Practicing Gratitude and the need to take Action - Signing up for Permaculture Design Course

(I've signed up for a Permaculture Design Course - check out their website for hope for the future)

Sure we tell ourselves stories, rationalize our choices, on a good day with ourselves the heroes. But I can trace a story that goes back to 121-43 Buell street - in grade four or five. When I made a rainforest in a blue tupperware that I wanted to enclose. A perpetual motion machine. I can't remember where the idea came from - maybe skylab or something in the space programme. It could have been Cosmos - I'll check the dates - but I got excited about the idea of a homeostatic (not my words at the time) self-contained system. Life everlasting. Those are Verna's words, speaking of her progeny...

The maple tree I picked out of Hampton park and planted in the tupperware is today in my parents' backyard. Taller than the house. The tupperware, knowing Dad, might still be kicking around - I'll adopt it if it is...but the story is:

I love life.

The process of life - and early today I got to thinking: there are two tendencies in the Universe - Order and Chaos. Life arises when the raw elements of the Universe combine, randomly, in ways that decrease Chaos and capture energy. Molecules arise because two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms are more stable together than apart. And the properties of chemistry - how molecules interact - emerge from this greater stability.



2H2 + O2 = 2H2O + ENERGY (572 kJ)


[origin of life animations]

And so - completely just because - because elements combine into molecules, and molecules combine into polymers, or minerals, and polymers and minerals and molecules and atom interact in ways that increase order and release energy, to the point where collections of inorganic materials find themselves contained in micro-environments that make their continued replication, locomotion, reactivity, [the other defining characteristics of life] inevitable.

Which leads to us who are able to stand slack jawed at the wonder of it all. At least for a few hundred thousand years until we start teasing out how some of it all works, and we realize our responsibility to choose. Do we create Order or wallow in Chaos?

Other people's problems

*dont read if depressed - read the post this links to instead. It's actually helpful*


I know the first thing about depression - maybe the first 7, but I don't know the next hundred. Or thousand. I'm around more depression than is good for me...

Now I'm not sure if that's true.

I was going to write ’I’m around more depression than is good for me, but my being around these people might be good for them’ - but that's pretty amazingly narcissistic, and doesn't necessarily capture the whole story.

And before this drones on, a great post you should read is 21 tips for holding your shit together when you’re depressed (link)

So other people's depressions have helped me recognize my own state of mental health and take it seriously (and I do feel lucky - lucky to generally be optimistic and basically never plumb anything deeper than melancholy and malaise). Other people's depressions have made me appreciate the tools I'm able to use - again, read the post, tools like diet, exercise, hair cuts, shoes, art, comedy, avoiding depressives, etc...and they've also hopefully given me a little more compassion. I know I've not been laid low like lots of people, and I really try to not “blame” them for being sick.

But I do sometimes. Despite knowing better.

I am one of those people who give advice though - sing the praises of exercise, diet, and a host of cognitive behavioural therapies. Even though I know how annoying advice can be - but life's a give and take.

The science is in that depression, like obesity and a host of other unpleasantries, is “contagious”. We can “bring down” those around us and conversely we can also “cheer them up” (citation needed). Probably why parents so instinctively worry about their kids socializing with the “right kind of people” - our paths are very dependent on initial conditions (take that meritocracy) and so the farther we travel along the greater the differences in outcomes based on those who travel with us.

Am I complaining? Sure, sometimes, but most of the depressives I know are my friends because they're incredibly creative. And like it or not I chose these people and this path - and freely continue to choose it. So my friends problems are my problems - and the question becomes are we drowning men and women, dragging each other down, or will we together rise above? Or will some people get jettisoned so the rest may live? Now that's dark, but that's life. There's only so much hope in a super fruit smoothie, and lots of people are not capable of cheering up.

So what does it become? Triage? Yup. And a constant interest in best practices. Again that post is so wonderful because its not written by some tit like me who gets “sad” and experiences “regret” but by a person who's learnt a thing or two in the trenches.

I wish my nearest and dearest could jog, could redefine surviving as victory. I wish they drank less beer and vodka and more smoothies, took better care of themselves and loved themselves better. But I still love them. And hope for the best for them. I don't know if they'll all “make it” - but they better. To puke out some more of their art before death wipes us away. Because, happy, sad, apathetic or euphoric, this is our moment.

This is it.

By the time you read this I will be the answer to everything

Tomorrow I become the answer to life, the universe, and everything. I've always enjoyed a healthy self regard, mixed with equal parts self-doubt, loathing, love and flagellation, so finally becoming the answer to the ultimate question will likely continue in the same vein.



Which led me to google feeling blood flowing in various parts of my body, which I do. Sometimes like a cellphone vibrating, but apparently common - so I stop reading. My capacity to bad trip on health issues is considerable, yet a series of doctors have sent me packing. Guess what? I'm aging. And the main goal is to avoid negative introspection.

Read a great quote by Neil de Grasse Tyson (thanks Lucinda) who said “there's only two philosophies I live by 1) to learn something new every day 2) to reduce in some way the suffering of others.”

And that's pretty damn good advice. The learning keeps you open and curious and interested, the helping helps you get over yourself. There's something about helping others, actively prioritizing the interests of others, that makes you feel great.

One of those benevolent side effects of enlightened self-interest - how getting our heads out of our asses - stopping feeling sorry for ourselves and wondering why the universe hasn't done more to pleasure us senseless - actually gives us pleasure. It's got a lot to do with detachment - the release from not caring so intensely about ourselves for awhile.

It helps to not be hungover - making my hand puppet a “Please subscribe”
video last night and downing a litre of Bitberger left my head crowding out my proctologist today, but it's better now. Why it will be easy (we’ll see what happens...) to start my 43rd clean and sober.

I'm pleased to have made it this far and look forward to many more - there's a beautiful video of the oldest holocaust survivor answering what keeps her going “I see beauty everywhere” which is pretty much what I aspire to. Given the frequency and intensity of the times I've thought I was dying makes the good times, hell the fair to middling times - twice as sweet.

Thank you all for the time we’ve spent together. I am truly lucky to know so many funny, smart, strange and disturbing yet on average decent people - given “what's out there” (I'm talking about YOU, interweeb) it's not something I take for granted.

Here's to happy times, health, and the wisdom to find beauty in everything. I just won't toast this one with alcohol - well, not yet.

Thatcher is dead. @BeaverCanuck comes to bury her, not to praise her

Thatcher is dead - condolences to her family. But lest the hagiographers turn her into something she was not, let's remember she was pretty mean and laid the groundwork for the crypto-fascist state we find today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher

Live Reaction

Guardian : http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2013/apr/08/miliband-clegg-local-elections-cameron-madrid

Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9978844/Margaret-Thatcher-dies-live.html

BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22066982

Tom Flanagan seems to support people's "right" to consume child pornography

While this has been a great week for seeing Stephen Harper's conservatives true colours (Senators, Porter, etc. links to follow) - essentially petty little hustlers desperately trying to dress up greed as some ideological higher calling...(“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith) there's darker stuff behind or beneath it all.

Tom Flanagan, Harper's so called ideological mentor and an incredible asshat in his own right, is so wrapped up in himself and what passes for a 'philosophy' of personal liberty etc. that he just seems incapable of realizing that child pornography IS child abuse. (and I'm talking about actual photos etc here, not drawings etc.)

Now whether eventually something entirely dark comes out about Flanagan personally, or as I guess I hope he's just stupid - that he really believes that his ideas concerning personal liberty excuse consumers of child porn from responsibility for child porn production, who knows? But here is the thing.

You have conservatives calling for mandatory minimums and all sorts of tough on crime initiatives for drug dealers and consumers etc, but then 'I'm not sure we should be putting people in prison because of the pictures they're looking at'.

I hope I'm missing some subtlety here - but I kind of doubt it. I think these conservatives (not all conservatives because there are plenty of excellent conservative ideas) THESE conservatives, are venal, selfish idiots - gusting close if not four sails to the wind of being evil.

Here you go...

Do conservatives just not care?

Compassionate conservatism - what does that mean? Wearing gloves to keep the blood off when they kick you to the curb?

Here is the thing - some people, you, the conservatives - feel that everyone should look after themselves. Perhaps you weren't cuddled, perhaps its genetic - who cares why? It's just an awful lonely way to live. We get it, we're not going to change you, but we're also not going to let you lower the tone for the rest of us, who, guess what? Actually enjoy helping each other. Actually find life better when others share our good fortune.

I know I know, I might as well write that in Sanskrit - it's not registering.

But here's the thing. And we know this happens because of, well, history books. You fought, cheated and stole your way to power. In your world view the ends justify the means, and you're actually proud of being so "bold" - so manly as the incredibly stupid Tom Flanagan might say when calling for an extrajudicial assassination of someone like Julian Assange.

When you get caught you kind of smirk - shoulder deep into the cookie jaw you're kind of proud you 'took the chance' or 'seized the day' - kind of proud your goals are so awesome that the rules just don't apply.

It's not going to last. The thing is life is short and the incredible selfishness and fear of others that defines your worldview is just not worth a sweet goddamn. So leave the public sphere to people who give a shit. Go and build a compound, or a gated community, or whatever. Go away - leave us much less selfish people alone. You will never know how to trust, you are probably basically incapable of love, you're scared of the world probably because you feel the world is like you are, and, well, 50% of it probably is.

So crawl under a rock - weep, if you are capable, as those of us who enjoy life, enjoy the challenges of building collectively, go about our lives.

Or we'll make you. Make no mistake, like the Allies that trounced fascism, democrats and liberals may try and avoid a confrontation - because, hell, we know how to do the work to get along - but if you don't, if you push us too far. We'll stop you.

Gaza

The bombs have started again in Gaza, children are dying

and people on Facebook are posting pictures of organic produce, greenhouse grown. Now I support these urban greenhouses. If they are actually economically viable I love the idea of cities growing their own food. So we can eat and drink, while tomorrow others die.

(and Harry Fear covers it live via ustream)

Atrocities are all around us. I wonder how many children died in Canada or the states today from deliberate violence or stupidity? But there's something different about Israel - some way that we all have blood on our hands. Our “allies” in the middle east, perhaps caught in an impossible situation - surely the Koch brothers or others like them are not actively fueling this bloody impasse between the Palestinians and the Israelis?

So where will it go? Will we just go back to our organic produce photos on Facebook, or the is it or isn’t it photoshopped picture of a hippo charging a naked man? And I'm all about inanity, I recognize that we’re all going to die - but how are we going to live? What will get us off our chairs? Harper seems to be busily shitting all over my idea of what Canada is and should be, yet I've got as far as making a few puppet videos.

I’m often existentially despondent at not having any purpose - well, it's clear I just enjoy feeling sorry for myself - there's plenty to do in this world, and the least effort feels better than doing nothing.

So, turn your attention to #Gaza , to #reality ... At the very least let it trouble you for some short while.

The limits of empathy

I am agreeable to a fault. I have a strong need to be liked, and so am affable and self-deprecating when at times the world would be better served by my being more of an asshole.

Reams of self-help advise us to stop worrying about what other people think of us, and while I've internalized some of that advice with regards to the generation of nonsense, I've got a long way to go with the more global not giving a shit about the feelings of others.

Because while caring about the feelings of others can be a very useful and constructive skill, there are also times when what we imagine other people are feeling stops us from doing something we want to or should. Situations when, in fact, we have no actual idea if the other person cares at all about what we are doing.

I think of this most often domestically, when I want to go to my cave and write or otherwise play and yet I either stop myself or end up spending my time psychically conflicted imagining Smith wants me to be doing something 'productive' - even on days when she's not actually expressed an opinion either way.

This is where if you want to make time for creativity you have to stake your ground. For yourself first, and for those around you as well -- what's trite in all this for students of self-help is that it's repeating a fairly basal level of advice - but as with all the fruits of experience there is a world of difference between reading or hearing about the benefits of planting some fruit trees, and actually biting the fruit from the trees you have planted. In other words - there's knowing the path and walking the path.

And the reason as best as I can tell is the gap between what we know consciously and what we've internalized unconsciously, or emotionally. We can know that exercise or setting aside time for creativity with no distractions are the tried and tested methods of achieving health or productive goals, but until we've trained our limbic systems to actually perform these tasks, until we've put the idea into practice, and then repeated it until our neurons map the performance of the task with experiencing the reward, it's a hell of a hill to climb on the day to actually walk the walk.

It's exactly like riding a bike, or any of the millions of other tasks we have to learn that are really hard to perform consciously, but, once learned, we hardly ever have to think of again. And it's down this road - of practice practice practice, that flow becomes possible. Being in a state of high performance with little to no involvement of the conscious mind.

Which is as best as I can tell, one of the major gateways to happiness. And leads to comfy.