Updates...


Greetings from Brian here at Shhhh! Digital. I just got back in the door from grocery shopping and finished stashing my feast of good food and great service thanks to my grocer down on Front Street and Sherbourne Street of the city I love, in the community I'm enjoying (despising). 


It was an adventure as it is always, but I'm very glad to be home and away from the Gremlins. Water might not be their thing (Gremlins I mean), but its certainly mine, though I don't surrepititiously enter into a cycle of body-wide mitosis when exposed to it, thankfully.


NE way, I've already worked about 3 hours on some other projects and am just now at 3PM getting underway with my night's shift. I imagine that I'll be going until around 8 or 9PM tonight and then I'll move on to something different for the night, such as a movie or gaming or just listening to music. Transforming the stress into something semi-productive, though its easier to transform the good stuff into something else good, than it is to go for negative to positive.

 

I have no plans to post anything new today given the time that I'm starting and the events of the day (I don't want to reward nasty Gremlins, but I don't want to punish the friendly Mogwai). So I think I have a solution.


Tonight I'm working on other projects for the time being and I'm going to post something later, though it won't be related to any storyline I've got going right now. This weekend however is going to be a smorgasbord of work on all three episodic stories. I might post the results on Monday, or I might post them as I finish them on the weekend. 


I personally like the idea of posting them on Monday because it gives a bit of pep to the week before the Canadian Thanksgiving, which takes place on the weekend of Friday 6 through until Monday (Thanksgiving Day in Canada). I have a lot to be thankful for and I say it every day in ways that most people miss on the surface. 


Its family tradition to recognize the fact that what we have, is an abundance. Its certainly alright to want and pursue a better life, but honestly, throughout the 1900s, the country that most of us were born into, or emigrated to, grew to become a veritable haven. We have one of the first Universal Healthcare Systems in the world. We have a sturdy social safety net. We have standards that ensure that we're protected as consumers. We levels of quality assurance that guarantee our engineering standards as well. 


We're facing our country's past, both the bad and the good, and making amends for injustices, while recognizing our forebearer's triumphs in the name of what it is to be Canadian, and global citizens. We've gotten this far not by bullying or cronyism, but by meaningful dialogue and persistent pursuit of justice, both unrelenting and lenient. We've made many strides as a people, together but this country's journey will continue into the distant future, when we're living on other planets and pursuing dreams that were inspired by events like Expo '67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, or through our astounding technical achievements in developing the Avro Arrow with our British Engineering allies.


Considering that this country's beginnings as a modern industrial power started as a direct result of Chinese and other Southeast Asian Immigration who made up most of the workforce building the Canadian Railroad system from coast to coast, we have much to be grateful for as multicultural Canadians, on the land once owned and occupied by the Indigenous Nations who were its first landlords. Reconciliation has begun the process of healing, and is bringing us together so that we may benefit as a country from their unique experience and perspective as nature's allies. The few people  the world over who've managed to successfully integrate into communities with nature, rather than against it.


Mean people can be a horrible thing. But they can't have the effect of progress that all of what I've spoken above can. They might take my identity, my website or my words and claim them as their own as many cults likely do. But they can't take from me or anyone else who truly knows what it is to be a Canadian, and a global citizen in a world of people who are just as grateful for what they have around them as well, wherever that may be on the globe.


So, from myself Brian Joseph Johns, the other artists here: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey and Ghastly, and all of the characters here on Shhhh! Digital Media, we ask that you give a moment to understand reconciliation, and what it means to a people who were uprooted from their life and tradition here on this continent. In doing so, then consider how far we've come together in as Canadians, healing these mortal wounds from so long ago.


When you consider all of that, there's a LOT to be grateful for at Thanksgiving.

Griping every once in a while doesn't make you ungrateful. It makes you human.


I'll be back later with another post, and this weekend will be a horde of episodic content.


Have a great day, and I'll see you later! ;-)

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