The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

A man takes a camera into the elevator of a London tower block everyday. Gradually, the inhabitants become more familiar with him, through small, daily interactions.

sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

I suggest watching all 24 minutes of the video. After that, read The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, from which the above definition was taken.

Calm

It's not as boring as you think it might be.

Hubris

Hubris is saying 'full speed ahead' (or I don't know) when you probably shouldn't.

Hubris is Victor in Frankenstein.

Hubris is me laughing like an idiot when I thought about how my bike has, in all four years of living here, never been stolen. 

That, and shrugging my shoulders when neglecting to get the serial number, make, and model for the only reason I ever made it to class (in warm weather).

THAT, and thinking that I wouldn't need a U-lock, that a rope lock slightly thicker than my thumb would do the trick.

Anyway.

Battles and Ghosts

George Metcalf Archival Collection, Canadian War Museum

For a long time now, I've harbored a strange fascination with World War I and World War II. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a history buff, in the way that people can recall facts and figures at the drop of a hat, but I do love learning almost everything about those eras. It's so different from how we live now, but a time close enough that we still have enough artifacts to look at and learn from. 

Then again, this might just be my love of war literature and Downton Abbey speaking up.

The National Post published this article yesterday, about the relationship Canadian soldiers had with the ghostly and supernatural while on the front lines of war. It's an interesting read, and satisfies that weird part of myself that still thinks ghosts exist*.

*Embarrassingly, a question I struggled with through most of my childhood. I used to read compilations of ghost stories by the handful, scaring myself into insomnia. I still do that sometimes, I'm willing to admit.