As much as I would like to think that I am reasonably progressive with my perspective on things and that this is a marriage between equals, it is not. Ever since I made that life-changing decision nearly two decades ago, I’ve always wondered why she would settle for a poor sap like me. I see […]
~~ Continue reading I Envy My Wife Every Day on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof. The older I get, the more I think about what my legacy will be. How will I be remembered? What will I have done to make the world better in some way? And that’s […]
~~ Continue reading Sunday Snippet: Alan Moore (V for Vendetta) on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Today is Family Day in British Columbia, a statutory holiday that was put in place in 2013 to fill the massive void between New Year’s Day and Good Friday. Some stores and offices are closed, while others may have reduced hours. As a freelancer, of course, I don’t get any days off, so that’s why […]
~~ Continue reading Vlog #11: BC Family Day Dim Sum on Beyond the Rhetoric.
As I make my living as a writer and editor, it is in my professional best interest to expand my vocabulary. Instead of saying someone was very sad, I might say that she was devastated. Instead of referring to the water as blue, I might talk about its azure hue. Through my journeys, I come […]
~~ Continue reading Word of the Week: Reactance on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Those of you who are relatively new around here might not know that I started writing things on the Internet way back back in 1999. It was just a hobby at the time, shared mostly with immediate friends. When I decided to hurl myself headlong into the business of freelance writing, I thought it was […]
~~ Continue reading This Is Blog Post #3500 on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Don’t be afraid to give up the good and go for the great. As we get older, as we get more established in our careers and more comfortable in our routines, we also have this habit of lulling ourselves into a state of complacency. We get set in our ways and we become increasingly unwilling […]
~~ Continue reading Sunday Snippet: Steve Prefontaine (1951-1975) on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Yay! It’s story time! While we aren’t going to be whisked away on a grand adventure in Middle Earth (sorry Tolkien fans), we are going on a quick jaunt over to the local mall. I was over there a couple weeks ago with my daughter, as I am apt to do on a not so […]
~~ Continue reading Vlog #12: So You Think You Can Dad on Beyond the Rhetoric.
I once wrote that I never complain about boredom, because you literally have no excuse to be bored. Whether it’s productive or just for fun, there is always something to do. And it is in that spirit that I present this week’s collection of blog posts from around the web. Kicking things off, we have […]
~~ Continue reading What’s Up Wednesdays: Breaking Boredom on Beyond the Rhetoric.
This journey, with its many arduous challenges and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, would be worth the sacrifice. Or so I’ve been told. Many a tale has been passed down, from generation to generation, of legendary greats who overcame the odds. They braved the harsh winters of the Great White North, fiercely battling the elements, with one […]
~~ Continue reading A Distinctly Canadian Journey on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Sometimes it’s better to live through someone’s work than the person themselves, and to realize that every human being is flawed, but through art they can be perfect. Despite what the “Facebook version” of your friends might lead you to believe, we are all a little broken inside. As Leonard Cohen famously sang, there’s a […]
~~ Continue reading Sunday Snippet: Emily Haines, Metric on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Pink Shirt Day got its start in 2007 when a couple of Nova Scotia teenagers noticed a fellow classmate getting bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school. David Shepherd and Travis Price then bought and distributed 50 pink shirts to “stand up against bullying,” giving rise to anti-bullying days all around the world. For […]
~~ Continue reading Vlog #13 – Random Acts of Kindness on Beyond the Rhetoric.
There’s not enough time. There’s never enough time. It’s a mantra repeated by nearly everybody in contemporary society. We feel like we are constantly being pulled in a hundred different directions. There’s always so much to do and the exhaustion never fully dissipates, especially if you are a working parent. And when you recognize that […]
~~ Continue reading Why Making Better Use of My Time Might Be the Worst Decision I Could Make on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Everything changes when you become a parent. I know it did for me. We became so much more keenly aware of all the choices we were making, from nutrition to safety, education to exercise. I’m not a health nut, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do want what is best for my daughter. […]
~~ Continue reading Healthy Family Expo 2017 (Promo Code and Giveaway!) on Beyond the Rhetoric.
If you look closely enough and you take the time, anything can be interesting to anyone, because everything is related in some way to something they care about. As a general rule of thumb, people hate boring things. They don’t want to watch boring movies, they don’t want to read boring books and they don’t […]
~~ Continue reading Sunday Snippet: “Vsauce” Michael Stevens on Beyond the Rhetoric.
While I am certainly grateful to have never been afflicted with a major disease or condition, I am also certain that I have never been of particularly good health either. I’ve never owned a gym membership in my life, aside from the access I was granted as a student at UBC. And I eat a […]
~~ Continue reading Vlog #14: The Wellness Show on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Maybe it’s because I’m the younger of two brothers and the youngest among my cousins on my dad’s side. I’ve always been the baby of the family and, as much as I might hate to admit it, I’ve likely always been treated that way too. Maybe I was spoiled. But it also meant that I […]
~~ Continue reading The Unintentional Social Experiment on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Let me preface this by saying that people who work in creative fields are not necessarily any smarter, better, or harder working than people who work in non-creative fields. It’s just that the approach to work is an inherently different kind of beast and requires a wholly different manner of thinking. This is perhaps best […]
~~ Continue reading Trying to Explain Flow to Non-Creatives on Beyond the Rhetoric.
So what have we learned? What are the lessons that come from the tens of thousands of pages of information that we’ve generated on these lives? Well, the lessons aren’t about wealth or fame or working harder and harder. The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us […]
~~ Continue reading Sunday Snippet: Robert Waldinger on Happiness on Beyond the Rhetoric.
I like to eat. This is hardly a secret. In fact, when I asked my Facebook friends to name something I love, they came back with two main answers: my daughter and food. There’s a reason why I call myself a “voracious foodie” and why my Instagram profile lists me as a “foodporn aficionado.” One […]
~~ Continue reading Vlog #15: A Little Foodie Adventure on Beyond the Rhetoric.
English is filled with all sorts of idioms and phrases where the original meaning is mostly lost on the general population. We’re not talking about actual eggs and chickens when we discuss nest eggs, just as we aren’t illuminating a dark space when we hold a candle to something. But in both these cases, it’s […]
~~ Continue reading Idiomatica: Batten Down the Hatches on Beyond the Rhetoric.
