theMediaman.com

Hwan’s back from his Vipassana meditation retreat. I’m not sure if he enjoyed it or has gotten anything out of the experience. It seems that he hasn’t figured that out either. It will be an interesting conversation to have once he finishes digesting his time there.

As someone who lives (and soon will work) in Toronto I find myself overwhelmed with input. Light, sound and scent pollution is a constant. I’m always hearing something, night is never dark, and even when there is no garbage or car fumes I am rarely treated with the sweet scent of nature.

I’m about to give up my status of Super-Commuter, which is a title far less enviable than it sounds. I gain a lot of my spare time back, just in time for my first year as a married man. What I lose is that “zone-out” time, where I would put on my headphones and ignore the world around me. By focusing on my thoughts and myself, I could reset my emotions following a furious day, or relax my mind following eight hours of programming. Sometimes I would arrive at home, having spent the trip crushed by someone too small for his/her seat, and/or sharing armpit space with someone who had been working outside all day. When that happens I need to sit at home and “zone-out”.

The term “zen-out” has also been used from time-to-time as it sounds less like I’m turning my brain off and more like I’m bringing it back to peace.

This is probably not a surprise for anyone who knows me, but there are a collection of films that I sometimes use to help me bring that balance back.

• 2010: The Year We Made Contact
• After Life
• Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring
• Jurassic Park - although I sometimes just watch this because it’s my favourite Spielberg flick.

In any case, I feel that I’ll need to consciously learn a new way to balance myself daily, as I’ll soon be trading in a 75-90 minute commute for one about 35 minutes long.  In fact, it only takes 90 minutes to WALK to my new workplace. I can opt to do that from time-to-time, but not every day.

I’ve never taken any courses on meditation, nor have I even read up on it. Last year I did listen to an interesting episode of CBC’s Tapestry on Christian meditation (this link is to a newer episode). That might be a direction I go with since a secondary benefit would be that I can become reacquainted with my spiritual side.

Or should that be the primary benefit?

Wow. Busy week.

Monday after work I met with some fellows at Juice Productions downtown. By Wednesday afternoon I had resigned from Livewire.

My last day will be the day after Labour Day. I will be leaving on my eighth anniversary of starting at Livewire. To put that in perspective, I spent nine years going from Kindergarten to grade 8 in public school.  I’ve almost spent as much time with Livewire as I have at Steele St. Public School.

It’s a real shift for me.  For the last four or five years I’ve been trying to push my way into more video and DVD work. For the last nine I’ve been trying to find  a job in the downtown core. Years of job searching managed to culminate in a single, whirlwind week.

I’ll probably go into more detail in a later post (and better composed), but for now I’ll say that I’m going to help the office move towards more Blu-ray production. I’ll be able to utilize my animation/programming background, and extensive experience with DVD production (al beit for corporate video productions…  zzz…)

It looks like a young and growing company, but they already have an extraordinary number of titles under their belt. It’ll feel good to be doing work that’s seen by thousands instead of hundreds or dozens.

I wonder what it will feel like the first time I see my work on the shelf at Blockbuster or Future Shop.

The location is supurb. Adelaide and Peter, between Spadina and John St.  A block east is the Fox and Fiddle, my favourite pub - best price/quality combination of any pub downtown. Just north of that is the Paramount Scotiabank Theatre, and just south is a Tim Hortons… a REAL Tim Hortons. No more four-timbit-selections for me anymore.

A five minute walk takes me all the way up Spadina’s rich Chinese district, or to the SkyDome Rogers Centre for a Jays game.  Three blocks will put me in front of Simone’s workplace.

I’m seriously waiting for the other shoe to drop. This job is exactly what I’ve been wanting and training myself for, it’s a perfect location and it is timed perfectly as I start my new life with Simone.

Even the cat’s feeling better.  Life is good.