Raising money to ride to break the cycle

Hello everyone,

As some of you know I am going to bike ride 4000km across Europe this summer (from Amsterdam to Istanbul) with Global Agents for Change to raise money and awareness for micro credit.



One of my jobs for this trip is that I raise $4000 to contribute to the group fund and clearly I am going to need a little bit of help here. I know that $4000 seems like a lot of money at first, but I am always claiming that I know everyone worth knowing so this is a good way to put that to the test. If everyone I know is able to spare a little money to donate I would have no problem reaching my goal. Consider it a belated birthday present to me, except that you don’t need to worry about me wanting to take this gift back to the store.

I’m going to give everyone a link now where you can donate online (you can also give me cash or a cheque made out to Agents for Change).

Just hit the give now button and it will go to my fundraising efforts.

http://www.pincgiving.com/campaign/rtbtc_europe_rider__chris_walts

Also, please let me know if you do donate so I can send you a personal thank you note!

Now, for those detail orientated people, let me go into some of the specifics. Global Agents for Change is a group of social change catalysts that support sustainable solutions to global poverty and inspire youth to create a better world.

I personally have been working with them for about a year now helping out with various aspects of their communications committee (Check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgglcT0iZOU).

One of Global Agents for Change’s big goals is to create the worlds biggest youth managed microcredit fund: they’ve raised over $91 000 already, and this tour and the Mexican one the total sure surpass $300 0000.

For those that don’t know, Micro credit is small trust based loans to the working poor. The reason this idea appeals to me is that it has a built in sustainability to it as once the loans are paid back the money can be put back into the system again. So a one time donation can continue to help people in need multiple times over.

As for the bike ride itself; the exact route is still being finalized but the totally distance will be about 4000km (basically riding from Vancouver to Toronto). Part of what I will be doing on this trip is hoping turn out fairly frequent written blogs (ideally about once every 3 days) as well as a video blog each week. If you want to keep track of our progress there should be lots of information being put up on the Global Agents for Change website as well as possibly on twitter through www.twitter.com/globalafc and www.twitter.com/chriswalts

I don’t want to write too much more as I feel like I am starting to ramble but please feel free to ask me whatever you want, I’d love to talk to anyone about it more!

Thank you again to everyone,
Chris

Not with a bang nor a wimper

This story is not set in some far away time or place that could be, it is about the here and now. It comes about not because evil won a war, but instead because humanity failed to understand and listen. It is amazing to think that in a time where information was so vast, knowledge so deep, and facts so glaring that such a simple thing could be forgotten, and yet simplicity in its most basic necessity is so elegant and pure that it is often glanced over as mundane. It is almost amusing the think that the straw that finally broke humanity was not a physical strike, or even an environmental catastrophe as we had all been mongered into believing. Instead, it was the human psyche that broke beyond repair. We lost our belief in belief and our hope for a better tomorrow.

The deathblow struck first the downtrodden and meek, then the weak willed, and after the masses had been laid low the remaining had little to do but succumb to the pandemic.
As to how this happened, the answer once again is as simple as the problem: there was more bad news than good.

It is easy to blame the media for an event of this nature as they were the ones feeding us despair on a silver spoon but ultimately, we still choose to gorge ourselves on it. We could have found alternative information sources, we could have scavenged for ourselves, but that would have required us to open our shutters and use our voices to speak with our neighbours, which seemed far too bothersome of a thought.

It was fear that kept us shackled to our keyboards and pleasureboxes. The fear however was not the one propagated to us by the media. We were not truly afraid to listen to the world because it may have hurt us. Instead, we were afraid to listen because the results of listening would have demanded action. If every person simply listened to the actual physical world around him or her, they would have had no choice but to take action

First belief was lost, and once that was gone hope shortly followed. Without hope and belief people simply lay down and died as they are just as precious to us as water and sunshine.
A great silence fell over the earth for the first time in millennia and planet earth could finally get a full night’s sleep, yet Mother Nature was not happy. It’s true the human’s were a troublesome lot, but they always had that glimmer of potential in their eye. No teacher wants any student to fail, no matter how much of a troublemaker than are, especially one with as much potential as humanity. If only humanity had listened when she was trying to teach it a lesson.

If anyone is still reading you probably think the ending is weak and possibly simple. Perhaps it ends too soon, too sharp, too sudden breaking up what seemed like a promising future and a glimmer of hope. I am not going to disagree with you, but instead, going to challenge you to listen. What needs to be changed here isn’t the ending but the entire story itself.

The State of our Arts

Over the last few months I've seen a lot of 'Art': film, theatre, paintings, advertising, and almost none of it has moved me in any way. It isn't that the art was bad, it is simply that the 'Art' was unfulfilling. Art, at least at its best, holds a mirror up to the world and allows us to see that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. It warms our heart, chills our soul, and ultimately brings us closer together making us more human. Somewhere in this instant society we have lost the purpose behind Art. We now only create small letter 'a' art. This art simply access our pleasure center, jerks us off, and then makes us pay ten dollars for its time. I have to wonder when Art changed to art and who is to blame. I am not saying that some good Art isn't being made, but if an Artist masturbates in the forest and there is no one around to see it, is it Art? Somewhere along the way 'Art for Arts sake' lost its audience and then the artists took over.

Before I go much further let me define artist. An artist is someone who attempts to create Art without actually understanding any of the theory behind what they are doing. The understand the tools of the trade and are actually extremely competent in utilizing them, but they do not know why this makes an audience feel a certain way. The result of this is audience experiences the thrill of art without actually gaining any of the deeper insight of Art.

The question that then needs to be answered is what do we do now. This is up for debate, and I will offer my thoughts in a moment, but first let me say what we must not do. We cannot blame the audience. It has never been the audiences mandate to dictate Art. Instead, it is the Artists responsibility to bring the audience into the world of ideas that they wish to discuss. To often have I been to shows where this simple fact is forgotten. I believe that many Artists feel that as soon as an audience walks into a room they sign a contract saying the Artist can do whatever he or she wants. This is wrong. As the audience beings to experience the Art before them the contract begins to be drawn up. In short, the Artist needs to prove their worth before the contract is signed. The contract essentially stipulates the rules of the world for the duration of the work. As long as the rules are followed the audience will follow the Artist anywhere he or she wishes to take them. This is where the true Art takes place.

I'm sure some people will argue that this approach to Art slows the avant guard as it does not allow for Artists to take giant leaps forward with extreme risks. I disagree entirely. I think this approach allows more people access to the world of Art, and thus widens the avant guard by stretching it laterally as well as forward, creating a higher overall area of Art. To insist that the avant guard be inhabited by a select few is not only elitist but also seems to defeat the overarching goals of Art to hold a minor up to the world.

Art is a unique form in that is it not only how we make it but also why we chose to make it. In the end, both of these ideas need to be working in harmony for it to be successful. Success is measured by each person individually, but if the goal of Art is to help change the world then it is much more likely to reach that goal if it plays to a full house.