we can marvel at each other

Ted talks just get me to the core sometimes. A recent one by actress Thandie Newton is super-cheese, but she raises a touching theme. Similar to Hemingway's "we fear death because we haven't loved well enough or loved at all," (Midnight in Paris) Newton nods to the "live with each other and take it a breath at a time" warm/fuzzy.

This theme has been circulating through me for weeks. In moments of connection, we lose our fear of death. Brilliant. What Newton adds is the practice of suspending self-judgment in order to live in the moment (though I have to say, it takes her awhile to make her point). She gives the example of dancing as a time when she forgets her self-concept and simply emotes. I can think of artistic endeavors, activist projects and sports when I've felt similarly.

I'm sure many of us have activities wherein we suspend thoughts and swim in childlike pleasure, though the opportunity to practice these may be increasingly few and far between. I think the maintenance of this kind of non-judging-connected-soul-activity is vital for our adult spirituality and, plainly, key to our ability to empathize. I also think it's a social problem that this methodology of human connection seems less a part of social citizenship in our individuated/global age than it ever has been (e.g. nationally: nuclear family ethos; cuts to arts funding; (private) outsourcing of care work). To engage meaningfully, we'd need to prioritize activities for love-in-the-present and we'd all need to dare to sing together without judging the sound before it leaves our mouths.

At the risk of getting a little airy (here I go judging myself), Newton encourages that our judging self is natural and not a source of shame. The divisiveness of self-concept should be acknowledged, but not allowed to rule with authority. As she jokes, she takes hers to therapy. Funny, but points to how we're not set up to live happily the way things exist. Without meaning to, Newton makes the point that a privileged subset of the population gets to validate self -- by paying for it.

Piece of more uplifting imagery to conclude: when, on a path, the cracks in our self-concept start to reveal themselves, push in that direction even harder. The resulting experience will be real.

love talk

Though feeling like I may rather fall asleep forever than go out tonight, I wandered down the canal in great company and had one of my best evenings in Ottawa.


It started in a park with people of disparate backgrounds who seemed to understand something in common about each other. A sense of ungroundedness? Belonging to a network of people searching for je ne sais quoi? Adult restlessness? Whatever the similarity of mind, we seemed on a wave length.


I parted for downtown to meet a friend for mojitos. The night ended with a conversation about love, wherein my brilliant male friend suggested each of our subjective understandings of love are conceptualized using two components: education (socialization) and experiential knowledge. Seems simple enough, but profoundly helps me appreciate confusedly competing definitions of love. To simplify, he beautifully described regret at his most important romantic relationship ending because nobody was there to tell him (educate him) that it would be okay.


Love talk including scarf metaphor on a warm patio evening had my soul sailing into faith and hope without reprieve.

how we view progress: Postrel's disturbing pseudo-philosophy of dynamism

Last week I was on my usual morning stroll through The Agenda with Steve Paikin when piqued by Virginia Postrel's blabbing on about How We View Progress.


Postrel speaks passionately about the individual's role in collective societal progress and our human desire (/need) to improve things. Her basic (read: basic) argument is that whenever we have an object, we have dissatisfactions with it, and we think of how it could be improved.


Her examples are pretty darn bad. 


She tries to convince us that progress ("properly understood") is not progress toward a specific goal, rather it is open-ended and infinite. Each type of progress leads to new dissatisfcations which lead to new improvements. "Whatever is today leads to whatever is tomorrow." Riiiight.


Most interestingly, Postrel argues that understanding progress in this way lends a new way to conceptualize our long-entrenched right vs. left political spectrum. She posits that binary poles would be "valuing progress" (supporting a "dynamist" [she makes a mockery of this word] element with relatively simple rules that allow for competition) versus "stasis" (supporting the idea of a singular best way to do something).


Unapologetically, I think Postrel is scary-nuts. Her new "political spectrum" is full of contradictions, shoving her main points into irony as she claims to be developing a spectrum that is less dissonant than standing left-right conceptualizations. The scary-nutsiest part is her toss in that folks like Bill Clinton and Al Gore are people who are afraid of the future. Well, frack. We should be afraid of the future. Have you *seen* the global condition out there? And then she straight up disses Obama: apparently the recent lightbulb mandates (to reduce emissions) by his administration put Obama in the stasis category in a "deeply emotional way." And since in Dreams From My Father he writes about economic progress as devastating and disruptive to communities, Obama is "quite negative," she says.


I'm hard on Postrel because I'm afraid of a future with leaders and influencers of her ilk. Yes, this is "quite negative" of me. After all, she's brainstorming for the best version of a healthy future like the rest of us. Admittedly, though, I am afraid to be living in a time when opinions such as hers are represented as critical and innovative, and are seized by a culture that is thirsty for this kind of talk. I fall for buzzy sounding rhetoric too, so I suppose this is my reflection on for what we are thirsty and how sincere messages might quench.

(political) infection: a gooey mess

As we all learned in Grade 12 biology, infection is the colonization of a host by a parasite. The desperate parasite, biological clock a-ticking, tries to exploit the host organism's resources in order to reproduce, while the host (if it is a mammal) innately swells into a gooey mess as it tries to kick the parasite's ass (ask my parents for proof of the mammalian gooey mess phase in their pictures of me from our family vacation this past winter. yucky).


This fall, at a conference in Brighton called 9/11: Rethinking Reality, Inge Mutsaers is discussing the post-9/11 US discourse of "infected politics." Mutsaers reminds us that it is common under modernity for biology to be politicized (new reproductive technologies are one obvious [arguably eugenicist] example), but since 9/11, there has been a biologicization of politics. That is, terrorism is conceptualized as viral -- an infection that will plague its host organism(s) (in this case, "Western" nations) and reproduce (at the expense of our immune system's gooey resources).


This idea is argued by cultural zombie theorists: the post-9/11 surge of apocalyptic zombie films reflects a cultural fear that the enemy of Western democracy is irrational, violent, gender ambiguous and void of conscience (see Razack's "Muslim irrationality"). Therefore, the enemy is more horrific and terrifying than ever - an imminent and constant threat to "freedom" and survival that cannot be tamed. Interesting stuff.


I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that this biologicization of politics is a post-9/11 (or merely terrorist) phenomenon. Queer movers know that modern discursive constructions of "homosexuality" include disease-words that make queerness sound contagious. And if I remember the script of The Crucible accurately, pre-moderns thought witch-dome had parasitic properties too. The linking of human fear to perceived contagions is age-old.


Perhaps what is most interesting about the putative post-9/11 examples of biology language for politics is that biotechnological advances now show what is and is not parasitic, yet we use the language anyway, and on a more macro war-of-the-worlds scale. For example, in his spine-tinglingly horrible War on Terror Address to Congress immediately following the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush proclaimed that the US is "not immune" from attacks on US soil. As if there is an anti-terrorism booster, Mr. President?


I think it is useful to consider what about biological language is so preferred by politicians so that the messy political narrations that are produced under such rhetoric can be challenged. Is biological jargon appealing for its allusion to scientific legitimacy? Is it preferred for its relatability? Is it highly strategic propaganda? Or is it simply colourful metaphor? I tend to assume it is an intentional way of associating disease and dying of the human body with threats against Western liberalism. Who isn't afraid of getting cancer? Terrorists: our nation's most dangerous and elusive carcinogen. Effective fear-maker.


Looking forward to Mutsaers presentation! Stay tuned!

vacationing at home

Since moving to Ontario three years ago, I loosely conceptualize my 'home' as my general places of origin and socialization: Vancouver city, the surrounding Lower Mainland, and several villages and towns in the rural Southern Interior where my parents grew up and where my siblings and I spent most holidays as a kid and continue to spend summers and every other Christmas. Now that I live 5000 kilometers away from these places, most of my vacation time is spent hopping between them. Home is my vacation destination. I feel lucky to have these spaces and people in my memory and lucky that they seem all the more special now that I no longer live here.


A hot, dry afternoon in Kelowna feels worlds away from Ottawa. I gaze out my window at desert hills: dotted with oaks and cedars, striped with rich vineyard rows, scarred with new townhomes and wartime bungalows, crawling with pick-ups and Harleys. It's not like any place I've seen, but is like a hybrid of Tucson, AZ and Niagara on the Lake, ON in my mind.


The entire southern interior of British Columbia is a strange place to me. Kelowna and the Okanagan have been Conservative since the 60s. The major industries are construction, retail, hospitality (from fancy winery bistros to fast-food... K-town ranks 2nd highest in fast-food restaurants per capita in Canada) and health (the hospital here serves the sickest patients of the BC interior). I imagine it also scores high in tanning beds and tattoo parlours per capita. Unemployment and immigration are way below the provincial and national averages, and home ownership is high.


Kelowna/Okanagan is also one of the most naturally beautiful regions I have ever seen, and boasts the best climate in the country. In every season, I lust after the lifestyle here: skiing in the winter (but not too cold), wakeboarding in the summer (hot but dry), triathlon training all year round, affordable lakeside property, fresh produce all year, a lively arts scene, and a UBC campus on the hill. What Kelowna lacks in diversity and international influence, it certainly boasts in lifestyle. If only this playground weren't couched in what I see as a totally backward and insular sociopolitical atmosphere, I'd probably already live here.


Juxtaposing the healthy living and conservative urban/rural valley community of Kelowna (should these be put against each other) feels especially strange to me as I begin to view the infrastructure of my childhood through critical eyes. As I'm sure is common for many of us when returning "home," sweet nostalgia is often disrupted by cultural awakenings and a loss of innocence. This sensation is unsettling to say the least, and can even feel depressing (see Garden State). For me, it is also wrapped in pleasure seeking, family love, leisure time, consumption, general self-indulgence and corresponding guilt.


Home has become tied up in feeling compelled to determine to which parts of my history I am attached, and how these construct my present behaviour and goals for the future. To cope with the stress of this, I will roll over on my water floatie and request a glass of wine from my dad.