Jihadi Judgment

Shell-Shocked Satire

The Quiet "Angels" Among Us

  

 I saw a film tonight called "Nicky's Family"-  a docudrama that recounts the humanitarian deeds of Nicholas Winton -  described as the English "Schindler" -  who organized the rescue of over 600 Jewish children out of Czechoslovakia prior to World War II.
  This was a powerful and inspiring story that urges viewers to walk away with deepened understanding of the scale of wartime suffering and the value of humanitarianism. It shows this through the combination of actual interviews with survivors and dramatic re-enactments of events.  It's narrated by a retired Canadian news reporter, Joe Schlesinger, who lends authority and credibility to the project, as he, himself, was one of the many children spirited out of his homeland by the efforts of Mr. Winton.  
   Although the film bears testament to some heart-wrenching personal accounts, the message is ultimately one of optimism  --  not of the naive or insincere kind -- but a kind of hard-won optimism born of the rigour of integrity, self-sacrifice and unrelenting courage in the face of evil. Those of us  born after the war into a comfortable peacetime, can only imagine the horrors that were endured.
   The film communicates on multiple levels. One of the primary  messages is that heroic acts are not always flashy or demonstrative but but more often than not, realized through seemingly quiet, behind-the-scenes actions guided by a genuine concern for the welfare of others, especially those who do not have a voice.
   The theme of torn-apart families has been catalogued and examined by countless films and literature on the war and it is easy for one's eyes to glaze over at yet another account contributing to the already existing heap. The atrocities re-visited in this film reveal nothing new, yet this film is profound in the sense that it reminds the viewer that the "angels" among us are often ordinary folk who rise to the occasion and whose actions can have a ripple-effect significance. Perhaps, on another level, Nicholas Winton exemplifies that trademark British character of unassuming and dauntless perseverance -- one that proved triumphant over the Nazi machine.
    The "hero" and subject of this film, -  an accountant, who, by his own admission, had no initial altruistic impulses, found himself in the middle of unfolding events of Europe before the outbreak of World War II, and was plunged into the position of helping hundreds of Czech Jewish children obtain asylum from the shadow of German occupation and the near certainty of their death. He accomplished this through hours of methodical paperwork and the dogged pursuit of official channels to seek a safe haven for the children. His efforts were frustrated repeatedly by bureaucracy and the closed-door immigration policies of western nations at the time with the exception of his own country, Great Britain, where he managed to place the children in good foster families.
    Particularily poignant were the interviews of these same orphaned children now as elderly adults who, after all these years, still fight back tears as they remember those final moments when their train pulled away from the platform, as they frantically exchanged goodbyes with their parents -- most of whom they would never see again. These scenes really resonate, as I am mentally preparing myself to be a parent and although the birth of my child is still "abstract" rather than "real" for me,  I am beginning to experience a glimmer of parental bond to a child and can only appreciate how monumentally cruel it must be seem to have it broken.
   The film also forced me to pause and reflect on the whole concept of "good deeds," and to review my own record -- an area I'd like to improve in.  Like many of my generation,  I have enjoyed the comforts and privileges that others died to preserve and it's so easy to lose sight of this. A film like "Nicky's Family," reminds me that we are beneficiaries of the brutal and bloody progression of history and that all of the conveniences and excesses of modern life have been paved with a trail of bodies. Not an exactly uplifting thought, however, the film suggests that as individuals, we have the agency to effect change, not by epic grandiose gestures but by the small, unheralded ones in our own corner here and now.  I think it is important to be reminded of this because most of us spend our lives rushing around thinking in the "first person" and get wrapped up in the relative mundanity of our own existences.   For me, this "first person" narrative is about to be broken permanently with the arrival of my child in October -- but also, I hope that this will give me a new appreciation of putting my own needs second and considering the needs of others more.

The Beautiful Game Returns...

 Incredibly, four years have crept up on us and the World Cup is back and in full gear. In the spirit of the event, I thought I'd re-post a blog that I'd written about the World Cup, during the last one in 2010...

                                       

   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 of techno or rap, which are defended by some who believe tolerance outweighs taste, 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 caught between two poles -- on the one hand "wimpishly" effete or psychotically macho, and the shades of grey in between seem more inconsequential. Team sports has 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 theatre of the primal. 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.

Manifest Nastiness

  

 I try to keep a skeptical distance from news media --  yet some events stand above the others in terms of the awfulness of their scale and tragic consequences.  It's hard to remain immune from the high incidence of reportings, in the news, of mass shootings. These events that have multiplied so much recently that the collective psyche is becoming resigned to them.

  The pattern is predictable -- a disaffected, lone perpetrator (usually a young male) with a mental illness or a seething hatred toward some injustice in the world, secretly plots his revenge, easily acquires automatic weapons and then wanders into a school or shopping mall and indiscriminately empties rounds at innocent bystanders (or selected targets). Either he is stopped by his own bullet in the process or commits suicide "by police." This has become an all too familiar cliche story arc lately.

  Up here in Canada, we like to remind ourselves that we are removed from the rampant violence of U.S. gun-culture. We point to stringent gun laws and take pains to declare how "horrified" we are by the brutality south of the border.  We find reassurance that we are more moderate and restrained than our American cousins. So it's worrying to note that the subculture of gun-loving, anti-government extremism, has crept across the border into boring old Canada.  That sobering realization hit home last week with a gunman's rampage in a small city here  that resulted in the deaths of three police officers.

     Sharing a border with the behemoth to the south has always meant more immediate economic ties that inevitably translate into a cultural influence spilling over. Our historical ambivalence, either towards or away from greater association, reflects our complicated and sometimes uneasy relationship to the U.S.  

   In this moment of our history, however, the unfiltered deluge of U.S. popular culture and media is pouring in, wave after wave -- at nano-speed -- the internet has brought us many positives but along with that, it has exposed every creepy cyber-nook and cranny and sentiments that belong littered on the walls of bathroom stalls are catapulted to the mainstream.  We are subject to an undifferentiated mass influx of excess, exulting  in the profane, the self-indulgent, the crass and the shallow. 

   How can any "border" stand up to this? 

    So it's now a revelation (but not surprising) that we are seeing 
the disturbing rise of anti-government militia "types" who have 
bought into the psychosis of their extremist counterparts south of 
the border. These "angry" outsiders - infused with libertarian dogma -- feel victimized for what they believe is their struggle to  defend their "freedom" from being usurped by governments under the control of shadowy puppetmasters.
   This paranoid fantasy finds its appeal among individuals who are suggestible. Take any unstable young man with limited education, fed a steadily venomous bias by right wing media,  frustrated by his economic prospects, probably unsuccessful in dating, -- he starts to nurse a grudge against the world, refuses to take responsibility for himself, and, all around him, he feels betrayed by society. As one commentator points out -- alot of the profiles of these mass shooters reveal an "entitlement" complex and a feeling of not having their expectations met of what should be their "due."
  Extremist philosophies, in these instances, have an appeal for already isolated and distraught young men and we ignore them at our peril.    

   I have experienced in my past, a similar sense of alienation that these perpetrators have felt. Luckily, I have grown past it and have a child on the way, so it is giving me purpose and cause for joy. But I know what it is like to be aimless, poor,  frustrated surrounded by the tantalizing temptations of consumer culture yet unable to partake. I  don't have the wherewithal or the personality to knowingly take out my frustrations in such a destructive fashion, but I know what it's like to experience the kind of humiliation some of these individuals have suffered and yet I also know that we are ultimately responsible for our actions. 
   I have always been over-sensitive to my environment and easily prone to indignation. This can be an unhealthy combination if there is nowhere to release it. I was (am) fortunate that I have had a  set of values instilled in me that delineate right from wrong and that I have found my outlet in self-expression -- art and music and increasingly, exercise.  I am also fortunate that I can articulate my negative feelings (although some would rather not hear them.) 
   This is not the case for a lot of these young angry men who, being products of moral relativism,  are not held in check by ethical considerations. In fact, just like indoctrinated jihadists, these individuals are able to convince themselves of the righteousness of their grievances and actions by projecting their resentments onto an external group.  Unlike jihadists though, these gunmen often act alone. Our culture places a premium on self-reliance and individualism and this winner-take-all ethos breeds solitary onlookers in the shadows desperate for attention.  

    The ignored loner -- the bullied kid --  these profiles have one thing in common -- they tend not to be the self-confident "jocks" or "bad boys" who are practically worshipped in popular culture. I'm not condoning these embittered outcasts for their cowardly acts,  but it's evident that those who have been made to feel that they are "losers" feel much more driven by a resentment to act out in extreme ways. Combine this with the profound sense of inadequacy that derives from economic and sexual powerlessness in a culture that links a man's desirability to women directly to his status. Add the proliferation of first-person shooter video games and Hollywood's love affair with the gun-toting, macho rebel into the mix and you've got the recipe for a walking time bomb.  Again, this is not to in any way, justify the actions of rampaging mass murderers, but it is an attempt to underscore the social influences that create this kind of alienation.
   I wouldn't want to be a young right now.  The economic outlook for recent graduates is not promising and competing for jobs in industries that are in constant flux requires that workers adapt or face unemployment. Companies show very little loyalty nowadays resulting in  a grim future for job security. These are some larger systemic pressures but of course, in our attempt to understand the motives behind a massacre of innocent strangers, we can simplify or spin all kinds of theories. It's important to note that there doesn't seem to be a one-size fits all explanation.
   Given all of these influences, I can see how the homicidal-maniac-in-the-making would, over time, allow dark fantasies to take root and fester in his psyche to the point where he can rationalize his act as a way of "going out in glory" -  or -  rather "notoriety."

    Throw in the easy availability of guns and you've got a lethal combination.   The ever present "frontier mentality" still resonates to this day in U.S. culture and even the suburban "loner-types" in 2014 have inherited this dangerously romantic myth.

    Is it any wonder why there have been two separate shootings in the last week in which the victims were police?  These perpetrators really believe they are at war with society and feel that they can somehow attract more sympathy if their targets are non-civilian. The whole notion that they are killing other human beings doesn't even cross their path. They have become so comfortable with the hatred that they profess that the end -- any end, justifies the means. 

    What is perhaps more alarming about this whole trend is that we are becoming accustomed to it and shrugging it off in helpless indifference.  We are starting to accept the possibility that these random mass shootings will become another danger that we have to live with like getting hit by a car or disease or an earthquake.  When we tolerate something as heinous as mass murder as inevitable, we have retreated from our responsibility to engage and handed the perpetrators a hollow victory.

Play on...

 Insomnia --  my head is a busy intersection of thoughts and worry. Worry seems to be something I'm good at --  perhaps it's in the DNA or perhaps it's a learned behaviour that I've cultivated over many years.  I have to wonder why some people are compelled to feel anxious and to fear the worst case scenario all the time?  Is it because we have somehow overdeveloped the part of our brain that responds to fight or flight?  Do we instinctively sense the negative outcome as a perverse form of self-protection?
  I tend towards negative and defeatist thinking and have all my life, it has become so entrenched in my personality that I no longer consciously notice it but I have been trying to recognize it and head it off when it comes up more and more of late.
  It is an accepted fact that a negative mindset is not a sure formula for success in life, yet on the other hand, I've always thought that by expecting the worst outcome, I am psychologically buffering myself against it.  The problem with being overly negative is that it is used as a "crutch" to justify inaction and when things don't work then my bleak, despairing worldview is reaffirmed.  So, it's a nasty spiral that one can become quickly lost in.   I have allowed the fear of  failure to keep me in a state of complacent inertia all my life and it's become so reflexive that I really have to be alert in order to avoid falling into that trap.
    Being overly optimistic can have its perils as well -- often it comes from a place of denial. It is equally annoying to be around "joy addicts" -- people who feel the need to demonstrate their prolonged and easy cheery-ness. It's particularly off-putting if their hyper-positivity comes across as a shallow and vain facade rather than a more considered and authentic expression of one's being. However, happy-go-lucky individuals have "hope" and I believe it's healthier to be around that kind of personality than being around those who prefer to live under a permanent cloud of nihilism.
  I have a birthday coming up this week and it offers me another opportunity to take stock. The worry and negativity formula hasn't been working for years now yet it is a comfortable place I return to. How does one break this chain?
     I've dabbled in yoga which is supposed to realign your energy and it has had a soothing effect for me.  I've also thought more and more about meditation but it's something that one has to be more purposeful about making time for and my time, like most others', gets filled up quickly with the distractions of the quotidian.  Not to sound too "New Agey" but I've heard that meditation is very effective in calming the mind and putting you in touch with your "higher self."
   In a sense, I feel that I already practice a form of meditation when I play music.  As a musician, I sit down at my piano or play the guitar and get absorbed in a space where the chatter in my brain drops off and I am singularly enclosed in that moment when I'm connecting to the universal through tones and melodies. Music is a very satisfying therapeutic territory for me and helps me to access a higher plain while creating something very immediate and temporary  -- the impermanence of a musical note -- it's sustain and decay -- forces you to inhabit the moment.
   Recordings can't really do justice to live music because there is an energy to a musical performance in a specific time and  ambience. In listening to live recordings you can anticipate the idiosyncratic hi-lights of that given performance, but despite the quality of the recording and the repeated pleasure one gets from listening, it still lacks that vital sense of immediacy -- where you as an audience member -- are giving the performance your undivided attention and are part of something bigger.  It's not the same  as listening to a live recording at home on a Sunday morning over breakfast, despite the pleasure you might derive from the audio.
    I diverted into music to illustrate a wider point and that is that we have forgotten to live in the "now" -- especially those of us who are incessant worriers. I am anxious because I prone to existential panic. A fear of the future because the future ultimately leads to our finality and I have a struggle accepting that there an afterlife.
   Playing music with friends, for me, is like a sacred ritual that allows me to escape into the moment. What could be more about being present in the now than making music that is a filter for joy and camaraderie? or riding your bike along a sunlit path? or being physically active or having a creative interest?  I think that, we, as humans, need to have some passion or outlet that animates our senses and nurtures us outside of our routines.  I find that my life is more complete with hobbies, they help me to elevate my sense of being alive, now.

Baby Express

By this time next year, if all goes as planned, the future me -- (if he finds the time to read these blogs let alone maintain them,) will probably chuckle incredulously at all of this writing in the 'first' person.  The use of "I" in a sentence, will look unfamiliar and self-indulgent -- that is, assuming that I adapt to my impending parenthood in the typically normal way - with complete devotion to my new offspring. So intense this devotion will be -- others have told me -- that I will simply have no time for my needs or wants and that they'll in fact, cease to be important anymore.  In a way, having a child is really an entry-point into the more universal definition of adulthood because whoever you were before your child was born, in a sense, ceases to be.  We symbolically shed our egocentric husk as the hard-wired mechanism of parental responsibility kicks in.  Everything that we had achieved, hoped to achieve or dreamed of -- ends (or at the very least is shelved) -- and is downshifted onto the next generation to carry, whether it is consciously instilled or not.
   Of course, objectively, this should be an exciting change -- and change is both inevitable and necessary for most of us. I am struggling to welcome this change though, as I feel that in order to embrace the new experience of being a father, I have to take advantage of this window of time, to find my direction, complete unfinished projects and say farewell to a life of relative freedom.
  Financial security remains a big question mark for me, but also a feeling of being unaccomplished.  I do not want to make the mistake of regarding my child as a vehicle for succeeding where I failed.  I hope I can avoid the trap of pressuring my child to overachieve in one area that I deem worthwhile while ignoring his/her personality and talents if they differ from what I expect. Yet, how can a parent avoid projecting onto their own child the dreams that they had to sacrifice in order to become a parent?  I don't want to approach parenting with the psychology of payback -- that my child is an  investment who will one day "owe" me.
    Naturally, I'll have expectations and concerns, but I really hope that the only thing that child will "owe" me is to find personal satisfaction in whatever it is that interests them and not to feel paralyzed  by the thunder above of parental disapproval.  I had well-meaning but very reprimanding parents who like most parents, insisted that we (my sister, brother and I,) pursue safe and respectable careers.  My father was a product of his generation and grew up fatherless, so he had very little first-hand knowledge, time or patience for his role as a father. 
   I hope that I can cultivate a  relationship with my child that is more loving, supportive and less-judgmental in order to give them the self-confidence they'll need to survive and succeed in the world.
    I  spent much of my young adulthood trying to define my own value system against the one I had been raised with. I rejected the conventional path of least resistance, instead opting to go a harder and more unrewarding route.  I ended up destitute, underemployed and resentful of the world. 
    None of this was made any easier by my quixotic desire to be an artist -- a vocation that requires an unbreakable will and ability to drown out the critics, in order to succeed. I have only really been "half" an artist all my life as I have not been able to summon the courage to leap into that world fully.  Clicheed - though not unfounded -  fears of being the "starving artist" prevent me from committing myself to artistic practice and it is a painful realization.  Creativity has always compelled me, and there has always been more validation for it from the outside than from within.
    All of this must sound like trite self-pity to those who might read this and think that I was a typical brat from a privileged upbringing who had been given too many options. And after years of fine-tuned self-loathing, I'd reflexively take your side on that assumption.  It's hard to relate to someone who was given much, feel sorry for themselves.  That was the second part of the self-defeating equation I had.
 The guilt.
   I felt guilty for being born into relative comfort.  I allowed the perception that others had of me  -- of being handed the silver-spoon -- to weigh on my conscience.  I felt a certain, judgment not just from classmates but from adult authority figures  -- teachers, coaches etc. who knew of my father's status and implicitly held us to a separate set of expectations or saw in me and my siblings, an  opportunity to direct their mean-spirited venom towards public figures. I felt guilty and embarrassed and apologetic for being the son of the Senator.  I always felt defensive that others whether envious or otherwise, were waiting for that "gotcha" moment when they could proudly expose the "class enemy" that I was. There has always been a sentiment among Canadian working class culture of "know your station" that distrusts success and ambition, and my father strongly manifested both qualities.  So naturally, to those who were unexceptional, this was intolerable.
    My father, was defined by growing up poor in the Depression and he never forgot it. He was uncomfortable being seen as ostentatious or hobnobbing too much with the upper crust. He believed that we should strive to maintain an ordinary appearance while all the same time demanding from us three children, the same extraordinary drive he had.
   These mixed signals created confusion in us three kids. Hence, we strove for the camouflage of mediocrity. Never excelling in anything for fear of being singled out or attracting attention. With my brother's high school theatre career as the exception, we were never really competitive and driven to achieve -- not standing out was the best way to survive high school.
   Fast forward to the present. A new monumentally important life event is on the horizon for me. It will signify a shift in my entire lifestyle and, consciousness.  Bringing a new life into this world -- a tabla rasa -- pure and unformed, will be both exhilarating and challenging.  I'm pretty sure that birth - like death  -  is something you can prepare for intellectually but that you can only profoundly understand once you've experienced it.   This is an opportunity for me to finally let go of the negativity and self-doubt I have worn as a shell all my life and embrace the unknown.

In Defense of Moderation

 

    Ironically, it's almost harder to be "heard and seen " these days, precisely because to be "heard and seen" is so easy and instantaneous.  To compete for the fickle and short attention spans in the social media world, successful recognition requires a formula that offers a jarring contrast to everything else out there.  It's not enough to generate a few hits, you have to captivate viscerally with crass spectacle, prank or parody. Otherwise you risk being an undistinguishable grain of sand in the glut of social media.  If you don't rely on shock appeal or up-to-the-minute grab bag gimmickry, then your understatement will go unnoticed. The noisier and more extreme, the more hits -- the more attention -- you're going to generate.
   The practice of an unfussy, quiet "moderation" in personal conduct and public affairs that was once an embedded virtue in western society (I mean Canadian here more so,) has sadly, been consigned to the heap  of bygones. It can't survive anymore in a social media environment that revels in garish and immature excess.
   Our entire culture has been saturated with the boomer ethos of pushing limits and seizing the cheapest and most pleasureable thrill. By it's very nature, it creates this perpetual cycle of dissatisfaction that comes from a craving for another even stronger fix. We are an entire culture of addicts of some kind or other. If you consider addiction as having a severe, almost uncontrollable, compulsion for stimulation then our collective, technology-addled nerve centre is so jacked into the need for instant Twitter or Facebook updates or a slavish obsession with smartphones that we are almost oblivious to anything in our immediate surround. We only know one cognitive reference it seems, and that is in the acceleration mode.  In the unfiltered noise of mass media we are subjected to a "hyper-ness" and "extreme-this or extreme-that." We are gripped by a restless need to boost our collective excitement levels a notch higher, for example, through watching extreme sports or in some cases participating in them.  Extremes carry a glamour and danger and promise to take us to the edge of a peril most of us are cushioned from in this modern life. We aren't simply bored, we're spiritually and intellectually malnourished. Overrun by idiotic entertainment distracting us with the trivial and absurd with a spastic parade of fragmented thoughts and images -- darting and weaving throughout our synapses like signals that fade into the subconscious later to be resurface and get passed along as more unprocessed cultural debris.
     How did we arrive at such a zenith?
   It started in the sixties with the mass youth rebellion and the full scale social revolution that broke with the old traditions in a way that still resonates today.  The liberal experimentations of that era brought "social' and "self" consciousness to the fore.  The former, as a result, grew into a more inclusive and pluralistic construct.  The latter, ultimately translated into  the guilt-free, hyper-individualism which distorted the initial ideals of self-actualization to justify myopic greed.
   And now the 21st century has been a stage for the culture wars. The two contending extremes  of neo-liberalism with its sociopathic gospel of unrestrained markets and the erosion of state power, versus a left liberalism with its factionalism of identity politics and its compulsion toward legislating behaviour and attitudes.  The polarization widens between these two extremes. The right, especially in the U.S.  (but also in Canada to an increasing extent) becomes more vocal, more impudent, more childish and much more ready to thwart the democratic process in order to achieve its ends. While the left, - especially the cultural left  -- seems convinced that the highest priority on the progressive agenda is calling out bigoted attitudes towards same-sex marriage and often shows shades of totalitarian zeal with its legislative "creep." Bridging this  unfriendly divide, is a culture that is growing more incoherent, lost in a manic touch-pad over-consumption of Red Bull and rape porn.
    Moderation can't win in this cultural environment that multiplies loud and primal extremes and drowns out rationality and reflection -- yet it needs its defenders more than ever.
 

      This is a cartoon I did about Taiwan's growing economic dependency on China and how China is silently absorbing Taiwan through free trade rather than through military invasion. Although both situations are not easily comparable, China's motive of 'irredentism' appears quite similar to   Russia's vis-a-vis the Ukraine.  Whereas Putin has been forceful and bombastic and gained harsh international condemnation through his military and geopolitcal designs over the region, China's strategy is much more stealthy and aims to coopt Taiwan under the international radar. Having spent four years in Taiwan and been a staff cartoonist for an English paper there, I became very immeresed in the local politics of the island.
  For the last few weeks, students in Taiwan have been occupying the legislature in protest against a piece of legislation that seeks to eliminate trade barriers with China. To provoke even further opposition and distrust, the Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, has enthusiastically rammed through this policy without any real public consultation.
    The fear is, that this would allow Chinese (PRC) companies to invest in Taiwan resulting in increased Taiwanese economic dependency on China and potentially threatening supplant local enterprises that really are lifeblood of Taiwan's cultural identity. Still, others have argued that Taiwanese companies have shown little national loyalty over the last decade-and-a-half, and have instead, abandoned Taiwan in droves to set up operations in Mainland China, where they can enjoy cheaper labour costs and almost zero regulations. The logic flows -- why shouldn't Chinese businesses be allowed to return some of that investment to Taiwan?  The debate is nuanced but from what I gather, the pro-democracy elements in Taiwan are not quick to embrace this "investment and jobs" argument over the potential of surrendering democratic freedoms for totalitarian, one-party rule.  The world should be alerted to this as a test model of the future -- ruthless capitalism sans democracy.

The New McCarthyites

      I have been consciously spending much less time on Facebook or other social media lately because I find that it’s not only a huge time suck but I have noticed how irritated I become with “friend” updates that either broadcast self-obsessed trivia or treat it as an opportunity to shout from a soapbox. The latter posts always carry a preachy message aimed at rousing enough guilt to generate several “likes”by other users out of fear being ostracized or, worse, unfriended.

    While some posts can be informative and shed light on a particular issue, I find more often than not, that I get just plain annoyed at the simplistic sloganeering that seems to pass for discourse.  I have tried to take the laissez-faire approach to these self-righteous posters and gloss over them because I find that these posts don’t really tolerate real debate – they only seek to bludgeon everyone over the head with their tone of moral superiority, demanding absolute consensus.

     I am trying to consider things in balance -- to go back and see reason in the arguments of those who I often reflexively disagree with. I can often find my own views in alignment with these same people on a number of issues so I am no ideologue and remain suspicious of anyone who is.  

  I'm even prepared to back down when confronted with stronger facts in a debate, yet it has become apparent repeatedly that many of the arguments I've wasted my time having on Facebook are with people who claim to be progressive yet display a very narrow and inflexible mindset that is quick to go into pack mode and attack any dissenting voice with insults and labels. It is the ultimate in groupthink -- like devotees of a cult who close ranks around any of the non-believers. They have memorized their tenets and are cued to actively oppose any who defy them.

  Maybe I’ve just gotten old. I can remember not long ago, clinging to a lot of illusions how social justice was immediately attainable, if only we could all agree to outlaw human nature. But I have come to realize that the most stable form of progress isn’t necessarily revolutionary, but incremental, and should not always require hasty legislation in order to placate an aggrieved interest group and to seem culturally relevant.

   Change is inevitable but not all change is desirable. Does that make me a reactionary or a realist?  I don't know but I do know that some will be tempted to pidgeonhole my thinking as a way to vindicate their position.  

    I found myself in the unlikely position of defending the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict in one of my Facebook exchanges recently.  I was the only voice who challenged the poster's sneering dismissal of the Pope as a "homophobe and misogynist" - as if two hyperbolic, unfounded accusations should be the only criteria on which an individual who presides over such a long-established and complex institution should be judged. I got irked at what I thought was the irony of someone, denouncing the Pope for his latter day “heresy” for not sanctifying gay marriage or having more “progressive” views about sexuality.  I objected to how easily these labels are flung around as a way to manipulate with emotional language and gain points while at the same time not having to do the intellectual work of providing evidence and arguments. Granted, Facebook is not a forum for serious debate, still, it is open and public and offers a stage for discussion. 

    I countered that these terms "homophobe" and "mysoginist" were just lazy labels and were misleading as they suggested hatred and mistreatment of women and gays. I added that I doubted that the Pope advocated these kinds of behaviour just because his positions did not take a favourable view toward western lifestyle choices.

    I realize that it is impossible to have a meaningful debate with strident types of any political persuasion and that hardline proponents of one bent or another, are often good at twisting logic around to serve their ideological point of view.  This is precisely where I begin to see anti-democratic strains – and increasingly by those who proclaim to be enlightened and tolerant.

    Take for example, the zeal of some social progressives to de-limit free speech  -  there’s more than a hint of Orwellian thought control at play here. This is practiced by all ends of the political and belief spectrum but when it is coming from those who profess to be so egalitarian and fair, it is more troubling. 

    Just like good Maoist students of the Cultural Revolution, the younger generation of the left is not content to merely tolerate opposite opinions but are compelled to call them out - denounce them and have them dragged before the court of public opinion and shamed. As a student of history, I can see how rapidly those advocating for the new “orthodoxy” are also becoming the new McCarthyites  -- quick to expose anyone who questions their cultural authority as a throwback or a homophobe or a racist -- these ready-made labels once they are thrown, stick to the intended target and can ultimately discredit them.

   Accordingly, purifying language means purifying intent. Purity and uniformity in thought are becoming more and more common among those who see no contradiction between their theories and their methods. I find it deeply ironic and troubling that so many people in my own circles of friends, willingly subscribe to this and have not tempered their views despite the wisdom that comes with life experience.

   To be brash and enamoured by new ideas is almost the duty of the young as they are just testing the waters of life but I feel increasingly alienated from those in my age bracket, who by now should know better than to act like soldiers of any orthodoxy.  I think this reflects the failure of our education system which has preferred to teach people "what" to think not "how" to think. Instead, the  hallmark of the culture wars in academe and public education system is visible, it is one that negates genuine independent thinking and now we see the rise of a lynch-mob vigilance that seeks to drown out dissent with quick and easy labels. 

   I have come to feel unease around those individuals who pride themselves on being "independent and daring" for vocally supporting all the "right" causes especially by smearing anyone who opposes them with quick and easy labels. Perhaps this is just a symptom of aging but I have come to learn that some principles work better textbooks than in life.

                       
                         This was our customized Christmas card for 2012. I finally got around to posting it.

             I hope this is self-explanatory because it already has enough words.

  This is a comic strip concept I've been working on. It didn't really attract alot of "likes" on Facebook. I guess there are certain subjects that are off-limits or maybe I needed to simplify the dialogue a bit. I have met these types -- the self-loathing, righteous guilty white liberals who are anxious to remind everyone within earshot of their moral burden/superiority. I want to step over the line in offending people like this but there's a growing trend in tacit censorship towards any attempts to criticize the sacred obsessions of the cultural left.

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.

Entering the Curve

Summer is fading fast, although increasingly the passing of every summer seems shorter and even less-eventful than the previous one. The dogged pace of time feels like it's a gathering trajectory along a race course and I've entered the curve of the track where the momentum accelerates. Aging itself not only delivers one a perspective of reality and time that is opaque to youth, but it abridges one's experience of time and folds it inward - a sort of warping of existence within time. I'm more or less attempting with the broadest strokes possible, to explain a relativistic equation without the math or the physics. The inescapable processes of aging are hinting louder and louder now. The stresses and self-judgment around monetary uncertainty at 43 are more acute and harder to ignore than they once were. The sense of my vulnerability and physical limitation is insinnuating itself more. I can't help but reach for another convenient metaphor - the one that involves crossing the river of youth and age and I stare back at the other side and see arrogance, vanity and ingratitude. I can still readily locate these immodest attributes in me and can't quite wrap my mind around this separation because a rebellious and youthful spirit lingers inside that refuses to accept the world on its terms no matter how much common sense dictates otherwise. It may profit the artistic endeavour but it does little for the bank account. Young middle-age it seems, borders the confusion of youth with the reconciliation of age. The confusion lies in the fact that you feel like you're 30 but your actual vintage is reflected back at you by others around - the palpable vibe of disinterest from young women passing by and the implied disdain from those whose relative younger age bespeaks a certain entitlement complex. The cruel dictates of human biology and the laws of attraction ensure who gets voted off the island and how soon. Our society markets eternal youth by instilling a disgust and loathing at the alternative, and ageism is the last frontier where political correctness hasn't yet imposed its inquisition-like mandate. It is generally accepted behaviour for the young to manifest their obligatory resentment of the old. The contempt shown towards a person's maturity in years has become the clicheed norm in our youth obsessed culture and it is hardly met with the blink of an eye. So much of this is premised on an inarticulate anger from the children of the self-absorbed boomer generation. Borrowing from the pseudo-tenets of social darwinism, popular culture reflexively declares that anyone who's 22 is past their prime. As if one's personal development ends at the age when they are most likely to become more independent in their thinking and expand beyond the superficial loyalties to music and fashion that define adolescence. This is not a grown up culture because the commodified illusion is what slicks the gears of the economy. The selective, focus-group-tested fetishization of lifestyle and objects of status must not relent and the dedicated and ingenious hucksters and pimps of the American dream examine every margin of every negligible trend in prolonged strategy sessions to devise a new angle on an old practice. They are tasked with the conundrum of how to sell blue jeans in a fresher and bolder way that will compete for the four-point-one-second attention-span of the iPod and texting immersed "youth demographic." The branding of youth is sold like an exclusive membership to a gym or nightclub reserved for flawless specimens freshly emerged from the design laboratories of antiseptic childhood - a privileged club of looks and airs. The cult of youth has dominated our shallow cultural landscape for the last 30 years, and it's no wonder that puerile self-indulgence rules the era. The worship of youth guides the collective mythos and when it's taken away we hold fiercely to it because age is not allotted dignity or respect in the west than it is in other cultures where to live past a certain age up until recent times, was indicative of beating the genetic or environmental odds and therefore a worthy accomplishment in itself.
What perhaps brings me closer to understanding the shift between youth and age is the experience of loss and the closing in of mortality that one gains a more sober appreciation of when confronted with its unavoidable truth. People around you die, parents die, the stable adult figures in your young past who seemed so robust and ageless are shrunken and humbled before the ravages of age and become frail wards of middle-aged children. The inevitable pulse weakens and the bony clutches of mortality are mirrored back at us in the sickness and the passing of those around us. I lost a friend this summer to cancer. A cancer that was so unexpected and so cruel that it didn't give him time to linger around the exit. I found out about his passing after the months of not having communicated with him yet having the intention of wanting to call him up. The shock of this friend -- of similar age and sensibility -- being ripped from this world so mercilessly and unjustly, like a page out of a book, taught me more about the random and tenuous nature of existence. My own father's passing by comparison, while heavy and sad, at least allowed us time to grieve beforehand but my friend's life was snuffed out so suddenly and with so much yet to accomplish that it further attenuates my belief in the existence of a benevolent divine presence. It did serve to remind me of what a precious gift life is, despite being annoyed by the idiocy, hypocrisy and misguided priorities of the world around me. The "life is short" mantra as hackneyed as it sounds, is hackneyed because it's been overused, it's been overused because it's true. Life is really a short race to the finish and it's best to get on with it.

The Private Life of Fame

The storm of media attention surrounding the same-day deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett has probably already hit saturation point. Some will read more than coincidence into this, others will conclude that it was another spectacular publicity stunt by Michael Jackson to go out in style with the former vixen queen of the 70’s. Whatever the case, the inundation of media gossip and tabloid-style overkill has already started raging forth and one can only duck to avoid the sheer breadth and speed of the coverage. Death’s ever-present shadow poses a merciful boon to ratings in the dumbed-down, hyped-up pop-culture “Neverland" we are living in. A place where we can find permission in Michael Jackson's Peter Pan syndrome, to linger in our own juvenile fantasies. Yet "Death" still comes knocking at the gilded gates of stars' estates and pushes through the undigestible clutter of mass media with its bleak finality.
Michael Jackson was arguably a “captive persona” of stardom. A product of this continuous production line of celebrity idols yet never able to fade away quite as forgettably as most and determined to let his freakish persona rival and then eclipse his talent as an entertainer. Is it possible Michael Jackson was a casualty of his own forever-morphing and cartoonish image? He was undivisible from his own celebrity, and in a sad sense, it was all he had, and it devoured him. In these waning moments of the Hollywood-American empire the obsessive effort to mass-merchandise youth and beauty has doubled in recent years - as if to show to the world that America is still the young land of hope, prosperity and remade has-beens. And as the ouverture of the final movement swells in its cacophonous soundbite babble and desperation presses itself up against the glass outside, the grimace of used-up fame and shattered myths are locked up securely in steely celebrity vaults. We are taken by the pitiless storm, the synthetic replaces the organic, and the juvenile and the profane are held onto as safe illusions masking a vitiated and self-indulgent culture in rapid decline. There is a compelling resonance here between the stretched-over grin of greedy success and Michael Jackson’s disappearing nose. A scalpel wielded by a quack plastic surgeon is no different than a pen wielded by a fraudulent real estate broker. It’s the illusion that sells.

All of this dead celebrity spectacle of course is compelling because it tugs at our elbow and catches the corner of our eye with a stark sense of unease. It serves as a wider ontological frame of reference for our own fleeting time. These public display of mass mourning for dead celebrities are completely mired in some atavistic need to congregate and observe ritual. Indeed, occasions like this that are inflated to such magnitude (Princess Di’s death is a fitting example,) approximates the ersatz sacred or ceremonial in a cultural landscape of pre-fab subdivisions and Twitter. It is a phenomenon that can’t be easily dismissed or avoided for that matter. This type of public hysteria and outpouring of grief over the deaths of strangers save for their pop-icon status, reveals a confused and childlike public craving for Godhead wherever it can be found. More importantly, there is a proprietary aspect to all of this. Michael Jackson, Princess Di, Elvis, Marilyn were not merely symbols -- they were trademarks – the property of millions and destroyed by the pressure of the spotlight. Could it not be argued that the adoring public holding these mass "orgies" of grief, are registering their sense of betrayal? Of having their beloved icon torn from their grip only to reaffirm the shocking truth that mortality is the great equalizer? More on this in the next blog.