It has been probably over a year since I last wrote a blog post about anything worthwhile and being up at 3am almost every night for six months gives you lots of time to think about a ton of different things, some that matter and some that don’t. I figured I would try and get some of those ideas down starting with suffering and the vast amount of it going on in Haiti as I type this.

I have gone through my fair share of suffering in the last six months, beginning with my broken neck in July 2009. Looking back on this experience I feel like it has made me a much stronger person mentally and emotionally but it has also given me a new perspective on whats really important in life. Now I know a lot of people who have a near death experience or develop a certain disease seem to all tell the same story about how life seems so much different to them but I guess until you experience it for yourself you can never really relate to them all that well. I once was in the same boat as most people are in thinking that these stories of new perspectives and different outlooks were great and all but they never really had any effect on me personally. Now that I have been through my little ordeal (and I say little because there are far worse things that could happen to me) I see peoples suffering on an entirely different level.

Whether its the news stories about a families house that burnt on Christmas morning, the death of a police officer in the line of duty or the horrific natural disasters that take thousands of lives every year I feel that the suffering that these individuals endure is far greater than any suffering I have ever come close to experiencing in my life. This separateness from the emotional pain of others makes me feel selfish and spoiled for complaining about almost anything these days because I cannot begin to imagine the pain they are feeling. It has caused me to take a giant step back and examine the motivations that cause people to do certain things. Whether its money, fame, status, popularity or acceptance these things all seem very superficial to me now. I find it difficult to enjoy myself when there is so much suffering occurring all around us. I never really allowed it to affect me personally before but more and more I find myself feeling bad for eating or drinking so much when 2/3 of the world population has trouble feeding itself, not working for an extended period of time but still having enough money to support myself, spending time with all my friends and family while others are alone. I was blind to these differences before but more and more I find that my compassion and love for others is out growing the love for myself. That is not to say I do not love myself, I am a very happy individual. It is that I now see the importance in making the effort for somebody else before serving my own needs.

I hope that I can somehow transfer these feelings into action in a meaningful way. A way that serves the greater good rather than the ‘I’, which many people find the most important thing in the world.

I am starting with a small donation to the Red Cross to help the families and individuals in Haiti. You can do the same here.

So for anyone who was not aware I broke my neck three months ago and have been recovering first in Edmonton and now back home in Glengarry (Ontario). I has been quite the last couple of months to say the least. Not knowing weather I’ll use my arms and legs ever again was the scariest ideas I’ve had to toil with so far in my life. How true it is that the unknown is the scariest thing in life. Being totally immobilized and unable to control my future made me quite nervous but also gave me the courage and will power to get myself out of this sticky situation. I am happy to report that I have been walking for the past two months and my arms and hands are slowly getting back to normal. I am one of the lucky ones who makes a solid recovery after an injury like this and I feel very fortunate.

I am currently living back at my parents place in Ontario as I continue my recovery and make my way back to ‘normal’. I will probably be sticking it out here until the new year (2010 already?) then making my way back to my home in Alberta.

I am slowing going to be changing Jeffrey Munro dot com from my personal blog to more of a portfolio of projects that I am working on (ie: videos, photos, writings). I like the minimal and simple theme that I am rocking right now so I am guessing that the rest of the site will follow the same path. I have been reading quite a bit about design lately so hopefully I will be able to apply some of the things I have learnt here.

I know that the readership for this blog is next to none, but thats alright. I hope to get back into the grove of writing on a regular basis again but given the fact that life is moving A LOT faster now compared to even a year ago I sometimes find it difficult to gather my thoughts and get them down on paper (or Google Docs). I have a lot to say about a wide variety of subjects so I can’t see me choosing one particular niche to concentrate on (as many recommend doing).

“The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.” - Buddha

I added a little e-mail me form to the right. Can`t make it much easier for visitors to get in contact with me. I`m not really sure if its necessary for me to post my Facebook profile link, probably not. That is all.

1. Travel to a different part of the world every year
2. Climb a mountain
3. Bungee Jump
4. Sky Dive
5. Scuba Dive
6. Fly in a hot air balloon
7. Learn to play an instrument
8. Donate blood
9. Go to a Stanley Cup game
10. Do 1,000 sit-ups in a day
11. Do 1,000 push-ups in a day
12. See a space shuttle launch
13. Have someone watch my launch
14. Visit all the continents
15. Take a couple nice pictures every year and make a portfolio
16. The Olympics
17. Learn to speak another language
18. Learn to fly
19. Run a marathon
20. Stay awake for 48 hours
21. Go on a cruise
22. Visit the Great Wall of China
23. Fast for 72 hours
24. Build a successful blog
25. Own a business
26. Find a direction / purpose
27. Take a trip once a year
28. Remove all negative emotions from my life
29. Test myself once a day
30. Learn to cook
31. Discover and try the wines and beers of the world
32. Attend Burning Man
33. Camp in the bush for a week
34. See the northern lights
35. Visit the Pyramids
36. Enjoy working
37. Visit New York (Central Park, Liberty, Manhattan)
38. Go to the theater
39. Visit Machu Picchu
40. Invent something
41. Read books
42. Take 10,000 photos
43. Create music
44. Go hunting
45. Give away an entire pay check
46. Bench press my own body weight
47. Eat an eight course meal
48. Apply the teachings of Buddhism in my life
49. Buy my dream car
50. Hand Glide
51. Attend Shambala
52. Attend Oktoberfest
53. Go on an African Safari
54. Make a friend in all the major countries
55. Live like a local for a month
56. Learn another language
57. Travel India by train
58. Volunteer abroad
59. Attend Burning Man
60. Attend Love Parade
61. Smoke a hand rolled cigar in Cuba
62. Spend New Years in another country
63. Take a dance lesson
64. Say nothing for an entire day
65. Watch all the classic movies
66. Plant a tree and follow its growth
67. Discover Alaska
68. Experience South America
69. Rest in Australia
70. Visit Li River in China
71. Visit Lhasa Tibet
72. Visit San Juan Islands
73. Read a book in one sitting
74. Live everyday like it is my last
75. Continue adding to the list…

I have been getting a couple of messages lately about my nature wallpaper website (here) being down. I am currently in the process of switching the photo library over to Gallery2 so for anyone who is wondering about this please hold tight, all the photos should be up soon.

Gallery 2 gives me much more flexibility in design, formatting and back-end so it was only a matter of time before I switched over from the extremely basic photo blog software the site was running on before. With the new software and hosting the wallpapers should see much faster load times. I have also removed the ads from the site for the time being. I’m going to try a simple donation approach to raise enough money to pay for the $10.00 a month hosting package (1500gb of bandwidth and 200gb of storage).

Just testing out a bunch of the new improvements to Wordpress. It has come a long way since I started using it back in 2005. Rich Text was huge back then haha.

So I have made a back-up of the old blog but I think I want to start the whole thing over again. The old blog was full of random, useless and spammy posts so I figured the best idea was to start with a clean palette. Nothing to compare to. Nothing to contrast. Just a small new beginning. Hopefully this will give me a little kick start to actually start writing more. Between life and work I’ve found it difficult to formulate my thoughts into a blog post as of late. Let’s leave it at that for now and see how things go.