doberman pizza. a baha'i (bahai, bahá'í) blog.

figuring out this stuff

This is kind of on the same thread as my last post. I’ve been doing some pretty intensive thinking of late. Way back when I started my year of service I made an agreement with myself: I am not going to start any new romantic relationships until the year is up. This is my time to serve God, and to come to know myself and understand myself better so that, when I eventually do find someone I’m interested in, I have something to work with. I had realized that much of my life was spent without examining myself. Well, that’s not completely true. I definitely criticized myself and got all down about my faults, but I never did anything to better myself. I think it all started to change the moment I was willing to admit when I was wrong. I never used to like admitting that. It sucks when you’re wrong, right? Sure. But sometimes life sucks. And life sucks even worse when you won’t even consider that you could be doing something in a better way. That was what I needed to consider for myself (and not for others, of course — Bahá’u'lláh doesn’t condemn fault-finding for nothing).

So, yeah, back to relationships. I bet most of you didn’t know that about me. Yeah, I’m taking it easy from girlfriends for the whole year. Gonna find myself out in the woods! Seriously though, I realized that the more I kept looking for someone, which I would do with way too little detachment, the less I would be inclined to work on my own problems. And there are problems, boy, there’s filing cabinets full! Everyone’s got their own, right? Anyway, trying to scout around for a girlfriend was almost a way of escaping my responsibility to know my own self, to deal with these things that are sticking around in my subconscious.

I wonder if any of you actually knew I was looking for a girlfriend before. I practically never mentioned it. That was another one of those things that I bottled up, again probably because I grew up thinking it wasn’t okay to talk about.

Once, me and a couple of friends were hanging out and we started talking about dating. I felt totally out of my element because I never talked about that sort of thing. That was the first time I realized there was something up with that. Anyway, one of them said, what good is it to wait in silence, trying to figure out whether you like someone before you ask them out on a date? Wouldn’t it be a whole lot better to do that figuring out with the other person, so that you could both have the opportunity to figure each other out? I remember thinking, hmm. That seems to make sense. I guess I would do that if I felt it was okay to talk about dating, right?

Talking about this feels a little bit wierd, understandably, but as I go on, it’ll become less and less wierd, until finally it ain’t no thing.

You know, (on an unrelated subject), the down side about working at the coffeeshop is that when I come home, my clothes all smell like roasted coffee beans. It REEKS.

life is more than…

Hi everybody. No work today, so I stayed home, slept in, and did some odd jobs around the house: took my bike in for the winter (with its chronic flat tire and all), made phone calls, and more.

So overall, things are good. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my life, where I’ve come from, and what I want to do with it. With most of my friends, I’m always upbeat, positive, like nothing’s ever wrong… I never really took the time to express myself when things actually were going wrong. What a terrible injustice, bottling up pain and sadness like that. I deserve to express it. I don’t know where I got the idea that I didn’t.

So, to all my friends: hey guys, there’ve been a lot of times in the past where I’ve been feeling completely in the dumps and terrible, and I denied it. From now on I’ll make effort not to do that. So when you ask me how I’m feeling, and I’m feeling awful, you’ll know it!

Here’s another thing I’ve always bottled up: sexuality. I don’t know how many times I’ve been really attracted to someone and just refused to admit it or acknowledge it. Maybe because I thought there was something wrong with talking or thinking about sex. Nobody ever really talked about it in my family when I was growing up, and maybe that gave me the idea that it wasn’t okay to talk about it. Well now, guess what? Sexuality is a very relevant part of my life right now. I want to learn how to relate to members of the opposite sex, in a chaste and healthy way of course, but without bottling up the natural drive that’s inside me, the one that God gave me… there’s got to be a way to integrate the two in positive ways, and damned if I’m not going to find it! Call it preparation for marriage, if you will.

Not that I’m planning to get married any time soon. With a part-time job bagging coffee? Hah!

I wonder how a Bahá’í deals with meeting a really, really attractive person and still having to act in a chaste and detached manner. I think it deals in a big way with acceptance — accepting that the ensuing hormone rush is a natural part of being human, but that part of being human is having the choice to reflect divine attributes instead of acting just like an animal. That sounds right.

I hope to receive comments on this one ;) peace out y0.

photos and road trips

I just got back from partying with the Bahá’í community of Drummondville, man that was fun! I’ve celebrated the Birthday of the Báb three times so far — once in Danville, once in Victoriaville, once in Drummondville. Each one was super cool in its own right, but I must say going to Drummondville was especially fun. first of all, I got to meet the Drummondville community in their own digs for the first time, and as well, they were in the midst of a proclamation project, and they set up shop in a storefront with posters about the Faith and so on. there was a short presentation on the Báb, then prayers, and then songs. And then of course we ate!

Man. Bahá’ís sure know how to eat.

Also, I’m gradually getting all my photos from the latest quebec youth conference. I have two rolls so far. there are quite a few good pictures there. yay :)

Anyway. I go back to work at La Brûlerie des Cantons tomorrow… yay for work! and as I said before, part time is better than no time at all.

juste pour dire

quelle chose merveilleuse, ce plan de cinq ans!

quel groupe merveilleux, ces jeunes baha’is!

salut les mecs

un gros bonjour et Allah’u'abhá à toutes et tous les jeunes qui vont être à la conférence des jeunes du québec cette fin de semaine… j’ai hâte à vous rencontrer… ça va être super, j’en suis sûr :) à demain!

free

ever feel

hurled down to the ground

and set soaring free?

it’s a strange combination…

the man is mad, they say

who accepts the will of God

but if such a man is mad,

then sane is insane

and I’d rather not be

normal…

set free,

ever feel set free?

in this life of paradox

there is no freedom,

only details, only dreams…

set me free

set me one hand clapping free.

immerse me in honesty.

let me see

the unity

let it become a part of me.

just like they said

when I first came here and started meeting the Bahá’ís, I was talking to them about not finding any jobs… one of the local youth who goes to Cégep in Quebec City told me that she had just the same thing happen, she started looking for a job, and kept finding nothing… until four months later when she got four job offers at once.

well just like they said, I guess the train is coming in, at least it appears so anyway! I just got a phone call from one of the Bahá’ís in Warwick who owns a coffeeshop/roastery, and he invited me to come in and work today, because I have a job. Wow. Just like that ;) And apparently this one would be long-term. So now I’m working two jobs, and I have another person who wants to give me computer work. this is definitely some sort of divine confirmations.

The only thing is… I’m going to have to get used to the smell of coffee… for those of you who don’t know, I don’t drink coffee ;)

oh well. I’ve gotten used to a lot of things, and I’m not about to stop now.

bonus!

Here’s another good thing about working at the aforementioned centre: connections! People from all over Quebec show up there. Today I met a person from Victoriaville who overheard me saying that I was looking for a job working with computers, and asked for my phone number, saying he might have work for me. then he gives me his card and I see he owns a print shop. bonus :)

happiness is a minimum wage job

I have to say, this job with the Cranberry Interpretation Centre is really great. For real. I love it. I spend all day hanging around telling people about cranberries. I get to tell jokes, act like a clown, and make people go ooh ahh. I get to tell them all sorts of factoids that make them feel really impressed with cranberries.

Now let me shift gears here for a moment, and go into tour guide mode. Some people have asked me the question: “But Dan, this is the Cranberry Interpretation Centre, doesn’t that mean you interpret the mystical cranberry language that the plants use to communicate with their subterranean Viking zombie masters?” Well, no, that’s not entirely true. This is indeed the Cranberry Interpretation Centre, and the rest is false. Now you know.

What else was I going to say. Oh yeah. I’ve made lots of tips in the last week, too. And at the end of the day, I keep getting told that the visitors always have good words to say about me: that I explain the subjects well, that I’m funny, lively, interesting, that they enjoyed listening to me, and so on. And man, is that a boost of self-esteem! Even though I’m tired, my diaphragm is aching and my throat is hoarse from yelling so much, at the end of the day I feel like I could just keep on going forever. That’s great.

I’ll leave it on this happy note. Catch you all later.

vip treatment

hey cool… when I came into work (at the Cranberry Centre) this morning I didn’t expect the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec [français] to show up. She’s real nice. I was confused as to what to do when she came — not sure whether I should hide in the background, salute, or say hello your excellency. I’m always like that around high-level public figures. But anyway, like I said, she seemed really nice, really friendly, and I got to shake her hand and introduce myself. Heheh. Pretty cool. And get this. She’s handicapped; she was rolling around in a wheelchair. Mega cool. Shows that just because you have a handicap, doesn’t mean you can’t go far in life.