0.5 Life and Death

Today a tragic accident occured in New York.  Yankee pitcher Corey Lidle crashed his plane into an appartment complex killing himself, another person on board and possibly other people in the building.

Now, there was conversation that all the baseball games should be cancelled today due to this incident.  It doesn’t look like any of the games will be cancelled because of Mr. Lidle’s death.  Should the games be cancelled because a player died or should they continue on?  I think we have to go with the “he/she would want us to continue” cliche.  I don’t think the death of a single person should shut down a whole league.  It would just be like if someone in a large business were to perish.  Would the whole place shut down?  Of course not.  There would be a moment of silence and recognition of that person and their life, as well as therapists to help certain people deal with the death.  I know that death is a big deal, but life must go on.  People will obviously mourn but their lives will continue on.

The topic of death is always a hard one to deal with.  It could happen to any one at any time.  Still, death is a part of life.

0.4 My Canadian Identity

I know this is a little late (or a little early). This post is to make up for the missed one on Wednesday. It’s about time, ha.

What I’ve come to talk about tonight is the Canadian Identity. We say that we are Canadian, but that we’ve also come from somewhere else. No one is purely, 100% Canadian. You’re always 10% one thing, 25% another, 5% something else, etc., etc. This is clearly relevant when it comes to sports, especially soccer. No other sport brings out your heritage than the sport of soccer. Everyone from all the “little” cities come out in full force to support their soccer teams. Canada plays a soccer game? Barely any huff or puff made about it. Italy is playing? Portugal is playing? Well, it’s time to get the face paint and flag all ready.

I’m not saying that anything is wrong with this. I just find it sort of interesting that we always have another place we identify as “where we came from.” Where our ancestors came from is where we identify. Some people feel stronger about this concept than others, but it is, nonetheless, widespread. Even Natives don’t completely identify themselves as “from Canada” as it’s almost always from the band that they are from.

Could this sense of a real Canadian identity be that Canada is relatively a new country? I believe so. But, how long is it until those born and raised in Canada purely Canadian? 5, 10, 15 generations? Will it ever happen? Who knows. Could it be that Canada really doesn’t have that rich a history? We haven’t even been around for 150 years. Yes, there has been people living here for thousands of years, but they’ve never been a unified country.

I know that I, personally, refer to myself as Canadian, with Slovak, English and a variety of other nationalities that make up who I am. I think without acknowledging that history I can’t truely identify my whole heritage and those that have brought me to where I am, my family, present and past.

Maybe that’s why you don’t find a true Canadian. We all have a history. I’m sure when countries were starting to form all those thousands of years ago, people didn’t always identify themselves as being from that country. It seems a nation needs an entrenched history for people to truely identify with them. Many will say that immigration is a huge part of what makes up Canada and that may be why people refer to themselves as something else. But, immigration occurs all over the world, yet people still identify themselves with a certain group.

Maybe we don’t know what a Canadian really is. There is no true definition for it. We don’t have an ethnic culture. We are a mish-mash of different people. We are just a land with people.

We are all Canadians, but we all came from somewhere else. History will make us one.

0.3 The Superficial World

Well, here I am. This will be a regular update day for me, as well as Wednesdays. These days I’ll do a post about something in this world that affects me one way or another. Any other day, I will reply to any questions and whatnot.

I’m going to just briefly touch on how this world has become so overly superficial. I know that I personally can be superficial at times, but I do realize this and I don’t feel very good about it. You don’t have to go very far in this world to see just how superficial everything as become. Turn on the TV, open a magazine, walk down the street. Everywhere. In advertising, in shows, people on the street. Superficiality has become the norm in today’s society. If you are a woman and you’re not slim, slender, skinny and drop-dead gorgeous, you’re considered to be ugly. If you weigh a little over 100lbs, you’re fat and gross. If you’re a man and you’re not buff, ripped and a model, then you’re no good. It’s sick how this is all protrayed all over Western culture. Television and movies just perpetuate this whole ideal of a perfect person, and anything less than perfect is bad. It’s all because sex sells.

I’m sure if sex didn’t sell so well than we wouldn’t have such a problem with superficiality. Sadly, it does. And, sadly, that’s what we will continue to see. People will continue to see so called “sexy” as being what’s right and so called “ugly” as being wrong. It’s just not right. People cannot live up to these standards. People get sick trying. People die trying. Everyone just needs to step back and see that this is all horribly wrong. I mainly blame advertising and the sorts as the reason to this world being so overly superficial. If not for them, the norm would be everyday people like you and me, not some photoshopped model you see all over ads.

It’s up to you and me and everyone else to realize and let the world know that it’s ok not to fit some unreachable ideal. We have to be able to see others as being normal. Being superficial and looking at outer beauty is something that’s wrong with this world. It’s something we can change though.

I’ll talk more about this issue at a later date.