Practice never betrays you

So I am still mulling through this new information about the money system. I think it is very interesting. We are pretty mad and pretty upset, but I think it is unfair, and we shouldn't be. And I think this because of the fundamental nature of science and of evolution.

What does science have to do with greed or money or the crashing changing growing money system...maybe not very much. But I suspect that actually they have a great deal to do with each other. The pursuit of science, the pursuit of knowledge, like the pursuit of experience requires theories, requires experimentation, requires testing trying out and assessing predictions.

I want to believe that we are experimenting in capitalism, we are pursuing a science of monetary creation and accretion. That much like the Challenger or whatever space shuttle it was that blew up all those years ago, some experiments go very wrong, and at the cost of human lives...

I value life above all things (how can you not?), but I don't think that we should be afraid of loosing it. I see that this financial crisis is leading to suicides, murders, to cycles or depression and despair...because the experiment went wrong. We didn't use a good methodology and as a result missed important indicators that it was not a viable model. But I don't think that means we should follow the example set by the international space programs. It is a bad idea to stop pursuing the dream.

We are capable of doing a lot of things, and I know finding an effective wealth creation-distribution model is one of them (keeping in mind that this system isn't some kind of goal or destination but an ongoing experience). We shouldn't let the fear of extinction kill the process of evolution. Any process of evolution. We must work with that reality and with that goal...that extinction is a necessary part of life, in the same way that death is.

The world as I know it isn't fundamentally changing, because the world as I know it is one of fundamental change. There has never been a day in this life I haven't faced the challenge of change, and i wouldn't have it any other way. If you think the world doesn't change much or very quickly you are deluding yourself. Look at the evolution of the pre-frontal cortex. What is it about this memory storing part of our brains that it demanded the complete architectural overhaul of the human skull in the blink of evolutionary time?

It is very new that we have had the skills granted us by the PFC, we shouldn't be surprised that we aren't very good at using them, yet. So we should keep practicing. We should keep asking, testing, making and trying theories, we should keep on predicting and examining our predictions, because we will start getting it right more and more times...and then we will meet our antecessor...

What is poverty?

I recently watched an interesting, oh what's the word for it, "special report" on the US housing industry and what many call the birth of the current "financial crisis". Now for some reason I am somewhat skeptical about the connection between the US housing crisis and the global financial "crisis." A skepticism that was further fuelled by this program, for, even though the show's thesis maintains that the housing bubble is what caused and catalysed financial crises around the world at the end of the show it shows that places like that Norwegian city that bought up badly rated CDOs didn't buy mortgaged backed CDOs...demontrating there is another very serious (maybe more serious) piece to this puzzle. Of course I don't really care about or understand money, so I can't suggest what it is...but I am interested in something Allen Greenspan had to say...

At the end of this program, titled House of Cards, Allan Greenspan suggests that it is human nature to be greedy and further that that nature, the drive for greedy, self-satisfaction, narcissistic endeavor, is what has brought millions out of poverty...

That sentiment hit me pretty hard. Like a slap in the face with a wet pickle by a rugby player named Laura Boghean. This idea that greed is what brings us out of poverty. If that is true, then I think we have unknowingly and fundementally redefined the word poverty. And I am sure this new definition won't stand.

The program goes a long way in demonstrating how we rethought what we meant by the "American Dream." An expression that once meant to prevail after years of struggle, toil, careful investment, pain-staking care and much sacrifice. In the program it is again and again used to mean having every material thing you always wanted...and having it before you are old enough to know what it is without sacrificing anything upfront (though we are all seeing there are big forced sacrifices in the long run).

So what do we mean by poverty? As Allen Greenspan uses the word, it can only mean not possessing much materially in the world. This is the same way President G.W Bush uses it. He sees only poverty as people not having as many lollipops as they want everyday. He sees it as people not owning homes, he sees not owning a home as the fundemental cause of every other social problem in America. This isn't poverty, is it? And if we believe this is poverty then we are the ones truly in poverty.

We are in a poverty of love, spirit, faith, knowledge or happiness. I can only imagine that living in a poverty of these 5 things is a truly sad and tragic thing that corrupts, denegrades and destroys our societies. I don't see how material poverty can cause these things without a greater poverty of the human needs. The only way material poverty can cause social corruption is if we believe that greed is what will bring us out of poverty. If we believe having things makes us happy, brings meaning into our lives... But this is the catch, if we believe and agree greed has this power it is because we live in a poverty of these 5 things.

If you have all the love, all the faith in life in your friends and family in everyday strangers, all the spirit and energy to pursue your life to experience use and generate happiness while people with pools and 6 gaming systems and two cars and machines that vacuum the house day and night might think you live in poverty in your 1 room apartment with mum and dad and 3 brothers but you wouldn't and shouldn't agree with them.

I guess that comes of living within my means. Of living temporarily. Of hoping in increments and preparing for things I want...rather than for taking things i want then having to work to pay for them. I agree that greed is one of the most effective eroding forces of western society. It is the vice over all vices that corrupts and destroys families, friendships, networks and the kinship of strangers. It works with great speed and greater effect than murder, sloth, lust, alcohalism or any vice you can conceive.

I am not trying to point us to some kind of social altruism, it has nothing to do with how we interect with each other, but how we live with ourselves. It has to do with learning how to appreciate and value at a greater level what we have, what we have worked for and things that we are willing to work for. We need to be willing to work for things.

I am sorry for the millions in the US and Canada citizens being thrown out of their homes. Not because they are being thrown out of their homes, but because they never had a chance to learn the value of what they had. They never learned how to be satisfied with what they work for. I am sorry for the people on wall street and the banks that went bankrupt in the way I feel sorry for soldiers with PTSD...I am sorry for people world wide loosing their manufacturing jobs, but I hope that they will find more meaningful ways to contribute to our society, rather than just making more stuff for us to want.

Greed is not the friend of poverty, but the enemy...greed doesn't bring us out of poverty; it drives us into it. But then what does Allen Greenspan know about anything anyway? His defense for why he is not guilty in allowing this problem, and in creating this problem, I didn't understand it...

Amazing life

I guess the weather just fills me with joy, but i don`t think i could have drempt up a better morning. Woke up with sun in my eyes around 715. It wasn't cold in my apartment so i could get out of bed and go pee without slippers a sweater and other warming agents. Birds were singing me love songs, inviting me to come and play so i went and did yoga in the park for an hour or so. I returned to have japanese breakfast provided by a students 98 year old great grandmother. And its only 10 to 9. I still have heaps of time for reading and writing before what maybe my most challenging day of teaching this year. 7-60 minute classes back to back.

I am excited to sleep like an angel tonite.

Perspective

I had a couple pretty amazing experiences with perspective this weekend, that have got me thinking about the topic quite heavily. It started with a new sketch book. I finally finished the book of block, that is the book that has essentially held the entirety of my writers block over the past three years. Creatively, it is a pretty depressing book to look through, tons of pages of incomplete poems, stories, thoughts, ideas, sudokus, maps of places, plans, goals, drawings, grocery lists...you know the kind of things on puts in a sketch book when experiencing creative block.

Of course, the last two months worth of stuff shows a huge shift in my work, but that's only about 7 pages out of 200...but now I started a new one. And it was funny, looking at the first page and thinking about what to put there, I was afraid I was going to start panicking and I thought I will go back into the mode of self editing and creative abortion that formed the better part of the block. But before i had even started thinking these things I realized that i wasn't worried at all about what to put. I thought it doesn't really matter if it turns out really good, or really crap, or most likely somewhere in between those extremes. I just want to make something. I want to work on it and then some time later finish working on it.

I thought that was funny, because in that moment i came to realize that I wasn't afraid of blank pages anymore. And it was pretty cool. It was like when I came to realize I wasn't afraid of the dark anymore, or I wasn't afraid of people hearing me pee. And I never thought it was something i was afraid of, and if it was i never thought i would stop being afraid of them. And that got me thinking about I can...

I can't is the most dream defeating phrase in every language I have ever tried to learn. And that is because it reifies a temporal obstacle and makes us believe it may be an eternal blockage. We need to revolutionize this phrase and change it from I can't to Now I can't... I sort of always thought I can't means I never can...but that is my great error, and it is an error many of us make and I hope if you are still making it you heed what I have learned. That I can't only means in this moment I can't..but maybe with more heart and practice, with more support and strength I can one day.

I climbed a really steep mountain this weekend. With a child and two women. The child, like any child would, just wanted to go and go and go. She has not yet developed any sense for conserving energy. About 200m from the top, however, she reached her limit. Her legs were heavy from the climbing (it was in many parts a 60-75degree incline...totally wicked). She wanted to quit and stop. But I know how wicked it is at the tops of mountains so I told her to climb on my back.

I didn't know if I could carry her up 200m. In fact I was pretty certain I was as tired as she was. But I wanted her to make it. And I was up for the challenge. So I put my bag on her back and crouched for her. And it seemed that was enough. She sort of looked at me as if to say, "I am tired. I don't think I can keep going, but you would find the strength to carry me the rest of the way...well then I will find that strength too" And like a mountain goat she lit off up the last slope. We raced the last 50m and both fell down on the top of the mountain for feel how good it was to have made it.

Before that she didn't try to talk to me, nor I to her. But after I guess our relative positions changed and we did our best to talk.

Then their was the view of the world. At the top of the mountain there was only blue sky over head, as we has climbed up through the cloud that sits on the valley below, or so it felt. New mountains came into view in the distance and the sea too. I couldn't have imagined...but i can now. And I look forward to more things unimagined. And know they exist out there, just have to find them.

If I had a second chance...

Been a while. I have been writing and drawing and thinking a lot, but not blogging very much. I should do something about that....and so here I am. A blog about learning.

I am learning a lot these days. A lot about myself, which you would find boring, so I won't write about, and a lot about religion, which some might find taboo and controversial. But I have some funny stories on the topic to tell, and how they relate to learning.

So I met these nice men, and we frequently talk about religion together. They are pretty convicted, but they aren't bossy, which I find very unusual. It probably also explains why I enjoy talking with them. But they often suggest I pray for better understanding of various things. I personally am not such a fan of praying for things. I think we have already been given everything we need, want, hate etc and our only obligation is to offer eternal thanks for it. (see the comments made by the King of Eldorado in Candide by Voltaire). You can also see the prayer on Ethok about this. Even if there are things we think we need, I have found keeping a thankful mind and accepting our temporal condition is generally enough to take care of it. So I prayed to offer my thanks for the patience of men and for the strength I have found to ask questions and the determination I have found to genuinely seek out answers.

I think often of the days of the Philosophy Club at the Grad House, and how sometimes they questions posed were quite daunting and I would be too lazy, and unable to find the drive, to sort them out and find insights into them. But I am finding, much like going to the gym, day by day, bit by bit, my skills in pondering through a problem is getting stronger (like my abdominal muscles...i can almost do a full sit up these days...almost...talk about zero core strength)

And this is the thing. Maybe I was usually very grateful (secretly quietly and to myself) for the myriad of talents and gifts and good vibes and faults and misfortunes I possess. But I didn't put any effort into acknowledging that fact. And I think this led to feelings of regret, that somehow I was wasting talent, time, friendship and the like. And mostly because it was tiring and time consuming to be thankful and to offer those prayers of thanks. And because I thought I wasn't very good at it.

But what I keep running up against is this idea of "if I had a second chance..." And I have come to the conclusion that it is a nonsense thing to say. I feel that I am not very good at making music, and I want to be able to make music, not just listen to it...well then I should start practicing making music. I don't need to regret quitting piano, clarinet, viola, singing, guitar and whatever other music classes my parents were kind enough to fund for me. I want to be strong enough to dance like a ballerina...then I will start practicing, to build that strength. I don't need to regret screaming at the bar because Vince Parvel or whoever that ballet teacher was when I was 4 who scared me and made me never want to go back to another ballet lesson. I don't need a second chance, I have today, tonight, tomorrow and everyday to try, to build skill, to enjoy life.

And that is just one of the things I have been thinking about these days.

Now we all just know October babies are best

A new silly study out today suggests that babies born in late in summer and in the autumn are taller and stronger than children born in winter and spring. I know this is true as a northern hemispherian baby born in October, and I am very excited for Australia to peer review this study and find out that babies born in February to April in Australia are taller and stronger too.

That would be just lovely.

Also for people living in equatorial regions to find there is no difference in the hight of strength of their babies by month they were born...

Children's lives "harder today"

According to a report just published by the something or other organization of non-sense writing in England, Children's lives are harder today than ever before. Nonsense!

On what do they base this claim, might I note here they are talking about British children exclusively, so we don't even get to touch with a ten foot pole poverty, starvation war or any of that stuff in making this assessment. The report claims that despite improvements in mortality rate, health care, education and having more possessions children's lives are more difficult that they were in the past. That children are less happy, and are less likely to grow into successful adults.

I think that may be the rub, that children are perhaps less likely to succeed these days makes us want to draw the conclusion that their lives must be more difficult. I don't understand how the 35,000 contributors to this report could be so dense. These contributors it seems have put a lot of energy into blaming failed marriages, single parents and materialism for these difficulties faced by our children. It claims that 1 in 3 children live apart from one birth parent by the age of 16.

I think this report has made an egregious error in concluding that decreased quantifiable by modern statistics successes is not necessarily correlated to increase difficulty. That in fact it may be quite the opposite that is true. That in fact children's lives are significantly less difficult than they have ever been to the detriment of their development. Every challenge and hardship has been removed from the path a child must walk to adulthood, even their autonomy in walking that path is constantly infringed on, they are given bikes so they don't have to walk, and rides and cars because they are told that even riding the bike is too difficult. They barely get to travel this path at all until they are finished legally becoming an adult and move away from their parents.

How can we learn if we don't experience failure, conflict, tribulation, confusion, discomfort and pain? I agree with Aristotle, that humans desire to know, we desire to learn as one of our primary and most fundamental desires, maybe even before we desire things or love or ham sandwiches. This is why before we know who anyone else is, we explore and test and try stuff. and it is stressful when we are thwarted in our pursuit of that desire. When we are trying to put a puzzle together and someone comes and does it for us, when we are testing out the effects of gravity and someone grabs our hand and carries us down off the jungle gym and yells at us. Good job you just ended the career of a would-be physicist.

We are stuck (as adults..which as we know are just tall-children holding a beer or something) in our fear of pain, our want to protect ourselves and others from experiencing it. It thwarts us, and causes us to thwart those around us. We are afraid our kids will cry, or break a bone, or loose and eye and be crippled, or even die. We are so afraid of that pain of that what if...

We must learn that it is okay to die. That crying is cleansing and learning. That bones heal and grow. That cripples (sorry for the blunt word if it offends you) are among the most able-bodied people you will ever meet. That they create amazing things, problems and solutions, philosophies and arts out of their "apparent" disadvantage. Some examples Beethoven (deaf), John Milton (blind, wrote Paradise Lost, The prophet Mohamed (illiterate), Carly (Autistic), Jason (Autistic), Brittany and Abigail (not crippled, but an amazing example of how children use challenges to thrive in life) and the list is unending. Adversity is one of life's greatest reasons to learn. And finally I am a firm believer that even what does kill us, makes us stronger. (earthquakes, accidents, old age, anger, war, crucifixion, marshmallows, grade 6, sit ups)

I keep meeting people who work with orphans or had some experience briefly with "underprivileged" children. And they always say things like, "you can't imagine how much light/ life/ vibrancy/ happiness/ curiosity/ intelligence/ resourcefulness blah blah blah is in these kids." I always asked, "why do you seem so surprised?" Of course I can imagine it, its when i meet kids how haven't even scrapped their knee and still have this aliveness that I am surprised. Kids who have never had to wonder if something bad could happen who can still learn how to build a soapbox racer.

Ken Robinson suggests that we are educated out of our imaginative capacities. That like Picasso said, all children are born artists, it is remaining an artist as you grow up that is the trick. I agree. you need to try, if you are to find a talent, and you need to practice if you are to succeed, but we are so afraid of failing, or of our kids failing that we give them learn to type games and Pokemon to entertain themselves until they are old enough to bugger off and get a job. Nonsense!

Children's lives are not harder today, they are more boring, less interesting, less challenging, less productive, less exploratory, less impossible. They are trapped by people with power who only know how to measure success quantitatively, but not qualitatively as it should be measured. And it is nonsense! Stop babysitting teachers! Stop babysitting parents. Stop babysitting children. Stop babysitting.

I am Archie

Okay so i just woke up in the middle of the afternoon. Which I love doing because, especially when other people are around, although there wasn't any one else around in my case, but that is okay too, and i love it because you can make that squeelly noise that comes so naturally after a Sunday afternoon nap when you wake up and don't care cause you just had a delightful nap and now you are going to get up and have something to eat (like a sloth) so you go weeeeoooowweeee and stretch. Awesome.

And anyway, during my Sunday nap I had a great dream. Well it was a pretty sad scary dream but it was pretty good too, it was a comedy in the end.

The dream:

So I went home. and there was none of the preparing to go missing flights packing plants in never ending suitcases stuff, just I was home. And Tristan came home and gave me a big hug. And then i saw what looked to be a small child in a diaper skipping down the stairs into the basement of the Fallingbrook house so I chased it to find out was a small baby was doing walking, and inparticular walking down the stairs. Well when I caught him, he said in the squeeliest high pitched voice "I'm archie" and that was all. and then he tried to escape by turning into something like a email, and electronic signal, but I caught him in an answering machine. Cause I wanted to show Archie to the rest of the family. Then for a good bit of dreaming it turned into a nightmare with people trying to kill Archie and stop people from killing Archie. But then in the end it turned out it was a one word story that had been made by a chain letter or on facebook or something. And somehow I didn't question how i was in the story. I just was.

Then there was another dream about being at a Mormon fitness club. and somehow I got really dizzy and fell out on the pavement and had to get back in because my stuff was inside, but i had to tell them I was a member but my card was inside because i was dizzy and fell out of the gym onto the pavement. And the guy said that was fine he would just need to take my name, but then he turned into a lawyer and had all these faxes to send and receive, and they had a fax machine that could print and bind books as one whole thing. I have no idea how it did it. It was so cool to see the books come out just like a fax, but then I guess it was a dream so it doesn't every actually happen like that.

But I just remember that part where Archie said: "I'm Archie" very cute.

Learning and studying

Happy January 20th. I think today is something special, but I don't remember. If it's your birthday, I'm sorry I forgot, but be sure I still love you.

On learning and studying.

My friend said to me, you never studied. I laughed and wondered what she was talking about because she was regularly there when I was studying.

I guess she meant I never studied by myself. To which I replied if I was doing it by myself she would have no way of knowing if or not I was doing it. But the truth is she was right, I don't think that during the years we were learning in close proximity to each other I ever did much studying.

I was never uncertain of what I had learned in school. So I never found any need to study it. I already knew it...why would I go about learning it again? I learned it during the teaching. My review usually consisted of taking note what part of what I had learned I would be expected to write about on the test.

For me a test was always a measure of what I had learned from a teacher. That is why no one else ever gave me tests. And so it would be in a way dishonest to study because for me it was about what I had already learned. And again if I had already learned it, why study?

You see you don't need to remember what you have learned. It is never forgotten. We don't study how to walk, we learn it, and then we don't forget it or it takes major brain trauma to forget...

School was amazing for me, because everyday I had at least 4 people who wanted to talk to me about things in the world. And I listened, I drank it up, because I knew so little about the world and well what else would I do, I was there, and they weren't going to stop talking. I think that is were I ran in to trouble in university (and with physics) the teachers didn't have things to tell me, just lists of things they thought I should study.

I didn't want to study.

I am not interested in studying. I never remember things I study, I never learn from it either. That is for sure. I think studying has all this metacognative stuff that goes with it, you have feelings and thoughts and opinions about studying. But you just learn. There is no feelings about it, it just happens. You know, do you have feeling about the fact that you know how to walk? or read? or know that spear toads have green blood. (did you know that? I did, but I don't any feelings about it. It is just something to say when I need to make a point) no, you just do it. that is because you have learned it, you don't need to think about it anymore.

I think I hardly notice when I am learning something. there is no metacognative activity when it happens. I was and am always doing something else when I am really being taught. Like a proper high school student, eating and drawing and saying eternally cool things, and making epoch changing decisions about how to talk to at lunch time and sitting on things that I would never sit on if I wasn't learning.

But this is how I feel today. That we study because we "have to" we are told to do it (and like it) so we go about it and never learn anything. Partly because it is impossible to learn something from yourself, if you manage to learn it from yourself it is because you already knew it and thus didn't need to study it in the first place. This is why I am not learning very much Japanese, because I have only studied it. Also because you study something because you are acutely aware that you haven't learned it yet, but if that is the case then how could you possibly learn it from yourself?

But I am not advising osmosis either. We have to be present, and active. I just don't want to study...that's all.

They can't even...

I remembered vividly tonight a lesson that I never believed I learned. Bev Hamilton told me a story about a school she put her son in, about a way of teaching without can'ts. A school where the student only "can do" things and each time he learns something new it is one more "I can". There is no negative connotation or knowledge of "I can't" in this school.

Well with the strange exception of the belief that the human soul can't travel faster than 60km/h...but we should allow for eccentricities.

Anyway, I thought the whole school was very strange, but now I think this is wonderful. Students are taught that each time they reach a barrier, limit, challenge they feel that can't do NOW, they should say to them selves. When I started here I thought I couldn't ___________________, and now I have done it. For example I thought I couldn't climb to the top of the jungle gym, and now i can. Then they say to them selves, now I think I can't overcome this task, so I will try, but it is okay if i can't do it now, i know that I can.

And moreover it isn't just the students themselves who promote and practice this thought pattern, to a much greater extent the teachers promote it, reminding students when they over come a challenge, and helping students recognize and appreciate (and be thankful for) their "I cans."

Particular this school works on integrating rather than segregating students. Exceptional kids (like Bev's son) work with regular kids and with other exceptional kids. So while Bev's son at 5 might look at himself and say I can read all the books in the book box. And then look at little ADHD Stevie and think he is so dumb because he can't. A teacher will intervene and say, when Stevie started here he couldn't sit still for five minutes and now he can sit and read a whole book.

In this way students are taught to see not what their classmates can't do, but what they can. What a marvelous lesson! To look at and examine what those around us can do. I have been practicing it recently, just quietly with myself, thinking about what i can do in class that I couldn't do in September. What I can speak and understand in Japanese that i couldn't do in August. And when i am frustrated with a student, I look at and remember what they can do, and refocus my energy into what we can do together.

I want to write

I want to write, and this kept turning into a story so I had to move it onto "Without Ethnicity" the nonfiction blog...uh I mean the fiction blog...this is the one for nonfiction...

So today`s topic: action, agency, activity and the letter A.

I don't have many books, but for some reason, that I haven't quite sorted out yet, the Book of Mormon is among the books I do have. So, for lack of something more stimulating, I was reading a little theology today and thinking about action and agency. I am thinking about what motivates us to move or act or do or try things in our lives. And after a lot of thinking about the question of why...why does fear motivate us, why does love motivate us, why does public opinion motivate us, why does a gym membership not motivate us, why should i keep reading this book, why should i write a new story, why shouldn't i cry it is tuesday...I was never much good at Tuesdays ... these kinds of whys, I think that why doesn't really matter.

I think it is time to stop needing reasons to act.

In a way this compulsive justification is stiffling our freedom to act as free and autonomous beings. I used to write because i was justified in writing. I had to write an assignment, I had to find out what a game was called, I had to tell someone a good recipe for a ham sandwich, I had to had to had to. i had so many reasons why i should, could, would, and did write. And then, I think, one day those reasons disappeared. And this became the first step in my great block.

I didn't think I had a reason to write. I didn't think I had something to say, didn't think I wanted to. I graduated, so I didn't have professors to read my writing. I have told the world about ham sandwiches. I got rejected by a couple journals (rejection sucks) and was just left with you (friends and strangers) -- and you are very busy people I shouldn't write you things to read unless they are very funny or important or or or-- and I didn't think you really wanted to read my writing. and even less want to talk about words written in a fictional space. So the block grew bigger.

And it grew and grew and I started to feed it, and I had really great justifications for why i didn't, couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't write. And i started scratching out big crosses and black marks in my writing, every time i wrote anything it became a big hole of frustrated justification.

And then, I don't know why, but it stopped mattering. All the editing and self aborting ideas stopped being aborted, and now i am running out of notebooks. But its all poetry now, so I think Splot is going to get pretty quite now. Don't worry I haven't gone far.

The last

So long a silence. I've been blocked. By fear. and a certain lacking of bravery. and a Japanese internet company that didn't want me accessing the internet when in such a shy state.

Anyway. Canada didn't suffer the coup d'etat. Shame. but its a good thing. We chose the more rational calm path of suspending parliment. Waiting and deliberating a bit before we make the easy move.

That's what i want to talk about today. it's funny to say that ending something is the easy move. That choosing to walk away, to over throw the government is the easy choise. But it is. Its far easier to say its all rubbish, throw it all away, than to admit our mistakes, than to try things we doubt we have the bravery to do.

I thought i would just quit on Monday. Say I can't do it. I can't make a life here. And i should go back to Canada, where at least i don't have the excuse of a language barrier stopping me from doing what I want with my life. Then i wondered about what i wanted to do. I didnt come up with much, so then i got depressed. Then i started looking for things to blame, the language, the food...the shy people and it occurred to me that i myself hadn't really even tried to go out. to try to do things i might enjoy. I was waiting for someone to pick me up and take me there. take me to something i would like to do. To introduce me and make me go.

And i thought about the piano concert. About the lesson there...I went to a masterful performance of Chopin on piano, and half the audience was asleep. it occurs to me that you, as a performer, cannot force the audience to stay awake. this isnt even like or dislike, but you can force them to even listen to you. All you can do is invite them. All you, the performer, can do is be there doing something you want to do. If that is play Chopin, or breathe deeply, or watch dancers, or listen to good music, or sing, or travel, or take pictures, or write love letters...that is all you can do.

And that, I think, is enough. Even if I do it alone, I can go out to a cafe. I like Cafes, the smell, the noises, the music... And even if i don't fall in love while I'm there, or write a great novel, or get a dream job, or muse quietly to myself... Even if it ends in awkward silence, I can start a conversation. Even if they don't become boon life companions, i can make a casual friend. i can invite them to come in for tea, or to a movie, or to a cafe...

Even if I'm scared that it will cause pain, that it won't make my life better, that I won't make other peoples lives better...the truth is just be living bravely, but trying to interact with the world it can only create good...i hope. I love you all. have a wonderful new year.

A Novel Idea Canadia...

Okay fine, Dion, Layton, et al. You have lost confidence in the government. As has most of the disenfranchised population of Canada...uh...wait a moment...you are the government. So you have lost confidence in yourself and are therefore agreeing to get along to put yourself in the top spot...um...okay that is creative. I give it 8 points for style (and 2 for Jack Layton's Johnny Hancock).

In simple terms its a great idea, parties with different platforms agreeing to work together to find ways to bring up and empower our country! Rock on! I love it. It is so Canadian. It reflects beautifully on how democracy (not political democracy, but the democracy of life) works in Canada. All over the country divergent groups work in so many different ways (at hospitals and schools, in the entertainment industry, in the factories and on reserves) to help bring up and bolster our beautiful home.

But I have an even better idea...why not recognize and include the whole of the government you have lost faith in. Why not ally with the conservatives, use all the elected officials and rather than throw out the government, throw out the opposition.

Who needs an opposition anyway. I understand that its supposed to be a check and balance to be sure that decisions affecting Canada aren't made in haste without proper thought for all the implications and possible alternatives...but come on...We have been in a political stalemate for half a decade now...Canada is stuck because no one (not one leader in the opposition or in the current government) is fit to represent all Canadians. But we must be represented, we need our government to help spend our money and make our lives compicated so we have a reason to watch the news or something to talk about at the office.

Really, it is high time for political revolution. But rather than throwing out the old, lets shape it up, let's ally our whole government to one purpose (not multiple campaign platforms, not empty election promises) to serve the interest of our country. To build up foundations that will see Canadian prosper, not economically we have plenty of money even if on paper it looks like less money than this time last year, but morally, socially, let Canadians prosper as a people. Let our health prosper. Let our hearts and minds prosper. Let our whole government be one team.

Suggestions of how to do this. The PM should appoint Cabinet ministers from the whole government, not just his own party; every Cabinet should have some members that are of each political persuasion; rather than having strict seating, you sit with your party, have people sit freely with whom they wish to speak most closely to; and encourage the flinging of marshmallows during session. its the only way. well thats my dream anyway.

the epoch changer

I find it interesting that Mr Obama is being called an epoch changer, when he hasn't done anything. It is the "we the people" who should be getting credit for this positive vote on epochal changing...it is the citizens of America who chose to vote, and who chose to vote for a democrat who have instigated the possible change we see looming like a great lumbering shadow.



I forgot about shadows for a while.

Symbols

Symbols are wonderful things. Don't doubt that. They capture for us the emotions, meanings, ideas, desires, dreams and intentions in just, well a symbol. In one susinct space they communicate so much than these phonemes strung together will.

Today I am struck by today's remarkable symbol and the irony and the implications of its association with today. That is, of course, the rememberance day (Armistice Day) poppy. It is iconic for me and many Canadians (I'm sure for many other people around the world too, but I'm learning in my travels not so universally as I once misbelieved), and brings to mind that John McCrae poem. And school assemblies where we sang the national anthem and gave wreaths to old people.

But more than that. The poppy evokes devotion, bushido, duty, honour, a willingness to sacrifice the self for an idea. The poppy evokes a debt, a living challenge, and a call to action. The poppy is a we must and a we will.

But how ironic that the poppy would become the symbol of this late November holiday. A flower that blooms in the spring. A flower that is fragile flower; their blooms last only a few days. And yet this flower, which you will never see in November (except perhaps somewhere in Australia...but who wants to go to Australia to see a poppy...aside from an Australian), which is so subtle and lilting and delicate is the hardend symbol of memory, or respect and thankfulness to those who came before us. Is this emotive symbol. I think that is wonderful!

If you have ever touched a poppy, gotten its purple pollen on your fingers, you know how it can mark you. If you have seen a field of them you know the silence and contemplation they can evoke. But study them, the symbol itself, and we can respect the implication and impact of this flower. We should listen to the fragile things. We should hold them dear, and let them represent us. We must protect them, lest they are forgotten and carelessly destroyed. We must honour them, lest they are neglected and dismissed.

Poppies are slow things, that in this every accelerating world should not be missed or forgotten.

I have to find or write a poem

I don't know how i feel about that...


Marvelous. I'm perfectly giddy with this right now. I just stumbled by a little friends Facebook page and saw one of her other friends had posted that on her wall. "i have to find/write a poem for writers craft...I don't know how i feel about that"

It's possible she was talking about two different things, as often conversation is a multitasking activity. It covers many topics simultaneously without warning (particularly the online conversations of adolescents and extra particularly of adolescent girls) so its possible they were unrelated comments. But that is the most marvelous little observational poem you have read in a while.

I have to find or write a poem...and i don't know how i feel about that.

Wonderful... i love it!!

We have no idea what is going to happen

I was in a stationary store walking through an aisle of notebooks. Thinking how nice they all looked. Clean, organized, potential. Isn't it? A notebook is that potential. What could I do in that note book? As though the many notebooks I already own could never live up to that potential...they couldn't I think I know, because I have already used them, and nothing great has come of them. At least so I delude myself to believe, when walking through an aisle of delightful shiny new red notebooks.

And it reflects on life, I think. We are so ready to throw away perfectly good and usable tools for a newer shinier version of the same because for some reason we believe the newer shinier version of the same will give us more potential, greater potential, and maybe this time help us actualize that potential into heaps of money happiness ego satisfaction etc etc...

But in reality we have no idea why we are compulsed to want and want that newer newer thing.

I think this is about hating my cell phone. I really didn't want to buy it. Really didn't want to need it. But bought it believing that somehow owning one would make my life better. And well now i see that it is a lie. That it was a waste of time and money and that really only I can improve my life. Can change my life. Can inject and actualize potential. Not this piece of garbage cell phone.

Sigh, life is a little more transparent today.

Moral Ambiguity

Some time ago I wrote an entry about make it a law. I don't remember what the law was about or the entry, just that it was extolling the powerful effects making laws have on us. At the time I didn't have much to say about why that might be, just that it could be a very good think, and so we should think about stop thinking about things and just make nice laws to follow.

The post never quite sat right with me, but perhaps I have muddled out why. It is this question of moral ambiguity. Laws eliminate moral ambiguity. In many ways. They set out what we should think, do, how we should and shouldn't act etc. They take away the doubt that our actions are morally dubious. Law is affirmation of our discomfort with moral ambiguity.

Recently there was a court ruling in the UK, or rather an upholding of current law, regarding assisted suicide. The case I'm fuzzy about, but for me it has raised curious questions about the moral ambiguity of life.

Isn't life a morally ambiguous thing? This must be why we want so many laws to help us sort through these various ambiguities--to help us cope with the ambiguities. And this comes just over a month before the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights. An important milestone, as many different parties are trying to use it to add new and expand existing human rights. The call is for the UN to declare and add to the Declaration the moment of the beginning and end of human life.

Of course the implication of stating in perhaps scientific or legal ways will end the debate and the ambiguity in questions of euthanasia and abortion. At least so many people believe. If we can finally legal decide life and therefore human rights begin at x and ends with F then F(x) would be the duration of life, the time during which an entity has UN charter rights. Therefore during that time no measures can be taken to end or stop that life. It would be a violation of human right.

But this is a bit of a call for moral ambiguity. It is from ambiguity that we find freedom. That we find creativity. And that we enjoy life. From trying to sort out for ourselves each of us individuals where our internal moralities fit into the complex web that is a moral philosophy of humanity. If we end that ambiguity we face the danger that we will stop asking certain essential questions about our being. There are some who will not wonder what am I...they will see according to law from F(x) they are human with certain inalienable rights. Rights they have legal recourse to enforce justice when violated.

It is difficult to say it is okay to end a life or prevent a life...and I don't think that is what I am saying. (at least that isn't the intention of this post) rather that each time we are uncertain about the moral position we should have the freedom to assess and examine it. to consider and dissuade the particulars of each situation. (dissuade is the wrong word....hmm...it's something like dissuade)...that life itself is different in every case, that the point of being human is more than a mathematical start and end point. [i hope]. and that moral ambiguity, while creating mostly all of the conflict in our world, is necessarily good for our continuation, our growth and development.

So i guess this is my request, not to end ambiguity. Embrace it, even though it is confusing and difficult. Cherish and nurture it, even if you are repulsed by it. It is a great source of inspiration and creativity. Be generated in it. I know I am.

Moral Progress

I am currently wondering about the growing lethality of hatred. I had a strange dream last night about being trapped in some situation and the only way I could think to get out of it was through violence. It was a very impotent dream as well, in that in not wanting to act violently I continued to be stuck in the situation I didn't want to be in. Which is fine seeing I wasn't actually aware of what the situation was, I just knew I didn't want to be in it.

For me this is nice, it comforts me that, in my dreams at least, I won't go nuts and kill a bunch of people. Well in the case of this dream. Dreams are funny things. Even that we call them dreams is funny, considering some of the other connotations of the word dream. Anyway... lethality as I was wondering.

Thinking about moral progress, that move over that past several thousand years--I don't really know time wise how long it took so i just throw out a large amount of time--the move from when someone not in my family wasn't human, to when everyone from my city state was human but someone not from my city state wasn't (as we might consider the case between Sparta and Athens); to the time when someone not from my country is not fully human, to maybe blacks or Jews or midgets weren't fully human, to our (i think) current condition where more or less we pretty much agree that every person is human. Maybe the nuances of that statement are somewhat problematic...what is a person? but whatever it is I will take it to be human...at least I can say for sure that every human is a person and more or less you will agree.

What does that mean? That somehow we have evolved morally to recognize that those people around us in some way deserve to live as we do. That in the same way we don't much want to be murdered, tortured, raped, abused, outcast or neglected we can see they don't either.

This is big progress! But now what has gone along with this moral progress? At every step, war, and increasingly more lethal war...but perhaps even as war has become more lethal it has become less violent.

Demographically more people are involved in war than ever before. This is necessary there are just more people around nowadays. Perhaps if we looked at the total percent of the global population involved in war, we could get a better idea of the comparison. Although even then it is difficult to say, the very definitions of, motivation for, and practice of war has fundamentally changed. I don't know I have never experience war. But it seems setting lookouts for the Mongol Hoard only to be overrun by fire arrows, raped and butchered as they sweep past is more violent than silently huddling in houses as bomb fall about like rain drops.

The aggressor in the first act is enacting far greater violence against another human than the latter aggressor. Even though the latter aggressor may be more effective and more lethal, maybe cause greater trauma in her actions that the case of the Mongol aggressor. She doesn't act in violence, she is calculated, strategic, planned, and approved through a complex chain of authority in her act.

I think the Mongols considered their opponents to be human, they must have because of their acts of colonialism. You wouldn't ask non-humans to join your human kingdom. And I know soldiers today try to dehumanize targets but always struggle with the knowledge that they are enacting aggression again other morally human entities like themselves. So we can make the comparison.

How is the latter act less violent? I think in increasing efficiency in warfare the need for individual aggression has far diminished. Lately I have been reading a fair amount of novels from the Forgotten Realms. In these stories often individuals with less efficient weapons are forced to dig deeper into themselves to find the will, the strength and the ability to continue enacting violent acts against those who threaten their existence.

As was has become less violent though it has increased in the weight of moral responsibility it thrusts on those involved. That is knowing that war is more lethal we are (or should be) more hesitant to engage in it. Our moral positioning in the world should stay our fingers and force us to look for other ways to resolve our conflicts. And don't we? internationally we work to help countries resolve conflict, to force countries to desist hostilities and to help other nations grow up survive and eventually thrive.

War may be more lethal, but we now strive to avoid it. It is when hatred enters the scene that we now need to progress our morality. With violent acts so efficient and lethal as they have become can we justify this hatred. Can we find no otherway to sublimate its effects? We must try. As we work into Humanity 2.0 we must continue ou progress, and expand our ever growing morality.

Lost and Found

Can you imagine a world without strangers? Would you know what to do without a computer? Could you last a day, a week, a month without a phone?

What would you do with one litre of water? What would you do with one set of clothes? What would you do with one meal a day?

What would you do for an hour without electricity?

What an innovated person you could be! I recently started a "What would I do?" challenge. Each week I ask myself "what would i do if..." And i think of one of the luxuraies in my life. Then I try for a week to be without that luxury.

The most amazing thing has come of it, too. After the week ends, and i start to think of the next luxary I am finding I don't need to return to that old habit.

It all started when I was posed the question: What would you do for one hour without electricity? It is a great environmental campaign started in Sydney Australia call Global Earth Hour. I challenged my students too it, to great sucess. And myself too. Now At least once I week, I try to live one hour (after dark) without electricity. I go for walks, or bike rides, I do yoga, or talk with a friend under the moonlight. It has become great fun.

But after GEH, I started asking myself what other things might I give up for one hour? Well I found the time constraint less important. And tried things like, what would I do with 1 litre for bathing per day. An amazing experiement that has seen the amazing revitalization of my skin and hair, as I use far fewer commericial chemicals now allowing my body to be responsible for oil levels etc.

Then I asked, what would I do without cars, buses or taxis. While this one is difficult because sometimes my friends aren't comfortable with my "making my own way there," I have astonished myself with 10 and 20km bike trips in 30 minutes, with the development of wicked legs and improvement of overall stamina.

Next I asked, what would I do without an alarm clock. I set myself the challenge to wake up at 6:15 every morning without an alarm, and am astonished to find not only can I wake up at 6:15 without the alarm, but i can wake up at 6:30, 7:15, 5:49 and many other times fairly precicely (and well rested) simply by planning before i go to sleep when I want to wake up and what i want to do when i wake up. Of course it helps that it is summer time so I have the sunrise to help me, it will be interesting if the training will stick through the winter months (I'll let you know).

Of course there are dietary things too. I am told we only need about 8 oz of protein a week. So I tried. I left of pork, then beef, then chicken. Now i eat meat about once a week, and am seriously enjoying the improved health, weight loss, sink condition and bank account for the simple shift in diet.

Same went for alcohol, chocolate, coffee...juice, PET bottles. It is amazing how easy it is to let go of these things...just try one. Ask yourself. What would you do for one week without spinach? then experiment...and find out.