Monday, August 27, 2007

In A World That Celebrates Nothingness...

I am finally rousing myself from watching a Western gunfight lol on TV to write this snippet of my life over the past week.

Today I spent the day at my new job - teaching at a Christian High School. I love it. Teaching is my thing - to motivate and inspire the young to go conquer the world.You know, I so enjoy living. I wish everyone would just celebrate life, embrace the moment of time they have been given on earth, and just fill the time with valuable experiences.

I know lots of you enjoy your life - with your active outdoors, natural living. Last night was the last performance for this drama, stage play that I was acting in, which we now have on home DVD. I got home at 12 p.m. All day today I was so sleepy. But a cup of coffee took care of that eventually.
But the Theatre Festival was quite an experience. This is where about 40 up and coming actors, musicians and other artistic performers performed at an amateur theatre festival downtown Toronto. They all recently graduated from Film, Acting and Theatre schools, and wanted to showcase their gifts. I found the experience amazing and something else. The talent was so refreshing to see.
Most people live boring, mundane lives doing nothing at all with their natural human potential. These were people reaching deep into themselves to touch stars way above their heads.But you know what I found? All the performances were of the hip young generation of 2007. And the plays and music and dance all portrayed how the hip urban young live and think today. What I observed is that people today live for nothing - like the Seinfeld show. We all find meaning and purpose in nothing at all.
Like the play I acted in. It was of four friends who each has their career and goal in life. Three guys and a girl. They were all going away to separate pursuits and decided to meet for a farewell goodbye. Where else would four young friends meet in Toronto for a meaningful farewell? A coffee shop, of course - Tim Hortons. And they sit and reminisce about their relationships.
One was going off to do his doctorate, the other to work in Bermuda - "a place of pink sand and clear water, unlike Lake Ontario", the other (the girl) getting married to a guy she did not really love, and me, a preacher going to travel the country to find God and marry people freelance. Mind you, the girl had at one point or another dated each of the guys. Free sex and the folly of love.These four friends tell each other outlandish, nonsensical stories - one of discovering a mystical (and mythical) toilet when he was drunk, the girl about some sludge monster that scientists had concocted and that now lived in Lake Ontario feeding on the polluted water, the other about little gnomes carrying out world conspiracy, and me about marry a Star Wars geek and a Star Trek nerd. Imagine. This is what passes for conversation, meaningful talk, among the young, educated urban elite.
All the other performances reinforced this theme of nonsensical living - pointless, meaningless, purposeless passion in the everyday pursuit of nothing.This excursion into threatrical fantasy that mirrored the drama of life followed my two days at a church camp just outside Cookstown, near to Barrie on Highway 400, north of Toronto.For two days I was without cell phone (cause there was no signal), without internet and without any of the modern comforts we so take for granted - including a comforter, sheet for the bed, or even a decent bed, or a private shower. Pure rugged living.
With 70 other people on the campground. I heard a fantasy 'Jesus' preached and urged on those who want to experience "blessings". A wierd and whacky world. These people brought their families and loaded up in a school bus (some drove their own car) fetching brown cardboard boxes of Toronto-bought groceries. They cooked and played games, including tug-o-war between parents, and then the kids against each other, separated into teams labelled red, green and yellow.
They ate, sang, listened to the Jesus fantasy, and then departed for their real life back at the job on Monday to pay the bills for a house they hardly spend time in, cause they are working round the clock to pay off the mortgage and the car. And the kids spend all day at school and then troop off to the babysitter.I left the camp early - on Friday night around 1 a.m. and drove through heavy rain and a dark night to find the highway to Toronto. I came home and slept like a baby.
Saturday I got up and off I went to pick up a blind guy to take him to a summer BBQ at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Center, for disabled people. At this event, where I was all day, about 50 people socialised - some who are in wheelchairs, others who are deaf and dumb and yet others who are blind or lame in some way. Fascinating crowd. And these people sing and dance and play their own games for prizes, and give their own speeches calling for rights for the disabled.Man. My life is fascinating.
This experience of rubbing shoulders with all these fringe communities that make up our society is quite a revelation to me. I go in to each playing a role, but mostly using my writer's instinct and Journalist's observation skill to observe. And I learn so much about life, and people and our world.Like Wednesday last week. I met up with a bunch of second-generation Canadians, people in their 20's and 30's born here and educated at the best univiersities in Canada. We gathered at this guy's apartment downtown Toronto (he works as an engineer at a high paying job).
We ordered pizza and non-alcoholic beer and squeezed in on his sofa and couch to watch six hours of re-runs of the YTV animated cartoon classic, Reboot. All the while his cat kept flirting with his legs under the coffee table.I had never seen this show before. But boy was it a fascinating experience.
The show is so deep and revealing of this generation's culture. I learned a lot about our world. The show is filled with references to pop culture and the politics that drives the world system. But it is also filled with spiritual refereneces. That show surely is a commentary on our world - it even refers to the spiritual myths we live by.Yeah, so this world we live in is amazing and amazing and amazing… and the adventures continue …

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Copyright Shaun Michael Samaroo 2007 –
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