The road less cycled

I just want people’s stories.

My own story is not particularly interesting, not now, perhaps not later. Who can say?

I can’t help looking at people and wondering what drives them. Where have they grown up, and what have they experienced that I have not? What sort of twists and contortions and unpredictable events that surely made their lives far more interesting than if it had gone entirely to plan have they experienced?

I want your story, if you will share it. It’s important that your story is not forgotten. I could spend my whole life learning other people’s stories, if only I had the time. Do not tell me a partial story either; tell me the good and the bad, the joys and regrets, the shockers and highlights.

You, old man, who roams the parking lot every evening wearing your safety vest and dragging your garbage bin and plays with kids in the coffeeshop and drives a green truck , have you anything to share with someone who will listen? Have you any children, or grand-children?

You, shaggy haired man sleeping in a parking lot in Chilliwack, who doesn’t look like a Muslim, but then how can I know how a Muslim looks, how did you get there and where have you been that I have not and what stories could you tell me?

You, “Roxanne,” who prowls the streets selling the only thing you have to sell, do you despair or do you rejoice or do you just do and neither despair nor rejoice?

You, Mr. Headline Hog, you tell your story all the time but censor it so much that I am not interested.

Tell me your story, and I will not interrupt. I’ll say hardly a word, but rest assured I am mesmerized.

A mite dismayed am I at the quantity of electronic consumer goods I’ve been acquiring over the last year or so. Everytime I make such a purchase, I flinch a little bit, not because of the financial cost to my person, I can make up for that, but at the way I completely vouch for the sanity of our consumption based economy when I do.

To summarize, the last year has seen me acquire a laptop, a camera, headphones, and now a plug-in device for my cigarette lighter in my car, as well as a voice recorder. I felt like it was more, but that’s all that comes to mind at the moment. I’ve also gone a little overboard when it comes to buying/downloading music, if that’s even possible. I still don’t have a cellphone, blackberry, Ipod, or Mp3 player, which leaves me trailing most people I know. All of these things seem like necessities of life, and it’s nearly unthinkable to consider that a merely 25-50 years ago many of these accessories were not even available.

Whatever happened to the simple lifestyle characterized by hard work and strong community connections? What will happen when the 4 billion or so people who do not have the luxuries I do decide they want equality? There’s no doubt in my mind that the quality of my life is enhanced by these devices; I do not deny that I enjoy them immensely. Yet I also sense that they deprive me of time which could be used acquiring much more practical skills; wilderness survival, urban gardening, bike repair, the banjo, harmonica, flute, or mandolin, herbal medicine, etc.

In the end, I’m an optimist; while it’s clear that as a species we have the capacity to annihilate our life support systems, I don’t believe we have the capacity to annihilate the very reason for our existence; in other words, to fail at whatever it is we are supposed to accomplish. It has to be important that we learn collective self-restraint and abandon selfishness by embracing altruism and humility, and we have some level of free-will in determining our path, be it self-destruction or evolution to a higher level of consciousness, I have a hard time believing that all of this can end in the erasing of one of the universe’s chapters, namely the human chapter, with nothing to show for it. That we could simply fuck things up, orchestrate our own demise, and become a mere blip on the radar, a failed experiment on the part of God knows who.

No, there has to be something bigger, something we cannot discern, something beyond this world that we graduate to as the next step in our development. I’m not a nihilist in the sense that I think that no matter what we do, it’s of no consequence anyway so we may as well enjoy ourselves while we’re here in whatever way we know how. I’ve certainly moved a little towards nihilism on the idealism/nihilism spectrum, which is freeing, but at the same time I’ve still got one foot firmly in the idealism camp. I may not be a centrist on the political spectrum, but perhaps I am on what I’ll call the meaning of life spectrum.

Thanks for bearing with me Ironically, this treatise began while listening to Sam Roberts’ “Stripmall Religion”.

I’ve never disliked Bill Clinton, his political era being somewhat before my time. In a sentence, my impression of him is as a charismatic leader who presided over a period in which the United States was viewed much more favorably throughout the world, who was ravaged by the media, perhaps beyond his due.

Today though, Clinton meddled in Canadian politics by praising Premier Campbell’s carbon tax: http://www.thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Labour-Industry/2008/10/17/ClintonGiustra/

My problem with this is that his timing is terrible. If a carbon tax is such a good idea, couldn’t he have said so before Stephane Dion’s party, championing a carbon tax, was as good as flattened in the federal election? It goes without saying that the man’s words carry a lot of weight, and an endorsement of tax-shifting by taxing carbon and cutting income, without necessarily endorsing the Liberals, would nonetheless have gone a long way.

Oh Bill….if you believe what you say, why do you time your words to have minimal political impact?

Papa and I had a neat conversation last night. It ended up where all our conversations ended up, but that’s beside the point.

What came out of it is that we shared some laughter over the sheer ludicrousness of the U.S. financial picture. What many people do not realize is that the government does not issue the nation’s credit. Rather, it is private banks who have secured control over the nation’s money supply. When the government needs a loan, private banks can print money at no cost to them, for which they then charge the government interest, which is why the nation’s debt can never be paid down.

In the U.S. today, banks and lenders are falling like flies because they have overextended themselves. In order to prevent complete economic catastrophe, the government is forced to act in some way to stem the bleeding. It does this by providing bailouts to the nation’s banks. However, where do they acquire the means to bail out the banks? They borrow it from the banks, and then pay interest on it. Or rather the taxpayers pay interest on it. So the government, in order to prop up the economy, borrows money from private banks so that it can nationalize those same banks with the money that it borrowed.

I’m sure my understanding of this is simplistic in some fashion; it simply seems too ludicrous to be true. However, remember what Henry Ford said: “It is well enough that people do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe there would be a revolution by morning.”

Today’s shift was ridiculously overwhelming; yet at the same time exhilarating. Twenty-two deliveries and I still did a quick close, making around $18.50/hour before subtracting gas costs. Those are the kind of shifts which keep me coming back to the pizza biz. I’m a little taken aback at the foul mouth I displayed today though, being incredibly ticked at having wrong addresses, idiot customers, and being the only driver. I learned an important lesson however.

I did a delivery out on Emerson Way. The fellow had left his address but not his buzzer, room number, or last name so I had no way on Earth of contacting him short of standing outside the building hollering, which I attempted as well. This oversight on his part left me irrationally beside myself with frustration at the idiocy of ordering a pizza pie, and not giving proper instructions as to how to actually deliver the damn thing. As I left the building, a stream of curses that I will not repeat here ripped from my mouth, most of them, I’m ashamed to say, directed at the customer, as I had more deliveries waiting at the store and couldn’t really be held up.

Tried calling him from a payphone, but he didn’t pick-up, which left me even more irate. In the end, I had to go back to the store with his food, and he didn’t end up getting his meal until well into the evening, at least two hours after he’d ordered. So what was his reaction? Did he use me as a scapegoat to berate the crappy service (customers never do admit they are in the wrong). Did he refrain from tipping because his pizza retained only the barest shards of warmth? Did he gesticulate wildly or frown solemnly at me to communicate his displeasure? No, he did none of these things.

This gentleman, an elderly fellow with a cane, wouldn’t even take a discount after I offered him the pizza for free. He insisted on paying the full price, saying he used to work in the restaurant business and everybody made mistakes. Furthermore, after waiting a good two hours to finally receive his food, he also tipped close to $4.00, well above average. Witnessing this act of patience and good humour on his part completely took the wind out of my sails. This fine gentleman, whom I’d vehemently berated when still in my car for forgetting to provide us with the proper information, who then had to wait for hours for his food, took it in stride, tipped generously, and uttered not a word of displeasure.

Personally, I think I just met my first angel.

Disengagement now in process. I’m taking my life back, starting as of last week. How can I help others when I do not help myself?

In my states of personal reflection, I continually return to two main themes. The first is that the unconscious disconnect with society and culture that characterized my high school years, partially in rebellion against mainstream culture, partially in disinterest in what it had to offer, and partially in simply feeling out of place in overtly social settings, was either a foolhardy approach to personal development or an inherently logical and genuine approach to discovering myself. I can’t seem to decide which.

The second theme is that now that I have burst out of that self-imposed bubble and been quasi-obsessed with the creative expressions of our society’s search for truth through music, literature, and film, I continually come up against mental roadblocks that stem from my worldview. Perhaps it is illogical, but I can’t shake the belief that our entire society is illegitimate and misguided, built on stolen foundations, propped up by inordinate consumption, and structured within increasingly oppressive economic systems that marginalize more and more people every year while creating wealth for the elite. A second aspect to this theme is that I also have a belief that much of our popular culture is a distraction, whether intentionally or incidentally, from the true issues that ought to be receiving our time and attention, those being community partnerships, societal sustainability, political involvement, or simply the expression of our own creativity through music, poetry, discussions, etc. This goes back to the old Roman idea that if the people have bread and circuses, they will not be too difficult to keep in check. The poet Juvenal articulated this idea, realizing that “people essentially aren’t interested in actual politics. For the mass, it’s all just a soap opera and a struggle for how much land or money they will end up with, regardless of how the system operates internally.” (www.corrupt.org).

I think my views have evolved though; unlike my high school years, I’m now enthusiastically supportive of any and all local arts and culture and will very happily purchase music and literature and art that I know supports the individual who produced them rather than some multi-national or profit-motivated corporation. It’s honoring their courage to take the financial risk of contributing something novel and beautiful or provocative to society.

It may be that I’d have continued my passionate pursuit of knowledge about the natural world and organic gardening during my high school years, an extremely isolationist endeavor, had more of my peers been as interested in that as I. Ultimately however, I grew to resent the degree to which such time consuming pursuits pre-empted any kind of rewarding social interaction. Not that I’ve abandoned that; just dropped it quite a few points on the priority scale.

All of this is on the verge of coming to a head. The fact that I’m blogging this from my climatology class is evidence of how unable I am to focus these days. Further evidence of this is the frequency with which I’m on Facebook and how far behind I am on my assignments. I’m not very happy with my current job; I’m more strongly drawn to self-directed learning than to structured and expensive formal education. I’m 90% certain I won’t be enrolling in more than one course in the Winter semester; it’s time to work and build some practical rather than academic skills, and look after my body better.

The upshot of all this is I’m starting to develop some skepticism that I can continue to be as involved in the community in various environmental pursuits as I have been; it’d be a shame to withdraw, but there is so much to immerse oneself in outside the volunteer realm that to be more than superficially involved at a basic level can no longer be as high of a priority as it has been. It’s the difference between being a citizen rather than an advocate.

While I cannot take back those formative high school years, as I’d be tempted to do had I the choice, it’ll be necessary to take some time, be it months or years, to deal with the explosive restlessness that’s eating me up by taking less formal schooling and being more culturally involved, and traveling as much as I possibly can, working as much as I need to acquire the basic necessities to facilitate a more active lifestyle.

The degree will be finished, eventually. But for now I’m hitting the pause button and taking an extended break to work out some kinks and take charge of my own learning.

So who knows how to play the banjo?

It’s been a long time since I’ve written here. A great deal has happened, and nothing has happened. Having arrived back in Abbotsford at the beginning of September, I’ve only been home for a month now, though it feels far, far, longer. Being on the river and travelling the coast seems an eternity ago now, though as soon as I get a chance I’ll be striking out again. Due to my citizenship status I’m still restricted to Canada, but like GN on the SLLP trip, taking time to explore my own country is tremendously appealing. We live in such a diverse country that in theory, a lifetime of travel within Canada’s borders would continue to uncover new experiences and places. Eastern Canada and the North must be the next destinations.

In September, to recap, I enrolled in 5 courses and dropped three of them, scraped together tuition money by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin, attended innumerable delightful meetings with Students for Sustainability and the U-Pass committee, wrote in three editions for the Cascade, covering such beats as music interviews and foreign affairs (ie. Russia & Georgia at each other’s throats), met some extremely personable and intriguing young ladies, made some new friends, slept in too many times, spent too much time online, on e-mail, Facebook, The Onion, and various news sites, went to a lot of coffee-shops including Seven Blends for the first time (where the new owner is doing 16 hour days while caring for a family of 5 children), slept in my car once, washed my car zero times; rode my bike too few times, played too few board games, ate homegrown garlic, met a young lady from Mauritius, and watched with fascination as Stephen Harper dropped the writ and plunged the country into an election that will coincide with the American one in an attempt to extend his hold on power and by so doing drive the country’s reputation further into the ground. Perhaps I am biased or over-reactionary, but I see a comic in my mind’s eye that has Canada embodied by a figure underground up to the waist, with Harper holding a sledgehammer driving the figure further into the ground, with the sledgehammer representing the election, and then there’s a crowd of people watching lazily, commenting, “My goodness; look how decisively Harper swings that hammer. I’ve gone through periods in my history as an informed voter where I cheered for the Canadian Alliance (back when my opinion was based entirely on the one-sided slant from the media that portrayed the Libs as old, tired, lying and corrupt). I’ve sided in heart with Jack and the NDP, having read Jack’s book and admiring his vision for Canada and his experience with the Union of Canadian Municipalities. Recently, since Dion became leader and Garth Turner defected to the Libs, I’ve become a strong Liberal supporter, recognizing in Dion a principled, respectful, intelligent man who represents a different kind of politics; even Duceppe has briefly held my admiration. Today I’m hopelessly torn between the Greens and Libs; Green leader Elizabeth May is so authentic and dynamic as to make one actually believe she has a chance of connecting with the electorate like Jim Harris was unable to do, and Green policies may not be perfect but they’re as close to perfect as we’ve got in recognizing the fundamentality of environmental sustainability in creating a strong, stable, thriving, and enduring society and moving beyond the short term political stunts seemingly employed by the other parties.

I am only one person out of 33 million, but as one person I urge everyone to get out there and vote after talking to your candidates; political apathy is not acceptable, and in many ways is the reason for the gradual downward trend in the Canadian living standard and quality of our environment. The Cascade will hold an all-candidates meeting on the the 7th, and it’s your chance to meet some of the local candidates.

Phew; just realized that was one big chunk of text comprising about 15 minutes of typing; if only I churned out my homework or Cascade assignments so rapidly.