The road less cycled

Looking back, it’s evident I’ve long been a complete rebel behind the scenes, and a partial one in my conduct. I disliked everything unfamiliar to me in childhood, from music to vegetables to swimming. I’m paying for that now. As a teenager, it was being human that got my gander. If everybody was getting their first car, I was busy cycling around. If everybody was forming social groups, I wasn’t going to be part of any social clique, and I just did my own thing. If everyone was listening to whatever band was popular back then (and I kid you not, I really have no idea), I was only interested in differentiating between the calls of a black-headed grosbeak and a robin. (ever tried it? it ain’t easy). If everybody was celebrating some cultural holiday, I couldn’t really have cared less, seeing only an orgy of consumerism based on questionable history where others saw an excuse to celebrate. Back in teenage days, sex too, was new of course, and even there I just said, well hey, all 20 billion (or whatever the number is) of us humans who’ve ever graced this planet do that… Sure, I’m sure it’s fun, but what’s unique in that? As a friend of mine quotes on her profile, a quote I rather like, “Human beings are here because of several million years of sexy ancestors.” (G & K Hendricks). Well, I can pick holes all through that argument, but still there’s a lot of truth there.

I bring these things up because I sometimes lament my lack of rebellion, despite the fact that I disagree with consumerism, growth at all costs, genetic modification, over-harvesting, burning gas so prolifically, eating animal flesh unnecessarily, not cycling places, monopolizing resources, make-up, fashion, over-consumption, capitalism, socialism, and most other “ism’s,” violence of any sort for most if not all reasons, etc. etc. etc. Hell, I’ve rebelled against just about everything we do as a species, just not in overly blatant or confrontational ways. It’s no wonder my psyche was where it was and is where it is, or that lately I delight in flagrantly and hypocritically counteracting my supposed worldview of ideal conduct.

You’ve likely realized by now how easily I put a positive spin on things. We humans are really capable of rationalizing anything, a theme I return to time and time again, and I have only barely gotten started. Fortunately, I’ve held off of acquiring too much history to have to rationalize.

Because I’m no illusionist, as she warned against. No, it’s all laid out for all to see. I realize I sometimes seem to invoke a certain stereotype more often associated with the feminine; that of being “complicated”. Well, first of all, I’ve never liked stereotypes or put much stock into them, but secondly if being “simple” is an attractive attribute, what planet do you hail from?

Writing on the weblog is not something I should be doing just now. Blogging is something I ought to reserve for times when I have something of particular interest to contribute, rather than times of soul-searching and existential crisis. This blog isn’t intended to be a raw, no-holds barred transcription of my life, and it isn’t going to become that either. But often I’m tempted to write that way, and resist for a few reasons, among them that I can’t write about a lot of the most urgent and pressing issues in my personal life without also writing about other people whose anonymity I can’t really protect even by using only initials or aliases, because it’s their relationship to me that’s important.

Perhaps more importantly, it would mess with my psyche to be writing about stuff that isn’t related to sustainability and policy and transportation. To clarify, it’s not that not writing about those things would get to me; more that the other topics I’d tackle wouldn’t sit too well with me, being items rather unsuitable to be made that public.

Suffice to say that at this point and time, despite living in one of the most fortunate places on Earth and basically having everything handed to me on a silver platter until perhaps the last few years, I’m finding the term “basket-case” a frighteningly accurate description of my state of mind; something I’d attribute to being 25% my fault, but also to my challenges being 90% out of my control, offering 0% satisfaction to address, yet feeling like 100% of my responsibility at the same time, with the results being a constant oscillation between being a penny-pincher and wantonly blowing my wad, which is better than being indulgent 100% of the time, but still not so good. And that is as specific as I’m going to get. (I am starting to sound like an economist, what with assigning a value to everything, aren’t I?

It is, after all, Halloween morning. If it was otherwise, don’t you think I’d be out partying?

“You don’t date people” she observed, with characteristic abruptness, a few months ago now when the topic came up. It is an observation that is more or less true, though there are undoubtedly episodes she doesn’t know about. Generally though, I’m not the guy who shows up with a new girl in tow the night after a break-up, or even the one who’s never without a girlfriend for more than a few weeks. Though I’m not one to obsess over these things, since I mostly allow life to run its course, it is something that’s been eating away at me for a little bit now. So despite being something of a “non-interventionist” in the sense that I too often allow life to unfold as it will, rather than taking a “grab life by the horns approach,” as well as a technophobe (in the sense that I don’t particularly like technological gizmos rather than that they confound me) I  did decide recently to explore an online dating site, something I haven’t ever done in the past. But the question remains, why don’t I very often get around to dating people? Well yeah, there’s the classic  ”I have high standards line,” but I think that one’s a little bit too stock, too stereotypical of an explanation, but partially true nonetheless. I think the other part of the answer to that is two-fold, only one of which I’ll dwell on here.

I think it’s undeniable that I hold some rather odd opinions, that not a great many people share, and which put me at odds with a lot of the people I come across.  Like the time I was hanging out with my brother recently, and we were chatting with a friend of mine, and they shook hands in saying good-bye, and he complimented my bro on his handshake – a perfect opportunity for me to chime in (after he left) and say, “That’s BS – what does the firmness of your handshake matter?” after which a good 20 minute “animated discussion” ensued, not over whether or not it was important to have a strong handshake, but over whether that was something we should really value. I won’t get into the whole discussion, since I’m just using this as an example of where I had an opinion that runs counter to what I think is the predominant view in our culture, and if you’re really pressed and trying to carve out a niche for yourself in a pretty competitive economy, definitely the most practical viewpoint. I certainly won’t deny that practicality is definitely something I need to pay more attention to at some point, getting off this rollercoaster of academics interspersed with temporary jobs and sometimes rather aimless, drifting search for both the meaning behind why we do things the way we do, and a deeper meaning behind this oh-so-mysterious human experience.

Then there’s my scorn of the oh-so pervasive suburban lifestyle, of sacrosanct institutions and customs that we simply adhere to without questioning, and in Abbotsford, the particularly difficult one of spurning (for the most part) the use of an automobile, something my tailbone is all too aware of right now, not to mention I don’t currently have a bike to ride. I in fact disagree with so many people about so many things that I’ve taken to just listening, patiently, and not bothering to point out where I think their reasoning is off.

Because it’s not like I have a ton of solutions to offer at this point anyway. I often even offer a counter opinion to one of my best friends in Abbotsford, who, one time after we’d left a billiard hall, said he hadn’t really connected with anybody, and that when somebody asked him how he was, he just said, “Opinionated”……which was such a breath of fresh air. To end this piece on a solid note, some things I know I do like and want to be part of my future are the thrill of physical exertion after a run, bike ride, or hike, the satisfaction of being able to produce your own food or know the people who did so, and the knowledge that the natural systems, the streams and the rivers and forests, that ultimately are the source of life on this planet, are intact and not compromised by our presence. That’s been one of the guiding principles of my life to date, but one that’s taken a little bit of a backseat to Edward Abbey’s admonishment, which I’ll paraphrase since my innernet’s down: That it’s not enough to simply fight for the preservation of our wilderness areas; we have to take the time to enjoy them, to experience them, so that we can truly understand them.

Well, I now have the ‘Net again. Here’s what he really said (my paraphrase was SOOOO not worth it):

“It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
— Edward Abbey

Life has slowed to a crawl, just in time for the hot weather to sweep in. If your parents ever sang that song about, “Lazy summer days, with the fish jumping and the cotton being high,” well, that’s what things feel like right now. Replace the cotton with reed canary grass or corn, and the fish jumping with red-tailed hawks soaring, and the songs fits perfectly.

I walk home everyday from the bus stop on Blueridge, from which I span the rural-urban divide, going through the subdivision, around the detention pond under the power-lines, through the barbed-wire fence, along the makeshift pathway through a young alder grove, down the hill as the pathway snakes through a grove of middle-age cottonwoods, and then through a large patch of grass that’s waist high, before I cross the creek and cross the field to my house. All in all, it’s about 10 minutes from the bus stop to my house, 13 if I’m going uphill.

It’s a bus route on which I’m starting to know some of the users. There’s Rick, the laid off reformed gang-member and now born-again Christian who’s using his free time do some serious working out. There’s the girl who goes down to the City Blends with her laptop to do her homework and do some people watching. There’s the red-haired girl who draws faces on balloons to pass the time. There’s the Indo-Canadian security guard, who remains the only one to offer to sign my petition to implement a transit line between Chilliwack and Abbotsford. Everyone else I’ve had to approach. There’s the lady who disagrees vehemently with Tim Felger’s “election” signs downtown which say things like, “Your mom called. She said to bring home a baggie.”

Riding transit so much, you start to love the endless variation among the people on the buses. The quirky bus drivers, the poverty, the young punks who hang out in the back of the bus, the young single mothers who you feel sorry for but admire for their pluck, all the people who don’t jive so well with the rest of society. Who you don’t see are the young professionals, the businessmen, the people who think they’ve got it made, who drive sporty cars around town and still believe the world’s their oyster and shun transit at all costs. Here in Abbotsford, there’s a certain homely feel to using transit, almost a sense of ownership that simply isn’t present when you’re in Vancouver or some other urban metropolis, where the sheer multitude of people makes any sort of group identification based on transportation routes unlikely.

Transit slows things down as well. Countless times I’ve walked the 15 minutes to get to the bus stop, lounged for 20 minutes reading or chatting at a bus stop, or walked the distance that the bus was going to cover because it wasn’t going to arrive for 20 minutes. As I recover from the concussion that I suffered, I’m not working yet, freeing up 35 hours per week or so. I’m still too stubborn to apply for student loans, having paid for everything out of pocket so far and determined to keep doing that as long as I can, so I’m not taking any classes because I just can’t do it financially. That leaves me with a lot of time to myself. Heck, I don’t even have the money to use all the free time getting my entertainment fix. Instead, an independent business opportunity has arisen to which I’m dedicating myself – one to which I see no downside or risk, and the potential for great rewards –  along with some casual, simple work in my garden, and some excellent literature. Ebay, too, has become my second home as I try to liquidate all the un-needed items that  are scattered around the property.

It’s a lifestyle I’m going to miss when I move on, and make no mistake, move on I will. This little 15 hectare patch of land bi-sected by Downes Creek and containing my little garden patch will be places that I will always visit fondly, albeit with mixed memories of a place that sustained me throughout high-school and early university, literally and spiritually, but also saw the accumulation of more sheer stuff than I could ever use or reasonably dispose of, along with the emergence of health challenges about which I’ve been relatively mute and will remain vague.

All my instincts scream at me to simply play it safe, and establish some kind of shelter against what may or may not metamorphose into an international if not a global catastrophe, as our society’s energy supplies start to stagnate, taxes rise, the baby boomers leave the active economy and demand their social security benefits instead, and the extinction crisis driven by a changing climate begins to mount, affecting not just the world’s ecological systems, but the people who are intricately tied to them.

By nature, I remain a cautious person, with an avid dislike for casting preparation to the wind and letting the chips fall where they may.  Yet, there are things to be said for a devil-may-care lifestyle governed more by the changing of the winds and the seasons than the fickle shifting of society’s economic outlook. It’s a hardy, no-expectations and no set plan lifestyle which takes life as it comes and doesn’t focus too much on the future, outside of idle speculation to pass the time. Perhaps most importantly, it relies on natural skill and capability to pull one through when hard times do arise instead of reserves that have been put aside in good times. What I can’t seem to decide is whether the people who lived in that way did so deliberately, knowing that any disruption in the current socio-economic state of things could turn their world upside-down, or whether they were simply too ignorant, lazy, stubborn, or selfish to focus on getting ahead and laying something aside to help them deal with bad times when they did arrive. I’m not mentioning many names, mainly because there are really only a couple of figures who characerize that lifestyle who I know much about, and even my knowledge of them is limited. But I am thinking of the people who characterized the Beat Generation, the free lifestyles of the 60’s, 70’s, and more recent decades as well. What I am coming to realize is that there was no heavenly balm of peace and good times which settled over that post World War period. There was the Cold War, and the ideologically justified combat of the Vietnam and Gulf Wars. The threat of the annihilation of a way of life was ever-present, as it is now. As I develop a broader understanding of the way things work, I find it more and more difficult to pronounce anything with certainty.

The idealism that would have seen the proliferation of public transit and bicycles, high density self-sufficient housing, community gardens, and the emergence of a government aware of the complete inadequacies of economics as usual, is fast fading within me. From the time of the first catastrophic detonation of the atomic bomb, groups have called for nuclear disarmament without success. The Kyoto Treaty was first adopted in 1997 and took effect in 2005, and today we are further from its goals than we have ever been. People continue to gradually lose traction against the ceaseless wheel of economics, as more slide into poverty and taxes rise ever higher. We are at the point where prominent British scientist James Lovelock, founder of the Gaia Theory, believes that we have finally passed the point of no return, and that the best expenditure of energy is now in preparation for the inevitable collapse of the world as we know it. Now, that’s easy for him to say – on the one hand, advancing a theory that costs him nothing but casts him into the spotlight even if he is dead wrong. But on the other hand, the science and economics of where we are does look grim. The main point here is that progressively minded activists have been calling for certain changes since many of my friend’s grandparents were teenagers, and as far as I can see, have been stymied by a range of factors, from the military-industrial complex, to fractional reserve banking, to simple human nature and greed.

Yeah, that much vaunted idealism that saw me quietly advocate for the things I believed to be of paramount importance, is giving way to a higher degree of realism that espouses one of my brother’s core beliefs: That if you don’t help yourself, you can’t help anyone else. In the face of escalating financial challenges that make a mockery of the naive, simplistic, and innocent desire to triumph over the power of money, the cogs of ICBC, housing markets, food costs, the price of accredited education, physical limitations, and prohibitive health care expenses,  a lot of the edges that defined my core beliefs about the role of a good citizen are being worn away – as near as I can gather, what happens to all idealists who don’t take jobs with the goverment or in government funded academia.

I have not yet seen or met anyone who meets two conditions: 1) is not constrained by money, and 2) acquired their wealth through means that obey the “do no harm” principle. Willful ignorance, rationalization, forced justification, and turning a blind eye seem to dominate in people’s mindsets, which is certainly not to demonize humanity, but to assign fault and to acknowledge our inherent imperfection and pragmatism.

To fly in the face of established wisdom about conclusions, I’m not writing a proper conclusion here. Rather, I’d simply like to urge you, if you read this, to disagree vehemently or simply play the devil’s advocate. I do hate it when people agree with me. I know I’m right anyway; I just wish people wouldn’t admit that. So come on. Tear my impromptu essay to shreds. Give me a failing grade, and I’ll do the same for you. Tell my why and how I’m wrong, and I will be your friend forever. Just know that I don’t make many enemies.

There is an entire school of thought which revolves around self-directed learning: learning that is ongoing, in that one never stops doing it and actively seeks it out; inexpensive, in that one does not pay ~$150.00 per credit to do it; relationship building, in that one sometimes chooses to do it in collaboration with a close friend or group of friends who are interested in the same thing. Some people choose this option as an alternative to post-secondary education, figuring that they would rather live in and learn from the real world and use whatever leftover time they have to bolster their knowledge and awareness.

Self-directed learning is something that I’ve been trying to remind myself to do more often. It’s something that takes discipline, or just the absence of pesky friends who want to go and drink over some board games or something like that in the evenings. Giving in to that temptation too often is more likely than not to land one among what’s called the “deadbeat masses.” Giving in on occasion is, I think, a necessity for sanity. Giving in never at all might just saddle you with a frown and a scowl far more often is necessary. Anyway, self-directed learning is a way to create some discussion or banter about topics that schools and universities just don’t really cover, and that is probably a necessity.

So from time to time I’ll make this blog a little on the academic side, when and where I deem appropriate, by sharing what’s emerging from my episodes of self-directed learning, most of which I do while waiting for buses.

About a week ago, I  picked up “The Upside of Down” by Thomas Homer Dixon, and unlike most of my schoolbooks, despite me being enrolled in a degree which interests me, have been glued to its pages. In order to function, anybody needs to formulate something of a worldview; a way of thinking about the order or disorder in their lives that answers some of the big questions and explains how things work. My worldview, particularly in the last few months, really has no rhyme nor reason to it. Not much makes sense on a broader scale. I don’t really have much in the way of religion, having survived private high school without acquiring that. Economically, sustainablility is the very last of all the traits we’ve managed to acquire. Politically, a lot of the people in leadership positions are the wrong people to be there. Socially, so many seem stuck in the status quo. I think, thankfully, that I’ve managed to get one leg out.

Many people live their day to day lives smack-dab in the middle of a gigantic economic construct that is explained to them by newspapers, television programs, news hours, their paycheque, and the books they read. In large part, in North American society, this involves  a capitalistic economic structure framed around free enterprise, a consumer good oriented society in which many everyday consumables are made overseas and imported into North America, a large middle class that works in various sectors of the economy, many in service sectors, but some also in production or manufacturing, and a large automobile industry that employs much of the work force, from automobile maintenance, to repairs, to sales of new vehicles, to production of domestics, to automobile associations which lobby for space for cars. For pretty much all of this, high resource consumption is integral to the process, and also largely ignored and taken for granted. Now that capitalism appears to be failing, some people are starting to ask the odd question (odd behaviour, I know) and some bigger topics open up.

What Dixon has to say about all this is, I think, crucial. Dixon seems to like our banking system, stating that the Federal Reserve system brings added flexibility. With that out of the way, there’s lots of things that seem to be nagging Dixon. He calls these things Tectonic Stresses. They are:

• population stresses
• peak oil (less energy for more people, eventually maybe no conventional energy)
• environmental stress
• climate change
• economic stress (widening gaps between rich and poor)

If any one of these, or worse, several at once, rear their ugly heads, things would go downhill fast, Dixon says.

He writes, “Most of us in cities are now so specialized in our skills and so utterly dependent on complex technologies that we’re completely dependent on complex technologies that we’re quickly in desperate straits when things go wrong.“

Perhaps more importantly, he writes that, “Most of the five stresses spring from our troubled relationship with nature. Indeed, one of my most important points is that we can’t ignore nature any longer, because it affects every aspect of our well-being and even determines our survival……they (policians, corporate leaders, social scientists) tend to dismiss people who concern themselves with nature as, at best, softheaded do-gooders or, at worst, eco-freak fanatics.”

He goes on to say that, “….opinion leaders conveniently overlook the fact that every great civilization believes itself to be exceptional, right up to the time that it collapses.”

The route to success is either through long-term employment and saving for retirement through investing, or in the ownership of a potential business. A high tax load ensures the punctual payments of interest on the national debts, and as they did in ancient Rome, people complain incessantly that only two things are guaranteed: death and taxes. For some, perhaps only one of those, though some are worried they’ll soon be taxing ghosts too.

Xurbia.ca – they’ve got solutions to this kind of stuff

Dixon describes several scenarios of concern, one of them being the the failure of the power generation system, as happened on the East Coast in 2003 for an extended amount of time. He writes that, “…we can make much greater use of decentralized, local energy generation, and alternative energy sources (like small and medium scale solar, wind, and geothermal power) so that individual users are more independent of the grid.” This is what Dixon terms a resilience enhancing strategy, and it’s my view that not to make use of the technologies that now exist at relatively affordable prices, probably the most affordable they have ever been, is irresponsible from both a personal and societal standpoint. This is one example of both how a breakdown can be minimized in its intensity, and dealt with when and if it does happen.

Suffice it to say that in today’s day and age, we count on the institutions that we’re familiar with to continue functioning as we expect them to. We expect resource extraction and subsequent production to continue to employ people, even as evidence mounts that same pace extraction would be hazardous to ourselves and the planet. We expect universities and corporations and retail outlets to continue to pay our salaries; we expect people in developing nations to continue making the products we ‘need,’ because if they didn’t and we made them ourselves, we couldn’t afford them. We expect food and consumables to continue to be shipped around the world, and then to appear on the shelves of the stores we frequent. It’s in those paradigms that we happily function, remaining completely unprepared for things to change, and unaware of whether our planet could cope with large-scale changes if they were to occur.

Systemic change simply isn’t on our radar screens. I mean, the last time things got really tough was over 60 years ago.

A lot has changed since then. Only time will tell if the next 60 will be as nice as the last 60. And perhaps, it’s only fools who would count on it.

Some clever wag once commented that we’re all unique, just like everybody else, or something to that effect. Together with planning to be spontaneous tomorrow, it’s one of my favorite oxymorons, because it captures the internal dilemma that so many of us grapple with. Nobody, but nobody, wants to “fit in with the crowd,” or to “be mainstream.” Nobody will happily admit that they’re pretty mainstream, that they just go with the flow and do what most other people do, and like what most other people like. The phrase “I just don’t do mainstream” is almost ubiquitous.

In ‘05 I worked a blueberry field in Matsqui, where I had this conversation with a woman who was just pickin’ for kicks, saving some pocket money and spending time with her daughters. I posited that I’d sort of come to the conclusion that if most people seemed to be doing something, it probably wasn’t the right thing to be doing. She agreed, saying it was the exact conclusion she’d come to. The next step in that line of thought however, has to be, what if most people are studiously avoiding what what most people are doing?  Is it then time to avoid mass avoidance and fall back into line with the masses? Now we’re well into the realm of circular thinking, of self-destructive logic.

The reason being, that the scale of acceptance of a school of thought or phenomena shouldn’t by itself be the litmus test of its worthiness. We all have to make our own judgement calls on every particular issue; sometimes this might put us squarely in line with the majority, other times it might put us on a collision course with a juggernaut. This is when things get interesting, and you check the displacement value of whatever you’re driving. (for the uninitiated, this is what passes as dry 2:35 a.m. humor.)

Of course, the line between being “mainstream” and being “unique” is extremely broad. You only have to read the book, “Stuff White People Like” to understand this. In fact, the range of lifestyles, hobbies, and careers that are available to us in today’s day and age is mind-boggling, and so broad as to make us all unique almost simply as a product of living in the society that we do. We are all drawn to particular aspects of our culture for various reasons; some people have an affinity for puttering around with clubs trying to stick little white dimpled balls into holes in the ground, some get together in groups and try to simplistically emulate popular numbers with simplified guitars, which is basically an admittance that we’re too lame to actually learn to play a guitar and instead are content with knowing this is as close as we will ever get. Some people like to take up a cause and try to arrest the momentum of something they are certain is Bad so that something Good can take its place. Point being, we all have the little things upon which we balance our Individuality. In keeping with the ubiquitous quest to be “random” and “spontaneous,” people especially prize being able to claim as a hobby something that apparently has no basis in the realm of practicality and is by all appearances completely unproductive, and of course, random. If there’s one thing that can be said about the segment of society with which I am familiar, it’s that above almost all else, we prize anything and everything “random.”

Well, there are other things that unite us of course, things that run as common threads through many of us, and, yes, make us “mainstream.” One of these, nearly to a man (and woman, geez, the expression was written before feminism ok?), we’re extravagant consumers. When we shop at Tim Horton’s, Starbucks, Staples, Ikea, Walmart, buy Apple computers or use Windows operating systems, buy a daily coffee because we “need” that to kickstart our day, uber-obsess over appearances, look for a “good” “job” (which I’ve heard defined two ways – “just over broke, and jackass of boss), these things make us mainstream because we all do them. This doesn’t necessarily make them bad, it just makes that highly likely. I mean seriously, try to defend any of those lifestyle practices to me from a social consciousness perspective. I ain’t all holier than thou either. I do all that too, fairly regularly actually. And so, I forego my claim to the realm of “uniqueness.”

Where all this is going, is to pave the way for me to say that, “there are a million things I could do with this life; just none of them have appealed to me so far.” There. I just quoted myself, on something I just put into writing now for the first time. Somehow that seems appropriate, I think because I’ve been turning that phrase over in my head for so long that I feel like it’s not even original anymore.

I could study geography and go on to revolutionize the community planning process with my brilliant ideological reforms to the way we plan stuff right now; right, that would go over well. I could take out a mortgage, as most of my visioning episodes for the future do seem to involve a peaceful domestic life, but they do call it a “mort-gage” for a reason. I could take up the bottle and drink and party myself into oblivion, interspersed of course with unpleasant episodes of reality. I could study the political process and try my damnedest to effect the change I want to see through political avenues. I could barnacle onto one of my dad’s businesses and maybe eventually run the show. I could study the heck out of investing, smart tax strategy, and financial policy to try and play it smart by raking in enough cash to live on without actually hardly working. I could learn a trade or two and be a hard workin’ Joe earning my living through hand-labor. I could be a transient farmer, helping out on organic farms round the world. I could devote myself to music/arts and see if I don’t have some untapped potential in that area. I could “be a writer, laddie buck” and try to turn words into dollars, work from home, and hopefully do some travelling along the way. I could be a career student as well….

For the time being, I’ll not be doing too much of that, particularly not the exotic stuff. I can’t, you see, for reasons that I can’t go into except to say they’re not financial – not primarily, at any rate.

No, I’ll be sitting tight here in the Valley for a bit, biding my time and…..being unconventional.

As usual.

Unlike everyone.

This little Doug. Fir sprang up in some disturbed soil in the field next to my house. It’s likely that it was seeded by the larger Douglas Fir next to our driveway, that a Red-breasted Sapsucker drilled full of holes this winter. It’s also likely that this area will be developed, so when I move, this little guy comes with me.

Is it possible that things are really as bad as they seem? Does the word responsibility have any meaning in the context of eternity? Assigning blame is an impossibility liable to result in a frenzied, uncontrollable descent into internal chaos.

Please forgive my blank stare and tight-lipped frown. My mind is torn between fully processing what you have said and its infinite implications and

Buses without schedules are tempting devices, beckoning and quietly whispering what you know to be true: You can leave all that surrounds you behind and it will not matter.

Soul-mind connections are all that matter. They cannot happen without the acceptance of limitations.

The masses are wise in eschewing politics, but in so doing they guarantee the continuation of injustice.

Where are the Tao Te Ching, Ecclesiastes, and the New Testament when you need them? Right, forgone in favor of microprocessors, cosmetics, keys, plastic swipey things, condoms, useless movies, knick-knacks, odds ‘n ends…

The best skill to master is the mental kick in the ass.

Fuck you, auto censor.

What would happen to the world were no one ever to cut a lock of hair? I’d pay barbers and hairdressers to spin me around in an adjustable height chair with a hair smock, comb my hair, and make idle chatter even if scissors never again entered the equation.

The pendulum has swung too far towards randomness and chaos theory.

Pangaea is the future as well as the past.

Words don’t always come, you know. You have to coax them, squeeze them, and hang on like the dickens when they do. Say a word of thanks for every one that does. It didn’t have to, it was only doing you a favor.

Power, prestige, prominence, all are meaningless and it matters not a whit whether you ever grace their territories. Oblivion is much more to be admired and cherished.

99.9% of the world’s knowledge will escape you in this lifetime. Protest all you wish; perhaps you may adjust that number by one-tenth of one percent.

I feel extremely compelled to post tonight, so I will. I’ve had a low key couple of days; today I spent a few hours in the Ravine Park Salmon  Hatchery, picking dead coho salmon eggs out of trays, some 2000 all told. We never do manage to pick them quite quickly enough, but do successfully release thousands of coho fry and smolts into Downes, McLennan, Stoney, Willband, and Horn Creeks each year. It’s very rewarding and in an ideal world I’d be more involved. In an ideal world, days would also be around 150 hours long, followed by 5 hours of sleep and some nighttime wandering.

I’ll be doing a detox program starting tomorrow morning; the “Master Cleanse” which I learned about through my friend Jeff. I ought to read the book that it’s based on, but essentially it involves no solid foods for eight days, followed by four days on a severely restricted diet. During those eight days, one ingests only a great deal of water, and a solution of water, lemon/lime juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper whenever one feels hungry. This allows the body to take a break from the continual digestion process, and focus on removing toxins. This is the primary function of the lemon juice and cayenne pepper; the maple syrup ensures a sufficient caloric intake to have enough energy to carry on with life as usual. I last did such a cleanse last July, with initially disastrously embarrassing and moderately effective results; dig back to July’s posts if you want the details.

Why am I doing this? While my holidays have not been excessively excessive, they have been excessive and not quite as ascetic as I’d hoped. Asceticism is easier when the pantries are not stuffed with temptations, which is not likely to happen at my house anytime soon.

Today, I also read Thoreau, the book that HH gave me last Christmas and which I’m only getting around to now. I read in the bathtub, and chose Thoreau because I realized I was wasting my time with Barth. Thoreau speaks to me much more strongly than Barth ever has, and though he writes with complexity and adroit use of the English language, he’s not near as long-windedly verbose as Barth, and addresses much less abstract concepts.\

Some Thoreau gems to close off this post. The thing with Thoreau, is you often can’t quote a single soundbite. You need the whole damn paragraph for it to flow and make sense. Oh well.

“What I have heard of Brahmins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heaves over their shoulders, until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach, or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars – even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredulous and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The twelve labours of Hercules were trifling with those which my neighbours have undertaken, for they were only twelve and  had an end; but I could never see  that these men slew or captured any monster, or finished any labour.”

“Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superflously coarse labours of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.”

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

“A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed under even what are called the games and amusements of mankind.”

“What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilising rain on their fields.”

“Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the  young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were.”

“I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.”

“One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with’; and so he religously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the day whiles he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.”

“The greater part of what my neighbours call good, I call bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behaviour. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?”

Off all these quotes, it is the last that my current inner being identifies most strongly with.

A lot of thoughts simmering tonight, none of which I will elaborate on but several of which I will take time to outline.

A friend posted recently that activism was true education. I could not agree more. I’d like to that statement and add a dimension to it as well. For me, much as I resent the fact, activism is also the primary component of my social interaction. I very quickly get bored and frustrated and out of place when “hanging” with people to whom the word activism is raison d’etre to change the topic or turn up the volume. So I’ve been deliberating the role of activism in my life, and it’s a mixed bag. I want to be able to walk into a social setting and feel at home regardless of the context, but at the same time, if that context isn’t a purposeful one, I find it draining and de-motivating. In short, I suck at “just hanging.” I start pacing, and fidgeting, and staring at the ceiling, and generally being a less than sociable guest.

I have a hard time thinking of a better feeling, socially speaking (not physically or emotionally) than the aftermath of a successful event. The positive vibe created by the passionate airing of ideas and solutions to problems and the spirited social atmosphere which tends to prevail is something I find tremendously uplifting and is something I seek all the time. Perhaps it’s why I’m so frequently disappointed.

So I’ve established that my role is an activist one and that anything less leaves leaves me unsatisfied. Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy The Wheel of Time contains an intriguing concept; that of ta’veren. In the fantasy, the context of the events that transpire is The Pattern; the giant web of life in which each individual weaves his or her own thread. The Pattern is complex; not all can influence it significantly. It can absorb minor changes and weave around them, but only some individuals have the power to influence large-scale change; these individuals are ta’veren.

“sometimes the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on. The first bending to make the Web is ta’veren,” (http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/wot/eyeworld.html)

Ta’veren is a neat concept to run with. Are we all ta’veren or are just some of us, like for instance, Martin Luther King or Adolf Hitler, or JFK, ta’veren? Can we all change the world we live and do we have an obligation to try, or should we simply go with the flow and trust that things will work out? How have I changed the world? Will anything I’ve done trigger history-making change? Who can say?

That’s one concept, and for no very good reason, I’d just like to copy the opening to each book of the Wheel of Time, for its poetic and lyric beauty as well as its philosophical relevance, in light of a discussion with an old friend at Afterthoughts last night:

“The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long passed, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”

In a different vein, we all have sacred places. We may not have as strong a connection to our environment, and by environment I mean more than just the natural world, as those who inhabited this land before us, but I think that inevitably most of us develop strong associations with certain places; places we go to for comfort, or for relaxation, or places to visit for inspiration. Places that hold strong memories, or perhaps places that touch a chord deep within us though we may not know why. What are yours, if any come to mind?

All of the places that are sacred to me occur right here in the Fraser Valley; I haven’t yet travelled extensively enough with sufficient duration to really get to know any other places. Most of them are closeby, not more than a 45 minute bike ride, though some are a little further. Some are sacred to me for the memories associated with the people who accompanied me there; some sacred for other, spiritual, or associative reasons.

Most have to do with waterways; salmon have been and are my passion, along with all that sustains them and us. One is the point where McLennan Creek goes under Olund Road, where two tributaries of it meet and converge into one fast riffle before emptying into a deep slow moving pool that serves as excellent habitat for juvenile fish, trout, good hunting grounds for heron and kingfisher, and a well earned respite for the salmon that travel upstream to this point.

Another is up Clayburn Road a ways; just downstream of where two Poignant Creek tributaries merge and form a unique waterfall; one of the most beautiful sites in all of Abbotsford. There are several waterfalls here, most magnificent in mid-winter during high flows, and no salmon can travel upstream of it. It’s where I got stoned for the first time; and where young people like to hang-out at night and build fires. I like during all times; during the day to admire it’s beauty, or during the night around a fire to hear its roar and absorb its wildness. It’s so uniquely un-Abbotsfordian; it doesn’t seem to fit in to this city of farms and flat roads and motorists.

There’s a giant Sitka Spruce along Downes Creek; perhaps the biggest tree remaining near the urban core, and almost no one knows of it. It has to be protected.

All libraries are sacred. They all have their own unique character and ambience and hold the records of that which we cannot afford to forget.

The place where I grew up that is now a parking lot is sacred, especially the crumpy Douglas Fir tree with perfect crow’s nest whorled branches that still stands in what used to be our front yard is sacred. It would have broken my heart if they’d cut that down, too.

A last thought – does loving make one lovable? Or is there more one must do?

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”.

Hahahaha.  You all believed me when I said “Valemount” would be my last blog entry for three weeks.  Fools.  As evidence that I constantly re-evaluate my decisions, here’s another entry.  By the time I left the library yesterday, it was around 4 p.m., and I still had a couple of errands, including buying rope to cache my food and checking out the IGA.  By then it was way too late to make it to Mt. Robson by nightfall, so instead I asked at the liquor store for a local bar.  It was, after all, a Friday night.  Here’s what I wrote in my notebook while in the bar last night:

Valemount, Day 2, August 1.

The Valemount bar counter

I’m here in Valemount, at a bar the name of which I’m not sure of, but it’s just north of the public library where I spent some time earlier today.  I’m here by myself, alas – tomorrow I’ll meet with my fellow SLLP’ers (Sustainable Living Leadership Program) in Mt. Robson, but for now I’m scribbling away by my lonesome.

A group of rowdies – all guys – are playing pool over to my right, and a speaker blasts out some pretty good tunes to my left.  I’ve had a gin and tonic and am on to a bottle of Becks – when I ordered I thought she said Vex, but it turned out to be Beck’s.  A mild beer with a bland name, brewed in Germany under the “German Purity Law of 1516.”

I’m munching on some granola I picked up at the Save-on-Foods in Abbotsford before I left, intended as breakfast/lunch/dinner food.  I bought more than I needed however, and I write better with some munchies.  Fittingly, I’ve always been a granola addict ever since acquiring a taste for it at Roots Health Foods in Maple Ridge. 

It’s much easier – though more expensive – to write here than in my tent.  Perhaps if I arrive at my campsite late enough and leave early enough I can avoid detection by Randy, the owner, and avoid paying.  Or I could just find a spot in the woods to camp, though a girl named Shiaka (aka. Stephanie) who I met outside Infinity Health Foods says there’s been reports of cougars stalking people right inside the town and that there’s been lots of grizzlies around as well.  I’ll play it safe and stick to the campsite, if that’s actually any safer.

My loosely vegan eating habits (I call myself a vegetableatarian – one who eats mostly plant food sources with the odd bit of meat/dairy) have been thrown out the window.  In a place where pizza goes for $4.50 a slice (since then I have found some saner prices), a hefty burger, potato salad, and bean stew all for $6.00 offered by the local Legion couldn’t be passed up.  I’m not a lover of trail food yet and hate to pass up a hot meal.  The legion atmosphere was nice – friendly people, if a little on the elderly side -and I passed a nice game of 8-ball pool with a fellow named Kurt.  The second game of pool in my life, and I can’t say I fared too well, with four balls left when I Kurt sank his 8-ball.  No matter; I’ve learned to play poker and 8-ball in the past week so I’m making strides.

It seems one great shortcoming of this town is the ratio of men to women here.  For every woman, there’s half a dozen men, and I’ve yet to see a genuinely attractive woman.  Perhaps residents would dispute that, but from what I’ve seen so far there’s not much grounds to deny it.  Perhaps I can ask somebody later tonight – might make a good conversation starter.  If there are any, they sure don’t frequent the bar on a Friday night.  Perhaps it’s only the average women who can handle the tough climates out here.

[Interjection:  Though some of the people whom I write about may read this blog, I pull no punches unless what I have to say might be personally hurtful].

My mind still compares everyone I meet to the woman I dated last summer, and few if any match up.  There was a sexy, intelligent woman and I’ve mised her ever since setting foot on the Greyhound on Thursday.  My major trips of the past year were both with her, one as partners and one merely as friends, and travel for me has become roughly synonymous with her.  It seems blatantly unfair, then, that when we’re both single and I’m ahem, more “open-minded” than at times in the past, that I travel alone. 

There’s a table of older gentleman and as usual, only one elderly woman, right in front of me.  The occupants stagger a little when they stand up – I recognize some of them from the Legion hall earlier, where they got started on the spirits.  One of them, a fellow with kindly eyes and red ball cap came over to say “Hi” and grab a handful of granola earlier, and another has come over three times now, most recently to ask what I’m writing about and then to lean over and try and read it.  I tell him I’m writing about whatever comes to mind – women, the town, my trip, my future, whatever, and he assures me his glasses can’t focus on the words anyway because they’re far-sighted.  Then  he shuffles away again.

It’s loud in here now – the volume is up and the people are getting into the action.  I haven’t seen anybody yet who I’d really be interested in chatting up – mostly rowdy guys gathered around the pool table, so I stay seated.  As further evidence of the unhealthily high ratio of men to women here, two guys stand up, clutching each other as if they want to dance, or maybe they’re just holding each other up, but nothing happens and I soon lose sight of them.

A fellow named Reid comes over and asks me, as he’s working the ATM, “What’s the coolest town you’ve been to?”

“This one,” I reply.  “It’s the only one I’ve been to.”

He’s obviously very drunk.  I beckon him over, and ask, “So is it true what I hear – that there’s no good looking women in Valemount?” 

He looks around before replying, “Well, I haven’t fucked a good looking one yet.”

“Write this down,” he tells me.  “Best line you’ll ever hear (Ha!).  I’ve fucked a lot of women, but I ain’t got no standards.  The only standards I got is they have to be automatic.”  He says this slowly with a slur, and I write it down all right, though I’m hesitant to do so – his words hardly bear repeating.  I only do to point out how far back in the Stone Age some people linger.

Before saying anything to me, he qualified even talking to me by saying, “You are straight, aren’t  you?”  I replied affirmatively because it’s true, but perhaps I should simply have said, “No, you homophobe,” and given him my best look.  Guys will be guys I suppose, and disapproving though I might be, who am I to pass judgement?  I’ve lots to learn yet.

Some more people have entered now, and I think maybe I’ll go for a walk around.

Woah.  Now a fight’s broken out.  I watch with interest – a lone granola crunching bearded figure smirking and scribbling away in the corner.  A table is knocked over as a couple of guys grapple on the floor.  The action is fast and furious, and like a wave, spreads to the other side of the room, where another table tips all its drinks onto the floor.  The waitresses – yes waitresses (Valemount’s equivalent of hockey referees) move in to break things up.  Miraculously, or perhaps not so, the guys break it up and order is soon restored, but it stays rowdy and the waitresses spend about 10 minutes calming things down and re-arranging tables and chairs.  A young woman standing beside me looks at me and says, “Only in Valemount!  I haven’t seen anything like this since the last time I was here!”  It does seem a rowdy place – lots of macho guys strutting around, and a few women watching with amusement, and hopefully, some measure of scorn.

I walk over and ask a couple of fellows if they have any idea what the fight was about, and one of them replies with one word:  “Chelsea.”

I reply, “Yeah?  Figures.”  I have no idea who Chelsea is, but I don’t need to either.  I’m starting to get the pulse of this town.  Well into the evening, everybody’s drunk, there’s been one good fight, loud, energetic music, a six to one guy to girl ratio, and the dance-floor’s empty and hasn’t been used either. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

That’s the end of last night’s journal entry – around midnight I pack up and leave, getting a ride from the shuttle bus to the other side of town where I need to be, though I really don’t need the ride - I’m completely sober.  A fellow in the bus, drunk as punch, says the guy and girl sitting next to me are “all fucked up” but he’s fine.  Then he goes on to accuse the elderly female driver of being a bullshitter and spreading rumours of some sort.  She smiles and turns up the volume as the fellow next to me starts to sing, atrociously. 

I hang around the 24 hour Petro for a while until the drunks have cleared away, and then I head to my campsite – about a 15 minute walk away, though in the blackness of the night it’s a bit of an eerie walk, and completely illogically, my nerves rear up and I start at small noises.  But I make it to my campsite, pitch my tent, brush my teeth, and hope the manager doesn’t show up in the morning to collect his fee.

In the morning, and I wake a little on the late side, late enough to make the walk to Mt. Robson a little daunting time-wise, I head over to the visitor centre where I re-fill the water canister I bought in Squamish last summer.  It’s a piece of shit, really - it leaks when on its side and is plastic lined, but it’ll do for now.  I have some breakfast – trail mix, almond butter on knackebrood, granola, and arrive at the decision not to attempt the long,  hard walk to Mt. Robson, but rather to wait until the Greyhound carrying the rest of the participants arrives in the afternoon.  Given the choice between lounging in the library and coffeeshops or sweating my way to Mt. Robson, I give in and opt to stick around.  I don’t regret it at all – the Kiwa coffeeshop is really nice, cozy and welcoming, and the girls behind the counter disprove the notion that Valemount is lacking in that department.  Perhaps it’s only the bars that come up far short.

Either way, I have a black organic coffee, and we chat pleasantly.  They express a lot of interest in the SLLP, and we talk about some local hikes and things.  As a matter of fact, that’s where I’m headed for lunch right about now.  I’d post some pictures, but not expecting to be able to download them I didn’t bring a USB cable, only a battery charger “just in case.”

I truly think this will be my last post, though I’m making no promises. 

I’ll close with a quotation from my 3rd ever weblog entry:

The Elders say we must let go of the shore, push off
into the middle of the River. Keep our eyes open
and our head above water
See who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

This morning I watched a heron fishing in Swift Creek, delicately stalking the riverbank waiting for an unlucky fish to swim by.  As I stood at the riverbank, a large brown head appeared to my right, an otter I think, but perhaps a beaver.  For a split second its head broke the surface before diving under and being borne downstream.   On the way out of the campsite, I ate wild raspberries, and near the library a handful of saskatoon berries.  It is beautiful here in the summertime, though I imagine winters would be cold and unforgiving.  Mt. Robson, where I am headed soon, is more or less a ski-town. 

I’m safe and sound in Valemount at the moment, writing from the public library where the motto is, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”  I’d amend that to “A house without books” but that’s just me splitting hairs.  It’s a small library, built entirely out of thick logs like many of the buildings here.  I”m glad to be able to take a rest, as from my campsite at Wilderness Creek it’s a good twenty minute walk with around 40-50lbs between my backpack and the bag I’m carrying. 

Everything here is insanely expensive compared to Abbotsford.  I was going to grab a couple slices of pizza, until I read that it was $4.50 a slice, 5 times what you’d pay in Abbotsford.  A basic meal, and I mean very basic, at the restaurant the Greyhound stopped outside of en route was over $11. 

It’s been raining lightly on and off today and overnight.  The vodka shot container I left on the picnic table while I slept had about 2-3mm of rain in it, and the moisture in the air and light rain made it difficult to start a fire with the wood I was given by my neighbours.  One of these days I’ll have to learn to start a fire without paper, but thanks to my notebook last night I did have a warm fire for a few hours.

Next stop is Mt. Robson.  I could wait around here in Valemount until the rest of the crew arrives by Greyhound on Saturday afternoon and I’d get a ride to Mt. Robson, but I think I’ll simply walk it and enjoy the scenery on the way.  I’ll camp one more night in Mt. Robson by myself, and then the group will arrive and the Sustainable Living Leadership Program will begin.  From the highway, the river looked fairly calm in most stretches, but the water is high for the time of year. 

Throughout the program, while spending much of each day on the river, we’ll be exploring various concepts that relate to sustainable living.  Already, a giant environmental issue has reared its head here.  The fellow who runs the Wilderness Creek campsite, who I spoke with last night, works for much of the year up at Fort McMurray where he operates equipment.  The money’s good he says, but the environmental damage is great, and it’s the money he earns there that allows him to take summers off and operate the campsite.  The footprint of the tar sands is indeed far-reaching; even here, many hours drive from Fort McMurray, it shapes the lives of the people. 

Last night I also attended a talk on the Mountain Pine Beetle crisis; here is another example of a problem that has wide-spreading implications.  It’s shifted the nature of the economy from logging to tourism, as the logging industry simply isn’t capable of supporting itself any longer.  For the time being, and this may be ending, there’s been good profits in harvesting and market beetle killed timber, but when the beetle kill windfall comes to an end there’ll be a death of lumber.  It will take generations if not centuries for the ecosystem to restore balance and re-generate to its former stature.

A train’s blasting it’s way past outside, reminding me that I’ve got to hit the road if I want to make camp by nightfall, and I doubt there’s a library in Mt. Robson, so you won’t hear from me for three weeks until I’m down in the valley again.  The problems facing us seem enormous, from the tar sands to the Mountain Pine Beetle, and contemplating them I think of Lao-tzu’s words in the Tao Te Ching (Dow deh Jing), which I do not profess to understand, that:

“Do you want to improve the world?  I don’t think that it can be done.

The world is sacred.  It can’t be improved.  If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.  If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.” 

And, “Love the world as yourself.  Then you can care for all things.”

And lastly, “He (The Master) holds back nothing from life.  Therefore he is ready for death.” 

At this time, travel seems the essence of life.  There is something unbelievably satisfying, stimulating about being on the road, that being home and developing a career or working in retail simply can’t compare to. 

There is so much in the Tao Te Ching that brings to mind Biblical corollaries.  Some seem counter, some complementary.  Interestingly, the translator of this version uses a Bible verse in his dedication of the book.

SD’s been writing these long notes on Facebook that have gotten me thinking. Nevermind that it’s 2:43 a.m. – that’s when I write my best stuff anyway. It’s when my inhibitions are dropped and I just spew out whatever comes to mind. She’s been writing about relationships, essentially spilling out the story of the ones she’s been through, displaying a lot of brutal honesty and awareness of the complexity of social relations, not simply bashing her exes but actually getting at the gist of what went wrong and even assigning herself some of the flack where appropriate. SD of course, is dating my brother and may end up being my sister-in-law at some point. I’d not be surprised.

What this all brings to mind is, unlike SD, the dearth of romantic relationships in my life. The one and only that I’ve found myself in was more testing the waters than anything else, just feeling my way around trying to get a handle on this whole relationship thing. Not surprisingly, given my lack of experience with women and her experience level with guys, that one didn’t last long. She’s been seeing various people for the last 6 or 7 years, and as such was at a completely different level than I was. After being together for a short period of time during which we did quite a bit together, we parted ways at her cue, very amiably and with no hard feelings. For that, I’m thankful. Today we’re still good friends, and that is something I value. I’ve never understood how people can allow something as mysterious and unquantifiable as romance, or rather, failed romance, to create an impassable rift between them. You were attracted to each other in the first place, so don’t throw away that connection entirely, surely there’s still value in it. Doing so is allowing pure emotion to dominate, and sometimes you just have to bottle that up, use some logic, and enable yourselves to avoid the heartache and turmoil that come with a bitter, emotionally violent break-up.

So that first relationship didn’t last very long despite all the things we had in common. Perhaps we almost had too much in common. Or I didn’t bring enough that was new to the table – most of what I knew, she knew and then some, with the exception of botanical and naturalistic knowledge. Botanical and naturalistic knowledge – that’s what I gained from those years where I was content to simply ramble the woods on my own. Socially, I didn’t think or act the same way as everybody else. I never really felt comfortable in social situations, and felt most inclined towards solitude. So that’s what I chose, at the expense of cultural and social awareness. I think, also, that the personality traits I struggle with manifested themselves – I can be very self-centred at times, and to include one or multiple other people in my circle of awareness can be difficult. The fact that I have a tendency to be rather scatterbrained and dreamy probably didn’t help much either – a good dose of focus, discipline, drive, and energy would go a long way. Abandoning the path of complacency, the “it’s all good, don’t worry about a thing” and overall lackadaisicallity that I see as hallmarks of my personality could use some re-examination.

She could be considered the latest in a long string of wonderful women to try to drum up a little something extra out of me. Throughout most of high-school I didn’t take much notice of the women around me. Certainly I had the petty infatuations and crushes, but never acted on them, being far too shy and reticent to do that, and even too much so to be receptive to any girls/women who hit on me. Even so, I can remember several girls who seemed to recognize something a little different about me and who expressed curiosity in that, and tried to draw out the stifled personality underneath all the shyness and self-consciousness. Perhaps most obvious was KB, who seemed continually frustrated at my lack of responsiveness. But even that dates way back to times like Bakerview Daycamp, where everyone would gather in a circle for lunch, and I’d be more than content to sit in a corner and eat my lunch, not realizing that this was considered odd behaviour, odd enough for my camp counsellor Mike to come over and see what was the matter. The answer to which was nothing, of course. That was just me, and still is. When the time for athletics came, I’d enthusiastically take part, often outshining most others, but doing so quietly and for the sheer joy of the sport. Throughout grade school, athletics were my social salvation – I hung with the jocks because I was a jock, but again never really became “one of the group” even when I was a star on the team.

Eventually, I lost interest in athletics too though, at least in the strictly competitive side of athletics. I didn’t see the point in the intense training and rigorous schedule required to remain competitive – what was it all in aid of? I didn’t know, so by Gr. 10, I tailed off in that regard, though I’m sure if I’d put in the work by doing weight training and spending spare time in the gym I could have been very successful in at least one of my major sports, be it soccer, basketball, of volleyball. I turned instead to my other major interest, the natural world, for answers and to pass the time. I still played sports, but not like I once did, not with the same passion, with the same sheer love of the game for the sake of the game. I turned also to conservation, in Gr. 11, beginning a period of intense community involvement in environmental groups, even starting my own little StreamKeepers student group, but today, none of that’s enough. Today I’m re-exploring the physical fitness side of things, not for the sake of competition, but for the sake of maximizing the potential of this wonderful body that I’ve been gifted with that is capable of so much and that thrives on exercise and use. The physical, however, isn’t enough anymore. Now I want to do everything all at once – travel, music, writing, singing, physical fitness, activism, dance, school, work, and it simply isn’t possible, but my level of personal development isn’t high enough to allow school and work take up all my time as they currently are.

What this is, in essence, is a lament for unused talent. Underneath, if I can only tap into it, lie incredible reserves of energy and drive and motivation, artistic ability, creative energies that I’m not using. Occasionally, I do, but usually only after some sort of a kick-start, a trip, or intense experience that re-awakens me, after which I generally drift back to every-day habits, being unable to hold onto that more present and aware state of mind which I covet more than anything else. I catch occasional flashes of brilliance that remind me what I’m really capable of, but these rarely last, and lack any kind of unifying force to keep them front and centre.

I’ve hoped for some time now that perhaps some of these issues, which are trivial in comparison to what many people I know face, can be at least partially resolved by a women who sees me and all my shortcomings but also sees how much I care and simply loves me for who I am, no questions asked. It’s what I would do, unconditionally, but as a friend of mine recently reminded me, it’s true that you can’t really love someone if you don’t love yourself. And all things considered, I’m not sure I can truthfully say I love who I am- more often than not, I’m disappointed in my capabilities, in my seeming lack of poise, tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, inability to really see something through to its completion, and at times paralyzing self-consciousness. Whether I admit it or not, the fact remains that often I’m very much influenced by what others will think of what I do or do not do. Can I transcend that or will I continue to allow myself to be held back by the potential for failure and what others will think? But just as much, I need to re-discover the capacity to dream and think big and be ambitious and excited about the future, because it’s been some time since that was the primary determinant of the direction of my life. I’m in charge here, and while I sure as hell could use a women in my life, or even simply a “best friend” as most of the ones I’ve had through grade school have more or less fallen away, that’s in no way an elixir for all that troubles me, and to expect it to be is irrational at best. I feel I have a lot to offer in the way of care and dedication and commitment and loyalty and earnest desire to experience life to the fullest, but not so much in the way of material wealth or discipline and motivation, and the first of those I’m not even sure I care about one iota.

The word “enough” comes to mind. I’d almost say I have enough now. A loving family, enough income to live on even were I on my own, a lap-top, a bike and a car, hiking gear, a tent, books, access to libraries, music, garden space – this is a lot more than many people have, and I’m not unhappy with my material wealth. Where I’m unsatisfied is social wealth – I’ve long recognized my need for greater intellectual stimulation, but everyone’s so fucking busy making ends meet it’s hard to ever get a group together and when you do it takes time to gel. I’ve been hearing rumblings about a cooperative of some sort for some time now, from HH and DM and GG and it’s high time somebody acted on this, took a bold first step, and made something happen. A big step, I know, but I see it as a necessity in the positive sense of the word in today’s world.

Economically, things will not be as easy for us as it was for our parents, and we had better be prepared. Independent living in big suburban houses sustained by corporate jobs is a thing of the past. I’ve a feeling that strong social networks, cooperation, and community support will be essential in tomorrow’s world.

It could be, like, the new fad, man.

In Beachcombing at Miramar Richard Bode writes of searching for shells with a blemish, because as he sees it, it’s the imperfection that makes perfection. I was blown away at work today to hear this exact idea touched on. One of my co-workers casually mentioned that he liked crooked teeth on a woman, whereupon someone promptly repeated the imperfection making perfection line. Just goes to show how a successful writer doesn’t necessarily have to re-invent the wheel, merely to write down in an interesting and concise way what many people realize anyway.

On a completely different note, here’s some food for thought:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh…”
from On the Road by Jack Kerouac

My final delivery of the night – probably # 11 or 12. The order is taken late, about 5 minutes before closing time. A ham, beef, pineapple medium pizza with a couple of cheesy breads, a 2L of Coke, and a few ranch dips. My manager, who took the order, says something about loving those guys, and that they’re in a basement suite with a glass sliding door. I see what she means when I arrive at the address. I’m still fishtailing wildly on these little sidestreets – the rain hasn’t overcome the snow just yet and I enjoy the sensation so I don’t bother slowing down. The kid is waiting for me on the front lawn. I’m a little late, as I have the wrong address on my ticket and missed a turn because my mind was elsewhere. The name on the ticket is Parker, and the kid definitely resembles a Parker. Baseball cap pulled sideways, and a bit of a defiant, yet downcast look in his eyes.

I follow him to the back of the house, where I step through the open glass door. I wonder, do these kids live on their own here? But no; in the back corner of the room some pillows are arranged into the form of a bed, and a middle-age man is huddled there. I assume he’s the father. He observes me, but doesn’t say anything. In the other corner, in front of a small television screen is a woman with curly black hair. The mother. Or perhaps one of them is a step-parent.  Whatever the case, neither of them respond to my polite question about how their evening is going.

I give the boys their total – roughly $30.00. The woman mutters something about $30.00 for a pizza. Parker replies that there’s 2 cheesy breads too, and besides, what does it matter since he’s paying for it. He gives me $40.00, and I give them their change, which the boys quickly split. Money is precious to them.

The man hasn’t spoken, but continues to observe me as I make ready to leave. The woman nods goodbye to me – it’s a furtive, hesitant glance. She’s uncomfortable; embarrassed; disapproving. Says (the boys) must have a bigger bank account than she does. I grab my heatwave bag, and leave the family to their food, wishing with all my heart that they enjoy it to the fullest. The boys tipped $3.00 – an extravagance they can ill afford. On the drive back, I’m ashamed to have taken it. I’m angry, too. I make record time back to the store, going close to if not over 100km/h on Maclure as I reflect on the scene. I’m angry at how the boys are growing up, having to confront the hard economic realities at such a young age. Angry that the parents must live in poverty, still, with little hope to improve their lot in life. Angry at myself for taking the tip. Angry at my culture for accepting this. Where were the neighbours when the family moved in? Did anybody say, “hi, so we’re neighbours now, eh? My name’s so and so – want to come over for dinner one night?”

I’m glad I’m a delivery driver. I’ve lived a privileged life; a comfortable middle-class existence. Always food on the table and dependable family. I don’t want to live in ignorance of the poverty, the homelessness, the addictions, the struggles so many are going through. As I drive, I vow to do what I can to help. I may be only one person, but a community is composed of many individuals all doing their part. I have an elderly friend from the local naturalist’s club who brings big pots of soup to the youth shelter. I don’t have any youthful friends who do the same, unfortunately. All this reminds me of a poignant saying I saw on the fridge at a friend’s grandparent’s place a few years back.

Paraphrased, it goes: “Observing all the street people in poverty, I asked God, ‘How can you accept this? Why don’t you do something about it?’ God replied, ‘I did do something: I made you.’”

I’m not religious; I have some vague and undefined spiritual notions, but I do reject the argument that some of my friends offer that they’re not Christian because Christians are so hypocritical. One pointed out that if Jesus were here today, he’d be downtown at Five Corners helping the hookers. Fair enough – seems to be a pretty damn good reason to be a Christian to me. Don’t judge Christianity by Christians; judge it by Christ.

One lonely, contemplative, reserved, broke, confused pizza delivering environmentalist student cyclist signing out and hitting the sack.

So my blog needs a shake-up. How do I know this? Well, I wouldn’t want to read it. It’s super boring, unimaginative, and way too serious. It seems to be afflicted by the delusional perspective that life is actually a serious affair and that what happens to me matters in the big picture. I think I’m getting all serious and philosophical again, but going to Vancouver depresses me, and I’ll say why.

Passing neighbourhood after neighbourhood after industrial complex after shopping mall in my car, or gazing out at the vast expanse of shimmering yellow lights, like a close-up of the sky turned upside down, from the vantage point of the Skytrain as it zips from one end of the city to the other causes me to seriously consider my place in this vast hive of humanity, this urban labyrinth. Everybody in such a hurry to get wherever they’re going, an endless stream of traffic hurtling by, the harried and dejected look in the eyes of so many on the transit systems, the seeming utter absence of spontaneity and freedom of expression, and then the realization that I’m no different than any of the millions of people who inhabit the city of Vancouver – just another organism, one more microcosm of the universe trying desperately to etch out a niche for myself in this game called life. I have my petty concerns, my mental head games, my coping mechanisms just like all the other millions of people in the city, and the billions of people worldwide. They say that everyone’s unique, that we’re all created for a purpose and that we all have a role to play in the unfolding of the universe, but sometimes all these faces just seem to blur into one big mass called humanity – all our wars and politics, celebrity worship, desire for social acceptance, rampant consumerism, dissatisfaction with what life has to offer, vague and undefined notions of spirituality, all of this swirls in one big, repeating cauldron as generation after generation tries anew to rediscover what previous generations have already discovered. King Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun, and indeed there is not – there is only that which is new to me. Science inches forward in its unceasing quest to know more about how the world works, but its discoveries lead only to more questions. What is inside the quark after all? How and where did life originate? What accounts for this phenomenon known as spirituality which all of us seem to experience though few of us can explain it? I’m off topic and rambling, I know, so to return to my point, what makes me think that I should take the world so seriously? I don’t have any of the answers; I don’t know anybody who does, so until I figure out what under the sun I really want to do with my life, why not kick back and have a ball? Do what makes me feel alive? What might that be? Dancing to Abheeru’s music makes me feel alive. Climbing the mountains and looking down at the valleys lifts my heart. Staring into the eyes of a beautiful woman stirs my spirit (not to mention steals whatever poise and clarity of thought I possess ). Pushing myself so that my muscles ache but don’ t actually hurt is rewarding. Long, spontaneous, heartfelt conversation restores my faith. A kind gesture; enthusiastic attitude towards work; daring expression of creativity; speaking out against the status quo and standing up for a cause; a simple approach to life; an energetic piece of music - all these things and more make me feel alive and in the words of Chief Dan George, make my heart soar.

Environmental sustainability is important to me, but it’s not all on my shoulders. Whether I sacrifice my lifestyle and concentrate on activism and whatnot can’t really do more than make a small ripple in a giant ocean – I’ve sufficiently internalized those values that I’ll be a lot more responsible than a lot of people, and that’s really all that can be expected – it’s just something I do because I care, but it’s not who I am. The road to eternity is a long one – we might be fucking up this planet of ours like bad guests at a party, but are we really capable of doing the same to eternity itself? I, for one, don’t think so.

Not to be all pretentious and petty, but if this blog can play some part in stimulating discussion and illuminating some of the collective challenges we face, it will have been worthwhile.

Hear the words of The Elders of the Hopi Nation, Arizona.

______________________________________________

“You have been telling the people
that this is the Eleventh Hour
Now you must go back and tell the people
that this is THE HOUR. And there are things to be considered:

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
Where is your water?

Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. And do not look
Outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time.
There is a River flowing now very fast
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore. They will
feel they are being torn apart, and they will
suffer greatly. Know the River has its destination.
The Elders say we must let go of the shore, push off
into the middle of the River. Keep our eyes open
and our head above water
See who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

Gather yourselves. Banish the word “struggle”
from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

_________________________________________

What are we waiting for?

Wow. Eerie. Thunder rumbles as I ponder my first blog entry at 3:30 a.m. Eerie, too, that I’d want to have a blog of my own. Why on Earth would I want to lay my soul bare for every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a passing interest to goggle at? Am I on a hugely misguided ego trip? Succumbing to the curse of me, myself, and I? Desperately seeking answers and not knowing where to look? Trying to impress a romantic interest?

Crying out to the universe, “I exist!”?

What if the universe replies, “So?” What then?