The Beautiful Game

I'm trying to get back into the habit of maintaining a semi-regular blog although it's not a sure bet as I have a hard time remembering tasks that aren't staring me in the face. I have been gathering up the resolve to sit down in front of this computer and write for some time now but I'm always fighting off the temptation of another external stimulus, in the case of this month, it's World Cup Soccer, which I have been engrossed in.
The game is aptly named the 'beautiful game' -- it has symmetry, grace, a mesmerizing flow and artistry, not to mention strategy. I count myself as a recent convert to the ranks of World Cup soccer enthusiasts even though my familiarity with the game itself reaches back to my childhood where I played it (although I was not much of a competitor). It's a game that hasn't caught on in North America because winning is almost secondary to skill -- and because victory itself is hard-fought and of such a low-margin that it doesn't appeal to the North American impatience with process. Soccer, (or Football) is also, hands-down, the world's game, and it brings nations together to revel in their tribalism for a brief-period every four years.
I've heard the predictable refrain that international competitions like this, are divisive and manifest crass expressions of nationalism. Some of this may be true, but who can deny the outcome of a match won fairly between two talented opponents? In the end, people are brought together by the love of a well-played spectacle.
In this post-feminist age, men are being culturally emasculated. The hunter-instinct is being legislated out of existence. In light of this, team sports serve as the last outpost of the warrior code where the ancient ritual that exults male prowess is provided a safe venue.
Once again, the critics of the male domain of team sports are completely wrong. Our biological evolution has not yet caught up with the social and political strides that have been made in the last four decades, although the purging of instinct through social engineering is well underway. In the absence of noble masculine virtues such as honour and gentlemanly conduct, a troubling trend has been developing in the western world aided by young men who are growing up to embrace thuggish, idiotic role models in the vacuum of traditional male role models. I believe we're looming over the cliff of our social evolution in which the human progress is in direct tension with the confusion and decadence that it engenders -- and at times, the latter appears to be tipping the scales. This is very often confirmed when I am subjected to the brute thumping and chanting of rap music, which is defended by liberals as somehow a legitimate "cultural" expression right up there with Mozart or Miles Davis. Sports offers a constructive 'directing' of our collective aggression and that's not going to change anytime soon.
The nature of masculinity in the west, especially in the younger age group, appears to be morphing into two directions -- it's either cowardly effete or psychotically macho, and the shades of grey in between seem more inconsequential. Team sports as become hijacked with the pressures of the marketplace and an ego-driven, win-at-all-costs mentality has replaced the quaint civilizing values of character-building and teamwork. Despite this, a well-played World Cup soccer match is a far less-destructive means of channeling our testosterone than UFC fighting which is merely a barbaric, Road-warrior-like grotesquerie. Soccer is about the collective and the individual supporting each other in the interest of an advantageous outcome, like components of a machine working in unison, it is simple in it's application and rules and only requires minimal investment vis-a-vis equipment. A third-world village has a greater chance of producing the next Pele than it does the next Wimbledon champion, and it's mere accessibility alone is testament to the sport's enduring appeal.
The World Cup is universal because developing countries have as equal an opportunity to shine in the limelight every four years as their richer counterparts. Unfortunately, the results of the matches often underscore the economic disparity of the world as the poor African countries competing in the tournament, rarely stand a chance against the wealthier European nations. How does one explain the perennial success of the South Americans? It's an obsession verging on religion down there and the economic and political instability in South America, I'm willing to bargain, is still relatively less than in sub-saharan Africa. Economics does have alot to do with sports and obviously in a country like Nigeria or Cote d'Ivoire, there are simply fewer resources available for promoting and nurturing football talent compared to places like Europe or Brazil for that matter.
I had been cheering for the African nations all the way and was disappointed that Ghana, the last remaining African side in the tournament, was eliminated by a pesky Uruguay. A Ghana win, psychologically, would have been a substantial boost to pan-African morale and on this level, the game is epic -- it becomes a symbol of an entire continent's pride.
In actuality, I'm not really attached to any outcome in this tournament because in reality, no matter who wins the World Cup, it's an opportunity to feast on dazzling skills and breathtaking drama. And, I can't help but think that a fraction of Canada will win the World Cup. There are hyphenated-Canadians from every continent flying the flags of their countries of origin and whoever the two teams are in the final match, there will be a roar of celebration by one ethnic group in one neighbourhood and the moans of defeat in another.
When all is said and done, it's about watching the very highest-level competitors trying to out-think and out-run each other, this is the evolutionary contest at its very finest.

Futility Factor

This blog has seen a long drought of neglect, mostly due to my energies being consumed by the demands of the workaday existence. I've settled into a bit of a routine that has carried me along for the last few months now and so much of my mental capacity is used up teaching, (as anyone who's ever taught before knows) that finding the motivation and discipline to maintain a blog is not easy to summon. Often I just want to find a comfortable horizontal position when the demands of my workday are complete, and stay there. I would be lying if I said I didn't have time for this however. There are a myriad of reasons why someone decides to continue or discontinue their blogging habits, and my situation is no different. There's the whole "blogging is futile" factor. When I stop to consider how massively saturated the blogosphere is, with a forum for every obscure fetish or extremist political view, I get that sinking feeling that my meagre contribution is just another forgettable blip in an ocean of forgettable blips. Why does anyone blog then? Does it give us that empowering feeling that we are candidly sharing our thoughts with a hidden audience out there in cyberland and thereby influencing change on a mass scale? Nobody can be so naive as to believe that this has the power to do much of anything other than provide an instant profile of recognition for said blogger. It's another filtering device for our egoes, one that presumes that people out there are going to take precious time out of their lives to read the self-conscious pontificating of amateur social-scientists. If futility factor weighs in heavily to discourage me from maintaining a blog then that can be used to justify avoidance of other endeavours, like making music or art or even housecleaning. If the chances of someone stopping to appreciate it or even acknowledge it are miniscule, then why bother with the whole exercise? It becomes merely another vehicle for self-indulgence in our culture -- as if we need any more, and it implies that the blog author is not someone who is doing something out there in the world of consequence like all the busy and productive people who don't have time to read blogs.
So why do I keep (or sporadically keep) a blog going? It's because, even though I know that it may not be read by many, it is a chance for me to distill and refine my views and because standing on the street corner and unleashing my disgust through a megaphone would get me arrested.

Countdown City

The city feels like it's under some laid-back west coast version of martial law as the 2010 Winter Olympic games are about to descend on us. The downtown core is a maze of makeshift road barriers manned by police and security personnel, directing traffic and eyeing any suspicious persons. It is a bit of an unsettling addition to the landscape. I feel so leaden about it all. I am not able to summon enthusiasm for this giant spectacle that will thrust this usually low-key backwater of a city into the harsh spotlight of international media attention. These games have been surrounded by controversy from the day that they won a slim majority of support by Vancouverites in a plebiscite. It has been a nonstop build-up since then with construction projects sprouting up everywhere inconveniencing many and forcing nearby businesses to close down. It has sponged up massive public expenses with a spiralling deficit that has appeared to many as a frivolous extravagance in a city that boasts one of the most addicted and transient neighbourhoods in North America.
Others have blamed the provincial government here for ignoring the plight of the marginalized while pouring money into a "corporate event for the world's elite." The games' critics point to cuts in healthcare and education and other high priorities. The games are seen as an untenable white elephant that will cripple the host city with debt for the next two decades. No good can come of this and any attempt to argue on behalf of the games' merits is met with a shrill chorus of rebuke by the fervently partisan anti-Olympics crowd.
Yet, despite all of this, I am of two minds about the games. I have learned how to keep silent around friends who are vocally anti-Olympics because these same people are well-briefed with facts and figures that they can recite at will. They are prepared to back up their rhetoric with sources -- flimsy and biased sources -- but sources nonetheless. I am not inclined to look at the Olympics through a limited "either/or" ideological lens however. My feeling about this all is that the verdict is out on the 2010 games and that their long-term legacy is likely to prove mostly positive, this won't placate the games' self-satisfied critics, however, who can point to the immediately measureable costs and adverse impacts that the games have imposed on the city and the province. The games are too omnipresent and they resonate far too wide to simply categorize.
There is a sizeable, organized and vocal activisit community in Vancouver that is poised to jump at every occasion in which an injustice whether real or perceived might surface. They have seized the Olympics as a catalyst in which they can direct all of their energies and resentments. These mostly professionally-unemployed malcontents never bother to factor in that the drastic budget cuts to healthcare and education in the early decade were more a result of a neo-liberal government's blueprint and that these cuts would have been the case with or without the games coming to town, it is impossible to convince those who I would describe as the "knee-jerk" left, of the error in their assumptions. They are just as extreme and uncompromising as their counterparts on the right -- untainted by the truth and impervious to contradictory logic.
However, I've learned that to raise a dissenting voice is not to be heard among this zealous, chanting congregation in the church of contrarianism. I have to admit that I feel reluctant to reveal my political differences in their company because their groupthink mentality is so tight and so insecure that it excommunicates anyone who doesn't properly get with the party line. I've learned to bite my tongue and contain my opinions when I hear yet another friend of mine spout "Olympics = bad."
Any astute observer can agree that Vanoc (the organizing committee for the 2010 games) has been overly protective of the Olympic copywright and has been a regulatory bully. It's easy to dislike Vanoc as a governing entity. I dislike its strongarm tactics and its attempts to micro-manage the spirit of this event. I even dislike our provincial government more for their mean-spirited policies and their whoring to big business. Critics of the games are right to point out the exorbitant pricetag for all this has resulted in rent gouging as Vancouver's housing market has heated up in recent years -- but i would argue that this is also not exclusively the games' fault. Critics are right to complain about the mass inconveniences and gridlock that the games will cause, I cycle to work every day on my bicycle and I have to take a much more circuitious route, that wouldn't be so bad if cyclists weren't sharing the sidewalk with pedestrians.
There has been mismanagement and duplicity in this and to top it all off, we are experiencing one of the warmest winters on record here. Just this morning I heard robins singing. The other day as I was riding home, I had to shed layers of clothing because I was getting very toasty in balmy 12 degrees weather under a pale yellow sun and a feeling that spring was in the air. It's almost impossible to snap into a winter Olympics fever when it's plus-10 and you are leaving your winter clothes at home every morning.
With all this said, I am going to step up and make a case for why I think the games ultimately is a good thing, however.
On the surface, the Olympics celebrates the power and beauty of the perfectly conditioned human body and the spirit of peaceful competition among nations. But more importantly, it reflects the highest values in our society -- self-reliance, discipline, pride, hope -- in a word -- excellence. All of these values have fallen far out of fashion in the last 40 years and are mistakenly conflated with "fascist ideals"-- when they were in fact, just as much the guiding values of the generation that defeated fascism. The spoiled boomer children of that generation, of course were willfully blind to this in their orgiastic rush to shed their garments of repression and with them, any other inconvenient obstacles to their instant gratification ethos. Naturally, all of us who've come after have inherited the boomer frame of reference and the social order of the present has been so enfeebled by officially sanctioned mediocrity and learned helplessness over the forces of striving and self-sacrifice, that no sector of society is immune from the scourge of the lowered bar it seems. This slackening trend of the western world with all of its apologists -- academics, journalists, activist judges -- a generation bred and trained in culturally-correct revisionism, is the entrenched status quo. Optimists might claim that there's nothing to despair about here and that this cultural warfare reflects the wonderfully diverse and fluid nature of the west, where currents rub up against each other and that the dialectical tension is healthy. Can these same optimists make the same defense for disintegration of values, the decline of prosperity and political apathy? Are they indicators of a healthy and vibrant liberal democracy?
Radicalism used to have very real enemies, yet now radical opposition to authority looks increasingly more desperate and destructive and protesting mobs resemble sophomoric, attention-craving ingrates who, lacking any real prospects thanks to their selfish parents, resort to a nihilistic lashing-out at all symbols of authority. The Olympics serve as a useful target for frustrations by those who are quick to ignore the universal message of self-betterment that the games represents in favour of cynically focusing on its worst aspects.
It is presumptuous to declare the 2010 games to be either "all good or all bad" -- they are simply too interwoven into our community now and they represent an investment that will yield a tangible legacy. Will the games pay for themselves? Probably not in the immediate term and I rank among those skeptics, - however, I think this will have long term benefits for this city although it may not be to my liking or to that of the anti-2010 protesters who see progress in a narrow light.

In with the New...

It's been a long stretch since I last checked in and alot has happened since. For starters, another new decade has crept up, it's already 2010 and I remind myself of this with a staggering disbelief. I'm still living in the city I grew up in but don't feel I belong in. It is about to host the winter Olympics here which has been plagued with controversy not to mention an unseasonably mild winter that is closing down the ski slopes.
On the personal side, I finished my B.A. last month by completing an online Science course to fulfill the credits needed to graduate. This last year I became better at taking care of my matters although external situations more or less thrust that upon me. I, like many of my generation, have voluntarily or quite unwittingly, avoided adulthood for most of my life and I'm now beginning to understand what my parents meant with their finger-wagging sermons about how there were no options outside of the ambitious pursuit of a respectable profession. I have been at all out war with their value system for years and have used up the reserves of my defiance to their narrow, bourgeois definitions of success. I have resisted any slight concession to the truth in their damning and critical world-view. But as what was once a leak in a boat now grows to waist level, I have to concede that their fear-based value system could boast some merits -- insofar as putting oneself on the right side of the financial divide goes. I've been more or less steadily employed since July so I shouldn't complain too much. This has put me in an overall better frame of mind and enabled me to move into better and more centrally-located digs in a hipster enclave of the city that is soon to be converted into condos and chain franchises. In late October, I was able to bring my girlfriend over from Taiwan and she stayed for an entire month until early December before returning to Taiwan to deal with all the crap that she had stockpiled. During her visit I was reminded of how similar our natures were -- our tendency to put off matters and avoid taking care of the minutiae. This pattern, I think created an unspoken sense of unease in both of us, despite how much more responsible I had become in her view. My instinct tells me it's over but my emotions want to hold on. The long distance relationship that we had going for two years gave me solid goals to work towards. Completing my TESOL and finishing university, getting my credentials for teaching, burying my father, setting up my own place. The prospect of having her come here and stay with me fueled these initiatives and inspired me to make important changes in my life to accommodate her potential visit. I am proud of the fact that we stopped the vague promises and cheap talk and that, through my initiative, her visit became a reality. She made it here, spent one month in my apartment (unfortunately it was November -- the most rainy and dismal time of year here) and then promptly turned around and went back to Taiwan. I showed her my best, I demonstrated to her that I was competent and could manage my situation (working two jobs and being gone all day must have been a good tip) and I showed her I could take care of her but this was not enough of a glue to hold it together and the nagging priorities she felt needed addressing at home meant that this relationship could not compete for her attention. We were both dismayed at this realization and as it stands now, I don't think we are likely to continue. It may very well be that she had come to psychologically symbolize my lingering attachment to Taiwan, in effect, she was that link, that purpose that could provide me with the excuse to return one day.
What else needs be said here? This is a case of making a huge personal investment in what I believed was love. It has certainly let me know that I am capable of doing it again should the opportunity present itself and that maybe this served as an anchoring "goal" to work towards. With that gone I feel a bit hollowed-out and thrown into slight confusion about my next step. I have resolved to get back into promoting myself as a graphic artist, but it seems so daunting, and to continuing to make music. I have alot of ambitious directions in mind and sometimes I get stuck in my tracks because of the "dizziness that comes with too many possibilities" but I have resolved this year to take myself far less seriously and to appreciate the transient and brief nature of my existence as a call to action in the here and now.
The Science credit I had to take to fulfill the requirements for my B.A. was the a combination of Earth-Ocean Sciences, a course designed for non-Science majors. The theme of the course was the science of natural disasters. Throughout it we studied modules on earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, landslides and impacts from space. It was fascinating and informative and helped me to appreciate the scientific discipline much more than I had in previous years. What struck me the most in this course was a unit devoted to the Earth's age and the relative age of life on our planet. I learned that all life forms comprise barely a quarter of the Earth's history and that in that history of 4.6 billion years alone, there have been five major extinctions of life due to external circumstances of climate change and the re-configuration of continents. What is astonishing to me is how infinitesimally brief and insignificant our lifespans are in the time of the cosmos and yet how phenomenally precious we are at the same time. This alone should serve to liberate the soul and to ensure that we consciously pursue lives of fulfillment. This is perhaps the hardest task before us.