TEN YEARS AFTER - ANOTHER DECADE IN THE CAN

As we come to the close of another decade, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how we use this particular factor of time to define out social evolution.  The decade is often used as a platform for nostalgia and reminiscing.  Depending on your age, you might look back on a particular decade as a "golden age" or base your generational identity on the events and products of that time.  We think of fashion and music and movies within a classification system which relies on this arbitrary 10 year span to create a sense of progression.  Our identities as individuals and groups conform to these cycles and stamp us with signifiers which link us to the times of our youth, adulthood and old age. Overall, the use of this segmentation helps to give us a sense of forward momentum, the feeling like we are traveling along a continuum and heading towards some kind of accomplishment. 

It seems to me that Western civilization began delimiting decades as cultural and generational eras beginning with the 20th century, or perhaps just before it.  I suspect it is closely tied to the industrial revolution and remains linked to technological advancements to this day.  Prior to that, things didn't change much except in terms of centuries where you might get an enlightened period or a dark age or ongoing wars between nations and ethnic groups, but for the most part, the way people lived didn't change too dramatically until machines and electricity came into the picture.  Then you get an exponentially accelerating process of social upheaval as successive new technologies emerge.  Within that, the decade became a convenient marker by which to retrospectively assess and assimilate the primary social shifts which occurred in the past.  

From what I've observed, the means and methods of consuming media have been of particular importance in defining these shifts.  Perhaps the advent of written texts and then the printing press would be the first major propellants of cultural evolution.  Then we have the telephone, radio, recorded media (photography, film, audio and video tapes and discs), Television, computers, the internet and, finally, wireless broadband among the key communication revolutions.  The advent of each of these and the process of them becoming ubiquitous within our civilization has carried with it a unique set of social adaptations which changed the way we relate to one another.  Ideas could be shared with increasing speed, spreading the assimilation of new concepts and changing the way we perceive and comprehend reality.  The very act of recording is, in effect, a sort of "time machine",  allowing us to venture into the past and project ourselves into the future. 

Economic circumstances were also a key factor, particularly in the first half of the 20th century with the "roaring twenties" defining an era of abundance and economic boom, while the "dirty thirties" was a decade of financial ruin with the social upheaval which resulted ultimately culminating in a decade marked by a world war and the prospect of literal planetary extermination coming within the grasp of our species for the first time.  But in spite of the looming specter of nuclear annihilation, the 1950s dawned as a decade of prosperity and plenty.  Post war, birth rates soured, income increased and the new technologies were making themselves known as the cultural concepts of modernism & futurism became embedded into the psyche of the mainstream.   Technological advancements could be experienced directly as new machines and appliances entered the homes of large numbers of people in a mostly egalitarian way. 

Popular culture became critical as a social glue in the mid-century decades.  TV brought entertainment into every home and youth culture became an economic factor as manufacturers and  service industries realized that teens and preteens had access to wealth and resources never before available to so many.  The "middle class" came into its own in the West.  Things like rock and roll music could motivate millions of young people to purchase all sorts of products from clothes to cars to cans of Coke.  The sales pitch became an art form and began to develop a sophistication capable of manipulating susceptible minds.  Propaganda was turned towards selling goods instead of pushing ideology.  Capitalism became the ideology and its success was measured in profit margins.  

The 1960s ushered in the "space age" as the move to put people among the stars took hold and drove the science of the day, but other sorts of travel were also in the cards thanks to the advent of psychedelic drugs, a technology which came into prominence at the beginning of the decade as  clandestine experiments by the military and government leaked into the streets.  Thanks to the subversive efforts of certain intellectuals in the universities, these substances became widely available to the youth of the day, with the result being a realization that they had a voice and could take to the streets to demand change, as opposed to being no more than pawns in the capitalistic cat and mouse games of product peddling.  

This was all expertly crushed down in the 1970s when the youth were diverted away from activism as the "me decade" offered up self-indulgent fashion trends like disco and punk to provide a sense of self expression while simultaneously feeding the cash registers of the corporations creating all the clothes and music being consumed.  But this only worked to a certain extent as some valuable lessons were learned in the previous decade and actual social change did manage to start to creep into the cultural fabric.  Race relations, gender politics and sexual orientation all found their feet during this decade and began the process of fighting for rights and recognition which had been denied up to this point.  The world also began to recognize the environmental toll being exacted on the planet as pollution, in its various forms, started to show that it wasn't just nuclear destruction which offered an existential threat to humanity.  Our day to day abuses of our natural resources  could also upset the balance enough to trigger potentially catastrophic consequences.  

The 1980s saw the advent of the "computer world" as the first personal computers began to enter the home, though it wouldn't be until the next decade that these would truly make their mark.  However, culturally, the electronics boom drove society into it's first dalliances with cell phones and satellite TV opened up the possibilities of specialized programming and niche markets.  Above all, the capitalist money machine kicked into high gear as "greed is good" became the mantra of the mainstream.  Wealth and decadence were the hallmarks of this neon day-glo, big hair, broad shouldered decade.  It seemed as though money was all you needed to buy your happiness and your social standing.  

This culture of prosperity and technology carried over into the 1990s as the personal computer truly found its home on the desktops of middle class homes throughout the west.  Digital became the watchword as CDs and DVDs brought crystal clear, pixel perfect reproductions of content to consumers.  The skeleton of the internet established itself during this time and the potential of unlimited connectivity loomed.  Cell phones transformed from awkward bricks into something that more closely resembled the fantasy sci-fi communicators of Star Trek, small and palm sized, easy to pocket, making communication possible virtually anywhere at any time.  

The new millennium dawned amid paranoia about "Y2K" disasters as people began to realized how much they'd become dependent on technology and its computing power.  The prospect of a simple miscalculation sending global infrastructures and economies into chaos drove crisis culture into realms of conspiracies.  The build-out of the World Wide Web broke business models for media distribution and monetization as file sharing and rampant pirating of content meant that the container was no longer king in the world of data distribution.  Ones and zeros could be transmitted effortlessly from any one location to another, so artifacts like CDs and their physical counterparts became irrelevant and lost their value.  

Cable TV exploded in the 2000s and brought with it a host of product, both good and bad.  Sophisticated dramas on HBO were balanced against trashy reality TV on other specialty channels.  Being famous became an end in itself as Warhol's "15 minutes" prediction turned into nightmarish reality.  Economically, the house of cards was collapsing as born out by the 2008 crisis when banks and other financial institutions worked their way into disaster through speculation, unsustainable lending and sheer fraud on a scale never before imagined.  Politically, the uncoupling of reality from expediency set the stage for a kind of delusional governance which would fully bare fruit in the decade to come.  

This brings us to the 2010s as we close out this most recent decade and look forward to the 2020s.  Looking forward is something I say with a bit of hesitancy as we sit now on the precipice of some  disturbing realities.  With hindsight being what it is, looking back on this last decade reveals some rather unsettling chickens coming home to roost.  That sense of perpetual progression seems to be hitting the brakes now as the true cost of our follies begins to be calculated and the sums start hitting into zones of danger which had originally been projected for times much further into the future than our present.  

I think if there's anything that defines the past ten years, it has to be the proliferation of social media  in our culture.  Though the technology to support it first came into being in 2007, the effect of it has truly been felt since the beginning of this decade as platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken root and created this environment where facts have become optional.  People are now free to create their own reality based on any old bias or prejudice they wish to indulge.  Things are true because people want them to be true.  "Fake" is a meaningless term now because everything is fake.  One media source is just as good as another.  It's only a matter of personal preference.  

Environmentally, the alarm bells have been going off throughout the decade as severe weather anomalies and climate change become more and more difficult to dismiss.  People looking back on this decade, if there are any to do so in the future, may likely pinpoint it as the tipping point for climate collapse and irreversible damage to our ability to sustain life.  There is every chance we have already gone too far in terms of damaging ecological systems for us to effect repairs or stop the rest of the dominoes from falling.  

Politically, we're living through something that would have only been imagined in a Batman movie plot in previous decades.  Now, blatant criminals have stolen control of governments away from the electorate and prop themselves up with deluded masses of ignorant lackeys who follow because they've been bred to see selfishness and cruelty as virtues to be celebrated.  People protected by their social media bubbles of self deceit rally around a buffoon like Trump and cheer as he spits insults and abuse, thinking this is a display of authority when, in fact, it's nothing more than a perversion of power.  There is no level of debasement he is capable of which would dissuade them from their support.

Socially, this decade has seen the complete abandonment of the concept of a "middle class" as a small percentage of the mega-wealthy horde resources beyond any practical need and deny basic sustenance to the rest of the planet by preventing wages from growing with productivity and lobbying to repeal fundamental social gains made by unionization and labor movements in previous decades.  They've convinced themselves that their money will buy them protection from the social collapse they're actively engaged in promoting as they undermine every social institution which used to help advance civilization.  Profit motives have corrupted the courts, healthcare, education, policing, the military and spirituality.  There isn't a single sanctuary remaining where the obsession with profit at any costs hasn't desecrated the concept of empathy, community and caring.  We're all merely swirling around the toilet for the final flush, grasping at any piece of shit we can get our hands on before we get sucked down the drain, once and for all.

Where generations have previously followed the procession of advancement, always with a sense of optimism of working towards a better future, we are now at a precipice where more and more people are convinced there's no turning back and that there's no hope for salvation.  We can't pretend anymore that these are just tough times, struggles we've gone through before and that we'll work our way through.  That delusion has lost its usefulness as a salve to ease the pain of the wounds that keep being inflicted upon us.  We're worn raw from the abuse and know there's no plan to relent or show mercy.  The master is on the whip and any pretense at accommodation has been abandoned as an economic burden, too costly to justify.   This last decade has sucked the wind from our sails, particularly the latter half of it.  When blatant criminals can hold power in what is called "the land of the free", then the world has gone mad, even if that nation has always been something of a fraud in terms of being a proponent of "truth and justice". 

My own personal journey through this decade as been one of disconnection and loss, right from its onset.  Where the 1990s & 2000s saw me find footing in the technology sector, establishing a 16 year long successful career in software development, I started off 2010 by being unceremoniously ejected from that position and have not been able to secure any stable employment since.  As I come up to my 10th anniversary of unemployment, I find myself in a kind of netherworld limbo, the "50 plus dead zone", where I'm too old to be considered for any regular employment (50 being the arbitrary cutoff currently in vogue), but not old enough to retire and collect a pension.  In fact, the same people who won't hire people over 50 are also now pushing for holding off retirement until after 70, though they don't seem to see any issue with that 20 year purgatory they're creating in the process.  Though I subsist in a state of disenfranchisement from the main economic engine, I'm still somehow allowed to exist in this position where I have a roof over my head and food on my table, ostensibly because I must still serve some meager economic purpose.  The frightening thing is that I'm actually one of the lucky ones.  By some anomaly of mathematics, I'm still considered in the upper percentile of affluence on this planet.  Go figure.  

Now, we're on the threshold of the 2020's.  It's a nice looking number, to be sure, but what of the humans which will be defining this coming decade?  Are they going to double down on disaster or turnabout into a rebound?  Personally, my money's on the former as all signs point to a continuation of the madness which has stamped this past decade with its obscenities and inexcusable delusions.  I suspect humanity needs a lesson in humility and survival before the idiots start to consider that you can't defy nature and reality indefinitely.  Eventually the check is gonna come due and we're going to have to pay up for our hubris and wanton disregard for the limitations of our existence.   The big question is going to be whether it's too late to right the wrongs and chance course.  If there are historians to look back on what we did this past decade, let's hope we at least serve as an object lesson in mismanagement rather than an epitaph for the planet. 

GAME OVER

Life is a game, often a "team" sport, where you arbitrarily get born into one social group or another and spend the duration of your existence in a competition for resources and rewards.  At this point in my experience of this engagement, I'm pretty much ready for the coach to come in and tap me on the shoulder and say it's time for me to hit the showers.  In this case, the "coach" is wearing a long black robe and carrying a scythe.  To carry the analogy a bit further, I've been benched for a while now and will likely never be called in to play again.  I'm worn out, injured and unable to perform at the level necessary to compete with the younger, more talented players on the team.  Going out on the field is pointless as no one is going to pass me the ball and I simply don't have the drive and energy to fight my way into the fray to get my hands on it.

The point here is that, while I have no immediate plans to quit the team just yet, I would not be resistant to being retired.  I know where I'm at in this scenario.  I know that there just isn't any more for me to contribute and, frankly, the game is looking like a washout for all the teams involved anyway.  The truth about this tournament called humanity is that no one's going to end up winning anything.  Sadly, we've all spent the last few eons evolving into this magnificent creature only to slit our own throats just as we're about to hit the goal line.  

It all comes down to motivation and there simply isn't any left when you know what's coming and know there's no avoiding it.  Whether or not I even have the ability to contribute to this world anymore is irrelevant since there's just no point in even making the effort.  There's nothing I could create or communicate or instigate that would have the power to deflect the juggernaut of self-destruction humanity has unleashed upon itself.  The inertia of ignorance and stupidity that is dragging us down into the abyss of annihilation is too massive to counter with any degree of intellect or activism.  The willingness necessary to assail the halls of power and control in order to right this course does not exist within our species.  The heads of state and industry must roll.  There is no avoiding this truth.  They must all be pulled down by force and smashed into dust.  But humanity is too distracted and set upon false rivalries between races and creeds to recognize the real enemy and turn on them.

But it is or no consequence since the time for that drastic action has already past.  Pundits who talk about how we have X years to make changes before the effects are too late are all overly optimistic.  As the stats of what's really happening keep rolling in, the shocking results are that the degradation and imbalances within our ecosystem are far more advanced than anyone had predicted.  It's already too late to fix anything.  We should have been on this in the last century, but we're still debating whether it's even real or not.  We're still giving voice and credence to cretins, liars and criminals as if their thoughts are worth consideration.  They aren't.  They should have been shut down and muzzled long ago so that the work of people who understand the physics of the world could get on with the business of not shoving the planet down the toilet.  

I wish I was wrong about this.  I would be so gloriously joyous to discover the flaws in my assessment and predictions.  I would also be just as happy to be wrong about religion and faith and to discover there is a just creator and the evil in this world will come to a reckoning.  But the only reckoning to come is the failure of our species to survive and, while there may be some rough justice in that, it's a shame to see all the goodness be taken down with the bad.  We are capable of goodness and creativity and inspiration, but the math simply doesn't work out.  Though individuals have made great strides in advancing us from the muck of our ancestors, the tidal wave of ignorance, greed and fear has ultimately won the game in favor of nihilism. 

This, I will be told, is "wrong thinking".  I should be "positive" and "optimistic".  I shouldn't give up or admit defeat.  The system has placed all sorts of triggers and reminders into our experience that tell us that it's the worst thing of all to admit to failure.  I know there will be people who read this and think that I should "hope" for a better future and have "faith" that the good will ultimately prevail.  But I've spent too much of my life living in that bubble of false optimism and found that it has only been another distraction and kept me away from the outrage and anger that I should have had and maybe could have used when I was younger and more able to take action.  If we all felt the despair and  betrayal we should have instead of wrapping ourselves in the security blanket of "positive thinking", we might have taken to the streets and pulled these fuckers out of their seats of power before it was too late.

So I'm still here on the team, but I"m just gonna sit on the bench and watch the game until my little light flickers out.  I won't cheer for anyone anymore, however.  There's no "rah-rah" left in me at this stage.  But there is still a comedy of errors to observe and it makes for some dramatic viewing. 

IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME

If I could go back in time and give my younger self some advice, I'd tell that young boy some things which would change the way he'd live his life.   You see, from the vantage point I have now, I know that the world he's going to live in is far different from the one he thinks is ahead.  Back there, he was thinking about a world based on romantic notions of progress, potential and possibilities.  But what is really around the corner has nothing at all to do with any of those things.

Firstly, I'd tell him that, above all else, money is the most important thing with which he'll ever need to concern himself.  Acquiring it, keeping it and increasing it is the holy trinity he should be focused on to the exclusion of all else.  Money is power and influence and security and control.  Money is a passport to any lifestyle one chooses to live.  Money can buy whatever you need in any circumstance.  Money paves the way and makes all things possible. 

This, of course, means that the very first thing he needs to put aside is any inclination towards the arts.  My God, what a colossal waste of time and effort is contained in that pursuit!  I would regale him with terrifying tales of years spent pouring physical and emotional fuel into creating piles of useless expression never appreciated by a single soul.  I would horrify him with the hopelessness of trying to communicate with a world completely indifferent to every effort.  I would crush his hopes by painting a pallid picture of tossing great pearls before a world of porcine ignorance and swine incapable of appreciation or comprehension.  No, no, no!  First and foremost, forget all about that.  

Instead, I would suggest real-estate as one profitable pursuit.  Property ownership in the right areas is paramount because when you control property, you control people.  But there's also much to be done in the speculation and investment markets.  In fact, a good con can move masses into unleashing great gobs of capitol into your disposal.  The main point to remember here is that one need not be concerned with legalities or ethics in any way.  The acquisition of wealth is its own end and any means to that end is justifiable.  The only consideration is that, if you're going to play outside the rules, be smart about it and don't get caught crossing the lines.  However, if you do find yourself afoul of the law, be assured that money has its privileges and that "greasing" the right palm can go a long way to avoiding issues.  

As for people and relationships, I would counsel to view them as resources and always consider them expendable.  Other humans are merely there for your convenience and should be used unflinchingly and thoroughly and, once exhausted of their value, discarded with as little consideration as one would give a piece of soiled tissue.  Anyone who would be unwise enough to attempt to thwart your objectives or interfere with your plans should be dispatched as quickly, efficiently and mercilessly as possible.  Again, one should endeavor to avoid legal complications, but be cognizant that there are always means by which individuals can be cleanly "eliminated", particularly when the price is right.  

Romance is a trap and should be avoided at all costs.  Romantic entanglements will only ever compromise your standards and dull your judgement.  Indulge your sexual proclivities as freely and frequently as you like, but maintain authority over anyone whom you would involve in such activities and be prepared to dispose of that relationship the instant you detect any attempt to influence your actions or interests.  All such efforts by others are a distraction.

The future is only that time in which you expect to live and anything beyond that span is of no concern.  Therefore, plan only to secure your own comforts for as long as you can reasonably foresee your survival and no more.  What state you leave the world when you die is irrelevant because you won't be around to experience it, so don't worry about it.  It's unlikely that you'll leave any heirs behind anyway, so you don't need to make provisions for them or any other descendants.  

These are the core values I would impart to my younger self in the hopes that he would avoid the wasted life I have lived.  These are the true values of the world he will have to live in.  These are the codes driving the most successful people he will encounter in his life.  Look around and find a single example of "success" in this world which does not rest atop these very principles.  Look no further than the current leader of the free world to find the most perfect expression of these truths in action.    Don't tell me that there's another way of living, a "righteous" way where people don't trample all over each other to secure their success.  I don't see that world anywhere and I don't see any evidence it will ever manifest.  

No, this is what I would tell that boy before he set off on his journey.  This is the roadmap I would place in his hands and this is the future for which I would make sure he was prepared. 

THEY'RE EVIL AND THEY KNOW IT

I am primarily a rationalist in the sense that I tend to defer to a logical, reasonable analysis before considering anything more esoteric.  When it comes to concepts of "good" and "evil", I've tended to consider them relative rather than absolute.  Unlike religious believers, who anthropomorphize these concepts into concrete personifications of "God" and "Satan", I see them as an outcome of actions and events where living entities are either positively or negatively impacted by them.  The measure of this is whether or not the result promotes life and well-being or compromises it.  That which helps me live comfortably and securely is "good".  That which interferes with or threatens to terminate my continued existence is "evil".   Also, I've considered them to exist along a continuum where there is some shading of gray rather than purely black or white dichotomies.  This is the core of my ethical foundation in terms of assessing and evaluating behavior and events occurring in the world around me.

In recent years, however, what I've been witnessing in the world of human endeavors, particularly in the realm of politics, is something which seems to contradict this "relativistic" view.  I say this because what I'm seeing is so completely horrific and dispiriting that I cannot assign it any kind of "gradation" or relativism.  A "generous" interpretation of human motivations often asserts that people doing "bad" things usually don't think of themselves as "evil" and that, in their minds, they are engaged in perfectly justified and ethical behavior.  Nobody really sees themselves as the "villain".  We are all the "hero" in our own story.  But I can't look at some people and see someone behaving according to any kind of social value system, no matter how warped it may appear.

I can't look at someone like Donald Trump and see anything but a parasite motivated by nothing more than a desire to serve himself in a way which disregards the welfare of everyone else, even close allies and family members.  There is no sense of idealism in him beyond satisfying his immediate whim.  I don't believe he cares for or values anyone beyond what he perceives they can do to benefit him at any given moment and I don't believe that it bothers him to put anyone in jeopardy in the process.  I can't conceive of any redeeming quality within him.  He is absolute.  He is evil.  He is not misguided or ignorant of moral principals.  He knows what he's doing within the bounds that he sees his objective, seeks to satisfy it and then moves on to the next.  But there are no larger values involved in this process.  It is no more than self aggrandizement for its own sake within any given moment.  It is self contained and pure, like a shark prowling the ocean waters.

This is a true embodiment of malignancy.   He's like some villain from the old Batman TV show; crudely rendered, consistently contemptible and self actualized in his awareness that he is a criminal and a conman and his objectives are purely self-serving.  And these traits are blatantly obvious, even to the casual observer.  They couldn't be more apparent if he paraded around in a purple suite and pancake makeup.  Yet somehow, there is a significant segment of the population who support him and I cant' figure out what it is that sustains this loyalty.  There is not one trait about him which speaks to honesty, integrity, reliability, intelligence or any other characteristic normally sought in a leader.

The cronies and henchmen he surrounds himself with are also no more than a motley crew of fellow hustlers, thieves and deceivers.  Every one of them has the stink of criminality about them and I've no doubt that, if their closets were ever emptied, the corpses of their corruption would come tipping out  in a cascade.  And there is no self-deception going on there either.  They are all completely aware of their nature, their goals and their methods and the impact they have on others.  

All of this brings me to the inescapable conclusion that there is some form of maliciousness inherent in these people which is more than the product of a misguided or distorted value system.  This is a malevolence which lands squarely and unambiguously in the darkest pit of human psychology and it is not a trait which succumbs to any form of "redemption".  People who manifest within this state of being aren't going to turn around and respond to education or "enlightenment".  They are what they are and they are going to remain that way until the day they die.  The most appropriate psychological term which could be applied to these people is psychopathy. 

When it comes to differences of opinion, I'm a "live and let live" kinda guy.  I'm happy to let others live their lives as long as they're happy to do the same with me.  But these people, those marked by this "darkness", aren't looking for that.  They are actively engaged in an program of direct interference in the lives and livelihoods of others.  They wish to restrict women through regressive legislation, they wish to inhibit select races, creeds and religions and would no doubt resort to genocide were they given the opportunity.  They aren't looking to "get along".  They only seek to "get one over" and to take control. 

This all means that we can't simply treat this as an ideological disagreement.  We aren't debating economic systems or customs of behavior.  We're in a pitched battle for our very lives and it's about time we recognize this and stop playing like we're dealing with an adversary who respects boundaries and responds to reason and rationality.  They don't.  They never will and they'll never give up the power they've stolen without a fight and we have to be prepared to wage war with them.  Otherwise, we're all doomed as they destroy what's left of this planet to satisfy their own short sighted ends.  No election is going to fix this either.  They've corrupted and co-opted all the processes which were supposed to protect us from this kind of criminal.  All those systems are broken.  

In the end, short of waging bloody battles in the streets, what can reasonable people do about this?  Well, the first step is to stop pretending this is "normal" and to acknowledge the evil in our midst.  We have to call it out, name it and stop trying to be "polite" and "respectful", as if this is just a little tiff and a difference of "opinion".  This is a difference of fundamental metaphysical incompatibility.  As much as we don't want to take away someone else's freedom, we have to recognize that it's OUR freedom at stake here and compromise with this enemy isn't possible.  We have to make it clear that we see who they are and what they're doing.  And we have to stop cooperating with them.  We have to stop playing their game.  We have to refuse to let them pretend that what they're doing is "fair play" or moral or justified.  It isn't and it never will be.

This is real evil and it knows what it is.  It's palpable and defined and sitting right there in the seats of power all over this planet.  It must be stopped before it's too late.

THEY BUILT THIS CITY FOR SOMEONE ELSE

I've lived in Vancouver, BC, since October of 1982.  I came here by way of Powell River after leaving my home town of Thunder Bay, ON, in August of 1982.  I remember coming into the downtown on a gray, rainy day, but for me, the city shone like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz.  I was 19 years old, I'd just left home and this place seemed like it might have some possibilities for a young man just starting out on his own.  It's been my home ever since then and it has generally felt like home for most of that time, but the last few years have made it feel more like a place being built for someone else and not me.

I've noticed it primarily in the boom of construction which has erupted in the West End and across the city in the last few years.   So many towering luxury high rise apartment buildings are leaping up into the sky, it staggers the mind to think of all that real-estate propagating so quickly.  But I don't know who is going to live in all of these places.  I don't have any relationship with the people who are building these structures nor the people who will live in them.  I only know that I won't be one of them.  I'll never set foot in any of these places and I'll never know anybody who lives in them.  Somehow, I got left out of this new city.  It's not being built for me and it has no interest in me or my welfare, regardless of what I might have to offer. 

You might ask what makes me think this way and, to be honest, I'm not sure how I know this, but I am as sure of it as I am that the world is round (though even that has become debatable again, somehow).  What is certain is that I've been disconnected from the economy which is driving this construction and growth and there does not appear to be any means of interacting with it in such a way which would make it possible for me to even conceive of living a lifestyle which would include inhabiting one of these steel and glass stacks.  Whatever it takes to earn the kind of money that one needs to rent or own one of these homes is completely beyond the scope of my abilities.

I'm not at all certain of how I got to this position.  In fact, I was gainfully and relatively affluently employed for many years, but even then I was somehow not able to work myself into a position where accessing this level was possible.  Even when I was pulling a high five digits for my annual gross income, I was only ever able to indulge little beyond splashing out for a bit of takeout food and a few tech toys here and there.  I never owned a home or a vehicle and never had a family to support.  Yet I didn't even have enough to get my damn teeth fixed, something which now poses a serious health risk to me and also, aesthetically, means I can't present myself in public with any confidence, given that a gap-toothed, dingy yellow smile is nothing less than a stamp of impoverishment.  16 years working "professionally" still left me with no foothold by which I could maintain even a modest lifestyle.  

While I may not be in possession of formal accreditation in any field, I worked professionally in technology, including documentation, testing, design and implementation, long enough to merit those qualifications based on experience alone.   I am in possession of ample natural talents and acquired skills to enable me to perform exceptionally in many different fields and applications.  Yet, none of that bares any weight anymore and, going into application or interview processes, I can sense, intuitively, that I am automatically excluded from consideration the moment I present myself.  There is some factor involved which shuts the door to all avenues of potential for me.  The days when friends and family networked together to help each other secure employment seem to have vanished.  Even with social media, it seems that the process of using personal relationships to remain connected to society have broken down and ceased to function.

In some regard, I suspect my age, being over 50, has played a significant role in this.  My ongoing health issues may factor in as well, though they are neither obvious nor chronic enough to be apparent without actual knowledge of my medical history.  Whatever the case is, I'm certainly the "potato" that's fallen off the truck and there doesn't seem to be any way to get back on.  The city that is re-inventing itself before my eyes most definitely has no role for me to play in it.  This place is now a playground for the wealthy and nothing being built here is manifesting with any intent to create communities or social infrastructure. 

What we have is purely driven by economics.  It's about money and nothing more.  These places are investments, not homes.  They're tools for laundering illicit cash flows.  It's just a means to an end - busy work for the sake of "growth", but without any conscious goal where the lives and well-being of people are in mind.  When I walk around certain areas in the West End, particularly along Coal Harbor, there's a faint sense of emptiness as so many of these properties sit vacant, purchased by people who aren't there and may only show up once in a while, if at all.  These properties are no more than line items in a portfolio of assets.  No dramas will play out within their walls.  No events of lives lived will haunt their interiors.  Only the movements of soulless automatons calculating interest rates will disturb the dust as it settles in these lifeless abodes.  

This flurry of activity flies in the face of the looming ecological and climate crises which lurk at the threshold of the "day after tomorrow".  It's so close to landing on our heads, but the busy bees keep working, oblivious to the futility of their efforts.  I think of the "ghost" cities of China, built for no one.  They were driven by the myopic obsessions of hyper-capitalistic investments with no human condition perceived within their planning.  Money disconnected from benefits other than increase.  

I've lived in my building since 1986, nearly 33 years.  I've somehow managed to maintain my existence here by the skin of my teeth and through sheer force of will.  I dangle on a precipice, only needing the occurrence of a property sale to trigger the "renoviction" process which has consumed so many low income residents in the past few years.  I'm in a prime location for something like that to happen.  I've seen building after building torn down across this city only to be replaced by greater, grander structures with price tags exponentially higher than what was there before.  None of this is meant for so-called "regular" people.  Only those of extreme affluence are welcome here and I don't know them at all.  I don't know who who they are, I don't know what they want, I don't know where they think they're going with all of this.   

It's like aliens have landed and taken over.  They have no interest in our existence.  We are a mere inconvenience to them.  We will be eliminated in time.  So I hang on to what little I have left until I can do no more.

BELIEF IS FOR THE BIRDS - BIRD BOX ANALYSIS

A while back, I watched the Netflix film, Bird Box, and wrote out a few thoughts.  This is less a review and more an analysis of the themes and symbolism used in the film.

There was a lot of chatter about this movie when it was released and I can see why.  It's one of those films which is just vague enough to illicit speculation and varying interpretation while giving enough specifics to ground it in experiences that anyone can relate to.  Personally, there were some things about it that I found a bit frustrating as someone who generally likes to know what's going on and why. Also, the practical logistics of all this suggest some massive plot holes in terms of how anyone could survive this scenario at all.  However, when you're dealing with allegories, sometimes its best to put practical considerations aside and deal with what's being presented with a certain suspension of disbelief.

Allegory is certainly what this presents the viewer, but which allegory is where interpretation may vary as I can see a few possibilities cropping up.  I saw some comments before watching this which theorized it's about racism, so I went into it looking for those references, but honestly, I don't know if that's really very pertinent to this tale.  For me, the most obvious conclusion to draw from this story is that "ignorance is bliss", given that the main contention here is that what you don't see can't hurt you.  From there, I suppose the question is, what could one ignore to the point where it would be advantageous to one's survival?

In the film, "seeing is believing" takes on a new meaning as each individual goes through their own reaction, though these reactions tend to break down into two main variations. Either one becomes suicidal and self destructive or one becomes a "convert" to whatever this menace is and attempts to ensure everyone around them is exposed to it as well. The "converts" seem to be able to continue to function in the world in some sense while the others seek nothing beyond immediate and irreversible annihilation. What's left are those few who remain ignorant or unexposed as long as they don't see what's in front of them.

When I consider the symbolism, I can't help but see a connection to the current political climate, particularly in the US.  People who get wrapped up in the madness either feel hopeless and helpless or they become part of it and try to encourage it. Those who refuse to get absorbed by it seem few and far between, but maybe they're the ones who are best off. I don't know. This idea that being blind to something can protect you from it seems counter-intuitive to me.

Since watching it, the interpretations I've come across have focused on Mallory and how the story is about her connecting with people again after starting off as an isolated, detached character afraid to love or commit to relationships. I'm not so sure that's the real point of what's going on here either.  I don't know how the act of cutting off perception of the world around you is supposed to help bring people together.  I've always felt that the opposite of that was true.

I guess where that leaves me is confused as to the moral of the story given that we never find a way to exist in this world without being restricted in a very major way. Though the main character finds herself discovering her ability to care about others and create relationships, she's still trapped in a world where exposure to it leads to destructive and devastating consequences. It's a place where, ultimately, the people who are most adapted to it are those without the ability to perceive it. Truly a case of "the blind leading the blind".

After considering it for a day or two, however, I finally hit on something that made sense to me.  The key is looking at the basic metaphysics involved here and the question of whether what's happening is "natural" or "supernatural".  The answer to that, for me, is obviously the latter.  This is not some virus or man made contagion or invasion.  This is some kind of divine judgement.  This is what happens when humanity sees that there is no "God".  

Most people can't deal with it and, faced with an indifferent, uncaring universe, implode and self destruct.  Some, the "atheists", embrace it and want everyone to see what they see.  They go around trying to make everyone look at what they see.  The "monster", for them, is beautiful and they're shown as godless heathens.  The "believers" that remain spend the movie trying not to see the "truth".  They end up trying to survive in an isolated enclave run by "blind" people, those who are incapable of seeing the truth of a godless universe and continue to live in ignorance. They survive by ignoring the evidence of their senses and clinging to their belief.

This is what religion offers.  It's an excuse to keep your eyes closed and not see the vast indifference of the universe and how it swallows us up in its enormity.  Those who embrace this knowledge are characterized as fanatics and insane, when the reality is that the believers are really the ones who are locked away from understanding reality.  Ultimately, this film is an endorsement of ignorance as a means of security and safety.  It tells the viewer that seeing is a curse and that blindness is a blessing. 

DON'T BRING ME DOWN - THE VEIL OF DEPRESSION

 

I've lived with periodic depression, to varying degrees, most of my adult life.  There are times when I've wondered whether or not it was "clinical".  Recently, I requested a referral from my doctor to a psychiatrist to see if that might be the case.  After two sessions with him, he concluded that I did not appear to be suffering from any particular pathology and that I would likely benefit more from counseling rather than medication.  The premise here is that my emotional state is based on my world view and that by changing my perspective, I could alleviate my symptoms.  Thinking about this, however, I began to wonder why the onus was on me to change my attitude and why my environment and the world around me had no role to play.  Why is it so unreasonable to think that the world really does suck?   Why wouldn't this be a fair justification for someone to feel depressed?  Why am I not allowed to feel negatively when the world around me is in a tailspin, hurtling into an abyss of annihilation and catastrophe? 

Depression has recently become perceived as a symptom of mental illness or else the result of simply having a poor attitude towards the world around you.  I never see any health professionals cop to the idea that maybe things in the world really are awful and that responding with negative emotions is actually a healthy reaction to an untenable situation.  We're always being told that we must have a "positive attitude" towards life, yet my direct experience of it is that this approach is more likely to create psychological discord than responding honestly with anger, frustration or disappointment when surrounded by situations where injustice, inequity, cruelty and criminality are the order of the day.  

I feel like I've been mourning the death of the world ever since I was old enough to perceive the fatal trajectory upon which humanity had thrust itself.  Nothing that I've seen around me during that time has done anything to assuage this perception that we are all plunging at terminal velocity towards an impact which will leave us with no out.  For nearly 40 years now, I've borne witness to one atrocity after another, stacked upon a mountain of madness laid down long before I ever existed.  

I can remember quite distinctly a day when I was no more than 13 when I was suddenly overcome with this sort of grief at the realization of the hopelessness of humanity.  It was the quintessential "existential crisis".  The Buddhists refer to this as the "trance of sorrow" and see it as a first stage of enlightenment.   But it also ties in with the classic description of the "five stages of grief"; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  When I look back over my life, what I see is myself going through each of these stages as I've matured and aged.  

What I've also realized about these "stages" is that they don't occur like people think, as discrete steps where one goes through each and then leaves it behind for the next.  It's not like passing through a series of rooms where each response remains distinct and separate.  It occurs to me that it is much more like the building up of layers, like when sediment settles at the bottom of a river or lake.  You don't move beyond these reactions, they just get buried under the next.  My anger is still present, but it's hidden under the layers of bargaining and depression that have built up over top.  

In my youth, I struggled against the inevitable finality looming off in the distance.  I latched on to idealism and fantasies of a future where technology and science would solve our problems and propel us to the stars.  Then, the angry young man took over, rebelling and bucking against the restraints of the society of which I was a part.  Eventually, I became a part of that system and tried to work within it.  Through years of pursuing a career and achieving some success, I felt like I could work out some kind of a deal.  As I began to slip into greater maturity and dealt with losing my career and my health, the depression took hold and drove me down into the depths of despair.  Now I face the inevitability of this doom and feel the sediment of acceptance, or rather, resignation, building up the final layer.  

Yet I'm supposed to "think positively" and be optimistic about tomorrow.  Despite the visions of doom and destruction that lurk in my mind and parade themselves across every vista I observe, I'm supposed to pretend they don't exist and that it's all going to work out somehow.  That is what is considered "mental health".  To me, it feels like delusion and self deception.  In my core, I know that this approach is a lie and the kind of stupidity which lays at the root of the cancer growing within our species.  I'm supposed to pat down that top layer of "acceptance" and smile while the weight of it crushes me, but what I want to do is dig up that dirt and uncover my rage and my denial again.  I want to rail against this acceptance.  I want to scream out my refusal to give in to this hopelessness.  

I don't want to feel good about this world because this world is a disaster and a crime scene and it needs to be called out for its abuses.  I don't want my emotions to be a deception or a mask covering up the truth of my existence.  I want to face it honestly and truthfully.  If I'm feeling depressed, it's not just because of some chemical imbalance or unfounded attitude.  It's because I'm seeing the sadness that surrounds me and I'm responding to it in the way which nature intended.  If there's even a slight hope of escaping this nightmare, it will only happen because people truly become horrified by what they're witnessing and are no longer willing to "accept" it. 

We shouldn't be asked to tolerate this.  We shouldn't have demands placed on us to be "positive" in the face of the desecration being perpetrated against this wonderful, beautiful planet and all the amazing life that resides on it.  We should feel awful about it and express those feelings. And if that makes some people uncomfortable, GOOD!  They should be.

IS MUSIC A DEAD ART?

 

Let's begin by defining what I mean by the term "dead art". In essence I'm referring to an art form which is no longer capable of significant technical or conceptual progress and no longer has the capacity to instigate change on a cultural level. An example of what I would consider a "dead" art would be painting, at least in the sense of something hanging in a traditional gallery somewhere. Perhaps it can be said that certain forms of graffiti still manage to trigger controversy and commentary. A practitioner such as Banksy is an example of someone able to inspire discussion and make political statements through their art. Street art aside, I don't see anything happening in that particular branch of the visual arts world which is likely to cause much of a stir or inspire anything to happen beyond its canvases. At most, paintings now simply decorate a room.  Perhaps the work of Warhol may have been the last time paintings had any particular impact on the larger cultural landscape other than, for example, soliciting outrage at the expense of a "stripe" on a canvas.  

I"m old enough to have experienced at least three major cultural shifts within my lifetime which I can say were, more or less, directly linked to a particular musical movement. In my childhood, the late 1960s, there was the psychedelic explosion. Though the primary impetus for that change was a narcotic, specifically LSD, its route through western culture was entirely paved by music. It was rock & roll bands who were sounding the clarion call and it was songs about altered perception which seduced the youth of the era into "tuning in, turning on & dropping out". Without bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead and others, the word would never have been able to reach as many people as it did.

In my adolescence during the late 1970s, it was the three headed Cerberus of "punk", "new wave" & "industrial" music which broke kids out of their doldrums and got them thinking, dressing and behaving in new ways.  It was a rebellion against the status quo and conformity which had set in after the comedown of the hippies left their parents dropping the love beads and packing up the station-wagons that drove them out into the bland mediocrity of the suburban landscape.  

In the spring of my adulthood, the final revolution came about through the entwined twins of hip-hop/rap music and electronic rave culture spearheaded by acid house and techno music in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Starting in the early 1980s, before the cancerous spread of gentrification and rising property costs, the warehouse was the scene where exploration and experimentation could happen.  You could get a cheap space for a couple hundred or less per month and pay for it by selling unlicensed booze at weekend parties a few times a month.  Designer drugs, mobile sound systems, isolated locations and trance inducing music sent youth back into tribal states of ecstasy and transcendence. Though a callback to the spirit of the 1960s in the case of the rave scene, the hip-hop crowd veered into the raw street rage of gangster culture.  It shone a glaring light on issues such as police brutality, racism, class discrimination, poverty and injustice.  In either case, it was again a time when adults were afraid of what their kids were getting into.     

Outside of my own personal experience, music as a driver of cultural influence practically only goes back to roughly the beginning of the 20th century.  Before that, you only had folk and traditional music available to the general public and those forms tended to reinforce and sustain existing norms rather than drive changes to them.  On the other extreme, with "classical" music, you might have some influence within the upper crust of society, but very little beyond it.  Religious music, like folk music, tended to sustain tradition rather than spur innovation.  It's not until the advent of recording technology that the idea of true "popular" music comes into play as the populace gain access to mass produced music mediums and playback systems accompanied by radio broadcasts.  Also, the push to innovate, driven by the industrial revolution and its technological advances, begins to trigger changes in music technology and techniques, and consequently, culture.  

The first popular music form to trigger controversy in the general public comes with the birth of jazz.  Elitist art movements like the Futurists and Dadaists may have inspired extreme experimentation with sound, but it was not something that noticeably effected the masses and remained a novelty of the galleries and wealthy art circles.  Jazz, on the other hand, came up from the black communities and was entirely driven by the "grass" roots (pun intended).  This was music that was accessible by the average person and was one of the first times music was seen as being a degenerate influence on youth.  It impacting dress styles, dance, sexuality and social issues.  The ideas of losing one's inhibitions and free expression were built into the very DNA of jazz and these have been a recurring theme throughout every musical epiphany and paradigm shift which has occurred since. 

In the 1950s, there was the birth of that great BEAST, rock and roll.  Here was a hybrid between white western swing music and black boogie-woogie blues with a backbone borrowed directly from native American aboriginal music, thanks to the Creole merger of Louisiana post-slavery blacks and "Indian" blood.  This combination proved combustible beyond anyone's imagination and sent the entire north American continent into a spin, one which would ultimately bust out onto the world stage and influence youth around the globe, from Europe to Africa to Asia.  Rock & roll was the proverbial "Pandora's Box" and, once that lid was open, all manner of wicked spirits flew out.

When you line all of these movements up, you have a 20th century popular culture which was continuously and repeatedly impacted and influenced by musical movements.  In each case, these changes were derided  and dismissed by conservative, "adult" overseers as subversive, perverted and destructive to the moral fiber of the youth and the nation.  There was a sense of threat and menace perceived by the "powers that be" which drove them to do whatever they could to stifle and inhibit the spread of these movements and, without exception, those efforts not only failed, but likely resulted in even more popularity for whatever it was they were trying to stop.  

Throughout the 20th century, there was also a marked and obvious change in the styles, techniques and technologies used to create music.  Something that was popular in the 1950s sounds completely different from something popular in the 1960s.  Take any decade or even the span of a few years and a major evolution could take place.  Anyone with even a basic familiarity with 20th century popular music can listen to virtually any tune and peg, fairly accurately, when it was made.  The style of playing, the recording techniques, the way it was mixed - all these clues tell the tale of when that recording was made and often where and by whom.  

Flash forward to the 21st century and things seem to have reached a kind of impasse in terms of forward momentum and cultural significance.  Since the 1990s, I can't think of any significant cultural shift which has been driven by music.  Technological changes such as computers, internet, smart phones and wireless networks have had far greater impact on our lives than any art form.  The machinery of the popular media has become so efficient at assimilating creative product, that nothing seems to be able to upset the cultural "apple cart" these days. 

Stylistically and technically, music has essentially plateaued.  We're two decades into the new millennium and I can put on a recording from 1995 and put it next to something form 2015 and only the most sophisticated, knowledgeable listener would be able to distinguish their origins.  For several decades, beginning with the unfortunately termed "Krautrock" of the early 1970s, electronic music was at the forefront of innovation and experimentation.  From the "motorik" rhythms of Kraftwerk and Neu to the ambience of Cluster & Eno to the pulsing sequencers of Tangerine Dream, the German music scene blasted the lid off and broke away from the rigidity of American blues archetypes.  After this, experimentation flew off in all directions through post punk, industrial, techno and a plethora of sub-genres, constantly evolving throughout the 1980s and 1990s.  But it all kind of stalled out after that.  Beyond the shifting of tempos between drum & bass and dubstep, the genres seemed to stabilize and consolidate and, with only minor variations since, they've remained relatively constant and consistent.

Culturally, no one gets upset about what a music personality does these days except for the most trivial and sensational issues of bizarre conduct or eccentric individual behavior.  Today, when Kanye West stirs up the media, it's because he's boasting about himself or proposing some laughable indulgence.  The days when politicians would discuss a Johnny Rotten in parliament or a president would put a John Lennon on a subversives list are long gone.  Rap music is more concerned with money and status these days than social justice, for the most part.  At least that's the kind of content that ends up in greatest rotation and gains the highest profile.  And those who do seek to make critical statements are commodified to the point where they are no threat to anyone in the establishment.  They are all neatly and safely packaged and peddled to the appropriate pauper for consumption.  

It seems that most art forms go through a similar arc in terms of their evolution.  They begin in primitivism, as an expression of the masses, evolve into more refined, classical complexity in the hands of the elite and then expand into more experimental realms such as abstractionism, surrealism, modernism and impressionism before ultimately culminating in various forms of post-modernism, which creates hybrids between all of these various branches.  Once you get to the stage of post-modernism, works tend to become self-referential and the commentary becomes an internal dialogue.  That point where the art is able to interact with and influence people and culture on a large scale begins to diminish and disappear.  The medium then tends to fade into the background as mere decoration or embellishment. 

This is where we seem to have arrived at in terms of the art of music.  It now seems to be no more than a structural component rather than something that stands on its own.  People spend less and less time sitting down and listening to music anymore or taking any kind of message or influence from it.  It's mostly just something that's happening in the background. It's no more than a form of "wallpaper" or distraction and not a primary focus of attention.  It's not that that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that, but for someone who grew up with music that made revolutions, I can't help but express a sort of lamentation for the loss of that capability.  Parents don't get scared by their kids records anymore.  Sure, they may not like them or find them objectionable for aesthetic reasons, but they rarely worry that their kids might join some subversive movement because of whatever is hiding in those grooves.  Even that terminology is irrelevant now as most people don't use physical media anymore except as a fetishized object for some hipster sense of nostalgia.

It's not that no one is doing "good" music.  As subjective as that may sound, there are very real standards which can provide a sense of value and quality for any piece of music.  Talented artists are creating quality recordings and performances.  It's just that the sense of a sharp, cutting edge has gone.  I can't look out there anywhere and find anything that gives me that quiver in my gut feeling that something "dangerous" is going on. 

If there is any art form remaining which can get the hackles up of the establishment, I'm not sure I know what it is or where to find it.  I suppose the most dangerous, subversive medium on the planet these days is the dark web, but this is more a place of criminals and perverts than revolutionaries.  If they do exist there, they're doing a pretty shitty job of pulling the pins on this nightmare we're all trapped in.  At a time when we are staring down the barrel of extinction level global catastrophes, we need that revolutionary voice now more than ever.  We need something that can wake us out of this zombie like trance that keeps us lumbering ever closer to the precipice awaiting our final stumble.  If it's out there, I have yet to see it. 

A FAREWELL TO KINGS

As a fan of Game of Thrones, I've been noticing all the theorists positing their predictions on who will end up taking the "iron throne" as the series wraps up its final season.  As I consider these, it occurs to me that nothing would be more tedious and boring than if this whole show was about no more than who ends up in that seat.  Personally, I don't care if it's a Lannister or a Stark or a Targaryen.  If this has all been about no more than a play for power, then it's just another tired fairy-tale driven by the same old cliches as the rest of them.  But I think ol' R.R. Martin deserves more credit than that and I'm hoping he delivers a surprise twist in the end that no one is really expecting.  

What I'm hoping for is that he shows that the throne itself needs to be put into question and the idea of its power, and those who wield it, needs to be challenged.   I'm hoping that, by the end of this series, NO ONE is on the throne.  I'm hoping that the entire power structure it represents is destroyed.  The reason I'm looking for that kind of resolution is because fiction is meant to offer humanity an opportunity to address its foibles and there is no folly which is more urgently in need of addressing than the concept of hierarchical power structures.  

This concept, that we have one "leader" who then dispenses authority to (usually) his minions below,  has been at the root of human social structures since the beginning of civilization.  One might argue that, since it has lasted so long, perhaps it is because it is a reasonable, logical structure to use for organizing humanity and we should not be too eager to usurp it.  But I think, if humanity is going to have any hope at all of surviving for the "long haul", you know, like more than another century, we're gonna need some RADICAL new approaches to social order because what we're doing now is really NOT working.  

At the moment, the United States is offering a prime example of how bad this concept can get when you put the wrong person at the top.  Its entire governing structure has been co-opted and corrupted by an organized gang of criminals intent on using that system for their own personal gain with ZERO consideration for the welfare of those being governed nor the wider global system with which it interacts.  These people couldn't be more blatant about their nefarious intent if they were Batman villains running around with clown makeup and top hats.  It is this system of hierarchy which has allowed this kind of corruption to exist because it places leadership on a level above reproach and beyond being responsible for its actions.  The failure of the FBI's recent obstruction investigation to level any legal response against these con artists is only the most superficial symptom of the sickness which pervades every level of so-called "checks and balances" which were supposed to prevent this kind of abuse of power.  

Western democracies may not be run on the principle of the "divine right of kings", but what we see evidenced is no less a process of rule by elite where privilege and paternity are the primary deciding factors in determining who makes the decisions and where the power flows.  Even in Canada, we have a political dynasty with Trudeau while in the US, families like the Bush and Kennedy clans continue to hold influence.  Ultimately, however, it is the mighty dollar that is the primary factor in determining who gets to make the rules and who has to "pay the piper".  Capitalism is fundamentally a "top down" system whereby authority is based on financial resources and nothing more.  It merely measures accumulations of wealth and uses that as a basis upon which to align its hierarchy.  "Old" money may tend to have more sway as we see certain long standing families entrench themselves into the system, but "new" money can always find a foothold when it gets big enough.  

It's also not just a problem of having the wrong people at the top.  No amount of shuffling the deck will counteract the corrupting influence which unfettered authority imparts.  The old saw about "power corrupting" is well earned and copiously demonstrated by examples going back through the centuries.  There is no such thing, in practice, as a "benevolent" dictatorship and democracy doesn't really help in terms of putting better people at the helm.  The power structure is the same as a dictatorship or a monarchy.  It's always a "top down", pyramidal organization.  The only thing democracy did was replace succession via birthright or military might with a popularity contest whereby the lowest common denominator ends up in the seat, often dumbed down to the point of idiocy as we've seen with that powdered pinhead, Trump.  

If we're going to move away from this sort of power structure, the obvious question is, what's the alternative?  Here we are in dire need of an epiphany or a true paradigm shift.  I'm too entrenched in the old system to be able to fully conceive of a new one.  I've been raised in it and conditioned by it my entire life so that I can barely help but differ to it or manage to scrape enough conscience together to question it in these fading years of my senior life.  I've seen glimpses of an alternative in recent years in the decentralized organizational murmurings of the "Occupy" movement from earlier in this new millennium.  It flashed into view for a brief moment, like a spot fire in the forest, popping up here and there across the globe, but it seems to have been quickly stamped out by the "powers that be" since then.  I've seen very little progress or evidence of it lately.  But I do believe that something in some similar form is lurking on the horizon if we can manage to survive this century without turning our home into an uninhabitable wasteland.  

I think the ingredients are fundamentally basic.  Firstly, no single person should be put in a position of ultimate authority.  Though it has become a common cliche to think of committees as "places where ideas go to die", some form of communal decision making process is required.  Above all, it must be structured in a way that eliminates the special interests of privileged minorities from dictating outcomes and defining values and benefits.  Considerations need to be given in terms of individual exceptions and variants, but not at the expense of the greater welfare.  Secondly, the people within government should be appointed to these positions on the basis of merit and experience.  No appointment should be irrevocable and the process should be transparent, subject to auditing and amendable as greater understanding of any given role is gained.  Qualifications should be based in practical experience.  For example, oversight of medical institutions should be done by people who have worked in the field, either directly as practitioners or within the administrative branch.  This farce of incompetent buffoons currently holding government offices who have no knowledge of their particular area of specialization would be wiped out under a proper peer reviewing appointment system.  

The concept of democratic input into processes and systems also needs to be framed within the confines of a system whereby basic rights and freedoms are guaranteed and NOT subject to curtailment or elimination based on populist fads or frivolities.  A lot of this sort of thing has been attempted, to some extent, within existing western constitutions and charters, but much of it remains exposed and vulnerable to politicking by special interests and ideological extremists who seek to impose their beliefs within the system.  The fact that something as fundamental to human health as abortion continues to teeter on the brink of criminalization after decades of debate and practical example is a glaring failure within government to secure the rights of a major segment of the population, the half of it which happens to be of the female gender.  That such a massive portion of the population must exist with such uncertainty and fear is inexcusable for any civilized society.  That this hasn't caused the populace to erupt in riots in the streets is no less than a miracle.  

Of course, this is merely a scratch upon the surface of an issue too massive to be grappled with in such a minor bit of contemplation.  Changing out that cornerstone of human civilization is a task which, I suspect, shall only come about when it becomes a necessity.  Its consequences will be too painful for those who have sheltered their existence inside those old walls.  Those who have, until now, found safety within that dying paradigm will not surrender it without a struggle.  Indeed, it may take the utter collapse of what we call "civilization" to enable a clear field for the construction of a new edifice of social order.  Only when we have suffered that catastrophe shall the inevitability of change be thrust upon us.

CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION

This message is for the children.  It is not for adults, especially people over 30.  It may sound like an old hippy cliche, but you just can't trust us.  More to the point, you can't change us.  For all practical purposes, we're a lost cause.  We're simply not capable of making the changes needed to save this world.  We are beyond redemption, set in our ways and locked into a perception of reality which does not include taking the kinds of actions that are going to be necessary in the coming decades.

And, let's be blunt here, we only have maybe a few decades left to do anything to address the mess we've made.    Socially, politically, economically and, most critically, environmentally, the bills are all coming due at the same time and we're just standing around with our empty pockets out-turned and stupid expressions of confusion plastered on our faces.  We're a goddamned disgrace and anyone who can't admit that at this point is a delusional fool.  

So I'm going to first say, I'm sorry.  I really am.  I know that's a useless sentiment to offer because it helps nothing, but I do want you to know that I wish things had been different.  I come from a generation who latched onto the optimism and idealism that, through technology, we'd be going out among the stars and living the dream of peace, prosperity and possibility.  What we didn't count on was the inexorable inertia of ignorance and selfishness that would drag us down, like a stone chained to our collective ankle, into the depths of misinformation, mysticism, myopia and madness.  

Every institution we've created to help better our civilization has been corrupted by the cancer of greed.  Our educational systems work tirelessly to make us stupid.  Our religions cling steadfastly to ignorance as a spiritual value.  Our courts have severed the arms from the scales of justice and used them to build factories for slave labor.  Our healthcare has turned sickness into an investment opportunity.  Our bureaucrats have turned the craft of governance and administration into a shell game, where voting is a con and there's never anything under any of the shells.  Only our sciences have offered any form of advancement, yet every step forward has been perverted for the sake of destruction, exploitation, incarceration, surveillance and manipulation.

Collectively, we all stand on the precipice of doom and the wall of garbage we have created behind us is about ready to push us over the edge.  The hour is upon us.  The time for procrastination has passed.  There is no savior coming to offer us salvation.  There is only the desperation of the young left to bring us any shred of hope because we have taken their future and sold it and what we bought with it is a fraud and a deception.  We've squandered it so a few people could live a life of luxury while everyone else withered in squalor.  Countless generations before us have lived, suffered and died in order to crawl out of the mud, only to have it all come to an end with a couple of generations of entitled, privileged brats.

The protests of the past have been pointless and achieved nothing.  The so-called "enlightenment" of the 60's youth movements were no more than a parade of paisley pretensions.  We thought that "art" was enough to make a difference and change the course of history.  It was all merely noise and flashing lights, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".  We were naive and stupid to think anyone was paying attention.  In the end, all those efforts added up to no more than entertainment and diversion from the real problems that were piling up all around us, drowning us in the continental sized floating trash heaps that now choke the oceans.

What I'm trying to get at, dear youth, is that you're fucked (pardon my language).  Protests and songs and letters to the editor and elections and all of that rubbish are not going to save you.  The hard truth is that, if you want a future, you're going to have to get it together and take control away from the adults and they're not going to let it go without a fight.  Unfortunately, your parents haven't done you any favors with all of that coddling and cuddling and padding and protecting you from peanuts and persecution.  That's assuming you're privileged enough to have parents who cared about you in the first place and if you were affluent enough for them to wrap you in that bubble.  And, if you are that kind of kid, you'll probably be just as useless as the adults you need to take down.

What's coming is going to get messy and you're going to have to get your hands dirty in order to do the work that needs to be done.  You won't be able to worry about being nice about it either.  You can't fret about who you're going to offend or if someone's feelings are going to get hurt.  You can't be bothering with respecting "beliefs".  All these imaginary "gods" have done nothing but perpetuate the ignorance that has precipitated this mess in the first place.  Faith is finished.  Only actions matter now; decisive, definitive, productive ACTIONS!

I am a dinosaur, gawking stupidly at the sky as the asteroid of my generation's hubris is about to slam into this Earth.  I will not survive it.  Whether you do will depend on your ability to learn from our mistakes and not make them again.  It's not going to be easy and I can't guarantee it's even possible for I don't truly grasp the extent of the damage that has been done.  We may not leave anything at all in our wake capable of sustaining anyone.  Which is why the urgency for you to take over has never been greater and will only become more dire as each day passes.  Don't wait.  Don't waste time.  That was our lot and you can see where it got us.  It's the only chance you have, so TAKE IT! 

 

INTRODUCTION - WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

At the ripe old age of (almost) 56, I'm spending what feels like my remaining years doing little more than waiting to die.  I don't feel driven by any desire to accomplish anything, I have no goals, I have no sense of a future to plan for.  All I have is a sense of finality, that I've reached a point where I simply have nothing left to contribute and no one left who would care if I did.  I shouldn't say "no one".  There is a handful of people who would lament my passing, should it occur any time soon, but that's not the point.  The point is that, for most of my life, I felt like I was at least "in the game" and there was some possibility of accomplishing something.  In the past few years however, that feeling has slipped away into a dim memory.

What I see in the world around me is a civilization hurtling towards disaster; economic, social, political and environmental.  I don't see any indication that humanity is evolving towards anything better than what we've had in the past.  What I see is a general intellectual  decline into a culture of ignorance and stupidity.  The knuckle-dragging thugs are winning.  The criminals have the edge.  Nothing I find within my grasp seems to have any potential to counter that trend and, indeed, very little seems to be within reach at all.

Internally, I'm feeling stuck like a fly in amber.  I feel paralyzed and impotent.  I can no longer provide for myself in terms of earning a living.  My health has failed me on many levels within the last 6 years.  Where I was once gainfully employed in a rewarding career with a respectable title and ample remuneration, now I feel like no employer would ever consider taking a risk on investing in me.  And beyond my inability to earn an income, there is the death of my creative spirit which lead me to conceive of myself as something of an "artist", an identity which provided a sense of purpose that took me through my adolescence and well into my middle age.  

Creativity seems futile now.  It's just shouting into a void.  There's no one there to hear it and nothing that will come of it.  People say I should keep creating just for my own satisfaction, but they don't seem to understand that self satisfaction is the most fleeting feeling of them all.   It has no more substance than a fart.  It has no more value than patting myself on the back.  And the reason for that is because creative expression is, above all things, a means of communication and that process requires both a transmitter and a receiver and one cannot be both for a message to have any value.  The whole purpose of communication is to transmit information from one place to another.  

If all I'm doing within the process of creation is communicating with myself, then it is no more than a dream, without form or function.  It is redundant to provide myself with information I already have.  I cannot empathize with my own feelings when empathy, by its very nature, requires more than one entity to experience the same thing.  I feel what I feel and I know what I know, but if there's no one else to share that with, then the creative process has no purpose.   

So that brings me back to the hours I spend alone wondering how much longer I have and thinking that I have nothing to work towards and no hope of things getting better.  My health will continue to decline, my financial situation will continue to become more dire and my ability to cope will become more strained.  Everything is on a downward trend with nothing able to reverse the direction of any of those indicators.  My only hope financially is to try to get classified as permanently disabled, which would increase my government income slightly and take the pressure off in terms of the expectation of looking for "work".  For all practical purposes, I am unemployable.  My condition means I could have a heart attack or stroke waiting around the corner at virtually any time.  All those take to trigger is enough stress.  If I do manage to get classified as "PwD" (persons with disability), then what?  Continue to struggle to survive until I keel over?  How many years will I have of that?  

At this point, there is only one outlet that still offers me some satisfaction - the written word.  I haven't tried to create new music for over 2 years.  I haven't wanted to do any video, photography or graphics for nearly as long.  I think I've managed to knock up a couple of stupid memes for posting on line, but who cares.  They never go viral.  Why that would be valuable doesn't even matter.  But I keep writing things.  Somehow what's left of my creative urge has settled into the medium of text and I keep writing things; opinions, reviews, commentary, critiques... etc.  For some reason words keep coming from my fingertips and people keep telling me to write more, so here I am, trying to get these thoughts together in one place.

To that end, I'm starting this little blog.  I don't know how this is supposed to work.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do to get anyone to read this.  I guess I'm just going to figure it out as I go along and see where it goes.  They say, if I get enough traffic, I can monetize this thing and get paid something for it.  Wouldn't THAT be a laugh!  But it doesn't matter anyway.  If I'm going to be compelled to write, I might as well stick these messages in this particular bottle and toss it out into the sea of the internet and maybe it'll drift onto someone's shore.  Maybe they'll even read some of it.  At this point, I have nothing to lose by putting this out there and seeing where it goes.  I don't have any specific direction I plan to take this.  It's just going to be whatever comes out of my fingers at any point in time until my fingers don't work anymore.  That may be sooner than I'd like to admit these days, but that's another consideration.

So if you're finding this and feel like following along, well then you're welcome to and you're welcome to share your thoughts on whatever I write as long as you're nice about it.  I'm not here to take anyone's abuse, so if that's all you've got to offer, no thanks.  Otherwise, I'll always do my best to respond in kind and offer anything I can if you have a question or two.   

Now, where do I go from here?