News and Views

Here we are–another Sunday in the Covid lock-down of spring 2020. It is a beautiful morning here in the Okanagan with a promise of warm day ahead, of which we have had not too many lately.

I have added a couple of new pages to my website lately that are both directly related to the late, great media theorist, Marshall McLuhan. The first is a copy of my 1990 Master’s Thesis: The English Curricular Response to the Mass Media. In this thesis, I show how English Language Arts Curriculum has responded to the introduction of various media of communication that got their start and/or reached their peak during the 20th century.

Also, I have added another Machura on McLuhan selection: On Internet Porn. This is a piece that explores our pair-bonding natures and our relationships with our tools and technologies.

Have a great Sunday everyone! Life is good! And the “unexamined life is not worth living.” – JP Satre.

Conflict is not part of the human condition; it is the human condition.

One of the things I have done since moving to Vernon, BC. is perform at many seniors homes and long-term care hospitals. If it were true that we are happiest when all of our needs are being meet, and we are provided with the most conflict-free environment possible, these places would be incredibly happy. Yet, the opposite is true–as with life in general.

A conflict-free life is not a life at all. And those of us who buy into the capitalistic/protestant work myth of aiming for a conflict free-future, as with a golden retirement and future bliss of comfort and ease, may be missing the point entirely. And importantly, we, as a society largely driven by this myth, are not only wasting the earth and all her abundant and precious beauty and resources the process, but also wasting our own precious few days and years that we are allotted on our wonderful planet.

The storms of life come upon us–and some we create ourselves. Either way, these conflicts challenge us to stand up, be human, and experience the range of emotions that are our birthright and ultimately the fire/rain that shape our destiny.

We can thank the storm–especially, as we carry on (stronger, better, and more humble) and perhaps with the divine spark of life shining a bit brighter in our eyes and smiles, for all to see.

The shortest pessimistic poem in the world goes like this: “Hope? Nope.” – unknown author.

We can see in the photograph the hand of the unborn child reaching out of the womb and holding on to the surgeon’s hand. He or she is not giving up or letting go; he or she already has hope in his/her small, beating heart in the world of not only today but also tomorrow.

It is hope and faith that keep the black dogs of despair, self-pity, depression at bay. When they threaten us, we as people, couples, families, communities, cities, nations, and world citizens, can sicken, resort to senseless violence, forsake our fellows, and even self-destruct.

So it’s good to keep hope alive in our lives and perhaps realize that our daily struggles and conflicts are best backstopped by the great human gifts of hope and faith.

My dad puts life’s struggles and conflicts into a simple adage by which he has lived: “As long as you leave the place better than you found it.” And I agree. Perhaps we get closest to our purpose as mortals when we see that our living and dying, underpinned by hope, will not turn to gloom because we keep our aim on that rule and heroic struggle to brighten–and not darken–our world.

Hi Friends,

I have working on this website for the past few weeks and am now ready to start promoting it! Yeah! And now that I have my vision in place

My life has been an interesting, engaging, and exciting experience being a teacher, writer, and performer. I have done a fair amount of work in each of my three life disciplines–and continue to engage in them now. So, they are all up here with the latest information and updates. Thanks WordPress and the World Wide Web for the privilege! As imaginative as I was as young boy, I did not dream of this happening in my lifetime.

I remember when the Internet was first coming out; my brother who has always been on the vanguard of technology first showed me how he hooked his computer up to the Internet. He said, “See, I can find out the weather in Vancouver.” I said, “I don’t see much future in this Internet because who wants to see the weather in Vancouver!”

I also once said, “I can’t see a future in software because once you have the program it will never wear out like a machine, and it is all you need.” I think I said that when WordPerfect 5.0 came out.

Cheers! and happy launch day for this new marvmachura.com site!

We should never deny our or others feelings. People will forget what you have said to them, but they never forget how you made them feel. And getting control of our feelings or emotional state is not a matter of subduing feeling. The contrary is true. The more we engage in our emotional life, the stronger and more important it becomes. If our emotional engagement is mostly self-pity and despair that is not good–but the danger comes when our engagement in these emotions seems uncontrollable. Be kind to yourself; let yourself feel these emotions. The greatest danger is thinking that these emotions are not real. They are real.

What I mean here is to not deny your harmful/destructive states as much as you do not deny your positive/constructive states. Engage in your emotions–the greatest of this gift manifests itself in a rainbow of colours and light that under-pin all the life and energy that we perceive as real–and it is real. Engage in that powerful dance of light/energy/vibration that is contained in the several trillion cells that make up your body and even the quantum light/energy/matter of each swirling molecular particle wrapped in our skin.

Hi Friends,

I have been getting this website together over the past week or so; it has been a bit of steep learning curve with the software and then now the adding of content and downloads is taking up a few more days.

Yesterday, I was able to get my book Wonder online and available for download. Today, I hope to get more writing up there as well as more.

Thanks for visiting!

Sometimes we need to just step back from the current problems and 1000 reasons to get a person down and give thanks for what we have. There is another side to each situation, and we don’t know much more than how we feel–that is all that is for-sure real. And, for the most part, we are in control of how we feel. It’s good to practice gratitude for the amazing gift that life is. We don’t see the world the way the world is; we see the world the way we are.

Hi Friends,

I hope this finds you all doing well. Here’s an older poster from a wonderful night at the Haven Social Club when I released my first music video: CN Grain Train.

The video was shot and put together by my colleague and friend, Les Sawyer.

Welcome friends! I have been working on this new website for the past week as the world moves to total lockdown fighting the Novel Corona Virus.

It is unprecedented in our life time for this to be happening, but I suppose we have been expecting something like this for while now. I’m sure we are all hoping for a return to normal asap…but in the meantime, we all have to find a way to get through.

I hope to expand this site to include more than Marv Machura Music. I see myself as singer-songwriter, teacher, and writer.