January 1st, 2026.
Over the course of the winter, it is my plan to fully update this post. I do wish to preface this page by explaining why I use the word truths and not beliefs. A belief is an idea or a theory where there may be no actual scientific evidence to prove or disprove the idea or theory, as with religion or economics. If you claim a belief, that means you have cast in cement something you may not know anything about. Bearing in mind that, ‘a little bit of knowledge can be construed as dangerous’.
Make 1984 Fiction Again
Make 1984 Fiction Again. This is a t-shirt I purchased from the red-haired US comedian, JP Sears. Here’s his take on the entire kafuffle from three years ago. ~ 2022.
Note: This current crop of younger comedians is a select choice.
To me, truths, while not the exclusive preserve of science, are ideas or theories that can be empirically proved. No, scientific evidence is not the whole truth; however, it’s the best we have, especially if that science is peer-reviewed, the gold standard! My intuition or gut instinct may not mirror yours. I accept and respect what you feel, as long as it’s not Zionism. 🤥
I am navigating my personal site away from WordPress.com to a private server here in NS, under my own name with a Canada (.ca) suffix. As the monetization of the former site became epidemic, I had less and less control over what happened with posts, notifications and feedback comments.
January 1st, 2020
The intention of this blog continuing, is the ongoing pursuit of play coupled with humour, along with an occasional opinion piece. I have been blessed through my work, to see the folly of attachment to people, places and/or things. Fame in this physical realm, is fleeting; as the Kashmiri poetess, Lalla says: Fame, is like water carried in a basket.
All human Beings inhabit this material realm. Only the .01% have fortune! hahaha Those of us who have come to a place of contentment within our own experience, through tragedy, disease, loss, accident, relationship/marital breakups with humility, realize later in life, that there are more years behind, than in front. That’s why Love is so important. But Love does not exist without reciprocity.
One-sided love can only be described as an illusion or fantasy. I love the wood; it loves me in return in a multitude of ways. A true woodworker only has to peer at his stash to get his feelings reciprocated. The same is true of tools, whether motorized or merely handled; I need them and they need me.
🎼All I have is all I need.🎶 Beth Neilson Chapman.
We can refuse the genre of seniors by adopting the term of elders. Usually, wisdom comes later; no surprise. These dayze, I pass mornings at the breaky table perusing the latest Calendar of Wisdom dates of Leo Tolstoy from 1908 -1910. Read the best books first; otherwise, you’ll find you do not have time. ~ Henry David Thoreau
***If you require an immediate response, I use landline only, found in Canada 411. Electronically, please send a personal email to my gmail account using only johnotvos with any queries or feedback. Thanks so much. 🙏
NB: Waveform owners
If you bought new through my former company website, [1995-2001] or used, from a former owner or re-seller, it is time to take a serious look at the surrounds on your woofers and for some, their midranges. The driver surround foam does not fare better than app. 20 yrs. in this ultraviolet light climate crisis.
I have no spares, so please appreciate that I am now outta this business approaching 20 years. If the speakers have not been overdriven, they can be refoamed. *They do not need reconing.* A good craftsperson or audio techie type can do this. You’ll have to do the legwork on your own through Madisound in WI or Simply Speakers in FL. I have made surrounds for the Mach 13 mids with Dollarama file folders, consisting of a thin flexible plastic material. Bonne chance.
Blogging is my intimate effort to connect, to engage with others, if they so wish, who are concerned about life, love, laughter, and our innate limitless ability for creative writing indulgence of fun, my personal history and heritage. I have chosen to reside rurally because I see Thoreau’s passion for nature:
“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
Passion is the unrelenting urge of the inner spirit, for full creative, authentic expression in any form. That expression could be exercised through art, craft or a combination of both, through that mysterious consensus of partnership with All That There IS.
Humanity is moving rapidly through a chaotic stage, to some final evolutionary stage before the next one. We are lacking a new story of our existence, the changing purpose for why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing. Perhaps, as Thomas Berry suggests, since we humans are causing the 6th great extinction, we are moving out of the Cenozoic era. We have been in the Anthropocene for too long now. It’s evident that humans are now causing and included within this current 6th great one. Perhaps homo sapiens will be smart enough to create, as his faith taught Thomas, to merge peacefully towards an Ecozoic era; that’s his term. We are clever, yet, the jury is out on our collective wisdom. Who knows? Can we become comfortable though not knowing?
In 2010, my original intention was to construct a builder’s blog about green building. Greener Building Canada, the name of the site then, was about: yes, we can build houses without furnaces in cold northern climates such as the Annapolis Valley, here in Nova Scotia. I have posted 5 historical buildings I am intimately familiar with, since, I was the builder of all of them.
This is a drone shot during the growing months of the house created on the south-facing side of the North Mtn, and am now in the process of selling. MLS® Number: 202528486
In the last few years, I have decided that it was more appropriate for the site to deal with my life, past and present, as it has unfolded and continues to do. For the most part, I have recently added additional chapters from my life’s fascinations, fleshing out an autobiographical sketch of the creative passions, that have so inspired me all my days. From here on, there’s little remaining that I deem appropriate to speak of publicly. I have not added images of this current NS home here, other than a depiction of several furniture pieces and sculptural wall hangings. For more, come for a visit and a cuppa.
Despite what I write here, I am essentially a private person. I love my forest edge solitude. Yeah, I know, hard to believe! hahaha There is an existential differentiation between being alone and feeling lonely. Many of us elders have skills and remain passionate about sharing those with students of all ages. To wit: I did not purchase ready-made items like cabinets and interior doors for this place, I made ’em.
I have over 60 years of woodworking in many guises under the leather belt, despite becoming vegan in 2011. 🙂 I’m not a purist, as I also eat honey and was a beekeeper. If the Net is the only place for sharing, then so Be it! And, so it is done.
Part of the reason for changing the direction of this blog is that many people have blogs. This blog is a partial autobiography, which is a wonderful way of expressing the energetic spirit within my soul. The known fact that we watch more than we read is accepted as a given. I continue to believe that a more intimate connection can be developed with words. Why so? How many times have we read that the book was deeper, more powerful than the movie?
There is enough information on the Net for many lifetimes to digest. But mostly, there really was scant discussion about building from a German Passivhaus standpoint, both here and while I was a member of Solar Nova Scotia. Guys like mechanical things. A passive house is essentially a thermos bottle.
The nature of those first chapters was essentially concerned with taking a system’s approach to home building, where there were no outbuildings.
All functions, such as potential B&B, a woodworking shop, single vehicle garaging, residence, all cohabiting under one roof. Outside, there is a generous carport, serving as firewood seasoning & storage, plus it’s also a toolshed for the garden. Yes, the building is large externally, i.e., a tick over 3,500 sq. ft. However, as the blog has developed, readers can see that the actual living space for this two-bedroom domicile, is not more than a standard 1,450 sq. ft. house with additional space functioning effectively as a fully finished basement. The trick was that it’s all on one level, doubling as a purposely constructed retirement home. Yes, it’s more expensive to build this way with no staircases. However, none of us knows how long our knees will last. hahaha At some future point, it will have to go on the market. So, yes, it is in that sense, purpose-built.
Today, I look at life with more than a modicum of sobriety. That’s a big statement for someone who does not imbibe the #1 self medication of choice. 🙂 The Universe doesn’t take our individual lives with any degree of severity either. My philosophical tendencies lean towards the many interpretations of the Chinese Tao by Lao-Tzu, the Sufi poets such as Hafiz, Lalla, Ibn al ‘Arabi and the more familiar Rumi. I have, in the past, been a moderator and facilitator of a local nonduality meetup group.
***Update May 1st, 2020 International Workers’ Day,
Many of we artists cum craftspeople, are anarchists, whose true meaning is “without hierarchy”. We are those who live on the edges of society and local culture through differing viewpoints, [anti-capitalist & anti-imperialist, anti-American Empire] differing habits, [meditation, yoga, philosophical reading], vegetable gardening [employing permaculture rather than plow, dig, cultivate] differing diets [mine is wholly plant-based as I took animals off my menu in 2011 and low SOS [sugar-oil-salt]. Some of us support fringe groups such as XR, i.e., Extinction Rebellion. We become upstanders rather than the laid back bystanders, who want it all easy. Many of us are quite outspoken about this. In the 1960s, we were part of the so-called counter culture movement. I personally lay no claim to any form of notoriety, especially since the Sufi poetess Lalla said: “Fame and fortune are like water carried in a basket.”
I’ve endured my Warhol 15-minutes of fame 20 years ago. That workaholism cost me everything I held dear, marriage, children, siblings, old friends and place. I am unrepentant and unchasten. Make peace with what IS from Eckhart Tolle. Jon Kabat-Zinn authored in 1994, a wonder-fueled book entitled: Wherever You Go, There You Are. It’s widely available through Interlibrary loans.
Yes, we suffer for this outspokenness. The most gallant are imprisoned, tortured or murdered, as have been union leaders, environmentalists and investigative journalists. The remainder become impugned, ignored, isolated or shunned. None of this dampens the inner spirit of the artist, craftin their partnership in creativity with The One. Often there is an attack by others for these divergent viewpoints, [do they feel uncomfortable?] that amounts to little more than a defense by an inner struggle to build an offence. We, who hold these ‘differences’, are told we preach, when it’s in essence this boiling passion from within that is striving for creative release.
In our hearts, the commonality within our species through our gut instinct and the felt presence within our 💞 teaches what is wrong with our behaviour and attitudes, ‘cept, few listen to this divine, otherworldly free ‘tuition’. I didn’t for many decades, until I too succumbed to my own cancer. Have you had yours yet?
Ironically, I feel an exquisite, intimate alignment with how musician Don McLean, now 74, who has expressed his own muse, nearly 50 years after the release of Vincent, in this short video below.
If you care to, please sign up for the newsfeed to receive regular chapter additions. Take part in the discussions, or create your own here, since we all become more aware and knowledgeable as we participate in what others are doing.
I sincerely appreciate your reading down this far. 🙏
I AM John Gabriel Ötvös, aka jayöh.
Paraphrasing an anonymous quote: To write means more than putting words on a page; the act of writing is to share a part of your soul with the world. And that is what you have done, John, in your own eloquent style. Your intellect, your energy, your creativity, your passion and reverence for this precious planet, your giftedness, all shine through so brightly–like light reflected from a multi-faceted diamond.
To be enlightened or awakened is to relax and feel the freedom of the moment. There’s nowhere to get to, so be rest assured, none of us will get it all done when we lie down for the last time and offer the material world our last exhalation of breath. This is not the place to reveal an exhortation on Yankee liberal misuse of the word woke.I write as I recall. I no longer have anything to sell and despite those who see me as preaching, passion can lie in many directions, following the seldom used quote: Interested people are interesting. Thanks Shirley for these fine accolades.