I had a great day today. That's kind of a big deal for me as it could be argued that I've had a a rather shitty go of it (I'm a tad inebriated now so you'll have to forgive the cusses in this post). To distinguish from other days this day was great on it's own and was not at all about that. I've had other great days since then (along with so many bad days), but at the end of them they're still about that because despite outward appearances I'm still (and probably forever) rather damaged. Today was different though. It was great on it's own.

I went snowboarding for the third time ever today and decided that it is a thing I like enough to invest money in buying equipment. I had a good lesson and a fantastic afternoon where I made real progress with my skills. It was too warm out, and the snow was imperfect and the atmosphere was typical dreary grey Ontario winter, but it was also awesome. Because the world is pretty fucking awesome when you think about it.

Despite having had a shitty go of it I also recognize that I'm absurdly privileged. Absurd isn't nearly a strong enough adjective but it's the best I've got right now. I'm a white straight male with a high IQ who grew up in a middle class, nominatively Protestant household in a first world country as the child of parents who both pursued and encouraged post-secondary education. All of that made it easy for me to obtain a Computer Science degree that has enabled me to get a job which pays me enough to live an upper middle class lifestyle as an independent adult without any debt. When the shitty thing did happen to me, it happened in a country where we could access excellent health care without incurring financial disaster. The only anti-privilege I can think of in my life was the divorce of my parents when I was in grade seven. But around half my friends at the time came from "broken" households so it's hard to argue that I was part of some oppressed minority. Plus my parent's divorce was mostly amicable from my point of view so I'm even privileged within the group of children of "broken" households. All these things put me ahead of such a large portion of the population of the world that it isn't worth coming up with an actual number. It rounds up to 100% in all contexts.

So yeah, a bad thing happened to me, but the world is still awesome and I am in a position where I feel like I must strive to acknowledge that. What on earth could I possibly complain about? There is so much to see and do and there is stuff that is basically magic happening all the time. My iPhone 4S is a super-computer in my pocket. Magic. In May my brother and I are taking my mom to France. We'll travel over 6000km and it will only take about 8 hours and we'll do it by FLYING and the flight will cost less than $1000 each round trip. Magic. I'm free to post my thoughts to a blog on the Internet which is just millions of piles of Magic. I spent a whole day today doing controlled falls down a really big hill in glorious nature instead of fighting bears and struggling to survive the winter. Not magic, but still pretty awesome that I not only have the spare time but that western society has oriented itself in such a way that it was not hard or prohibitively expensive for me to spend my spare time in such a frivolous way.

Maybe it's the endorphins from a day outside exercising, or maybe it's the four pints of medium-strength (~6%) beer enjoyed in the company of happy fun people but I'm in a good mood this evening because today was a great day.