3.3.08

Monday Ruminations



It’s hard not to feel cynical on Monday’s at the tale end of winter, as the north wind keeps it’s icy fingers wrapped tight around my bones on the early morning bike commute to work. Am I having an existential crisis? I doubt it. Perhaps just feeling a bit less enamored with the reality that is daily middle class life, the life I find myslef in in North America. Or is it just my middle class life?

Let’s see here –get up every morning at 6:30 and take a shower and dress business casual for work. I make oatmeal for B and I and a carafe of coffee, French pressed, and then I sit under the SAD light either checking email or reading a book or magazine. Later I ride my bike to work, dodging winter potholes and black ice and trying all the while not to get bike rage as some asshole speeds around me to get to the red light ten yards ahead. I’ll be three blocks down the street by the time he/she power-tripper gets a green for go. {Asshole drivers –just cause you'r driving and I’m pedaling don’t mean we both don’t have to be somewhere}. Then I sit at work and shuffle papers and email with equal intensity until it’s time to call it a day. Sometimes I work through lunch and split early for sunset surfs in icy waters.

Yesterday, as I paddled back to the peak I watched Black Spidey take off late, make it out of the white water and arc a bottom turn just in time to squeeze under the throwing lip for a three second Nova Scotia barrel -a rare site indeed around these parts. Spidey was thrilled for the cover up and I was stoked to get a front row view of my friend in the position that many of us who surf are always striving for. So last night, feeling inspired, I finished my botched ding repair job on the biofoam by patiently sanding the epoxy to blend perfectly with the original outline of the nose. And I felt pleased with the fruits of my labour.

Perhaps my problem is that I find endless pleasure in things which do not provide for my livelihood and disdain for the things that feed and clothe me. Disdain may have been too strong a word in the last sentence so I’ll change it to disinterest. How about disengagement? Disenchantment? Bottom line is that I spend most of my waking life doing things that I could care less for. How’s that for freedom in the western world? Or maybe I’m just another of the people described by this ultra cynical and self-righteous blogger http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com -except that I’m from a multicultural background and only just perpetratin.

"break yoself fool!"

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

R-keep up the ruminations, fatherhood has not slowed Spidey down at all, wishing I could join you.

Stuck in London.

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps my problem is that I find endless pleasure in things which do not provide for my livelihood and disdain for the things that feed and clothe me. Disdain may have been too strong a word in the last sentence so I’ll change it to disinterest. How about disengagement? Disenchantment? Bottom line is that I spend most of my waking life doing things that I could care less for"

Oh man, how many times have I bitched to the wife about this??? I am not alone.

oh yeah, I don't bike to work, but always notice those a-holes zooming around me to the stoplight.

Gazelle said...

seems most of those individuals with creative streaks struggle in this increasingly cubicled world...

Anonymous said...

R-at least you have a passion in playing/surfing. And you're lucky to have a job that avails you the flexibilty to do so when the waves are good; true your job is not as stimulating as you'd prefer, but it is much better than many. It took a little while as I had to get over the excitement of T getting tubed, but your article caused me to reflect on desire, contentment, work, and play. I think that if ones desires are based on immaterial objects then it is possible to achieve contentment and happiness with a mixture of work and play. I asked my mom what she did for fun while she was raising us--I don't remember her ever playing, she had two and sometimes three jobs, although I remember her being tired I don't remember her being unhappy, her jobs were manual and far worse than uninteresting--her reply was that seeing her children happy made her happy, her desires were to provide for us in the hopes that we wouldn't have to struggle as she did. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this, as I'm quite drunk, but I think that as long as you know what your desires are then you become impervious to the banality and absurdity with the 9 to 5.

SiL

23 Breaths said...

R - Like all the other "commentors" I share the same feelings and could have written your post about my life as well. Without getting too weird (always a problem) let me share this quote.
"The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more imporance to the soul than their simplicity might suspect." Thomas More

So ride your bike, breath and surf when you can. Spring will be here soon.

ras said...

hey anon #1, was that you I whizzed by the other dya, stuck in trafic? hehe sucker.

anon #2. thanks for the comment. you know I have to say that although I may feel underwhelmed sometimes, I am also compltely grateful that I get to have choices in my life and that my life is relatively easy compared to what others have to go through. thanks for reminding me. what is SiL?

Gazelle and prana - waves tomorrow after today's freezing rain storm subsides.

Foul Pete said...

Perhaps the key to a more meaningful existence, for us all (not just the bourgeoise) is for survival and pleasure to become one and the same.

I hate to just start dropping books at you but you should check out "The Revolution of Everyday Life" by Raoul Vaneigem or any other Situationist stuff...

David J. Hirsh said...

Northern latitudes and SAD. Don't let it fully color your day. Trust me, I know that's easier said than done. I need to follow my own advice as it gets me here in the U.S. PNW too!

But we've had low precip and lot's o' sun this past month. The days get longer quickly as the first bulbs break the ground adding technicolor to the predominant grey-green.

BTW--What you think of Takeshi Kitano's take on Ichi-san. Personally, I love the guy like a Japanese DeNiro.

ras said...

FW - printed chapter's 1 through 5. We've talked about the Situationists before, briefly. Looking forward to it.

Hola Tres. I liked that rendition of the blind swordsman but it was more like an anime film than Zatoichi. It also lacked ichi's sense of humour. I love Japanese films.

Gazelle said...

stuffwhitepeoplelike is a very funny read - thanks for the link.