I believe that Wisdom is about sharing as the default, trusting as the default, being open as the default, and putting your heart on your sleeve, as the default. Obviously, sometimes you will get burned for this, and in those instances, you need to pull back, have good boundaries, and be willing to value yourself…
Category: a) My Personal Fav Posts
166) Thanks Mom: Intergenerational Wisdom, Part 1 — Professor Dolderman
These next two posts are the most difficult pieces of writing I’ve ever made public. Definitely the most personal (which is saying a lot!! lol….). The fact that this was so difficult to write is kind of weird, because these posts are entirely positive. (I mean, there’ll be some negative stuff in here probably,…
158) this trans life — a spoken word poem
I’d like to share a bit with you — about my transition To counter the spite for people who are in this position Transphobes accuse this of being an arbitrary decision That we make to ally ourselves with leftist activism… They have zero respect for the emotional precision Of discovering your authenticity, and escaping your…
146) Clara Dolderman: My coming out story
Hello! I would like to introduce you to Clara. I very much hope that you accept her. Or at least feel towards her similarly to how you have felt towards me (however that may be…lol…). You see, you’re already friends with her, if we are friends, and for as long as you have known me,…
139) Wow…weird…. I healed: Part 3 – The Spontaneous, Seemingly-Magical Transformation of Motivation
I do, sincerely and excitedly, want to share my story of healing in detail. It’s going to take some time to fully put it together. In the meantime, for this post, I want to share one of the most – stunning – outcomes of this whole experience. Which, in short, is the “spontaneous transformation of…
134) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 13: Avoiding the Shit
The key problem with working on our healing, and improving our lives, is that we don’t like to feel shitty. And it does feel shitty to face the shitty-ness of a sub-optimal way of living. Especially if you’ve lived that way for quite a while. Ugh. So, we turn away from that shit. Or more…
133) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 12: You are strong enough
(TW: Description of Torture) Although there’s no denying that life can be hard and people can be saddled with more problems than they can bear, the truth is that most of us are nowhere near to living up to our potential. We know, in some private recess of our consciousness, that if push came to…
98) The cure for The Dude’s pain, is in The Dude’s pain
Rumi says,”The cure for pain, is in the pain.” See? If it’s a google image, it must be true! But seriously, he’s right. I haven’t lived this way, for much of my life (although I often convinced myself I was). But no, I’ve lived more with the adage, “Pain sucks. Fuck that. Get away…
90) Gratitude Day 8: Loneliness
I am grateful for loneliness. It also sucks. Being lonely isn’t exactly the kind of thing one yearns for generally. Imagine the kid in grade 2, and the teacher, all gung ho to connect with the kids this year and REALLY give them a good educational, inspirational experience. “So what do you want to…
81) The Feeling of Falling
I hesitate to put my fingers to keys.Words are too solid. Once produced, they sit, motionless, changeless, static. Even the most poetic depiction of something that moves, breathes, sparks into life, Is like a box, with solid sides and a solid bottom and a solid lidEncapsulating whatever is insideIn the confines of its walls But what I…
73) Dear Ancestors,
For most of my life, I have wondered what I would pass on to future generations. Would I leave a legacy for my descendants to feel proud of? Would I have my picture in textbooks that kids would study someday? Would I be some “important figure in history”? Would I write a song that people…
72) Purpose — Part 4 — In Between
“Purpose” seems to involve a lot of striving, searching, tearing down, opening up, trying, growing. It seems to involve a lot of self, of authenticity and humility, vulnerability and trust. And it seems to involve a lot of “other”, of succumbing to fear or of reaching out in love. These are all stepping stones. …
67) Purpose: A Four-part series — Part 1 — “Tearing Down the Wall”
This title comes from Pink Floyd’s brilliant album, The Wall. The Wall is a 3-level album. At the first level, it is a personal narrative, a musical autobiographical allegory of Roger Waters himself, centered around a fictional character named, appropriately enough, “Pink”. At the second level, it is a narrative of the experiences of…
65) Protesting: What’s the point? It’s just a bunch of ‘activists’ getting arrested and stopping traffic or some shit, amiright?
Extinction Rebellion Bridge Shut-down, October 7, 2019 Sitting on the Bloor St Viaduct, my ratty brown long-sleeved shirt folded up beneath me to use as a meditation mat, I closed my eyes. The woman leading us through the group meditation was talking about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, asking us to appreciate things like…
63) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 6 — Lived Experience
You know full well, that if the protest community, or any members of it, begin to see the Matrix for what it is, see the absurd charade that they are perpetuating with their news-friendly parades and speeches, and decide to step outside the box, go outside the lines of ‘acceptable’ that have been drawn for…
50) Dirty Feet (TW: suicide, sexual assault)
(NOTE: I realized recently that the author of this post is unspecified, and some people have thought it is me. To be clear, this is a letter sent to me by someone who took my classes, and I thought I had commented that it was my “first guest post”, but clearly I didn’t here. Sorry…
42) Afterbirth in a field: The answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything…
When I was a kid I never wanted to grow up, even though I did, but I was a kid so I did what kids did — dinosaurs video games bike rides and squids. A buddy and I, but often just I, would play and talk and walk all day, sit on couches, mess…
35) Thoughts on Three TEDx Talks
I feel a little weird posting about this, but….well, I feel incredibly honoured to have been given the opportunity to give a few TEDx talks. The third one has just been released online, and after watching it, I wanted to share some insights that I’ve gotten from going through the experience. I remember once, I…
30) Hell: Epilogue
So, I thought this was a pretty good conversation to have. Hell, God, death, and all that jazz, opens into Wisdom, through the process of: Questioning. Learning. And remaining open to both. I believe “salvation” is found through you choosing, again and again, to open to uncertainty. That’s not all of it (and after all,…
29) Hell, Part 2
One dusty, hot day, I stood on the steps of the Temple of Athena, my eyes and mind wandering through the tourist chatter, laughing children, crying babies, clattering, snorting donkeys. I felt thousands of years slip by, and saw countless generations of people climb the steps I was standing on. I saw worshippers in Ancient…