A moment to remember

It’s been a while since I’ve taken up my keyboard soapbox to ponder the ways of the world, but it’s been a long grueling last couple of months. It becomes ever so easy to get buried under your own troubles that you can almost forget the world exists outside of your personal bubble. To some extent this can be forgiven, after all if your basic needs aren’t met then it becomes next to impossible to think of others; but where does that line get drawn? Where does your ability to pay the rent or finish that assignment on time take priority over someone eating? It’s a difficult question, and one I am certain I don’t have the answer to, but I’d like to reflect on it for a little while because I think in some small way that might help do it justice.

I just finished watching Spike Lee’s “Do the right thing” and while the trip back to the 80s was amusing it still is somewhat shocking how little things have progressed. Actually, that’s not a fair statement, many important steps have been made to make the world better, and it is far far far to easy to get caught up in the negative things, but the problems still haven’t been solved.

I wonder if the problems would get solved faster if we focused more on the positive. If people saw every day the steps that were being taken to make this world better. I wonder what sort of shift in the overall mass perception of society would occur if we head more stories about the good. Would we be able to walk around in the dark without fear? Now here is a point of contention, because I can already hear people saying “If you walk around alone at night you are asking for trouble”. I’m not suggesting that we walk around with naive blinders on. Bad things clearly do happen to good people, and if you place yourself in situation where something bad happens you can’t be that surprised when it does, but at the same time, when does it become a self fulfilling prophesy? How much will the fact that a 65 year old women got brutally beaten and mugged today at 6am when walking to the skytrain make someone think twice about taking public transit tomorrow? People need to be safe, but we need to believe that the person walking down the street beside us isn’t going to mug us as well.

I think the internet is an amazing medium, and I know that most people can’t even begin to comprehend its potential. It’s incredible that people can just type to someone they have never met and become friends. You don’t know how attractive that person is, you don’t know what race they are, sometimes you don’t even know where they live, or even their real name and yet its possible to open up your secrets to them. Maybe it’s because you will never meet them face to face that it’s easier, it seems less judgmental, but what if that person you are talking to was your neighbor? What if that person was the person standing next to you on the bus? As wonderful as it is to have an amazing intellectual connection via words, wouldn’t it be that much better when you could touch them? Look deep into their eyes and feel a connection that reminds you what it’s like to be alive. We have so very few moments of pure happiness, so very few times that we watch the sunrise after having been up all night. And yet these are the moments that we will remember till we die. When we are sad it’s the memory of our first kiss, the smell of a spring rain on concrete, and knowing what it’s like to be held and wishing that you could live in that split second forever that warm our hearts.

We can’t forget these things. We can’t allow ourselves to forget the wonders of the world simply because we are being bombarded we images and sounds of destruction and hate.

I’m writing this because of the 65 year old women who was beaten this morning, and because of the shooting at Virginia Tech. I’m writing this I don’t know how to process these events any other way. I don’t know any of the people involved, I mean I’m sure we could play 6 degrees of separation and I’d be connected, but that’s beside the point, I wasn’t there and there is no possible way I can comprehend what happened. The scope of these events can’t even register in my head because I don’t know how to process the information. It’s wrong and horrible, and a tragedy, and things like it happen around the world in thousands of places every day and there is probably nothing I can do to stop it. The worst part is everything begins to blur together. The images and meanings jumble together to create a giant media scramble and I’ll have already made a joke about it tomorrow. And you know what, others will laugh at that joke because they can’t possibly comprehend it either, and it’s not wrong, it’s not bad, it’s not cold hearted, it simply is.

So in honour of those who I don’t know and never got the chance to meet, other people who like myself spent summer nights stargazing and talking about what they wanted to be when they grow up, I write this: I will remember all of the good things in life because it is only by doing this that anything worthwhile will change.

Stepping out of the crowd

We all are Time Magazines people of the year! Yes, I realize this is a little dated news now but allow me my observations, I’ve been busy. I am all for united we stand divided we fall. In fact I know nothing would be accomplished without it. In fact, I am certain the reason that the positive change that is happening in the world isn’t happening as fast as it should is because we are not as united as we should be. That there are actual forces holding us back and trying their best to keep us apart.

Still, “our” movement doesn’t have a face… I’m not saying we need a martyr here, but lacking someone to hold ourselves up to aspire to seems detrimental as well. There are those dark nights where we question our beliefs, where we think that we are truly alone in the world, or at the very least that we are the last sane person, and it is moments like that a figure head would be handy. We could say, no, THIS person feels the same way, and if they do others must as well.

The reason this popped into my head was a conversation I was having in regards to generational theory. The current generation (I want to shoot anyone who calls it generation “next” or generation Y), it seems now called the millennial generation seems to be a double edged sword. In theory it is the generation that is supposed to change everything, the one with all of the ideas and all of the potential, and on the other side it’s a generation that has had every minute of every day scheduled to the point where they will go out of their way to purposefully fail just to see what it feels like.

I understand this feeling, I’ve been their before. It often reminds me of a line from the Goo Goo Dolls Song Iris “you bleed just to know you’re alive”. The idea of failure seems comforting because it’s a decision you’ve made for yourself. It’s one you can own, and at the same time it creates a sensation that actually feels real. In our current age of over stimulation a real feeling seems a rare commodity.

This is what makes me wonder about the need for a leader. I know the idea that as long as we fight within the system we will never truly be free, but some things seem more basic than that. Where I’d like to believe that one day 5 million people will show up on the steps of parliament and demand a change, it just doesn’t seem plausible that it will happen. Like communism, on paper it seems wonderful; in practice the human spirit proves something quite different.

The problem is the leader needs to come from within the generation. S/he needs to understand the technology in front of us, AND why teenagers like emo rock. They need to speak from their heart but across blackberries, ipods, myspace, and in person. It needs to be someone who has downloaded music via torrents. They also need to be literate, read actual books, play sports, and understand art. They need to be worldly but grounded in their community, and not be afraid to knock on their neighbour’s door and ask them to come out and play a pickup game of street hockey. Most importantly they have to be willing to stand up on their own against all of the adversity and temptations of the world. They will be alone for a good while, and their ideas will fall on deaf ears.

This person almost seems a mythical as the unicorn, and yet sits inside each and everyone of us. We can feel it in our hearts. What is wrong with the world needs to be fixed; there is no doubt in our mind. The hard part is just taking that first step in trying to do something about it. Saying your name and what you think knowing there will be a disagreement. Are you willing to be that person? The world is waiting…

Everything Needs a Beginning

Everything needs a beginning, and this it appears, is mine. As to what this beginning entails is far from being written, and as much your guess as it is mine. Regardless hopefully it will go somewhere.

This blog has been created in response to a book I just read: Confessions of an Economic Hitman. The reason this book has prompted me to write something isn’t so much the book itself, although it is very good and I do recommend that you read it at some point, it more of a germination of ideas and a feeling of general frustration.

I look at the state of the world today and like most people understand that, well… to be kind, it’s pretty fucked up. I think you would have a hard time finding someone who doesn’t think the world is fucked up. This then begins to create a series of problems for me. One, that someone, or a group of people would actually go out of their way to shape the world in this way (despite what you think of global warming it is difficult to argue that humanity has had NO effect on our environment). And two, that despite knowing this I do very little to change it. The second point is what particularly bothers me. I mean, I can’t change the past, what has happened is of course done, so all I can do is accept the state that the world was in when I was born. From that point onwards however, or at least from the point where I really started to come into a consciousness my actions, I have the ability to affect change.

So the question then becomes what do I do? Well… I do own a car, but I try and take the bus at least a good chunk of the time. I try not to leave the lights on when I leave the room, and turn the water off when I’m brushing my teeth. I recycle, don’t eat red meat, and try and buy organic when my budget will allow it. I hold the door open for people and offer help when someone looks lost. All of these little things help right? I mean, without them the situation wouldn’t be getting any better right?

Well, I’m sure without all of those little things it would indeed be getting worse it appears that in the grand scheme it really isn’t making it any better either. This doesn’t mean I’m going to stop them, but it means I need to find something else to do as well. I think I’m beginning to think our mindset is wrong. We’ve been told that by all doing our small part we will help, this allows us to sleep at night. The problem is we have forgotten to do our big part as well. We know that what our politicians are doing is wrong, we say it to each other all of the time, how then is it that they can keep doing it? Why do we have to pick between the better of two evils? How have we been lead to believe this makes sense? Yes, I’m sure leading a country is a difficult task, I’m sure many people couldn’t do it. In fact, I’ll be so bold as to say most people couldn’t, or wouldn’t want to do it. But that can’t, it simply can’t, mean that the only people who can do it have to make choices that are NOT in our best interest. Why then are these people in power? WHY? Ok, yes they have connections, they have money, but they are still voted in. We still have to say: yes we agree that you should do this job. We know you will serve our collective best interests. If we don’t think they are the best person for the job then we have to say so! We have to do something. There is no way for the government to turn on its own people. It cannot use our soldiers against us, they are part of us, they are our brothers, our sisters, our fathers our mothers.

I refuse to believe we can do nothing. I also think that the time before action happens is wearing thin. Someone will happen because it must. We have a chance to dictate what that action is if we are willing to take it.

I certainly don’t have all of the answers, and I have never been a fighter. But something tells me that one way or another, very soon we are not going to have any choice.

So, in hopes if inspiring others, and just as much to affair it in myself I have started this blog. I don’t know where it will end up. For now it is just my thoughts, hopefully it will turn into more.

JFP