I just learned some sad news that I think may be worth sharing. In the past thirty years, it seems that we have wiped out about 90% of the sharks in the oceans worldwide, mostly in the pursuit of their fins for soup. For some reason, this nugget of info hit close to home for me. I think part of it is from watching cool footage of sharks underwater when the Discovery Channel was a rising star on TV in the 1990s. Part of it may also be the number "90%", which seems too close to 100% for comfort. Anytime we have something that's gone 90% bad, it's pretty bad and tends to get our attention.
I'm not sure what to do with this info. I feel scared by it because lots of scientists apparently think it may soon lead to the collapse of whole fish stocks all over the world. This in turn will threaten the whole balance of life in the oceans, where a lot of our oxygen comes from at the bottom of the aquatic food chain. This possibly scenario freaks me out, but I'm not sure what I'll do differently tomorrow morning just because it's in my head.
I think this is a great example of how we can act with narrow self-interest (individual, regional, national, whatever) which harms the group (global). I think if we went down to the docks where the fishing boats, large and small, set out each day to catch sharks, cut of the fins, and throw the bodies back in, and talked to the fishermen there about the situation and the remaining 10% of the sharks, I'm unsure what effect it might have. They need their livelihoods, and have their own fears about dropping out the bottom of the socio-economic food chain in our culture. How do we ask them to give up work that they need to take care of themselves?
No less responsible are the folks who are demanding the shark fin soup delicacy at their parties. If it's exotic, and someone is willing to pay to get it, then they can find someone willing to catch it and prepare it. What are they concerned about? Perhaps nothing - they may not know that shark fins are a commodity that threatens a global ecosystem. Perhaps they are anxious about being able to show that they are wealthy and can have the better things in life, distancing themselves in appearance from the people with less.
I think this type of situation is the crux of the crisis that we are facing together as a species on our tiny spaceship. We get afraid, and trapped in our narrow self-serving patterns because we have difficulty imagining other ways of being and having the courage to follow them. I don't think we can be too hard on ourselves at the individual level, because everyone knows what it is like to feel like we're struggling and competing to get ahead or at least stay even in the rat race. The shark fishermen know it, and the wealthy lunch guests know it. Anyone who knows the relief that comes with a pay raise knows it, as does the person who just lost their job and feels like they will have trouble getting another one. People who would "really like not to have to drive to work" but drive to work know it.
I know that it's hard to think of a bigger picture in a warm fuzzy way when we feel like we're in the big picture in a competitive, doom-and-gloom way. But when you take that first step towards cooperation on a global scale, with billions of folks you've never met or who aren't even born yet, you know it feels good to be less afraid. Biking in the snow, walking in the rain, taking time between jobs to explore your passion for oil painting, skipping the shark fin soup and telling someone why, turning off lights more often than you turn them on, having fewer children instead of more, eating less meat, it's all connected. We can find such joy and satisfaction in a million small things, acts for which we'll never be rewarded with a feature on the front page of Altruist Weekly.
In taking these steps, we can know that we're doing more to make the world - the only one our children have - a better place. I think we'll never know if we're doing enough, but we'll know that we're doing more. It's the choice we face every time the path splits. Sometimes we don't have enough information, and we just have to follow our hearts and guess. Sometimes we have lots of information, and we just need to find the courage to listen to our inner voices. Often we want companions to join us, so we don't feel alone and like we're the only ones taking the broad view. The path isn't always clear, but our good intentions based in broader love instead of narrower fear will get us going. To survive and get on a good track as a society world wide, we need to take this more thoughtful approach to our lives, look long and deep at what we're doing, and get more on the same page with each other about getting from where we are to where we want to be.
Here's the best part (I think so, anyway): we're not giving anything up when we make these choices. We're gaining everything, bit by bit. Our lives unfold in beautiful ways, dovetailing together with other folks who are looking for the good life. We are the ones...
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Our Beautiful Struggle, or I Got Them Ol' Zen Cushion Blues
I came in from the cold, frosty and sweaty after running in the frozen sunshine. I peeled off layers and paused to make some green tea, steaming with jasmine and memories of ancient China. I put on soft cotton pants, a wool sweater, and sat down in front of my 17 inch window to the world. I looked up at my blog, with a vast white background and only the blinking cursor, and realized that its address is Nothing is Lacking. I took a sip, looked out at the clinging golden maple leaves, took another sip, and exhaled.
It's hard to remember that nothing is lacking. It's hard to remember that where we're at is where we're at. The Madison Ave. folks want us to buy our kids toys for Christmas, either Chinese or unleaded. Just after New Years, as we sign in to email, we'll have an image of someone who is not at all overweight telling us that she wants to lose those holiday inches. Some days we wake up to find a close friend or even ourselves on anti-depressants, never believing before that moment that it was necessary. We see headlines about disasters that we'd love to help alleviate, but we're so busy we don't know where to begin. Unusually warm weather makes us all a bit nervous, because we don't know if we can count on past years to know the future. And in our heads, we tell ourselves the stories that we've told all our lives about how the world works, what we can and can't do, and why life "doesn't work like that."
Regardless of the tempests in Bangladesh and in our teacups, nothing is lacking because the world can't be any other way than it is. We get to choose to accept or deny the world and our place in it, and that's about it. I can't bring my dad back to life for the holidays, just because I want to get to know him better and didn't get the chance while he was alive. I can't make the Canadian border guards the friendly people they were ten years ago because I want to visit the States more often. I can't magically lower my mom's cholesterol and tell her she can eat as much creamy French food as she wants. These are wishes that won't survive being hurled against the rocky North Atlantic shoreline of reality.
Denial is just fear. We are afraid of not being loved so we don't share ourselves fully with our partner. We are afraid of sounding foolish, so we don't speak our minds. We are afraid of making a mistake, so we shirk responsibility and pass the buck. When we find the strength to admit our weakness, ignorance, or inability, then we can love, grow, and learn. It's a pretty tight loop, that can spiral out in a closed life of fear or an open life with love and freedom.
When we choose the open path and expand like the frontier of the universe, it's beautiful because nothing is lacking. When we pick up any self-help book that is worth it's salt, and take the advice (which is the same in all of them) to heart, we can return to the moment we're in and stop fearfully traveling to the past and the future all the time. In this moment, we can be free - free to take some distance from our incessant monkey minds swinging from tree to tree. This freedom is empowering, and we can begin again to do what we want with our lives, unburdened by our usual baggage which is momentarily gone. We can create inertia in new directions for our health and well-being. We can imagine, with positivity, getting from where we are to where we want to be. We can begin to heal - ourselves, each other, the neighborhood, the planet. It's pretty groovy and organic (did I just write that? :-) and pretty mind-blowingly liberating.
The full quote is something roughly like:
Be grateful for what you have,
Rejoice in how things are.
When you realize nothing is lacking,
The world belongs to you.
All this being written, I still have to get up each day, remind myself of it, and try to stay in a good headspace. It's a beautiful struggle - sometimes I find joy in remembering that we are all doing the best we can. Sometimes I get depressed with that same thought when I read about American nuclear policy or see half of my fellow gym members oogling celebrity news about who Drew Barrymore was making out with. I know, however, that we are all doing good things and trying with the most courage we can muster. Sometimes I wonder if we will make it. I wonder if we'll be able to effect change on a big enough scale to "save ourselves" before it's too late, or if each of us as individuals will be able to lead full and satisfying lives without regrets.
Then, on the good days, with the frost on the grass and the sun slipping through spindly branches, I know that we will certainly make it. I smell the tea, and remember that there's no way we can't make it. Let's go back to our breath and start again. That's where it all begins.
It's hard to remember that nothing is lacking. It's hard to remember that where we're at is where we're at. The Madison Ave. folks want us to buy our kids toys for Christmas, either Chinese or unleaded. Just after New Years, as we sign in to email, we'll have an image of someone who is not at all overweight telling us that she wants to lose those holiday inches. Some days we wake up to find a close friend or even ourselves on anti-depressants, never believing before that moment that it was necessary. We see headlines about disasters that we'd love to help alleviate, but we're so busy we don't know where to begin. Unusually warm weather makes us all a bit nervous, because we don't know if we can count on past years to know the future. And in our heads, we tell ourselves the stories that we've told all our lives about how the world works, what we can and can't do, and why life "doesn't work like that."
Regardless of the tempests in Bangladesh and in our teacups, nothing is lacking because the world can't be any other way than it is. We get to choose to accept or deny the world and our place in it, and that's about it. I can't bring my dad back to life for the holidays, just because I want to get to know him better and didn't get the chance while he was alive. I can't make the Canadian border guards the friendly people they were ten years ago because I want to visit the States more often. I can't magically lower my mom's cholesterol and tell her she can eat as much creamy French food as she wants. These are wishes that won't survive being hurled against the rocky North Atlantic shoreline of reality.
Denial is just fear. We are afraid of not being loved so we don't share ourselves fully with our partner. We are afraid of sounding foolish, so we don't speak our minds. We are afraid of making a mistake, so we shirk responsibility and pass the buck. When we find the strength to admit our weakness, ignorance, or inability, then we can love, grow, and learn. It's a pretty tight loop, that can spiral out in a closed life of fear or an open life with love and freedom.
When we choose the open path and expand like the frontier of the universe, it's beautiful because nothing is lacking. When we pick up any self-help book that is worth it's salt, and take the advice (which is the same in all of them) to heart, we can return to the moment we're in and stop fearfully traveling to the past and the future all the time. In this moment, we can be free - free to take some distance from our incessant monkey minds swinging from tree to tree. This freedom is empowering, and we can begin again to do what we want with our lives, unburdened by our usual baggage which is momentarily gone. We can create inertia in new directions for our health and well-being. We can imagine, with positivity, getting from where we are to where we want to be. We can begin to heal - ourselves, each other, the neighborhood, the planet. It's pretty groovy and organic (did I just write that? :-) and pretty mind-blowingly liberating.
The full quote is something roughly like:
Be grateful for what you have,
Rejoice in how things are.
When you realize nothing is lacking,
The world belongs to you.
All this being written, I still have to get up each day, remind myself of it, and try to stay in a good headspace. It's a beautiful struggle - sometimes I find joy in remembering that we are all doing the best we can. Sometimes I get depressed with that same thought when I read about American nuclear policy or see half of my fellow gym members oogling celebrity news about who Drew Barrymore was making out with. I know, however, that we are all doing good things and trying with the most courage we can muster. Sometimes I wonder if we will make it. I wonder if we'll be able to effect change on a big enough scale to "save ourselves" before it's too late, or if each of us as individuals will be able to lead full and satisfying lives without regrets.
Then, on the good days, with the frost on the grass and the sun slipping through spindly branches, I know that we will certainly make it. I smell the tea, and remember that there's no way we can't make it. Let's go back to our breath and start again. That's where it all begins.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
identity and action
Yesterday, I saw something in the news that I can't forget. Some women (prostitutes, I believe) in El Alto, Bolivia, sewed their lips together with actual thread as part of a hunger strike to pressure the mayor into re-opening brothels and bars there. They were threatening to bury themselves alive the next day (today) if they were not granted their demands. There was no follow up story today that I could find anywhere about the women in Bolivia. I think the original story had appeared under Odd News, and that's probably where it's laid to rest forever.
What does it mean to have something you believe in so much that you would sew your lips shut and threaten to bury yourself to get it? Is that passion or confusion or illusion? As I sit here in my North American comfy enclave, what is so dear to me that I would lay my life down to protect it or protest it? I think of the monks who set themselves on fire to draw attention to their pleas to end the Vietnam war, and the Burmese monks recently who marched in the streets as their government blacked out communications so the world wouldn't see the protesters being killed. I can't even imagine what that is like, to believe so much that you need to give up your life in a dramatic, traumatic way for a cause. I think of all the actions we take like changing light bulbs to fluorescents, eating more local food, buying recycled toilet paper, etc., and I think of people taking their own lives.
While reading that article, I was also reminded of the old familiar quote that we are the ones we've been waiting for. It's true - we are the ones. Those women in Bolivia are at the rock bottom of the totem pole, and they have to help themselves because no one else is going to. But what about us in the plugged-in, developed world? I hear stories of shocked scientists watching the icecaps melt, I read about Iran getting set up by the U.S. for another war, I see vapid talk shows with MILLIONS of viewers, I see pictures of Europe baking in the heat more each summer, I hear about drug companies manufacturing drugs to treat a condition that is known to simply be the side effect of taking multiple other antidepressants. Even with all these problems, we still are the ones we've been waiting for. It is tempting to think it's someone else, but actually there's just a mirror there when we turn around.
So now that we've been waiting for ourselves, and we've arrived, what will we do with our new found selves? I often get stuck in the conundrum of pondering how much is enough. If I write lots of letters of concern to everyone I can think of about global warming, but the planet keeps warming, have I done enough? Am I supposed to give up my life and sew my lips shut until the planet cools down again? Do I try to recruit others to take such a stand with me? If the scope and complexity of the problem are bigger than we can even imagine, what do we do then? Make small contributions and hope for the best? On my good days, I can do this and remember to breathe and go to bed at night with a smile. On my rougher days, I burn desperately inside for an answer as to how best to live my life to address all these concerns - how can I keep abortion legal, how can I contribute to shrinking the population, how can I get Chinese folks to NOT aspire to North American middle class lifestyles, how can I help more people to get on their bikes.
I think as people we want to know if we've done enough. We know if we've put in the appropriate effort to host a dinner party - we made dinner, cleaned up the place, played nice music, everyone had a good time. We know if we've crossed out t's and dotted our i's on the tax return, and send it in feeling restful. We know if we've practiced frisbee enough by going to the game, handling it well, and winning. But how do we know if we're doing enough to solve issues way bigger than ourselves, issues that seem so complex because they involve the different thoughts and actions of millions or billions of individuals who aren't necessarily on the same page? What do we do if the situation is so complex that we don't know how to solve it because we don't even understand it fully?
I don't have any answers this evening as I look out my window at the full moon. I did enough to win at ultimate frisbee tonight, and I'm tired. I know that I had some good one-to-one interactions today, where we both smiled and came away feeling better. I know that they were enough. I cleaned the kitchen to ease my mind, and I hope it was enough. I biked instead of driving for a few kilometers, and that felt like a start. I wrote this entry tonight, and am too tired to write more, so I know it has to be enough for now. May you ask the hard questions, and find peace too...
What does it mean to have something you believe in so much that you would sew your lips shut and threaten to bury yourself to get it? Is that passion or confusion or illusion? As I sit here in my North American comfy enclave, what is so dear to me that I would lay my life down to protect it or protest it? I think of the monks who set themselves on fire to draw attention to their pleas to end the Vietnam war, and the Burmese monks recently who marched in the streets as their government blacked out communications so the world wouldn't see the protesters being killed. I can't even imagine what that is like, to believe so much that you need to give up your life in a dramatic, traumatic way for a cause. I think of all the actions we take like changing light bulbs to fluorescents, eating more local food, buying recycled toilet paper, etc., and I think of people taking their own lives.
While reading that article, I was also reminded of the old familiar quote that we are the ones we've been waiting for. It's true - we are the ones. Those women in Bolivia are at the rock bottom of the totem pole, and they have to help themselves because no one else is going to. But what about us in the plugged-in, developed world? I hear stories of shocked scientists watching the icecaps melt, I read about Iran getting set up by the U.S. for another war, I see vapid talk shows with MILLIONS of viewers, I see pictures of Europe baking in the heat more each summer, I hear about drug companies manufacturing drugs to treat a condition that is known to simply be the side effect of taking multiple other antidepressants. Even with all these problems, we still are the ones we've been waiting for. It is tempting to think it's someone else, but actually there's just a mirror there when we turn around.
So now that we've been waiting for ourselves, and we've arrived, what will we do with our new found selves? I often get stuck in the conundrum of pondering how much is enough. If I write lots of letters of concern to everyone I can think of about global warming, but the planet keeps warming, have I done enough? Am I supposed to give up my life and sew my lips shut until the planet cools down again? Do I try to recruit others to take such a stand with me? If the scope and complexity of the problem are bigger than we can even imagine, what do we do then? Make small contributions and hope for the best? On my good days, I can do this and remember to breathe and go to bed at night with a smile. On my rougher days, I burn desperately inside for an answer as to how best to live my life to address all these concerns - how can I keep abortion legal, how can I contribute to shrinking the population, how can I get Chinese folks to NOT aspire to North American middle class lifestyles, how can I help more people to get on their bikes.
I think as people we want to know if we've done enough. We know if we've put in the appropriate effort to host a dinner party - we made dinner, cleaned up the place, played nice music, everyone had a good time. We know if we've crossed out t's and dotted our i's on the tax return, and send it in feeling restful. We know if we've practiced frisbee enough by going to the game, handling it well, and winning. But how do we know if we're doing enough to solve issues way bigger than ourselves, issues that seem so complex because they involve the different thoughts and actions of millions or billions of individuals who aren't necessarily on the same page? What do we do if the situation is so complex that we don't know how to solve it because we don't even understand it fully?
I don't have any answers this evening as I look out my window at the full moon. I did enough to win at ultimate frisbee tonight, and I'm tired. I know that I had some good one-to-one interactions today, where we both smiled and came away feeling better. I know that they were enough. I cleaned the kitchen to ease my mind, and I hope it was enough. I biked instead of driving for a few kilometers, and that felt like a start. I wrote this entry tonight, and am too tired to write more, so I know it has to be enough for now. May you ask the hard questions, and find peace too...
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Keeping your neighborhood atoms together
There are a lot of babies in my life right now. My friends Greg and Shana have a one-month old boy named Forrest, who is quite adorable and lively. An old friend in Chicago gave birth at the beginning of summer to a girl, Taryn, whom I have yet to meet but is pretty photogenic so far. And my old friend Natascha gave birth way back in April to her first son, Ian, who I am very excited to meet on my next visit to D.C. Yes, this autumn will be full of changing leaves and changing diapers, frosts and knit hats to stay warm, and hundreds or thousands of digital photographs carrying baby news like Mercury to the far corners of the world.
All these babies make me think of the future. I think about them growing up, scraping elbows, going on first dates, and differentiating themselves from us, their predecessors, who are shaping their future as we live in the present. I think about what they'll say of our current actions, once we've rolled the dice and gone ahead with our best laid plans. What will 20 years of hindsight tell them about what we're doing now?
I look back on the generation before me and what they did, and scratch my head a lot. Buddhism expanded in the United States, and became part of the popular culture. Star Wars was a movie and a national defensive strategy (that sadly has yet to really die). Some diseases were eradicated in parts of the world; others came on strong in new ways. There was an "energy crisis," the president called us out to conserve and think differently, and we replaced him with a teflon-coated actor. People who wanted to drop out of the System formed fringe communities - some failed, some persist, many are still trying new variations. Recycling programs spread around the country and the world.
Why all this retrospect in my blog? I was sweating out a tough 55 minutes on the stairmaster a few weeks ago, flipping through Maclean's (a pretty thoughtful Canadian current events magazine). Just when I thought my heart rate couldn't go higher, I turned to a feature story about the return of nuclear energy. The instructions on the machine said to stop if I became "faint, dizzy, or short of breath." So I closed the magazine and pretended that I hadn't seen it, and felt much better as I finished my workout.
Where did nuclear go and what's going on with it now? After the meltdown incidents at Three Mile Island and then Chernobyl, it seemed like you couldn't get any more three-inch deck screws into the coffin of nuclear energy. Everybody "knew" you couldn't trust it any further than you can throw it - and heavy water is pretty heavy. Who wants their milk to double as the refrigerator light? (Cows in the fallout zone of Chernobyl... you get it.) Leaky storage drums in Nevada and Tibet continue to poison water supplies. No one could promise the problems would stop. So we turned to other alternatives to experiment with - solar, wind, those funky wave-motion-capturing turbines offshore, etc. - but mostly just stuck with coal, natural gas, and oil. Existing nuclear plants have been kept online, but no new ones have been built in the US for decades and expired ones (they do expire) are decommissioned and dismantled in a lengthy process.
It seems, however, that we the public are getting more upset about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change due to burning fossil fuels. Storms, heat waves, and droughts are becoming common enough to merit at least a bit of attention to our plight on this tiny ball we call home. So the Big Decision makers are getting ramped up to sell nuclear energy as the cleaner, "greener" option for meeting our energy needs in the future.
Here's my concern: nothing has changed. The laws of physics still dictate the properties of fission and radioactive waste. We still haven't found a better way to deal with nuclear waste than to bury it really deep in the ground. We still can't guarantee anything, and certainly not reactors that won't melt down or crack in an earthquake or discharge radioactive water as a byproduct of the fission process. People are still people, with plenty of room for human error in all that we undertake.
If anything, I feel that it's a more dangerous time than ever to undertake the rebirth of nuclear power. For one thing, the competition is tighter and there are more of us than ever converting more energy and stuff than ever before. Some people estimate that China may build up to 40 new nuclear reactors in the next two decades. I'll love to meet anyone besides a nuclear energy company CEO or energy-strapped Chinese bureaucrat who will sleep better with that information. I mean, it's not like modern Chinese economic development as led them to cut corners to get ahead in the capitalist game, has it? I'm sure they wouldn't cut any corners in rushing to get new sources of electricity for their booming economy. (I managed to bring a little sarcasm with me to Canada - I hid it in a secret compartment of my suitcase.)
It's not just about building reactors in the developing world, though. Building dozens of new reactors around the world simply increases the chances of a meltdown or failure anywhere in the world. The fuel is hazardous to mine, transport, use, and discard. Just like all our activities in God's ant farm, we'll be doing things faster than ever before in a political, sociological, and climatic environment that we don't come close to fully understanding. More of everything at a faster pace means more possibilities for the unknown to happen.
Why am I worrying about the unknown possibilities in the future? Why am I being "anti-technology" and dredging up spook stories? It's all about those babies I see smiling back from my friends' photos. If you build the reactors, use the uranium, and bury it in the ground (or worse yet have another disaster), you can't go back. Let's ease off on the throttle and talk about the precautionary principle a bit. If in doubt, don't do it. Proceed slowly, especially when we can threaten our own existence.
Let's get the MTBE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBE) out of the water and dioxin out of the breast milk (two other legacies we could do without but can't get away from) and then talk about introducing other novel compounds into our lives. Let's give the plywood a chance to finish off-gassing and the paints a chance to disperse their VOCs. Let's talk about conservation (someone go get that peanut farmer Carter and bring him back) and reducing our footprints. Let's talk about cutting back our own population numbers significantly so we won't have such a huge demand for electricity that we split atoms to get it. Let's talk about per capita use, the have's and the have-not's, and who's using our current energy supplies for what purposes. (Some folks in Canada want to build a group of nuclear reactors simple to process the oil sands in Alberta to get crude oil out.)
As always, let's talk about the future we want and whether or not our current actions are getting us there. I want to see us collectively chill out until we get to a place where we can tell our children that we're finally erring on the side of caution.
This blog dedicated to Taryn - you can see she's either concerned about nuclear power or she's just thinking about breast feeding. It's hard to tell. Either way, I want her future to be safe.
All these babies make me think of the future. I think about them growing up, scraping elbows, going on first dates, and differentiating themselves from us, their predecessors, who are shaping their future as we live in the present. I think about what they'll say of our current actions, once we've rolled the dice and gone ahead with our best laid plans. What will 20 years of hindsight tell them about what we're doing now?
I look back on the generation before me and what they did, and scratch my head a lot. Buddhism expanded in the United States, and became part of the popular culture. Star Wars was a movie and a national defensive strategy (that sadly has yet to really die). Some diseases were eradicated in parts of the world; others came on strong in new ways. There was an "energy crisis," the president called us out to conserve and think differently, and we replaced him with a teflon-coated actor. People who wanted to drop out of the System formed fringe communities - some failed, some persist, many are still trying new variations. Recycling programs spread around the country and the world.
Why all this retrospect in my blog? I was sweating out a tough 55 minutes on the stairmaster a few weeks ago, flipping through Maclean's (a pretty thoughtful Canadian current events magazine). Just when I thought my heart rate couldn't go higher, I turned to a feature story about the return of nuclear energy. The instructions on the machine said to stop if I became "faint, dizzy, or short of breath." So I closed the magazine and pretended that I hadn't seen it, and felt much better as I finished my workout.
Where did nuclear go and what's going on with it now? After the meltdown incidents at Three Mile Island and then Chernobyl, it seemed like you couldn't get any more three-inch deck screws into the coffin of nuclear energy. Everybody "knew" you couldn't trust it any further than you can throw it - and heavy water is pretty heavy. Who wants their milk to double as the refrigerator light? (Cows in the fallout zone of Chernobyl... you get it.) Leaky storage drums in Nevada and Tibet continue to poison water supplies. No one could promise the problems would stop. So we turned to other alternatives to experiment with - solar, wind, those funky wave-motion-capturing turbines offshore, etc. - but mostly just stuck with coal, natural gas, and oil. Existing nuclear plants have been kept online, but no new ones have been built in the US for decades and expired ones (they do expire) are decommissioned and dismantled in a lengthy process.
It seems, however, that we the public are getting more upset about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change due to burning fossil fuels. Storms, heat waves, and droughts are becoming common enough to merit at least a bit of attention to our plight on this tiny ball we call home. So the Big Decision makers are getting ramped up to sell nuclear energy as the cleaner, "greener" option for meeting our energy needs in the future.
Here's my concern: nothing has changed. The laws of physics still dictate the properties of fission and radioactive waste. We still haven't found a better way to deal with nuclear waste than to bury it really deep in the ground. We still can't guarantee anything, and certainly not reactors that won't melt down or crack in an earthquake or discharge radioactive water as a byproduct of the fission process. People are still people, with plenty of room for human error in all that we undertake.
If anything, I feel that it's a more dangerous time than ever to undertake the rebirth of nuclear power. For one thing, the competition is tighter and there are more of us than ever converting more energy and stuff than ever before. Some people estimate that China may build up to 40 new nuclear reactors in the next two decades. I'll love to meet anyone besides a nuclear energy company CEO or energy-strapped Chinese bureaucrat who will sleep better with that information. I mean, it's not like modern Chinese economic development as led them to cut corners to get ahead in the capitalist game, has it? I'm sure they wouldn't cut any corners in rushing to get new sources of electricity for their booming economy. (I managed to bring a little sarcasm with me to Canada - I hid it in a secret compartment of my suitcase.)
It's not just about building reactors in the developing world, though. Building dozens of new reactors around the world simply increases the chances of a meltdown or failure anywhere in the world. The fuel is hazardous to mine, transport, use, and discard. Just like all our activities in God's ant farm, we'll be doing things faster than ever before in a political, sociological, and climatic environment that we don't come close to fully understanding. More of everything at a faster pace means more possibilities for the unknown to happen.
Why am I worrying about the unknown possibilities in the future? Why am I being "anti-technology" and dredging up spook stories? It's all about those babies I see smiling back from my friends' photos. If you build the reactors, use the uranium, and bury it in the ground (or worse yet have another disaster), you can't go back. Let's ease off on the throttle and talk about the precautionary principle a bit. If in doubt, don't do it. Proceed slowly, especially when we can threaten our own existence.
Let's get the MTBE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBE) out of the water and dioxin out of the breast milk (two other legacies we could do without but can't get away from) and then talk about introducing other novel compounds into our lives. Let's give the plywood a chance to finish off-gassing and the paints a chance to disperse their VOCs. Let's talk about conservation (someone go get that peanut farmer Carter and bring him back) and reducing our footprints. Let's talk about cutting back our own population numbers significantly so we won't have such a huge demand for electricity that we split atoms to get it. Let's talk about per capita use, the have's and the have-not's, and who's using our current energy supplies for what purposes. (Some folks in Canada want to build a group of nuclear reactors simple to process the oil sands in Alberta to get crude oil out.)
As always, let's talk about the future we want and whether or not our current actions are getting us there. I want to see us collectively chill out until we get to a place where we can tell our children that we're finally erring on the side of caution.
This blog dedicated to Taryn - you can see she's either concerned about nuclear power or she's just thinking about breast feeding. It's hard to tell. Either way, I want her future to be safe.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
give your teeth that competitive edge
I woke up this sweet July morning, turned on my computer, got dressed, and squandered my few spare minutes reading the news story about drug tests and scandal on the Tour de France. Seems like in the wake of Lance Armstrong being such a gifted athlete and dominating force in the sport, things have gotten a little rough. Two riders were disqualified for failing blood doping tests, and the leader going into stage 17 was removed by his own team for missing two drug tests in the months leading up to the race. There was a lot of sound and fury in the article, with one Frenchman even being quoted as saying it's time to stop holding the race which has been going on for more than a century. The race continues on, but the tone of the article implied that everyone was shaken. I hustled down the stairs, stepped onto my bike, and pedaled out to our community garden to harvest zucchini with my friend Neil.
My first thought on reading this story was: Chinese toothpaste. The connection lies in competing to get ahead in a world with more competitors and a decreased feeling that we're all playing by any agreed upon rules. Remember the scandal with the Chinese toothpaste (not to mention bad pet food and other products) in the past few months? Some small production facilities had been cranking out toothpaste sweetened with an antifreeze additive, because it was cheaper and considered by some to be "not harmful in small quantities." They shipped it to America, Canada, and probably elsewhere with labels saying it was manufactured in South Africa. People bought it (mostly in discount stores, I believe), used it, got sick, and the investigations began. The ending to that small chapter in human history was the execution of the head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration.
Much like the Tour scandal, there was much hubbub about tainted products coming from China. How could this happen? Where are the regulatory folks checking on the production of these goods? How could someone knowingly send out products with toxins in them for consumption by other people and their pets?
My take on it is this: I doubt there was anyone in China or elsewhere who was looking to poison people. I doubt anyone in the Tour de France was looking to shame the professional athletic community in the public's view. I clearly see two cases of people trying to get ahead by attempting to take advantage of loopholes in the system. If no one is looking, and I can gain a competitive edge in my profession by bending or breaking some arbitrary rules, why not take a risk? The reward is big - fame, fortune, a few more dollars to take home at the end of every day. Some might say that we have rules to make things more fair and even, but when you look at the news, the world is full of the powerful acting on their own agendas without regard for fairness. We make exploitative trade deals, lay land mines in third party countries, dump cheap commodities in foreign markets, cook the books at our respective Fortune 500 company, etc.
I think it's important to once again acknowledge that there are a lot of us on this green and blue sphere streaked with white that orbits the sun. We're still increasing our numbers all the time, with more of us struggling to get the finite goods, both real and imagined. There are more people waiting to be on professional sports teams, and more people pounding it up the mountain to get that yellow jersey, so you've got to be better to keep your spot. There are other facilities all over the world who will gladly supply cheap toothpaste and dog food if you can't do it at the right price. In this kind of environment, if we don't cut corners to get ahead, it's foolish to think that no one else will. Feeling shocked each time a scandal is discovered is an empty gesture that leaves us in the same place again and again. If we want to change our situation, we need to start our 12 step program as a global village and admit that we have a problem.
Where do we go from here? I have no idea, but I find that can never go too wrong returning to a smaller-scale life. How can I work to feel like I'm competing less with strangers 10,000 miles away? When I'm up in the garden, knee-deep (literally!) in bush beans, I can't imagine selling antifreeze-laced toothpaste to another human being. Maybe it's just the beta carotene going to my head, but as I much on a carrot I've just pulled up and gaze out over brilliant yellow mustard fields, I really don't want the U.S. to dump excess dairy products on other countries (like Jamaica, India, and others) and drive their farmers out of a livelihood. When I'm playing ultimate frisbee with friends, and I'm chasing down the disk like a manic golden retriever, the farthest thing from my mind is taking steroids just to get a slight edge on the others. Frankly, I'd much rather lose and go home happy...
Wherever you are, take one step local this week - meet someone at the coffee shop, buy from the farmer's market and meet the grower, talk with a person who looks lonely, do whatever inspires you to make your world a little...smaller.
ps - gotta get it out there - I just discovered that the dental floss that I love, Crest Glide, that super smooth awesome-feeling stuff, is Teflon coated. So, if you use it, I recommend reconsidering. Dupont says Teflon is safe, but the people living downstream from the factory in Ohio beg to differ. Cancer! I recommend a nice unwaxed, unflavored one. May your gums be pink and firm.
Chris and Jeff ponder floss and how to go local
My first thought on reading this story was: Chinese toothpaste. The connection lies in competing to get ahead in a world with more competitors and a decreased feeling that we're all playing by any agreed upon rules. Remember the scandal with the Chinese toothpaste (not to mention bad pet food and other products) in the past few months? Some small production facilities had been cranking out toothpaste sweetened with an antifreeze additive, because it was cheaper and considered by some to be "not harmful in small quantities." They shipped it to America, Canada, and probably elsewhere with labels saying it was manufactured in South Africa. People bought it (mostly in discount stores, I believe), used it, got sick, and the investigations began. The ending to that small chapter in human history was the execution of the head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration.
Much like the Tour scandal, there was much hubbub about tainted products coming from China. How could this happen? Where are the regulatory folks checking on the production of these goods? How could someone knowingly send out products with toxins in them for consumption by other people and their pets?
My take on it is this: I doubt there was anyone in China or elsewhere who was looking to poison people. I doubt anyone in the Tour de France was looking to shame the professional athletic community in the public's view. I clearly see two cases of people trying to get ahead by attempting to take advantage of loopholes in the system. If no one is looking, and I can gain a competitive edge in my profession by bending or breaking some arbitrary rules, why not take a risk? The reward is big - fame, fortune, a few more dollars to take home at the end of every day. Some might say that we have rules to make things more fair and even, but when you look at the news, the world is full of the powerful acting on their own agendas without regard for fairness. We make exploitative trade deals, lay land mines in third party countries, dump cheap commodities in foreign markets, cook the books at our respective Fortune 500 company, etc.
I think it's important to once again acknowledge that there are a lot of us on this green and blue sphere streaked with white that orbits the sun. We're still increasing our numbers all the time, with more of us struggling to get the finite goods, both real and imagined. There are more people waiting to be on professional sports teams, and more people pounding it up the mountain to get that yellow jersey, so you've got to be better to keep your spot. There are other facilities all over the world who will gladly supply cheap toothpaste and dog food if you can't do it at the right price. In this kind of environment, if we don't cut corners to get ahead, it's foolish to think that no one else will. Feeling shocked each time a scandal is discovered is an empty gesture that leaves us in the same place again and again. If we want to change our situation, we need to start our 12 step program as a global village and admit that we have a problem.
Where do we go from here? I have no idea, but I find that can never go too wrong returning to a smaller-scale life. How can I work to feel like I'm competing less with strangers 10,000 miles away? When I'm up in the garden, knee-deep (literally!) in bush beans, I can't imagine selling antifreeze-laced toothpaste to another human being. Maybe it's just the beta carotene going to my head, but as I much on a carrot I've just pulled up and gaze out over brilliant yellow mustard fields, I really don't want the U.S. to dump excess dairy products on other countries (like Jamaica, India, and others) and drive their farmers out of a livelihood. When I'm playing ultimate frisbee with friends, and I'm chasing down the disk like a manic golden retriever, the farthest thing from my mind is taking steroids just to get a slight edge on the others. Frankly, I'd much rather lose and go home happy...
Wherever you are, take one step local this week - meet someone at the coffee shop, buy from the farmer's market and meet the grower, talk with a person who looks lonely, do whatever inspires you to make your world a little...smaller.
ps - gotta get it out there - I just discovered that the dental floss that I love, Crest Glide, that super smooth awesome-feeling stuff, is Teflon coated. So, if you use it, I recommend reconsidering. Dupont says Teflon is safe, but the people living downstream from the factory in Ohio beg to differ. Cancer! I recommend a nice unwaxed, unflavored one. May your gums be pink and firm.
Chris and Jeff ponder floss and how to go localTuesday, July 10, 2007
Walking Shoes of Spanish Leather
I put one ear down to the tracks and one up to the sky of faint silver clouds rolling across the powder blue twilight. I can hear it stretching away from me in both directions forever, the slightly rounded I-beam that carries oranges, timber, and eager lovers with a gentle sway across the countryside. I hear the thunderous logs coming east from clear-cuts on the west coast, sometimes so big you could see them from the space shuttle in orbit. I can hear hopeful fishermen turned migrants headed back west, exchanging empty seas for full tar sands in a surreal swap meet. It's all too much, so I crunch back a few steps on the gravel path and lean against the sturdy, taken for granted brick wall in the moist summer evening. It's cool and earthen and red, I can feel all that through my imported disposable t-shirt. I close my eyes and smile from my pre-frontal cortex on down, thinking of the sweet apples I carry home from market on this very path on Saturday mornings. The moonlight gently washes the outside of my eyelids and the inside of my neural pathways, and I slide into some peace under this night sky that I shared with you wherever you were. For just a moment, it's all too perfect - the tender balance of joy, creation, entropy, and absence of meaning in the ebb and flow of this big bang that we find ourselves in the middle of. It's so sweet I'm afraid to upset it, breathing gently in and out of my nose and cradling this balance where I've come to rest, both sides of the scale filled with equal gold and tears.
Questions alight and dance gently on the great grey angst machine inside my skull, but flit on into the open arms of a broad purple sky robust with twinkling yellow stars that gave it all to reach us with their message of beautiful silence. Touched by their persistent footsteps, I cannot hold my ground but only place my palms gently down on the pavement beyond my knees. I slip out of the moment slowly, with a little regret and a tiny smile, thinking of warm fresh bread, kissing and being kissed, bicylce repairs, sailing winches, and how great it is to have local sweet potatoes even up here. I can feel the cosmic non-coincidence of faint vibrations, and hear the horn of the train. A warm breeze blows down the rail corridor, just ahead of the iron horse, and I see the sweet yellow lights of people who can't see me in the darkness. The bright fluorescent lights show me infitesimally small slices of life - a young, wild haired couple leans toward each other, a conductor leans idle in the alcove at the end of the car, a newspaper page is being turned, and the wake of the train is only the futile attempt of noise to leave its mark on the pressing, animated silence.
If only I could remember this passing of time, the universe providing a quiet mirror with no frame, then I could pocket my zen and stroll under the maples, oaks, and ash trees, holding your hand and admiring the brownstones and gently rubbing the brief bit of enlightenment in my pocket between thumb and forefinger. Instead, the search begins again and again, and perhaps we can lose ourselves in that together...
Questions alight and dance gently on the great grey angst machine inside my skull, but flit on into the open arms of a broad purple sky robust with twinkling yellow stars that gave it all to reach us with their message of beautiful silence. Touched by their persistent footsteps, I cannot hold my ground but only place my palms gently down on the pavement beyond my knees. I slip out of the moment slowly, with a little regret and a tiny smile, thinking of warm fresh bread, kissing and being kissed, bicylce repairs, sailing winches, and how great it is to have local sweet potatoes even up here. I can feel the cosmic non-coincidence of faint vibrations, and hear the horn of the train. A warm breeze blows down the rail corridor, just ahead of the iron horse, and I see the sweet yellow lights of people who can't see me in the darkness. The bright fluorescent lights show me infitesimally small slices of life - a young, wild haired couple leans toward each other, a conductor leans idle in the alcove at the end of the car, a newspaper page is being turned, and the wake of the train is only the futile attempt of noise to leave its mark on the pressing, animated silence.
If only I could remember this passing of time, the universe providing a quiet mirror with no frame, then I could pocket my zen and stroll under the maples, oaks, and ash trees, holding your hand and admiring the brownstones and gently rubbing the brief bit of enlightenment in my pocket between thumb and forefinger. Instead, the search begins again and again, and perhaps we can lose ourselves in that together...
Monday, June 04, 2007
roots up and evolve
It's crystal clear to me, the feeling filling and flowing out of my mundane marrow. the theme of reinvention is back - blasting with effervescence out of my mouth as I pound the stair stepping machine at the gym, glinting off the faint sharp smiles of bicyclists trying to outrun the gathering thunderstorm, I smell it from the sunburned trees on a planet with diminishing amounts of ozone, I see it in the bank of televisions where celebrities' boobs compete with dead children strewn in a nameless street, in a world where we STILL manufacture the lead additive that used to go in gasoline, I read it between the lines of economists setting national environmental policy, I hear it sliding down the ever-fresh powder at indoor ski resorts in desert countries, it lies behind the advice that you've got to see Las Vegas once before you die... The chance to reinvent is there in all the cognitive dissonance which is driving us crazy as a culture - every time we can't stomach something and see no one else working to change it, even though we're pretty sure they can't stomach it either.
is it so bad to be tired of fighting to preserve the world as we know it? is it so terrible to let it go? how much before we know it's enough? how many presidential elections do we need to see go past with a group of old white talking heads babbling about a smaller group of old white men who are constrained by other old white men behind the scenes? when do we get local - starting with our arteries and veins, our skin, our clothes, our loved ones, the houses we live in and the block we live on, our ideas about what will make us happy, our hopes and fears about companionship, our biological compulsions? when can we carry a global consciousness without sinking our lives into global struggles that are complexifying without end? when can we stop being co-opted out of radical action by putting energy into politicized debate between two meaningless, polarized options? when can we have the courage to see past the illusion of economic growth as salvation and see a significant downsizing of humanity's footprint as a basic starting point?
yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm some guy behind a computer screen who's belly-achin' about the world while he sits on his butt and types. But please listen, 'cause we've got to talk, gotta get some common ground in our public discussions, gotta get some science on the front pages mixed in with some talk about how we want the world to be in even as short a time as 50 years from now. I get nervous when I see bad science out there, I get nervous when I see an absence of long-term thinking in public policy, I get nervous when I feel the Us and Them mentality coming from us and them.
Where is all my angst coming from? My neighbor is a wonderfully sweet woman with an equally sweet five year old daughter. When I see Faeron, I want to be able to say that I did what I could today to make the world a more liveable place for her when she grows up. I really, really want that. I know we all do. But we're not doing that, nor do we really know how. There are so many people around the globe, living life based on such widely different sets of information (religious dogma, political dogma, fear of scarcity, gluttony of surplus, racist anger, etc.) that it's unimaginable to me to get us all on the same page. Could we even get close to a unified agenda to save ourselves? Could we get an agreed upon analysis of what we're doing in the ecosystem and what that might mean for our future? Could we admit to the darker, fearful part of ourselves and try to bring them out to the light of day?
I don't know, but I have hope. It's not hope grounded in a talk show host giving cars away to audience members for feel-good ratings. It's not pictures that kids drew with crayons showing how much they like endangered species. It's not about rebuilding New Orleans. It's not about Kyoto anything. It's about starting with small is beautiful. It's about waking up and remembering to be grateful to be alive and have all the things I have. It's about thinking about the consequences of my actions in the short and long term, and having the courage to follow my heart in choosing what to do. It's about the precautionary principle - going slow and taking it easy before doing things or creating new things with possibly huge ramifications. It's about the Hippocratic oath, and aiming to be kind. It's about turning off the 500 channels of vapid babble and turning to the person next to us instead. It's about discovering gentle and tough love inside ourselves. It's about leading thoughtful, informed lives where we take ownership for our actions. For me, it's about feeling like I'm in it with all of you - we can always do better when we help each other out. You're the one I've been waiting for...
is it so bad to be tired of fighting to preserve the world as we know it? is it so terrible to let it go? how much before we know it's enough? how many presidential elections do we need to see go past with a group of old white talking heads babbling about a smaller group of old white men who are constrained by other old white men behind the scenes? when do we get local - starting with our arteries and veins, our skin, our clothes, our loved ones, the houses we live in and the block we live on, our ideas about what will make us happy, our hopes and fears about companionship, our biological compulsions? when can we carry a global consciousness without sinking our lives into global struggles that are complexifying without end? when can we stop being co-opted out of radical action by putting energy into politicized debate between two meaningless, polarized options? when can we have the courage to see past the illusion of economic growth as salvation and see a significant downsizing of humanity's footprint as a basic starting point?
yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm some guy behind a computer screen who's belly-achin' about the world while he sits on his butt and types. But please listen, 'cause we've got to talk, gotta get some common ground in our public discussions, gotta get some science on the front pages mixed in with some talk about how we want the world to be in even as short a time as 50 years from now. I get nervous when I see bad science out there, I get nervous when I see an absence of long-term thinking in public policy, I get nervous when I feel the Us and Them mentality coming from us and them.
Where is all my angst coming from? My neighbor is a wonderfully sweet woman with an equally sweet five year old daughter. When I see Faeron, I want to be able to say that I did what I could today to make the world a more liveable place for her when she grows up. I really, really want that. I know we all do. But we're not doing that, nor do we really know how. There are so many people around the globe, living life based on such widely different sets of information (religious dogma, political dogma, fear of scarcity, gluttony of surplus, racist anger, etc.) that it's unimaginable to me to get us all on the same page. Could we even get close to a unified agenda to save ourselves? Could we get an agreed upon analysis of what we're doing in the ecosystem and what that might mean for our future? Could we admit to the darker, fearful part of ourselves and try to bring them out to the light of day?
I don't know, but I have hope. It's not hope grounded in a talk show host giving cars away to audience members for feel-good ratings. It's not pictures that kids drew with crayons showing how much they like endangered species. It's not about rebuilding New Orleans. It's not about Kyoto anything. It's about starting with small is beautiful. It's about waking up and remembering to be grateful to be alive and have all the things I have. It's about thinking about the consequences of my actions in the short and long term, and having the courage to follow my heart in choosing what to do. It's about the precautionary principle - going slow and taking it easy before doing things or creating new things with possibly huge ramifications. It's about the Hippocratic oath, and aiming to be kind. It's about turning off the 500 channels of vapid babble and turning to the person next to us instead. It's about discovering gentle and tough love inside ourselves. It's about leading thoughtful, informed lives where we take ownership for our actions. For me, it's about feeling like I'm in it with all of you - we can always do better when we help each other out. You're the one I've been waiting for...
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
tangled (perhaps beautiful) solipsism
rhapsodic explosion of late spring has swallowed the earth from the ground up with reiterative solos of lilac, tulips, and jasmine, some staccato storms to enhance the sweetness of John Cage silent grass growing thick and rich under the trembling oversized maples, we're walking on narrow paths of concrete, reduced to the background because the panning away shot reveals magnificence of nature overtaking us in budding and branching delight, at least in that fabled fourth dimension as we peer into the cloudy brass spyglass to vainly preview the future. summer holds forever secrets, unknowable to us probably even as they are realized and fade away, our prefrontal cortex trapped behind our eyes reveals only our narrowly imagined possibilities
our hands calloused from digging, tongues tired from healing, legs sleepy from walking, ears in rapture from believing all come together to lay out under the stars and join the dirt dandelions lawns, just for a moment tangential but different because of the coincidental variation in our atomic structure... watching tufted seeds drift as spring snow, I momentarily interpret reality as slowing, perhaps the universe has slowed it's acceleration outward away from us and is having a bit of buyer's remorse about committing to this whole Big Bang thing - why would it speed away from children with ice cream, puppies, wise smiles of the dying, the imprecise but perfect crash of tides, faded blue throw rugs in evening sunlight, a large group of homo sapiens trying to figure out the Mystery, bears inadvertently breeding apples with their choices, or a tired wooden bench by a still lake where we meet from time to time?
no messages, just a wafer thin cross section of the morning wrapped in wondering just how much we'll ever know, and how much divine action there is to appreciate on this unique sphere that carries all of our dream shots out over the fences in left field...
our hands calloused from digging, tongues tired from healing, legs sleepy from walking, ears in rapture from believing all come together to lay out under the stars and join the dirt dandelions lawns, just for a moment tangential but different because of the coincidental variation in our atomic structure... watching tufted seeds drift as spring snow, I momentarily interpret reality as slowing, perhaps the universe has slowed it's acceleration outward away from us and is having a bit of buyer's remorse about committing to this whole Big Bang thing - why would it speed away from children with ice cream, puppies, wise smiles of the dying, the imprecise but perfect crash of tides, faded blue throw rugs in evening sunlight, a large group of homo sapiens trying to figure out the Mystery, bears inadvertently breeding apples with their choices, or a tired wooden bench by a still lake where we meet from time to time?
no messages, just a wafer thin cross section of the morning wrapped in wondering just how much we'll ever know, and how much divine action there is to appreciate on this unique sphere that carries all of our dream shots out over the fences in left field...
Saturday, May 05, 2007
thousands of words
A few pictures for visual tidbits of where my life and southern Ontario overlap. Hmmm... where to begin?
One of the many splendid views of the Georgian Bay from the cliffs along the shore. This is part of the Niagara Escarpment - a jagged seam of tectonic goodness that runs up through New York state (Ithaca Falls!) and through Ontario. It is what creates Niagara Falls, as well as the cliffs along the Bruce Peninsula where I am in this picture. It is the peninsula that sticks up between the Georgian Bay on it's east side and Lake Huron on the west side. If you're not sure where this is, don't worry - no one else in America is either (I didn't until I looked at the maps to go here). Get out the maps and brush up on the Great Lakes, and you'll see where I was at.
Another view of gorgeous coastline, in the Bruce Peninsula National Park. Look at how clear the water is! You really just want to jump right in, because it honestly looks like the Caribbean all along the shore, except for the large shelves of sedimentary rock that make up the beaches. If you were to dip your toes in, though, a balmy five degree Celsius bath would await you. We went in for a little less than a minute, and then dressed quickly in the sunshine. The days we visited were sunny but only 12 or 13 degrees Celsius. (Oh, why does Chris torture me so with SI units of temperature? Why??? Okay, it's 54 to 56 degrees Fahrenheit).
Me and my companion for three days in the beautiful, quiet, and peaceful environment of the Bruce Peninsula. Emily and I had a lovely time!
You know, after a long winter, you go and hop on your bike, and something's just not quite right. You realize that maybe you forgot to oil the chain in the fall or something like that - it's all frozen up and you just can't ride it.
Really, Ontario is just like anywhere else. You know, you go to a party where there's a soymilk tasting by the farmer who grew the organic soybeans himself and then made soymilk from them. It's totally like Palo Alto here. Even the weather is... really... well... um, see above picture of bike.
One of the many splendid views of the Georgian Bay from the cliffs along the shore. This is part of the Niagara Escarpment - a jagged seam of tectonic goodness that runs up through New York state (Ithaca Falls!) and through Ontario. It is what creates Niagara Falls, as well as the cliffs along the Bruce Peninsula where I am in this picture. It is the peninsula that sticks up between the Georgian Bay on it's east side and Lake Huron on the west side. If you're not sure where this is, don't worry - no one else in America is either (I didn't until I looked at the maps to go here). Get out the maps and brush up on the Great Lakes, and you'll see where I was at.Another view of gorgeous coastline, in the Bruce Peninsula National Park. Look at how clear the water is! You really just want to jump right in, because it honestly looks like the Caribbean all along the shore, except for the large shelves of sedimentary rock that make up the beaches. If you were to dip your toes in, though, a balmy five degree Celsius bath would await you. We went in for a little less than a minute, and then dressed quickly in the sunshine. The days we visited were sunny but only 12 or 13 degrees Celsius. (Oh, why does Chris torture me so with SI units of temperature? Why??? Okay, it's 54 to 56 degrees Fahrenheit).
Me and my companion for three days in the beautiful, quiet, and peaceful environment of the Bruce Peninsula. Emily and I had a lovely time!
Things besides these pictures - I'm learning to play guitar, learning how to make yogurt and cheese, practicing throwing more pottery on the wheel, planting a few trees, doing bike repairs, learning a bit about arborist work, planning a weekend bike tour, putting the "u" back in colour, and trying to keep myself out of trouble. What are you doing these days? Write and let me know...
Over, north, and out.
Monday, April 16, 2007
think globally, act splendidly
It's hard not to have some fear, in a world with more people all the time sharing a decreasing amount of good stuff. The math isn't rocket science - smaller pizza divided by more people at the party equals, at the least, an embarrassed host and more likely some hungry guests. But the ways in which we feel it manifest around us are numerous and constantly evolving like endless flakes in an April nor'easter.
Education - To get into university or graduate school, you have to look better than the other candidates, of whom there are more now than ever. Your parents know/feel this when they sign you up for competitive entry kindergarten programs that have homework and achievement tests (yikes!). The teenagers feel it when they do 163 extra-curricular activities on top of their already large homework burden. The college graduate feels it when she knows she has to come from a big name school, have excelled there, worked for the U.N., spent time doing field work with hardworking indigenous people somewhere below the equator, have 8 years work experience packed into 3, and have an undergraduate thesis as long as a Tolstoy novel. This is competition for a scarce resource (grad programs and big time schools) to ensure our seat at the table in a class- and scarcity- conscious society. I'm not speaking for or against schooling as an institution (eye-rolling is allowed here), but I think the education system is clearly being affected as it becomes a scarce resource.
Food - Speaks for itself. We see the images on TV still, with children far away not getting enough calories to survive and thrive. It's happening here in North America too, especially in big cities and in the rural South. I know we're all aware of how restaurants and stores toss food away, but how do we feel about throwing away food in a world of hungry folks? We're privileged by accident of being born where we were, and others are hungry because of the same random placement in countries that begin with the letter Z.
I'm not sure what to make of the scarcity thing, besides to recognize that we all feel it at the edge of our fields of vision. It's the background in the wars that rage about access to water and food, oil and minerals. It affects us here in housing prices in desirable neighborhoods, the gangs of politicians in L.A. and Phoenix engaged in turf wars for water control, huge numbers of applicants for underpaid non-profit menial jobs, paving national parks so more RVs can come in each year, oxygen bars to compensate for terrible air quality outdoors, and much more...
If nothing else, I see the manifest scarcity in the world as a call for cooperation and being honest with ourselves about our collective predicament. We can plan towards a more positive future if we accept where we're at, namely that there are more of us on the earth than the fragile ecosystem can ever support in a long-term sense (more than one more generation, I think). By positive, I'm not promising that all will be sunshine and suburban soccer leagues. Instead I mean acting based on the best information we have in the present, combined with wanting a healthy and satisfying future for all us homo sapiens, not a small group of us at the expense of others. I mean recognizing that working ever more feverishly to advance our immediate physical comfort and security, we are generally decreasing everyone's ability to have a liveable, pleasant future. Overfishing to stock up against a future famine doesn't make sense if we know that the fish stocks will soon collapse completely.
Let's bring talk of a more positive future into our personal discussions, the cocktail parties, the newspapers, the magazines, the streetcorners, and everywhere else. Let's ask the big questions - where are we on the timeline of human history in terms of resources? Where do we want to be headed? If we can't tell where we are or what's going on in the world around us, do we want to keep on the same path that has brought us here or do we want to change course? Let's look all the kids in the eye and think about what we'll have to tell them when they grow up about what we choose to do now.
(This post is dedicated to my friend Jeff in California, who has encouraged me to write with "more bite" about some of the ecological analysis that we've been talking about over the past 5 years. Thanks for the nudge :-)
Education - To get into university or graduate school, you have to look better than the other candidates, of whom there are more now than ever. Your parents know/feel this when they sign you up for competitive entry kindergarten programs that have homework and achievement tests (yikes!). The teenagers feel it when they do 163 extra-curricular activities on top of their already large homework burden. The college graduate feels it when she knows she has to come from a big name school, have excelled there, worked for the U.N., spent time doing field work with hardworking indigenous people somewhere below the equator, have 8 years work experience packed into 3, and have an undergraduate thesis as long as a Tolstoy novel. This is competition for a scarce resource (grad programs and big time schools) to ensure our seat at the table in a class- and scarcity- conscious society. I'm not speaking for or against schooling as an institution (eye-rolling is allowed here), but I think the education system is clearly being affected as it becomes a scarce resource.
Food - Speaks for itself. We see the images on TV still, with children far away not getting enough calories to survive and thrive. It's happening here in North America too, especially in big cities and in the rural South. I know we're all aware of how restaurants and stores toss food away, but how do we feel about throwing away food in a world of hungry folks? We're privileged by accident of being born where we were, and others are hungry because of the same random placement in countries that begin with the letter Z.
I'm not sure what to make of the scarcity thing, besides to recognize that we all feel it at the edge of our fields of vision. It's the background in the wars that rage about access to water and food, oil and minerals. It affects us here in housing prices in desirable neighborhoods, the gangs of politicians in L.A. and Phoenix engaged in turf wars for water control, huge numbers of applicants for underpaid non-profit menial jobs, paving national parks so more RVs can come in each year, oxygen bars to compensate for terrible air quality outdoors, and much more...
If nothing else, I see the manifest scarcity in the world as a call for cooperation and being honest with ourselves about our collective predicament. We can plan towards a more positive future if we accept where we're at, namely that there are more of us on the earth than the fragile ecosystem can ever support in a long-term sense (more than one more generation, I think). By positive, I'm not promising that all will be sunshine and suburban soccer leagues. Instead I mean acting based on the best information we have in the present, combined with wanting a healthy and satisfying future for all us homo sapiens, not a small group of us at the expense of others. I mean recognizing that working ever more feverishly to advance our immediate physical comfort and security, we are generally decreasing everyone's ability to have a liveable, pleasant future. Overfishing to stock up against a future famine doesn't make sense if we know that the fish stocks will soon collapse completely.
Let's bring talk of a more positive future into our personal discussions, the cocktail parties, the newspapers, the magazines, the streetcorners, and everywhere else. Let's ask the big questions - where are we on the timeline of human history in terms of resources? Where do we want to be headed? If we can't tell where we are or what's going on in the world around us, do we want to keep on the same path that has brought us here or do we want to change course? Let's look all the kids in the eye and think about what we'll have to tell them when they grow up about what we choose to do now.
(This post is dedicated to my friend Jeff in California, who has encouraged me to write with "more bite" about some of the ecological analysis that we've been talking about over the past 5 years. Thanks for the nudge :-)
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
seedlings in the window
Canada comes out swingin', brandishing a small April blizzard in a desperate attempt to reassert her identity as a cold country in the face of global climate change. Big wet snowflakes come streaking nearly sideways out of the orange night, and I step out through the cone of pale light to beyond the street lamps. It's not too cold, probably just around freezing, and I can feel the moisture in the air against my face. The storm is just a farce, though - one last hollow bellow before spring does away with the discussion for this year.
It's time to reinvent ourselves, to challenge ourselves to a new enlightenment, innovation and adaptation being the tools to carry the day. We as a global culture are crumbling rapidly in the era of too much - too much change, too much destruction, too much extraction and conversion of materials from the earth, too much information that we don't know, too many patterns that we can't see clearly because they are too big for us. We've been proud monkeys, and when the planet was big and we were a small force to be reckoned with, perhaps we deserved a tiny bit of pride. Now there are too many factors, the heat's been turned up, and the pressure cooker is continuing to work an incomprehensible unknown magic...
Let's do away with hydrogen cars and biofuels, certified lumber and debate over international treaties. Let 'em be what they are - dreams of a desperate man rife with tumors but lacking the word cancer in his vocabulary. Let's get local, get loving, get wise. Share information - how to fix it or how to bake it, when to plant it and where to find it. Let's admit how little we know and move forward with the precautionary principle in mind. Let's dissolve the myths that competition works for the betterment of everyone and be human enough to admit that cooperation feels better. Let's dispense with the homophobia and fearful, closed relationships so that we can hug a friend in need. Let's ask ourselves if we want the current state of affairs to be sustainable.
Let's be thoughtful and kind to one another. If we are the only one on the block to shy away from competition, then we will inevitably be afraid of falling behind as everyone else edges us out. We need each other for support so we are not alone in our endeavors to create a better world for our kids. We need to gather in potlucks, dances, picnics, town meetings, libraries, coffee shops, street corners, and kitchens full of the sweet smells of this new life.
I only know these things from feel, from the ten thousand smiles or tears impressed upon me every day, from the faces on the street carried by my synapses around the corner and down the hill. I know I feel at peace writing like this, and I carry trouble in my heart if I go to bed silent at the end of the day. I only know that I need to nurture these thoughts, to carry them forward each day or risk withering something inside me. Look for the smoke from my chimney and lights in my windows, and I'll do the same with you.
It's time to reinvent ourselves, to challenge ourselves to a new enlightenment, innovation and adaptation being the tools to carry the day. We as a global culture are crumbling rapidly in the era of too much - too much change, too much destruction, too much extraction and conversion of materials from the earth, too much information that we don't know, too many patterns that we can't see clearly because they are too big for us. We've been proud monkeys, and when the planet was big and we were a small force to be reckoned with, perhaps we deserved a tiny bit of pride. Now there are too many factors, the heat's been turned up, and the pressure cooker is continuing to work an incomprehensible unknown magic...
Let's do away with hydrogen cars and biofuels, certified lumber and debate over international treaties. Let 'em be what they are - dreams of a desperate man rife with tumors but lacking the word cancer in his vocabulary. Let's get local, get loving, get wise. Share information - how to fix it or how to bake it, when to plant it and where to find it. Let's admit how little we know and move forward with the precautionary principle in mind. Let's dissolve the myths that competition works for the betterment of everyone and be human enough to admit that cooperation feels better. Let's dispense with the homophobia and fearful, closed relationships so that we can hug a friend in need. Let's ask ourselves if we want the current state of affairs to be sustainable.
Let's be thoughtful and kind to one another. If we are the only one on the block to shy away from competition, then we will inevitably be afraid of falling behind as everyone else edges us out. We need each other for support so we are not alone in our endeavors to create a better world for our kids. We need to gather in potlucks, dances, picnics, town meetings, libraries, coffee shops, street corners, and kitchens full of the sweet smells of this new life.
I only know these things from feel, from the ten thousand smiles or tears impressed upon me every day, from the faces on the street carried by my synapses around the corner and down the hill. I know I feel at peace writing like this, and I carry trouble in my heart if I go to bed silent at the end of the day. I only know that I need to nurture these thoughts, to carry them forward each day or risk withering something inside me. Look for the smoke from my chimney and lights in my windows, and I'll do the same with you.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
condensation is a first step
Today is a day of sitting in wicker armchairs, observing the cool rain and looking right through it, beyond the budding and bare trees in the distance, beyond the small worlds of red brick houses, out through the thin batik fabric of space and time to imagined futures and the sweet delicacies sprinkled in the present. It is a day of plotting coups to overthrow the affairs of the present which we do not love, it is a day of scented green tea with emerging friends and spring discoveries. It is the day we know we can get damp in the rain and not face a terrible chill at home. Today there is no guilt due to overstuffed sofas and pulling a light blanket over our feet and knees to stop the clocks for a while. Today is the satisfaction of a yoga stretch where amnesiac muscles speak of wintery tension and neglect, but prepare for the long walk to the fields.
In this season I can learn, teacher's hand placed thoughtfully over mine to guide the clay into useful vessels and the brush to lay down vibrant greens and oranges. The hustle of crowded sidewalks slows just enough to crack open the possibility of smiles in passing, seeding for hybrid blossoms of appointments blissfully made and adventures schemed. The Platonic essence of rebirth walks in the misty noontime, hands turned up to the sky, scarf draped forgetfully around her neck, a dormant muse so patient and unsuffering, bursting into the world silently in tender petals.
Where do your footsteps go on days like this? The stage, the office, the kitchen, the classroom, all the spaces of life charged with new energy. May you unapologetically track mud and smiles indoors, with seeds and twigs in tow, picked up along the path that seemed straight at bedtime last night and now curves and branches to fill the surface of our planet.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
words to capture a day
making lists, inking small names and places on the backside of a slightly wrinkled piece of scrap paper, running my fingers through my beard, tracing an invisible line down the side of a tired photograph of old friends, slipping on thoughtlessly comfortable shoes, smoothing the front of my synthetic black jersey, crunch of salty peanut butter dipped carrot with dirt specks, crusty helmet sets on and clicks under my chin, leg over bicycle and I'm off
over the short steep street
blast past the cathedral
dodge potholes and freeze cracks
suck in sunlight through my open mouth smile
past former farmland now homogeneous dreams
gray vinyl siding and silent lives melt in the spring sunshine like a stuffy unwanted wax of talking heads left in the bonfire of revolutionary carefree youth
Now sun on my back warms me up and flows, pushes the Coriolis effect of my thoughts as my mind tilts towards exuberant solstice, these rolling hills are all I want right now, gravel and dust on the shoulders and sweet moist earth with last year's cornstalks all blend sweet and fine into a backdrop of rural possibilities, if I just pedal a little harder I know I can get ahead of the sun before it creeps down to the west, just one more hill to be conquered and then infinite journeys with only the click of my freewheel and the thoughts of coming home to you to rest...
over the short steep street
blast past the cathedral
dodge potholes and freeze cracks
suck in sunlight through my open mouth smile
past former farmland now homogeneous dreams
gray vinyl siding and silent lives melt in the spring sunshine like a stuffy unwanted wax of talking heads left in the bonfire of revolutionary carefree youth
Now sun on my back warms me up and flows, pushes the Coriolis effect of my thoughts as my mind tilts towards exuberant solstice, these rolling hills are all I want right now, gravel and dust on the shoulders and sweet moist earth with last year's cornstalks all blend sweet and fine into a backdrop of rural possibilities, if I just pedal a little harder I know I can get ahead of the sun before it creeps down to the west, just one more hill to be conquered and then infinite journeys with only the click of my freewheel and the thoughts of coming home to you to rest...
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Just the facts
So, a few bits and pieces of information that resemble the objective reality we all supposedly share. (These are in contrast to my usual blog posts where I muse cyclically about the cyclical nature of the universe.)
I arrived in Canada about 10 days ago, traveling first to Quebec. I stayed with Emily and friends in a town named North Hatley, which is a little over an hour east of Montreal. Emily's family has a vacation cottage there which overlooks the valley including a large lake and the town of North Hatley proper. This is the view on a clear day in late winter, i.e. my first day there.
It is quite beautiful - lots of rolling, big hills and snow spread all over the place. The white patch in the bottom of the valley is the snow-covered lake which Emily took me walking on after I got all excited about the possibility of it. I was a little late this year to go skating on it - that is an activity more suited to the deep freeze in the middle of winter when there is no layer of slush on the top.
After recovering from the bus lag of my trip up from NY state (caused mostly by the painful Vin Diesel comedy The Pacifier, which I had to watch because the sound was broadcast over the PA system on the bus), we went out snowshoeing. My first time! Loved it! The snow was a bit wet but still fun.
Then I felt tired so I took a rest.
We explored the area, cooked good food, got lots of rest, and generally lived it up bourgeois style in the winter wonderland of francophone Canada. Can't beat it with un stick if you tried...
After we were sufficiently vacationed, and the snow began to melt with a warm spell, we headed west by southwest, into Ontario, past Toronto, and eventually reached Guelph, the town where Emily and her tribe live. It is a beautiful, old town surrounded by farmland, with only a bit of homogenized subdivisions so far (but don't worry, they're on the drawing boards.) Back in Guelph, Emily has been returning to work as a therapist/teacher/front line social worker with teens overcoming addictions. I have been settling in to this lovely town and begun to plan parties, cook dinners, think about my income to expenses ratio, and try to get in touch with the gestalt of this place. Just yesterday Emily, Simon, and I went for a ski, which was only the second in my life (the first being two days earlier with just Simon. Again, loved it!
So, perhaps this is a summary of diversions rather than real grist for the mill of, "But how is Chris really doing?". I'm doing the best I know how, for better or for worse. It's all just beginning to unfold, like a delicate amaranth flower that looks good now but yields an even better tasty, tiny grain that you can cook like couscous. If you're eager for a quotable tombstone by-line, then perhaps I'm in it for the ladies, and that sweet, unbearable lightness of being...
Friday, March 16, 2007
never in vain
This is a road less traveled by, up over hills and through valleys with bare, patient birch trees so white they stand out against the thick snow. This pavement flows as smooth as the tired yellow lines dividing the non-existent traffic, through a town of broad houses on the lake, boarded up for winter with rough plywood against the clean, colored window trim. Gray snow piles yield to puddles in the first melt of March, cold and harmless in the soft gravel shoulder where my boots leave gritty traces in the mud. To town is where this current heads, to the main street on the frozen lakeshore with a handful of solid tea houses, restaurants, and wooden planked general stores. For me it is all a postcard - gazebo in the lawn by the lake with blue string lights at dusk, lingering French from the wrinkled couples blending like cream into the settled coffee aroma, fog sliding off the hills from the warm wet air meeting this year's snowpack. It's a curled up bear rolling over once more to hit snooze before hibernation ends, it's a beaver rolling in the snow who has momentarily forgotten his unending urge to fix the dam, it's the tinkle of laughter from children narrowly evading an icicle finally melted free of the eaves. It's all these and pure silence, flowing down creeks and gulches in this Appalachian basin, water seeking a joyride to the lowest level with less than a nod for the structures that the primates have built. Fine slate roofs and leaded stained-glass keep out the elements another winter, the accomplishments of lumberjacks and capitalists. These towns and the moments of childhood spent swimming in summer and skiing in winter are origami cranes floating down wide rivers, no less beautiful because of their inevitable sinking below the ripples. Let us make more beauty with our hands and set if free to the world - what I have seen wash down stream in spring has inspired many a summertime project of whittling and sanding, shared smiles with friends over the endless possibilities that lie outside our small towns.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
snowman in full lotus
I stepped outside to feel the cold air of a few minutes past midnight, and rediscovered the silent appeal of tiny unexpected snowflakes floating through orange streetlights. After too many images of the lonely far away war on television, the sweet silence brought me together again through the graceful solitude that sweeps each of us away from time to time.
None of us knows exactly what to do, but our government keeps sending young men and women to damage and get damaged in the shifting sands of a war without end. The tiny eyes of the talking heads who take no risks keep shining out in increasingly high definition, while some people somewhere write headlines to gloss over the casualties who return home to suffer. The more numerous the words about bloodshed, the more hollow it all becomes and healing slips silently out under the crack below the door.
Smooth cold asphalt is a monolith under my shoes. I can feel the interconnected impermeable slab of contiguous paving that probably connects me to you right now wherever you are in North America. Barefoot in a snowdrift, the grey snow at the edges of curbs appears almost comforting in that way that it fits neatly in my cupboards of memory. Sometimes I'm toughened by fatigue and watch the pale clouds of midnight in just a t-shirt and jeans from the sidewalk outside, thick-skinned soles affording me ten or fifteen minutes of unmitigated communion with the nighttime hum of a civilized wilderness. Then my feet chill through to the bones of my heels so I retreat to carpet and wool socks inside, sipping rooibos tea the color of creamy rust and vacantly smile out the windows.
Where can we journey together, you and I, across spring lakes cold from recent melted ice, summers of sweaty knee-high grass and checkered picnic blankets under shady oaks, autumns of rich spicy apples and crumbling orange maple leaves, winters of bright rigid icicles and long nights made short by well-loved quilts, and spring again for unfolding creased and spotted maps to chart this year's tillage over last year's fallow hollows? Life without cycles is unimaginable, and summer is never too far away when we make lentil stew together and dance. We can honor February while hurrying it out the door to call March and see if it wants to go out dancing with April. May is coming to town soon, a visit to look forward to before June comes and unpacks childhood delights in the backyard. For this sweeping procession, our music is the food of love and seeing your face each morning over steam rising from mugs brings me some transcendence.
Our planet spins swiftly and keeps on carousing around the sun without regard to our tiny consciousness bubbles. So let's think less about war and fear, make snowcones in the park, and delight in the solar radiation that does reach our not-so-epic rock even in the winter. Spring will be here soon to ensure that we forgive and forget and begin again.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
walking before flying? why wait?
It lies out there in the desert, somewhat more fortified than the Great Wall of China, a bit more heavily guarded than an Israeli security checkpoint in the occupied territories, with higher fences and more razor wire than San Quentin. It's that place Outside Your Comfort Zone, and it's tough and scary to get there.
However, upon lots of recent reflection, I've come to feel that most of my really meaningful, challenging, and satisfying moments in life have come by stepping outside my comfort zone. I've grown comfortable with a strong workout routine when I used to be baffled and bored by the idea of a gym before ever really setting foot in one. I've tried experimental diets to boost my own body's immune system through alternating fasting days, and although it was really tough some days, it was great to really step back from food and reacquaint myself with what it means to be hungry, to eat well, to be full, and to eat for reasons other than hunger. I managed to bicycle 3500 really satisfying miles in one summer trip, even though the idea of really long rides (over 50 miles) still brings up fear issues in me that I won't be able to make it for some unknown reason. I tried throwing pottery for the first time last fall (something I've secretly wanted to do for years), and I was actually pretty good at it and loved doing it. I built a chair last year from scratch in spite of being daunted by the idea of "furniture building," but it has turned out quite well and many people have speculated that they might buy such a piece (??).
We also can also push the borders of our comfort zones in less tangible ways. Learning to be a better listener when everyone tells you that you talk a lot can be an immense but satisfying challenge. Practicing a little financial restraint when we're used to shopping to provide meaning in our lives can be a novel and scary idea, but often with plenty of rewards. Cultivating patience at times when we feel we're about to burst with anger can be a lifetime practice, but who knows how many joys it will lead to?
I think when we can step outside our comfort zones, it's really good for us. We shake up our old world views with new perspectives and information. There's also lots of evidence that
our brains go into a different mode of perception when we're doing or encountering new things. This heightened level of activity keeps our brains active and may even work to delay or prevent degenerative ailments like Alzheimer's. Doing new and difficult things gives us something interesting to talk about at the water cooler at work - much more exciting than last night's predictable TV babble. We also give ourselves chances to discover new passions, things that we thought we might enjoy but in fact we actually LOVE to do. Look at all these benefits...
Right now I feel like I'm taking a big leap outside my comfort zone in moving to Canada to be with my girlfriend Emily. I've discovered (in my relationship with Emily) that I feel most safe and secure when I can be in a place where there is a clear and strong need for my help. Heading to Ontario is really scary for me because I'll have to create a niche for myself from scratch, so to speak (although lots of help from Emily's friends is not be discounted at all). It's a feeling of letting go of control and safety to a large extent. I feel like I'm breaking out in a new direction, though I don't even know what that direction is. I suspect it will unfold before me as I move along this unknown path, but to remember that is hard and it doesn't always bring comfort in my moments of doubt. I like the idea of testing myself and my comfort zone in a big sense like this, but I'm also scared to death. I guess this is what the big changes in life are all about.
So, what are you going to do this week to push at the edges of your comfort zone? What do you want to do that you are afraid of failing at? Have the conversation, buy that alpaca ranch you've been dreaming of, follow your heart's desire wherever it leads, especially if it's a little scary and a little unclear. That's where all the good stuff lies in wait for you...
(that's a sea otter in those waves, saying "Ain't much changed 'round here since the beginning of time. But do you know where you're going?")
However, upon lots of recent reflection, I've come to feel that most of my really meaningful, challenging, and satisfying moments in life have come by stepping outside my comfort zone. I've grown comfortable with a strong workout routine when I used to be baffled and bored by the idea of a gym before ever really setting foot in one. I've tried experimental diets to boost my own body's immune system through alternating fasting days, and although it was really tough some days, it was great to really step back from food and reacquaint myself with what it means to be hungry, to eat well, to be full, and to eat for reasons other than hunger. I managed to bicycle 3500 really satisfying miles in one summer trip, even though the idea of really long rides (over 50 miles) still brings up fear issues in me that I won't be able to make it for some unknown reason. I tried throwing pottery for the first time last fall (something I've secretly wanted to do for years), and I was actually pretty good at it and loved doing it. I built a chair last year from scratch in spite of being daunted by the idea of "furniture building," but it has turned out quite well and many people have speculated that they might buy such a piece (??).
We also can also push the borders of our comfort zones in less tangible ways. Learning to be a better listener when everyone tells you that you talk a lot can be an immense but satisfying challenge. Practicing a little financial restraint when we're used to shopping to provide meaning in our lives can be a novel and scary idea, but often with plenty of rewards. Cultivating patience at times when we feel we're about to burst with anger can be a lifetime practice, but who knows how many joys it will lead to?
I think when we can step outside our comfort zones, it's really good for us. We shake up our old world views with new perspectives and information. There's also lots of evidence that
our brains go into a different mode of perception when we're doing or encountering new things. This heightened level of activity keeps our brains active and may even work to delay or prevent degenerative ailments like Alzheimer's. Doing new and difficult things gives us something interesting to talk about at the water cooler at work - much more exciting than last night's predictable TV babble. We also give ourselves chances to discover new passions, things that we thought we might enjoy but in fact we actually LOVE to do. Look at all these benefits...Right now I feel like I'm taking a big leap outside my comfort zone in moving to Canada to be with my girlfriend Emily. I've discovered (in my relationship with Emily) that I feel most safe and secure when I can be in a place where there is a clear and strong need for my help. Heading to Ontario is really scary for me because I'll have to create a niche for myself from scratch, so to speak (although lots of help from Emily's friends is not be discounted at all). It's a feeling of letting go of control and safety to a large extent. I feel like I'm breaking out in a new direction, though I don't even know what that direction is. I suspect it will unfold before me as I move along this unknown path, but to remember that is hard and it doesn't always bring comfort in my moments of doubt. I like the idea of testing myself and my comfort zone in a big sense like this, but I'm also scared to death. I guess this is what the big changes in life are all about.
So, what are you going to do this week to push at the edges of your comfort zone? What do you want to do that you are afraid of failing at? Have the conversation, buy that alpaca ranch you've been dreaming of, follow your heart's desire wherever it leads, especially if it's a little scary and a little unclear. That's where all the good stuff lies in wait for you...
(that's a sea otter in those waves, saying "Ain't much changed 'round here since the beginning of time. But do you know where you're going?")Sunday, February 11, 2007
minute intermission
I feel like so often our culture is going to fast, or more accurately we are moving ourselves along too fast. We've got time-saving devices but fill that time with even more activities. We work more hours than ever before, and therefore try to cram compensation into short vacations that are difficult to relish because we're not practiced at being slow. We're connected to the whole world more and more all the time - cell phone calls from 3000 miles away while we walk down the sidewalk, cable that brings us more images than ever at faster speeds, internet news about events worldwide and even out in the universe. We're plugged in and turned on, tuned in to what is being broadcast. It's a fast-paced, high tech life that can carry us away if we let it.
I think being able to slow down is a virtue. I think in slowing down, we can see ourselves and the world around us more clearly. When we're in a hurry, we are simply unable to take in the same level of detail that we can if we slow down. We get wrapped up in our own narrow, self-justifying ideas about what is important in our lives and focus on them with less and less skepticism or curiosity about alternatives.
What do I mean by slowing down? Taking time to just be - sitting with a cup of tea, standing and looking at the moon for a while, making sure to have enough free time each day to feel balanced, taking a few moments to consider our food before we eat, sitting on a Saturday afternoon in the sun wondering what it will be like to grow old and die, walking on a short errand rather than driving, just sitting with a loved one to listen deeply to what she has to say. It's tough to slow down, especially in our culture. Everyone else seems to be going fast, getting things done, moving on to the next thing, multitasking - and if they're not, maybe they look like they're getting behind in the game while others get ahead. It's possible that we will fall behind in the rat race if we slow down, but I think there are many advantages to slowing down in life and making more space for reflection. I think there's a lot of evidence that we are healthier, smarter, well-rested, and more satisfied if we just take a little time to slip back into first gear and look around.
This has been a public service announcement brought to you by me. Nothing eloquent, just some thoughts while I sit on the corner watching things and wondering :-)
I think being able to slow down is a virtue. I think in slowing down, we can see ourselves and the world around us more clearly. When we're in a hurry, we are simply unable to take in the same level of detail that we can if we slow down. We get wrapped up in our own narrow, self-justifying ideas about what is important in our lives and focus on them with less and less skepticism or curiosity about alternatives.
What do I mean by slowing down? Taking time to just be - sitting with a cup of tea, standing and looking at the moon for a while, making sure to have enough free time each day to feel balanced, taking a few moments to consider our food before we eat, sitting on a Saturday afternoon in the sun wondering what it will be like to grow old and die, walking on a short errand rather than driving, just sitting with a loved one to listen deeply to what she has to say. It's tough to slow down, especially in our culture. Everyone else seems to be going fast, getting things done, moving on to the next thing, multitasking - and if they're not, maybe they look like they're getting behind in the game while others get ahead. It's possible that we will fall behind in the rat race if we slow down, but I think there are many advantages to slowing down in life and making more space for reflection. I think there's a lot of evidence that we are healthier, smarter, well-rested, and more satisfied if we just take a little time to slip back into first gear and look around.
This has been a public service announcement brought to you by me. Nothing eloquent, just some thoughts while I sit on the corner watching things and wondering :-)
Monday, January 22, 2007
california creation myth
Well it's alright, riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright, if you live the life you please
Well it's alright, doing the best you can
Well it's alright, as long as you lend a hand
You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring
Maybe a diamond ring
Well it's alright, even if they say you're wrong
Well it's alright, sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it's alright, As long as you got somewhere to lay
Well it's alright, everyday is just one day
Maybe somewhere down the road aways
You'll think of me, wonder where I am these days
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
Purple haze
Well it's alright, even when push comes to shove
Well it's alright, if you got someone to love
Well it's alright, everything'll work out fine
Well it's alright, we're going to the end of the line
Don't have to be ashamed of the car I drive
I'm just glad to be here, happy to be alive
And it don't matter, if you're by my side
I'm satisfied
Well it's alright, even if you're old and grey
Well it's alright, you still got something to say
Well it's alright, remember to live and let live
Well it's alright, the best you can do is forgive
Well it's alright, riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright, if you live the life you please
Well it's alright, even if the sun don't shine
Well it's alright, we're going to the end of the line
Well it's alright, if you live the life you please
Well it's alright, doing the best you can
Well it's alright, as long as you lend a hand
You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring
Maybe a diamond ring
Well it's alright, even if they say you're wrong
Well it's alright, sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it's alright, As long as you got somewhere to lay
Well it's alright, everyday is just one day
Maybe somewhere down the road aways
You'll think of me, wonder where I am these days
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
Purple haze
Well it's alright, even when push comes to shove
Well it's alright, if you got someone to love
Well it's alright, everything'll work out fine
Well it's alright, we're going to the end of the line
Don't have to be ashamed of the car I drive
I'm just glad to be here, happy to be alive
And it don't matter, if you're by my side
I'm satisfied
Well it's alright, even if you're old and grey
Well it's alright, you still got something to say
Well it's alright, remember to live and let live
Well it's alright, the best you can do is forgive
Well it's alright, riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright, if you live the life you please
Well it's alright, even if the sun don't shine
Well it's alright, we're going to the end of the line
lyrics from End of the Line by the Traveling WilburiesWednesday, January 17, 2007
lost manuscript of new directions
The opus of my life is made of myriad movements, large and small, stretching forwards and backwards in time beyond any perceptible horizon. Most of the events that are remarkable in my heart I won't recognize until afterwards, looking backwards and seeing it all again for the first time. Some movements that ring particularly beautiful for me:
- getting a final sign off for occupancy on the house I built at Magic over four years
- a Valentines Day/welcome to Thai farmer's party in Berkeley in 2006, with an indescribably vegan chocolate cake (go Cara, kick your heels up :-)
- a canoe trip with an old friend in the Ontario wilderness
- running in the foothills of the Alps on a family vacation near the French Riviera
- watching the lives of the twin girls at Magic unfold
- my 29th birthday and subsequent New Year's activities - swimming in the ocean on New Year's Day
- running in the snow on a quiet, swirling snowy night in the Quebec countryside with a wonderful friend
Sometimes it's hard to see how they weave together, and indeed I wonder if I ever will. I can feel the patterns more than I can see them, I can taste them and smell them but can't spell them out. I feel like it's less of a direction in life than an expression of an underlying order that is bigger than my mortal mind can comprehend. I'm a cowboy taking a drink from the banks of the Snake River, knowing what water is like but seeing that the river is so much more.
What are your moments? Where are your signposts from the past? What might lie in your future?
- getting a final sign off for occupancy on the house I built at Magic over four years
- a Valentines Day/welcome to Thai farmer's party in Berkeley in 2006, with an indescribably vegan chocolate cake (go Cara, kick your heels up :-)
- a canoe trip with an old friend in the Ontario wilderness
- running in the foothills of the Alps on a family vacation near the French Riviera
- watching the lives of the twin girls at Magic unfold
- my 29th birthday and subsequent New Year's activities - swimming in the ocean on New Year's Day
- running in the snow on a quiet, swirling snowy night in the Quebec countryside with a wonderful friend
Sometimes it's hard to see how they weave together, and indeed I wonder if I ever will. I can feel the patterns more than I can see them, I can taste them and smell them but can't spell them out. I feel like it's less of a direction in life than an expression of an underlying order that is bigger than my mortal mind can comprehend. I'm a cowboy taking a drink from the banks of the Snake River, knowing what water is like but seeing that the river is so much more.
What are your moments? Where are your signposts from the past? What might lie in your future?
Saturday, January 06, 2007
parting the red sea with a 2x4
Standing on the threshold of 2007, I've got my hands in the warm pockets of my jeans and I'm looking up at the sky. Climate change is creeping in the front door steadily (72 degrees in Central Park today), wars rage on in sandy, far away places with real consequences, I'm idling and hanging out with good friends, and my heart is full of love for all the insanity that swirls around us. It's like a coriolis effect of positives and negatives, hope and despair, twisting together and spiraling all over this sphere of my mindscape, cirrus clouds of delight preceding thunderstorms of cathartic flash floods, moved back to clear skies and sweet smell of ozone in the starry clear sky the night after.
I'm helping a friend build a house again (alittlehouse.blogspot.com for pictures of it and yours truly) and enjoying the feeling of old buildings pass through my hands. Wood milled once and assembled a long time ago by past craftsmen gets rebirth through Matt and I as we cut it, plane it, assemble it, stain it, and admire our work at the end of cold short days. It's something I do love, creating small pieces of tangible structure and order from earth, metal, wood, and glass. Satisfaction is my sweet reward for resisting (never give up!) entropy if only for a little while as I sojourn on the earth.
2007 will be a time of coming together again, big changes, tectonic sonic booms of culture on the rocks, touching discoveries as we bravely walk in the undiscovered country, the silent magnitude of a swiftly tilting planet hurtling unimaginably and effortlessly around the sun. What will we do different for this little piece of paradise and time that we have undeservedly found ourselves in? How can we honor our good fortune to be alive, with friends, food, rest, hope, and choice? I'm aiming to be a photon for peace, love, and intrepid exploration, coming to a retina near you with a story to paint on the inside of your mind. Maybe with the right tools we can go Jackson Pollack on each other's worldviews, blow out some cobwebs and drizzle creative love from up high on the gigantic expectant canvas of our opened minds. Or perhaps we can make some popcorn with a little dill and salt on it, and snuggle in front of cold windows hoping for snow...
I'm helping a friend build a house again (alittlehouse.blogspot.com for pictures of it and yours truly) and enjoying the feeling of old buildings pass through my hands. Wood milled once and assembled a long time ago by past craftsmen gets rebirth through Matt and I as we cut it, plane it, assemble it, stain it, and admire our work at the end of cold short days. It's something I do love, creating small pieces of tangible structure and order from earth, metal, wood, and glass. Satisfaction is my sweet reward for resisting (never give up!) entropy if only for a little while as I sojourn on the earth.
2007 will be a time of coming together again, big changes, tectonic sonic booms of culture on the rocks, touching discoveries as we bravely walk in the undiscovered country, the silent magnitude of a swiftly tilting planet hurtling unimaginably and effortlessly around the sun. What will we do different for this little piece of paradise and time that we have undeservedly found ourselves in? How can we honor our good fortune to be alive, with friends, food, rest, hope, and choice? I'm aiming to be a photon for peace, love, and intrepid exploration, coming to a retina near you with a story to paint on the inside of your mind. Maybe with the right tools we can go Jackson Pollack on each other's worldviews, blow out some cobwebs and drizzle creative love from up high on the gigantic expectant canvas of our opened minds. Or perhaps we can make some popcorn with a little dill and salt on it, and snuggle in front of cold windows hoping for snow...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)