Week Four: Tailings

The tailings pond breach at Mt. Polley. Photo by The Nelson Daily

What are you willing to go without? Your computer? Your TV? How about your cell phone? Your digital connection to the world? How many technological comforts are you willing to abandon for the sake of the environment?

A pristine forest creek in central BC became toxic sludge dump last week. If the history of mining disasters teaches us anything, it's that a spill of this magnitude will never get cleaned up. The story is the same everywhere, and it always goes something like this: 

1) Disaster occurs, which is rarely surprising after years of warnings being ignored and critics being muzzled, etc:

"In an email to CBC News, a Ministry of Environment spokesperson said the ministry gave the company its latest of five warnings in May, this time for exceeding the permitted height of wastewater within its tailings pond."

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mount-polley-mine-tailings-pond-breach-followed-years-of-government-warnings-1.2728591

"Likely resident Larry Chambers [...] had worked at the mine but was dismissed at the end of last year. He said it was because he had raised safety and environmental concerns."

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Imperial+Metals+given+deadline+dealing+with+disastrous+breach+Mount+Polley+mine+tailings/10088871/story.html

2) Token expression of shock and sorrow from the company and the government, with both promising thorough reviews and more responsible resource management in the future:

"Our first priority is the health and safety of our employees and neighbours, and we are relieved no loss of life or injury have been reported. We are deeply concerned and are working to mitigate immediate effects and understand the cause." - Imperial Metals

Source: http://www.imperialmetals.com/s/News_2014.asp?ReportID=667967

B.C. Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett says he is devoting every appropriate resource to deal with the consequences of Monday's spill. "This is a serious incident that should not have happened," he said in a written statement. "We will determine the cause of the event and we are determined to prevent an incident like this from happening again."

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mount-polley-mine-tailings-water-very-close-to-drinking-quality-company-says-1.2727776

3) Photo op with the local first nation and government officials. Because if history has taught us anything, it's that our goverment cares a great deal for the welfare of Aboriginal peoples.

Christie Clark and Minister of Energy & Mines Bill Bennett at
a smudge with the Secwepemc First Nation after the spill,
photo from CFNRfm.ca

4) Laughably small fine levied under a poorly enforced subsection of environmental protection law.

Historical case in BC, one of many documented in "Undermining the Law," published 2001 by West Coast Environmental Law: http://wcel.org/resources/publication/undermining-law-addressing-crisis-compliance-environmental-mining-laws-bc

Teck Coal at Fording River Coal Mine, guilty in 2001 of harmful alteration or disruption of fish habitat under the Fisheries Act; guilty of 2 charges of releasing special waste and failure to comply with the requirements of an approval under the Waste Management Act.

Total fines levied: $18,000.
Teck Coal Revenues in 2001: $2.379 billion.

5) Lives and businesses of local residents destroyed, environment permanently altered by toxins and debris.

"This thing is so surreal, so unneccessary, the whole community is just so devastated," he told CBC. "This is our life, this is why we're here, this water is so pristine. And they've killed it. They've killed my town, they've killed my damn town." - Skeed Boorkowski, fly fishing destination resort owner, Likely BC.

Ongoing case, tailings seepage and spills from Alberta tar sands mines:
"The river water tastes differently now — oily, sour, or salty, for instance. Boiling Athabasca River water leaves a brown residue in pots. And fish in the river sport high rates of lesions and deformities." - resident reports from Fort Chipewyan.

Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-public/tar-sands-fingerprint-seen-rivers-and-snow

6) Slow cleanup effort, perpetually hampered by delays, excuses, and foot-dragging by industry, government, and those charged with monitoring the cleanup. Taxpayers eat the bill for the majority of cleanup costs.

Historical case in Yellowknife, NWT: Giant Mine.

"Documents obtained by northern environmentalists show the government expects the cost of cleaning up the Giant Mine just outside Yellowknife to be nearly a billion dollars – perhaps the largest single environmental cleanup in Canada and paid for entirely by taxpayers.
Initial estimates for safely dealing with the huge site, which includes a toxic smorgasbord of buildings, tailings ponds and a quarter-million tonnes of arsenic stored underground, were about $488-million. A federal progress report on the project says costs have increased as more has become known about the scale of the problem."

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/giant-mines-high-cleanup-bill-shakes-up-policy-on-toxic-sites/article10659731/

7) Business as usual.

"N. Murray Edwards, the controlling shareholder of Imperial Metals Corp. which owns the Mount Polley mine, helped organize a $1-million private fundraiser in Calgary last year to bolster B.C. Premier Christy Clark’s re-election bid."
Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Major+Imperial+Metals+shareholder+held+private+fundraiser+Clark+election/10102715/story.html#ixzz3A2YBLoWK


The spill at Mt. Polley last week hit particularly close to home for me. They mine copper and gold. I work in the electronics industry where copper and gold are the essential minerals that make our work possible. Every piece of electronic technology you own contains both ingredients. They're absolutely essential to the modern world, and the digital connectivity we all enjoy wouldn't be possible without them.

It's incredibly sad and not particularly surprising to see this disaster unfold. The precedent has been set for years. A cursory review of mining history shows a legacy of profits and devastation, where a select few reap the benefits and the rest of us pay the cost. I don't see how this particular case will turn out any different.

And it hurts, because I depend on it for my livelihood. More than the average person. I repaired something for the Mt. Polley mine a few months ago. My own personal stamp on this legacy - somewhere in central BC, one of their trucks has my handiwork inside.

Where does this leave me? It gets harder and harder all the time to ignore the ethical queasiness in the pit of my stomach. In fact, I can't ignore it and it's gnawing at me. I'm working on my exit strategy, but it's scary because this work virtually guarantees me a good salary for as long as I'd care to receive it and it's ever so tempting to forgo my principles and passions for the sake of financial stability, just as so many others have done. I'm not going to let that stop me, but I don't care to pass judgement on those who choose long term security instead. In our society, it's a sound strategy. Who among us can justifiably criticize it? We all need food and shelter, and unfortunately the resource extraction industry is one of the few left in Canada that can provide working people with a decent living wage.

I think about others who are in my position and weep. Everyone working in Fort Mac in Alberta's tar sands knows exactly what they're up to and what the effect is on the environment, but they're also regular people who've been caught up by a system that demands of their time and talents in exchange for money.

It's easy to vilify Big Oil and Big Industry and their ilk, but those evil corporations are made up of people just like me who are struggling to keep the bills paid and put food on the table. Most of their ranks are composed of workers who saw an opportunity to feed their families and took advantage. This is a systemic problem, and if we would live to see it resolved we all have a role to play.

Do you want to prevent these sort of disasters? I see it all the time on Facebook, from the slogans to the re-posting of articles about this tailings spill - "Stop the Tar Sands," "No Pipelines," "This is Unacceptable." Pick a popular campaign, there's no lack of them to choose from. But our individual role in negating these disasters isn't being talked about. I feel that until people are as interested in environmental advocacy and action as they are in Facebook, we're going to stay in the same pattern. That device you just used to re-tweet or share or Like that article is made of the same ingredients that Mt. Polley mine has been pulling out of the ground.

So again I ask, what are you willing to give up? Because to me, waiting around to see what "they" will figure out next to produce cleaner energy and more ethical cell phones is a huge cop-out. There is no magic bullet, there is no single product or invention that will rapidly change the economy that is built on copper wire and gold contacts. If you're willing to sacrifice a mine worker's job, but you're simultaneously unwilling to unplug your phone and turn off your computer, you're a hypocrite. Just like me.

Why do mines like Mt. Polley exist? Because we buy their products. They dig up mineral ores because we keep asking for them. Because we depend on the metals they sell to get our news, start our cars, read our text messages, check our email, do our banking, pay for our coffees, and watch our TVs.

Who among us will implicate ourselves? I'm not ready to throw my cell phone away and move into the forest just yet, so where's the middle ground? If I abandon my job and can't feed my family as a consequence, what ethical ground have I gained? Fear of starvation and homelessness are small comfort for the sake of a clean conscience.

We all have to make a choice - individually and collectively. I see nothing in the future but failure until we've all agreed collectively and individually that going without some of life's modern comforts and slowing down on development is an acceptable outcome.

I don't know what to do. It's a massive problem, and I'm part of it. Every part of my day depends on copper and gold. My leisure, my communication, and my paycheque. You wouldn't be reading this blog without them. I wouldn't be writing it. Is there another way around it, other than letting the whole thing fall in on itself? Not as far as I can tell. I'm working on my exit strategy. How about you?

Photo by Jonathan Hayward, Canadian Press

Week Three: The Holiday Monday Edition

After a week of false starts and unfinished drafts, sometimes the thing to do is wipe the slate and start over. I have this grand idea at the beginning of every week that I'm going to put together a masterful piece of writing - evocative, touching, clever. It's already written in my head, and all I need to do is get it down on paper, type it up, and there's another week in the books.

Days pass and words emerge, but not quickly enough. Things just don't go quite right. I find myself wrestling with moments of indecision, or hesitating, or stopping before I really feel finished because some other needs butt in and get in the way.

One of the greatest challenges that I have in my life is my struggle to hold the clarity of mind that I need to focus on one task and to finish it well, according to what I feel I'm capable of creating. There have been times in the past that I've succeeded and felt vindicated for my efforts. Sometimes, like this week, I feel like a fraud.

The past couple of weeks, I feel that I've done a poor job of regulating my relative input/output energy cycles. Perhaps I'm too hard on myself, but I'm not punishing myself for failures. I'm trying to make an honest accounting of what I'm capable of doing and what I've done.

I recently had a succession of powerful, otherworldly experiences. Three weekends in a row, I partook in some unique and mind-bending experiences that enriched my whole being. I walked away from those feeling enlightened and charged with creative energy. But life isn't all unique and mind-bending experiences. The real task is to carry that forward through the day-to-day without losing stride and without falling victim to the easy trappings of routine - idleness, wasted hours, mild but tolerable discomfort...

That may seem harsh, and I know that it is. I'm my own worst critic, as the cliche goes. But sometimes it's not entirely clear to me what I need to do differently. I create situations in my mind where there's enough time and energy to make everything happen. I practice my guitar for hours a day. I start my morning with yoga and a good breakfast. I sit down to write or read a good book instead of browsing the internet. It's a beautiful fantasy, and there are times that I struggle to make it a reality.

I have few wants and needs that are not met. There is one, though, that I don't think I'll ever fulfill - it's the desire to recycle the charge of creative energy that I receive from the people and situations in my life into creative endeavors that befit the gift I feel that I've been given.

I am immeasurably blessed. I am the recipient of beautiful gifts of love and time and good intentions from the people who are closest to me. It is my greatest desire to see that good energy turned into creativity that I feel is an honest expression of my capabilities. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I'm not.

I don't make a habit of getting down on myself. I'm a human being with flaws and challenges and bad habits like everyone else, but I can also look at where I've spent the most time and energy in my life and see great friendships, a wonderful relationship with my partner, a smart and healthy and curious little boy who incites in me a desire to be a better person, to impart the kind of wisdom that I hope he'll carry forward into making the world a better place.

And with all that, there's the deluge of modern life. The mundane experience that's really anything but - work, home, study, music, writing, love, the routine of living. It's this amazing gift that feels overwhelming at times, and on days like today, it freezes me in my tracks as I try do decide how to act, what to do, how best to spend my time.

This blog has always been an exercise in self-discipline for me. I need it. And it helps, but not always. The incredible contrast between some of my recent experiences and what I do for work during my daytime hours has been difficult to reconcile. I have this feeling that things don't have to be this way, that I can spend more of my hours being engaged and consumed in creative passion and expression.

The most challenging thing is to make the world beautiful. I'm in a situation where it would be so easy to coast. I'm finished with school, I have a regular gig and a stable home. The pull of comfort and routine is incredibly powerful, but I don't want to succumb to it, and I don't plan to. What I need is a continuous challenge, a goal to work towards, a standard that I set for myself that's lofty but realistic.

Lofty but realistic. It's a tough balance at times, because I know what I can do when I'm able to gather the presence of mind. For as long as I can remember I've struggled with focus and attention, and finishing what I've started. We all have our hurdles, and this is mine. It's been a constant companion that I'd love to be rid of, but it's forever waiting for me to slip up in my good habits and slide back towards mediocrity.

I put this all out partially as a way to fulfill my weekly word count, but also as a marker that I can use to gauge my future success. I can look and say, I remember that week when I reached the end and knew that I could have done better - have I improved? Have I ameliorated my habits? Did my output match my capabilities? I hope that I'll be able to answer those questions in the affirmative far more often than not.

Week Two: I See a World

I imagine that I'm someplace high. A vantage point of sorts. Perhaps a cliff watching over a deep valley, or a mountaintop that feels like a compass needle pointing to infinity. I see every direction, in every dimension.

I imagine the tapestry of infinity, woven in energy's loom and all laid out above and below me. It is the greatest art, vast beyond reason. Neither created nor destroyed, only changed from one colour to the next. I imagine that I am not colourblind.

How can I see infinity? In truth, I cannot. Its weave stretches beyond every horizon, a living canvas of endless possibilities. From far away it resembles coloured sands, forever blown and sifted by what if and remember when and that's impossible. That which is infinitely many seems to move as one.

I gaze across incredible distance to the edge of my eventualities, the limit of my perception. I wonder when my path will take me beyond the horizon. I cannot perceive the curvature of time, much as I cannot see the curvature of the earth when I look across the prairies, but I know that an eternity from now I will find myself standing at this place again, once every moment between now and then has been resolved. 

I look closer. And then I imagine me. Every cell, every molecule in my body a fibre much to small to see on its own. Look, crouch down a moment and run your fingers along the fabric. Follow the twines and the knots just here, there's an inch of infinity, this red thread. I'm a blink in measureless space before I go to weave something new.

I see a world of colours diving through a canvas of time. I reel with the overwhelming chaos of it all. Too much. My brain screams for want of patterns, familiarity, something to recognize or someplace to start.

I choose a cord. A thick bundle of green like vines climbing a kaleidoscopic lattice, constantly changing direction, gathering new threads and casting others away, sometimes with such power that they fly beyond my sight. I lose years in seconds watching it unravel.

And then it's gone. I am lost with nothing to follow but the anxiety that arrives in its place, and I wonder if I will ever find myself again. An inch of infinity is so tiny. The path I followed was never straight. There is no hope of tracing my way back.

Where is my red thread? Must be somewhere in this reticulated picture of time, I suppose. I am hidden inside an infinite collection of moments that have come to resemble a single reddened inch in this eternal maze of creation. Come find me.

Images and patterns bloom and burst and disappear, in and out of time. I would panic if not for my fascination. Where am I? Every time I shift my gaze I find a new swath of technicolour possibilities rolling through the fabric like waves in an endless field of grain.

I reach for a thread. As I touch the canvas, my finger splits into a million tiny fibres and interlaces with infinity. I follow. And as I dissolve into a crimson spiral and feel the universe envelop me with a boundless embrace, I wonder... how far will I reach before my thread runs out? Who will weave with me?

If only for a moment, I have received this breath, this gift, this inch of red. Only for a moment before I have to give it back. And I see a world where colours clash and I think, 

if only.

If only I could make a gift befitting the love I long to see, I would give all my thread. I would give every fibre to the dream of a finer infinity, if only the soul who came after to this peak of perception would see a tiny swatch of red spinning just so, and say,

beautiful.

Week One: Taking Steps

It's time to start writing again. I'm not writing on a daily basis, and this blog has been vital to my writing process in the past. It's like the t-shirt in my closet that I can't bear to give away, even though I'll go months at a time without wearing it.

I started in July, 2011 and wrote for 20 weeks. I went again in February, 2013 and wrote for 26 weeks. This time I'm aiming for 32 weeks. Wish me luck.

I hadn't planned to walk on fire. 

I'm camping with my tribe of body ritual practitioners on a beautiful lake shore, beneath a canopy of green in the shadow of the Lillooet and Douglas mountains. I feel an early bedtime coming on, but my partner joins me beside the fire and someone hands me a djembe, so I stay. And I play the drum slow and steady while the logs burn low. 

It's story time. We listen to tales about fiery celebrations and Hindu gods, sacred flames and cleansing embers that turn the past into ash. Instructions are proffered, dangers acknowledged. Feet shuffle and coals beckon.

It scares me every time, says the firemaker.

He rakes the coals smooth and straight and long. He steadies himself, and then he takes the first walk. Another drum finds its way into the circle. We play with excitement and resonance. My friends take the firemaker's hand one-by-one and walk the glowing red path. The moon is huge and full and yellow, and feels terribly appropriate for the proceedings.

Suddenly, a quandary. I want to walk. I must not miss this experience. Firewalking while drumming is not one of my skills, but losing the rhythm is not acceptable. I make eye contact with a friend who can keep a steady beat, then I clench the djembe between my thighs and waddle towards him, playing all the while, until I have delivered my drum.

It's my turn. Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, that's what they say. My heart outpaces the steady djembe rhythms. I reach for a welcoming hand.

Hi John, I made a fire for you. 
Thank you.

The coals look like red silk sugarcoated with ash. Everything is otherworldly. I feel like I'm in that scene in a movie where the camera zooms to a glowing focal point in slow motion, and everything else goes blurry.

I take a deep breath. I walk. The firemaker holds my hand and I take measured, deliberate steps. Straight up, straight down. Don't curl your toes, you don't want to pick up hot coals. Second step, third step. An ember sticks to my left foot and I feel it immediately. My body tries to speed up. 

Get out of here, move! 

But I resist. Careful, deliberate. Another two steps. I feel another ember stick to my right foot and it interrupts my breath. Another step. Almost there, don't run. Three more steps, keep breathing. 

I step onto the grass. My feet are burning but I don't care. I am exhilarated. A good friend and mentor stands with his arms open and I dive into a bearhug. 

Let me feel your power, he exclaims! 

I imagine what all the energy coursing through my body might look like in this moment. I imagine glowing red and electric blue and neon yellow lines of flux that resonate all through me and arc across my limbs and sing in time with the drums. Flames dance through my vision. There's never been a better time to be on fire. 

My hands are shaking. I drift over to my where my partner waits for me, and I take her hand. I step into a bucket of cold water. 

You just walked on fire, she says. Holy schmoly. 
I know. Feels good, man. 

My body feels charged, like I could shoot sparks from my fingers. I drop into a chair and feel my heart pounding against my chest. In through the nose, out through the mouth, like they say. Deep breaths. I wriggle my dripping toes in the cool dirt and let the fire sink into the earth through my radiating feet.

I walked on fire.

Week XXVI: Finita, la commedia

the winds of love are no false force,
nor fruitily boosted intuition.
remember being led toward a place that made you wild,
and the line that was completed when you arrived.

the winds of love were blowing past your lover,
and past you, and we were all going the same way in some way.

when the winds of love tickle your whiskers,
you should trust your whiskers and be blown.

-Ben Corno

The poem above was written by my friend, Ben. It was in response to my entry for Week XX, in which I doubted myself, my writing, my raison d'être, my corny romantic notions, etc. My whiskers are getting pretty long, and I'm able to detect those breezes with ever greater acuity. And right now, they're saying stop.

I'm done. I'm at at point where I don't write because I want to; I write because I have to. It's how I figure things out. When I don't write, I don't live, I don't resolve questions, I don't get things done. Writing, along with music, is my passion in life. It's what I crave and it's what I need. There's an invisible umbilical cord connecting my notebook to my brain. If I there's an idea floating around in my head, I can't sleep until I get it onto a page. This is what I should be doing with my life. And I am. Just not here anymore.

The writing that I don't publish on this blog each week is often lengthier and sometimes more interesting to me than what does go up. But I don't put it here because it's too something - too personal, too weird, too vulgar, whatever. I'm trying to consider the audience, (my mother reads this every week) and I've been walking a tightrope between alienating people and censoring myself, and it's been unnerving at times. I'm not very good at applying filters to my thoughts and ideas. What ends up online every week typically represents anywhere from 3 to 10 revisions after my first draft, which usually begins as a handwritten piece in my notebook, then evolves into something digital.

This post is my 46th entry in this blog. I have 54 unpublished drafts waiting in the queue. Over two years, I've written nearly 100,000 words for this project and while I have plenty of things left to say, I have nothing left to prove to myself. More than anything else, this blog was an exercise in self-discipline. It's something I've struggled with tremendously throughout my life. I wouldn't say that I've always been proud of the content I've generated, but I feel vindicated for sticking it out and putting something out every week. In the past 26 weeks, I published late twice. I've accomplished my goal, and it's time to move on and do something else.

This is going to be my last entry. In Week IX, I talked about having one good summer - one in which I set goals and meet them, enjoy life, share love, and show gratitude to the people who inspire and illuminate my life. My summer is coming to a close now. School looms large, work is very busy, and I'm tired. I would say that I've overextended myself, but it's been with things that I love to do, and I've not been inclined to give any of them up. In addition to my regular job, I've been volunteering, teaching guitar lessons, speaking at workshops, playing drums in two bands, and doing regular open mic nights both on guitar and spoken word with the poetry I've been writing. I've been growing a garden, going on adventures with my son, visiting friends and family near and abroad, and generally having a whirlwind of experiences. Now it's time to put the brakes on, slow down, unplug, and to consider the seeds I've planted (literally and figuratively) and tend the garden.

I'm feeling the pendulum swinging back. I've lived outwardly and openly, inviting new friends and new relationships, seeking new experiences, and just generally being out and engaged most of the time. Now I can feel a strong pull inwards, a need to take time to myself, to hide away for a while, to be calm and quiet, to meditate on what I've done and what I'd like to do in the coming weeks and months. I feel an ever greater desire to buck the trend of putting my life on the internet, which is ironic given that this entire entry has been all - look at me, I do stuff! Look at all this cool stuff I'm doing! Regardless, I get enough attention for my writing in real life and I don't feel compelled to put it up on this platform anymore. It's all about the words, man.

This feels a little bit like liner notes. Like I should be thanking my friends at the end of an album. Check out this stuff I wrote, couldn't have been made possible without all these people. I'm not going to name-drop anybody. If you've encouraged, commented, criticized, or otherwise engaged with me through this project, thank you. I'm going to leave this here as a digital artifact. It's a little time capsule of my thoughts for all the world to see. I'll look back some day and laugh at my silly ideas, as we all seem to do. I have a lot of ideas about where I want to take my writing and where I'd like to focus my energy, and this blog is no longer it. So let's not make a big thing of it, eh? Bye.


Word count: 925

Final project word count: 47,075

Week XXV: What We ought to do

Note: For the sake of clarity, this rant will make liberal use of "We" with the capital W firmly in place. It upsets me a bit to do this, because it smacks of motivational speaker-ese in which letters are capitalized at random in a cheap attempt to give more weight to the words they describe. See Stephen Pressfield's "The War of Art" for an extreme example of this. That guy might be the most pretentious writer in history. And without further ado...

/begin rant

There are a great many things that We ought to be doing. All of us. People. Humanity. Society as a whole. The collective big double-u We that encompasses a large, nondescript gang of humans. You know, Us. The eminently useful We that's trotted out during every conversation about changing the world. The type of We that miraculously holds everyone and no one accountable simultaneously. We ought to do something about that. We ought to X Y or Z for the sake of the Greater Good (see, there it goes again with the capital letters... feels like they're just implicit sometimes.)

We need to change a lot of things. If only We could stop the big oil companies and end corruption in the government and start sharing more and growing our own food, then move on to equal rights for everybody, education for women in Afghanistan, and a stop to all the wars. We would have a more perfect world. If only We thought the way that I do. I know what We need. See, society's moral compass is broken, people are doing the wrong thing and We need to change. We're going to bring about the downfall of society/earth/culture/economics/the environment/etc if We aren't more careful.

Here's where I would like to interject. We as a group are not representative of anything. The category of Us as presently constituted is not useful. I don't want those who read this to take away the idea that I'm disparaging group actions for the sake of social betterment. I'm entirely in favour of those sorts of things. I'm big on getting people together to address the rights and the wrongs. I go to the meetings. The issue I have is the flippancy and the frequency of We and Us and Our and other totally useless collective nouns being set out as targets for everyone's solution cannons. People just love to go scattershot on Us with their plans and ideas. It's far too common within the context of this discussion. There are plenty of assessments of the problems that We have with no followup in meaningful action or engagement. Look, I've "raised awareness." Well, job done then. We're gonna need to get our awareness a safety harness if it's raised any higher.

Example: We need to stop letting oil companies drill mile-deep wells in ecologically sensitive areas. You're right. Here's the problem - oil companies are extremely well funded, well organized, and We keep buying their products, so they have all the clout and they can hire all of the lobbyists. Those with the greatest financial stake in the outcome are the ones who dictate the policy. That's how government works most of the time. On the other hand, We are not well funded or well organized, and We aren't selling liquid gold, thus Our ability to stop the oil companies from doing their thing is limited. We ought to do something about this, you say. You're right. I still don't see Us dismantling our economic infrastructure for the sake of some dolphins, though. They don't buy cars, fuck 'em. We haven't reached the critical mass necessary to overturn these types of policies from the grassroots, and for as long as most of Us are comfortable enough with the machinations of society and economy as they stand, I don't expect that to change.

Again, I would really like to stress that my intent is not to be terribly cynical. It might read that way, and I might be found arguing in circles about where being cynical and being realistic start to differ. Regardless, I felt pressed (hence this rant, which will serve no greater social good) to address what I see as an often unacknowledged hypocrisy in this sort of thinking. There's no accountability or targeted, specific, purposeful calls to action. When We are all held collectively as the ones who need to do something about a problem, We all nod assent and go on with Our lives as usual. Nothing gets done.

I'm not trying to disparage people from getting together and standing up for what they feel is right. Quite the contrary, in fact. I am saying put down the sign and do something. I know that it's impossible to be completely engaged all the time and being a mouthpiece is necessary sometimes. Keep doing your thing, I'm not saying stop. I'm saying that to me, it's important to get away from thinking and talking about what We all ought to be doing, and start engaging with what You might be doing to further the cause, whatever it might be. I point to the obvious but useful example of sharing or liking something on Facebook. Look, I've shared this picture of a landscape with some nice words on it. My work here is done. Everyone is more enlightened. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Whether or not it's true that We should really be acting on all these suggestions is, to me, beside the point. I haven't heard a lot of success stories come out of the hippie socialist utopia talk that crops up a lot in activist circles. We should buy some land together, farm it, build some sustainable houses, get off the grid, and start getting back to The Way Things Were. But there is no Way Things Were, there's only the way things are now. Stop trying to hold sway with this illusion of enlightened regression. The idea that at some point We were all earth-sharing, peace-loving, getting-back-to-the-land sustainable harvesters in harmony with mother nature is silly. As soon as technology became available to harvest more while working less, even to the point where it turned around and started damaging the environment, that's exactly what We all did. Ronald Wright calls it a "progress trap." We got too good at extraction and too lazy or otherwise engaged to revert to the old ways, and now We all have iPhones. We're not going to go pull a plow 'cause fuck that nonsense. Because Angry Birds and Candy Crush, that's why. We'll get around to installing that bio-diesel conversion in the truck any day now.

I'm troubled by the level of engagement or lack thereof that I've seen partnered with this absurdly wide cast of the social net. When We all have a problem, it stops being up to any individual person to change their behaviour. I can't help it, I'm just one guy. This is Our problem, not mine. Or even worse, it's Their problem. They are wrecking the environment and corrupting our elected officials, whoever They are. Companies like Haliburton or BP or whoever the Great Satan of the Left happens to be that day make easy targets. Their CEOs might be evil offshore bank account-holding baby eaters, but those companies aren't their CEOs. They're full of regular people doing regular jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Maybe We need to stop the evil companies, but maybe We need to change our economic models for the better first so that We aren't all dependent on the sticky, slippery trickle down of oil to lubricate the economic machine, plus We'll need to find something else for all of those HR managers and IT consultants and financial secretaries to do. The problem starts to get a lot bigger very quickly, and thus We become incapable of doing anything about it. Oh, well, We say.

I've heard too many prescriptions for Our social ills of late and I'm frustrated by it. How much time have you spent researching where the minerals came from to build that cell phone or laptop you just used to tweet that Dalai Lama quote? The moral high ground starts to look a little shaky when you realize that it's built on industrial slag heaps. Good thing those kids in the Congo mined all that tantalum for me so that I could serve humanity by liking that Facebook page today. They'll be happy to know that their work went a long way towards elevating the social consciousness by a notch or two. I'll Instagram them a picture and throw a Kony 2012 bumper sticker on for a real show of solidarity. We're all one people, united by technology.

How many times have you heard this phrase: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families." Well, a fat lot of good it did them. If thoughts and prayers did an ounce of good, the world's problems would be resolved in an instant. But unless your intended outcome was to "raise awareness," which you may have by this point gathered is something that drives me crazy for its laziness and utter superficiality and meaninglessness, your thoughts and prayers benefit exactly one person: you. They make you feel better about not doing anything. And don't think for a second that I'm counting myself out in that criticism, because I'm well aware that there are plenty of things I could be doing better but don't because I'm too lazy or too busy or I just can't be bothered to care that day. How much good do you think all this rambling is doing? Maybe raising a bit of awareness about how shitty and useless it is to raise awareness? The irony, she burns.

But here's the other point to be made - you and I and all of us individually can be useful and affect change and improve the world. There are a lot of things that We ought to be doing, but until you and I start exemplifying them in our daily behaviour rather than in passing thought or speech, or tweets and Facebook updates, We aren't going to pick up on them. Stop talking and liking and re-tweeting and start doing. Don't concern yourself with Us. Be accountable to yourself and hold yourself to a higher standard. Comfort and complacency are death, don't settle for them. Challenge yourself, educate yourself, ask questions and don't relent until you receive satisfactory answers. Call your friends out on their bullshit. Be an example. Show love by being honest with people. Get rid of the kid gloves and respect people enough to tell things to them straight. A round of doubles of 120 proof honesty for everybody would go a long way. Feel free to give me back a shot of my own. Start off by calling me a cantankerous asshole for even having the gall to write all of this, as though I had the right to tell everyone else what to do with their lives. Tell me I'm a raging hypocrite to get the dialogue going and we'll hash it out while we dig some potatoes. Put your damn phone down, let's go.

/end rant


Word count: 1,863

Week XXIV: Babel, Pt. 4 - Coda

Chaos formed in rings and waves
Darkness fell upon the slaves
Confounded voices dispersed their scattered words

Piercing cries from sharpened tongues
Impaled the letters drawn and hung
Shapeless marks in dust and falling tears

The tower and its stone protrusions
Stood firm against the dissolution
A sepulcher concealing remnant echoes

The sound crept through the cracking mortar
Shaking stones and sand immortal
Whispers lost in motes and darkened swirls

The coming night an inkwell black
A mask upon the bending backs
Of words now incomplete, no consolation

As textures writhing on the ground
Chaotic formless broken sound
Unified in loss and failing throats

Translation by the sweeping hand
Of God whose vicious curse of humans
Left creation trembling beneath

In moonless corners, dark slunk in
To sing a new temptation, sin
That it might mask the echo's older tongues

A serpentine curse from deep below
Soon found the cowering, fearful souls
In desperate leaps, they caught it in their mouths

A new refrain in harshest tones
Sang bitter in the trembling stones
Slanted and grotesque as crooked sculpture

The cursing pinched the tongues of many
A garish cry of enmity
A war of sound beheld in tower heights

The droning chant imbuing evil
Contended with residuals
The clamor shaking all the world's foundations

Harmonics fly, pitch and yaw
Reverberate throughout the halls
And all the ashen vessels hearken to them

Listen
The wailing of the rent and torn
Subsides as though a passing storm
The clouds from blackened chorus bringing rain

Dissonance, denying God
Accursed masses, lost facade
Failing mask of self-divinity

Yet deep within, a recognition
That they might of their own volition
Recapture what they once had held as true

The waves of sound within the tower
Cracked the stones as they grew louder
The greatest art began to buck and sway

The savage voice of blackened speech
Contended out of human reach
With all the harmonies left from their praise

And when it reached the tallest spire
The words made flesh could reach no higher
The stones could never touch the face of God

Blackest night gave way to red
Piercing flares and golden threat
Illuminating wasted words and breath

The contest in the tower fading
The vessels there below in waiting
Seeking shreds of hope amidst the ruin

The sun arose to light the day
Rebirth for words of ash and clay
A recollection of their genesis

Their gaze fell eastward to the light
And images of Eden's flight
Came flooding to the minds and hearts of all

The garden which from memory
Became a cage, illusory
Before the words were granted in deceit

The blinding march towards the sun
Seeking eternity, finding none
Babylon constructed there instead

The apple bleeding from their lips
As falling dew from tendrils drips
They sought to taste its nectar once again

For therein God had not foreseen
The essence of creative beings
Their hubris paid in tears and flesh and blood

That many tongues would tell the tale
The fallen tower to regale
With newer words and greater yarns to spin

A phalanx cut in cuneiform
The phoenix in the ash reborn
The words made flesh beheld their tongues anew

Melodious roots brought singing fruit
New generations followed suit
And harmony became the fireweeds

As God destroys, so it creates
The beauty of the language plays
In jest to One who thought to ruin all

In jealousy, divine in thought
The greatest art was culled for naught
For now their palate grew and multiplied

A thousand songs soon burst from one
With common language come undone
The mother tongue passed down onto the child

The poets came to paint their flourish
Downtrodden souls from which to nourish
Discovering their letters yet again

The word was God, begun again
Beginning brought of violent end
The beauty now of many yet as one

For flesh in ash and dust composed
Though fallen in its verse and prose
May seek the new divine from many paths

Behold the words made manifest
The wrong of pride is soon redressed
In humble speech and laughter for their folly

They cast up to eternal scribes
A reverence from deep inside
And fill the book with many new translations

Though memories begin to dim
Of knowledge bought with carnal sin
The fruit brought forth an orchard in its stead

May all who come to recollect
Behold the spire and genuflect
For all was lost, eternity to gain