Welp, here goes everything.

This began as me writing a set of bulletin points for a conversation I was going to have with my Dad tonight. I thought at first it would be a brief set of points to organize and help structure bringing him up to date on what had changed since he left for his safari about a month ago. I did not anticipate what would come out of me. Trying to put on paper what I wanted to share with him somehow let me tap into and express a lot of the thoughts that have been rushing through me at terminal velocity in these past days. It's not a perfect expression of them. It  wasn't intended to be a blog post, it was just my quickthought writing, to help me stay organized on what I had to say. And then when I let myself move from the objective to the subjective as I sought to recount the story of what was happening in my mind, I found I'd tapped into a far greater insight than I had expected, and the best way to recognize that insight was to simply let it flow onto paper. This is unedited, it's just what I thought, and wrote at about a million miles a minute. I'm stoned as hell right now, so judge as you will, but I think this is a deeper part of myself than I've been able to share with anyone before, and that being able to see myself so clearly may change my life. This is as honest as I can get.

1. Physical status: blood test/bp 100%. weight loss significant but no concern due to external factors. last check ~210, likely still cutting. Appetite definitely down but confident still meeting nutrient needs just lowered caloric volume by focusing on nutrient density. Consider shrinking of size appropriate to future goals, reduce wear+tear, no need for physical contact style strength. Maintain ability to run saw/quad but improve endurance. Intensive work on posture/flexibility/solving old soft tissue problems. Surprised with success of independent effort. Finding research/experience combined with getting stoned and intensively focusing on body-mind connection can yield very impressive results, especially when aided by pre-release from massage. Contrast showers a must. Sense of cleansing body of bad deposits. Feel most comfortable keeping very warm temperature to mild sweat and drinking lots of water. Noticed recently armpits in particular sweat more than before while other areas sweat less. Interesting change of bodily phenomenon. Seems to be an external representation of many underlying changed brought about. Work in solving problems with back/neck/shoulders/hips/NECK has seemed to bring about substantial changes in even the feel of my body. Very interested in maintaining focus. Not certain about interrelation between marijuana, chemotherapy, and any other chemical intake. Notice that most deep insight and body connection does in fact occur when at high levels of THC intake, uncertain if direct physical consequence or pure psychosomatic effect via change of state of mind, however whichever is the cause the effect is defined.

2. Mental status: interesting. Far, far more positive than ever prior since having been diagnosed with tumor. Discovering new kind of confidence in self-ability... rediscovering the value of arrogane. Health statistics have compounded enough for me to give me a true feeling of being "superior", able to face challenges and conquer things that would leave most in their dust. I feel as though I've always known that about myself but I've held myself back from admitting it. Allowing myself to embrace the arrogance of superiority has given me a different perspective upon the world and my opportunity within it. I feel far more able to overcome such great challenges and find success. The new perspective afforded has granted far more ideas and insight into future potential, and I have gone from a lost cripple, stumbling in the shadows, to a strong but injured man stepping back upon the forefront. I know far more clearly what I value, what I need, and where my goals are. I will no longer bend to the will of others constantly, but instead I will drive my own path forward. That does not mean I am too good to need help. In discovering this strength alongside it I have rediscovered my vulnerability. Letting myself open to the highs has also opened the lows. I have relearned to communicate with those who I trust and depend upon that which I need and want. I have let go of the feeling of being too strong to need help, and in doing so I have not found weakness but further strength. Watching myself in retrospect travel through these steps grants a different type of insight into the works I read as part of my philosophy studies.  I think this experience has wisened me in a way I needed more than I ever understood. This tumor has given me an experience I needed to become who I was meant to become, to actualize the potential I was granted. I have been an atheist since I was incredibly small, but I feel as though in this experience I have come in touch with a sense of a greater interconnected power, and a will to push forward in a direction. Before I went to Bishop's, for most of my high school time and even a while before that I had a clear resolution of what I needed to do. I thought, I knew, I needed to experience what it meant to be a warrior. I wanted to go to RMC, to learn the discipline, the strength, the willpower and resolve it took to deal with the terrors one must face. I knew there was wisdom in that experience that is necessary for me to become who I wanted to become. I had confidence in my strength of will, my resolve, my leadership potential, that core of myself which was born into me, blessed by the genes and history of my family and the favourable touch of luck. I knew at the darkest tests, I could hold to the ethics and principles that were precious to the working of our military. I had dreamed as a teen, one of my favourite fantasies was fighting to the death or sacrificing my life to save the lives of many. I ran through countless such scenarios in my head. When I lose my temper the worst it is not in self defense, but in defense of those around me. I am a man whose greatest drive comes from the experience of a team that is bound in blood, and relies upon each other to the absolute core, and has the will and resolve to do everything needed to accomplish it. However, what I watched happen in the world grew up shattered my dream of doing that. When we went to Afghanistan amidst the controvery and questions, and as our role there developed, and I began to see the force of the military-industrial complex that reigns so greatly upon our world, I felt it had become something I could no longer let myself be a part of. I reflected deeply on what I considered in life before that point, and I felt lost. I had no purpose or goal anymore, no understanding of what I was meant to be, and that was what sent me first around the world to australia, alone at 18 exploring and experiencing, and then into the philosophy degree at bishop's. I wanted to find a new meaning, a new purpose to life. In the time when I did not connect with such a purpose I began to destroy myself. I did not recognize it at the time, but I sought pleasure and release in a short term fashion that was blind and purposeless. Between drugs, meaningless and not that great sex, fighting, eating badly, drinking in drastic excess, smoking, and just failing to care for and maintain the potential of the body I was granted. Somehow thanks to the strength I was given rather than the strength I earned I made it through that experience with only a few scars and a tumor. Many times in those years I deserved to die for what I did. I took risks too great, I broke ethics too firm, and lost myself deeply... It is only now that I rediscovered myself, and it is this very morning that I realized how. Not to discount the acts of warriors and the value of such experience, I can not say I have been tested on the field, but this experience has granted for me a lot of what I needed to learn from war. I have faced death and looked it in the eye, not for a brief moment in a flash, but as a dark cloud lurking over my life for years. I have confronted disability, through epilepsy, as well as the lurking fear going into surgery of paralysis, and the constant lurking shadow on the edge of the road ahead of the tumor or radiation therapy destroying my speech center, and bringing me back to what it was like in the few days post surgery when I was completely unable to speak... The demon which began to lurk heavier over me than that distant lurking cloud, which truly shook my soul to its deepest and caused me to lose sight of myself more than anything else. I almost lost to that one. I was ready to give up on myself. I know if I'd been brought to disabled by these seizures, rendered unable to live the kind of independent, productive, decisive life I feel so called towards, I would have died not long after. My soul would have given up, and the strength which has carried me through all this would have gone out like an untended fire. That carried a far heavier weight on me than the fear of death. What I've really come to understand through this time is that fuck the hell out of it everybody dies some time. There are risks for everyone every day that people never recognize. Death is something we can't ever really understand, we don't know what the fuck is going to happen when we die, probably nothing, maybe something fancy, but we might as well leave it until we get there.  I would far rather die with a purpose than slowly degrade and lose myself through destruction from the inside. I think this tumour may have scared me even more than war would have. I don't know though. I remember the conversations I had with the two british marines in Bali, and the look in their eyes as they recounted their stories, and the respect that attained from me in a way I can't truly explain... I don't ever want to discount the level of courage that can be forged from the fires of war. But for me, in particular, the confrontation of slow inevitable inner destruction held a terror that I'd never imagined before. I have looked it in the eye long enough though. It looks different now. I will beat it, or I will die trying, but if I'm going to die trying I'm going to be givin er fuckin nuts until the last minut. Fuck giving up, ever. I can defeat medical statistics, I can defeat fucking anything, and if I fail then it will at least have a PURPOSE. I can set an example. I can show how to really face death, illness, destruction. WITH YOUR CHIN UP AND YOUR FINGER IN THE FUCKIN AIR AT IT! GET OUT THERE AND DO WHAT YOU WANT, FIND WHAT YOU WANT, BE WHO YOU WANT TO BE! THAT LIES WITHIN YOU, SO BRING IT OUT.

Or at least watch me. I'm going to burn brightly from here, to a level I never have before. Enjoy it while it lasts. I think the first step in rediscovering this courage could be just sharing this inner dialogue with the world. I will follow it briefly with a little rational discourse I feel necessary to avoid misinterpretations of me.

While I know I'm an exceptional person, smarter, stronger, braver, than almost everyone I see, I also understand I'm not. This all is how the world looks from inside me, how I find the best part of myself, where I dig to find the strength I need to confront these things. I think that in their own way, maybe vastly different from me, everyone has an inner strength that has great value, a potential that can be actualized if you can learn to recognize it and care for it and bring it about into reality. This is my way. I need this way. If you don't want to deal with a bull-headed, loud, bearded, hard working country guy who loves the ocean, finds fishing to be perhaps the most fun thing in existence, but is also addicted to the hard work of the forest, the ranges of the mountains, the feeling of exploring and experiencing new places, and doing so slightly stubbornly independently, then you might not enjoy me too much. I am what I am, and instead of trying to change and compromise it I'm going to make the most I can of it. I am good at what I'm good at, and shitty as hell at some stuff I'm not. But I intend to work harder, stay stronger, and prove myself more than you. See what you can do about it.