My name is Michael and I consistently walk a fine line in my life between progression and self-destruction. As you can see from the pictures I’ve provided I’m usually threatening someone, pointing, screaming, or completely indifferent. In actuality I try to get in as many laughs as possible throughout the course of a day but I ensure none of my happiness is ever recorded on film. It ruins my rep of miserable prick. 😉
For a few years now, this blog has been a public outlet for me to organize my thoughts. Â At times they come off brilliantly, and other times they become a guidepost for future me to look back and see how far I’ve come in my understanding of the world. Â But please, make no mistake… I’m not a “recognized expert” in anything, I have no significant data trials for anything that I say, and I never claim to know what I’m talking about. Â These are simply my thoughts and experiences with life and how I understand humanity… for now.
Please take away from my experiences and thoughts what might help you upon your own journey and leave the rest where it lay.
Now here’s a little bio, if you’d like to speed date me…
My hometown is about 40min from the giant immigration factory that is Toronto. Â Hamilton, Ontario is a unique city that has a mindset and history all its own. To live here is to love it, but to live anywhere BUT here is to laugh at us.
Hamilton’s claim to fame is its enormous steel industry, which provides the surrounding citizens with ample amounts of both employment and asthma; Not to mention a cloud cover that I believe will one day black out the sun. But above all this, its been a surprisingly great place to be raised. I’ve developed friendships that will last me a lifetime and a unique cynicism that will surely shorten that life.
I was born into a catholic family but eventually found that thinking for myself is a lot more fun. Go figure. It includes the same morality and fun, without any of the guilt and repression. Sign me up.
I graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a B.A in Sociology. Why Sociology you ask? Because my highschool guidance counselors were just THAT good. Though I value my university education a great deal, it was mostly the experiences outside of the classroom that were to my long-term benefit (not including its affect on my liver and kidneys).
I’ve traveled extensively through Europe and worked in both London, England and Barcelona, Spain for periods of 3 and 6 months respectively. I am absolutely a better person for those experiences and I recommend a change of scenery to anyone reading this. The perspective you receive on different lifestyles, different cultures, and yourself will impact you both subtly and drastically. Seriously. Life is nothing without new experiences and I recommend venturing outside the tidy, brightly packaged, non-biodegradable box that is North America.
I am a big believer that this is the only life we get and I think that its worth whatever battles you must endure to get what you want out of it, be it emotional or physical.
Oscar Wilde once said it best with, “Everything popular is wrong.” It sounded drastic when I read it many years ago, but I came across it again recently (2008) and it now resounds inside me as a powerful reminder to constantly test my boundaries. The only roadblocks we have in this life are the ones we put up ourselves.
I want Perfectly Turbulent to be a working metaphor for everyone’s life. A place where people can discuss the fact that life isn’t about making a continual strive towards blissful happiness. I subscribe to the school of thought that happiness is nothing but an intangible goal. Life is about tolerance, perseverance and the wisdom to not search for ultimate happiness but just to wait for the little pockets of joy that come along and learn to embrace them with a passion of a lifetime because you never know what may come next. So that’s my lofty idea for this site, but otherwise I want people to think a little bit and laugh a lot. Perhaps Perfectly Turbulent can be a little pocket of happiness for you from time to time.
Hope to hear from everyone soon.
Drive fast. Take Chances.
Mike