false idols

this is inescapble
the glory of the internet is that it is ubiquitous
no matter where i am, there it is

decisions

it's a tricky thing--as with everything it seems--knowing when to do something, and when to refrain. like deciding something for my future--i can remember that i used to do it all the time, often without thinking. now it takes concentrated effort. the alternative is not to do it at all.


similary, undoing or doing up my pants when i go to the bathroom. do i do the hardest part myself or do i ask for help? do i keep asking for help 'til i die? have i become that dependant? already? or is this vacillation part of the progress of the disease? will i come through? should i just relax, and it will happen anyway?

the system

this 'system' is all-encompassing. for all i know, it may include these emails. or i might be the only one that is crazy and the system extends as far as i see. what do i do? know reality, says plato's allegory of the cave. know thyself, says socrates. be still, and know that i am god, says the famous poster. an existential approach (paul tillich; john shelby spong) posits that faith alone determines my relationship to the divine. two nights ago i was worried that like the buddhist holyman, i had to have everything sewn up at the moment of death, but now i'm not so sure. otoh, if we're caught forever in our dreams at the moment of death, it woud be good to have a good dream. but is that any better than a lousy reality? are dreams just as real? do i get brownie points for thinking like this?

[later]
this makes less sense the longer i'm here. maybe i see more and pay attention more to things that have less to do with me, and in this way they make less sense. this adds to my feeling of unreality. real or unreal, how can i tell? either way, where does this paranoia come from, that someone is out to prevent me from disovering the truth. is it paranoia, or is it for my own good?

insanity--all of it

i think i'm insane. this is a relative term, so i think i'm insane compared to the relative sanity of society. of course, i think society is crazed, and i no longer want anything to do with it. society includes you. so why do i bother? first, it's the proper procedure to let my psychologist know where i'm at. second, it's therapeutic for me to write about it. third, i have a dim hope that you can help me. fourth, if no one can help me, this is my way of thumbing my nose at the world. fifth, this is my response to being in rehab for 10 months. paradoxically, my explanations of my insanity hopefully will make my actions seem less insane.

a difficulty in being insane, is knowing what is real and what is constucted. one of my aims is to realize everything is constructed by me, and thus to control everything. this is why i do things as inocuous as eat dessert or as harmful as walk without any supports: i am often testing my sense of reality. the problem is that my sense of reality often comes up short, and i can only take so many knocks. protecting my brainpan should be my number one priority. but then i may never know what is 'real'--besides, it's boring. it also appeals to me to think that society is constructed to support a false illusion about reality. it helps those in power stay in power--and power is not money or guns, but ultimately it's about knowledge. i may not have access to money or guns, but i may have a twinkling of insight into knowledge. or so i flatter myself. i may be totally out to lunch.

what, then, is the point to all this study, if an indeterminant part of this is unreal? when i read a text--or respond to a text--what part is real and what part is not? is this what insanity is? (is not 'is *like*' but '*is*').

well, if i am insane, i have fulfilled my self-prophecy. and i don't like it. but i can't go back and feign my ignorance, now that i know; but how do i move forward? i ask the same question whenever i go pee.

i think of something, and immediately either there is an answer, with its accompanying solace, or there is a great, crushing anxiety. left to my natural desires, i of course seek the solace. but if i do, doubt plagues my mind--am i lusting after forbiden fruit and taking the easy way out?

one final admission: i am better in print than spoken word.

these disturbances don't help. i'm talking specifically about the guy in bed 3 who keeps me up half the night; this fire alarm;... is my brain grasping at last straws before the finality (seeming finality) of the anullment?

is the anullment to be desired or not? is it even real or not? i want do what is right. i've always wanted to do what is right. but what if there is no right or wrong? what if it's an existential world, and we are indeed creatures of our own decisions, ultimately of our own faith.

or am i just lost? having given up on active rehab but not allowed off this unit, what do i do? right now, if i stay in this room, i'm at the mercy of the television, which right now has an ontario focus on the gm-bankrupcy. i've steered clear of all news of the depression, having gone into the hospital before its official start. i feel overwhelmed. if i return to my bedroom i'm bored. bored beyond death.or is it just monday, and there's a kind of fatalism to the day [why is it 'fatalism' if it's negative, and 'providence' if its positive? does positivity presuppose a belief in a higher power? if one does not believe in a higher power, what does one call 'providence'?][see how i go around?] harold has the tv very loud; it's interrupting my thought. lunch is almost an hour away but i gotta pee.

ok. i've peed and i'm back in the lunchroom. the tv is still on and it's still loud. i think tv-watching has come a long way since bringing the vietnam war into american livingrooms. for one thing, the military has smartened up. for another tv watchers have become insensitive to a degree. why else would horror stories be sandwiched between placid commercials?

when i put it this way, can anyone blame me? and since i don't have a crystal ball, shouldn't i send this to vki immediately?

depression

Saturday, May 30, 2009

i'm fighting the depression of seeing a long shadow get even longer.
i'm casting the shadow.
to get rid of the shadow i need to move out of the light.
but i'm afraid to move.

one thing i'm mindful of is that these depressions are inevitable.
so i should put up and shut up.
the only reason i mention it here is that i promised myself that
i would record my thoughts....

growing confidence

[090529]
i am flouting with increased confidence the edges of this dream, but if i go to the core, i get hurt--for example, falling this morning. i just went to the bathroom with maryjo [the brunette], and while i didn't stand by myself, i did most everything else by myself. otoh, i'm really tired. this is exhausting work.

[mid-afternoon]
is this a huge case of denial? no, i think i'm being realistic. my downfalls: i fell this morning, my left hand still lacks pressure-sensitivity; i can handle so much reality. my pluses: i walked further this morning; i'm typing with two hands; things are generally going my way.

[early evening]
now, i feel this is reality, and my brain is playing tricks on me. see how my thinking does an about-face during the course of the day? what am i going to do?

long pause....

as i did during the abi meeting, 'stay the course,' plan my work, and work my plan. right now i want to plan my work in the cool of the evening. but what i'm going to do is sit tight this weekend, and take my own advice, planning my work and working my plan...

avm in toronto

[090528]
went to t-o with delores and two OPTs. battled unreality much of the way. did not get out of my stretcher, but was shown the exam room while the opts waited. dr.t did not show; some other male, middle-aged dr with 2 interns--a dr. wallace, i think--saw me. he said that there's no reason evident for my cognitive deficits, and that my physical deficits will take a year or more to heal. he checked over all my qqs, and classified the first 2 as cognitive--which he couldn't answer--and the other 4 as physical. he ordered more tests for my ventricles--an mri, i think.

on the way back, i tried to relax and not worry at all. it was hard, though you'd think it wouldn't be hard at all.

god is

god is what god is

we define god based on our experiences

all we can do is thank god, for each day and each opportunity.

reality

this is real.

i may not like parts of it, but it is real.

i may at times choose to ignore it, but reality doesn't go away.

knowing what is real is the first half of the battle. the best is yet to come.

frik 'n' frak

here's a story, told by one of the nurses--

when her son was three-and-a-half, he was playing in the basement with the boy next door. i don't remember their names, but she called them frik 'n' frak. the son came up and headed outside, followed by the boy next door, who asked about the cat in the freezer. the mom ran downstairs and opened the freezer door, and the cat ran out so fast!

you gotta move

like gino sings it, you gotta move. i dunno what the future holds. so i can't predict accuately what the effect of my actions will be. but i feel i can't stay in one place too long. so, i gotta move. this week, i got my nose buried in wikipedia, which is vast. next week, who knows?

alberta tar sands

canadians--you and me--are the biggest exporters of oil to the u.s.. much of that oil comes from the alberta tar sands, as detailed by andrew nikiforuk in his book Tar Sands. as a canadian, what are you going to do?

i'm at the shaver...

...in st. catharines. my tentative discharge date is april 16, with outpatient orientation on april 20, outpatient happening on wed and fri from 9 to 12, starting on apr. 24. i want to thank vicki for all these months of driving down to t.o. and for coordinating the visits and the emails. there's nothing for me in the village of waubaushene, and so we've decided to continue my rehab in st. catharines, where i grew up and went to high school, and my family still live.

note: june 2, and i'm still at the shaver. shortly after this post i fell.

the image of everything

There's this surfer dude who's actually got a PhD in Physics who has published in the respectable New Scientist a theory of everything, as reported in Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything.

He bases his math on this 248-dimensional lovely object [here drawn in two dimensions], known simply as E8.









i like the resemblance to mandalas, such as this arabic mandala:





















or this tibetan one:


























or indra's net of pearls






















or bucky fuller's geodesic dome:


















or m.c. escher:

first day at brock

i share two offices at brock in the dept of applied linguistics: one with the teaching assistants, and one with the research assistants (where i am now). classes don't start til next week, but i'm here doing research for one of the profs. wes is plugging in to the special needs department and looking forward to starting at brock in the near future.

this morning i biked to the farmers market downtown and bought whole wheat bread, peaches, and granola. at 11 am i called vki in her vancouver hotel and played wake-up music for her and rowan. they are off to burningman in nevada today, via san francisco and a green tortoise bus. wes and i had our first walk uptown and bus ride to brock. it's such a beautiful summer's day here in st. catharines.

off to mariposa

in a few hours it's off to orillia to the mariposa folk festival to catch serena ryder and hawksley workman tonight, followed by two days in the sun and closing with the grandest canuck gordon of them all, gordon lightfoot

happy father's day; found some old friends

last night a friend from long ago and far away found me on facebook. a phone call later and we chatted for a couple of hours.

tonight, the kids had me over at karen's house for supper and aftewards while karen and darlene were out for a canoe ride, and while watching monty python and the holy grail with them, i came across a book i had bought from renee in the 80s: we are all part of one another: a barbara deming reader. so, i went looking online for more about deming (1917-1984).

this is from Barbara Deming: An Activist Life, by Donna McCabe:

"For Barbara, the task for all of us is to erase the so-called differences between the sexes, bring out the women in all men, the man in all women. By doing so, we are able to act not as atomized individuals, but as parts of a larger community. We join gender back into an singular noun. Barbara saw this leap as possible when discussing gender in a way she was not able to understand during her lifetime of activism. "I would say myself that our sexuality is given us so that we can commune with one another. It cracks our single selves. Without sexuality we would be impossibly isolated within our individualities. We could not experience community, could not experience in our flesh the truth that we are, all of us, members one of another" (244). Our sexuality is very damaged. Damaged by the attempt to split it into the so-called male and so-called female. This lie is what has weakened any possibilities of communion. "If society did not try to make us all heterosexuals - and if patriarchy were dispelled and, with it, the power inequities that make most heterosexual relationships so distorting - my guess is that we would find ourselves quite naturally attracted to either sex" (246). Barbara recognized the base opposition that created all others to be gender. A separation of our very be-ing."

how timely is that now that i'm going back to school to study language and social justice? it's as if it's all coming back to me, and i hope to give it all back.

excerpt from temporary insanity: a world in transition, by philip slater

i was following up on one of the sociologists referenced in my textbook, Philip Slater. i never heard of him, but it seems i should have --not only is he a sociologist, he's an actor and a playwright. in 1982 he was chosen by MS. Magazine as one of its "male heroes."

here's the conclusion to a essay on his homepage:

the whole essay is worth reading, (he has a lot to say about religious fundamentalists, for example) but i thought i'd get to the point: the world is changing from a control culture to an integrative culture, and slater is optimistic....

he writes:


If change happened slowly and smoothly we might be able to handle it more gracefully. But that's not what happens. As they sense an old cultural system dying around them, those who espouse it will assert its values more harshly, more stridently, more desperately. The most extreme forms of authoritarianism, for example, occurred in the 1930s, when democracy was a growing trend.

The growth of Integrative Culture and the simultaneous rise of fundamentalism around the world make us feel the world's going in opposite directions at the same time. We've never been more concerned about the environment yet never more destructive of it; never more distrustful of technology yet never more dependent on it; never more opposed to violence yet never more fascinated with it; never more ego-driven and never more hungry to lose ourselves in something beyond ego; never more health conscious yet never more unhealthy. And while we've never had more ways of connecting with each other, we've never felt more disconnected.

These are the predictable symptoms of a culture in transition. Old familiar habits have begun to seem irrelevant or destructive, while the emerging system still feels awkward and uncomfortable, like shoes that haven't yet shaped themselves to our feet.

[his conclusion;]

It will be decades before Integrative Culture achieves the kind of general acceptance that Control Culture enjoyed for thousands of years.

..

A new cultural system tends to be built around what was trivialized in the old one. Integrative values were never absent during the Controller era, they were simply assigned inferior status--something women concerned themselves with. Similarly, when Integrative Culture achieves a comfortable preponderance in our shrinking world, Controller values will have a niche—something men play with. The kind of consensus that will permit this is a long way off, but we can take some comfort from the likelihood that our descendants will enjoy it. Prophets of doom always attract an audience because people love drama, but the probable reality is more mundane: we can expect a long period of adaptation, during which violent flare-ups, like those of this decade, will gradually diminish in frequency as more and more of the world embraces the emerging culture. Life on our planet will then settle into an equilibrium--one that may not create any more happiness, but will at least be more stable.

Declaration of Interdependence

Declaration of Interdependence

Five members of the David Suzuki Foundation team wrote the following Declaration of Interdependence in 1992 for the United Nations' Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

In 2001, Finnish composer Pehr Henrik Nordgren wrote his Symphony no. 6 "Interdependence" based on the declaration, which also served as lyrics to the piece. It was performed for the first time in Sendai, Japan in December, 2001.

version française
Download the declaration as an Adobe PDF document.

This We Know

We are the earth, through the plants and animals that nourish us.

We are the rains and the oceans that flow through our veins.

We are the breath of the forests of the land, and the plants of the sea.

We are human animals, related to all other life as descendants of the firstborn cell.

We share with these kin a common history, written in our genes.

We share a common present, filled with uncertainty.

And we share a common future, as yet untold.

We humans are but one of thirty million species weaving the thin layer of life enveloping the world.

The stability of communities of living things depends upon this diversity.

Linked in that web, we are interconnected -- using, cleansing, sharing and replenishing the fundamental elements of life.

Our home, planet Earth, is finite; all life shares its resources and the energy from the sun, and therefore has limits to growth.

For the first time, we have touched those limits.

When we compromise the air, the water, the soil and the variety of life, we steal from the endless future to serve the fleeting present.

This We Believe

Humans have become so numerous and our tools so powerful that we have driven fellow creatures to extinction, dammed the great rivers, torn down ancient forests, poisoned the earth, rain and wind, and ripped holes in the sky.

Our science has brought pain as well as joy; our comfort is paid for by the suffering of millions.

We are learning from our mistakes, we are mourning our vanished kin, and we now build a new politics of hope.

We respect and uphold the absolute need for clean air, water and soil.

We see that economic activities that benefit the few while shrinking the inheritance of many are wrong.

And since environmental degradation erodes biological capital forever, full ecological and social cost must enter all equations of development.

We are one brief generation in the long march of time; the future is not ours to erase.

So where knowledge is limited, we will remember all those who will walk after us, and err on the side of caution.

This We Resolve

All this that we know and believe must now become the foundation of the way we live.

At this turning point in our relationship with Earth, we work for an evolution: from dominance to partnership; from fragmentation to connection; from insecurity, to interdependence.

stop heavy metal pollution

i don't mean led zep or metallica, i mean cadmium, mercury, etc.

here's a quote from david suzuki.

The simplest way to stop heavy metals: don't buy things you don't need, especially electronics. The sad fact is that all those great electronic devices usually go obsolete very quickly. (The average useful life for a computer is only five years, and about 18 months for cell phones.) If you must buy something, buy it second-hand. Here are some places to get used goods:

Freecycle: http://www.freecycle.org
Craigslist: http://toronto.craigslist.org/about/cities.html
Salvation Army: http://www.salvationarmy.ca/

and i didn't know that

coal-burning power plants are the single largest source of mercury in Canada. Reducing your energy use helps keep mercury out of the environment.

on this page there are links to more info: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/NatureChallenge/newsletters/Metal_June2007/page5.asp