and originally taken the course over seas and had very interesting experiences to share. This fueled the general anxieties, but also removed some of the unknowns for us new students. Once registration was done, diner was served. A pleasant vegetarian meal (all the meals were vegetarian, since you take a precept not to harm another being while taking the course). The course technically starts on day zero, after taking 5 precepts as a group.

Day 1, 2 and 3

I won’t bore you with the details of the schedule, but I will mention that this is no “vacation” or “retreat”. It’s a course and it has long hard hours. You essentially are meditating 10 or more hours a day. The first three days you practice a through the nose breathing meditation that trains your mind to be aware of the subtle sensations you are capable of feeling. This got painfully boring for me by the third day, since I’ve already done this form of meditation for years. I had convinced myself that if something new didn’t present itself on the fourth day I’d leave the course. The evening discourse presented what we would be doing the next day and it was surprisingly not what I expected.

Day 4

During day 0 there was a brief mention of “Sittings of Strong Determination”. Turns out today was the day you start those (actually it could of been day 5, I wasn’t keeping the best track of days). I was once again tested in my resolve to stick with the course. My advice to anyone on their first sitting of this type is to keep your mind busy with the technique as much as possible. Your given just enough instructions up to this point to know what to do, but the evening discourse pulls it all together. Every sitting afterwords was a cakewalk compared to the first and I learned a few interesting things about myself as a result.

Day 5 to 8

Practice, practice, practice. There is a very strong emphasis in this course to practice seriously and diligently. I took it to heart on all but the 8th day (my snow day). As each day progressed your use of the technique is expanded in small ways. The discourses generally pull together the theory of the technique and impart general nuggets of wisdom to you. There was a few Buddhist dogma’s brought up that seemed out of place in a non-cecular course (mostly about reincarnation). The instructor and assistant instructor both urge you to think for yourself and ultimately told me those parts of the discourse were not important to leaning and applying the technique. Generally time went fast with the exception of the 8th day. For whatever reason on the 8th day my mind insisted that I purge all the creative ideas that had accumulated since the start of the course. I basically wrote the first 1/4 of an amusing sci-fi in my head most of the day. I thought of a few interesting products for the iPhone and Wordpress as well during the day. The down side was that my sittings dragged on because of my distraction.

Day 9

Letting myself go on day 8 turned out to be the best thing I could do. With my minds buffer emptied I found a new found resolve to concentrated and apply the technique. The day literally flew by and I meditated for about 13 hours this day alone. I experienced the more advanced stages of the technique multiple times and came out of meditations with swells of emotion and tears. It was this day that many insights about life came to me. It was also the day I acknowledged the value in practicing Vipassana, even if I don’t currently agree with all of the topics brought up in the discourses.

Day 10

After mid morning meditation we are released of our vow of noble silence. It’s somewhat ironic that after 9 days of not talking you have nothing particularly insightful to say. The men exited the hall and kinda cheered (one of those lame half hearted ones). The ladies had a much more emotional exit from the hall with hugs and tears. It didn’t take long for everyone to do introductions again (how do you remember the names of people you can’t talk to for 9 days?). During rest periods everyone would form large groups and talk about their experiences so far in the course and the usual mixer conversations. We were warned meditation would be hard now that our minds had this extra source of distraction, but I actually found my meditations where a nice break from all the chit-chat. We learned the last and final step of the Vipassana technique that day, which is a little hokey to be honest; but at this point I couldn’t say it wasn’t worth doing based on my experiences so far.

Day 11

This day starts like all the others, but they throw in an audio discourse in the middle of morning meditation. At 7:15 or so we were “free”. Breakfast was served and volunteers had started to tear down the site and pack things up. I left with great feeling of rest, joy and general balance.

If you are interested in more details about the course or my experience, just ask me in person. So far I’ve been a very passionate about in sharing my experience to the people I’ve seen. Jolene has noticed a “glow of joy” about me. I generally feel “better” both physically and mentally. Most importantly, I don’t have this yearning for something more or feeling that I have no noble purpose.

I don’t want to give all my sources away, but I have been watching some select episodes from: http://marriageuncensored.ca/index.php I also enjoy the entertainment of Strictly Sex With Dr. Drew (it’s not just sex, it’s relationships as well). In the past I’ve always maintained felt that before I could honestly commit to a mutual relationship, I had to make sure I was mostly in order. I think I’m at the point where I’m as “mostly in order” as I’ll ever be. Many good and wise friends have helped along the way. A few self-books have helped me make reasonable choices as well. This brings me to my current feelings for a particular individual.

Possibly the scariest thing I can think of right now is that I don’t take the chance and loose it. Forever regretting my lack of balls and constantly forming questions like “I wonder how my life would be different if…” in my head. It would probably drive me to insanity or even worse, normalcy. The problem of course is situational. Distance is a major factor. There are mutual concerns about “Getting along in real life” as well. It’s also a little strange that a serious relationship has formed mostly online. It’s awkward to tell grampa and gramama that you met your partner online.

In spite of all of these… obstacles, I still find that I think about the positives. We talk about all sorts of interesting things (mutual interests so to speak). We can talk/act goofy and everyone has a good time (no one is creepy out by banana on the head improve comedy). Our hearts are lifted just by talking on the phone (my sexy phone voice FTW!) I could go on, but that’s all I really see… all I really care about. The most painful part of it all is literally the distance. It drives me crazy to not be there for someone I care so much about. It seems unnatural and unfair to me.

Really we have no one to blame but ourselves. We’ve made choices that prevent us from relocating for the next while. At this point in both our lives we’re more dedicated to our own personal pursuits. I think we share a mutual respect of our choices in this regard. At times I still play the “What if…?” game with myself. Considering if I had stayed in Winnipeg; or, while it was still appropriate, moved back to Winnipeg. Now we’re both tortured souls, 100′s of km apart.

This is the sort of thing where, if all works out for the good, it’s a super romantic “Love Conquers All” story. The pessimist in me of course likes to point out that, even thou everything looks fantastic… it doesn’t mean that the follow through will work. I’m ready to accept either out come. The first is an amazing story; the second a story of, “If you love them, let them go.”

For me the degree’s of love are fairly simple. It’s like the lesser of two evils sort of system. In theory I love everyone and thing. From there it’s just a matter of how much and in what ways. I can easily say that I love my friends and my family. I care about them and what happens to them. I look out for them when I can. It’s not a far stretch in my mind to say that those sorts of ideologies are a part of love. I think for the most part I have this system figured out to the extent that I know when my love is for a stranger, friend, family or significant other. I don’t seek to “rank” or prioritize in this system, it’s more that I just know where people fall within it.

What has been on my mind lately is the state of being in love. I’ve been in the state of loving my family since I’ve known them. It’s not a strange feeling and at this point in my life I’m very comfortable with it. What I’m struggling to grasp is the love that come between me and those I want to be with for the rest of my life. These feelings have always scared me to a certain extent. They’re not familiar and at times have been used against me in a hurtful way (Not that I haven’t done my fair share of hurting either).

I think in the essence of it, being in that particular state of love is like this:

• Caring about this person is intrinsically rewarding. AKA, it’s not a chore to listen to their problems and do what you can for their needs.
• You want to be with them, and you can ride through the rough times with them. Sometimes when someone is in a difficult stage of life it’s easy to just go and let them sort it out. Sometimes that makes them difficult to be around. I guess this aspect is the, “I’ll be there for you” part.
• Physical bond. By no means is this sex, but it can be. It’s more of the… mutual need to be close together. To share intimately in existing and take comfort that your not alone.
• Acceptance. We are not perfect. Love is not perfect. People evolve, relationships evolve and the world as a whole moves on. What ever flaws and quirks are there are going to be there for a lifetime in some way. It’s too much to ask a person not to be themselves, so instead you have to accept them for who they are. I think this is easy to do with family, and more so with friends (you typically don’t spend enough time with them to get the full brunt of the flaws and quirks). Choosing to be with someone for the rest of your life is something you have to be prepared for.
• Accepting yourself and love yourself. I don’t think I’ve been in the state of mind where I’ve hated myself much. On occasion I feel I’ve screwed up and disliked myself for a short period. Accepting myself has been a different story all together. I may appear to be confident much of the time. Internally I question much of what I do and I’m very critical of my actions. This has been something I’ve been getting better at over the years; but, I still have a few skeletons in the closet when it comes to accepting myself.

I’m not sure if this list is exactly comprehensive by any means. I’m sure just making it will spark further thought on the matter. What really brings this up is that I believe, right now that I am in this “state” of love. The situation itself is odd and difficult; but, it’s also interesting and fulfilling. I still doubt myself at times and question what I’m doing; but, every time I think about how being like this makes me feel… Well it’s just the oddest feeling connected and loved.

1. I have to be crazy about you. I have to honest to God think about you at leasts once a day for more than 10 seconds (preferably more). I have to have a burning desire to be with you in some what everyday, even on the bad ones.
2. I have to have meaningful conversations with you. That means conversations about us, and the world. I don’t care if we disagree.
3. A can-do attitude. So we’re on a rough patch, let’s work it out. Some times things take time, so patience is literally a virtue.
4. We have to share everything as best we can. Halfies on money stuff when we can. Equally sharing cooking and cleaning tasks in general. You get the idea…
5. Forgiveness. We’re both gonna make mistakes. We only get one chance at life, let’s not force ourselves to be miserable in the process.
6. Lastly, You have to have a soft and kind heart. Someone who cares about people and isn’t a self-centered bitch.

Wow – totally cool. A guy who is willing to write to me before seeing my picture!
I love the concept of geloscopy – predicting someone’s future based on their laughter. There are so many different types of laughs, the nervous laughter, the uninhibited laughter, the slightly evil laugh, the extremely evil laugh – they say so much about a person. I’ve never studied it, I don’t know where I would go. But I do pay attention to what makes people laugh and the way that they laugh, I think it says so much about a person. I’m extremely attracted to people who laugh a lot.

The entire idea of geloscopy not only amazed me, but showed me a new aspect of self and others I had never seen before. While I’m sure she didn’t invent this mysterious field of study, it was the start of my interest in a girl I would never meet.

I could go on a long story about how things progressed. I kept all our written communications with the intent of making a book with them. I didn’t record our phone/video conversations, but perhaps there are some things only I should know. I will say this thou, if I have every “fallen” into love. Head over heels for girl, this was the girl I did it for. I literally thought of her all the time. I imagined her closeness, believed I felt it too. I gave a level of trust I’ve never granted to anyone before. I… laid myself down before her as I am; and, she accepted me. If I had loved, I had love her and she had loved me.

Back to the story of sorts. Things were great, we were set to meet in only a month when things when strange. Last I talked to her we had planned on talking again the next evening. I waited the whole evening for her, but she never called… never came online. I figured, “I’m just some online guy and really life takes priority”. Really, I could understand something coming up and not being able to get online. I didn’t sleep that night… I was restless.

The next day I did what I often avoid doing, but do well when I do it. Worry. At the time I happened to remember her full name. Having only used voice over ip to talk, I had no need for her actual phone number. Now I was motivated to find that information. I knew she lived next to her brother, so searching for her last name and cross referencing addresses should of helped me find her number. As it turned out, it was unlisted.

I worried some more. I now wished I knew more details about her. What was the name of the place she worked at? What part of the city did she live in. Anything to help me find and contact her. I thought maybe I had done something wrong… I started to blame myself for opening up, sharing, trusting… Where this despair lead me, broke me.

It’s amazing what a desperate man will do for a woman. I eventually tracked down where she worked and managed to talk to someone she worked with. The conversation I had was possible the worst conversation I have ever had…
Me: Hi, I’m looking for Veronica.
Her: … Yes, who is this?
Me: I’m a friend of her’s, James.
Her: Your that guy from Canada?
Me: Yes?!
Her: She talked about you all the time
Me: … Oky, what’s going on?
Her: I don’t know how to say this, Veronica passed away on Monday.

And so I was broke. I got a few more details about what happened. I was given a number to call about the funeral and such. I couldn’t bring myself to call it, much less contemplate at last seeing her… So I did what people pretend to do best. Forget and move on. Except I did it wrong, I blocked out and never got over it.

It seemed like the universe had set out to crush my spirits and stir my souls foundations. I tried what I’ve always done to resolve issues. I wrote poems, read books and cooked. My poems were horrible. So sad and depressing I burned them. The books I read attempted to guide me, but I refused to accept their guidance. The cooking was alright thou.

When things settled down, I came out of my shell so to speak. A new James was born. A James who was bitter and angry. A James to rationed trust like the most precious resource known to man. Emotionally greedy and selfish, especially in relationships. I pushed friends away; and grew more bitter in my isolation. I was broken.

It’s funny how things work out over time. I wanted to get so far away from people I cared about and trusted that I got the great idea to teach over sea’s. I thought that maybe the extreme end of isolation would cure me some how. Then I was baited with the job of my “dreams”, but turns out my dreams were really elsewhere. I came back to where it all started, where all the people I pushed away were. I thought I was done my wandering and ready to move on. I was still broken.

It isn’t easy to describe what is exactly broken about me. “I have trust issues” doesn’t really cover it. I have “commitment issues” doesn’t cover it either. “Broken Heart” could explain many things, but still… doesn’t do it justice. It would best be described as loosing a piece of myself. That piece had some trust, commitment, heart and probably a few other things to boot. It’s my hope/belief that those sorts of things… grow back over time. All we have to do is nurture ourself so it can.

It’s been slow going really. I think I’m close to trusting again. I’m still scared of commitment. My heart is nearly recovered, but will perhaps always bare a scar. Some people call this emotional baggage, but I call it experience. Some people get married and divorced to get emotional experience. I threw myself out there and got a bad hand deal to me. I think I’ve learned a lot, but I’m far from knowing everything there is to learn from it. Moving on…

My dating for the last 6 months has been troubling for the last 6 months. I’ve felt like I’ve been leaving a trail of soul relationships in my wake. I’ve been leading girl after girl on… it’s a horrible thing to do, but imagine it like I was on emotional auto pilot. I didn’t realize I was doing it until it was too late. It wasn’t until recently that I realize this was going on. I believe I’m in the process of “removing” the emotional autopilot.

So this may seem confusing to read. It’s honestly still confusing to me. The short of the long is this. I’ve been broken for years. I now know that I am broken. I know why I am broken for the most part. I know what to do to fix myself. I know that it will take time to fix. I will one day be unbroken.

I turned 26 in December. Nothing incredibly exciting happened in relation to that event. I think I’m going deaf and blind thou. I guess getting older isn’t all that bad so far. I hear early 20′s girls dig older guys, so I figure my odd just keep getting better from here on.

I took a long Christmas vacation to relax and burn some of that vacation time I had from work. I was even moderately productive for the most part. I cleaned my room, organized my mass collection of pictures and music. Spent money on useless stuff online. Oh, and looked for a place to live.

Which brings me to the most recent and exciting business in my life. I’m currently looking to buy a house; but, it’s a crazy market in Saskatoon. Places are selling the same day they list. The ones that don’t sell that fast are usually like that with good reason. I do see some light at the end of the tunnel thou. I’ve recently been doing a lot of research and looking into a loft project downtown. It’s a year away from completion, but they have two show suites. I took a peek on Wednesday and I must say… it’s very tempting. It’s exactly the kind of modern/industrial living I’ve always dreamed of. The sales guy, Wayne, has been very helpful in answering my numerous questions. I’m expecting to be pre-approved on a mortgage on Monday. I’ll take another look on Tuesday, sort some more details out, and if my gut still tells me I’ll be happy… well gosh darn it I may just put the deposit down. Here’s their site, but it doesn’t have any real photo’s of their lofts. I intend to take some photo’s on Tuesday and I’ll post them on flicker. http://2ndavenuelofts.com/

Other small things that I’ve done of interest:

• I bought a WRAP BOARD with wireless to do our internet routing at home. I’m very impressed with the pfSense software I’m using on it. I bought the board and the related parts from Xagyl. They’re based in Canada, so no customs and cheaper shipping.
• I got a Nintendo Wii. Solo purpose is for playing with friends, so I have four Wiimotes and nunchuks. I bought Super Monkey Ball and Super Swing Golf for it. Also got Zelda because it’s apparently so good I’ll play it over and over again.
• My MazdaSpeed 3 is running great. There was “Check Engine Light” for a cold weather problem with some sensor for the longest time. Fixed under warranty just before Christmas. Seems like Mazda doesn’t really test their cars for Canadian climate, but they’re really good about fixing cold weather problems as a result.
• I’ve taken a sudden interest in battery technology again. I bought a fancy NiMH charger. Also some 2500mh and 2700mh AA batteries for my Camera Flash. Flash cycle time is amazingly fast now, not to mention I get way more flashes out of it. Also bought some Eneloop batteries for my Wiimotes.
• I quit World Of Warcraft. Sold my account for a bunch of money.
• Also sold my Nokia E61 and my k750i last month. Not so much money made there, but I should learn to not buy a phone when it first comes out…

Well that’s all I can think of for now. For those who care, I’m considering GM’ing for D&D again. I’m debating if I want to do a pure fantasy world; or, if I should make up some crazy world based lightly on real history and some books I’ve read in the last three years. I rather enjoy making that stuff up, but it consumes way too much of my free pondering time. Which reminds me, I may start writing a book again. This time I’ll freaking back it up everywhere and print drafts as I go along. Never again will I loose a novel worth of work…

First of all, it reduces the number of decisions that have to be made. When a woman is with a man, there is no question that the man should open that door. Thus avoiding awkward moments where both try to open the door, or they both stand their with dumb looks on their faces waiting for the other to open the door. Really, this is just a subtle optimisation of how society works.

Second reason, is that if the door is booby trapped; or, the room contains some sort of… dangerous situation… Well, it’s best to send the bravest in first and let them deal with it. After all, we’re just lowly men who can’t really do anything for ourselves but eat and fart (and scratch our balls).

Now I realize there is a flaw to this system. What happens when, by chance, two men approach a door at the same time. Who should open the door? I often find that eye contact proceeds these sorts of encounters and our animal instincts kick in. We race for the door like it’s a prize to open; but, instead of opening the door and letting the other through… we quickly race through and let go of the door. Making the slower animal… er… man have to work harder to catch the door before it closes and open it again.

Now, I haven’t studied what happens when two women get to the door. Being more passive in their ways I can imagine one of two things would happen. The both strike up a conversation at the door waiting for a man to open it for them. Or, if they happen to be a a place were no man would enter/exit (lets say… a store that only sells tampons), then the following would likely happen: Lady A offers to open door. Lady B declines and offers to open door for Lady A. Lady A notices that lady B is slightly more overweight than herself, and offers again (politely) to open the door for lady B. Lady B notices that lady A is wearing high heels (and it must be killing her feet), so offers to open door for lady A. This process can probably last several hours on the worst of days.

In case you didn’t realize it, this is supposed to be funny. Don’t bother ranting at me or posting something mean in reply to it… I’ll just moderate it out (I’m the dictator of my own website, imagine that).

• Everyone hates liars. Fancy that, people want to be told the truth, but often despise you for telling it. At any rate, nearly every profile mentions it or it is mentioned very early on in communication
• Everyone wants to laugh. I remember reading paper that said laughing is a natural defense mechanism… Either way it’s fun. The only thing that varies is the type of humor.
• 80% of the people I met in RealLife(tm) lied about their age, weight and/or height. In one case, their race as well. Not that it matters, but why did they lie about it? See first point
• Cougars lurk within the system trying to trap you. Often they will do creepy stuff like use the picture of their daughter ( Sorry, your too old for me… but can I have your daughters email address?) Ya, creepy.
• The more you pay for a match making service, online dating thingy, the less matches you will get.
• Once a services start suggesting people on another continent it’s time to move on. Nothing like getting matched with people from Russia…

When it comes down to it, I’ve had more success just blatantly hitting on women and getting their numbers. At first I felt like a total jerk or something, but it turns out girls like attention. Just don’t be an ass about it. Remember, networking is your friend. Make friends with girls and maybe they can hook you up. My best matches ( and some of my worst) have been friend referrals.