Journals5
Newest
Imagine
2 min read
It is a balmy june day and the weather is so nice you can't not go for a walk. You wander aimlessly until you pass by a park; during your walk, you passed a guy wearing nothing but sandals and a necklace. You enter the park, which is well-maintained because it is frequented by many happy people. On your right passes two men and a woman, the woman holding one of the men's hands each. One of the men makes a tawdry joke about the woman, who smiles unashamed as the other man returns a knowing grin.
The air feels clean from the trees and on the path ahead of you is a pond with a fountain. Around the circumference of the pond are a number of benches, some of them occupied: On one, two women sit and share mirthful stories. On the bench next to them, one leather-clad man gives another head while kneeling in front of him. As your journey takes you around the fountain, you see someone whose gender is completely indiscernible, reading a book peacefully.
Passing a field, you see a handful of college students playing frisbee; some of them dressed, some not (although the one with the freckles and fair skin had better put something on soon). Now almost at the entrance on the other side of the park, a couple passes you; she is dressed in a smart business suit and is holding the leash attached to her partner, who is wearing nothing but light boots and a collar, and who has his hands behind his back as if he were bound.
You don't think to look, though, as you walk past them and out of the park, because you see this kind of stuff all the time. As pleasurable and amusing as it was, today's journey has been another walk in the park for you. You grab a coffee or tea on the way home, and- mind cleared- you sit down and tend to your hobbies free of insecurity and inspired by the vitality around you.
Imagine a world without shame.
The air feels clean from the trees and on the path ahead of you is a pond with a fountain. Around the circumference of the pond are a number of benches, some of them occupied: On one, two women sit and share mirthful stories. On the bench next to them, one leather-clad man gives another head while kneeling in front of him. As your journey takes you around the fountain, you see someone whose gender is completely indiscernible, reading a book peacefully.
Passing a field, you see a handful of college students playing frisbee; some of them dressed, some not (although the one with the freckles and fair skin had better put something on soon). Now almost at the entrance on the other side of the park, a couple passes you; she is dressed in a smart business suit and is holding the leash attached to her partner, who is wearing nothing but light boots and a collar, and who has his hands behind his back as if he were bound.
You don't think to look, though, as you walk past them and out of the park, because you see this kind of stuff all the time. As pleasurable and amusing as it was, today's journey has been another walk in the park for you. You grab a coffee or tea on the way home, and- mind cleared- you sit down and tend to your hobbies free of insecurity and inspired by the vitality around you.
Imagine a world without shame.
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Sublimation
4 min read
Fire escape. Left hand rail leap over side,
turn,
up, turn,
up, turn,
up,
right hand ledge onto roof power boxes smoke stack zigzag in between approaching ledge plot out left foot, right foot, leap with left and finish just in time to act:
Three
very
long
seconds hit the other side and watch the sky go over under head and heels then on your feet:
Move it now, adjacent building water tower climbing girders don't look back and don't look down; reaching, pulling, lifting, seeking, railing feet first slide between push off with hand then on your feet:
Ladder on the building's side, cross the tarmac downward slide another rooftop, close to ground so edge approaching leaping blind so ground approaching landing sky go over under head and heels and up and running without pausing crossing parking lot to barely open loading door on ledge so hop for thrust and jump push up with arms and slip through barely open loading door.
Click.
Headlamp barely mars the dark but memory and mind are sharp go up the stairs and down the hall third door on left-
third door on right jump hole in floor, pass through portal over stairway rail another roll atop the ancient rusted beast below advancing wall pipes overhead momentous leap but kicking off reverse direction grabbing horizontal pole and swinging up to
FUCK
COLLISION RAILING FALLING SHIT and reaching quick to grab ahold and stop descent scale over side and look around;
left path mangled, forward sound;
best to take the road less traveled onward left and over twisted metal tangle threatening with angled ground and creaking sound as every planted foot expounds unwelcomeness in this hall of ghosts, decrepit and devoid of host, a chilling reminder of the perils of unabashed expansion and unrestrained depletion in a world They thought They owned.
Down the ladder, skip the rungs; bending knees to catch the stride and turn the tide towards a forward pulsion running jumping onto sloping surface slipping pushing kicking off with every step and turning hard but seeing nothing;
inertia parts for gravity so sliding, falling, gracefully, impacting hands and feet on corrugated metal floor.
Seen this spot before.
Conveyor belt that's long been dead red carpet slip through stamping press at one time would have crushed one's head but lies now derelict and quiet, letting bats see up above and haunting with its silence. Power boxes on the wall, stripped for copper long ago, holes in roof let little moonlight through. Take a moment, catching breath. There was business here once, its present stillness in biting juxtaposition to the cacophonous roar of the mammoth engines in their prime, the shouts of dozens if not hundreds of workers attempting to communicate overtop of it as they thrashed about amongst them. There was business here once, and They thought it would last forever.
Catch some graffiti on the wall: "It's not our fault that this is the world that has been handed down to us, but"
Sometime long ago a whistle blows and off and running once again and down a hall jump planks of wood around a bend a door; shoulder coincides with twist of handle giving way to wind and trees and sound and birds and sudden warmth now just ahead a crumbled wall provides support to plant a foot and leap into a window on the second floor where just before a door had opened figure bursting out and up and through a window into empty office exit turn and down a hall where at the end a stairwell spirals up
and up
and up
and up
and up
and pushing through the final gate besets the scene awaited for, the highest tower to explore amongst the ruins laid below. The bats were just audible here, their shrill echolocative chirps only slightly muffled by the thin sheet metal roof that guarded the rafters they clung to from the acidic rain. Somewhere off in the distance, the sound of two animals fighting; maybe raccoons, maybe foxes but probably not. A revitalizing gust of cool, moist air cuts the hot summer night and chills dripping endothermic sweat, and the sensation feels so blissful it almost distracts from the light of the full moon illuminating the giant pile of rust and rotting wood and the trees and vines and grasses Mother Nature has sent forth to reclaim what is rightfully Hers.
Soon, this would all turn to dust.
turn,
up, turn,
up, turn,
up,
right hand ledge onto roof power boxes smoke stack zigzag in between approaching ledge plot out left foot, right foot, leap with left and finish just in time to act:
Three
very
long
seconds hit the other side and watch the sky go over under head and heels then on your feet:
Move it now, adjacent building water tower climbing girders don't look back and don't look down; reaching, pulling, lifting, seeking, railing feet first slide between push off with hand then on your feet:
Ladder on the building's side, cross the tarmac downward slide another rooftop, close to ground so edge approaching leaping blind so ground approaching landing sky go over under head and heels and up and running without pausing crossing parking lot to barely open loading door on ledge so hop for thrust and jump push up with arms and slip through barely open loading door.
Click.
Headlamp barely mars the dark but memory and mind are sharp go up the stairs and down the hall third door on left-
third door on right jump hole in floor, pass through portal over stairway rail another roll atop the ancient rusted beast below advancing wall pipes overhead momentous leap but kicking off reverse direction grabbing horizontal pole and swinging up to
FUCK
COLLISION RAILING FALLING SHIT and reaching quick to grab ahold and stop descent scale over side and look around;
left path mangled, forward sound;
best to take the road less traveled onward left and over twisted metal tangle threatening with angled ground and creaking sound as every planted foot expounds unwelcomeness in this hall of ghosts, decrepit and devoid of host, a chilling reminder of the perils of unabashed expansion and unrestrained depletion in a world They thought They owned.
Down the ladder, skip the rungs; bending knees to catch the stride and turn the tide towards a forward pulsion running jumping onto sloping surface slipping pushing kicking off with every step and turning hard but seeing nothing;
inertia parts for gravity so sliding, falling, gracefully, impacting hands and feet on corrugated metal floor.
Seen this spot before.
Conveyor belt that's long been dead red carpet slip through stamping press at one time would have crushed one's head but lies now derelict and quiet, letting bats see up above and haunting with its silence. Power boxes on the wall, stripped for copper long ago, holes in roof let little moonlight through. Take a moment, catching breath. There was business here once, its present stillness in biting juxtaposition to the cacophonous roar of the mammoth engines in their prime, the shouts of dozens if not hundreds of workers attempting to communicate overtop of it as they thrashed about amongst them. There was business here once, and They thought it would last forever.
Catch some graffiti on the wall: "It's not our fault that this is the world that has been handed down to us, but"
Sometime long ago a whistle blows and off and running once again and down a hall jump planks of wood around a bend a door; shoulder coincides with twist of handle giving way to wind and trees and sound and birds and sudden warmth now just ahead a crumbled wall provides support to plant a foot and leap into a window on the second floor where just before a door had opened figure bursting out and up and through a window into empty office exit turn and down a hall where at the end a stairwell spirals up
and up
and up
and up
and up
and pushing through the final gate besets the scene awaited for, the highest tower to explore amongst the ruins laid below. The bats were just audible here, their shrill echolocative chirps only slightly muffled by the thin sheet metal roof that guarded the rafters they clung to from the acidic rain. Somewhere off in the distance, the sound of two animals fighting; maybe raccoons, maybe foxes but probably not. A revitalizing gust of cool, moist air cuts the hot summer night and chills dripping endothermic sweat, and the sensation feels so blissful it almost distracts from the light of the full moon illuminating the giant pile of rust and rotting wood and the trees and vines and grasses Mother Nature has sent forth to reclaim what is rightfully Hers.
Soon, this would all turn to dust.
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The Importance of Politics
10 min read
The world is going to hell.
Which is all well and good for a sweeping, Judeo-Christian overarching statement, but what does that actually mean?
The days of the 20's and 50's and 80's, the days of economic boom and modern luxury and relaxed enjoyment are, regrettably, coming to another end. We live in a society which is indoctrinated to sit idly by in comfort and watch the clouds or television shows go by while idly consuming products of unknown and disreputable origin while simultaneously being bombarded with imagery and messaging that We Are Not Good Enough, that we are not as hot as models, smart as intellectuals, active as pro sports players, and that if we fail to succeed within society, it must be our fault for not wanting it enough.
We are also taught to believe in the Easter Bunny.
The other day I heard someone lament that we live in a country where his obliquely dishonourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper came into power because the majority of Canadians voted for him, and that there was no point to voting because one person can't make a difference.
Stephen Harper does not, by any stretch of the imagination, hold the people's confidence. In an election where *less than half the country voted*, he weaseled his way into a minority government by uniting the Right-Wing Conservative parties of the country into an amalgamated whole, effectively dividing and decentralizing the Left, and cheated his way into office with *one third of half the country* backing him.
So when people say to me that one person can't make a difference, I say, yes, 13 MILLION one persons did make a difference, *and they did it through inaction*.
Which is the point that I'm getting to.
I was speaking at a seminar recently, and afterwards while talking to a friend about the recent G20 massacre (g20stories.wordpress.com/) and the ensuing ongoing protests, she said to me "Yeah, I just assume that someone else out there is fighting for me."
And I replied, "Yeah. And that person is ME. *Please* fight for your rights."
It kind of scares me to think that this may actually be the dominant belief in today's society; that, in a nation drowned in institutions of all shapes and sizes, there must be *someone* out there who's doing something.
This is called diffusion of responsibility.
As someone who is doing something, I've gotta tell you; there aren't a lot of us, and we don't have much in the way of funding or power. And there are certainly far, far fewer of us than there are wealthy, top-class (mostly white male) powerholders who are so far out of touch with reality, they actually think that free trade (which is why towns like Oshawa and St. Catharines and other factory towns are holes in the ground now, all the work has been moved to Mexico) and cutting taxes for multi-billion dollar transnational corporations is actually going to help make this country a better place, while funding those tax cuts with frightening reductions in education, health care, homeless and housing initiatives, and community startup initiatives, the things our country actually desperately needs if it is to have a future within the 'first world'.
And yeah, there are some of us trying to stem the oncoming tide of disaster, but there aren't enough of us. We're drowning in work here, a large percentile of it going unpaid. I get paid for less than half the hours I actually work.
So why do I do it, if it stresses me out and I don't get any reward for it?
*Because the alternative is much, much worse*.
The people who are in power right now like being in power. They want to remain in power. They'll do anything they can to remain in power, and if they have to trample our human rights in order to do so, they'll put on their Sunday heels and take a stroll. The G20 weekend saw some of the worst violations of human rights in this country, this side of the Native Reserves up north which have no clean drinking water and are plagued by diabetes because Coke is cheaper than water.
NO CLEAN DRINKING WATER. Can you even comprehend that?
I know a lot of people who said, well, I'll just leave, then. I couldn't leave, though. I live downtown. I saw squadrons of bicycle police roll by my house regularly. My friend was turned around and threatened to 'have his ass beaten' for *trying to go* (not even being at) to a vigil in solidarity of the 1000 people brutally and wrongfully arrested in Canada's *largest mass arrest EVER*. A friend of mine was *arrested for wearing black while waiting for his mother to pick him up to go to Canada's Wonderland*, spent 17 hours in a tiny cell packed to *twice* its maximum capacity, and *witnessed* male police STRIP SEARCH A MOSLEM WOMAN AND FORCE HER TO REMOVE HER HIJAB IN FRONT OF MALE POLICE AND DETAINEES. A 57-year old amputee had his prosthetic leg ripped off him, had a knee pressed into his head, lost his glasses, and was *dragged* away and held for 27 hours. (www.tatumba.com/blog/archives/…) Many women- some, like my friend, illegally confined for trying to cross the wrong street at the wrong time or for making the mistake of wearing a black T-shirt- were forced to urinate with male police watching, and some were even threatened with gang rape.
Yes. Gang rape.
BY THE POLICE.
The ones who are supposed to be here to protect us. *Who we pay taxes to protect us*.
Actually. www.tatumba.com/blog/archives/…
So we can't count on the politicians to protect us, and we can't count on the police to protect us, and if we try to assemble in peaceful protest like we did on Saturday the 26th when riot police stormed the *designated peaceful protest safe zone* BEFORE the riots even broke out (failing to stop or apprehend a single rioter), we get smashed. What are we going to do?
What are you going to do?
One of the hardest lessons learned by many two weeks ago was that *innocent people get caught in the cross fire*, and this is a lesson that needs to be expanded and abstracted and extrapolated as far as possible. In Toronto alone, 5-6 homeless people die on the streets PER WEEK. Thousands of Aboriginals- *the original inhabitants of this land whose nations were AND STILL ARE BEING stolen from them*- are dying of diabetes, lack of medical care, industrially poisoned groundwater, and squalid underfunded conditions on crowded reserves that are still, to this day, being seized against the treaties signed by this country. Some of them have been actively engaged in armed conflicts *for decades*. Blacks, Latinos, Aboriginals, and other visible minorities struggle against racism on all levels of society; Aboriginals make up 4% of the adult population in Canada, and constitute ONE FIFTH of federal prisoners and ONE QUARTER of provincial/territorial prisoners, including THREE QUARTERS of the adult prison population in Saskatchewan. Unemployment in small towns is out of control, while steel jobs continue to move south. Poverty becomes increasingly and increasingly more difficult to escape as basic medication costs skyrocket while cuts continue to be made against health care and housing, while increased legislation promoting bigger prisons and stronger punishments for petty crimes pushes this gap even further.
Do you think they're not going to come for you?
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
YOU need to get involved. Yes, YOU. Sitting around talking about it isn't going to do anything. Complaining to your friend on Facebook about the state of the world WILL ONLY MAKE IT WORSE THROUGH INACTION. This is a zero-sum game; every person who doesn't act is one less person trying to stem the tide of onslaught of oppression, and that tide is *overwhelming*. Yes, it's scary. Yes, it's easier to remain inside the safety bubble of one's social circle, but sticking your head in the sand is not going to make you safe, it's only going to make you an easier target once the other herds have been thinned out.
We live in a society of expectation and entitlement, where all this luxury that surrounds us has been simply passed down to us over the past hundred or so years, where we have been born into it and accept it as the norm and expect it to simply continue to exist of its own accord.
IT WON'T.
The rights that we have came from countless bloody battles of the oppressed fighting the established order and earning them. Women had to work in factories during war-time to prove their worth to hold equal employment to males (though they often still don't). African-Americans (the "terrorist" group the Black Panthers) in some parts of the United States were actually forced to literally take up arms against racist police and hold armed conflict after armed conflict for their own survival.
Hell, that's *still* going on.
It is not enough to sit idly by and watch the clouds pass (although I am a strong proponent in doing this in moderation; life can't always be about fighting, lest we turn into the joyless people we are trying to overcome). Action needs to be taken, and the people who are already taking it are already taxed out to the extreme. We need people. We need persons, one person by one person, to help join in solidarity- that means fighting for issues that don't directly affect you and building bonds with other oppressed groups- to show the powers that be that This Is Not Okay. That it is not okay to steal our lives by working us like slaves for minimum wage. That it is not okay to continue to oppress and deny the human rights of minority groups. That it is not okay to siphon critically-needed funds from public sectors and put it into the pockets of the richest 2%.
THEY WILL COME FOR YOU TOO, AND IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME. You can accept this painful and unpleasant fact now and work to stem the tide against it, or you can be oppressed and MUCH more miserable later and wishing oh if only you had done something while you had the chance. These are the choices at your disposal.
To end things on an uplifting note:
"We, the willing,
led by the unknowing,
doing the impossible
for the ungrateful
have done so much with so little for so long,
that we are now capable of doing anything
with nothing."
Only together we can make this a reality.
www.getinvolved.ca/
Which is all well and good for a sweeping, Judeo-Christian overarching statement, but what does that actually mean?
The days of the 20's and 50's and 80's, the days of economic boom and modern luxury and relaxed enjoyment are, regrettably, coming to another end. We live in a society which is indoctrinated to sit idly by in comfort and watch the clouds or television shows go by while idly consuming products of unknown and disreputable origin while simultaneously being bombarded with imagery and messaging that We Are Not Good Enough, that we are not as hot as models, smart as intellectuals, active as pro sports players, and that if we fail to succeed within society, it must be our fault for not wanting it enough.
We are also taught to believe in the Easter Bunny.
The other day I heard someone lament that we live in a country where his obliquely dishonourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper came into power because the majority of Canadians voted for him, and that there was no point to voting because one person can't make a difference.
Stephen Harper does not, by any stretch of the imagination, hold the people's confidence. In an election where *less than half the country voted*, he weaseled his way into a minority government by uniting the Right-Wing Conservative parties of the country into an amalgamated whole, effectively dividing and decentralizing the Left, and cheated his way into office with *one third of half the country* backing him.
So when people say to me that one person can't make a difference, I say, yes, 13 MILLION one persons did make a difference, *and they did it through inaction*.
Which is the point that I'm getting to.
I was speaking at a seminar recently, and afterwards while talking to a friend about the recent G20 massacre (g20stories.wordpress.com/) and the ensuing ongoing protests, she said to me "Yeah, I just assume that someone else out there is fighting for me."
And I replied, "Yeah. And that person is ME. *Please* fight for your rights."
It kind of scares me to think that this may actually be the dominant belief in today's society; that, in a nation drowned in institutions of all shapes and sizes, there must be *someone* out there who's doing something.
This is called diffusion of responsibility.
As someone who is doing something, I've gotta tell you; there aren't a lot of us, and we don't have much in the way of funding or power. And there are certainly far, far fewer of us than there are wealthy, top-class (mostly white male) powerholders who are so far out of touch with reality, they actually think that free trade (which is why towns like Oshawa and St. Catharines and other factory towns are holes in the ground now, all the work has been moved to Mexico) and cutting taxes for multi-billion dollar transnational corporations is actually going to help make this country a better place, while funding those tax cuts with frightening reductions in education, health care, homeless and housing initiatives, and community startup initiatives, the things our country actually desperately needs if it is to have a future within the 'first world'.
And yeah, there are some of us trying to stem the oncoming tide of disaster, but there aren't enough of us. We're drowning in work here, a large percentile of it going unpaid. I get paid for less than half the hours I actually work.
So why do I do it, if it stresses me out and I don't get any reward for it?
*Because the alternative is much, much worse*.
The people who are in power right now like being in power. They want to remain in power. They'll do anything they can to remain in power, and if they have to trample our human rights in order to do so, they'll put on their Sunday heels and take a stroll. The G20 weekend saw some of the worst violations of human rights in this country, this side of the Native Reserves up north which have no clean drinking water and are plagued by diabetes because Coke is cheaper than water.
NO CLEAN DRINKING WATER. Can you even comprehend that?
I know a lot of people who said, well, I'll just leave, then. I couldn't leave, though. I live downtown. I saw squadrons of bicycle police roll by my house regularly. My friend was turned around and threatened to 'have his ass beaten' for *trying to go* (not even being at) to a vigil in solidarity of the 1000 people brutally and wrongfully arrested in Canada's *largest mass arrest EVER*. A friend of mine was *arrested for wearing black while waiting for his mother to pick him up to go to Canada's Wonderland*, spent 17 hours in a tiny cell packed to *twice* its maximum capacity, and *witnessed* male police STRIP SEARCH A MOSLEM WOMAN AND FORCE HER TO REMOVE HER HIJAB IN FRONT OF MALE POLICE AND DETAINEES. A 57-year old amputee had his prosthetic leg ripped off him, had a knee pressed into his head, lost his glasses, and was *dragged* away and held for 27 hours. (www.tatumba.com/blog/archives/…) Many women- some, like my friend, illegally confined for trying to cross the wrong street at the wrong time or for making the mistake of wearing a black T-shirt- were forced to urinate with male police watching, and some were even threatened with gang rape.
Yes. Gang rape.
BY THE POLICE.
The ones who are supposed to be here to protect us. *Who we pay taxes to protect us*.
Actually. www.tatumba.com/blog/archives/…
So we can't count on the politicians to protect us, and we can't count on the police to protect us, and if we try to assemble in peaceful protest like we did on Saturday the 26th when riot police stormed the *designated peaceful protest safe zone* BEFORE the riots even broke out (failing to stop or apprehend a single rioter), we get smashed. What are we going to do?
What are you going to do?
One of the hardest lessons learned by many two weeks ago was that *innocent people get caught in the cross fire*, and this is a lesson that needs to be expanded and abstracted and extrapolated as far as possible. In Toronto alone, 5-6 homeless people die on the streets PER WEEK. Thousands of Aboriginals- *the original inhabitants of this land whose nations were AND STILL ARE BEING stolen from them*- are dying of diabetes, lack of medical care, industrially poisoned groundwater, and squalid underfunded conditions on crowded reserves that are still, to this day, being seized against the treaties signed by this country. Some of them have been actively engaged in armed conflicts *for decades*. Blacks, Latinos, Aboriginals, and other visible minorities struggle against racism on all levels of society; Aboriginals make up 4% of the adult population in Canada, and constitute ONE FIFTH of federal prisoners and ONE QUARTER of provincial/territorial prisoners, including THREE QUARTERS of the adult prison population in Saskatchewan. Unemployment in small towns is out of control, while steel jobs continue to move south. Poverty becomes increasingly and increasingly more difficult to escape as basic medication costs skyrocket while cuts continue to be made against health care and housing, while increased legislation promoting bigger prisons and stronger punishments for petty crimes pushes this gap even further.
Do you think they're not going to come for you?
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
YOU need to get involved. Yes, YOU. Sitting around talking about it isn't going to do anything. Complaining to your friend on Facebook about the state of the world WILL ONLY MAKE IT WORSE THROUGH INACTION. This is a zero-sum game; every person who doesn't act is one less person trying to stem the tide of onslaught of oppression, and that tide is *overwhelming*. Yes, it's scary. Yes, it's easier to remain inside the safety bubble of one's social circle, but sticking your head in the sand is not going to make you safe, it's only going to make you an easier target once the other herds have been thinned out.
We live in a society of expectation and entitlement, where all this luxury that surrounds us has been simply passed down to us over the past hundred or so years, where we have been born into it and accept it as the norm and expect it to simply continue to exist of its own accord.
IT WON'T.
The rights that we have came from countless bloody battles of the oppressed fighting the established order and earning them. Women had to work in factories during war-time to prove their worth to hold equal employment to males (though they often still don't). African-Americans (the "terrorist" group the Black Panthers) in some parts of the United States were actually forced to literally take up arms against racist police and hold armed conflict after armed conflict for their own survival.
Hell, that's *still* going on.
It is not enough to sit idly by and watch the clouds pass (although I am a strong proponent in doing this in moderation; life can't always be about fighting, lest we turn into the joyless people we are trying to overcome). Action needs to be taken, and the people who are already taking it are already taxed out to the extreme. We need people. We need persons, one person by one person, to help join in solidarity- that means fighting for issues that don't directly affect you and building bonds with other oppressed groups- to show the powers that be that This Is Not Okay. That it is not okay to steal our lives by working us like slaves for minimum wage. That it is not okay to continue to oppress and deny the human rights of minority groups. That it is not okay to siphon critically-needed funds from public sectors and put it into the pockets of the richest 2%.
THEY WILL COME FOR YOU TOO, AND IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME. You can accept this painful and unpleasant fact now and work to stem the tide against it, or you can be oppressed and MUCH more miserable later and wishing oh if only you had done something while you had the chance. These are the choices at your disposal.
To end things on an uplifting note:
"We, the willing,
led by the unknowing,
doing the impossible
for the ungrateful
have done so much with so little for so long,
that we are now capable of doing anything
with nothing."
Only together we can make this a reality.
www.getinvolved.ca/
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Pictures
1 min read
Started a new photography series today, titled "Meditations". I've only got three right now, but once the weather starts getting warmer and it's safe to go outside without layers upon layers I'll be taking a lot more. The idea is to get pictures of me meditating in all sorts of really strange places, or places that offer up some sort of neat concept or idea. We'll see how things develop.
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Living in the Moment
4 min read
"Lose the past, but not it's lessons,
for the future holds in sessions
tests and quizzes of a time
when mistakes were made and had to find
a way to break into your mind,
so that mistakes are solitary
and the future's treated fairly
and not subjected to the beatings of the past.
Life's a road of broken glass."
--Part of an old poem written in high school.
The Present
According to Buddhism, the path to enlightenment somehow involves living in and for the moment. It is a tricky precipice of not dwelling on the past nor worrying about the future; and only by freeing the mental facaulties one normally expends on such tasks can one truly appreciate, pay attention to, and ultimately comprehend everything that is going on around them on both the micro- and macro-cosmic scale.
There is a flaw in this philosophy, though, that was most likely not terribly apparent at the time of the religion's inception; back then, the world was a much stricter, tighter, and all around more ascetic place. In today's times the concept of living for the moment can very easily be misconstrewed into a lifestyle of carefree debauchery. Even perhaps not so much debauchery as a style of not concerning oneself with the details of their future and how it is to develop. One may as well set out across the ocean with nothing but a raft and a fishing rod, and simply hope that each day will bring a meal to one's hook.
The Past
One may make a distinction between knowledge and recollections. Knowledge being the lessons, the neat tricks, the philosophies and beliefs that one has learned or otherwise aquired through the experiences in one's life, and recollections being the details of those experiences themselves. Cognizance and analysis, including and perhaps especially self-analysis, are important tools in dissecting life moment-for-moment in order to suppliment adequite experience from events so that it is not entirely necessary to commit to memory enough of the experience itself that it is possible to be continuously lived in. By dissecting life moment-for-moment, one is also forcing oneself to exist in said moment- or at the very least, only a few moments back- enough so that requisite attention can be paid. If this quality can be strongly developed, a state may be reached where one only need to remember extracted lessons and specific details of certain events- e.g. names, places, et cetera- and not the events themselves. This may be advantageous.
The Future
Another problem with living solely in the moment is that of foresight; i.e. career planning, developing sustainable accomodation, and like challenges. In today's society, emphasis is placed on creating long and complicated sequences- "long-term plans"- of which one is to then follow the path of to the closest approximation. The problem with these long-term plans is that they often offer low flexibility, and, in a society today that seems to be advancing further and futher into apparent chaos, the inability to change and adapt is quickly becoming more and more fatal of a flaw. In chess, following an inflexible set chain of moves blindly ignorant of one's opponent's successors could ultimately lead to giving said opponent the opportunity to position an entirely reactive force that may be capable of decimating one's setup. When one is playing against Eris, such an opportunity is bound to be disasterous.
The key to this issue may lie in developing a sort of productivity of causality. After having extracted sufficient core experience from events over the course of one's life, one is likely to obtain an understanding of causality- the sequence of effect: cause: effect: cause; as modified by the chaotic influences of life itself. Once a deep enough understanding of this process has been achieved, one may become capable of creating dynamic projections of possible effects to causes, and subsequent causes stemming from those effects and so on; very much like playing a game of chess. Were one to set up a series of catalysts- i.e. events, habits, activities, et cetera, that will create opportunities to harness the apparent chaos of life and it's inherent ability to create effects of causes and vice versa, and remain in a state of mindfulness and productivity (and not fall prey to the comfortable allure of stagnation), some sort of sucess is bound to come along.
for the future holds in sessions
tests and quizzes of a time
when mistakes were made and had to find
a way to break into your mind,
so that mistakes are solitary
and the future's treated fairly
and not subjected to the beatings of the past.
Life's a road of broken glass."
--Part of an old poem written in high school.
The Present
According to Buddhism, the path to enlightenment somehow involves living in and for the moment. It is a tricky precipice of not dwelling on the past nor worrying about the future; and only by freeing the mental facaulties one normally expends on such tasks can one truly appreciate, pay attention to, and ultimately comprehend everything that is going on around them on both the micro- and macro-cosmic scale.
There is a flaw in this philosophy, though, that was most likely not terribly apparent at the time of the religion's inception; back then, the world was a much stricter, tighter, and all around more ascetic place. In today's times the concept of living for the moment can very easily be misconstrewed into a lifestyle of carefree debauchery. Even perhaps not so much debauchery as a style of not concerning oneself with the details of their future and how it is to develop. One may as well set out across the ocean with nothing but a raft and a fishing rod, and simply hope that each day will bring a meal to one's hook.
The Past
One may make a distinction between knowledge and recollections. Knowledge being the lessons, the neat tricks, the philosophies and beliefs that one has learned or otherwise aquired through the experiences in one's life, and recollections being the details of those experiences themselves. Cognizance and analysis, including and perhaps especially self-analysis, are important tools in dissecting life moment-for-moment in order to suppliment adequite experience from events so that it is not entirely necessary to commit to memory enough of the experience itself that it is possible to be continuously lived in. By dissecting life moment-for-moment, one is also forcing oneself to exist in said moment- or at the very least, only a few moments back- enough so that requisite attention can be paid. If this quality can be strongly developed, a state may be reached where one only need to remember extracted lessons and specific details of certain events- e.g. names, places, et cetera- and not the events themselves. This may be advantageous.
The Future
Another problem with living solely in the moment is that of foresight; i.e. career planning, developing sustainable accomodation, and like challenges. In today's society, emphasis is placed on creating long and complicated sequences- "long-term plans"- of which one is to then follow the path of to the closest approximation. The problem with these long-term plans is that they often offer low flexibility, and, in a society today that seems to be advancing further and futher into apparent chaos, the inability to change and adapt is quickly becoming more and more fatal of a flaw. In chess, following an inflexible set chain of moves blindly ignorant of one's opponent's successors could ultimately lead to giving said opponent the opportunity to position an entirely reactive force that may be capable of decimating one's setup. When one is playing against Eris, such an opportunity is bound to be disasterous.
The key to this issue may lie in developing a sort of productivity of causality. After having extracted sufficient core experience from events over the course of one's life, one is likely to obtain an understanding of causality- the sequence of effect: cause: effect: cause; as modified by the chaotic influences of life itself. Once a deep enough understanding of this process has been achieved, one may become capable of creating dynamic projections of possible effects to causes, and subsequent causes stemming from those effects and so on; very much like playing a game of chess. Were one to set up a series of catalysts- i.e. events, habits, activities, et cetera, that will create opportunities to harness the apparent chaos of life and it's inherent ability to create effects of causes and vice versa, and remain in a state of mindfulness and productivity (and not fall prey to the comfortable allure of stagnation), some sort of sucess is bound to come along.
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