Has been

You talking to me?
you talking to me?
you calling me... has been?

What'd you say your name is?
Jack, never done jack
Glad to meet you, who's your friend?
Dick, don't say dick
Whadya know. And you friend, what's your handle?
Don, two thumbs don

* * *

That comes from a funny song William Shatner did (yep, Captain Kirk sings... sort of.)

A funny song that hits me square in the chest. I guess it hits too close to home. One of the toughest parts of starting a new company is it's making me face my demons from the last one. The one that I failed at. The one where I made so many mistakes that I still feel a little ashamed. The one that my so-called-partner squeezed me out of.

I guess you could say, it brings up some painful memories.

Tomorrow is my last day at Kodak. After that, it's full throttle with the new venture. But before that, I get to pass through what feels like the jaws of hell. I'm off to a CEO's conference which would be great if it wasn't also going to be attended by the folks who ran me out of the last company.

It's not easy feeling like a failure.

I know that the only way to grow is to step outside your comfort zone and try something new. And when trying something new, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. But knowing that in my head doesn't make it any easier in my heart. If I can do one thing, I hope it's keeping my chin up. Let the anger go. Be humble and still hopeful. Miracles happen.


What are you afraid of? Failure?

So am I

(has been... has been...)

Has been implies failure... not so.
Has been is history
Has been... was

Has been

...might again


~ William Shatner

All I need is everything

I sometimes feel like a television with the volume turned off. It's almost like most of the people around me only ever catch half of the message and the rest is filtered out. They catch the words but miss the spirit. Whenever I hear people say that they just want to be understood, it makes me think of this phenomenon. We spend so much time listening with our ears that we forget to listen with our hearts.

Tonight, I went to yoga with the hopes of bridging this gap (between the heart and head) inside of me. It was closed due to the snow. Damn.

Walking home, I thought about how the external world seemed to reflect my inner world. The cold and the bitterness had me retreating inside my jacket hood and was limiting my vision. With a block to go, I threw off my hood as a symbolic gesture. The snow didn't let up but I could see more of the world around me. Somehow, this also set my heart free.


Calm down. Be still.
We've got plenty of time to kill.
No hand writing on the wall:
just the voice that's in us all.
And you're whispering to me,
time to get up off my hands and knees,
'cause if I beg for it, it won't come.
I find nothing but table crumbs.
My hands are empty.
God I've been naive

~Over the Rhine

If I ever lose my faith in you

Over the years, I've read and watched a reasonable amount of J.R.R. Tolkien and it occurs to me that I keep coming back to his work because there's so much there that it sometimes takes a little time and experience before we can understand the subtleties of his work.

I was watching "The Two Towers" last night and have been thinking the faith that Frodo would need to guide him when all hope was failing. Circumstance told him one story but he chose to believe that he'd find a way through.

There are so many moments in life when the road is unclear. Even when we know the path we should take, it's not always certain what will happen if we do. As children, we were afraid of the dark. Did we ever really grow out of that?

I wonder if it's possible to damage our fate by giving into our fears. I don't think we can necessarily stop the things we are required to do but perhaps we delay them and diminish their effectiveness if we are unwilling to walk into uncharted territory. I am certain that the road to greatness is beset with fear and uncertainty. Perhaps it is the very act of passing through those terrors that burns the mediocrity off us.

May faith guide us when our path is hidden.

More lessons then just guitar

I was in buying guitar strings today and the owner was trying to sell me on some lessons with an overly booked instructor (he even had a waiting list!) Since I wasn't buying any lessons, the proprietor (Karl) then suggested I at least consider buying his guitar book. Karl told me a story of how 40 something years ago he had just started selling guitars and a man came into his store, offering to teach lessons. This was good news for Karl since he only taught the accordian.

"Have you been in my store before?"
"No but I don't have any enemies in Vietnam."

Having been born in a generation that didn't witness this first hand, it took me a second to understand the implication of this short dialog. His country had asked him to join in a fight that wasn't his own and to kill people whom he had no quarrel with, so he came to Canada. Karl got a great guitar instructor and Sherman got to start a new life in a country that wouldn't throw him in jail for following his conscience. I'm glad for both of them.

P.S. I bought the guitar book.

If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you

~ Rudyard Kipling

Ants Marching

As my last few weeks at my old job wind down, I pause to reflect on why I chose to leave. After all, it's probably one of the best paying software shops in Victoria, I'm generally treated well and my colleagues are terrific. If I wanted to write software for the rest of my life, that'd probably be terrific.

I the trouble is, I don't. The idea of doing the same thing every day for the rest of my career never sat well with me. I don't want to be an ant.

And all the little ants are marching
Red and black antennas waving
They all do it the same
They all do it the same way

I don't want to just exist. I want to live.

we are all made of stars

I have no idea what Moby was getting at when he wrote the song that shares it's name with this blog entry but it occurred to me... he's right.

Once upon a time, alchemists worked hard to transform lead into gold. Given the understanding of metallurgy that came from their attempts, it's probably better that no one told them it takes a supernova to form gold. Given that our sun (which will only go nova) doesn't even have enough energy to transform lead into gold, they probably shouldn't be too dissapointed. Diamonds, however, are made of carbon - which our sun is actively producing as we speak. (Well, at least as I type and later as you read...)

Think about that the next time you see a diamond in a gold ring. Everybody gets so excited about the diamond (partially due to DeBeers doing a great job marketing them) that they miss the fact that the gold it's encased in is much, much harder to create.

We, like diamonds, are largely made of (common) carbon and under the right conditions, can also become sharp, hard and pretty. Let's hope it doesn't take a supernova to make our hearts as malleable as gold.

It takes a lot of love

I reconnected with an old friend the other day. Once upon a time, we were extremely close but somewhere along the line, we started to drift apart. A little at first and then a lot. At some point, we decided to go our own ways. Life happens.

I generally try not to morn the loss of things. Sometimes I think that our hearts ebb and flow like the tides and we do more damage when we resist these natural tendencies. People change. And as we come in and out of phase with people we care about, there will come times when you no longer see eye to eye. And even if it doen't end well, why should today's bitterness diminish yesterday's fond memories?

It takes a lotta love
It takes a lotta love my friend
To keep your heart from freezing
To push on till the end

It takes wisdom too, to let go when you have to.

A few months ago, I came across a picture of the two of us and a mutual friend in a bar in Calgary. All these memories came back of how T and I had both gone to visit different friends in Calgary and both ended up at Joc's place. It made me remember how the three of us had ditched Stampede in preference for hiking in Canmore one day and checking out the museums in Drumheller the next. We all used to be really good friends.

So, I did what any sane person would do. I the picture up where I could see it. After all, I wanted to remember the people who've helped shape me into the man I am now. So it didn't really come as a surprise to see T again, nor did it surprise me that we got along so well. If you ever have the opportunity to truly get close to another human being, do so. The bonds you will form will last longer than you know.

let go of your heart
let go of your head
and feel in now

bird on a wire

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
He said to me, you must not ask for so much.
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
She cried to me, hey, why not ask for more?

~Leonard Cohen

So who do you listen to? The spiritual view would say to pay attention to the beggar though it's clear that more people tend to listen to the pretty woman. (I guess I'm not the only sucker for a pretty face...)

I'm inclined to believe that both have their place.