I believe we were created. The more I see on this planet, the more I see evidence of an intelligent design. Working with plants, I am constantly and consistently amazed by the diversity, the grace, and the beauty of the natural world.
I believe we were created to live on this Earth. I can't stand the mindset of 'we are on earth for a time; our citizenship is truly in heaven' for one more second. We were created to live. I love living. The act of living, and truly being engaged in life is the most fantastic feeling. Life is beautiful; Carpe Diem.
I believe that love trumps everything. There is nothing else in life that we should seek before it. Love is fascinating, terrifying, weakening, strengthening, beautiful and terrible all at the same time. We were made to love, in any and every form imaginable.
I believe in the simple act of believing. I think that no human can live out a satisfying existence without discerning that in which they place their faith. It may be a simple belief that man is inherently good, or a more complicated manifesto of political and religious beliefs. Be that as it may, man needs to believe.
I believe that death is what gives value to life. If life were unthreatenable and never-ending, we would have no reason to seize it and live in it actively.
Finally, I believe in God. But not in the God that you are thinking. I believe that there exists Something or Someone out there who has created us. But I can certainly no longer call myself a Christian, and I am certainly not going to attend any more hypocritical, corrupt, money-grabbing churches or schools. I am not going to let some governing 'authority' tell me what is wrong and right, when they have historically condoned slavery and condemned women. And I am no longer going to attempt to fit in to a community of lies and hatred.
I understand all of this is quite blunt and potentially shocking, but I felt the need to get it out there. I don't want a to maintain the facade I had been maintaining before. I live unapologetically, and I want you to all know at least the gist of who I am and what I believe. I don't want to start internet wars here, so I may not approve many comments on this post, If you simply need to engage me in a debate, email me.
My life has been insane as of late. Here are some brief updates.
I went to England for my last weekend of backpacking, to meet up with the boys from Vienna. I can summarize the trip in one photo:
Camdentown, hookah, 4 miserable Jews and myself.
And one video:
After that, I was back in Paris for a few hours; enough to empty my studio entirely, and spend a night in debauchery and tears of goodbye with the beautiful people I met there
Table one
Table two
Saying goodbye is hard. It's especially hard if you are uncertain whether you'll ever see some of these people again.
But goodbyes are beautiful, too. Because in the same way that death is what gives value to life, goodbyes are what give value to hellos.
With any luck, I'll be backpacking again Easter of 2012. That is, assuming the world hasn't ended.
Definitely going to miss this crowd
Meanwhile, I've been lucky enough to meet the best people I could have ever imagined possible to meet. And I get to share so much joy and enlightenment with my friends back home for a little while.
The future doctors <3
Massive shoutouts to the people who made this trip a wonderful experience. Above all: Lynette Van de Hoef, Rachel Stevenson, April Larochelle, Martha Maris, Maria Noorloos, Jemima Dickinson, Larissa Gare, Gemma King, Christina Ammon, Nicolas Sanchez, Bram Van Beek, Paula Molz, James Lloyd, Hayden Lawn, Remi Piriou, Kara Abernethy, Liz Rosenberg, Darren Helstowski, Aidan Kenny and Liam Kerry. I've never been happier than in the company of any of those people.
Shoutouts also to the best of friends ever, and especially those who kept in touch with me from back home: Amber Lepine, Adrian Vander Vaart, Jill Van Ryn, Amber Burns, Jess Crandall, Elle Rombough, Amanda Fraleigh, Rich Oosterloo, Natalie Campbell, Chad Haverkamp, Dan Kikkert and Austin Miedema.
Some congrats are also due! Upon my return, I was in a wedding for one of my dearest friends. Congrats to Elle and Lael and many, many blessings. Nathan and Janelle, some of my favourite people ever, also tied the knot this May, the day after James and Katie, some of my oldest friends. Congrats to all three beautiful couples!
James and Katie
Nate and Janelle
Elle and Lael
Those are essentially all of my life updates for now. I've moved into my fantastic new apartment in Hamilton, am working off the debts that I acquired this year, and am planning to take a year off to work (and travel, of course) before returning to Europe to complete the PhD.
