Tom's Passage to India

Some thoughts on identity

2009-08-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

Whoa, you may say: if the title is any representation of the content of this current post, Tom is making quite the haughty re-entry into the blogosphere. My response would be to settle down, and not get your hopes up - merely some thoughts that I jotted down whilst procrastinating from reading Bonhoeffer's Ethics last Sunday, which Luke Hill and I are currently moseying through. Clearly, I haven't been that motivated to write down anything creative lately, so a digitized version of some scatterbrained thoughts will have to do. I'm not entirely sure why my thoughts turned to the idea of identity at the time -Dietrich must have written something to spur on the segue. I feel as if my conceptualization of an "economy of identities" has its roots partly in a conversation I had with Luke earlier this year, well represented by his subsequent blog post; however, for the most part, the following content has no distinguishable origin other than as a confluence of random thoughts. Anyways, here goes:

"It is in the economy of identities that we become defined by our aptitudes, proficiencies, and powers. In this economy, "we are what we are good at," whether it be sports, relationships, or cooking. Personally, I feel as if I constantly find identity in my perceived capacity for knowledge, as well as my ability to communicate that knowledge.

I believe this inclination - to define ourselves by what we are good at - originates in a number of sources. For the sake of simplicity, I'm only going to cover the two that immediately struck me as applicable in my own context. The first sources is purely worldly and rational: it is capitalism. A spate of unabashedly Marxist analysis has led me to the conclusion that we're raised with the constant assurance that we're "special" in some particular way, that we're especially "good" at something - able to contribute to society in some "unique" fashion. While this type of affirmation, during early childhood, may be solely meant to add some character to an otherwise blank slate, by the teen years it has the primary intention of forging us into the particular cog that benefits society as a whole. As our molten identities harden, they become more and more rigidly defined; we are not developed into malleable substances, but of hard, brittle material. When this metaphorical casting process ends, the ability of our identities to evolve further is severely limited; indeed, the only alternative to remaining in a hardened state is crumbling - total brokenness.

This first source - capitalism - is close to universally applicable. Most countries have adopted the Western capital-driven economic model to some extent, and one gets the feeling that those that haven't are only stalling. The second source I'd like to highlight applies to a narrower (but not too narrow) sub-group: Christians. It is particularly relevant to those Christians convicted of the paramountcy of God's Word as revealed in the Scriptures. My experience growing up in an evangelical, somewhat "fundamentalist" atmosphere nurtured within me a belief that each individual is endowed with a unique "spiritual gift," which, accordingly, could be utilized in performing certain applicable acts of service within the community of the Church. Common interpretations of passages such as Ephesians 4:7-16 can cause the adherent to identify solely with his perceived strengths; in this way, interpretations of these "spiritual gifts" can play a similar role in personal and extra-personal perception as notions of specialization within capitalist systems. Believers are subjected to a refining process (e.g. "discipleship") in which they are tempered to perform a certain set of tasks, usually in pursuit of an ultimate "mission." In this sense, their perceived possession of such gifts becomes central to their identities not only as Christians, but also as people in general (exasperated by the fact that many evangelical Christians confine themselves almost exclusively to their church community).

The alternatives to the first "source" - capitalism - are notably scarce. As previously stated, most human cultures are careening full-speed ahead towards specialization-based economies, if they aren't there already. And even if systems such as socialism became ubiquitous, increased agency and determinism on the part of the state would have very similar effects on the "designations" of people, ala Huxley's Brave New World.

On the other hand, Christian spirituality offers an alternative to the "dictatorship of spiritual gifts" previously described. Prior to the passage previously referenced is a preface - Ephesians 4:1-6 - which proclaims the united identity we have with God and the Church. It is in this encounter with God, who is "above all and through all, and in [us] all," that we are meant to be defined.

A lack of realization of the identity in Christ achieved through acknowledgement of unity with Him, leads to the omnipresence of fear within the human mind. Fears of death, ostracization, and irrelevance abound. The "brokenness" I referred to earlier - not to be mistaken for the meek, humble brokenness touted in the Gospel message - represents the crumbling of confidence temporarily "propped up" by an assigned identity. Whether one attaches his identity to the expectations of a "market" community or a "spiritual" community, he always runs the risk of being overcome with the fear of failing to meet those expectations. This fear, in turn, prevents him from seeking out the power offered to him by God, which is often embodied in authentic, genuine encounters with others. Depression, anxiety, and addiction, I think, are all possible consequences of this disconnect."

Hopefully, you were able to get past some of the hyperbolic/exaggerative phraseology used in this piece (I'm especially proud of "dictatorship of spiritual gifts"). Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after a stimulating service at Priory Park Baptist, I was perhaps a bit over-enthusiastic when I wrote it; although I could have more thoroughly edited it this time around, I wanted to fully capture the no-holds-barred charm of the rough copy. Further thoughts to follow - as usual, comments are appreciated!

Powerlessness

2009-07-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

To say it's currently raining outside would be an understatement: in actuality, it's totally cats and dogs. Although I'm rather enjoying the current episode, there's something about extreme weather conditions that generally makes me feel vulnerable. It's as if I suddenly come to the realization that the elements - whether downpours, thunder, or tornadoes - are much bigger and more powerful than I am. I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that a world where individuals in certain privileged positions - achieved by means of education, money, etc - are made out to be larger-than-life, it takes something as omnipotent as Mother Nature to bring us back down to earth. For me, while this is often a positive, humbling experience, it can also be relentlessly diminishing. I've always been mindful of the distinction that needs to be made between healthy meekness and outright powerlessness, and I'll readily admit that I'm very uncomfortable with the thought of the latter.

In Radical Gratitude (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002), which I'm currently studying with some friends, Mary Jo Leddy claims that society has compelled us to believe in the "forced alternatives" of being "totally in control" of our lives, or "totally powerless." As one can gather from the title of the book, Leddy is primarily concerned with examining the virtue of gratitude; in the process, she frequently contrasts it with what she identifies as a pervasive dissatisfaction in the lives of Westerners. While she quickly dismisses the quest to be totally in control as a vain, irrational, "impossible dream," she's also quick to point out the dangers associated with feeling powerless. Leddy claims that powerlessness stems, rather ironically, from the eventual realization that quests for absolute power are doomed to fail. Consequently, because we've been convinced of the system of "forced alternatives," we become mired in self-pity and apathy, unconvinced that any initiative we take will have a lasting impact. The only way to prevent the onset of the self-fulfilling prophecy that is conviction of personal powerlessness, Leddy argues, is to act on the realization that there are certain areas of our lives that we can change, and others we can't.

Admittedly, I've been feeling pretty powerless lately, and not just because of rainstorms. Whether it's lack of discipline in my work, poor efforts in maintaining relationships, or a variety of other vices that I won't get into, I feel a genuine lack of power to affect significant positive change in my own daily habits and routines. I've learned a fair amount about myself through self-examination and conversation with others in the past couple years, and have come to realize that I'm a perfectionist to the extent that if there's no prospect of me accomplishing a task to the highest standard, I don't feel as if it's worth doing at all. Thus, Leddy's humbling assertion that there are some things that I naturally won't be able to achieve on my own is hard for me to swallow.

I am, nevertheless, encouraged by the new train of thought my reading of Radical Gratitude has developed. 2 Timothy 1:7 comes to mind in all of this: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." Coupled with a good deal of prayer and consultation with friends, I think I'm going to start trying to make more small changes in my life, in place of my tendency to constantly try to reinvent the wheel. Hopefully, this will help me overcome the feelings of "corrupting powerlessness" that Leddy identifies as having got under the skin of our society.

Raising the dying

2009-06-22T20:09:00.000-07:00

You may find it ironic that I'm writing a post about dying in a blog that's barely twitched in the past two months. If this was the first thought that popped into your mind, congratulations - very clever. Perceptive, too: it's true that Tom's Passage to India has been something of a ghost-blog of late. I think it would be an exaggeration to attribute this to writer's block, as the ideas - and even the odd witticism - have been churning out of my mind at their regular pace. The problem has been actually getting them down into legible form; simply put, the ideas are there, just not the will or the words. I think I'll ineloquently dub it "writer's glass wall", in that by all accounts, the potential for a solid post seems to be there, but I just can't get pencil to scratch paper.

To be honest, I'm still not feeling all that creative. I've decided a good way to kick-start my cranium would be to quote someone much smarter and more intelligent than me, out of the hope that it'll lead to a remotely insightful response on my part. I'll leave it to you to decide whether my strategy is sound; for now, I pass the baton to Sheila Cassidy, a British doctor best known for her contribution to the hospice movement:

Medically speaking, hospices exist to provide a service of pain and symptom control for those for whom active anti-cancer treatment is no longer appropriate - there isalways something that can be done for the dying, even if it's only having the patience and courage to sit with them. Most lay people imagine that hospices are solemn, rather depressing places where voices are hushed and eyes downcast as patients and their families await the inevitable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hospice care is about life and love and laughter, for it is founded upon two unshakable beliefs: that life is so precious that each minute should be lived to the full, and that death is quite simply a part of life, to be faced openly and greeted with the hand outstretched. One of the hallmarks of hospice life is celebration: cakes are baked and champagne uncorked at the first hint of a birthday or anniversary, and administrators, nurses and volunteers clink glasses with patients and their families. (Cassidy, Sheila. "Precious Spikenard", Catholic New Times of Toronto, 1985.)

This is actually an excerpt twice removed: I pulled it out of The Road to Daybreak, a memoir by the late Catholic priest Henri Nouwen that I currently have my nose in. In this context, Nouwen is using Cassidy's passage to illustrate that hospices, like the Daybreak community for the mentally challenged that he worked at, are places that "proclaim loudly the preciousness of life and encourage us to face reality with open eyes and outstretched hands", where "the certainty of the present is always much more important than the uncertainty of the future." (Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak, p. 21).

More than anything else, this made me think about the way that many people - myself included - conceptualize compassion. In my last post, I suggested that popular support in the West for development aid signifies the presence of elements of selflessness and empathy amongst it's citizens. What I've recently come to suspect, though, is that we give largely on the condition that there are prospects for improvement; in the case of development aid, for example, we want to know that children will be given the opportunity to hone their potential in school, leading to more promising livelihoods. Would we be as enthusiastic about contributing our resources and efforts to the wellness of those who don't have a future in this world in a physical sense? In other words, would our compassion flow as freely to someone on their deathbed, as it would for a repressed child?

I suspect that the hospice movement addresses a need that has gone largely unnoticed in the mainstream. Stephen Lewis, in his widely popular contribution to the Massey Lectures, Race Against Time, speaks passionately of the importance of treating those already afflicted by HIV/AIDS, in addition to preventing the spread of the disease. At one point, he recalls a conversation with a World Bank official who bluntly states the need for a "trade-off" in favour of prevention, considering the impending mortality of those already infected (Lewis, Race Against Time, p. 157). Although this anecdote may relay seemingly exceptional callousness, I'd imagine it represents the attitude of many institutions charged with serving the suffering and vulnerable.

I think it comes across as pretty unnatural to invest in the dying in our results-based world. Then again, the broader idea of compassion doesn't fit that smugly into this paradigm either. Personally, I feel that if I'm going to ever learn to serve others, I'm going to have to elevate them to a position of preeminence, regardless of their position, potential, or usefulness.

Huffing and puffing over aid

2009-05-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

After four years of being tube-fed international development discourse, it quickly became obvious to me that the aid debate is one of academia's favourite varieties. Apparently, the popular media has also picked up a taste for it as of late; of particular note is the cyber-spar that recently occurred between Jeffrey Sachs and Dambisa Moyo, two "household names" of development economics (OK, so the classification's slightly absurd - bear with me). Sachs' contribution to the Huffington Post is a layman-friendly introduction to his conviction of the need for development assistance, which he defends primarily by pointing out the flawed positions of aid skeptics such as Moyo and William Easterly. Moya responds in an equally terse fashion, suggesting that the confrontation at hand is only the most recent in a history of editorial animosity.

I'd like to start off by saying that my opinion of Sachs has been slow to galvanize. Likely, this is due to the circumstances in which I've been exposed to him: aside from the occasional required-reading snippet, I wasn't exposed to his work until I cracked The End of Poverty on a rambunctious riverboat floating down the Laotian Mekong, the "crew" of which were constantly supplying debauched British backpackers with local moonshine. Needless to say, Jeff came off as a bit dull in comparison.

As I got more into it, though, I started to recognize qualities that also come through in the discussed article: although he is a committed free-market economist, Sachs recognizes the role that non-reciprocal financial interactions have to play in improving the prospects of developing countries. Whether it's the forgiveness of debt or the provision of aid, offerings of resources that don't need to be paid back play an important role in increasing the capacity of countries to help themselves. Sachs is insightful in pointing out that these resources are often the capital upon which countries like Rwanda build effective health infrastructures; he is even more profound in emphasizing that aid funds represent the immediate lifeline to millions on the brink of demise. Although the article doesn't include the case studies and statistics to prove Sachs' points in and of itself, it serves as a useful call-to-action to Westerners to rethink their meagre contributions to global welfare.

Conversely, I found Moya's response to be smug, trite, and bordering on naive. Her assertion that "development is not that hard" is enough to propel any development practitioner's head towards the wall, and serves to solidify her place amongst the ranks of one-dimensional conventional economists. Although we can certainly take hints from past work in areas such as poverty alleviation, the "300 years of evidence" that she refers to is hardly the panacean canon that she makes it out to be. Sachs knows as well as anyone that certain strategies, such as curbing inflation, have been, historically, applied with similar success in different contexts; however, he would also acknowledge that a smorgasbord of socio-economic-cultural factors come into play when these types of plans are actually implemented. Moya displays her ignorance to this key historical fact, by attributing the effectiveness of the Marshall Plan and India's Green Revolution primarily to their brevity.

Moya's disciplinary tunnel-vision is further confirmed in her myopic diagnosis of Africa's problems of corruption and economic regression. Although it is likely true that, in some cases, aid monies have been manipulated fraudulently by crooked officials, the conversation isn't complete unless problems such as poor transparency and judicial independence are mentioned. The immense sums that Nigerian leaders have historically siphoned out of that country's oil industry is evidence that governments have the potential to be massively corrupt, regardless of whether the money comes from foreign sources or their own wellspring. As for her claims that Africa is worse off now than in the 1970's, she conveniently fails to mention the effects that AIDS and economic structural adjustment programs alone have had on the continent's ills (ironically, SAP's - facilitated largely by Moya's ex-employer, the World Bank - were characterized by the kind of rapid free-marketization that she espouses).

All in all, it seems to me that Moya is far more stubbornly attached to her ideology of African self-sufficiency than Sachs is to the idea of the importance of aid, as she alleges. As far as I can tell, her claims that he neglects job creation in favour of aid-dependency in Africa are wholly unsubstantiated when this article and The End of Poverty are considered. Although I'm horribly under-qualified to make any type of economic assessment on my own, it seems likely that the differences between Sachs' recommendations for Eastern European development and that of Africa are based on a recognition of the different socio-political-cultural conditions within those areas - exactly the type of broad-perspective that Moya has no apparent interest in adopting.

Although I won't go into them in depth, I think there are also some important philosophical questions that come into play in the aid debate. They centre largely around the concept of dependence, and whether it really is a bad thing to rely heavily upon another individual, group or country (check out my earlier post, in which I addressed this more generally). Certainly, history is full of examples where economic powers have created dependence complexes as a means of exploiting weaker regions; however, the basic concept doesn't have to be painted this darkly by default. Perhaps the acts of giving and receiving aid on an international, governmental scale could contribute to the development of human attitudes of altruism and humility. There could be something to this; I think it more likely, however, that these attitudes will have to form on individual levels, before they're embodied on such a large scale.

Life in uniform: not just guns 'n roses

2009-05-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

I was checking out baseball scores on ESPN's website today, and decided to look at the power rankings to see if editors were giving the Jays the credit they're currently due. Despite their usual bias against teams north of the border, the ESPN pundits pegged Toronto at a lofty #3 on the list, which was very conspicuously brought to me by the recruitment division of the US Army. Out of appreciation for their thoughtfulness, I decided to indulge the sportscaster by checking out their sponsor's website. The experience that followed bewildered me far more than the Jays' recent success on the field, which is significant to say the least.

At first glance, the homepage of GoArmy.com strikingly resembles the interface of a military-based real time strategy video game, along the lines of Command and Conquer or Warcraft. Upon entering the website, I immediately embarked on a nausea-inducing approach from the perspective of some kind of attack helicopter, eventually being presented with a bird's-eye view of what is, ostensibly, a typical desert US army installation. This interface acts as a type of virtual graphical sitemap: by clicking on a section of the "base", the user is directed to related occupational info. A click on the link hovering above the MP station, for example, lead me to a video narrated by an ambitious young military policeman. The video game-feel of the site is further advanced by the columns of soldiers and battalions of vehicles moving around in the background - overall, I wouldn't be surprised if they had contracted Electronic Arts to design the darned thing.

Initially, the whole spectacle seemed comical. The awe-inspiring graphics, zealous accounts by bright-eyed recruits - it all came across as harmlessly over-the-top. The biggest laugh came when I started talking to "Sergeant Star", the virtual guide who's job is to tell you anything you'd want to know about a potential career in the trenches. Truly a marvel in web-based artificial intelligence technology that's worth checking out: click on the link on the bottom-right of the main page. Just don't call him too many names - three strikes, and it's off to boot camp, private!

As I thought about it more, though, I realized how strongly the website affirmed some common critiques of US Army (indeed, western) recruiting practices. My mind immediately went back to those World War II-era soldier's letters I read in Grade 10 history, in which farm-boys-turned-riflemen spoke of the excitement of leaving for foreign lands; the thrill of fighting for one's country. Is GoArmy.com the US military's attempt to piggyback this timeless fantasy? Apart from a few sober caveats on the part of Sgt. Star (which I really had to pry out of him, by the way), there really doesn't seem to be much on the site emphasizing the physical and psychological risk one inevitably takes on by signing the roll.

Also, as classist as it may sound, the format of the site seems to have set a certain demographic clearly in it's sights. Can anyone say uneducated, suburban, upper teens-early 20s male? Not to say I didn't / don't currently play video games: I've had my share of Goldeneye-induced all nighters and LAN parties. However, is any well-informed, thoughtful person going to give serious consideration to a career in the army because of a super-cool recruitment website? I'm not in any way suggesting an average member of the said demographic would fall for such sensationalism, but it's pretty clear the army is trying anyways. At the very least, I'd describe it as vanity; more critically, it could be seen as insulting to the intellect of potential recruits.

Above all, I view GoArmy.com as a gross misrepresentation and glorification of the business as a whole. Even if the army's chief role isn't simply to "kill people", as Canada's former Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier once so controversially asserted, the fact remains a life in the military is ominously filled with tough decisions and lose-lose scenarios. "War is hell" is a truthful cliche, and a soldier's job is, all things considered, an unfortunate one. The world of the army may very well be characterized by "courage and honour", as the voice-over on the discussed webpage claims it is; however, many have also experienced it as one crawling with death and despair. The salient message of GoArmy.com simply fails in conveying this core truth.

I suppose I could be rebuked by a claim that a job in the army is "just another job" that millions of ordinary people work at every day, and should be treated as such. There is, of course, truth to the second part of that statement: I know plenty of people who currently work, or have worked, in the military, including my best friend and family members. I can confirm that they are (or were) in it just as much for an honest living as anyone else. However, I refuse to accept that it's "just another job". The reason that I reserve so much respect and admiration for members of the military is that by taking that gun into their hands (or wrench with which they fix a fighter plane, or microphone with which they call in an air strike), they're shouldering a degree of responsibility not experienced by other members of society. Exceptional nature of the beast considered, GoArmy.com's "bed of roses" - or more like "guns 'n roses" - portrayal just doesn't fit the bill.

Dealing in Death

2009-04-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading this blog for a little while, you've probably discovered that I enjoy over-analyzing some of the more obscure, mostly irrelevant things in everyday life. For the most part, I like to think that I've gotten a pretty good handle on a lot of it: the fact that nobody else bothers to analyze this stuff notwithstanding, I've come to view myself as pretty damn perceptive. Two things that I don't relate to very well, though - no matter how well I try - are marketing schemes and funeral homes. My feelings toward marketing schemes are something of a disillusionment, mostly because they're so commonly intended to sucker people into buying things they don't need. The fact that I know perfectly friendly people in the funeral business dictates that my attitude towards this beast is slightly more amiable; however, I simply can't bring myself to fully understand an establishment that profits off of people dying. Needless to say, when these two entities come together - most commonly as funeral home marketing schemes - I'm totally thrown for a loop.

Let me explain. Before you start worrying for my sanity, rest assured that this isn't a dilemma that I randomly dreamed up during this morning's sermon (out of the possibility that Dave Williams is reading this, I'd like to emphasize that it was tres good). It actually emerged right when I got home from church, upon my decision to open an unaddressed piece of admail placed in my mailbox by a local funeral home, that will remain unnamed lest my ass gets sued for libel. I'm not sure what initially inclined me to open it; what I do know, is that the content elicited a pretty mixed bag of emotions, ranging from humour to shock. As a taste, check out the introductory paragraph of the letter:

Dear Family,
This is your opportunity to recieve a FREE FUNERAL COST ESTIMATE. You can also receive a FREE Planning Ahead Brochure, filled with valuable information on planning ahead. Simply mark your answers below and return the completed questionnaire in the attached postage-paid envelope. It's easy and there's no obligation!
NO COST - NO OBLIGATION

Am I the only one that feels as if this represents a compilation of much that is seriously screwed up about our society? On a trivial, personal level, this letter had the callous effect of tainting my otherwise sunny, happy, content day, by reminding me that I'd eventually have to plan a funeral for myself or my loved ones. Whoopee! Slightly more nauseating is the fact that the following portion of the letter was a questionnaire format, in which the "future client" is prompted to anticipate their future preference for a wood or steel casket, much like an airline passenger would be asked to choose between the vegetarian blog of unintelligible matter and it's meat equivalent. The utilization of such marketing standards as "no cost - no obligation" - in bold and caps, to boot - also just doesn't seem quite right to me. Call me crazy.

I was especially struck by the concluding paragraph of the piece, which informed the reader of the fact the funeral home had the gall to make the advertised product a "limited time offer." Are these guys serious? Is it meant to be a joke, something along the lines of "your time is limited, and so is this offer"? I also found it pretty amusing that at the end of the letter, the author provides a check-box beside a sentence reading "Please see that I also receive a FREE Planning Ahead Brochure". Couldn't they have just said something along the lines of "Please ensure that I receive another depressing reminder of my impending death"? The ridiculousness of this content has convinced me that these guys are either failed stand-up comedians who got booed off the stage one too many times for making their audiences feel like crap, or zombies. One of the two.

I realize that if I was truly writing in the analytical tradition of my last few posts, I'd try to draw some sort of absurd sociological/theological/philosophical conclusion from this stuff. After considering this course of action for about five seconds, though, I've decided that it would be mostly ridiculous, considering I just concluded what could be described as a glorified book review of a funeral parlour pamphlet. I may not be headed for a six-foot deep hole anytime soon, but I won't rule out the nuthouse...

A categorical cry for help

2009-04-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't noticed, this blog is a bit of a hodgepodge. When I actually make the effort to post multiple times every couple weeks, the range of topics addressed becomes quite diverse, to say the least. The first absurd metaphor that comes to mind is a typical food plate at an after-service church pot luck: it's hard to make out what is what, and when your taste buds are finally getting accustomed to the vegetarian chili, that little bit of jello dessert that snuck it's way onto the fork throws you right back off again.

With this in mind, I've flirted with the idea of categorizing my posts. Practically speaking, it makes sense, both for myself and others: whether one of my readers wants to skip to a certain topic because he thinks I suck at everything else, or I want to track down something I wrote in the past (I think it's all good), a classification system of sorts would come in handy. It seems as if my most avid blogging buddies - all of whom are far more well versed in the trade than myself - have elected to categorize; the pragmatist in me advises me to follow their example.

Logical sensibilities aside, however, I can't help but feel a type of aversion to the idea. Perhaps I'm reading a bit too far into it (not a far-fetched possibility, by any measure), but it seems that by attaching a label to something, I'm creating a condition where all of the preconceptions and stereotypes associated with that label could taint my post. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing - personally speaking, if I didn't regularly group ideas together, my mind would be as confounded and disoriented as a Lewis Carroll novel. One of the things I value the most about this space, though, is that it's a place where disciplines, topics, themes - whatever you want to call them - can intertwine and relate to one another. Whereas Marxist economics and evangelical theology might be considered strange bedfellows in many conventional forums, my blog gives me the unique chance to throw them in a room together, and see what happens.

As I write this, I'm deprecating myself for sounding conceited. Who am I to think that I'm in a special position to draw these types associations in my humble blog, while critiquing well-aged classifications in the process? Perhaps categorization would be a needed shot to my ego, a wake-up call to the limits of "thinking big" and the merits of dedicating oneself to a focused topic.

If you haven't figured it out already, this is more of an call for opinions than anything else. To those of you who do keep a blog: why or why not do you categorize your posts? If you do, do you find it limits the perspective they offer? There may be people who don't read a blog, but have a pretty good idea how they'd structure it if they did; my menial appeal extends to you also.

A work in progress?

2009-04-22T21:31:00.000-07:00

I spent last weekend with my good friends Jon and Steffen at the latter's cottage in Kincardine. To me, it was a unique setting, where one wakes up to the crashing waves of Lake Huron while also taking in a subtle whiff of fertilizer from nearby farms. An offering to the senses quite alien to the more typical cottage serenity of my native Haliburton Highlands, but very pleasant in its own way.

Unorthodox locale aside, the cottage itself was pretty typical. Cedar plank walls decorated with cheery folk art, eclectic, character-filled furniture, and, of course, a fireplace. Airtight wood stove, to be exact, but that's beside the point. It seems to me that the fireplace is the focal point of any self respecting cottage or cabin, largely due to the activities that typically take place around it: hot chocolate drinking, lively conversations, and awkward attempts by overconfident urbanite males to keep the blaze going with butane and birchbark, to mention a few. A slightly more subtle, but equally fabled, pastime is to sit and watch the flames. Long convinced as a child that this was an affinity reserved for octogenarians in La-Z-Boys, I've only recently begun to appreciate it's appeal myself. There's something mysteriously calming about watching fire - a normally hostile element, but in this case tamed by membranes of brick and metal - eat away at hapless pieces of dead organic matter. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the fact that it's an interest shared by myself and grandfathers the world over implies some sort of intrinsic appeal.

As I sat gazing at the modest little blaze in the Pentelow cottage's living room, it occurred to me that as well as being rather boring and odd, this activity was also characterized by it's blatant uselessness. From a purely practical standpoint, any more than the occasional glance to make sure the fire didn't out - thus exposing us to the rather impractical realities of cold and sickness - really didn't serve any tangible purpose at all. Aside from inciting a fleeting state of relaxation, my act of watching the flames was wholly antisocial, unproductive and materially inconsequential. I'll admit, the fact that I was in the middle of a typical weekend of R&R didn't prevent this realization from being a bit disheartening.

Likely, my unease was largely due to the emphasis I put on the idea of "progress" in my life. I often feel as if the primary goal of my existence is to increase my knowledge, advance my credentials, and expand my influence; when these pursuits begin to feel narcissistic, I confidently reassure myself that they're requisite to my being able to help the maximum number of people possible in the world. The constant need for improvement on my current state at any given time, it seems, dominates my very identity.

Daunting as this conditions sounds, I hardly suspect I'm alone - the need for progress, it seems to me, manifests itself in everyday life everywhere in the world. My mind turns back to the Laotian banknotes I carried throughout my SE Asia travels, and their depiction of bridges, power plants, and factory farms - all symbols of the technological modernization human societies strove after throughout the 20th century. Closer to home, politicians speak of "progress" being made towards states of gender equality and universal human rights; to them, we're set on a linear track, with the sole gear being full speed ahead. The motives that drive these mindsets are often commendable; however, their propagators all-too-often ignore lessons learned from the past, as well as neglect to consider the opinions of those who are perpetually overlooked in our current age.

Even religion, it seems, isn't immune to the influence of the culture of progress. Whereas one might expect followers of Christ, for example, to be inclined towards stillness and introspection, it seems as if they're "on the move" as much as anyone else. I've observed this to be evident in their everyday lives: whether they're fine-tuning the wealth-creation potential their stock portfolios, or ensuring their family's continual financial "security", Christians seem just as concerned with "betterment" as anyone else. The trend is also marked in Christian theological and philosophical thought: an example can be found in C.S. Lewis' influential Mere Christianity, where the author makes the distinction between the "old days" of theology, when it was "possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God," and today, when a great deal more discretion must be made between good and bad ideas. According to Lewis, "to believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression - like believing the earth is flat (Lewis, 155). Although I'm not in the position to oppose his judgement of the "religion of modern England", I do question his apparent bias towards modern ideas. In a recent work, philosopher/theologian James K. A. Smith highlighted the danger this type of "temporal hubris" poses to the development of a healthy Christian worldview (Smith, 135).

In addition to endangering the role the ancients have to play in our everyday lives, I get the feeling this hegemony of progress hampers our ability to live a healthy degree of our lives in the present. Another post for another time - suffice it to say, I'm increasingly convinced many of us move through our lives obsessed with the future, without enough focus on our personal past or future. Stay tuned for a good laugh, as I try to unpack yet another topic way out of my ballpark :)

In summary, progress is ubiquitous. I'd be a fool to lambaste it as general thing; on a basic level, after all, my continuing existence relies on a number of basic biological progressions. Socio-politically, progress is also very real, and, in many ways, good - one of the most admirable applications of the study of history, after all, is it's use to ensure we don't repeat mistakes of the past. All too often, though, it seems that we adhere to a type of progress-regression dichotomy, in which our minds place activities within one of these two categories. As hard as I try, I can't find a place for staring into the fire in either of those categories, leading me to suspect there's something in between.

Semi-obsessed with semicolons

2009-04-19T19:49:00.001-07:00

I was just reading my last blog post, and realized how much I over-used semicolons. Partly due, undoubtedly, to the fact I started writing it at about 12:00AM. More so, I'd say, to my unwillingness to finish a thought when it duly should be put to rest. God help my future spouse, if this is any reflection of my communication skills in general.

I'll leave it up to my grammarian friends (all of whom, presumably, are still in the closet) to draw correlations between my use of certain types of punctuation and my life as a whole. Take this post, in all it's brevity, as a mere admission of guilt; I'll try my hardest to repent.

The City of Joy

2009-04-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, I promised an imminent follow-up post to my initial thoughts on discovering joy. Those of you who've been following my ramblings for a while know that when I predict a publication "tomorrow," reality dictates that it will actually be a couple of weeks in the making; with this in mind, hopefully you're not disappointed. Fittingly enough, I just concluded a conversation with my housemate Janine on the topic of perfectionism, in which I described my tendency to procrastinate in blogging as characteristic of that tendency in my life. I'm sure I'll address this in a post in near future (read: sometime before Afghanistan becomes a fully-functioning democracy).

For those of you with poor long-term memories: in an entry in late March, I described my recent attempts to gain insight into the anatomy of joy using literature. Frankly, it's turned out to be an absolute disaster - if anything, my perusal of C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy only served to increase my confusion on the topic. If utter failure was ever the best thing that could happen to me, though, it was in this case; by neglecting to define joy in any objective manner, I feel that Lewis revealed to me the possibility that joy is a wholly subjective, or personal, thing. I'm happy to say that Dominique LaPierre's City of Joy, while causing me to become even more intrigued about the idea of joy, didn't contribute any more to my cheeky original purpose.

City of Joy is a story set in the Indian city of Calcutta, based in the 1970's (I think; the date is never explicitly revealed). It is primarily told from the perspectives of two people - a Polish priest called Stephan Kovalski, and urban immigrant Hasari Pal - whose lives, despite being separate at the beginning of the book, symbolically converge as the narrative unfolds. One thing that they have in common throughout the whole book is that they live amongst the most destitute people in one of the most destitute cities in the world, with the most salient difference being that while Pal is forced by circumstance to live as a street-dweller, Kovalski is compelled by his Catholicism to voluntarily immerse himself in the lives of "the least of these". About midway through the book, a young American doctor, Max Loeb, joins Kovalski in his occupation of the notorious slum of Anand Nagar, the name of which the book's title is some kind of translation.

If you were to glance at a set of Coles Notes for City of Joy (heaven forbid their existence), you would probably envision a place totally devoid of anything positive. Slumlords, clogged sewers, lepers - the depiction of scathing droughts being immediately succeeded by invasive floods, along with being literal, serves as a metaphor for the cruel irony that characterizes the locale. Indeed, at times the story was downright depressing; just as the reader is getting to know a character, for example, the latter will be stolen by the scourge of tuberculosis. The suffering of children is perhaps the most unfathomable: those who happen to survive through the brief period of juvinility granted to them by the slum are, more often than not, thrust into an adolescence of begging and garbage picking. Suffice it to say, an Amazon.ca "Sneak Peek" probably wouldn't increase sales in this case.

It is upon closer examination of the relationships of this book that the story becomes more compelling. The spiritual bonds that endure in what could otherwise be described as a physical mess are the remarkable aspects of this account; indeed, I'd go so far as to say they offer a glimpse of an irrational, bizarre, supernatural thing that may best be described as joy. What would compel Muslim and Hindu residents of the slum, one day fighting over deep-seeded disparities, to celebrate a Christian festival together the next? Lepers, burdened by unimaginable physical incapacities and social stigmas, to drag themselves along with smiles on their faces? A large family, living on a pittance of resources, to offer the best of their dinner to the young, healthy European priest in basketball shoes? Some might deem it ignorance, others blame it on insanity - I'm convinced that it's something more, something given to humans by God.

Without succumbing to the temptation of trying to define this thing - joy? - I'd like to suggest that it is most vividly eminent in people who are determined to live their lives fully, regardless of their situation. As well as seeing this throughout City of Joy, I observed it at times during my own travels in India: people, mired in the webs of class and caste, living lives characterized by cheerfulness and a contented demeanor. I'm not saying this was the case with everyone, and I certainly don't believe the strangleholds of class and caste are morally right; however, there seems to be something that glows here, that isn't as readily seen in the West.

In Becoming Human, which I also just finished reading, Jean Vanier talks of freedom as being "the acceptance of the world as it is together with the will to struggle to make the world a better place for us to live" (p. 121, see Mar 1/09 post for citation info). At first, I considered this passage depressingly defeatist - how can I, as an outisider, accept the world of Anand Nagar as being how it is, much less the people that actually live there and experience it? However, as I considered it more, I realized how essential the first clause is to victory in the "struggle" Vanier mentions in the second part of the sentence. If the people of the City of Joy don't learn to live the fullest life and love with the little that they currently have, how are they going to work together to make their world an even better place? The same logic applies, of course, to us in the West; if we don't nurture the small amount of spiritual awareness we possess in our society, how will it possibly erupt into a blazing flame? Perhaps it is when we learn to appreciate the presence of God in our lives, no matter how small, that we truly experience joy.

Sincerely speaking, I really don't know. Joy remains as mysterious a concept to me as it did before I naively picked up two books that just happened to have it in their titles. The Bible is, no doubt, a good place to dig further; I've read it with this intention before, but I'll have to do some more focused study with joy in mind. Thankfully, I feel as if I'm coming to the humble realization that joy is not to be found in crash-course format. It looks as if I, like Father Kovalski and rickshaw-wallah Hasari, am just going to have to live it out.

The "real world" - more of the same?

2009-04-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

I just finished a short discussion with a couple of friends, which originated when one of them expressed concern over the effects a semester abroad program he's participating in would have on his learning experience. I'm not sure what was exactly at the core of his anxiety, but he appeared to be skeptical of the balance between "academic" and "real-world" learning that the program would presumably try to strike. A brief-but-succinct conversation ensued, in which those involved (the aforementioned friend, another friend, and I) contrasted academic and real-world (or experiential) learning in fairly different ways.

Not being foreign to this debate - indeed, I've tossed it around in my own mind many times, as well as with others - I had a pretty good idea of what I thought was the most important factor to consider when discussing the nature of each learning method. As those of you who've been following this blog for the past year (c'mon, there must be a few!) know, university, to me, has largely been a place where one gains status. Hopefully, you've also recognized the immense respect I have for the academy's place in the world; however, in this conversation, it suffices to say that a good part of my motivation to "succeed" in my studies was that it would help me become a more respected (even exceptional) member of society. For whatever reason, I've also been bred to believe that the academic type of learning is a prerequisite to being successful in the "real-world." It won't come as a surprise, therefore, that I've been burdened with the misconception that success in university would necessarily precede eminence in anything that might follow in my life.

It's only quite recently that I've come to realize that I subscribe to this mentality, that success in the academy = high status and reputation. I resent it, and believe that it's corrupted my view of what it means to live a life that's fulfilling to oneself and others. With this in mind, for all of the positive impacts that university has had on me, it's also centrally contributed to the development of unhealthy motives within me. I've come to view motivation as the factor that can "make or break" a student's tenure in the academy, in terms of how he uses the tenure to benefit the world around him. For example, how is someone supposed to truly empathize with the poor and vulnerable if he maintains the pretentious conviction that his education makes him, in some way, more "refined" than them?

Considering the relative passion with which I expressed these ideas to my friends, I was surprised when they reacted the way they did: they blatantly disagreed. Although I won't presume to know exactly what was going through their minds at the time, they seemed to be more concerned with the practical deficiencies of academic-style teaching than any possibility of the university advancing pompous mindsets. The academy didn't seem to be teaching them to feel superior, as it did to me; rather, they harboured doubts that it was really teaching them anything at all. Conversely, they seemed to believe that an experiential approach - talking to people instead of just reading about them - would help them better understand the issues that they initially enrolled in school to learn about.

My friends were, of course, making a very good point. There are many realities which one can only become aware of through direct confrontation – in international development, the area of study for all three of us, this is especially true. However, I don’t think that less academic learning and more experiential learning would have changed the attitude that I believe somewhat compromised my learning experience. This is because I truly believe specter of ego resides just as threateningly in the “real-world” as it does in academia.

From a linguistics standpoint, terms such as “real world” carry undertones that are just as strong as contained in words such as “academic”, “university”, or “Dr.”. Of course, this doesn’t have to be the case: just as being a scholar wasn’t considered synonymous with being an elite in the Middle Age European universities, as it seems to be today, entering into the “real world” doesn’t necessarily mean entering adopting a "more realistic, pragmatic outlook" than one's comparably naïve academic friends. However, I think we need to be conscious of the fact that places such as academia and the real world are just as much mindsets as geographical places, and if we’re not careful, they’ll come to define us.

I’m not sure about my two friends, but graduating from university and entering the so-called “real world” hasn’t liberated me from the temptation to be motivated by status. Unless I continue to be conscious of my vulnerabilities, I’ll always be looking for new ways to advance, progress, and refine, no matter what occupation I find myself in.

Defining joy

2009-03-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

If you know me well, you're probably aware that I really like to put my finger on things. Before you get weirded out, don't worry - it's a metaphor, a way of me saying that I'm the bizarre type of perfectionist that won't even bother pulling my hammer out of the tool belt if there's not chance of me hitting the nail square on the head. Aside from making me maddeningly slow at building stuff (that's not a metaphor - ask the construction crew I worked with back in '07), this trait also makes it quite frustrating for me to think about problems for which there's no clearly definable answer. Although my recent foray into postmodern/poststructuralist literature has helped me come to terms with this side of me a little better, it's far from quelled my desire to turn craggy mountains into neatly analyzed molehills.

As you can imagine, this doesn't exactly make my experiments with Christianity (some might call it a "faith walk") a jaunt in the park. In contrast to the picture that that Billy Graham Crusade rerun painted for you on CTS the other day, the Christian narrative isn't simple - there are more than a few concepts that will throw anyone who tries to squeeze them into a tidy box for a loop. Become like little children, sure - just make sure you bring daddy along to explain the big words.

Recently, I decided to try and tackle one of the more enormous ones: joy. Being the good student of history that I am, I was sure that the consumption of a couple books by famous scholars would answer all of my questions, and pave the way for a wonderfully lucid blog exposition of the meaning of this elusive little three-letter word.

Wrong. Brushing off the blank stares of my pastor and church librarian that accompanied my initial inquiry, I promptly checked out C.S. Lewis' Surprised By Joy, thinking the Great Sage of Belfast would undoubtedly offer a comprehensive definition. To my disappointment, the concluding paragraph of this otherwise enjoyable work made me feel as if had actually lost ground in my quest for clarity regarding joy:

But what, in conclusion, of Joy? for that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about. To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian... I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it.

Clive Staples, you have got to be kidding me. Did I seriously just sit through 190 pages of you describing the meals you ate at yuppy prep school to hear that the central theme of the book didn't actually, in the great scheme of things, end up meaning a whole lot to you? Anticlimactic is an understatement - this was borderline distressing.

As I think about it a bit more, though, I really shouldn't have been too surprised/disappointed. Perhaps joy is something infinitely subjective, the meaning of which is totally based on the specific stories of individuals or communities. Maybe the fact that my trusty Nave's Topical Bible Reference System highlights instances of joy ranging from warriors experiencing it on the battlefield in the Old Testament, to angels expressing it upon the birth of Christ, suggests that the only way of truly understanding it is to consider it a narrative. Something that doesn't hold a definition that spans people, cultures, and creeds. If this is the case, should even a teacher of such stature as Lewis be expected to form it into a universal theory?

Immediately after finishing Lewis, I began sinking my teeth into a significantly thicker package of pulp: Dominique LaPierre's epic The City of Joy. Whether my subconscious deemed it worthy due to the presence of "joy" in the title, or simply because it looked long enough to last me through the long journey home from Australia and then some, I don't know; all I'm sure about is that it made me reconsider my drive to define joy objectively, and instead approach the topic in a way more reminiscent of the ideas proposed in the previous paragraph. Details on the City of Joy next time, hopefully tomorrow.

The crisis that can be community

2009-03-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, it was reported that a Russian "Bear" bomber - one of those old prop-driven behemoths that they built at the onset of the Cold War - approached Canadian airspace. In a display of typically-Canadian self assurance, Peter MacKay went on to make a bunch of lame-o macho statements about how our "world class air force" turned the plane around on a dime, and how they better not try that again, etc. Russia responded with the casual indifference that one would expect in light of such accusations on the part of a Canadian defence minister: a brush-off of the claims of airspace infringement, accompanied by an assurance that all proper diplomatic channels were being utilized.

Despite the surface vanity of it all, I'm not surprised that it made the news in Canada and abroad. Aside from the obvious questions that immediately come to mind - firstly, how the heck did a 55-year old tin can reach Nunavut, and secondly, how did the CF manage to get two fighters up there to meet it - this episode stirred me up in a couple slightly more abstract ways. Whether one considers the increasing amount of Russian shows of military force around the world - Harper & Co. aren't fabricating that one - or the sensationalist Canadian media response, it becomes evident that both governments are utilizing one of the most powerful weapons in history: nationalism.

Now, it's important to point out that this type of allegiance to one's nation is so deeply engrained in human nature, that it would be arrogant to write it off as a wholly negative force. On the contrary, I'd say that it can be a positive source of self-identity. However, it also has the potential to morph into more isolating, inflammable phenomena such as patriotism, populism, and even racism. If being united with others by nationalism can be characterized as a type of community - as I believe it can - then letting it take certain forms represents a loss of any positive nature that that community once embodied.

Let me expand on that a little. I'm currently reading Becoming Human, a print account of Jean Vanier's contribution to CBC's "Massey Lecture" series in 1998. Vanier is the founded of L'Arche, a worldwide network of communities that exist to foster societal inclusion of, and care for, people that live with intellectual disabilities. It's not hard to imagine, then, that Vanier fully recognizes the benefits of sharing communal bonds with people of a common vision or mission; in Becoming Human, he describes how the residents of the L'Arche communities are united by the simple desire to express love towards lonely people, and realize that they have just as much to offer to humanity as anyone else. By inviting people to live at L'Arche, the organization is allowing them to experience the type of belonging that is, according to Vanier, a basic human need, as essential as food, water, or oxygen.

However, Vanier also acknowledges that communion can take on forms that are exclusive, volatile, and encourage feelings or superiority over others. I've quickly come to realize that the author is keen to identify key dualisms in human nature, and he succinctly summarizes the positive and negative potential of community as such:

There is an innate need in our hearts to identify with a group, both for protection and for security, to discover and affirm our identity, and to use the group to prove our worthiness and goodness, indeed, even to prove that we are better than others. It is my belief that it is not religion or culture at the root of human conflict but the way in which groups use religion or culture to dominate one another. (Becoming Human, p. 35)

Although Vanier doesn't explicitly address national identity in his analysis, I don't think it's too far-fetched to draw a parallel between the type of cultural belonging that he speaks of, and our conceptualization of nationalism. Just as he implies that the basic desire to "identify ourselves with a group" can be corrupted into segregation, I believe that the sense of belonging and unity that we naturally derive from being Canadians, Italians or Laotians can devolve into evil, base impulses such as racism. Whether one looks at the rise of Facism in Europe in the 1930's or the genocide in Rwanda in the 90's, the conflicts that took place can characterized as community gone way, way wrong.

"Belonging is a beautiful but terrible reality." Vanier makes this statement in the middle of an elongated analogy, in which he compares the development of the relationship between a child and his/her parents with the experience of individuals integrating into community in general. In this passage, he seeks to point out that as well as having a potentially damaging impact on people outside of the group through devices such as degradation and exclusion, communities can also end up harming the individuality of those within them. Although the relative weakness of a child can be an opportunity for parents to influence them in loving, nurturing ways, it can also create a situation where they're, in the words of Vanier, "crushed or manipulated". In the same way, nationalism that morphs into patriotism and populism can begin to devalue the unique individual nature of the people within the nation.

Unfortunately, I see the world polarizing into an east-west dichotomy in recent years, and I believe it's largely due to this sort of corrupted nationalism, the type that idealizes the culture and history of communities, and closes them out to others. As long as presidents, foreign ministers, and everyday Joes continue to search for differences between people around the world instead of emphasizing similarities, some of the biggest communal groups that exist in human society - nations - are going to be a perennial source of conflict and strife.

All quotes in this post were taken from Chapter 2: Belonging of the book form of Jean Vanier's 1998 Massey Lecture, "Becoming Human" (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2008). Contact me for specific quotation references.

An unreasonable proposition

2009-02-26T08:12:00.000-08:00

My aunt, who's trained as a nutritionist, recently told me that spinach is the healthiest all-around vegetable that I could consume. Despite the fact that I find many preparations of spinach border on the offensive, I've chosen to take her advice to heart, and have tried to incorporate the chewy little leaf into my diet. Metabolically speaking, this inclusion should improve my prospects for maintaining my overall health.

What if, however, I took her advice to mean that the broad range of benefits derived from eating it made spinach a panacea? What if I perceived her statement that it had "all-around goodness" to mean that it was all I need to keep the ol' engine purring? You probably think that I'd have to be some kind of kook to take it this way - fair enough. It's amazing, though, how many people approach the realms of philosophy and theology this way. One concept, one perception, as a type of cosmic cure-all. Case in point in Wednesday's BBC Magazine.

Perhaps the author of the article, Manil Suri, had a word limit imposed on him by the publication, or was pressured into giving a very brief precis of a broader concept. Still, I find it shocking that a supposedly well-respected academic could make such a bold (arrogant?) statement in so few words. What exactly does he mean when he states we should not "get irritated or invoke God or tradition" when helping our children answer basic questions? Is he implying that we are "misleading the malleable" by teaching them to explore questions of spirituality? His parochial belief in the superiority of "basic humanist principles" - blatantly revealed by his equating of them with "common sense" - reeks of the type of dogmatism that he would seem to oppose.

Furthermore, doesn't Suri's identification of a logic-ideology dichotomy seem shamelessly ideological in itself? The New Oxford American Dictionary defines ideology as "the ideas and manner of thinking characteristic of a group, social class, or individual." In my opinion, his clear conviction of - indeed, obsession with - the preeminence of rationalist philosophy places him in a category of intellectual enslavement comparable only to the most extreme religious fundamentalists that he would presumably disparage. Again, it's possible that he's not as tunnel-visioned as he comes across in this article; however, his word choice and audacious style makes it difficult for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Finally, I'm concerned with the sociological/psychological/emotional implications of bringing up our children based on such principles. Of course, logical reasoning skills need to be at the centre of any educational strategy; they are, after all, one of the core faculties that allow us to function in everyday life. However, if we teach them that all answers can be found using pure logic as we understand it, we're inevitably setting them up for a life of disappointment and breakdown. Even worse, we're denying them the hope, joy, and wonder that should be definitive of any childhood, and indeed adulthood.

I thought that the photo at the top of the article was really telling. Here you have a young man, probably in his pre-teens, sitting at a desk in a modern, metallic-looking study area of some sort. He's wearing a t-shirt that seems to glorify "success" and "achievement" - note the soaring eagle, the great symbol of ascent and regality - and is probably doing a math problem, judging by his choice of a pencil as a writing instrument. The backdrop is an outer-space view of Earth, and seems to bathe the entire room in an exciting blue glow. Science is king in this scene, the vehicle that will propel this kid through the atmosphere of mediocrity to the unknown elite heights.

As I consider it more, the Suri's way of thinking doesn't just have philosophical and spiritual implications for the development of children, although these are profound. This mindset also has the potential to prevent young people from becoming true neighbors to those around them. Where do virtues such as empathy, grace and humility fit into his paradigm? They don't seem to, as I see it, and that's a very sad thing. Ironically, this makes Suri's "logical" proposition one of the most unreasonable that I've heard in quite a while.

Virtual insanity?

2009-02-19T09:21:00.000-08:00

Required listening/watching.

“Futures made of virtual insanity  now always seem to be governed by this love we have For useless, twisting, our new technology  Oh there is no sound for we all live underground”

Last week, my boss asked me to sit in on a “webinar” on the benefits of “social media” utilities such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. For those of you who don’t know, a webinar is basically a glorified power point presentation streamed over the internet; in this case, it was accompanied by a one-way audio dialogue of a guy/girl guiding you through the slides. It was arranged by a firm called “Firstgiving” who, as is suggested by its utilization of the savvy presentation medium, extolled the opportunities social media presented for the fundraising operations of not-for-profits. Although I thought the presentation itself could have been a bit more convincing, the base idea behind it – that the networking opportunities offered by the Internet hold endless possibilities – seems to be consuming western society like wildfire.

Admittedly, my own buns have been thoroughly toasted. Despite the fact that I initially viewed Facebook as nothing more than a virtual plebe-filled People mag, I’ve increasingly bought into its virtues as of late. As someone who’s studied /worked in the international development field, I recognize that civil society engagement and community building are some of the most powerful ingredients of an effective campaign: mediums such as Facebook and blogs are able to extend a common banner over individuals from vastly different walks of life. Whereas I may have been able to have a conversation such as this one over a pint with a few friends on a Saturday night in a world without blogs, this forum grants me an unprecedented opportunity to share my thoughts with people whom I’d never have a reason to wet my whistle with. Such an evolution could easily be casted as a social revolution, which has enabled people to advocate and mobilize for good causes at a level never before seen. Every revolution has its guillotine, however, and all to often heads are rolling before anybody notices.

If one can get past the seemingly blatant hypocrisy of a synthesizer-saturated band like Jamiroquai preaching the vanity of our obsession with technology, it’s easy to see that the lyricist has a point that can be applied to the social networking craze. From what I can see, the verse that I’ve quoted above – the chorus from the band’s song “Virtual Insanity” – conveys a view that technological advancements have consumed us to the point that our individual and collective futures are controlled by them – a reality that we remain largely oblivious to. I recently watched a PBS Frontline documentary called “Growing Up Online” that attempted to profile the demographic that grew up literally “snared in the Net”: those born in the early 90’s and onward. It assembles a fairly diverse panel of academics, parents and teenagers, all of whom reserve widely ranging views on the cumulative impacts the ubiquity of the Internet is having on young people. One thing they all agreed on, though, was that your average American 13 year old has been absolutely submerged in an ocean of social networks: as Jamiroquai so funkily asserted, their deaf to any world outside of Myspace.

I'm stumped as to whether I should consider myself fully part of this generation. Granted, I've been using computers for must of my life: since Grade 3, a portion of my schoolday has been designated for some software-based activity, whether it involve slogging through touch typing drills or fighting off cholera on the Oregon Trail. It wasn't until I was about 11 or 12, though, that my family got "wired", and another one or two years before I'd ever dabbled in e-mail or instant messaging. Whereas my mom was still making me send snail mail to my cousin on his birthday when I was 8, a tyke of the same age in 2009 has likely never tasted envelope glue.

Granted, extent of exposure aside, I feel fully caught up in the fast-pace, “now now NOW!” culture that’s largely the offspring of the advent of cyberspace. My laptop decided – rather inconveniently – to “take a break” on an ill-fated night in mid-December, and during it’s R&R-filled holiday at the technicians’ place over Christmas I was, at times, absolutely, hopelessly lost. Although it’s really not that hard for one to get access to a PC in Guelph in 2008 – there’s plenty at the university library – the prospect of having to get up every morning and catch a bus in order to access the almighty Internet perturbed me mightily. At times, it was an almost unbearable inconvenience. Indeed, this sounds melodramatic – but many of you, I’m sure, would agree. If I feel like getting up at 4 am to re-watch Barack Obama’s inauguration speech for the 6th time, I damn well should be able to do it!

No matter how much I rely on it, though, the Internet – and, more specifically, social networking – is mostly still purely practical for me; essentially, it’s a glorified means to an end. Not so, for the group of kids examined in the aforementioned PBS documentary: all of them admitted a certain type of psycho-social dependence on social media, and that they would be totally lost without it. Kind of like a draft horse without a load to haul, to utilize an Aggie-inspired metaphor. Even more alarming were the observations of a couple of the more thoughtful, perceptive interviewees that they developed alternate identities on the web, easily distinguishable from their everyday personas. One girl, for example, described herself as “happy-go-lucky” social butterfly by day, self-degrading anorexic by night (in a depressing admission, she identified the latter as closer to who she really was).

The development of this type of duality and disconnection scares me far more than any role that social media may plan in allurement and abduction. As one expert points out in Growing Up Online, the vast majority of Internet-related cases of physical and sexual harm are a result of an active engagement in risky behavior on the part of adolescents themselves, and God knows that teens were putting themselves at risk far before the advent of the web. “The Predator”, despite his universally feared status, is as much a creation of urban myth as an object of reality. From what I can see, there’s a much greater danger of losing our children to holes dug deep inside themselves, than to some grimy back alley behind the 2-for-1 pizza joint.

Kids are going to make bad decisions. In most cases, they turn out “just fine”; in much rarer ones, they end up losing their lives as a result, or at least a good deal of their prospects. Does this risk justify building walls around our loved ones - locking them into the safe "havens" that parents such as Evan Skinner (in the doc) have so lovingly and intentionally constructed (truthfully, no sarcasm there)? I think the benefits of social media, as outlined by folks such as my Firstmedia webinar leader, are far too promising to keep from the future leaders of society. Rather than developing introverted communities that are primarily concerned with looking after our own, we need to learn to confront the world around us, with all of its blemishes - this includes the Internet. What we do need to ensure, however, is that our most vulnerable don't get lost in the vastness of the world during the course of the interaction, as Jamiroquai warns. When people, including kids, lose hold of the tether of family during the spacewalk of life, they'll inevitably become lost within themselves.

If your head was just one big eye...

2009-02-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

...would this church square look like this? I have no freaking clue -all I know is that this is a 360 spherical panorama, which used a "stereographic projection" to create a globe. Pretty wild; check out more of them here.

This image, which was originally posted to Flickr, was reviewed on 31-December-2007 by the administrator or trusted user RedCoat, who confirmed that it was available on Flickr under the above license on that date

A Declaration of Dependence

2009-02-01T22:01:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, I had a post-church discussion with my parents about the nature and origins of the concept of "nuclear family" that is so engrained in North American culture. We chatted / debated about how long fathers have been commuting from nine-to-five jobs, and how realistic Hollywood-created imagery of families playing Scrabble around the dining room table really is. Although we immediately came to a number of tentative conclusions, it just occurred to me - about nine hours later, after pacing around the fireplace, staring into it's propane-fueled flames - how central the phenomenon of independence is to the familial institution. The independence I speak of isn't that of grandiose nationalist movements; rather, it refers to the type of separation on a personal level that stems from individualism.

Allow me to unpack that a little bit. Defenders of the "traditional nuclear family" often point, rightly so, to its deep roots in Western history, and the extent to which our current economic, social, and moral frameworks rely on it. People of religious conviction commonly take this even further, by claiming that not only is the nuclear family firmly established in our cultural fabric, it's also divinely ordained. Within Christian circles, I consistently hear passages such as Genesis 2:24 cited: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh". I feel like the popular emphasis placed on this arrangement is greater today than ever, with nuptials being noted in discussions on topics ranging from gay marriage to successful child rearing.

It would be absurdly naive of me to contest the centrality of the nuclear family unit to Western society. On a more subjective level, I would even argue that it is, more often than not, a functional, merit-filled system. However, I also think that stressing it as an environment of paramount importance to human development - as many commentators, such as Christian fundamentalist groups, tend to do - verges on dangerous, largely because this approach is a tunnel-visioned one that neglects the importance that community plays in people's lives.

Which brings me back to the notion of "personal independence". Taken by itself, the Scripture passage that I just referenced makes it sound as if a type of schism occurs between the newlywed couple and their parents upon their marriage - similar what takes place the day a colony of a great world power gains political autonomy. However, a broader examination of the Judeo-Christian canon reveals that young families often actually remained within the community of their extended families. In other words, although they may have got their own tent (which I'm sure they appreciated!), it was pitched on the same old campsite. Far from viewing a separation from their parents as a part of the "natural cycle" or the rite of passage to adulthood, they embraced it as a setup that would allow them to develop their relationship and love for each other on an even deeper level, while also retaining close links to those with whom they were previously in closest quarters.

As a Western-born young professional, I feel that a significantly different value system is being impressed upon me. Aside from the commonly-felt economics-based pressures to "find a job and do something useful with yourself" (undoubtedly a byproduct of merit-based capitalism), I often feel the need to achieve a sort of psychological and spiritual independence from others. Although confiding in a close person, such as a good friend or family member, has remarkable immediate and long-term effects when I'm going through a rough time, I often can't help but feel as if I've become undesirably reliant on that person - exposed, vulnerable. Today, while contemplating how I'd feel if someone close to me died (don't worry, it's not a common thought process!), I even went as far as to concede that my sorrow might be somewhat alleviated by the prospect of becoming less emotionally and psychologically attached to that person. Somehow, this type of event would represent the scaling of one more cliff face on the mountain of independence, a significant victory for my individual psyche. One step closer to completing the rite of passage to self-sustainability.

Just like the newly-wedded Hebrew couple enjoys a certain degree of autonomy without considering it in itself as an end, however, I don't believe people such as me are to desire economic, psychological, or spiritual independence as an ideal. If this were so, the highest degree of human development would be characterized by a solitary, lonely existence "at the top". Although some individuals, such as the fabled Egyptian Desert Fathers of the third century, found spiritual fulfillment from long periods of solitude, this was not intended to be the standard configuration of human society as a whole. Rather, people need to live in community in order to function properly. This is in no small part due to the fact that living in community forces us to learn to depend on each other - a prospect that offends the individualistic tendencies that urge us not to rely upon assistance from a neighbor unless absolutely necessary. According to these instincts, in the rare case that we are forced to accept charity, we're to reciprocate as soon as possible, so as to avoid creating a "vicious cycle" of obligation and undesirable interaction.

People haven't been able to successfully organize themselves with this attitude as of yet, and I believe it's foolish to believe that we'll be able to in the future. In his book entitled "Reflections on Christian Leadership", Catholic priest Henri Nouwen speaks of the defining characteristic of a true leader as being the ability to humbly place oneself at the bottom of the social ladder, and rely wholly on the wisdom and goodwill of others. Personally, I don't think there's a better time than now to take this advice to heart. Perhaps we need to reconsider the universal applicability of the maxim "pulling one up by one's own bootstraps", and focus on developing communities where we pool each others' resources. I'm no socialist, and I'm not primarily talking about economic resources (although there's definitely a time and place for this). I'm speaking of spiritual and psychological capital, that embodies itself in encouraging others, and making yourself vulnerable and authentic to them.

If the current economic crisis can be viewed as something of a failure of an economic system largely rooted in individualism and personal benefit, then there's hardly a better time to acknowledge the basic fact that we need to rely on each other. Just as the 13 Colonies needed a Declaration of Independence to free themselves from the political oppression resulting from despotism in 1776, we need a Declaration of Dependence to emancipate us from the devastating forces of the individualistic psyche that exist in 2009. If we would only embrace the strength available in our neighbor, we would gain the power to overcome looming strongholds.

Past puberty, on to the kids: Obama and America's coming of age

2009-01-23T14:45:00.000-08:00

Anyone who's graced graced a university campus, watched a Michael Moore film, or spent their fair share of time reading the work of the liberal media knows that words like "globalization", "colonization" and "imperialism" have firmly achieved buzz status. The latter two, far from being relics of bygone centuries, have undergone significant modifications that have made them relevant to contemporary issues. When people speak of McDonalds, they speak of "cultural colonialism"; ExxonMobil, "economic imperialism"; indeed, the list goes on. Usually, these words are used to describe some sort of exploitive relationship, where it's quite clear who's on the winning end, and who's being short-changed. In some cases, however, it isn't nearly this evident. The concept that I'd like to advance can't really be molded into a variation of colonialism or imperialism, since there isn't really one actor explicitly dominating another. In accordance with it's subtle nature - as well as its general ambiguity - I think it would be appropriate to deem this concept "international paternalism".

It was in a conversation over Crock-Pot pulled pork and veggie chili on Wednesday, at one of the many potlucks I've come into the habit of attending, that this topic was brought up in relation to current events. A couple of courageous pioneers had decided to venture out of the comfy utopia of Obamamanialand, and critique his inaugural address. At first, I was as shocked as anyone would have been; after all, this was the second coming of JFK they were talking about - the veritable panacea of America's ills. Although politicians rarely reach personality cult status in democratic societies like ours, Obama's got to be pretty close - for the most part, he's even escaped the prodding of the most conservative pundits. However, when I made a point of emerging from my star-struck daze, I saw that they were extracting some pretty significant tidbits from my heart-throb's speech. Specifically, the new president seemed to indicate that his country was about to take on an entirely new disposition: instead of being the world's best policeman, it would shift it's focus to being Earth's resident Dad.

Allow me to illustrate my point with what will likely turn out to be a wildly overblown analogy. When one couples the military adventures of the Bush years with levels of economic deregulation unseen since the beginning of the 20th century, the US of the first decade of the 21st could be seen as a kind of larger-than-life, teenage superstar: individualistic, unpredictable, boom-or-bust. If the world was MTV and the US was a rock star, it was Kurt Cobain in 1992. Opinions of it varied from love to despisal, but no one could deny that America was living life in the fast lane, with no intention of stopping for pedestrians (read: Frenchmen). Although it might initially be difficult to draw a parallel between a grunge rocker and a policeman (per my metaphor in the previous paragraph), keep in mind that we're not talking about your average Mountie; Chuck Norris is at the wheel of this cruiser.

Then September of 2008 hit, and Kurt OD'd. As it turns out, like an immature adolescent, a free-whelling economy can only be given so much autonomy before it starts to destroy itself. Just like in 1929 - albiet for different reasons - heaven quickly turned into hell, and America wasn't flying nearly as high as before. Although the increaing turmoil in Iraq and Afghanistan had somewhat tempered the ambition of the Lawrence of Arabia of the world order, it was the economic crash that ultimately broke the camel's back.

This disaster just happened to coincide with the culmination of a rough-and-tumble election campaign, and the appointment of a new president, Mr. Obama. In contrast to the bull-headed, no-holds-barred attitude of his predeccesor, Obama was characterized throughout his campaign and president-elect period by a more contemplated, mature, academic demeanor. Used to the chummy style of President Bush, some even described him as cold and disconnected. Despite the strong tradition of populism in American politics, however, he seemed to win over the electorate with a mix of emphasis on government accountability, "no-one-left-behind" rhetoric, and the sheer incompetence of the Bush administration. Although foreign policy was widely percieved as a weakness in his platform, when he did speak of it, he expressed a need for the US to play a less impulsive, more responsible role in the world, with much more respect for its allies and multilateralism in general. It almost seemed as if he thought his country needed to "set a good example".

As observed by my pot luck friends, this mindset came out much more explicitly in the inauguration speech. In the text account I just linked to, the BBC appropriately places the heading 'Ready to lead' on one of the sections around the middle of Obama's speech. I'm going to paste a couple lines from this section - as well as the following one, subtitled 'Era of peace' - for your examination:

"And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today...know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more."

"...our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."

"We are the keepers of this legacy [speaking of the 20th century fight against 'fascism and communism']."

"...America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."

"...but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist [directed at aggresive nations]."

Most will recall that Bush's speeches (if you can call them that) were primarily concerned with America's security and prosperity, although justification for foreign intervention took on a markedly more "liberating" tone following the failure to discover WMD's in Iraq. Even then, if you look at Bush's 2004 address, there's much more about America walking alongside friendly nations, or giving them the opportunity to help themselves. To me, it seems as if Obama is much more assertive in identifying the direct agency of the US in areas such as nation building, human rights enforcement, and development. As I outlined earlier, after searching for a word for the tone he evokes, the best one I could come up with was "paternal". If there's one role in traditional Western society - indeed, in my own life - that could be typically described using terms such as "leading", "force of example", "tempering quality of restraint", "extending a hand", it's that of the father within the nuclear family.

I predict that in the coming months and years, America's image will subtly shift from that of the cocky, rough-and-tumble cop, to the wise, firm, responsible father figure, who is both gentle and strict. The newly apparent neccesities of economic regulation will play a big role in this shift, as will Obama's eagerness to distance himself from the previous administration's foreign policy legacy. Although it may not make an immediate entrance into undergraduate geopolitics textbooks, something along the lines of a theory of "international paternalism" will become increasingly prominent. Unlike the overtly uneven relationships described in concepts of dependency theory and economic imperialism, the embodiment of international paternalism will involve America taking a much less pronounced position of moral/ethical leadership (for example, expect Obama to push for the US' signing on to the International Criminal Court). As it's economic and military hegemony shrinks, America will begin searching for a new niche that keeps them at the top. Indeed, Obama seems to be leading the way; whether it be for it's own benefit, or out of a genuine concern for the state of the world (both are very real explanations), America isn't budging from that big fireside La-Z-Boy it's become so accustomed to. The only difference is, it's calling the kids over to sit on it's knee.

"The Nobodies" by Eduardo Galeano

2009-01-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

"Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that, one magical day, good luck will suddenly rain down on them - will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn't rain down, yesterday, today, tomorrow or ever. Good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day on their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.

The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no-ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.

Who are not, but could be.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the crime reports of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them. "

- Eduardo Galeano

So much is contained in those lines, that I'm already exceeding my bandwidth; hence, I'm not really going to add any insight of my own. One thing that did come to mind by the end of the poem, though, was Joseph Stalin's astute observation that "When one dies, it's a tragedy. When a million die, it's a statistic".

The nobodies may not all be dying. The sad truth is, though, that for the amount of attention we pay them, they might as well be.

A bit of Lewisian erudition

2008-12-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading C.S. Lewis' autobiography "Surprised by Joy", and just came across a passage in which the author effectively articulates my thoughts in my last blog posting ("Ideas etc.". In this excerpt, the young student Lewis has just moved to Surrey in England, and is describing one of his first walks in the area:

"Meanwhile, on afternoons and on Sundays, Surrey lay open to me. County Dawn in the holidays and Surrey in the term - it was an excellent contrast. Perhaps, since their beauties were such athat even a fool could not force them into competition, this cured me once and for all of the pernicious tendency to compare and to prefer - an operation that does little good even when we are dealing with works of art and endless harm when we are dealing with nature. Total surrender is the first step towards the fruition of either. Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else. That can come later, if it must come at all." - Lewis, "Surprised by Joy" (Glasgow: Fount, 1955) p. 118

Taken literally, Lewis is talking about appreciation of nature here; the passage doesn't appear to be a salient metaphor for thought processes such as moral reasoning. Indeed, anyone who's read Lewis to even a modest degree realizes that he rarely hesitates to make a strong distinction between "right" and "wrong". However, I think this excerpt speaks to the danger of making that distinction too hastily, notwithstanding the fact that it ultimately does need to be made.

Now, for a bit of autobiographical content on my part: I arrived in Perth, Western Australia yesterday, after a relatively long and arduous plane journey (I don't think it would be hyperbolic to compare a pan-Pacific plight on United Airlines to passage to Australia on a convict ship in the 1780's). As was the case in India, I don't intend to bore anyone with chronological updates; rather, most of my postings in the next couple weeks will consist of the random musings and outlandish allegories that you've come to expect in this blog. I'm pretty sure they'll be more numerous than they have been for the past couple months - there's something about travelling that brings out the blogger in me!

Cheers,
Tom

Ideas: nasty little brutes, aren't they?

2008-11-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking lately about ideas. I'm not talking about specific ideas, such as how I'm going to swing free meals on Monday, Tuesday and Friday to compliment my current freeload on Wednesday and Thursday, or what it will take to even come close to meeting the 78 servings of veggies a day commanded by the Canada Food Guide (don't even get me started on that one). No, I'm getting at the very idea of ideas in general: how people come up with them, communicate them, and judge them. More specifically, I've recently been impressed by the incredible diversity of ideas that I hear every day.

I know what you're thinking: this post already reeks of the potential to put you to sleep faster than intravenous melatonin. I fully understand and empathize, since I'm actually falling asleep as I type the bloody thing; however, I'd really appreciate it if you put in the effort to slog through it. As well as offering my typically humble outlook on the world around us, I think this entry will give you a basis to more fully understand me as a writer, friend, and creepy-guy-who-hangs-around-at-your-house-all-the-time-for-no-apparent-reason (you know who you are).

You see, while I've always loved hearing other people's ideas, I've always struggled with how to handle them in my mind. There's just so damn many of them out there! Whether consciously or subconsciously, in the past I've usually felt the need to gather them, label them as good or bad, and stuff them into some cognitive filing cabinet. I'm sure that a big part of this desire can be attributed to the materialistic "quest for knowledge" that I seem to constantly be embarking on, hoping to eventually reach a destination of bliss, a paradise island of intellectual superiority in the middle of a vast sea of ambiguity. As I've mentioned before in my blogs, I constantly seem to foolishly convince myself that fulfillment can be found in academic proficiency, or the mastery of the scope of ideas.

However, I think that's only part of it. For although I may derive a certain amount of satisfaction from garnering as many different theories and concepts as I can (gathering quantity), I'm also interested in scrutinizing them (analyzing quality). I know I'm not the only one that has this obsession with categorizing ideas; indeed, whether you step into a university political science lecture, sit down in a busy coffee shop, or turn on "The View", you'll hear people identifying them as leftist or rightist, shallow or deep, stupid or profound. The inevitably different opinions people possess often embody themselves in arguments or debate, themselves types of interactions that have been around since time immemorial.

Why are we so intent of categorizing ideas as right or wrong? As I think about my own tendency to do so, I think it has to do with the security that comes with forming - and reaffirming - a certain worldview. The modernist philosophical tradition, which emerged out of the Enlightenment epoch that started in the 17th century, states that scientific proofs must be used to determine what is true and what isn't. In this time period - also sometimes referred to as the Age of Reason - it was increasingly thought that if something couldn't be proven as undoubtedly true, then it didn't constitute acceptable knowledge: that is, it would be considered a "bunk idea". This ultimately translates into an "all-or-nothing" mindset when it comes to "bases of knowledge", which could also be referred to as "collections of ideas". Only those ideas that can be rationally proven in a very explicit sense (from an individual's perspective) deserve admission into a base of knowledge. Worldviews - which are essentially consolidations of knowledge, or convictions - that are based on this staunchly empirical class of idea are probably attractive to people because they're very easy to define and identify with, and thus derive identity from. Unfortunately, they also hold alot of potential for conflict, and don't tend to leave any room for ideas that are controversial, or shrouded in ambiguity.

For the record: I think it is immensely important for individuals to form strong convictions (read: have explicitly categorized ideas) on certain issues. Although the idea of "objective truth" is indeed elusive, I think it does exist somewhere in the universe, with important bits of it periodically being revealed to us. Certain types of moral conduct is one aspect of it that I think we need to get a good handle on; for example, it's important that it's universally accepted that murdering someone is a very bad idea. However, if we accept too many of are ideas as being "absolutely certain", we risk immersing ourselves in stubbornness, which makes it very hard to relate to others around us. More importantly, when it becomes increasingly clear that certain ideas that we've historically clung to are clearly wrong - e.g. racial discrimination - it can be very hard to disconnect ourselves from them.

With these thoughts in mind, I've started to reconsider how I process different ideas. Whereas I may have been previously content to use a standard set of qualifiers to determine their legitimacy - whether it be empirical reason, feeling, or the Ten Commandments - I think I'm starting to learn that it's immature to judge them based on their face value, or their most salient characteristics. What if we trained our minds to realize that there's something good to be found in just about every idea (although in some cases very little - fascism comes to mind), instead of immediately throwing them onto our standardized "truth template" to make sure that all of the dots connect?

I have a proposition. All of you staunch atheists out there: what if, instead of writing off evangelical Christians as shallow wackos, you took the time to read the book of Matthew? And all of you evangelical Christians: instead of writing off postmodernism as "morally relativist" or "pluralist", why don't you actually dig into the culture a little - after all, it surrounds us! And instead of avoiding existentialism like a 19th century hymnal, why not try to swallow a bit of Kierkegaard? Instead of being totally put off, you might actually find yourself constructively challenged about your current mindset - who knows?

Honestly, I really have no idea if what I've said here makes any sense at all. Specifically, the paragraph in which I outline the historical emergence of modernism may be way off wack - it was closing in on 2AM when I finished it. Hopefully, despite the inevitable inconsistencies in this posting, I've provided some food for thought and meaningful discussion regarding how we treat those troublemaking little things we call ideas. As usual, commentary/scrutiny is welcome.

Cheers,

Tom

"On Our Watch": A documentary on Darfur presented by PBS Frontline

2008-11-13T19:51:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Check out this awesome PBS feature on Darfur. Go grab a coffee, and give yourselves an hour - it's well worth it.

I found this feature - produced by the CBC for PBS's "Frontline" documentary series - to be a well produced, context-filled analysis of a crisis I've heard alot about, but I realize I don't really know alot about. Like so many other conflicts on the African continent, Darfur's plight is a microcosm of some pretty big dilemmas in global politics. Although I got way too much out of this piece to write in one blog (that should scare you faithful readers of this web-novel!), I'd like to share a few key ideas that I pulled out of it. I'm going to kind of list them from most discouraging to (mildly) encouraging, so if you're initially thrown into a pit of blog-pression, just keep both hands on the wheel!

I think one of the predominant themes that the documentary drives home the need for UN reform, specifically in the structure and operation of the Security Council (SC). Although Darfur may not go down in history as the biggest interventionist-failure of the UN - the eventual deployment of 20 000+ troops, coupled with the unspeakable failure in Rwanda, may save it from this title - it has magnified the current limits on the body of dealing with human-rights atrocities. In particular, it is mind-boggling how the SC manages to not react to circumstances that are, to everyone outside of their glorified think-tank, inarguably unacceptable. Instead, the SC structure allows permanent-members (in this case, Russia and China) to individually "filibuster" - if not outwardly reject - motions that everyone else in the body may support. I understand that when the SC was initially devised, this "veto" function was granted to atomic powers to prevent one of them from being pushed into a corner, ostensibly threatening nuclear war. However, this logic largely crumbled alongside the Berlin Wall, and I feel like that the UN needs to put the nail in the veto's coffin by getting rid of it altogether. "Easier said than done" doesn't take away from the fact that it needs to be done.

The second, and slightly more encouraging, observation that I took away from the feature is the fact that the US played a leading role in calling for action. This fact - which was largely overshadowed on editorial pages by berating over Dubya's royal screw-up in Iraq - should be encouraging for every sensible person that acknowledges that stuff on this scale needs an American kiss of approval. It's a sign that despite the legacy of waging proxy wars, petrol wars, and generally poopy wars throughout the 20th century, the US might be emerging as a kind of leader in a new universal human rights order. I'm not sure if I actually believe this myself, but it's something to think about regardless.

I think my final point is the most important one. The most influential countries in the world are - thank God - liberal democracies, meaning that their citizens have the power (theoretically, and I think in some cases more than others in fact) to shape the decisions that their leaders make on the global scale. There are different ways that individuals can go about doing this, including, obviously, voting in elections. Towards the end of the documentary, acknowledgement was made to people practicing another means of their entitled influence: free speech in the form of activism. Now, many people - myself included - have often written off the effectiveness of protests and rallies such as the ones depicted in Washington in this feature, claiming that they're populated by "clueless, pot-smoking dreadhead hippies". However, "On Our Watch" did the viewer a good service by explicitly outlining the positive effect that popular protests, ranging from rallies to the "Genocide Olympics" rhetoric, had on influencing the high-level decisions that finally lead to intervention in Darfur. That should be an encouragement to all of us "average Joes" who don't have the key to the General Assembly chamber.

Alright, so I just made the decision that that wasn't my final point. In writing all of this, I realized that I have foolishly overlooked the real importance of the documentary, which was to depict the violence and suffering experienced by the people of Darfur, who don't have a cozy home to lock themselves into, or a 911 number to call. It's kind of silly that I can watch an hour long documentary with my heart slumping and my guilt swelling the whole time, and afterwards not immediately mention feelings of sorrow and despair as my initial reaction (which they were). I suppose the academic "drive to analyze" sometimes has a way of crowding out true concern and empathy; characteristics which, undoubtedly, must be core motivators for action.

Hopefully, we'll see increased efforts made to save the people of Darfur in the days to come. Until then, all we can do is pray, and encourage our neighbors to take off their shoes and imagine themselves shuffling through the sands of the eastern Sahara.

Contradictions

2008-10-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

How can I miss

The light that shone so brightly in his life

A trait that brought him down from glor'yus homeland

The grace that causes gods

To dwell with mortals

How do I live

The life that by free will I chose to shun

A beast that feeds on food that does not nourish

Who stands convinced his walk

Should exhort others

How can I speak

Words that instead of love bleed judgement full

The type of speech that crumbles walls that needed

The sturdy hand of men

Who seek the Mason

How don't I realize

The scope to which I have come to look like

Those honchos who in place of selfless plunges

Instead chose to assure

Themselves of vantage

How did I lose

The type of hope that buries this campaign

Of fruitless wanderings built on self achievement

A measurement of worth

That transcends image

How can I keep

The consciousness of mind to know these things

Will subsequently burden self and sisters

Until my body's warmed

By rays of heaven

A crisis of the individual

2008-09-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

"Will future historians write about the Great Depression of the 2000's as they did about the one in the 1930s?"

Opening line of an article in the International Herald Tribune, concerning the reportedly rapidly-escalating "global financial crisis". I'm no economist, and I'll readily admit that I know more about bank shots than central banks (clearly getting excited about the Raptors season already!). However, I've hung around enough neo-con, classical economist types (I'm an evangelical Christian, remember?) to understand that in reality, the major financial markets really do make the world go round. This considered, when they start to hiccup, it takes more than a paper bag to get them running smoothly again.

Now, I really think it's easy to remove ourselves from this sort of thing. I, for one, am overwhelmed by the sheer size and complexity of global financial networks, and like to think that there's a few contingents of LSE-educated ultra-braniacs sitting at the top of some skyscraper on Wall Street, miraculously maintaining the capacity to process enough facts and figures to keep USS Adam Smith afloat. However, when I think about it a bit more, I realize that more than anyone else, it's US (no, not America this time: US as PEOPLE) who dictate most of the economic turns that the world takes, including the present problems of high gas prices and severe credit shortages.

Now, this isn't the way that we usually look at it. Because part of us - in defiance of whatever small amount of reason we possess - really does keep overestimating the influence of the nerdy market analysts at Merill Lynch, or the big-talking trade secretary in the State Department. This is largely out of suspicion of those that hold more influence than we do, and in some cases, it's justified; there are plenty of decisions made within big businesses and bureaucracies that we have absolutely no influence on. However, in times of crisis, we need to consider whether the characteristic of our financial system that's made us so rich - freedom - is sneaking around and biting us in the behind.

You see, the most important dictator of what happens in the world economy is the consumer. This is especially true in an increasingly deregulated system, where socialism is being alienated more and more as the years pass. Sure, gas prices driven up by taxes, terrorists, cartels, and Katrinas, but the biggest determining factor is our seemingly unquenchable thirst for it. The same can be said about the mortgage crisis that spurred the current "global crisis": although banks were certainly stupid to delve out all of this "sub-prime" credit that people couldn't afford to pay back, why were those people - perfectly aware of their own vulnerability - grappling for it in the first place? It seems like I'm constantly coming across people who express the opinion - whether in letters to the editor, to online comment forums, to supermarket lines - that "The Man" is to blame for our woes, that our destinies are controlled by a real-world Big Brother who is not only greedy, but also at times incompetent. Although the Orwellian prophesy has embodied itself in the past, and may well emerge again, we're certainly not in such a position of helplessness where we currently stand - at least not in the West.

We need to give ourselves more credit - and I'm not talking about the Master Card variety. We have the power to change the status-quo, to cast away the institutions that we so naively hope will bring us happiness, without realizing that they can only bear our weight for so long. Although this could be interpreted in many different ways, I'm not talking about rising up and overthrowing the government, or heading down to the local subdivision project and stuffing bulldozer gas tanks with potted plants. I'm talking about changing the way that we act as individuals - realizing that the more stuff we have, the less satisfaction we're going to derive from it. Heck, if we become less parasitically attached to our "things" as individuals, maybe the banks, governments, and other structures that we place so much emphasis on will develop a bit of foresight and conviction of responsibility themselves. It all depends on whether we're willing to accept the "global economic crisis" as just one of the many symptoms of the crisis of the individual that continues to afflict us. Once the diagnosis is there, we can start working towards rebuilding ourselves.

The Great Exit

2008-08-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day that I'll spend at 403 Scottsdale. Many of you that know me from university are aware that I've spent around 3 fun-filled years in this relatively characterless, egalitarian example of low-income housing. It truly isn't that much of a place in itself; even it's location, right behind the mall, doesn't exactly evoke cozy neighborhood charm. Despite the fact that it's a pretty standard end-unit townhouse in a product-of-the-70's suburb in south Guelph, however, it's a place that to me always seemed to be at the centre of town, even though it wasn't downtown. If it didn't exactly command a cult following (although I like to think it did!), 403 was a place that quite a few people shared quite a few good times. Right now, as I sit on one of the few pieces of furniture that remain - as the only previous tenant that remains - I can't help feeling a bit nostalgic, recalling that these now-bare walls were many times adorned with Halloween party decorations, that the now-absent DVD player once worked in overdrive spitting out endless episodes of Seinfeld and Friends. That these now-quiet rooms were once loud enough to spur noise complains from 3 separate neighbors at the same time - and I think that's a conservative recollection on my part!

OK, Tom, you say, what the blazes is up with the sob-fest? You're like, what, the 100 millionth student on earth to have to move out of his (or her) utopia of bachelorhood (or bachelorettehood)? Go on, pull your heart strings by cooking one last box of KD, or go stare in amazement one more time at that gargantuan weed that's managed to grow up to 5 feet tall in your "backyard". Then, move on man - move on to a different life that will bring it's own pleasures, even if they are somewhat more civilized than the spontaneous mischief that characterizes universitydom.

If these are the thoughts that are going through your head right now, you are fully justified in having them. It seems kind of silly to me that I'm reminiscing so much about my time here - it was, after all, only 3 years, which isn't a huge portion of 22. Hardly enough, one might think, to justify an overly verbose, nauseatingly poetic blog posting. As I think about it a bit more, though, 403 Scottsdale really does represent a significant milestone in my life. There were definitely a lot of "firsts" for me here, whether it's cleaning a toilet (reserve judgement: I was the vacuum man in my childhood!) or learning after-the-fact that putting a can of already-opened spaghetti sauce in the fridge guarantees certain regression to a vegetable state, and eventually death (as a flaming hypochondriac, I'd like to thank Shane and Alex for that heads-up once again). When it's considered that this is the place where my procrastination skills were honed to perfection, where I learned to play poker, and where I got slightly addicted to prime-time TV, it becomes obvious that 403 has been absolutely central to my development into a responsible, mature young man. Indeed, a stage of life that everyone should get to experience!

As much as I'd love to continue blibber-blabbing, I should probably get back to work. I'll probably be at it for the rest of the day - it takes a long time to figure out how to dispose of 50 thumb tacks without turning your hands into swiss cheese, or decide what to do about a pile of worthless Latin American currency sitting on your dining room table (even if there's 10 thousand Costa Rican Colones to the dollar, this cheap ass can't bring himself to throw them in the trash!). Next time I blog, it'll be from my aunt's basement - don't laugh, she makes a better bloody apple crisp than you could hope of pulling out of your bachelor oven - in downtown Guelph. A whole new life in a whole new part of town, as it were.

Cheers,

Tom

I came across another lemonade stand...

2008-08-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

...and this time, I didn't think twice. Nuff said!

More soon, hopefully this weekend.

Cheers

Tom

Road hockey, lemonade stands, and the art of being a kid

2008-07-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

Have we lost it? In the age of video games, organized children's sports, and gated communities, I'd argue that if we haven't yet reached that point, we're well on our way. I'm convinced that it's been a pretty drawn out process; looking back to my early days, although I had my fair share of mischevious fun as a tyke, I still feel like I was pretty cooped up based on what I've heard first hand from my parents (my dad riding his bike a kilometre to the beach - barefoot and shirtless - as an 8 year old), read in books (think Tom Sawyer), and seen in movies (not only did those midgets in the Sandlot spend their day hanging out in a creepy abandoned lot, they had a sweet treehouse to boot!) I recall a recent conversation on this topic with my mom, in which she expressed a certain amount of regret for being what she called "overprotective". The 80's, she explained, were a decade where it was the vogue thing in parenting to tighten the noose, and in this regard she admittedly rode the wave. Despite growing up in what was the relatively rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Downtown Kitchener, however, I feel like they gave me chances to scrape my knees, and certainly didn't bar me from countless games of urban hide-and-seek. This considered, I feel like I experienced more freedom than your average city-bred 6 year old in 2008.

Occasionally, I see kids out-and-about doing things sufficiently independent (or mischievous) enough to constitute an "art of childhood", at least in my mind. Case in point: I was inspired to blab on about this when I came across a couple kids selling lemonade on the side of Scottsdale Dr. a couple of hours ago. Now, you've gotta understand how awesome I thought this was - it's something I always wanted to do as an older kid in Haliburton, but was somehow convinced by my parents that revenues may not cover costs on a side street in a town of 1400. I remember at the time thinking this was bollocks - cmon, even a stupid 10 year old on an allowance of 2 bucks a week isn't intimidated by the overhead of running a juice stand! Heck, considering how cool I thought these kids were, I don't know why I didn't buy a cup, if only to encourage them to keep on living life on the wild side. I guess a few fleeting thoughts went through my mind, i.e. I had cheaper juice at home, and there's always a possibility that two innocent 9 year olds dissolved cyanide into the stuff they're trying to sell. Both indicative, ostensibly, that I'm somewhat enslaved to societal notions that I outwardly claim to oppose.

The occasional encouragement aside, however, I really believe kids are being deprived of the freedom to become the independent-minded, ambitious, creative risk-takers that our society needs if it's not to fall into perennial mass paranoia. I'm not exactly sure what's to blame: over-protectiveness, for one thing, surely must count for something. Although I'm usually a big supporter of the media's role in the world, I think they've played a negative part in convincing parents that there's a modern-day Jack the Ripper on the loose, only this time he's a pedophile and instead of living in England, he resides right around the corner. Civil authorities certainly haven't helped either; although it might be insensitive to question the need for "Amber Alerts", I'm sure they've influenced parent's reluctance to put that little velcro wrist-leash into storage (anyone else remember those?). On an even broader level, I think the way that we view family as an institution also increases the likelihood of over-protective tendencies. Although children have obviously been the most important part of their parent's lives since time immemorial, I feel like we're increasingly falling into the trap of viewing them as possessions, and subsequently focusing on the pleasure that we, as adults, can derive from loving them, instead of caring for their needs simply for their own sake. This perhaps causes the 21st century parent to worry about the short term dangers of letting their kids experience adventure and independence, without taking the long term consequences of over-protectiveness into account. That's a pretty bold statement, I know, especially coming from a guy who's never even come close to having a kid (yes, I really am that much of a square). But I feel there's a certain degree of truth in it.

Of course, as a good liberal arts student, I also have to place a certain amount of blame on suburbia. Before you skip this paragraph out of prediction of it's anti-establishment, socialist rant, however, hear me out - I think that a good deal of the 20th century notion of what it means to be a kid has been developed in the 'burbs. After all, in what other type of setting can you find such a large concentration of young families, and thus huge amounts of kids? Suburbia was largely developed in the 50's as a result of demand from war-tired couples for a quiet, convenient, safe place that they could raise families, and it's largely from this type of community that we conjure images of kids playing road hockey in cul-de-sacs, and balloons hanging off of letterboxes indicating an open-invitation birthday party. I think there's an important distinction that needs to be made, though, between the suburbs that my parents' generation grew up in, and the ones that are sprawling over old farmland today. Most important in this regard has been the rise to popularity of the dreaded gated community. Imagine the amazing impact driving in and out of a cast-iron gate, attached to ten foot tall, two-foot thick brick walls, every day must have on a kid's outlook on the world! If that's not an impediment to the development of broad-minded, globalist mentalities, I don't know what is. I remember visiting one of these places in Dallas a couple of years ago, and feeling like I'd just entered a world made entirely of stale bread. Just recalling the experience causes a little bit of bile to emerge from my esophagus.

Alright, so I've thoroughly expressed my view that gated communities are evil fortresses of paranoia, sectarianism and isolationism. However, I think that even the less defined, more integrated subdivision setups (i.e. the ones without spiked walls and security guards) are straying down a similar path, albeit in a less extreme sense. I'm not sure how widespread this is, but I've noticed that many communities have started appointing governing bodies of sorts, kind of like the resident's councils that you see in condo complexes. From what I understand, these committees agree on regulations that are legislated to apply to all of the members of the particular community, such as maintenance standards, noise rules, etc. Anyways, I remember reading in the Guelph Tribune last summer about such a community that had just passed a regulation that prohibited kids from playing games out on the streets, whether it was tag or road hockey. In reaction, I remember thinking "what the crap?!?" Although the perpetrators of this absurdity claimed that it was for the safety of the kids, the details of the circumstance - as well as the comments of some of the parents that opposed the rule - made it clear that they did it because they saw the kids as a collective nuisance; disturbers of their quiet, mature, adult lives, if you will. I think this is a great example of how the ideas of convenience, order, and safety that originally motivated the development of subdivisions has mutated into an ugly embodiment of selfishness, monotony and paranoia.

As usual, I started writing this blog with no idea whether I'd end up making any sort of cohesive set of points. I do write these things as much to get my own thoughts in order as to share them, however, and I think I can identify a few key themes that have become apparent, if not leapt off of the screen, regarding the "lost art of being a kid". Firstly, geography is a factor, as is isolationism, including the disparity between different parts of towns and cities (i.e. inner core and suburbs). More important, however, is the stupidity of us adults in general, and some parents in particular, for thinking that kids are to be protected from all forms of potential evil, and fawned over for our own pleasure. I'm definitely not saying that this is a universal phenomenon, but I think that if we examined our own view of family, and the identity that we derive from our loved ones on an individual, emotional level, we'd at least see flickers of it in our psyche.

Alright, I'm done. Maybe I'll head back to that lemonade stand, and see if the tykes are still peddling their goods. They are, after all, doing their part to stop the madness.

Haliburton: little town at a crossroads

2008-07-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

So, I'm nearing the end of one of my increasingly-routine weekend stints with the fam up in Haliburton. For anyone who doesn't know, Haliburton is the little hamlet in Central Ontario that I spent most of my childhood growing up in - since I was 7, to be exact. For those of you who are Ontarians, you may recognize it as the place you once visited when you were invited up to your ex-girlfriend's brother's best friend's uncle's cottage; if you don't, it can be sufficiently described as like Muskoka, (surely you've heard of Muskoka!) but without the pervasive presence of Corporate America and snobby celebrities. It's really quite a nice little place, with an emphasis on little: the village of Haliburton that I live in (to be distinguished from the larger general area of Haliburton that most "citiots" associate with the name) has a population of around 1500, growing at about .003% per year (statistics courtesy: myself). Heck, even the region is so small that Blogger keeps putting that little dotted red line underneath it every time I spell it (no, wise webmaster, I did not mean to say that I lived in a "halibut").

So, you get the picture - Haliburton is small. In fact, there's only one semi-major intersection in the whole town, and until I hit high school, it also contained the only set of stoplights. Despite this singular minor road junction, however, I perceive the town as being at a major cultural-socio-economic crossroads (how's that for a literary device? Good ol' Mr. Cooper would be proud!). As I already mentioned, it's in the heart of "cottage country", meaning that during the summer the population skyrockets, with boat trailers and Ford Expeditions clogging streets that probably haven't been widened since the horse and buggy became obsolete. Unlike many other tourist towns in Central Ontario, however, Haliburton has maintained a genuinely "local" feel, partly characterized by the absence of big-business franchises (although this is slowly changing: a nearby village, Minden, got the first Tim Hortons in the county a few years ago, thereby rendering unnecessary the 1 hour journey one had to take if they were jonesin' an Iced Capp). More significantly, I've always gotten the feeling that Haliburtonians have a unique character, whether you consider their (or our - I continue to experience an identity crisis as to whether I, an immigrant to the region, am a true "Haliburtonian" or not) mannerisms, the slight twang in the accent, or even the extraordinary capacity to know the name of at least half of the people they see when they go downtown for a loaf of bread.

In my opinion, this distinctiveness - or even identity, I suppose - has proven to be positive in some ways, and negative in others. I think the positives are by far the most salient. For one thing, everyone needs a unique place that they can call their own, with it's own characteristics, features, and oddities. I feel that Haliburton (as a region) more than provides for this need, not only in itself as a whole unit, but also in that it can be subdivided into sub-units that people identify with to an even greater extent. For example, I was always known amongst my pupils as one of the few kids who actually lived "in town", whereas others had to be bussed in from all over the county. When asked where in the region they live, people almost always identify with a general lake or road area (i.e. "I live on the Harburn Road" or "I live on Drag Lake"), kind of in the same way as someone in Toronto will say they live at Bloor and Bathurst. Living in Guelph, in contrast, I don't get nearly the same sense of loyalty to a community or area. Obviously, interaction with neighbors is naturally more common in contexts where there is this sense of belonging, which is another plus.

For all of the positives intrinsic in identifying with a community such as Haliburton, however, I think there are some less-obvious challenges. Broadly speaking, I think a certain unhealthy rural-urban divide continues to be perpetuated, where small-towners are alienated by people from the city, and vice-versa. Undoubtedly, this can be partly attributed to ignorance on the part of tourists and cottagers, who despite spending all of 15 weekends a year in the area, often act as if they own the place. However, from my experience, some locals often view people from the city with a good deal of suspicion, and can even be downright mean (the term "citiots" that I jokingly used previously wasn't used very jokingly when I first heard it a couple of years ago). Although I feel living in Guelph for four years after growing up in Hali has given me a perspective on both sides, I still can't quite figure out what the source of these types of differences is. And it really bothers me, since I have some great friends from both contexts, and am convinced that both demographics are made up of mostly good people.

This rural-urban divide - which I think must be fairly universal throughout Canada - has pretty big implications for a town like Haliburton. I mentioned earlier in a poorly thought out pun that Hali is at a type of "crossroads". What I'm referring to is the uncertainty as to the place that Hali has within a broader cultural, social, and - most importantly - economic context. It's undebatable that tourism is what the town has going for it economically, but in order to fully cash in on this potential, it's likely that certain unorthodox decisions are going to need to be made. For example: although ideas such as eco-tourism may be scoffed at by some within the region, it has be recognized that in an age of global warming and rising oil prices, traditional recreational activities such as motor sports are becoming less and less affordable and desirable. Financially, certain steps need to be taken to invest in the attractiveness and "quaintness" of the towns (Haliburton and Minden, notably) themselves, even though this may involve the municipal government and local business owners making short-term sacrifices, such as cutting into savings or taking out loans. This is essential if the region is going to be able to compete with big-name cottage country brands such as Huntsville and Parry Sound, regardless of how big of sellouts these places are (ouch!) ;) Just as in big cities, a certain degree of central planning is also needed regarding the town layouts and property development, in order to make sure that investments being made contribute to greater long-term prosperity (read: Tom doesn't agree with the five-storey old person condo building being build down by Head Lake! Sorry, small town politics rant). Of course, to focus on tourism as the primary agent of economic growth means that animosity and opposition to a greater presence of urbanites needs to significantly recede - a tough pill for many from Haliburton to swallow, considering the high horse that the Southerners tend to often ride in on!

Looking back on this posting, I think it's one of those pieces that I wrote in order to process some thoughts that were whirling around in my head. Not really sure how interesting this type of stuff is for non-small towners, but hopefully it gives you a bit of a perspective as to the differences that exist between living in the city, and living in the country. The issues regarding environmental impact, financial investment, and central planning are all hot-button in Haliburton at the moment, so they've been forefront in my mind (my old man actually just got into a bit of a vocal sparring match with the reeve over the said condo development - pretty funny to hear him rant about it over dinner!) I'm sure Jill Brown (fellow Haliburtonian who has the pleasure of also living in Guelph, and thus constantly hearing me rant about happenings in our stomping grounds) would appreciate a break from hearing me out (so graciously, I might add), so if you ever want my two cents on live in Hali, just bring it up!

Cheers

Tom

Where's our focus?

2008-07-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

As anyone who's every casually followed American politics (in my opinion, the only way to follow them and stay sane) knows, the evangelical right always keeps itself within an arms length of major proceedings, such as election campaigns. From what I can tell, the recent Democratic nomination was no exception, with conservatives slamming Barack Obama from all sides on religious issues ranging from speculation that he's a Muslim (because that would be a real outrage, wouldn't it?) to some ill-advised comments made not by him, but by his pastor. John McCain has also recently come under fire for his comparatively "progressive" (gasp!) views on things such as the environment and abortion. Of course, from a purely secular, civil point of view, the Christian right, as a citizen's lobby, has every right to express it's political views (just as the arms lobby does - note that just because I recognize their right to speak, doesn't mean I agree with the amount of influence they're allowed to yield in governance). Even if, from the outside, the American electorate appears to consist largely of incompetent morons, democracy gives them the right - in the words of Henry Mencken - to "get (what they want) good and hard".

The Christian right's democratic allowance to express its views, therefore, is not what I'm concerned about. I'm not even going to delve into the issues that guys like Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell brought up - if you want a summary of the perennial pro-life - pro-choice joust, tune your TV to run-of-the-mill 60 Minutes or Larry King Live programming. What I'm increasingly skeptical about isn't the issues that the Christian right is concerned about, but rather the one's it isn't eager to address. From a biblical perspective, the priorities of leaders such as Dr. James Dobson are often way off base from where an influential Christian leader's efforts should be concentrated. Simply put, why is there so much Focus on the Family? Don't get me wrong - as an institution, the concept of family is addressed on numerous occasions within the Bible, notably in the Paul's letters. However, the family unit has somehow become the central focus of the most visible representatives of Christianity in North America (maybe even the world), with issues such as poverty and social injustice somehow deemed the domain of liberals and the occasional evangelical counterculturalist (i.e. the Ron Siders and Jimmy Carters). Furthermore, dialogue has been further concentrated by limiting the breadth of topics deemed relevant to ensuring the maintenance of "family values" to issues such as homosexuality and abortion, consequently rejecting important issues such as the impact of individualism and materialism on our children.

With these concerns in mind, I decided to lug out my trusty Strong's concordance (the utilization of which is as much of an arm exercise as one of the brain), and do a topical index search for homosexuality. Perhaps surprisingly to some, Nave (editor of the topical index) only identifies 12 instances where the issue of homosexuality is addressed in the entire Bible; moreover, a few of them are contained within the same general passage (e.g. Leviticus 18:22, 20:13). Although I may be wrong, I don't believe Christ ever specifically addressed the subject (also suggested by the absence of a Gospel reference in Nave's account), although he clearly touched on related issues such as sexual morality and healthy relationships.

This is in stark contrast to the amount of emphasis the Scriptures place on topics such as poverty and social injustice. With another glance at Nave, I find that the list of references under the heading "poor" is exhaustive, taking up close to an entire column in what must be pt. 6 font. Although the results for "injustice" were more modest, there were still more than twice as many references as there were to homosexuality. Purely out of curiosity, I also did a search on "family". Despite there being a bit more than half a column of references, the first specific that I noticed was the editor's disclaimer that "the concept of the family in the Bible differs from the modern instutution", presumably as a forewarning to the fact that many of the passages had little relevance to ideas of "healthy family" that Westerners seem to occupy themselves with. Granted, not all of the references under "poor" dealt specifically with material poverty; the abstract idea of "spiritual poverty" is also touched upon. However, close examination of the listings reveals that the vast majority of the passages deal with material poverty.

Obviously, this doesn't even come close to being a complex hermeneutical examination of these subjects. However, the involvement of Christians in politics - and social issues in general - has, at least in my mind, become more of a forefront issue amidst all of the US election hype, so I figured it would be good to provide some food for thought. And not just for people in the US: to identify the disproportional preoccupation with issues such as homosexuality as being a problem contained within the American evangelical community would be unwise, given the weightiness of these issues in Canadian electoral politics and social activism. I'm not sure how much these issues come up in other democratic contexts around the world, but I'm sure that in many cases the attention paid to them is significant. Overall, I'm certain that if followers of Christ are going to be the "salt and light" that Jesus says we're to be in Matthew 5, we're going to have to stop ridiculously confining our attention to a few issues, and be at the forefront of the battle against much broader causes of evil and injustice in the world today.

Wow, that was far from being the longest blog post I've ever written, but I feel like I just ran a marathon. I'm going to go drink a big glass of milk, or orange juice, or whatever I can find in my parents largely grocery-deficient kitchen (guess that's what happens when there cease to be puberal youths raiding the cupboards 24 hours a day). My current state of unemployment, coupled with the fact that I'm starting to grow bored with Tiger Woods PGA 2008, means that I should be blogging more consistently over the next couple of weeks. So keep an eye out! Have a great weekend!

Cheers

Tom

Back to the real world

2008-06-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

Cover letters, resumes, PlayStation 3 - this is the extent of my life right now. Sad, I know, but it's hard to get an entry level job in the field of international development! For one thing, much-touted job search sites like monster.ca and workopolis.com are of hardly any use at all, since they cater mainly to people who are looking for jobs that normal, responsible folks have, like nurses and cable TV technicians. Just leave it up to UofG to turn me into some sort of counterculture idealist with delusions of employment grandeur!

Luckily, things have started to gather a bit of momentum, if not exactly fall into place. I have a phone interview with the director of a small NGO on Monday, which I think has the potential to go very well. From the little I know about the position, it's one that would allow me to start working in the area that I love; that's everybody's true American Dream, isn't it? Whether it puts a tin roof over my head and a bowl of granola on the table, is far less certain. I'll keep you posted.

So, now that I'm back in a part of the world where - for better or for worse - nothing exciting really seems to happen, I'm forced to start living vicariously through bbc.com again. Although I suppose I should count my blessings that I'm not in a few parts of the world at the moment; here's a few tidbits that I found interesting / disturbing:

"Iran discounts 'attack by Israel'"

First of all, let me just say that this is absolute madness on a number of levels. Firstly, I'm with Iranian officials in believing that there's absolutely no way that this happens, especially given the continuing uncertainty of the country's nuclear ambitions. Sure, they've been pretty sneaky with the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, but there's still not a sufficient amount of evidence suggesting arsenal buildup to justify a preemptive strike. Even if we find out that they do have the bomb (which, in all honesty, wouldn't surprise me), there's no way that the US allows Israel to start what would undoubtedly be the most destructive war of the 21st century thus far. Not going to happen, especially - I'm somewhat sad to say - with Bush on the way out, and a new bunch of politicians trying to get into the good books of the electorate. After all, American domestic politics does seem to have as big of an impact on international events as any brand of geopolitics.

Secondly, this is absolute madness in that if it did happen, it would undoubtedly be the most destructive war of the 21st century thus far. I guess I got ahead of myself a little with that one, so I'll move on.

"Mugabe condemns opposition 'lies'"

By claiming that his party isn't responsible for violence against the opposition MDC, and stating that "only God" can remove him from power, in the same breath, Mr. Mugabe is really upping his credibility. Not. It's obvious that he's only making passive attempts to convince an increasingly wise world that elections in the country aren't being rigged, but his claim of divine right really makes him out to be a clown. Seriously though, the prospect of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulling himself out of the running really scares me. If this were to happen, it would essentially constitute a defeat of people-rule at the hands of authoritarianism, and perhaps set a precedent for other struggling democracies throughout the world.

How is this situation going to be remedied, and an environment conducive to the democratic process be created? Given the scale of the violence directed towards MDC supporters by Zanu-PF hands (see video link on website for an example), a peaceful resolution from within the country is probably not going to be reached. Outside intervention of some kind is needed, although this is perennially easier said than done. I'm not totally up to spec on what type of initiatives are currently in place, although I heard something about the EU issuing some sort of resolution against the Mugabe administration. Gordon Brown (UK PM) has issued numerous statements condemning Zanu-PF, but as far as I know nothing has really come out of them. From what I understand, South Africa is being far from assertive in encouraging a free vote, although to their credit they must be engaged in quite the balancing act between democratic ideals and regional stability at the moment. I sure as hell know that sanctions aren't the answer; it's already evident that the ruling powers don't give a damn about the welfare of the average Zimbabwean Joe, due to the implementation of oppressive economic policies. Inflation is through the roof, and sanctions are only going to cause more people to starve. Despite the common flaws of multilateral intervention, I'm convinced that a UN resolution is crucial if the crisis is to be resolved. Only when Mugabe and his thugs come under international pressure - as a result of a common resolve, which only the UN is equipped to facilitate - will he be forced to back down. Regardless of it's failures, the UN has shown the ability to act with intentionality (i.e. 20 000+ troops headed to Darfur), and it needs to do the same here, although I'm not sure in what capacity.

I was going to comment on three stories, but that last commentary got a little out of hand. Hopefully people have realized that the blog isn't dead post-Asia, and will offer up their comments on some of the subjects I've addressed.

Cheers

Tom

Photos up on Facebook

2008-06-10T09:30:00.001-07:00

You'll probably have to read that a couple more times, in order to process it. So go ahead, take a minute.

Done? OK, well I assure you it's true - I've actually started uploading photos from my trip! Seeing as I have no desire to do it twice, I'm only going to post them on Facebook, and not on this blog. If you haven't added me already, the email I use for Facebook is tabel@uoguelph.ca (don't worry, I won't stalk you unless you're really good looking). If you don't have Facebook yet, give into the urging of The Man, and complete the sale of your soul. The photos will be worth it!

Cheers
Tom

Tearing up...

2008-06-05T22:27:00.000-07:00

"Aww, isn't that sweet! Tom's getting sentimental about the fact that he's leaving a part of the world that's grown close to his heart in the last 5 months! I really love it when a guy can show his emotions like that..."

Took the words right our of your mouths, right girls? Wait, you mean the whole "sensitive man" approach isn't all that Hollywood cuts it out to be? Dang you, Toby McGuire, and numerous other not-so-manly-man-actors that I've been modeling my moves after since early adolescence! Dang you!

OK, so that was perhaps one of the more bizarre fabricated dialogues that this blog has seen. Might as well go out with a bang - this is my last installment in the Orient, after all (I've determined that the occasion also justifies my use of over-exotic colonial vocabulary). Flew into Delhi late last night, and my long, predictably grueling flight to Toronto will commence at 2 AM tonight, if all goes to plan; something that I shouldn't take for granted, however, if I allow my first impressions of Indira Gandhi International Airport to generate some broader conclusions. Piece together every tidbit I've written in the last 5 months on the general state of Indian infra structure, and use your imagination to paint a rough picture of what I'm talking about.

Luckily, my air arrival at Delhi wasn't my first impression of India (although my arrival at Chennai airport, which wasn't a whole lot better, was), and I had a whole lot of good memories rush back the second that I stepped out of the terminal. During the taxi ride to my guesthouse - with the pollution-riddled air rushing into my face, and mid-20s local dudes laughing and pointing for no apparent reason at the white dude in the back of the minibus - I really did have a bit of an emotional moment. I realized that despite my unforgettable experiences in SE Asia - Thailand, Laos and Vietnam - India remained the place that I felt closest to, most at home.

I think India has a strange way of making foreigners feel at home, compared with other countries. All of you that have traveled in India, hear me out: I assure you that this statement is not an indication that I'm currently high on opium. Sure, it might seem like an absurd claim at first, considering the fact that India can be one of the more uncomfortable places to travel, in general. The lack of western amenities, which are more readily available in places like Thailand, is an example of a factor that can occasionally alienate a foreigner from the Subcontinent. It's a country that can be really inhospitable at times, and can thus thus pose a challenge for even the most weather-beaten backpackers.

However, I regard this lack of "hospitality", in the widely understood sense, as being contributory to the "homely" feel of the country. By forcing you to adapt to the culture and grim-and-bear scenarios and conditions that you may feel a bit uncomfortable with (i.e. squat toilets), I think India is actually inviting you to become part and parcel with it, as opposed to remaining a semi-detached tourist. Kind of like being immediately invited to sit down and socialize at the kitchen table of a family you just met, as opposed to the well-groomed, but comparably impersonal, parlour room. I really get the feeling that I've experienced the "real India" more so than any of the other countries that I've been in, and not only because I've spent more time here. Looking back, I really appreciate this, and hope that this blog will inspire others to visit India, and experience the genuineness that it's people show towards tourists, if we let them. OK, so they'll show it towards them whether we "let them" or not. It's all good!

I'm going to run - I'm jonesin' a masala dosa for breakfast, and I'm going to meet up soon with a couple of Swedish guys that I've been constantly running into at random intervals throughout the trip (this type of occurrence is certainly one of the joys of backpacking). Despite my imminent departure, I won't by any means be shutting down this blog anytime soon - keep checking in the next couple of weeks for some follow up posts! Specifically, I have a feeling I'll write a little bit on my feelings towards the whole idea of "backpacking", as well as fill ya in on what Ontario will have presented me with upon my arrival.

Cheers,
Tom

Continued neglect

2008-06-04T20:18:00.001-07:00

is what my blog has been suffering from as of late. If you were expecting some sort of opening-up regarding parental neglect, don't worry; Mom and Dad did a splendid job making me their object of constant attention. Although it would have been nice if they heeded my calls to add another morning of the week onto the sweet-cereal allowance (no doubt my inevitably suber-cyber-savvy kids will track down this blog in 2030, and use it as evidence for hypocrisy charges).

Anyways, getting back to the blog neglect issue. I have no good excuse this time around, as usual. I recently spent a week on a beautiful tropical island that's quickly embodying modern tourism's ideal synthesis of "natural paradise" and "modern convenience", so needless to say, net access was readily available. Feelings of guilt and betrayal of my sizable fan base spurred me to promise myself that I'd write another blog by the time I got to Delhi, which was originally scheduled to happen late this afternoon (Thursday, June 5th).

However, apparently even Bangkok's spankin' new Suvarnabhumi International Airport (say that five times fast!) can't perfectly handle the "76 flights an hour" it boasts ("Tom, you're such a nerd! How did you know that?!?"), as evidenced by the fact that my flight to Calcutta was cancelled. As usual, however, Jet Airways came to the rescue, and within 5 minutes of me running all panicky to the check in desk after a quick glance at the arrivals screen, they'd booked me into the also spankin' new 4 star Novotel airport hotel for the day, as well as placing me on the direct flight to Delhi tonight (which was to be my final destination anyways). I just finished ravaging the complimentary breakfast buffet (which was huge), and plan to imminently hit up the artificial jungle paradise pool complex. Dang those late flights!

Anyways, I'm out of time on the net. I'll post my final trip blog tomorrow (tear).

Cheers
Tom

Good Morning Canada!

2008-05-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

Very early, in fact; by my rough calculations, around 3:39 AM Central Time, exactly the time in the afternoon that it is here. If you haven't figured out where "here" is yet, I'm sure that Robin Williams (a regular reader of this blog, I'm sure) would be inclined to place you at the butt end of one of his stand-up routines - purely out of spite - if he found out. To fully ensure that this remotely possible event doesn't happen as a result of you asking me "Tom, I don't get it - where the junk are you?" in the comments section, I'll be straight up with it. I'm in Vietnam, the land of conical hats, naggy "xe om" (motorcycle taxi) drivers, and more tour bus sightings on average in one day than there are people in the Prarie provinces. I've been here since May 9th, and other than a very testing border crossing experience from Laos (a topic for another day, as I'd like to stay in a good mood), it's been a jolly good time.

However, I'm not going to reflect on it today. To my loyal Vietnamese reader demographic: don't take it personally, this has nothing to do with personal political leanings, the annoyingly tall and skinny geography of your country (makes for quite a tally of bus hours getting from point A to B!), or the fact that you gave me warm beer at the noodle stall last night. It's just that I've had a bit of a revolutionary last couple of days with regards to my personal philosophy and direction, and I'd like to let you in on a little bit of it.

I've decided that I'd like to write a bit about richness, poorness, and the relationship between the two. Again, this has nothing to do with the fact I'm in Vietnam; I've been to quite a few places in the last 5 months where I've seen more poverty that I have here. It's just that a series of recent events in my life have forced me to reconsider my place in the world in relation to others in a new way, one that I wasn't able to learn in the classroom. I gained a lot of theoretical knowledge during my time in uni, and also garnered alot of passion for social justice causes, such as human rights and poverty issues. However, the fact that I've technically been done school for almost 2 months - eerily rendering me more removed from academia than I've been since I was about 4 - has caused me to think things over a bit.

As you may know, I like school. As you may know also, I like school largely because 1) it often incorporates a good deal of discussion and debate about things that I care about, and 2) it generally involves quite a bit of reading and research, both things that I enjoy. Over the course of the last month or so, I've been applying to internship positions with various NGO's that, if I got into them, would involve me continuing to do the things that I have loved about school, only in an actual developing world environment (a huge plus) where I don't have to pay anything (another huge plus). For some reason (pride and cockiness probably has something to do with it), I assumed that I'd be accepted for at least one of the five-or-so positions that I applied for, or at least be short listed. Apparently, however, I haven't been quite as much of a shoe-in that I thought I'd be (although it's possible that a couple of the organizations could still get back to me, quite a bit of time has passed since I began submitting applications).

Unsurprisingly, this initially left me in a bit of an uncomfortable state. Generally, I'm a pretty hard worker when it comes to things related to school and other employment, and thus I'm not used to being rejected for things that I put alot of effort into (in this case, these internship applications). However, an even bigger contributor to my discomfort has been the "what next?" factor. I'd been planning on applying for these internships for the past two years or so, and pretty well assumed that they'd take up the better part of my first post-graduation year. As I already inferred, I almost viewed them as a type of continuation of my education - a "stepping stone"to grad studies, if you will. Overall, the prospect of not participating in one of these internships this year has kind of thrown me into the dark. Luckily, however, when you're in the dark, you see flickers of light that you might not have otherwise.

On to the richness, poorness, and the relationship between the two (note: I'm using these terms in a wholly economic sense this time around). Lately, I've been reading a book called "The Irresistable Revolution" by Shane Claiborne, which essentially addresses the relationship between the Christian church (meaning not any building, but rather the body of followers of Christ) and the rest of the world. More specifically, he spends a good deal of time discussing the interactions between economically rich people in the world, and economically poor people, and has inspired a good deal of thought on my part regarding this relationship. With Claiborne's help, I've come up with a bit of a rough model of three broad groups of rich people (read: those of us not living in poverty) in the world, categorized depending on their interactions with poor people. As I outline these groups briefly, please don't think that I'm trying to judge anyone; I'm going to insert myself into this scenario towards the end of the blog, andmy position isn't exactly overly virtuous.

Firstly, there are the people that don't care about the poor at all. For whatever reasons, whether it be apathy, social Darwinism, or pure ignorance, they have chosen to act as though poverty and injustice in our world do not exist, and thus feel no need to address them in any way. Luckily, I know very few of these people, so I'm not going to spend any more time writing about them. If you're one of them, I'd urge to seriously consider whether your worldview needs a big makeover.

Without conducting any comprehensive surveys or mathmatical calculations, I've assumed (pretty safely, I think), that the majority of us belong to the second category - that is, people who care about those who are suffering in the world, but really don't make that much of an effort to change the system. My conception of this category has been largely shaped by some personal study of the gospel of Luke that I've been doing, as well as my reading of Claiborne. I think lots of people make contributions to the improvement of the lot of the poor, through initiatives such as giving money to charity, volunteering short -term at places like homeless shelters and food banks, and devoting years to studying how poverty can be alleviated. In this sense, they are contributing, but contributing to what? Sadly, in my opinion, just as much as these types of actions contribute to a betterment of conditions, they also contribute to the proliferation of a system of divide between the rich and poor. As Claiborne says in his chapter entitled "The Economics of Rebirth", we have got into a habit of "brokering services" to the poor, wherein we do things like tithe, donate used clothing, or sponsor a child. A lot of the time, we contribute in this way in order to keep the poor at a distance, while at the same time easing our consciences. I know that for me, studying international development has served as this type of a "buffer" at times, in that it has made me feel involved in the cause of the poor, while allowing me to stay safely on the sidelines. In Claiborne's words, this type of "client" (the poor) and "provider" (the rich) relationship creates a system where "rich and poor are kept in separate worlds, and inequality is carefully managed but not dismantled".

The third category consists of people who have become one with the poor. These people realize that it is not enough to merely try to alleviate problems within the current context, but to overhaul the ways that we interact and live. With the help of the Bible, and more recently Claiborne, I've formed the opinion that in order to be one with the poor, one needs to alter their worldview on very basic levels. Just as Christ considered himself on the same level as prostitutes and tax collectors (considered real crooks back in the days of the Roman Empire), we need to do this also. For many, this means placing less emphasis on things like money; for others, like myself, it means reaching a new level of humility, where degrees and credentials don't elevate me to another level. When this mindset is achieved, we can truly start sharing in the poverty of the world's less fortunate, and fight it alongside them. For some people, this could involve a total lifestyle change; however, as Claiborne puts it so clearly, it often entails "redefining vocations", a process in which people use their everyday skills and expertise to serve the poor through direct interaction. I'll leave it up to your imagination to think up some ways that that could be achieved.

You may be asking, "Tom, how the heck does this relate at all to what you were telling me at the beginning of the blog?" Well, I mentioned a couple of times that I've felt very comfortable in academia, and have looked forward to extending my stay in that realm indefinitely. Although it has created a good deal of passion within me for issues such as rich-poor divides, economic exploitation, and other forms of injustice, it has also effectively secured me in the second category of people that I was just talking about. Don't get me wrong: tons of people are invovled in academics and servanthood with the poor at the same time, and have worked tirelessly to eliminate the alienation that impoverised people have been experiencing since before anyone can remember. However, I personally haven't done this sufficiently. Perhaps, if I end up being selected by one of the last couple NGO's I applied for an internship with, the experience will involve activities that help me to work towards the third category. However, I'm also becoming aware of the opportunities that will be open to me if the next year doesn't go exactly as I foresaw - totally disconnected from academia and the "comfort" offered by institutions. Now don't read all of this as meaning that I'm done with school - I have just as much of an intention to hit up master's studies at some point in the next couple of years, cause I love that stuff!

Again, I want to emphasize that I didn't mean this to be judgemental or provocative in any way, shape or form. It's just an expression of some ideas that I've had in the last few days. Someone may confront me and convince me that I've said something wrong - if I have, I apologize in advance. Please, as always, feel free to heckle me in the comments section (or on Facebook, a medium that an old friend recently used for the same purpose!). It probably wouldn't surprise you by this point that I would recommend you read "The Irresistible Revolution" by Claiborne (Zondervan, 2006). Although I far from agreed with him on every point (bits of theological and economic reasoning that I take exception to here and there), the general idea that he's trying to get across is very important, and the book also makes for a funny and entertaining read.

Cheers,
Tom

P.S. For the record, I actually wrote this post over two days (probably about the same amount of time it would have taken you to read it, if you had made it past the third paragraph!). In addition to it's sheer length, which was eating away at my final evening in Nha Trang before heading to Saigon, I needed to do a bit of re-reading of Claiborne's stuff, to ensure that I wouldn't misquote him, or get my own ideas mixed up. I guess I didn't really have to tell you that, but I thought I would anyways.

Does Australia have the expression "no worries" legally trademarked?

2008-05-05T03:32:00.000-07:00

If not, the Lao People's Democratic Republic should seriously consider picking it up as their tourism ministry slogan. Sure, the name might sound imposing: "People's Democratic Republic" hasn't exactly been synonymous with "one heck of a fun time" throughout the 20th century. However, the Laotians definitely know how to chill, and this characteristic definitely seems to rub off on whoever ventures off the beaten tourist track, and finds themselves in this landlocked beauty of a country.

Now, you must understand that "beaten track" is a wholly relative term, that I'm using in order to contrast Laos with places such as Thailand. The town that I'm in now, Luang Prabang, definitely has its fair share of obnoxious package tourists, as well as a good deal of self-righteously-proclaimed "low impact" tourists such as myself (is it grammatically acceptable to have a three-word-conjunction? Oh well, someone has to shape the future of our language, right?) But it's definitely not Bangkok, and away from the "major centres" (also a relative term), there seem to be plenty of opportunities to actually see Laos for what it is.

Which is a major reason that I drastically changed my travel plans, substituting my previously-anticipated trip to Cambodia with a gallivant to *drum roll*.....

Vietnam!

Cambodia would have been awesome. It really would have been. The fact that I was going to meet up with my lovely friends Anna and Lauren there, and will now have to wait an extra two weeks or so to cast my gaze on their stunning countenances, crushes me. But the simple fact is, if I left for Siem Riep in the next couple days as originally planned, I would be flying out of this country without seeing any of it, other than a well-manicured tourist town and the sights obtained on a boat journey where I was surrounded by Westerners chugging back Beerlao, rice wine and a variety of other unidentifiable fermented beverages. This way, by traveling to Vietnam over land over the course of a couple days, my intellect not only get the satisfaction of becoming acquainted with Laos from a less-touristy standpoint, but my vomit also gets the satisfaction of becoming even more acquainted with the side panels of a Laotian bus.

OK, so maybe the second part isn't so desirable. But it will all be worth it, I'm sure! The history-geek side of me will also be getting a bit of a treat, when I visit the "Pathet Lao" caves near the Vietnam border in Vieng Xai. Essentially, these are a group of caverns where the fledgling communist revolutionaries hid out during the 1960's, while the US was bombing the beejeeves out of eastern Laos and western Vietnam to try and dismantle the Ho Chi Minh Trail network. Apparently, the caves are in pretty good condition, still aren't very popular with tourists (read: not crowded and dirty), and overall constitute a fairly high "cool factor" (I'd give them a 9; I'll let you know if it's a letdown). As a whole, I expect Vietnam to have quite a bit of war history fodder to chew on, so I'm pretty pumped about that.

Other than the basic observations that I just made about it being awesome and laid-back, I'm going to leave my general analysis of Laos until later, as I'm sure I'll have more to say in a week or so. One topic I can touch on now, however, is that of the country's famed national beer, "Beerlao." This brew, which is highly-touted throughout SE Asia, is overall a pretty decent quality chug - far better, in my opinion, than anything that Thailand has to offer. Even more notable than it's quality, however, is the overall influence that it has in this society as a whole. It's popularity amongst the locals is understandable - you can pick up a 660 mL bottle for as low as 10 000 kip (approx. $1.20), bringing a whole new meaning to "buck a beer" (660 mL bottle!!!). It also has great economic significance; I was reading the national English rag "The Vientiane Times" yesterday afternoon, and on the front page there was an article highlighting the mid-year government budget report, in which overall gov't revenues after 6 months were pegged at about 3.4 trillion kip. A couple pages later was an article on the Beerlao brewery (a state-owned industry), which highlighted that with annual revenues of around 500 billion kip, the brewery constituted a "considerable source of income for the government." I'll say! If you assume from the first figure that yearly revenue is around 6.8 trillion kip, that means that the booze accounts for more than 7% of total government revenue! That's probably more than the CRTC makes off of the Red Green Show!

Wow, that was a somewhat more lengthy analysis than I originally intended. Pretty interesting insight, though. Maybe the Canadian government should consider nationalizing Molson and Labatt, in order to get more cash so it can subsidize crappy "national identity" television even more (baaaaammmmm!!!) I realize the fact that I just insulted the Red Green Show probably just cut my readership in half; however, sometimes the truth just needs to be stated.

Anyways, I'm going to go - to be honest, I didn't really want to spend the time writing this blog initially, as I've been on the computer for hours in the last couple days completing applications for internships funded by the federal government (oh, the irony!). But I really thought I should get at least one blog in while I'm in Laos, and since I highly doubt the Pathet Lao's 1960's-era Local Area Network will still be functioning in the caves, this is probably my last chance to be "wired". More once I reach Hanoi.

Cheers
Tom

Same Same

2008-04-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

Actually, my time in Thailand has been anything but monotonous - I just thought it was a fitting title, seeing as that's probably the single most widely used English phrase by native Thai speakers. Seriously, they even make t-shirts that simply have the words "Same Same" on them, and I'm sure they sell like hotcakes. Don't even get me started on the gold mine of hilarious/witty t-shirts that this country is...the guys from www.randomshirts.com should take a trip down to Th Khao San in Bangkok on their expense accounts, and take notes.

* It wasn't my intention to endorse randomshirts.com, and I maintain that this blog exists for non-profit entertainment purposes only. However, if you knee-slappin handsome geniuses of t-shirt designers notice this blog and decide to cut me out a royalty cheque, you can find my address in your order database.

So I've done quite a bit since my last blog posting, with the most notable events being about a week split between visiting Chiang Mai, the second biggest city in Thailand, and Pai, a hippie backwater mountain village that is probably the 5,690th biggest city in Thailand. They were both pretty groovy in their own ways, but overall I preferred Pai, due to the "getting back to nature" appeal, as well as the bohemian live music scene. I actually just left there this morning, and spent almost an entire day buses, although it didn't really seem that long due to the "effectiveness" of the Thai-manufactured generic anti-nausea tablet that I took before I set off. FDAA approved? Somehow I doubt it. But I'm OK...at least for now.

Anyways, I'm now in a little town called Chiang Khong on the banks of the Mekong River, which at this point also forms the border of Thailand and Laos. If all goes to plan, I'll have crossed into Laos by tomorrow morning, and will be on my way to Luang Prabang on a riverboat. I've heard mixed reviews about this journey - some say that the scenery and general serenity is unbeatable, while others I've talked to have implied that it's the most boring, uncomfortable thing that they've ever experienced, and that I'd be better off to take an 8-hour minibus (I've been on enough of them to realize that the latter group must have really hated the boat ride).

OK, I know what you're thinking right now: it's been 2 weeks since Tom even made an effort of over analyzing an ideology, geographical location, or wholly irrelevant subject that he's come across. You are very correct, and I'm going to continue to abstain from this action for tonight, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I've been giving my brain a bit of a break as of late, and therefore haven't engaged in a whole lot of mental tooth-picking to speak of. More importantly, however, this internet cafe is swarming with wholly harmless by extremely annoying bugs, both big and small, and I really can't stay still any longer.

So I'm not going to. I'm assuming Laos has the Internet by now, so you can expect another post in the next week or so. Hope all of you students out there are satisfied with your exam results, and have settled nicely into your mind-numbing summer employment. Same goes for all of the lifers that might be reading this blog. To all of my faithful readers that are retirees (undoubtedly the only ones that have time to actually get through one of my typical posts) : keep it real.

Cheers
Tom

A Passage to Thailand

2008-04-19T04:02:00.000-07:00

So, the title of my blog has officially become outdated. However, due to the confusion that a title change would inevitably cause, and considering the possibility that this might somehow upset my loyal fanbase (all two of you), I'm going to maintain the status quo. Just be aware that I won't be spending any more than 2 more days in India during the current trip; the rest of it, besides my final departure from Delhi, will be spent touring in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and a possible little beach jaunt in southern Vietnam.

Speaking of that - I just remembered I've been promising a brief run-down on my tentative itinerary for the last couple weeks. Well, as a preamble I'll emphasize that it remains just as subject to change as it was when I first mentioned it. So, if all you gambling fiends (you know who you are!) are placing bets on where I am anytime in the next couple months, and are "cleverly" basing your wager on the following rundown, don't be too generous with the odds you give to your opponent.

I'm already about 5 days into my trip, having stayed in Bangkok with my friend Sarah since Monday. Bangkok was fun, although according to Sarah, I'm a huge square and pretty well failed to partake in the rockin' good times that the town has to offer (probably pretty accurate). So I won't spend much time on that, other than mentioning that 1) the city is massive, 2) there's a crazy travellers-gone-wild district called Khao San (surely butchered that spelling job) that resembles Wasaga Beach x10 in Asia, and 3) there are some pretty sick temples (see photos). This morning, I left for the ancient capital city of Ayuthaya, which is where I am now. I checked into a groovy-little guest house called Tony's Place, and then spent the day riding around the town on a bike that I rented for about a buck (don't worry Mom - I assure you it didn't have a motor). I saw some cool museums and ruins, and booked a train ticket to Phitsanulok,which is nearby to another ancient capital city I plan on visiting. Man, my plans sound exhilerating, don't they? I bet you wish you were travelling with me, so you could get your name in the Guinness Book of Records under the category of "most monotonous temple visits within a period of 4 months". What can I say - I'm a bit of a history buff.

After Phitsanulok, I'm off to Chiang Mai, which is in the extreme north-west of the country. Apparently it's a big city in the middle of the mountains, so I'm planning on using it as a "base camp" for a few days, as I make day trips to check off the Lonely Planet reccomended destinations in the surrounding area (don't worry, I plan on ripping out the "temples" page in order to resist the temptation). By the time I leave Chiang Mai (probably around April 26th or so), I'll visit a few smaller towns in the north, and probably go on a couple overnight guided treks in the mountains.

I plan on crossing into Laos around May 1st, and taking a riverboat down the Mekong River to the town of Luang Prabang, which seems to be a highly-reccomended destination. I plan on spending about 1 1/2 weeks in that country, and then I'll fly down to Cambodia on about May 12th-13th. By this point, I plan on meeting back up with some friends from the India semester, and we'll do some sightseeing in Cambodia, and spend the last week or so on a beach somewhere, possibly southern Vietnam. After that, I'll likely catch a flight from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Bangkok,where I'll get my flight back to Kolkata, and finally make my way back to Delhi to fly home.

Basically, I might as well have got the 12 year old internet cafe attendant to write that last paragraph for me - his gibberish probably would have been just as close to how my plans will actually work out. Speaking of that little Thai squirt, he's asking me in the typically polite Thai manner to get the heck out of his store, because it's closing. Those pics will have to wait- I'll try to get them up in a couple days. I'm off to eat dinner at a floating restaurant!

Cheers
Tom

The Kolkata Special: An entree of India, with a starter of Britain and globalization on the side

2008-04-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is it: my last night in India (until I come back to catch my flight home from Delhi, that is). I was going to post last night, but it had been one of those days that India and I just weren't seeing eye-to-eye, and I was pretty worn out by the evening. Happens frequently enough; on this particular occasion, it was a combination of 1) my being antsy to get to Bangkok, 2) a crappy hotel room, and 3) me walking through a very Indian marketplace, crowded of course, being laughed at by everyone I ask "do you know where I can find a mosquito net."

"Where can I find a mosquito net?" Not exactly SNL material, but whatever tickles your funny bone I guess. Plus, this is India - 95% of what happens (and what is talked about) in the bazaar is totally beyond a Westerner's understanding.

All of that considered, I didn't really give Kolkata (Calcutta, for all of you politically-incorrect neo-colonial bigots) much of a chance on my first day. So, I woke up this morning determined to soak in whatever it had to offer. The day started off well: I took my first ever human-drawn rickshaw to Park Street (tourist / middle-class Indian hotspot) and had a half-decent filtered black coffee (always a nice touch!). I then proceeded to the local YWCA, and attended a church service that I'd been invited to by someone I met in the same coffee shop. Henry is a British guy doing some very interesting-sounding work with young adults and street kids in the city, and he played in the worship band of the small congregation that gets together in the good ol' Christian Association (imagine a church service happening in a YMCA / YWCA in Canada in this day and age!) After the service, we hit up a cute little all-day breakfast joint for bacon and eggs, and parted ways after visiting the Oxford bookstore, where I naturally gave into the temptation to buy yet another book that I probably won't read while I'm here.

I'm starting to identify this as a bit of a problem I have. No need for the room with the padded walls quite yet though, I don't think.

Anyways, it was almost 2:00 by this point, and there was quite a bit I still wanted to see. Now you all know how much I love recapping the things that I've done in the day, so you probably wont' be surprised that I'm going to cram it into the next 3 or so sentences. I took the Metro (French for subway) down to Kalighat, which is the site of Kolkata's holiest temple...

"Wait a minute, Tom: what the heck does Kolkata have to do with France? If the nearest French-influenced town is Pondicherry (see previous blog) 1500 kms down the coast, why is Kolkata's subway called a Metro?"

Good question: I think the answer is something along the lines of "shut up, stop asking me questions about things I don't understand, and don't interrupt!"

As I was saying, I went to Kalighat, Kolkata's holiest Hindu temple. Due to the fact that I've seen more temples than you can count on he goddess Devi's hands (see photo), I admittedly wasn't that driven to see the monument itself. Rather, I was on a mission to find Mother Teresa's hospital, which I'd heard was in the area. Sure enough, it was directly beside the temple - according to my trusty Rough Guide, the blessed Mother set it up here intentionally, so she could serve the sick and dying that came to the temple for their last rites. I could probably write a whole blog on the little that I've heard about Mother Teresa, so I won't elaborate any further. Basically, it was a really neat experience. After that , I backtracked on the Metro to the Maidan (really huge central park), and checked out the famous Victoria Memorial (rather impressive monument the Colonists built to remind themselves of their own greatness). I then went back to my slum-of-a-hostel, satisfied with what I perceived as a pretty productive day.

Now for what I'm sure is the much-anticipated analysis. From my very-limited point of view, Kolkata differs from Delhi in that instead of being a city that shows glimpses of it's past in the midst of globalization, it's a place where western culture still very much seems like a visitor in the Indian household. OK, so maybe globalization is a bit more firmly planted than that; there are just as many KFC's here than any other big Indian city. It's just that the billboards perching ominiously on the tops of 19th-century buildings still feel very out of place, and when one takes a stroll in one of the bazaars, it seems as if things must be the same as they were 40 years ago. Kind of hard to explain - I just got that vibe.

Ironically, despite it's Indian-ness, Kolkata has deeper roots in western influences than your average metropolis on the Subcontinent. The British started building it in the early 18th century, with the military enclave of Fort William central to the plans. In this sense, it's one of the newer major cities you'll find over herel although it feels like it could be hundreds of years older. The British feel coincides with the Indian culture in a strange way - everything that's old in the city feels colonial, giving it a kind of ghost-town feel in this sense. Don't get me wrong, though - it's just as alive as any other Indian city. The western influence just doesn't feel as strong as in Delhi, despite the fact that Delhi's a much older city, with a much more indigenous heritage.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be able to get a fill of either Mumbai (Bombay) or Chennai (Madras) during this trip, making this an incomplete series of commentaries on two of India's four metropolises. Maybe one of you will get to those places sometime soon (Jenn - Chennai???), and can add on to what I've started.

As you might have already picked up, I'm leaving for Bangkok tomorrow morning! I know that I promised a detailed itinerary, but this posting has dragged on as it is, so I think I'll leave that for next time. Signing out from the Subcontinent, I'll talk to you from Siam!

Cheers,
Tom

First edition of the "Finish Tom's Post For Him" game! (A "Tom's Too Lazy to Write His Own Blog Post" initiative)

2008-04-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

Aaarrrgghhh......

(Use the "comments" function to finish my thought! Wohoo, this'll be fun!)

The respective psychological states of Tom and Delhi: a comparison

2008-03-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

I've been in a bit of a daze for the last few days. It's pretty hard to describe, but I'd classify it as a mix of restlessness and lack of motivation. Most likely they're complimenting each other, due to the fact that they probably originate from the fact that I only have about 2 weeks left in my undergraduate career. So close, but yet still so far: two essays to write in English, along with three exams within the same number of days. It's kind of driving me crazy, and consequently I've found it hard to sit down and firmly commit to getting things done as of late - kind of like a "fit of indecisiveness".

Luckily, this weekend was relatively free on my schedule, and I was able to experience a change of scenery via a trip to Delhi with Jared and John. We've only been here for a day (took a night train and arrived at 6:30 AM), but already I've recieved a good deal of consolation from this city with regards to my recently-emerged character traits, as previously described. You see, just as I've been unable to settle down and make up my mind as to what I'm going to do to be productive, I feel that Delhi is a place that is equally scatter-brained as to its purpose within the country of India, and in the world as a whole.

I think that throughout history, people (very scholarly individuals, I'm sure) seem to have had a tendency to associate human qualities to cities (personification). OK, so maybe Frank Sinatra's referral to New York as the "city that never sleeps" hardly qualifies as a literary device worth of a Nobel Prize in Literature, but you get my point. Well, in light of my recent mental state, I've been inspired to classify Delhi as a city with a touch of schizophrenia, that just can't seem to get it's own identity straight. On one hand, it's a place where people are thought to have lived for thousands of years - most notably, the Islamic occupants of India used it as their capital for the better part of 500 years, firmly establishing it as a place of political centrality and importance. Culturally, however, it's always been a place of diversity, with a number of religious and thought systems being interchangeably dominant over the centuries. For example, Hindu religion and culture, while being the dominant philosophy in the area up to the 12th century AD, was somewhat superseded by the Muslim and British hegemonies that controlled the area in the following 900-year period.

Independence in 1947 firmly re-established Delhi's place at the centre of Indian politics, culture and society as a whole. As far as I can see, it continues to maintain it's traditional role as a political centre in 2008 - in this sense, it's identity is confident and established. However, as I toured the city with my friends on foot and in rickshaw, I noticed that Western culture had gained a firmer foothold here than in any other place I've seen in India so far. Whether you look at the GQ-esque styles that youths are modelling, or the American magazines on display in high-end boutique plazas, it seems that Delhi's definitive role as a centre of Indian culture is disintegrating. Alternatively, maybe it never was a place where a distinct Indian culture was showcased - perhaps it was the stronghold of a type of syncretism, where different traditions from different places came and synthesized into the closest thing that this country has ever had to it's own definitive identity. Either way, Delhi, like myself, is unsure of itself - political centre of one of the world's next great superpowers, sure, but cultural protector against the infringement of foreign ideals? Not quite so confident on that one.

Anways, enough of that philosophizing; I'm not going to edit the past few paragraphs in any way, shape, or form, out of fear that they will make absolutely no sense, and thus represent a half hour totally wasted. I'd like to dedicate the last bit of this blog to a much more important subject - namely, the awesomeness of my host family in Jaipur, the Mathurs. They've been absolutely wonderful, and have made me feel at home to the extent that I feel like I've been there for the majority of the semester, and not only a mere month. Not only is their house huge and beautiful, and the meals excellent, but they have treated Jared and I like sons, and have even accomodated some of our friends on occasion, whether for a single dinner or room and board for an entire weekend. Forget the Taj Mahal and Fort Jodhpur - the memories that I'll really retain from this trip will be of this house, and people within it (Yogesh, Delilah, Anjana, Ruchika, Cheeku, Reena, Neehal, Anita - you know who you are, please forgive my spelling!)

Increasingly bad grammar and utilization of spell check indicates that my 4 hours of sleep on the train last night is losing it's ability to sustain my consciousness; therefore, I'm gonna jet. As I said earlier, exams are coming up quickly, so I may only get one more post in before I leave for Thailand on April 14th. Although it may be a short post, I'll try to get up my itinerary for the next couple months, in the very least.

Cheers everyone,
Tom

Tour buses, hot showers, and camel safaris

2008-03-16T04:59:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to realize that regardless of how incredible a time one can have when he/she is playing the tourist, the experience is almost always tainted by their apparent need to bring along some of the amneties of home. In some cases, we're even inspired to invent our own types of "exotic luxuries" - an example of which is the camel safari. This sentiment may come as a bit of a shock to my fellow group members, as I didn't voice any dissaproval of last night's desert outing at the time. However, after thinking it over a bit, I've developed a bit of a negative view of how this very popular tourist activity seems to be currently practiced.

Probably the most salient negative impact of camel safaris, from what I saw, was environmental. Although the scenery was beautiful (the terrain that we covered in an approx. 4 hour trek ranged from scrubland to sand dunes), it was quite often defaced by garbage (the prominence of empty water bottles hinted that tourists were largely to blame for this). Also, although I'm no soil scientist, I seem to recall hearing that sand dunes are delicate formations, that perenially endangered by frequent animal contact (hence the instances of cordoned-off dunes that you'll often see at beaches). Sure, you could say that wild cames have been roaming through the desert since the beginning of time, and these piles of sand have remained intact throughout that pretty-long period. But tourism has surely increased the utilization of specific routes throughout the Thar desert, in this specific instance, which can't be any good in my amateur opinion.

My second major critique is related to the always-fiery topic of child employment. A good portion (if not the majority) of our guides were kids or adolescents, I'd say ranging from about 8 to 16 years of age. My particular escort was 15, and despite a significant language barrier, I was able to have a pretty good conversation with him. Turns out he was a 5 year veteran, having worked with the company (presumably not making a significant portion of the overall profits) since he was 10. Now hear me out: I understand the need for teenagers to drop out of school in some instances, whether due to pressing financial needs or a total lack of desire to participate in academia. But 10 years old? As I mentioned a couple sentances ago, I also saw kids that looked like they could have been as young as 8. Should we support an enterprise that employs kids at this age, in light of the fact that they'd surely be making more of a future for themselves achieving the most basic levels of education? Or, contrary to that rhetoric, is it important to realize that the income from those jobs is a crucial lifeline for their families? I'm a bit more stuck on this one.

So far, the justifications for my disapproval have been based mostly on objective reasoning, regarding socio-economic-environmental impacts. Although, when I push my conscience aside, I recall having a pretty darn good time on the trek, there were a few things that made me feel like I was participating in an activity designed for 65-year-old tour bus tourists from Mississauga. Especially notable was the after-dinner music performance that we had. Although this initially appeared to be pretty authentic, the singing to the tune of "Frere Jaques" (pardon my French, literally) at the end of the night, incorporating some corny lyrics about "enjoying chipatis and daal amongst the dunes", tainted what could have been an enlightening cultural performance. In summation, even the "carnal utility" that I derived from the trek was limited, in addition to my moral objections.

That said, my time in Jaisalmer has been a blast, despite being short (still only 3 days). I spent the better part of this afternoon taking a tour through the Maharaja's palace in the city fort which also contains my hotel. The traditional rulers of this area, the Rajputs, have a pretty rich - if violent at times - history, largely due to the scope of culture-sharing ("syncretism") with different people groups, such as the Mughals. It's off to Jodhpur, another town with a renowned fort (I love forts!), tomorrow, and then back to Jaipur for a final 2 weeks of classes.

Cheers,
Tom

P.S. I'd love to get your feedback on some of the stuff that I've written - It's been far from a normative account by any stretch of the imagination! Hit up the "comment" option, and tell me whether you agree with my sentiments, or think I'm out of my mind.

A quick note on social order in India

2008-03-06T01:53:00.000-08:00

If I was in the mood to be concise, the text of this post would consist of the following: "social order" constitutes an oxymoron in this part of the world. But, as you've already learned, I naturally lack the ability to be succinct; therefore, I'm going to delve into a "short" anecdote.

Today is a holiday in India - specifically, the celebration of Shiva's birthday (something to think about: what would be economic state of this country be, if there was a public holiday for the birthday of every god and goddess? Thank goodness this isn't the case!). As this dictated that we didn't have to go to school, Jared and I decided it would be a good idea to take a gander over to Motidungari Fort, a massive colonial-era structure that dominates the skyline of Jaipur. This fort is somewhat unique, in that as well as containing the massive walls, guard towers, etc. that structures of this type are usually characterized by, it also houses a temple. As it happens, Mahashivaratrii (the birthday of Shiva) is a special day for this temple, in that it is the only day of the year which it is open to the public.

Think about what that means. A Shiva temple that is only open to the public one day every year.

Alright - if you didn't get it already, I'm elucidating pure, utter chaos. As has generally happened in various instances throughout this trip, Jared and I quickly made friends with a couple of guys at the bottom of the line (which was ginormous) to get into this place, and they invited us to stand with them in what quickly became apparent was the girl's queue (this type of segregation is common over here). From the relatively calm and serene domain of the fairer sex, we proceeded to observe the insanity that occured in the boys lines. Most notably, the guys would wait calmly in line for about 5 minutes, chatting amongst themselves normally, and then suddenly start yelling and pushing each other further up the path in what resembled some kind of schizophrenic fit of ADHD. After a few seconds, they'd revert back to civilization, and repeat the madness soon thereafter. In the end, this pattern proved conducive to Jared and I getting past the security check: when a cop finally told us to move out of the girls line (how'd he tell?), we proceeded to flow into the guys' line during one of these outbursts, and blend in as much as any pasty-white Canadian can hope to.

I'm sorry to say that this story doesn't have an overly happy ending - Jared and I didn't even end up going to the temple. Becca and Leah, a couple of friends from our study group, had managed to somehow "convince" the guards to let them pass the queue altogether, and after wandering up to the top of the hill to the temple, came back and informed us that we had at least a couple more hours to wait. So we made like bananas and split, before even coming close to our final objective. At the very least, however, the experience proved to be an informative lesson in how Indians "get-er-done". For that reason, I think it was worth it.

Oh, a quick note on my host family, although I'm sure a short summary can hardly do them justice. They are the Mathurs, and they live in really sweet digs - a wicked old early-20th century behemoth of a house. It's a non-nuclear type of family, in that a few extended family members all live under the same roof. Kind of like a granny-flat type situation, but just x3 and with younger people. We live with a sweet housekeeper named Anjana, who makes delicious food, and that man of the house is a freakin retired colonel!

More on the family/city later. Better get back to this paper that I've been procrastinating on for 3 weeks, and by that I mean I'd better go look at Facebook for the umteenth time.

Cheers
Tom

Back to the grind...well sort of

2008-03-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

You're probably fuming after reading that heading. "Shut up Tom, you tool! You're in India, and you're complaining about work, while the rest of us slog through 4 feet of snow every morning, just to reach the Guelph Transit stop where we'll inevitably freeze before the bloody bus shows up? How dare you whine about the so-called 'schoolwork' you're engaged in over there!"

Your point is well taken. However, you don't know how hard it is for me to motivate myself while I'm constantly surrounded by samosa stalls, bicycle rickshaws and stunning historical architecture and other specimens (I'm not a nerd....)! Speaking of historical artifacts, I'm been on quite the whirlwind tour of North Indian Lonely Planet-reccomended sites since the stop in Varanasi. Our first stop in the journey west was at Orcha (spelling?), a little town whose claim to fame is a couple of spectacular palaces ("mahals"), including one built for the great Mughal emperor Jahangir. The next day, we took a fairly grueling 4-hour bus ride out to a place called Khajuraho, which is renowned for it's intricately-carved temples. Perhaps a segway into one of my trademark in-blog imaginary dialogues would help describe the latter experience more fully:

Q: Tom, how many temples have you been to already? Isn't it starting to get old? Why do you continue to bore us?
A: These temples were different, though! There's a reason that Jet Airways flies Boeing 767's into an town of 3000 people - that is, the temples are covered with not just any old carvings, but one's depicting people having sex!

Q: OK, so the temples have erotic carvings. So what? Why would stupid Westerners pay 300 bucks to fly out to some middle-of-nowhere town to see something they can get in much greater detail on HBO?
A: I dunno...Westerners are stupid?

I think I went over this conversation with my imaginary friend about 50 times during this day trip. Sure, the temples are immaculate, but so are countless others throughout this country, and foreigners don't invade them nearly this viciously. For some reason, just because 10% of the the depictions on the 6-odd temples are erotic (figure courtesy of Jared Wohlgemut Estimations Inc.), they become more interesting to fat-pocketed (as well as not-so-fat-pocketed) tourists. What does that say about our Western cultures? I suppose many people imagine ancient cultures as being generally more conservative than many current societies when it comes to sexuality (largely true, in plenty of cases), and thus find it quite interesting that such explicit scenes could be depicted on 1100-year old buildings. OK, fair enough. But there are so many other unique, engaging aspects of Indian culture that go largely unnoticed by people outside of it. Is there a certain shock factor related to these carvings, that can't be found in other mediums, and thus explains their relative popularity? I'm sure this is a factor too. I could go on forever about this, but I'm not going to. I'll leave you with the Wikipedia link to an article on the temples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khajuraho), and you can make some judgements for yourselves.

Considering I started this section as a chronological outline of my travels in the past week, the last 2-odd paragraphs probably represent one of the greatest tangents in the history of blogging. But hey, would it really be the "tomosutra" without a sexy topic of controversy? The next site we visited was slightly less on the carnal side, and more purely romantic: the Taj Mahal. Described by many as the greatest building in the world, I found that it largely met my expectations. Most importantly, it's MASSIVE. Everything is in perfect proportion, and the fact that it's made entirely of white marble boggles the mind. The carvings and paintings it contains are far from spectacular when compared to other Indian examples, but I get the feeling the Mughals were less about wussy details, and more about getting the point across that they rocked the world. The fact that it was full of middle-aged tourists who wear little slippers around the building instead of going customarily barefoot somewhat tainted the experience, but not all that significantly. It's one of those places that the fact your there is just as important as anywhere else - and that is generally a pretty cool feeling.

Oh yeah, as I was getting at in the first paragraph: I'm in Jaipur now, living with my host family and re-commencing my studies. That in greater detail later though...it's 11 PM, and I still have quite a bit of work to do.

Ciao,
Tom

The Essence of Varanasi

2008-02-27T04:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how different forms of media often claim to represent, or accurately describe, the "essence" of something? Perhaps it's kind of obscure, and I won't blame you if you haven't made this observation. But I have, and maybe I'm just realizing it now because it's an India thing. I suppose I've seen this device used most often in books; for example, I just bought one that claims to be a consice overview of the "essence of Hindu religion" (I believe I mentioned in my last blog that I'm trying desperately to get a fingerhold on the theology / ideology of this intricate faith system). However, I doubt that it will succeed in this task, just as I will certanly utterly fail in describing the essence of Varanasi, the city that I've spent the last two days growing to love. But I'll make a doomed attempt anyways.

As you may already be aware, Varanasi is situated in the central-west portion of north India, alongside the mighty River Ganges. Indians call it the City of Shiva, a deity who is part of the triumvirate of major Hindu incarnations of God, along with Vishnu and Brahma (I'm sure that was horrible sentance structure / word choice, a tendency that unfortunately plagues this blog. My apologies.) It's a major destination for pilgrims from throughout the country, and has an indescribably spiritual air about it. The many rituals that take place here 24/7, 365 days a year revolve largely around the Ganges, which is considered the holiest river in India. An interesting example of a ritual is the "body burning" that I noticed soon after I arrived at my hostel, which looks out over a series of huge stone "ghats", or steps, that lead down to the river. Don't worry, the bodies are quite dead (at least to my best knowledge). Depending on one's caste status while they were alive, along with numerous other factors, they may qualify for a cremation ceremony after they pass away. After their cadavers are decorated with a variety of spices, oils and flowers, the former Hindus are taken down to the shore of the Ganges, where they are burned in a ceremony that is attended by friends and family. A good number of these processions are usually happening at the same time, all in a condensed section of the Ghats that is designated for this purpose. As this was happening pretty well right outside of my room, I was almost instantly welcomed by various chants, bell ringing, etc., as well as the surprisingly sweet smell of the cremation fires (remember that the bodies are thourougly "groomed", if you will, before they are burned). In conjunction with the other religious proceedings that occur on the riverbank, such as the constant meditation songs of devotees camped out along the Ghats, this creates an altogether surreal atmosphere.

The uniqueness of Varanasi extends beyond the riverbank, especially within the "Old City", which is composed of countless narrow alleyways that house various little shops and religious shrines, most of which occupy no more space than a hole in a wall. These alleyways, which are further characterized by clotheslines strung from building to building and frequent "cow-jams" (the alleys are often not much wider than the beasts themselves!), constitute a realization of the images that I had of India before I arrived (I'd love to post pictures but, as has constantly been the case, the web connection is simply not fast enough. I'll continue searching for an adequate portal from which to satisfy this blog's dire need for visuals).

Most of my time has been taken up by simlply exploring the city, whether by foot, boat, or bicycle-driven rickshaw (a first for me!). Today, however, the group mixed it up a little by taking a trip out to Sarnath, the location of the Buddha's first sermon. As well as visiting the exact spot where this specific lecture was delivered, we saw a number of other temples that have been erected by adherents to other country's forms of Buddhism. As I understand it, in the centuries after its inception, Buddhism assumed a number of different forms the varied from region to region, all of which have been described under the broad banner of "Maharana" (spelling?) Buddhism. This is in contrast to the "Theravada" sect of the religion, which is much more strict in it's adherence to the Buddha's specific teachings. I think the temples from the different countries represent the adaptions of Buddhism in the respective countries. I'm very likely off on this one - I really want to learn more about this religion, as well as Hinduism.

Time to sign off - have to visit the post office, and then head off to a dinner that's been arranged for a few of us in the group, by a well-connected fellow traveller from San Fran. Hope everyone up in Canada is enjoying the stiffening weather (hehe)! Phir milenge (until later)!

- Tom

Bonjour, mes dosts!

2008-02-21T22:59:00.000-08:00

Basically, this combination of French and Hindi words (you Canadians should be able to differentiate between them, at least from the French side!) is a pretty miserable attempt by me to highlight the fact I'm in Pondicherry, France...uh, I mean India. Unsurprisingly, a lot has happened since I last blogged, most of which is associated with a significant amount of train travel (approx. 15 hours since I left Mysore). The remainder of my stay in that city was comparable to the first couple of weeks, which I think I sufficiently broke down in the previous couple of posts. The classes ended up being pretty interesting and decently easy, with the exception of Hindi, which reinforced the fact that I am absolutely inept at learning new languages. I seem to recall telling you about a fellow who invited me in off of the street one day - well, I went back and visited him a couple more times, though not nearly enough as I should have. Along with his wife, whose name I forget, Sejoy (spelling?) was eager to show me and my friends outstanding hospitality. I'm somewhat bitter at the fact that I had to do an increasing amount of schoolwork as the Mysore academic module went on, in the place of getting to know top-notch people like this better.

From Mysore we proceeded to take a train to Madurai, a prominent religious city in the extreme south of the subcontinent. The main religious monument there, the Meenakshi-Sundareswarar temple (think I used Wikipedia on that one?), was devoted specifically to the deity Shiva and his wife Meenakshi, who are incarnations of God according to Hindu religion (if I'm feeling really ambitious - and more informed than I am now - I may make a humble attempt at outlining Hinduism at some point in the next few months). Spanning 45 acres and in some portions dating back to the 15th century BC, the temple is recognized as one of the most important architectural landmarks in South Asia. I took the adjacent photo in one of huge chambers in the central area of the temple - our patient and pleasantly non-scheming guide informed us that this section was 3500 years old! Although its presence necessarily dictates huge numbers of tourists, it's still easy to get totally lost in the hubble-cabubble of the city, and not see a single westerner for a whole afternoon.

In contrast, the city that I've spent the last couple days in , Pondicherry, contains more white people than my Haliburton Highlands S.S. history class. The French only relinquished control of the region to the Indian Union in the late 50's, so the city is chock-full of French expats and a plethora of European tourists. As you can imagine, the town is somewhat divided into one area where the colonials made their nest (closer to the beach), and everything else, where the Indian majority resides. Contrary to the negative image this might advance, however, an impressive harmony seems to have developed between Indians and Westerners - although they live in separate parts of the city, it becomes evident that their everyday lives are greatly interlinked. For example, as I was walking over to the internet cafe this morning, I saw European expats and Indians alike driving their kids to school on the backs of their scooters, and it seems commonplace to see Westerners haggling vendors at the fruit market like any Indian would. All in all, it seems like a really neat type of syncretic culture has developed. At least that's the conclusion that I've come to based on my limited experience here - in reality, I suppose, the picture might be much less rosy, and the more negative aspects of colonialism much more pronounced.

Tomorrow morning we take a bus to Chennai (formerly Madras) where, after a day of doing the tourist-thing, we're going to catch a train to Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh. My first taste of the north is going to come at a price, however; specifically, 20+ hours lounging around in the second class cabin. I've actually quite enjoyed the train thus far, as it really is a mosaic of sights and sounds, ranging from the SLR-worthy landscape views to the amusing drone of the food and drink vendors. The funniest example of the latter is the "chai-wallahs", or tea sellers, who walk up and down the aisles droning "chai chai, tea chaiiiiaa, chaii chaii." Remarkably, they all sound the same on every train you step onto. I can see it becoming irritating eventually, but for now, its just one of those pleasurably-unique qualities of this country that is really making the trip.

As you may recall, I promised pictures by the time I get to Jaipur. I'm going to try and fulfill that pledge a bit early, but there's no guarantees that I'm going to be able to upload many - if any - before my ADD tendencies kick in.

Cheers,
Tom

(note: as you can see, I managed to get one photo up, but apparently I don't know how to use Blogger, and can't figure out how to put in captions, etc. Also, it's taking way too long in this cafe, so I'll probably wait until I get to a place where I can surf for free.)

Photos

2008-02-05T23:32:00.000-08:00

Due to the fact that, as I've already mentioned, the internet connectivity at this institute is more unpredictable than Vince Carter's health, I have a pretty short window. So I'm going to keep it short. Some of you may be wondering why I haven't posted photos on this blog, and I'm sure many of you are assuming it's because I'm an unsentimental photo-pooper. Correction: I'm an unsentimental take-30-copies-of-the-same-freakin-photo-with- your-camera-phone pooper! Wow, that felt good!

I've actually taken quite a few photos, many of which are pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. However, for the same reason that I'll probably get booted off the net and lose this blog post when I try and submit it, it's wayyyy too painful for me to try and upload hundreds of megabytes worth of material at this location. Unless I randomly find some DSL utopia, I'm afraid everyone's going to have to wait until I get to Jaipur (late February, I think.)

Thanks for your patience!

- Tom

10 Observations

2008-01-30T01:09:00.000-08:00

G'day all,

It's becoming increasingly obvious that I'm quite unable to write a short, concise blog post. To the chagrin of many social science professors, I'm sure, the artsy-fartsy side of me seems to have subconciously shunned the idea of precis, and clearly this tendency has not been restricted to essays. I just can't help it! As a result, my reflections probably bring greater joy to insomniacs than they do to blog readers - to the members of the latter group who have hung on this far, I salute and thank you.

(In a comment on one of my earlier blogs, Silas wrote that in order to make my blogs even better, I should stop talking about my blogs in them. Seems like a good rule of thumb; however, it also seems like something I can't resist doing. Probably a result of my habits of constant self-analysis).

In addition to causing readers to waste 15+ minutes of their lives, my blogs also typically cut pretty deep into my own day. For that reason, I'm going to impose a type of "glass ceiling" on some of my blogs, that I think should save a bit of time for everyone. I think I shall simply call it "10 Observations". Once a week, I will write 10 short points on interesting things that I have noted about this country during the week. I know that I'm hardly re-inventing the blogging wheel here, but I think it's something that will allow at least one of my weekly blogs to be a predictable length. As I just thought of this idea on my walk over from the residence, I don't really have any good ones right now, but I'll do my best. Here goes:

1) People laugh/stare at you when you're not wearing long pants (if you're a guy). I was told that this was the case, as little boys are typically the only ones who wear shorts, but I didn't really believe it. But, sure enough, as I was making the 2 minute walk to the campus up from the residence the other day wearing shorts, everyone from upper-middle aged women to rough-and-tumble construction workers looked at me like I didn't have any clothes on at all!

2) Contrary to my expectations, trips to the washroom are NOT a near-death experience. Numerous people / travel guides / etc. gave me this notion, and I actually haven't experienced many public facilities that are worse off than their average Canadian counterparts. I guess to me, it's hard for a loo to not look beautiful after you've been holding it on a bus for 3 hours.

3) Privacy is not nearly as much of a concern here than in Canada, and that is a very good thing. Although it can be initially disconcerting to have people staring down at you from a window, or looking over your shoulder while you're typing out a blog post or an e-mail, it ceases to be annoying after you get used to it, and I've grown to appreciate the openness and lack of obsession with "personal space" that characterize the Indians that I've interacted with.

4) Somewhat related: people are generally far more hospitable here than in Canada. I think I mentioned in my last blog post that a guy recently randomly invited me off the street to his house for a meal, just to get to know me. Other members of my group boast of very similar experiences. The people here seem very eager to learn more about my part of the world (which they already know a surprising amount about - more on this in a later blog), and seek to give me the best possible impressions about their country that they can. So far, they've succeeded.

5) Most of the workings of everyday life here can be seperated into two general categories: 1) appearing chaotic, but turning out to work surprisingly effeciently, 2) appearing chaotic, and are. An example of the former is the transportation infrastructure: although it is far from standardized, and there seems to be a total neglect of any road laws (probably because of the violation penalties themselves: I read that the fine for running a red was 100 rs, the equivalent of $2.50), people generally get to where they need to go. An instance of the latter is the internet connections. The network at the school I'm at rarely works, and neither does the wireless network that we're told has been set up in our residence. The web cafe's, despite being economically convenient, are only slightly less frustrating to use.

That's it - I'm spent. I'm either going to have to make my points shorter, or reduce it to 5 every time. Adios.

- Tom

10 rupees / hour

2008-01-23T01:30:00.001-08:00

The amount that I'm paying for this internet cafe sums up a surprising amount about this country - that is, there's alot more to it than it initially seems. Although 10 rupees is unbelievably cheap - converts into roughly 25 cents - I'm evidently paying for much more than just to use the internet for an hour. In actuality, I'm paying to use the internet with two kids staring over my shoulder every couple seconds reading what I"m typing, and asking me to take their photo. The expression 'getting more than you pay for' - which, don't get me wrong, far more often includes pleasant surprises than unpleasant ones - sums up alot about the experiences of a foreigner in this country. Probably an even better example of this can be seen by sitting down in a rickshaw and, after marveling at the ridiculously cheap price that you're paying for a 5 kilometre ride, finding out that the driver had every intention to make pit stops along the way at emporiums that pay him a commission to try and convince you to "look around for 10 minutes". It takes a little getting used to, but it's definitely an adventure.

As you've probably noticed, I haven't made any blog postings since a couple days after I arrived. This is due to the rather unfortunate fact that I spent the first 2 weeks of the semester working terribly hard lying on a beach and trekking around a rain forest coffee plantation. Oh, quit your whining! I know most of you haven't done any schoolwork since the semester started, anyways.
If there's one thing that I've discovered in my very limited blogging career, it's that I much prefer writing about abstract ideas / absolute nonsense that recounting all of the interesting things that I've done in the day. Therefore, if any of my blogs suspiciously resemble something that's been cut-and-pasted out of an e-mail to my mom, your gut instinct is probably pretty accurate. However, I am also aware that I have a substantial group of loving friends who care about how I'm doing (or are at least really good at making it seem like they do). So I'll do my best to record some of the more interesting happenings of my excursion.

As I already mentioned, I spent a bit more than 3 days at a rustic-but-comfortable retreat on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The logic behind this arrangement was that we had to 'unwind' after a long trip - good enough for me! Although, unsurprisingly, I spent a lot of time lying on the beach, we also had the chance to visit some of the villages, and even play a bit of cricket with the locals. Speaking of cricket, these people are absolutely RABID about the sport. The Indian national team is playing a test series against Australia right now and, due to various controversies revolving around alleged racisim and refereeing bias, amongst other things, there is a pretty large amount of non-so-subtle animosity towards the Aussies here right now. Dual citizenship has never served me better!

From the beach retreat (it was in a place called "Turtle Bay" in Karnataka state), we moved on to spend a few nights at an organic coffee plantation / retreat centre. It is located in the Western Ghat mountains in the rainforest, about halfway between Mangalore and Mysore, and made for beautiful place to "rough it" for a couple days. Bucket showers, snakes, and rats-in-our-cabin combined (see Jared W.'s blog at http://jaredmotherindia.blogspot.com/ for more details on the latter), it turned out to be a pretty unique getaway, at least for a sheltered Western kid. The owners produce a number of crops, including coffee and pepper, in an ecologically sustainable manner, and run a getaway business on the side. It's really a great operation, and offers encouraging examples of eco-friendly agricultural alternatives. If you're interested, they have a website at http://www.rainforestours.com/ .

From there, we moved onto Mysore, the first place where we'll be studying. I've only been here a couple days, so I'll write more about this place in my next couple of blogs. I will say that the people here are very friendly and hospitable, and show a real desire to get to know us, and learn more about where we came from. Case in point: as I was walking down the street the other day, a man walked out of his brick-making yard, and randomly invited me to check out his operation, which he enthusiastically described as he gave me a tour. He proceeded to invite me back tomorrow for lunch, which I expect will consist of cuisine native to Goa, the state that him and his wife are from. Despite the continuous stares and occasional giggles that are directed towards us as a group, we really have been treated with a great deal of respect and friendliness - more than I've experienced in any other country that I've traveled to.

Undeniably, even a few rupees starts to mean something to a poor traveling student, and for that reason I'm going to check out of this cafe. E-mails are welcome and appreciated - I'd love to know what's going down back in the Great White North. Namaste for now.

- Tom

well, I survived my first bus ride...

2008-01-09T03:59:00.000-08:00

This is it - officially my inaugral Indian blog posting. This is my third day here, although in some ways I feel like I've been here alot longer. The trip was overall pretty smooth; planes these days are pretty decked out with amneties like personal video screens that you can watch episodes of House on (with the exceptions of Air Canada and perhaps Air Koryo, North Korea's national airline; check them out at http://www.korea-dpr.com/airkoryo.htm).

Right now, I'm in Kochin, Kerala, which is in the extreme south-west of India. Specifically, I'm staying in an area called Fort Kochin, which is one of the earliest European settlements in the country, with the presence of Westerners here dating back to the voyages of the Portugese explorer / trader Vasco de Gama in the early 16th century. It's a nice city, albiet a little touristy. The digs are alright although, unsurprisingly, TP is not provided. Nevertheless, when you gotta go you gotta go, and Jared and I officially became Indian the night that we arrived.

We're here until Friday, when we catch a train up to Turtle Bay, a couple hours north, where we'll spend a day on the beach. Hard work, eh? We officially start classes when we arrive in Mysore later in the month. Plenty of updates before then, though.

Concerning the title, today I experienced the wildest bus ride I could ever dream of, much less have previously lived out. I wanted to take a video, but I wasn't close enough to the front. Probably the highlight of the trip was the driver driving through the oncoming traffic lanes at toll stations, to avoid paying up. Hilarious. Hopefully my mom isn't reading this.

Speaking of the daunting toilet issue, I'm still not totally adapted to this left hand thing, so I'm going to go on a bit of an excursion for a western-style loo. Pictures on my next post - also check out my Facebook in the next few days. Hopefully you are all doing well in the new year.

- Tom

Another valiant effort at blogging...

2008-01-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

...and at least I have a predominant theme this time - hopefully that will keep me motivated. Those of you who know me well, know that every time I start a new blog, I have a great time for about 5 days, get rave reviews (not to toot my own horn or anything), and then abandon the pursuit in a sad submission to laziness and apathy. I'm not going to pretend that I can make it different on my own this time; I'm going to need your help. Whether in the form of endless Facebook spamming, or a e-mail genuinely expressing your sincere regret that I "haven't posted at all in the past week", I will sincerely appreciate your prodding in the next 6 or so months.

"So India, eh? That's.....interesting. What made you decide to go there?"

"I dunno, I really wanted to get some overseas studying in before I graduate, and I thought that as a developing country, India is a sensible choice that coincides with my ID ambitions."

That's a pretty accurate overview of 9 out of 10 conversations I've had in the last two months or so. Admittedly, my response to the question has been pretty cliche. How genuine has it really been? Well, the first part is kinda bogus. I really don't care whether I travel in the form of a study abroad, or as your average early-20's backpacker - I just want to get out there. The second portion of my response, on the other hand, has an element of truth to it. I personally think that it's pretty sad that despite spending 4 years learning about developing countries out of textbooks, I really haven't spent a good chunk of time in one, getting first-hand experience. Academically, the trip should be profitable, specifically as an essential compliment to the valuable things that I've learned in the ID program (or will they end up being a valuable compliment to the trip I'm about to embark on? I have a feeling that's what's going to transpire).

But is there more to it than that? Surely there is. Have I figured out what? Not really. I'm definitely looking to grow spiritually, and I'm fairly sure that God's been telling me that He's going to teach me wonderful things through the Indian people. Materially speaking, I really feel like I've lived the past 21 years in a North American box, spoon-fed and spoiled. I don't think a half-year visit to South Asia is going to allow me to extract more than a sliver of understanding of how an everyday resident of that region lives and what they go through, but I'm hoping that that sliver will be enough to make me put my own life and ambitions in perspective, and come closer to determining what's really important.

So stay tuned. I've got 2 more sleeps in my comfy bed in the Haliboo, and then I'll be living out John Denver's "Leaving on a Jetplane", minus the "babe don't let me go" part. Itinerary details to follow in the next couple days, time allowing.

- Tom