Who Is This Guy?

Hello Cyberspace. You are probably asking 'Who Is This Guy?' This is a question I've asked every time I've looked in the mirror for years. The short answer - I'm Brandon, a PR student living in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The long answer begins with a quote from something I wrote in high school. "If you don't know who you've been, you can't know who you are."

I am the sum of my experiences. My parents were divorced when I was young...I lived with my father. I started working when I was 15...my first job was at a hotel in the small village of Alma in Fundy National Park. After high school, it was only a year before I graduated to a university dropout. I became a father about a month after my 18th birthday. I've lived in what was essentially a crack house...I've lived in an eight man tent in a war zone. I have no regrets.

I am a small piece of everyone who's ever touched my life. I've been fortunate enough to see essentially all walks of life in the people I've met. There's no denying the influence of the music I've listened to, the shows I've watched, the movies I've seen over and over again. I specifically remember taking an online personality test in Grade 11 to see which celebrity I was most like. I was absolutely elated when the Internet told me I was akin to Will Smith in Fresh Prince.

I've always asked questions. My favourite (and yes, I do spell words like favourite and neighbour with an 'ou' - that's the way I was taught and the way I will continue to write - fight the power!) ones are why and how. Why do we exist? How did we get here? Why is central banking allowed to govern the world? How did the universe form? Why is gravity an undisputed theory with no equal and opposite accounted for? How do war criminals like George W. Bush get to walk around freely, yet one little video starts a 'Kony2012' typhoon of uproar? Why do people think ideas can be killed with weapons? How can a government concerned with the welfare of its people possibly justify post-secondary education being run as a business instead of a public service? Why and how...two of my favourite words in the English language.

So Cyberspace...that's a little bit about me. I have lots of questions and lots of theories. I hope you want to read them...I encourage any comments or suggestions...but mostly I hope to encourage you to be more critical.

The Critical Stranger