Motivation.

I used to be fat. In 2011, I weighed in just over 300lbs and looked like a plump little pear. The fact that I was pretty short at the time didn't help the isolation I felt of being 5'8" and weighed the same as two people. I wasn't always that big, though. My family has described my growth as if my body was prioritizing height and width individually. One month, I'd grow tall and lean and then a few months later I'd grow outward. I never paid attention to this for a long time. I don't think anyone pays attention to their own body when their young. It's a beautiful gift, when you think about it. I was never a fat kid, just a wide kid. Wide and uncaring, it was a good place to be.

When I was 15, my family moved to northern Ontario to live in Sault Ste Marie. At this stage in my life I had just started high school, I had a girlfriend at the time and a group of close friends. I skipped a few classes, started to hang out with the older kids and generally felt pretty good about the foundation I was building. So when the topic of having to pick up my life and move came up I was opposed to it from the start. I was angry with my family, heartbroken about losing my friends and scared of having to start from scratch. Those emotions stuck with me like an excess growth throughout my time there. I went to school, but I didn't fit in because I didn't want to. I made friends but it was all at a distance. I purposely isolated myself from everybody because it wasn't my school,  these weren't my friends and this wasn't my home. The other students picked up on this and after only two months of being enrolled I was bullied relentlessly. I was scared to go to school, so I didn't. I stayed at home and refused to leave the house. I felt alone and angry, so I started to eat. And eat. And eat. I fueled my depression with a heavy eating disorder to help cope with the frustration I felt. What boggles my mind the most was the denial that I felt. I refused to acknowledge myself for two years. I never looked in to a mirror, I never tried to go back to school or even leave the house. To me, all those things were just parts of the past. I was trying to move forward by ignoring the obstacles that were in place. I was stuck in myself.

To this date, the hardest day of my life was when I acknowledged what I had become. I remember getting out of the shower and for the first time in two years looking in to the mirror. I remember standing there completely naked and staring at myself exposed. Turning sideways, looking down, trying to see who I was from all angles. I remember putting my hands on my stomach, but just for a few seconds. It was that second of contact with my own body when everything hit me all at once. All the denial that I felt washed away and I was left with the reality of who I was. I haven't cried that hard since that moment. From then on, I promised myself to improve in all aspects of my life. I started with my body, exercising constantly with cardio and core workouts while doing my best to fight the temptation to give in to the cravings I felt. I started going to a different school, I tried to leave the house more. Slowly but surely, my life started to back to me. I felt like I was in control again. I was losing weight and gaining friends. Soon after that transition, my family moved back to southern Ontario and picked up the reigns we left in Guelph. We struggled for a long time, but I was happy to be home. I continued with the goals I set for myself, to improve and become a stronger person. I never lost my drive for exercise or to meet new people. I went back to my old school and felt like I had a fresh start on my schooling. I got in to skateboarding which quickly ignited as a passion and means of expression, opening brand new doors for me to make friends and create memories. I made people laugh, found jobs, met girls and had my heart broken.  All of these experiences I attribute to the first spark of progress in my life, to change my body. To take control of the skin that I am. It was hard, still is. Some days were harder than others, but I always found the strength to push through the pain and fatigue. It was always there, an unseen motivator for one more rep, one more circuit. And while attractiveness is subjective, the first time someone called me sexy I didn't even know how to react, because I believed it. It was wonderful. I did it.

When I see a fat person I feel pangs of sympathy, never pity. I understand the frustration and the guilt they feel. All the emotions of what that excess weight brings affects anyone in that state of living. Hell, even the people who pose for those motivational posters feel it. Blessed are the few who have the confidence to admit themselves to the world, but where I see the faults in the entire fat acceptance campaign is this: it is easier for the world to accept you than it is to accept yourself. Behind the words each poster hosts is still a person struggling with accepting themselves and daunted by the struggles of change. I know this because I struggled too. I also know that it's possible. It can be done and you can do it. Maybe it sounds harsh. It's cruel to tell anyone to improve themselves and I've gotten a ton of heat for it in the past but deep down, I know it's what they want. It's what I wanted as well. To feel confident with their body and proud of who they are. We all want to be loved, but we should start with loving ourselves first.

If you have any questions regarding anything I said or even wish to contact me for personal reasons you can reach me at taylor.ciccotelli@gmail.com

You, The Creator.

There was a lot on my mind as I talked to Sean. We were on the balcony of the Albion, it was late and it was cold. I had left the group I came with at the pool table and I knew they were getting impatient. But the more I talked to Sean the more I knew I had to stay on the balcony. Sean spoke about living in British Columbia, his victory tour as a cyclist, his love of pool and most interestingly, his Satori. Satori is a Buddhist term to describe a sudden spiritual awakening and his awareness of God, but not as what we think God is. Sean views God as as the universe on a whole, not a singular being. He believes that we are the creator and the universe creates the miracles through our will. In his own words: "You have come to know yourself as the creator. That's why you're here. You created this world, the universe and everything in it before you created the idea about you. You chose to come here looking exactly as you do, being exactly as you are with the intentions of the world that you have. And you came here to make those intentions realized." Sean spoke with sincerity and excitement, and while I was shivering he remained calm and controlled. It was like the thrill of sharing his thoughts to someone kept him warm. We started talking about about the seduction of high paying work and how it makes us quiet slaves to our job. I joked saying we all just wanted to be rock stars, and Sean agreed. "It is the artists and creators of the world that speak the most truth, but they do it in their music and it goes unchecked. You write a novel saying the same ideas and you'll get all sorts of people saying you can't write about that." I agreed, I noticed that as well. Sean quoted the opening lyrics of The Scientist and how it connected to his beliefs. "'Come up to meet you/tell you I'm sorry/you don't know know how lovely you are.' Now, that right there is the perfect example of what you are." I admitted that I wasn't quite grasping the connection. It seemed more akin to something you would say to a lover. So, Sean said this. "You're God. You came here to forget that you're God and when you die you can remember you're God and go 'Fuck! Really? I was God that whole time and everything I thought about and dreamed of could have been realized on? Oh man.' And you'll want to come back and do it again because you failed to do what you came here to do this time." Sean's response resonated with me a great deal because I've heard this belief numerous times in the past. With my mother being a medium I've met a great deal of spiritual and enlightened people and they've all said the same thing. When you are born, you have chosen to willfully come back to this world with very specific intentions. Whether it is to finally learn a failed lesson from a past life or to create something in this life that you never managed to. Whatever the lesson is, we have chosen to come back to fulfill it. So when we die and truly cross over, if we still haven't accomplished what we came back to do then we're given the choice to return to try again. So before and after death you could understand that you are the creator of your world, but what about during? I asked Sean about what it meant to be aware that you're the Creator and sarcastically I asked if I could move a mountain. Sean laughed and smartened me up. "This was a few weeks after my awakening, so my mom came out to  BC for the first time and had never been to Whistler. Now, my mom is terrified of being in cars and she did not want to drive the Sea-To-Sky highway to Whistler, that's the one they had to redo because it was so dangerous. My aunt was asking me what to do, So I said don't worry, I'll take care of it, I'll think of something. So that night, I'm laying in bed and I'm basically in this place of knowing I'm God, and that I can ask  the universe for anything. So I said, 'okay, fuck, man. I don't know what you're  capable of doing, but you know what you're capable of. So just do it. On the day we're suppose to go to Whistler an avalanche shuts down the Sea-To-Sky Highway to Whistler from the day she arrived to literally the moment she took off on the plane. There was no option to go to Whistler anymore. God, if you will, intervened." Or you, I interjected. "[laugh] Maybe. But the only reason that happened is because the intention came from what?" Will? I asked. Sean answered. "Love, brother. Love. Love is the only thing that runs the universe and it's the only thing that's true. You could ask the universe for anything with the sincerity of love in your heart and it not deny you a thing. " It was at that moment that I started to understand more of what Sean was talking about and where he was coming from. Sean's belief stems from love for yourself and for the world. It also ties closely to the act of positive affirmation, which is a very old mental and spiritual practice that uses positive energy and meditation to manifest change in to the real world. Simply through the practitioners  belief and will, by willing something through love and positive intentions, some people believe that it's possible that your intentions can take on form. "Ask a wish for any body you care about, if God is real, if God is true, then wish for everything to work out for that person, and watch as it does. And that is God speaking to you on a universal level, that was you, it was your creative power that manifested the change."  At this point, we had been outside for half an hour. My feet were beyond numb, my cigarette long burnt out and I knew that my friends were getting impatient. I asked Sean if he wanted one final closing statement before we wrapped it up and went back in to finish the game of pool we started. He said he did, and told me this. "Jesus said in the bible, everything I can do, you can do and more. What do you think he was trying to tell you? He's a god, and so are you. And we are finally ready to understand that now. The development of the human brain is so that we can intellectually understand that which is God, because it is so huge and so vast that it would be incomprehensible to us before. We developed this intellectual mind so that when we wake up to the knowledge of God, we have the understanding to use that knowledge."  Perfect, I said. Sean extinguished his smoke as we shook hands and went back inside for drinks. The rest of the night may have been a blur, but the details of our conversation were cemented in me through out our time together at the Albion. Sean's philosophies may seem radical to some, but it's the heart of his beliefs that ring the most truth. Love is a very powerful tool and with it, anyone could reshape their world as they truly wish to see it. All you have to do is believe it.

Peter Parkour, Great Power and Greater Responsibility.

           Culture has been defined as "the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time".  To some, the culture that they have chosen to exist in becomes a cerebral part of themselves. We turn to it to define ourselves as individuals, as a singular entity in this world. It becomes a focal point that drives us forward. To Peter Christof Parkour, the hip hop culture has become an integral part of who he is and it was apparent when I met him that he carried it proudly wherever he went.  A regular of the downtown scene, Peter has boldly put himself in to the public eye as a breakdancer and titling himself as a B-Boy. But what interested me the most about Peter was his idolism of the comic book hero Spider-Man, someone who he identifies with to a great extent. An idolism that has driven him to don the costume and carry the morals of the hero himself while he climbs the buildings of Guelph. Because as he said it, "When the kids see Spider-Man climbing the side of a building or jumping off it's roof, they know they have to be Spider-Man to do it." I was curious to the origins of someone like him and when asked, he spoke openly. Peter spoke about the loss of a friend while he was in high school. He said that it was a death that in retrospect, he knew he could have prevented. And it was the frustration that came from ignoring the warning signs that could have prevented a death that caused him to spiral downward for a long time. Peter spent years dedicating himself to learning ways to help people. He studied for first aid and CPR certification five times over. Worked his way to a black belt in martial arts, eventually leaving his dojo to continue exploring the study. But it wasn't until the mentoring of a childhood friend that Peter found an emotional outlet in the form of breakdancing. Carrying the emotion's of what Peter calls his "Uncle Ben moment", his aggressive, flowing style reinforces his belief that all dancing should be emotional and improvised."Dance is nothing without dedication." He said. "You need to be able to express yourself with what you're doing, or you shouldn't be doing it. The worst dancer you see is someone who's jumping in the circle. If they're not jumping in the circle to show you an idea, or a pattern behind their movement that they want to display then they're just soaking up the limelight."  While we talked, it was obvious to me that Peter viewed hip hop as an artistic means of expression through both beats and dance very highly. It's almost inspiring to meet people like this, that embody their loves and passions so completely that they almost become what they dedicate themselves to. When you're passionate about something, it's not hard to lose yourself to it. "What hip hop is to me, is a lifestyle. It's hip hop genius. The ability to take nothing and materialize anything from it. From the get go, it has always been a spot where a community can bridge together." It was a joy to listen to. But from the get go, what interested me the most about him was his moonlight hobby of donning the Spidey costume. Peter is an adventurous person, that much is obvious just by looking at him. He stressed to me his belief that people shouldn't be so reserved and afraid to try new things. Peter uses the costume during his bouts of urban exploration as a way to inspire others. He channels the hero through himself as a way to reach out and encourage people to take risks with their lives, to take chances and explore opportunities. He told me that he held the Steve Jobs quote of  "Stay hungry, stay foolish" in high regards and that there was never a moment in a day that he didn't explore any opportunity that life offered him. Peter is an amazing dude and it was a pleasure to speak with him briefly. I asked him what the future held for him and he told me that California was his destination and his passions would be his career. The world needs more outgoing people, unafraid of how their passions appear to others. It was a pleasure to meet Peter, and wherever the future may take him I hope for the best.

The world is a very big place. And at the time of this post, worldometers.com states that 7,195,159, 014 (and counting) are currently living on the planet. It's hard not to feel small in comparison when you and I are just two people caught in the wave of life on mother Earth. It's easy to just be caught in the flow of modern living. We work, we live and ultimately we die, often with friends and sometimes alone. When so many people exist around us, isn't it strange how we sometimes feel alone? It's as if despite the ever rising numbers of population we feel isolated with our thoughts and our minds. Caught in the stream of day to day life. Strangers feel so distant, potential friends so far away. All of us are brimming with ideas, beliefs and wisdom but it's that nagging awareness of our small place in the world that often keeps us from sharing how we feel. It's kind of sad, isn't it?

This blog is for us. For the people who feel their insights and wisdom are too often silenced by the crashing waves of life. The crazies, the elderly, the young. All of us have voices and this is where you'll hear them.