Off By One

While my hands have not been overly idle — I’ve been worked like a dog, really — I’ve had a bit of time walking to and from the office to do some thinking.

Just this past week I’ve been reflecting on urban art. Graffitti, to strip the politically-correct faux-couture veneer from it, and be more precise. What I was thinking was.. Edmonton has some damned fine graffiti artists. Oh, they’re in the minority, don’t get me wrong, but they’re out there and they do some really nice things with a can of spray paint and a loose grasp on property rights. The best ones I’ve seen, in general, have been the stencil-painted works showing up on bus benches, power … thingies, and the like. One particularly arresting one is a stencil of Hunter S. Thompson that was sprayed so thickly that the paint ran down like streams of blood around his face and name and “RIP.” Oddly mournful, but very nice.

The other thought I was having, and that just this morning, is that Edmonton is a beautiful city. Really, it’s quite pretty. It’s not epic, or grand, or quaint, but is rather just… right. It has big places, and fancy ones, and it has the river valley. It has the Rossdale power plant, and the High Level bridge. Steel and glass towers, old brick warehouses.

Just a nice city to be in.

Did I mention that I’m in a ridiculously good mood of late?

I was going to write about my evening last night with a few really good friends, involving mainly hockey, insanely hot wings, bowling, pool, and beer. But upon browsing my daily blog collection, I figured I’d meta-comment on this instead.

Although the timeframe is a bit extended, I think that I can really identlfy with the theme of the post, if not the specific details of it. I can remember spending much of my earlier life striving with all I had to be whatever it took to get people to like me. I would do anything asked of me, if I thought it had any hope whatsoever of making people appreciate me.

As years went by, though, as opposed to specifically “finding myself,” rather I ended up becoming more and more cynical about human nature and the world around me. I didn’t so much find myself as determine in more detail and breadth what i didn’t want to be. This, of course, is not the same thing at all.

It seems to me that I had two watershed events in my life occur at more or less the same time, though, that combined to really give me … not direction, because I was still rudderless for some time after that, but I guess you could call it hope. Not for life, because life itself was still pretty harsh on me, but more that I would come to be somebody that was independent and able to build a self without reference to the expectations of others. So for that, I have Amanda and (ironically) moving to Edmonton to thank.

Over the years since then, I’ve gone through a lot. A failed engagement, and another failed relationship that bears no further mention here. I’ve tried (and failed repeatedly) to get back into school. I’ve worked jobs that sucked, and jobs that sucked more. I’ve diversified my tastes in art and focused my passion for computers. I have met and become friends with the best people I have hever had in my life, save for the few who predate my move to Edmonton.

And more importanly, I have become (mostly) comfortable with who I am. I realize that the way I think does not make many people happy, or comfortable. Nor does the way I confront issues that are dear to me. And I just don’t care anymore. I will deal with the world on my own terms, and I feel confident that for the most part I’ll do so because that’s who I am, not who I think others want me to be.

It’s a good feeling.

(It’s also worth repeating (over and over and over and over again) that Char is at fault for much of the good in my life too, in case anyone thought that I was ignoring her)