To thine own self be true

with the woman who has a kitchen disaster is absolutely hilarious and true. A case of Truth in Advertising. As she’s lying, humiliated and crushed on the floor, the big family dog comes over to lick her face and help her feel better. Not! He picks up the meat and walks away with it, later being found asleep after stuffing himself despite the woman’s disaster. We need more of these commercials. Likewise in political ads.

(the two top must-see Xmas message-movies of all-time; great Truths in both)

“He who loses his life shall find it.”–quoted by Joseph Campbell

Two of the most inspiring Christmas movies ever are the Alistair Sim version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and Frank Capra’s movie It’s a Wonderful Life. They have inspired many generations of viewers with their simple, yet profound core messages about life.

Both show us the great difference between (transitory, ephemeral, living) presence and (deathly, ghostly, forever) absence–or the extreme loss of presence. In the Dickens’ former, Scrooge comes to learn the hard way that absence can be a terrible point-of-no-return and that he has meanly absented himself from his family, his sister, her son, his fiance, his employee Bob Cratchit, and his business partner Marley. In his heartless obsession with accumulating meaningless wealth, he has also alienated himself from whatever good qualities he once possessed or valued in the past.

It is only through realizing unchangeable, irrevocable absences like those of his dead sister, fiance, and Marley and by being given a glimpse of a future without Tiny Tim and himself, that he is able to reconnect with finer values of kindness, love, and generosity. These values, in turn, help him to reconnect positively with both society and his once-better self. In the world of A Christmas Carol, the only other alternative is grim, stark hopelessness, suffering, and death, as amply revealed by the three ghosts who visit Scrooge.

Scrooge’s final appreciation of presence and being alive become epiphany and reason enough for him to celebrate and re/connect with the social world. Though this change comes late in his life, Scrooge ‘magically’ finds that he can will any possibility into being with humor and a better attitude–key positive manifestations of both presence and consciousness.

Likewise, George Bailey, the main character in It’s a Wonderful Life, suddenly finds himself ‘lost’ and ‘gone missing’ in a way reminiscent of Scrooge, but, in contrast, he is truly a desperate man driven by crisis to the brink of suicide. The beginning of his salvation occurs at the bridge when he saves his drowning guardian angel Clarence. That event alone reveals George’s essential nature of putting others before himself, something he had previously done all his life.

Like Scrooge, he is shown life without his presence and an alternate nightmarish version of his own community–a negative view caused by his absence and his granted wish to never been born. After a final repentance, George is given back his less-than-perfect life, grateful for the chance to recover both presence and life. Like Scrooge, his limited/limiting, blinkered attitude changes and he embraces life, with all its problems and shortcomings. That said, both protagonists find a richness through their experience and a renewed appreciation of presence and others. And as both characters discover, nearly anything becomes possible when one fully accepts and embraces life and presence.

Today we still hear that Christmas can be a stressful, isolating time of year for some individuals in our society. For those who may find themselves similarly ‘lost’ or ‘gone missing’, these two classics offer helpful perspectives on some of the ‘basics’ for finding or recovering meaning in one’s own life.

…………………

*A reminder that all Campbell quotes used on this blog are excerpted from his excellent  Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion

is 3-4 x better as an NHL color commentator than Drew Remenda. The Oilers or Rogers (whoever pays his salary) should fire him and replace him with Cassie. She is straightforward, accurate, insightful, and not a smarmy showboat or full of herself like the muttering, irrelevant, intrusive, and distracting Remenda who ignores on-ice play when it resumes and keeps yammering for 30-60 seconds. Bring on Cassie!

“In the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer.”

Legalizing pot and throwing current and future generations of youth to the wolves in order to fatten government coffers. No other reason.

As stated before here, not only will the 18+ youth category become endangered and dangerous (to others), but all other high-school kids will be able to access dope easier in schools and on the schoolyards. This will change the atmosphere of high schools hugely, negatively.

And you can be sure that (too) many older brothers and sisters will be making pot available to their younger siblings more easily, “all in the family” so to speak. This effect will be multiplied by all the pot-smoking parents and relatives out there. too. No, I would not want to be a senior or junior high teacher, school board, district, or provincial education body out there trying to teach and educate after the legislation comes into effect.

Nor would I want to be a cop suddenly have to check for marijuana use while driving. There will be many more needless accidents and deaths on the road because of Justin’s sheer greed. To say nothing of the innocent people charged who are non-pot-smokers, but who happened to be in the company of pot smokers. The driving abuses, by the way, will be a deliberate slap-in-the face to MADD. We don’t need more mothers, parents, families, and friends to be hurt by the likely rise in accidents and deaths.

I also pity anyone who lives in an apartment or condo with smoke streaming into their homes from next door, through floors, and down the hall (much in the way food smells travel easily). Other innocent folks, kids and families can ‘get high’ in the long haul from all this deeply penetrating second-hand smoke.

Yes and it’ll be tough on people living in houses as the pot smell comes easily and regularly wafting over neighbours’ fences, depriving anyone and everyone to the right to clean, breathable, unstoned air not just in the summer, but spring and fall, too.  The same polluted air will also affect zoos, parks and visitor sites, reducing users’ rights, pleasures, and enjoyment of Nature.

Bob Dylan once comically sang that “Everybody must get stoned.” Well, in Canada, this is about to become a Big Reality, because of a purely money-grabbing move that will change the lives of many/most Canadians clearly for the worse. Canada will eventually  become known as the ‘highest’ country in the world! Justin is ‘Dope’ man, eh?

And today’s announcement from Ralph Goodale about an additionally expensive awareness campaign about the dangers of pot and driving is the most hypocritical declaration yet about how Canadians are being thrown to the wolves and should adapt to Liberal/Big Brother stupidity, irresponsibleness, and carelessness about ordinary citizens, their freedoms, and rights. There is zero common sense and necessity about any of what is about to befall us because of a massive cash grab and the federal government no longer caring about the environment (the subsequent reduction of clean, breathable air and right of Canadians to breathe unnecessarily, government-approved polluted air), Canadian kids, and everybody else.

Meghan Markle picks her dream wedding dress.
(While no mention of WW111.)
The frivolous rules these daze.
People prefer to live in a dream world rather than admit to the possibility of the planet’s destruction by two crazy clowns.

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”

(left: 1st UK ed., 1942; right: 1st American ed., 1941)

5-time Governor-General’s award-winner Hugh MacLennan’s writing career began with Barometer Rising–his fictional account of the explosion based on personal reminiscences. He did a lot to introduce the event to Canadians and many readers outside of Canada, thus immortalizing this tragic historical event in Canada’s history. The explosion killed 2,000 and injured another 9,000, while destroying much of the city at the end of WW1. It was the largest man-made explosion preceding the atomic bomb in WW11.

Edmonton Sun headlines today:
“We Can’t Trust Our Safety to Trudeau
PM Wants to Integrate ISIS Fighters Who Return to Canada”

Do you see the U.S. trying to do this? Why not? Doh.
Since our PM hasn’t helped fund international fighting against ISIS or stood with other nations against these evil guys who want to kill everyone who is non-ISIS, how can he be trusted with Canada’s safety and security? Whose side is he on? How much taxpayer money does he want to spend unsuccessfully trying to rewire these hard-wired assassins? Is he just one of those stupid “bleeding hearts” his father once referred to? How can he support treason against Canada and still be the country’s leader? Doh. “Lock him up” or get someone else in to replace him who has a modicum of common sense and true loyalty to Canadians.

National Post front page ad today:
“Invite Intelligence Into Your Home”
with a visual of a coffee and a rolled-up Post.

Yes, you definitely have a better shot at intelliegence when reading good newspapers like the Post or Globe and Mail in Canada, rather than using a ‘smartphone’, for instance. Sadly the e-technology has left a lot of users dumb and ego-limited, not intelligent as the original information superhighway propaganda promised. Print still remains a superior route to information that matters more and truly educates the mind and brain more. People who read newspapers, magazines, and journalism are often more informed overall and more rational than those who get their useless, frivolous, and trivial info from the endless spout of e-media.