Episode 001: The Start of An Adventure

There is something missing in this life. There is a persistent struggle to achieve something larger than ourselves, while being stuck in a system that is so focused on a homogeneous monotony that we eat ourselves into heart diseases or when we reach the end of life, we say it was all for the children. What is life? We are told from a young age, and mind you this is from my generation’s viewpoint, that we must finish school, find a partner, get married, have kids, retire, and die. We are tasked to work for companies we hate, who’s existence is reliant on paying us as little as possible so that they can sell our labour for record profits. We are a cog in a machine that keeps on spinning and turning until we break, and the reaper removes us from the assembly line.

What is missing in all of this? I ask this question often as I enter the so-called golden years of my life. With a newfound sense of spirituality, success, and love. I have so called ‘made it.’ I have the beautiful man, I have the beautiful dog, and we are even moving into that beautiful house, all while going through a spiritual awakening and through all of this I still sit here and wonder what is missing? I am a generation that has had it all and its still not enough. This leaves me to wonder, will there ever be a time in my life where it will be enough?

This is a tough question as I am apart of a capitalist culture that by its very nature tries to keep us wanting more. Just one more click, just one more car, just one more phone, just one more chip, just one more chocolate bar. We are a consumerist society captured in a neoliberal identity of the pursuit of happiness and it’s okay as long as it fits within the careful formulated guidelines dictated to use from the holy pulpit of the stock exchange. Ironically, stock prices must go up forever or you are a failure, and your happiness must be sacrificed for those growing profits. What is enough profits and at what cost? No one has the answer to that just ask Jeff Bazos or Bill Gates. When we live in a world of not enough, we are doomed to live in a life of misery and inadequacy.

There are many things wrong in our world and there are many things great in our world but when we are stuck in the middle of a time where we have been gifted with a lot of inward reflection, we are left with just one view of the universe and that is our own and this project is just my view of that universe.

Let us start with the obvious, shall we? View’s change. When I was younger, I was a fierce socialist and wanted freedom, equality, and civil rights for all, I believed in the very virtues and ideals that young men went through during the great enlightenment of the 19th century. However, as you grow older you start understanding just how messed up the human collective really is. But, that is what it is to be human, we are a flawed collective consciousness that has been given the right of free will over this earth.

We often forget that we are not alone on this planet. Right outside our realm of influence is a world governed by a natural force that regardless of human intervention endures. It is a natural world, and its all around us. What makes humanity unique is our fundamental separation from the natural world and is quite possibly the symbolism of the garden of Eden. When Eve bit into that apple, it was a symbol of how humanity at some point in our evolution decided we are no longer apart of the natural order of this universe, we sit outside of it. We will spend thousands of years with technological developments to study it, observe it and to play god in world that we feel we must overcome.

We became a god onto ourselves and we have never really accepted the fact that as the infant divine beings that we are we cause a lot of our own suffering. We are fumbling around figuring this out as we go, but its our arrogance as a species that continues to cause us to come close again and again to our own destruction. History for us continues to tick away and our views change and with every rise and fall of empires, nations, and peoples the same underlying truth remains, something is missing. Why are we here? What is it all for? Are we actually separate from nature or one with it?

Now I know what you are thinking, my god this guy is a cynic and depressing. Don’t worry I get that a lot, but know under all that cynicism is hope. A hope in humanity and in our species to survive. Those socialist early years are still apart of me but are just skewed with a gaze of realism. I myself cannot change the course of humanity, so it is when humans come together that our true power proves we are capable of great things. Not everything is doom and gloom as the news would have you believe. I see the world through many lenses, and I find beauty in many things, far deeper than most but that Is the inner poet in me. We can construct towers of steel, glass and plastic to heights never seen and still pull off an artistic beauty. Humans are capable of curing dieses ensuring the survival of our species and improving life expectancy for billions of people. Random acts of kindness can create a revolution of compassion of love and light, that can lift the hearts of millions to create change. We are able to work together to overcome the very gravity of our own planet so that for the first time in our evolution we can look back on earth and say ‘it’s a miracle’ while we proceed further in search of the mysteries of the universe. We have great potential in us and while at times we will explore dark topics know that there is light and kindness and hope at the darkest of places. Existence cannot exist without love and humanity has a great deal of it to give and we see it all the time we just do not allow ourselves to accept it as we quite often do not feel worthy. We are all worthy and that is where the hope is rooted in this cynic.

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So, who am I? How do you sum up a person in few words, ah, their name? My name is David, and like many western humans I will identify myself for you as my current career as an Architect. I will admit I am quite proud of that title and I have worked extremely hard to gain it, but its just a sliver of who I am, and I have never enjoyed the idea of our society reducing us down to the economic driving point that it wants us to be. There is also the academic approach where I list of how I have a bachelor’s in fine arts from University of British Columbia and a Master of Architecture from the University of Calgary. We run into the same problem with these because as that piece of paper sits on my wall and as I crossed that stage, I did not feel transformed or transcended like they try to make you feel at the ceremonies. Even after my handshake and diploma in hand I almost instantly thought, what next? What is missing?

Me, I’m missing. With each title I gain its just that, a title. A title dreamed up by an institution to take my money and some how say this person matters! Look here is the paper to prove it! I will be the first to tell you I know almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. There is so much in this world that is beyond my comprehension and that in itself is what keeps me going. We live in a world of infinite possibilities and things to explore. I have done my fair share of exploring.

I have traveled to Greece, Italy, USA, Japan, China, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, and my latest adventure in Egypt during the pandemic. I am a traveler, but not to say that I have been but to try and understand something about our humanity. How, human cultures, places and societies can function in different regions in the world bringing me new perspectives and outlooks on my own views. I get a great thrill out of it and when the world shut down in 2020 I decided I would not let fear rule my life and I went to Egypt anyway.

Do I explain my interests in philosophy, science, politics, history, nature, art and design or maybe that I have an amazing dog and an amazing fiancé in a nice condo in New Westminster, BC, Canada? Or that I am a first-generation son born to a British immigrant mother and a father with Latvian roots and a mysterious and scandalous family history that could be its own Netflix series. Maybe, I explain myself to you in terms of my homosexuality or my sever eczema that has so marked my identity for my entire life, until a new drug has eliminated my suffering.

No, all these things are events, titles, actions, and interests that have happened to me over the years, but I do not identify with them as my sole being and nothing can explain me in a simple podcast format. If you must think of me and wonder my credentials of why you might want to listen to me, just know this, I am explorer. I know that I am on this planet to explore. To question the world we live in, and to challenge others on their views of the same world. I do not know everything, but I do know how I see things and its through that exploration that I discover new aspects of our humanity and my own existence that keeps me alive. A large part of that is having others challenge me as we must carefully balance ourselves with our own perceptions and delusions and sometimes having an outside force wakes us into a new understanding.

This project is not about explaining how the world works or telling you how to live your life. This project is simply asking questions and attempting to answer them using my own views, consciousness, experiences, and learnings of the world to explain the unexplainable. The format might change from time to time, but I am committed to give this a go to see where it takes us as there is nothing scarier than letting the world have access to the thoughts of a mad man.

My entire life has been plagued by these types of questions and through my experiences, traumas, travels, friends, family, enemies, loves, and teachers, I have become a shifting perspective on how I see the world and this series is that exploration. I do not know yet just how many episodes there will be, and I am not sure the topic will stay the same. What I can promise you my friends is that the questions will never be answered. Nevertheless, I invite you down the rabbit hole as I explore my own consciousness and my own views point on our world, with a reminder that I am a forever evolving and changing being and just because I believe something today does not make it so tomorrow. There is no offence meant to be given and there is no references or citations to review at the end of the episode. I do this for my own journey, and you are just a witness. So, sit back and listen to the ravings of a mad man every Sunday at your own leisure.

This is the explorer signing off.