WOW!

I'm calling it now: this has been a really, really good year, filled with unexpected happenings. It's a bad case of "ohmygawdthishasflownbysofast syndrome" and I'm at something of a crossroads. an exciting crossroads! So I'm going to be sharing lots of fortune cookie advice.

I'm feeling hellishly optimistic about an uncertain future and find myself turning in all these unexpected new directions. it's like I'm faced with multiple pathways from which to carve out my future life and am taking every. damn. one. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Let's restate that: I'm EXCITED, positively giddy in a "Julie Andrews dancing like a mental patient on a mountaintop kinda way" (props if you get that reference -- no, not the Sound of Music :) ) about not knowing what will happen next.


2012: Who knows? Will I be the same Devin Barnes? I'm already a radically different person than I was, oh, a year ago, and yet I'm still myself. Strange. Paradoxical. Want to read more?

Actually, I've got a slew of goals for the immediate and not-so-immediate (few years down the road, perhaps?) future. Here's a sampling:

- Finish the movie I started filming last month.
- Start some kind of band (this won't be for another couple o' years, likely) and sing in it. Or play piano. Or both. Preferably both.
- Become much better at piano. Lots more practicing!
- Finish writing series of novels. I've got three in mind. Trippy fantastical mind-benders. Here's hoping you like!
- Make many more movies post-"that one I still need to finish, and will."
- Go to a college -- likely Fanshawe -- after Western for either Theatre, Journalism or Television Broadcasting as a pre-req. to get into the Advanced Filmmaking program. Will probs. take Broadcasting, then Filmmaking.
- Go travelling post-Fanshawe.


I WILL ACCOMPLISH ALL THESE GOALS, MAKE NO MISTAKE.


But what I'm most looking forward to is -- incomingonslaughtofsappymelodramaticcheeriness -- unexpected little moments that make each day special. Aww, isn't that sweet?

Actually, though, I'm learning more and more that it's an absolutely futile exercise to plan out your life like you're shopping from the Sears catalogue, despite all evidence to the contrary above. You can absolutely map out goals, go after them, and develop some kind of impending "life plan," but be warned: doing so can force you to miss out on the here and now (fortune cookie buddhist wisdom!). What's actually shocked me about my life, in retrospect, was how unexpected most of the touchstones were. I didn't ever find myself thinking "you know, that turned out exactly the way I planned it," and my life was all the better for it. I'm excited about this uncertain future! I'm bursting with excitement! Positively bursting!

That's all, folks. Epistemology readings await moi.

On Rebecca Black, Barack Obama, conspiracy theories and why people stink... oh, and Stephen Harper too, because that's bothering me.

Quick question. What's the best way to cause controversy in today's culture? So much controversy, in fact, that virtually everyone and their neighbour will be talking about you and lambasting you?

Is it,

A: Send unauthorized military personnel to foreign nations to bomb them and steal oil resources, under the pretense of 'keeping the peace.'

B: Make hateful and derogatory statements about African Americans, general minorities and gays and lesbians; and make your views widely known to ensure that people keep 'spreading the hate.'

C: Make a three minute music video.

If you answered C, you're absolutely correct!

The infamous voice of a generation?

This, my friends, is a prime example of the awful depths humanity sees fit to sink to. Rebecca Black -- singer of what many dub to be the worst song to ever disgrace pop music -- has received an unbelievable excess of hatred and cyber bullying over what amounts to an awful, yet very innocuous ditty about why friday really is the best day of the week.

It's ridiculous. I actually didn't realize how mean people could be until I saw millions of anonymous YouTubers telling a perfectly nice young girl to kill herself over a music video -- all the while giving her nearly 100, 000, 000 (yes -- one hundred million) online hits. Isn't that more than a little ironic? Do these people not leave their computers ever?

Here's a crazy idea: Don't watch the video. Get some fresh air. Buy your groceries. There are a surprising number of alternatives to making an impressionable thirteen year old feel like the scum of the earth.

It's funny how the internet can universally applaud a bullied boy standing up to his tormentor and tell an innocent girl to "cut herself and die" in the same breath. Just a tad hypocritical.

But ah well. I'm just one blogger with an opinion. Apparently we really are at that stage where global cyber bullying is not only acceptable, but laudable and worthy of a little encouragement. It's like fame somehow diminishes one's status as 'a person with feelings.' This Rebecca Black phenomenon is, to me, a social experiment detailing what awful buggers human beings really are.

Now imagine you're at choir practice...

----

Choir Teacher: You know, Jimmy -- we've got to talk. You've been a little off key this past week.

Jimmy: I'll worker harder, teach! Want me to take extra voice lessons?

Choir Teacher: Actually, you should cut yourself and develop an eating disorder, so you'll look pretty. Cut and die.

-----

Isn't that going a tad far? What's the difference between that and the cyberbullying of Rebecca Black? My God, people are scum.

On that lighthearted note: I am, in fact, going to discuss Barack Obama, conspiracy theories, Stephen Harper and other controversial topics at a later date. I have, however, lots of homework that cannot wait. Cheerio! I'm not actually British.