Who Are You?

            As I sit here writing my 200^th blog, I can’t help but wonder – who are you? (It helps if you picture me pressing my nose up against my computer monitor, peering into it.) Yes, you, on the other side of this screen, reading these words that I’ve typed.

            Since starting this blog in 2013, it has had almost 10,000 hits. That’s around 50 visits per weekly post – not much, in the grand scheme of things, but pretty awesome considering how little effort I put into finding new readers.

            Now, I know who some of you are. Some are family and I know of a handful of friends who regularly come to read the latest thing that has spilled out of my head. That accounts for five to eight of those visits. There are a handful of others who visit when the link I share on Facebook catches their eye – I’m quite surprised by some of the people who have liked the links; people who I never would have thought would drop by my blog.

            That still accounts for less than half the visits. So, who are you, out there in the ether(net cables)? What is it that draws you to this place where I ramble about who-knows-what?

            Who are you?

            Well, whoever you are, thank you for dropping by. If you didn’t keep coming to read, I wouldn’t keep rambling – then I never would have reached 200 posts. Wouldn’t that be a shame?

Also, happy Halloween!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Musings on Reality

            It seems to me that there are a lot of people in the world who believe themselves to be right. They look at the world and declare that “This is the way it is!” This wouldn’t be much of a surprise (or a problem) if they all agreed – but they don’t.

            How can this be? Morality I can understand being debated, as there are many grey areas, but about the actual facts of the world, how can people argue? How can people still believe that the world is flat, when there is proof it is not? Is it simply that they haven’t seen it with their own eyes and, therefore, will believe what makes the most sense to them?

            It seems a feeble argument to base a belief on. Are we, then, to believe that stars are fireflies that flew too high and got stuck in the sky, simply because we, ourselves, haven’t done the science to determine what they are? Are we, then, to question everything we’re told, for fear that it might be false? What a tiny existence we would live if each of us stopped trusting what we are taught and rely only on what we experience in our own lives.

            It could be, as some philosophers have said, that each of us lives in our own reality. It seems more likely to me that we all live in the same reality, but we each live within our own interpretations of it.

            How else can it be that there are so many people who know for a fact that what they believe is the one and only truth? How do they not see the irony that, while they are proclaiming the one true truth, another is proclaiming an opposing one true truth and that from the outside they both look identical?

            Is reality, then, a construct of ours that doesn’t exist, or a constant that we can only catch a glimpse of? I suspect we’re all too busy arguing amongst ourselves about what reality is for us to discover what is actually real. For, it seems to me, that the only way we can truly understand the vast universe we live in is to trust each other and pool our knowledge.

            Reality isn’t something that can be viewed from an extreme point of view; only by finding the middle point, where all views overlap, can we truly define what is real.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Hivemind

            So, I’ve talked before about the editing process I go through each time I finish a book. With my latest complete book, this has been added to slightly and I thought I’d share some of the interesting things I’ve learned.

            Now, as mentioned before, my editing cycle usually goes: I edit, my wife edits and fills in the spaces I’ve left for her, I edit, then I send it off to my parents (my mom line-edits, my dad gives me content feedback), then I edit again. This time I decided to reach out to a larger group of beta-readers, adding a few more layers to my editing.

            Why did I decide to do that this time? Three reasons – the first is that I have way more confidence in this book than any of my previous ones (I’m really happy with it! It’s very rare for any writer to actually be happy with what they’ve created), the second is that one of my dad’s coworkers asked to read my latest couple of books and he gave me some really important feedback on how some world building seemed absent from the book – something missed by everyone else because they’d read my previous books set in the same world. The third and final reason is that I was trying something risky with this book (it’s a secret!) and I needed a wider pool to test if it was working.

            I haven’t collected back in all the feedback yet, but what I have heard has shown me some interesting things. Because I’m getting feedback from so many more people than usual, I decided that, rather than go through the book with each set of editing suggestions, I would compile them all in one place. This way, I can compare the suggestions from multiple people and – best of all – see where they overlap.

            Of course, everyone is providing feedback on a level they are comfortable with – some just give feedback on content, some line edit, and some do both. As I’m adding in all the editing suggestions together, it’s fascinating to see the overlaps. Sometimes, multiple people suggest exactly the same edit (which is really cool to see, even it’s usually typos). Other times, I end up with multiple solutions to the same problem – which is really helpful because, not only do I have multiple suggestions to choose from, but it highlights when several people get caught up on the same thing that I might otherwise pass off as something of opinion or taste.

            Just as fascinating is seeing what different people catch. This is most obvious with typos – it’s easier to forgive myself for the number of typos that slipped by my notice when I’m seeing some editors catching typos that other editors missed.

            As for that risky thing I mentioned – that is the neatest thing of all to see. So far I’ve received the same feedback across the board on it (except from the one speed reader, who I believe missed the key introduction). Overall, everyone understood what I was doing and approved (though one, while approving the concept, did question the necessity of it and we had a great conversation on the topic), but they all had trouble with one minor, easily changed aspect of it. This was exactly the feedback I was looking for and now I can make the essential changes. I know, I know, I’m being cryptic and you have no idea what I’m talking about – you’ll just have to wait for the book to get published so you can read it.

            So, the moral of the story is that having a large pool of beta-readers to help improve your book is a wonderful thing. I’m so glad I reached out to more people than usual.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Just Blame the Romans

            With autumn now in full swing, naturally I’m thinking about other seasons. Which led me to an ever-recurring question of mine: why does the new year start in the middle of winter?

            I mean, really, it makes no sense at all. What’s so special about that specific time of year? Nothing at all. Why doesn’t the new year start weeks earlier, during the winter solstice? That at least has some logic to it: the transition from the longest night of the year, after which each day gets longer and longer. That seems like a nice, optimistic way to start a year.

            Or, better yet, the first day of spring. Spring is when all the plants are coming back to life; all the animals are coming out of hibernation. It’s the time of new life and beginnings – doesn’t that sound like the perfect time to start a new year?

            Seriously, sometimes human decisions make no sense.

            I decided to look it up, just in case there really is a good reason for this nonsense. There isn’t. The only excuse we have is that when Julius Caesar fixed the calendar so it theoretically correctly calculated the length of the year (1000 years had it out of sync by a week), he decided to start the new year at the ancient Roman feast to Janus, the two-faced god of doorways and beginnings. I guess that made sense for the times, but you’d think we’d have updated our system by now.

            It does show us another example of how much the Romans impacted modern society. From now on, whenever something about the way the world is run makes no sense, I think I’ll just blame the Romans.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Fear Always Works

            “Fear always works.” I watched Zootopia for the first time today and was impressed by how filled it was with social commentary, but that particular line in the movie (said by the villain) stood out to me. It’s true; fear always works. But, what if it didn’t?

            One of the reasons fear always works so well is because it’s instilled in us from childhood. Why? Because it always works and, quite frankly, is the easiest way to control someone. Why don’t we touch the things that will hurt us? Because we will be punished with something that we fear. Why don’t we eat the things that will make us sick or damage us in the future? Because we will be punished with something we fear. Why do we obey the rules set forth by parents to keep us safe or to keep them from worrying about us? Because we don’t want to be punished with something we fear.

            It continues on into the school system (we do schoolwork because we fear the consequences of failure), then into the work force (we do whatever we’re told, even sometimes when we know we shouldn’t, for fear of getting fired) and even our entire social structure (we obey the laws out of fear of fines and jail). Everything is predicated on fear. So, is it such a surprise that fear is used so much to control people?

            Okay, so the question then becomes, why do we always use fear? Quite simply, because it’s so easy. Look at sheep herding. With the right amount of fear in the right place, the sheep will go wherever the shepherd wants. It’s the same with people – it preys upon our survival instincts, our natural desire to stay safe. And it takes so little effort.

            Children are taught that they are to follow the rules or they’ll be punished. This simple bullying is enough to keep them mostly in line. They will follow rules that make no sense to them, just because they fear the consequences. Parents see nothing wrong with this – and why should they? They were raised the same way, and it held true for everything in the rest of their lives.

            Now, of course, they could always try explaining the rules to their children. That way they would hopefully understand why the rules are there and why they should be followed. They could be taught to keep themselves to be safe, and to respect and understand the feelings of others. But that takes a lot of time and most people don’t believe children are capable of understanding – or remembering. But a punishment, that is easy to remember.

            Still, I can’t help wondering what the world would be like if we were all raised to be mindful and empathetic rather than fearful. Would the world be a better, more compassionate place? Or would fear tactics, on the occasions that people decided to use them, become even more powerful because we aren’t so used to dealing with it?

            Either way, it seems like fear will always continue to work. I guess what we need to do is raise people to overcome fears – that way, someday, fear will no longer work.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Individual Experiences

            When you look at the world, sometimes it’s hard to believe that society is as functional as it is. Yes, it could be much better, but it could be far worse as well. It all comes down to one thing: the perspective of each individual person in the world.

            When it comes right down to it, everyone has their own unique experience – and, therefore, perspective – of life, the universe and everything. That doesn’t mean there aren’t similarities. In fact, there are so many similarities that we fool ourselves into thinking that everyone knows certain things that are intrinsic to our lives.

            Each of us builds up our own little world around ourselves and core values. When someone doesn’t understand something that is a major part of our lives, we’re often shocked. Not with things we know are aberrant – for example, I never expect people to know what LARP is, and several years of my life centred around that. On the other hand, when people don’t know what chainmaille is (and I’ve encountered a large number of them), I’m truly shocked. It’s not only something that’s historical, but it’s present in a large number of books and movies. Plus, it’s even used for modern day purposes by butchers and loggers (and some police forces, I’m given to understand).

            Now, for me, chainmaille is obviously a normal thing – since I make it for a living. Before that it was a hobby, but even prior to then I knew what it was. I’ve been obsessed with fantasy since The Hobbit was read to me when I was five – you can’t get very far in that genre without knowing what chainmaille is. So when someone doesn’t know, I suddenly have to adjust my perspective to accommodate someone who hasn’t read any of my favorite books, seen my favorite movies, or been exposed to any of the things I’m most passionate about. And it’s not because the opportunity hasn’t been available to them, but because their interests are so vastly different than mine that they’ve never investigated them.

            That’s simply from my own experience – everyone has interests that others don’t understand. Everyone has their own perspective and their own ways of looking at the world. Everyone has a great many things that they don’t know about and can’t even begin to understand.

            Yet, somehow, society holds together. In spite of vastly different views on everything from... well, just on everything (the list is too long and I’m tired), the world functions. I think that’s incredible. I mean, yes, as a totally accepting person, I think that’s how it should be, but the world in general isn’t an accepting place.

            So, how is it that, in a world where there are so many people less accepting than me who, were they in my place, would say to kill everyone who doesn’t know what chainmaille is (to be fair, there are far worse ideas), how is it that the human race has survived everyone’s individual experiences? How has society not collapsed?

            It’s hard to believe.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

How To Make Friends

            I’ve often heard people say that they have no idea how to make friends. So, I’ve decided to write a brief guide based on my observations of the new friend Colleen and I made this past weekend at the Royal Medieval Faire.

            This guide really only consists of one step: be mysterious. Not in an aloof, dark, mysterious stranger way, but passive way. It’s easier than it sounds. A lot of people are quite happy and eager to talk about themselves and their lives; all you need to do is constrain yourself to only giving occasional pieces of information about yourself. Preferably the most interesting points in your life – and without context, if possible.

            The best way for me to explain is with the story of our new friend. When he first appeared under our tent (where we were selling chainmaille, of course) at the faire, Colleen complimented him on the awesome coat he was wearing. He stuck around for a little, chatting and joining in a conversation we were having with friends from Colleen’s homeschooling group. At some point the style of homeschooling (called un-schooling, which focuses on teaching kids what they’re interested in) was mentioned, and it turned out that he’d also been raised that way.

            I also noticed, while he was there, that he had a piece of string around a finger that led down to what I believed to be the hilt of a dagger hidden in his sleeve. Very interesting, I thought, but at that point I didn’t know him well enough to comment upon it. Eventually he left, going to enjoy the rest of the faire.

            About an hour from the end of the event, he came back to chat with us some more (he no longer hat he dagger in his sleeve). The three of us talked about all kinds of topics, discovering we had lots of common ground. Every now and then he’d mention something about his own life, but he didn’t go on about it. They were just interesting points that made me more curious about him.

            The first thing he mentioned was that he’d only been in Canada for two weeks. Because he had an unfamiliar accent, I took that to mean he had just immigrated, but he clarified that he was native to Canada, but had been travelling in Europe for the past nine months. His accent, as it turned out, was technically a speech impediment as it was unique to him, a couple of his siblings (out of seven) and some guy from a fishing village who deliberately changed the way he spoke so he wouldn’t be associated with others from his village.

            At some point he mentioned how, while in Europe he’d climbed a castle while wearing an Assassins’ Creed hoodie. Later he confirmed that, yes, he can actually do parkour (which is awesome). At another time, when I asked about what kind of work he does, he didn’t directly answer, but did say he was going back to the old job from before he was travelling – then told us about how he’d had to get security clearance first and his option (which he didn’t take) to request “Top Secret” security clearance.

            He ended up staying after the show and chatted while we packed up. He helped where he could (we have a system and it’s hard to fit someone else in), most notably holding a couple bags for about 30 minutes to keep them off the wet ground. That in itself doesn’t sound all that remarkable, but these bags each weighed 30-40lbs and he had them hanging from his forearms, elbows bent, and he didn’t even show any strain from the weight.

            It was at this point that I said to Colleen, loudly enough for him to hear, that he’d had a dagger concealed in his sleeve (he was very surprised that I’d noticed it), he’d just spent close to a year in Europe, he could do parkour, he was impressively strong and he needed security clearance for the job the conveniently hadn’t mentioned what it was. Clearly he was a spy.

            From there, we all had a great time, putting together the snippets he’d told us about to prove he was a spy. He denied being one, of course, although he would neither confirm nor deny being an assassin. He even went so far to point out that the name he gave us might not actually be his real name.

            We had a blast, but I still don’t know what it is he actually does. I’m very curious, and therefore I have no choice but to be his friend so I can find out.

            And there you have it. The best way to make friends is to be mysterious. Make people curious about you so they’ll have to spend time around you to find out more.

            Also, be a spy and wear an epic coat to serve as an icebreaker.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.