Death and Dying

Our culture is slightly strange, in more than one way. We will all die. A time will come when none of us here today will be alive in the future. It's the way of life, the way that our world works. Things are born, they reproduce, they live, and then they die. And the cycle continues on and on.

Our culture, however, is appalled by this idea. All around is, marketting is aimed at running away from aging, running away from death and dying. The cosmetic industry is thriving on these values. "Take years away from your eyes with our rejuvenating cream!" Or the preoccupation with hair dying, or cosmetic surgery, or botox injections. Nevermind that, however about medical advancements? Thousands of dollars are spent on making us live longer. It's not that I mean to say this is a bad thing, but where do we draw the line? I feel as though at a certain point, it becomes futile. Dying people die, and to some degree, we are all dying people. We will all die. What is the hope of our medical research, what is it's ultimate goal - that we will someday defeat death? We can no more defeat death than we can stop earthquakes from happening.

Don't get me wrong - it's not that I want us to abandon health care and the preservation of life. Clearly, life is important and precious for many reasons. But I wish we weren't so scared and petrified of death and aging. It is something that happens, and I would much rather we embrace it as a culture, and see it as a part of life, as oppose to do all in our power to pretend it doesn't happen.

It must be great...

Hello to the vast public of no one that reads this blog.

I'm just putting this out there, as a statement to my feelings.

What do I want in my life? I want a life with meaning. And by meaning, I'm talking about happiness, sorrow, laughing in the rain, and crying when friends. I want to be surrounded by good people who care about me, and who care about the world and everyone else in it. I want to have a career where I feel like I am making a difference in the lives of people around me, that without my intervention, their lives would be a slightly darker shade. But most of all, I want someone in my life who thinks I'm great. I want someone who can't imagine spending their life with anyone else, except for me. I want someone who has their shit together, but they can still cry when sad things happen. I want someone who I can open up to and share my deepest feelings. I want someone who shares my morals and my values. That's what I want in my life.

Thinking everything, knowing nothing

Do you ever get the feeling that the more thinking you do on a subject, the more confusing it gets?

Or, does your gut feeling tell you one thing, but you want to do another thing?

It's like the sensation of thinking about all things at once, yet not knowing anything for certain. The suspense will kill you.

Coolest Vacation Idea

I came across this company the other day:

http://www.nfld.net/vikingboattours/

Very cool. One of these days I'm going to have to go to Newfoundland, just so that I can ride on the cool viking boat.


Update: I made it through Friday and Saturday okay, but Sunday is proving to be quite a downer.

Not a good day

Today did not start out well. Not only did I wake up feeling physically ill, it's one of those emotionally ill days as well. They usually start off with a queezy, anxious feeling in my stomach, and they progress to depression by the end of the day. It usually sets the tone for the next day as well. And the worst part of it all? These bad days usually occur on Fridays, making Saturdays pretty lame as well.

I just wish I could go back to feeling 'normal.'

School, Work or a Career?

I am a full time student, enrolled in a professional school. After I'm done my four years of schooling, I'll go on to an 'apprenticeship,' where I'll start making a very small amount of money, until they're ready to put the stamp of approval on my head, and I can go out working on my own. At this point in my life, I am still learning things, coming home and doing projects and studying. And that will probably be an aspect of my life for the next 8 years or so.

I feel like I'm at the point of my life, though, where I want to start living, and stop studying. I feel like I want to have a job, and a life. I'm tired of coming home, and not being able to do the things that I want to do with my free time. Subsequently, this sentiment has lead to a shift in my mindset, from thinking of school as 'school,' to thinking of it as my 'job.' (Real deep, I know.) This is significant for me, though. An identity is not anyone's job, any more than it is their concentration in school. Sure, I enjoy school, and I (think that I) will enjoy my profession when it becomes a paying job. However, it does not define who I am.

I cannot being to explain the amount of freedom this shift in mindset has done for me. When someone asks me what I do now, or who I am, I can say that I am living, and I am doing a lot of things, and I am a lot of different things right now. I am not simply a student, or once I graduate I will not be simply a health care professional. I feel free to spend my time on activities other than studying.

And for once in my life, I feel like I am actually living, and I am doing things in my life that I enjoy.

Female Sexual Health

Today I had an interesting discussing with a number of people about female genital mutilation (FGM). For more details, see this article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting

(Does anyone - of the millions reading this - know how to edit it so that you just click on a term, and there isn't a big ugly link stuck in the page? I haven't figured out how to format it.)

Anyways, on with the discussion. FGM is a practice which exists prodominantly in African cultures. There are many variations of FGM, with varying degrees. Some include making a small nick in either a labia major or minor. Others, however, involved infibulation. Typically, this means surgical removal of the clitoris and the labia minor, and surgical closure of the labia major, leaving a small opening for urine and menstrual blood. (The wikipedia article gives a description of these, and has a small diagram comparing different types. My information comes from a OBGYN with ~25 years of practice in Canada.) Following suturing, the labia major eventually fuse together.

These procedures are typically carried out during childhood, around age 8-10. There is no anesthetic used, and the conditions are not usually sterile. I cannot imagine what these girls go through - during the procedure, and during adulthood in their sexual relationships.

There have been many people within communities who practice FGM, who have spoken out about its practice, asking their communities to rethink this particular tradition. My question is, however, are there women out there who are... happy? pleased? that they have gone through this? Is it such an integral part of their female body image that to not have the procedure is to be stigmatized? For those women within the culture who have not had it done, it must be awkward to explain to their sexual partners/husbands why their anatomy is not what is expected.

What makes FGM mutilation, and removal of the foreskin not mutilation? What authority do we have to decide?

This whole 'writing down my thoughts' thing is fairly new, and I still feel quite clumbsy about it all. Too bad I couldn't just plug an S cable into my head, and everyone could see the 3D multi-media production that is my thoughts.

Music: Beth Orton

A friend of mine recently introduced me to Beth Orton's CD, Comfort of Strangers. I had never heard of Beth Orton, but I was so impressed! Beautiful sound, beautiful lyrics and use of instruments. This CD (if not the artist) is sure to become a favorite of mine. She has a nice mixture of upbeat tunes, and some more relaxed, intimate tunes, but the overarching feeling of the album is just beautiful harmonies and lyrics.

Little know fact about me - I don't have an MP3 player. This is okay with me, as for the most part, I don't really care to have a soundtrack to my life. But today, I was wishing that I had an MP3 player so I could chill to the music. I've listened to 'Comfort of Strangers' once so far, and I already miss it.

Hello Visitors!

Just wanted to say hello to anyone who stops by to read my blog.

Please drop a note in a the comment section, so I know you were here!

Why the title?

I suppose it's only fitting that I begin by explaining the reason why my blog is titled "Unfinished Landscape." There are a couple of reasons. First - and most obvious - I have a landscape painting that is currently unfinished. (Brilliant, I know.) When I was thinking of what to name this blog, I wanted to choose something that reflected the fact that I feel like I am a work in progress. So why a landscape, in particular? At first, landscape stuck in my head, and I thought the title of the blog sounded kind of cool - a little mysterious. Then I thought of reasons why landscape should be the particular unfinished thing. Which lead me to thinking about what landscapes are like.

There are many forces that exert themselves upon a landscape - weather, animals, human activity. A landscape cannot physically exert itself in any forceable way to counteract any of those forces, it must simply adapt to them. I feel as though life is often like this - there are so many changes and forces around us that we cannot control, but yet we must be subject to them, and survive past them. We cannot control the weather, or the people around us. We just have to keep rolling with the punches.

Then again, on a less depressing note, landscapes also get to soak up all the sun they want when the weather is good. So, metaphorically, it's a mixed blessing to be a landscape. And by that token, I think it's also a mixed blessing to be a human.

Here we go

The first post of the new blog: This is new.

More posts to follow . . .