All is a Stage

Life is a stage and everybody knows it. In every situation things change, our way of acting adjusts to fit the social needs at the time. It is the people who cannot act within the boundaries of the groups they associate with that never end up with social skills.

People fascinate me. The way they act, speak, form groups, friends, make decisions, it all just seems so animalistic. We are animals trying to suppress our animal traits; we are holding back our true selves.

Every situation, it starts to feel exhausting, changing your image, acts, and way of speech, to try to make the situation as beneficial as it can be. It is like hiding behind a mask, but without acting, life would not run smooth. Trying to get by with grades, impressing teachers with topics you think they will enjoy, rather than giving them a full true expression. When it’s work time my image changes to a hard motivated worker. It gets me by in a workplace that has more drama than an episode of the OC.

What about friends? You don’t act like you would to your boss as you would towards your friends and it’s vice versa with your boss.

Trying to comprehend what must be going on in someone else’s head is useless, yet I always try. Judging actions, facial expressions, word choices, I give my full reading of what I think the person is all about. The fact of it all is that I will never come close to comprehension because this person’s knowledge, thought and consciousness are completely hidden from me, besides the expressions of the physical body. Just like me, this person is also an actor, hiding himself.

Lately I’ve felt lost in the art of acting. I feel that I am damn good at it and can use it most definitely to my advantage, but I need to express myself truly. It’s a weird thing to feel like you’re trapped in your own mind, unable to fully express yourself. With all the acting that we do in a day, how do any of us know who we really are?

A Loss of Direction "Part 2"

The buzz of Jeff’s cell phone nearly shook me out of my skin. I looked him straight in the eyes at his hands, quick as a flash of lightning, reached to turn off his phone. His eye’s started tearing in fear while he trembled. It happened all so fast, but every little detail was almost slow motion with the intense rush of adrenaline that was rushing through my body. I peeked through the bushes to see if they heard anything when I realized that they had almost found us. I grabbed Jeff’s arms and pulled him up and gave him the look of death.

“Run” I whispered. It was then that he must have noticed the terror behind my eyes because he didn’t hesitate to take my lead.

We both ran as fast as we could through the woods not knowing if we would make it out alive. I don’t know how long we ran for, but neither of us stopped. We ran and ran, never looking back. I could feel my heartbeat pulsate throughout my entire body, pushing a rush of chemicals through my brainstem. Nothing seemed real, I couldn’t hear or think about anything accept running and trying to save my life.
Jeff didn’t slow down; he kept up to me the entire time. I looked back, still running and I remember Jeff staring ahead with wide eyes, but I can’t remember anything after that.

“Are you okay?” whispered Jeff while kneeling over top of me.

“What are you doing?” I asked feeling and sensation of uneasiness in my stomach. Everything was disorienting. The walls seemed as if they were pulsating and there was a sharp pain in my head. I looked around the room at plywood walls, some of the boards were rotting with holes and there were bugs everywhere. There was an old tin can lying on the floor beside me and garbage piled against every wall. The place smelled like a swamp. It almost looked like a shed made completely out of trash. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? I just wake up in some shack and you have no idea where we are? Were we captured? Are they going to torture us?”

“Stop with all the questions. You ran head on into a tree while you were looking back. You were completely out cold. I had to carry your ass through the woods.”

“You carried me?”

“Yeah I did, thank me later and think about how we are going to get out of this.”
We both sat silent, looking at each other, our minds racing with thoughts.

“Jeff... Where are we?”

“I don’t know, I found this shack in the woods and decided to hide you here until you gained consciousness.”

Looking around at the place, I started to feel uneasy. We had no idea exactly where we were and we were hiding out in some random shack that was just set up in the middle of the woods.

“Jeff... What if this place belongs to them?”

Rage Wonder?

Why does everybody like violence so much? I try to avoid fighting as much as I can, but sometimes it still seems to be unavoidable. It’s the worst when you are just trying to relax and have a good time when some roid raging monkey comes out of the bar looking for anyone smaller than him to fight. Of course I am one of the first ones that these people want; only being 135 pounds, an easy target. It pisses me off more than anything to be unwillingly pushed into a violent situation with someone that you don’t even know. But thanks to the best of friends who are always there to back me up, I’ve managed to escape nearly every situation.

In the Moment

Today I noticed the coldness of fall starting to creep upon me. The days are getting a little shorter every night and I know that it isn’t long until winter stalks me for a whole new year. It’s about this time every year that I feel like I am going crazy. I have two weeks of full time work left, and then my entire lifestyle will once again be changed. I am going to be forced to leave everything behind to start my third year of university. I shouldn’t be nervous, I’ve already had two successful years, but at the beginning of every year, anxiety consumes me. Once I have a friend group and turn the campus into a building of comfort, everything will be okay, but running wildly, trying to find new classes, not knowing anybody, it’s all a little overwhelming.

Trapped in our own World

As we grow from childhood, we are shaped by experiences that create who we are as a human being. Throughout our development, we are faced with desires, impulses, impressions, and an infinite amount of influences in which we choose to act upon or not. The influences that we experience work towards the shaping or influencing of our overall view on life and our self. The libido is a major factor in the self reflection that we possess, as it creates impulses towards satisfaction that we are forced to repress or act upon. We are all working towards an attempt to reach self satisfaction, although with the influences we encounter, this becomes a very difficult procedure as certain influences create conflict between our ideals we have created and the ego which strives for satisfaction.

While reaching towards the development of perfection, we put together our own view of cultural and ethical situations which influence us and create insight into the decisions that we make. Although we are all basically a part of a similar system of influences, some impulses or desires may go un-noticed by one person as the next person has a constant inner struggle with himself, trying to keep his impulses under control. The reason for this is the difference that remains in the ego ideals which people have created for themselves. One person, with strong ethical or cultural influences may shape his mental representation of life around the construct that he has created. As influences or desires enter the subconscious mind, if they interfere or come into conflict with the ego, or the cultural or ethical construct that the individual has created for himself, then they are sublimated or repressed, never reaching the conscious mind. If these boundaries are not constructed, then these impulses are able to enter the conscious awareness and in some cases may even cause an internal battle in the mind of the individual. The constraints are built around the ego ideal which is the ideal created by the person for himself. This construction influences the desires or wishes that the individual decides to give into.

The idea of narcissism comes into place when the ideal ego masks itself with an unrealistic view of perfection or self love. As the ego builds itself up, it creates an image of itself as having all perfections of value. This is often a construct that is created during the attempt to reach self love which is created by the repressed in the form of narcissism. As people develop from childhood, they are often disturbed by the ideas of others and their own critical judgement, since it changes their own views on what it means to retain perfection. Through the attempt to reach an ego ideal of perfection, it becomes impossible to reach the level of self love that has been achieved during childhood. The lack of self love achievable becomes the reason that these narcissistic boundaries are created, which often cause people to become ignorant of things around them, such as the emotions of others. The individual basically becomes so drowned in his own self love that he loses all sense of empathy towards other people.

Narcissism is restricting because it creates boundaries that do not allow you insight outside of your own world. When an influence interferes with an ego ideal, shaping the overall image that we have of ourselves, a cathexis is often created as a projection of hidden desires. Often, this can be a minor flaw, but on occasion, this can create disturbing fetishes or obsessions, such as a lust for shoes. We are all victims of the ego and the restraints it places upon us, but in most cases the ego does not become a problem until it has completely placed us in a state of self pride that limits us from the world.

A Loss of Direction

“I knew this was a bad idea. Why couldn’t you have just been happy floating near the beach? This was a really bad idea.”

“Jeff, you need to shut up.” whispered Luke. “If you don’t keep your mouth shut we are going to end up buried in this forest somewhere.”

Jeff sat there sobbing into his hands and shaking uncontrollably. I watched him quietly, a knot starting to build in my stomach. The volume of his sobs were increasing and we had to maintain our composure. Looking into the distance, I could see the small blur of where our boat sat; docked, next to the borders of the forest, overlooking the far side of the lake.

“You seriously need to calm down. Things are going to be okay, we can get out of this. If you don’t settle down, we are going to attract attention. I am going to do everything I can to get us out of this mess okay?”

Jeff looked up with a look of fear and trust. “Did you know things like this went on here?”

“Do you think that I’d bring you here if I knew this was going on? I’m not completely out of my mind.”

“What is this; some kind of cult or something? These people are going to kill us. What if they find our boat before we get a chance to get out of here?”

“Jeff listen; I’m as scared as you are but if you don’t keep your cool this may be our last night alive. Please, please, please just relax, take a couple of deep breaths and try to think about something good.”

“Think about something good!? Stumbling into a situation like this cannot spark a positive feeling. Look around you. There are people being carried into some underground pits that these people must have been digging for months. Those weren’t machine dug pits and you seen how far they went down. There was no end to them. There are people in suits standing all over an abandoned forest. Anything could happen here. Anything!”

“I’m not going to take this. I’m going to get home and sleep in my own bed tonight and so are you. Follow my lead.” Luke slowly stood up from the hiding spot behind the brush. He took a couple slow steps towards the water where the boat was anchored, but before he had a chance to make a run to it, voices in the distance caused him to become paralyzed in fear.

“Boss; I found something.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a boat or something parked against shore. We’re not here alone. You think it could be cops or something?”

“I have no idea, but we can’t take our chances. Find whoever is in this forest.”

“We are dead, we are dead, we are dead. I wish that I could tell Mandy that I love her one last time.”

“Jeff. We are not going to die. We are going to find a way out of this mess.”

Shake the Lake 2010

In Sylvan Lake, Alberta from August 13th to 15th, the whole weekend included skateboard and BMX competitions, live bands, street performers, and even things to amuse the children at “Shake the Lake 2010”.

The event started out with disappointment on Friday, due to rainy weather, but throughout the afternoon the sky cleared up to pave way for one of Sylvan’s best events. This was the second ever “Shake the Lake” to happen in Sylvan Lake, started by Incline Industries, with an attempt to create the largest BMX event in Canada.

Starting Thursday afternoon, Sean Macintyre, with a group of volunteers, worked hard to get the park together inside of the Medican Multiplex. The area was put together with precision to create the best possible set up for both BMX and skateboarding.

Outside, a large stage was put together that hosted a large list of bands that rocked out all weekend long, while people flocked out to witness the event. The crowed was heavy, as were the events taking place all around the promenade area, with street performers, inflatable bouncy tents, face painters, and much more.

There were people with skateboards and bikes all over town, enjoying the beautiful weather, the music, and the activities. A block away, at the local skate park, contestants of the competitions were practicing their tricks before entering the heat of the competition.

The Multiplex was packed with viewers witnessing the execution of the competitors, while they performed stunts that captured the attention of the entire crowed. The marvel that took place was a great success, and surprisingly, completely free.

Incline Industries put the event together last year with an attempt to try and create something that the town has never experiences. With the help of volunteers and sponsors, the work of the event was created to give everyone something to do, while creating excitement for the entire town, and giving local musician spotlight closer to home. The bands playing did an excellent job, as well as the competitors in the skate and BMX competitions. Shake the Lake was a memorable event that gave the town of Sylvan Lake a weekend that most will never forget.