You'll Be My Friend Til' The End, Right?

Chapter 37. 

5 years ago I started compiling a list of the people I admire. No, not people like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Stephen Lewis, or even Oprah. It was a list of REAL people like co-workers, classmates, friends, and even some teachers I've had over the years. It was a list of people that I had the privilege of getting to know a little bit more personally at least on some level. To get on this list, some of these people had overcome hardships: refugees from Eastern Europe overcoming intolerance (in Redneck Alberta), or having to raise a child alone from a young age, or getting up each and every morning living their life in chronic pain or having to face their scariest demons. Some of these people made the list simply because of their outgoing, motivated nature, and desire to just be involved in the world in general. Others made it because they simply showed a good attitude and treated every challenge they faced with the respect it deserved. I could (maybe should??) have made a list of people I DEvalue as their motivations, actions, attitudes, and behaviours were, in my opinion, disgraceful or disgusting.  But who's to say that I know anything about what makes a quality character type and what does not?! "I have not been put upon this earth to subjugate or serve" so I've just learned to leave these character types well enough alone, even if I thought that sometimes they needed a Tellin'.

I write this now as I stop to reflect on the people that have entered and exited my life over the past 3 years, over the past 6 years, and over the past 10 years. Going back to 2003, I find myself thinking of some of the highest quality people I had ever met at my first years at college. Sure, maybe it's because I was DRUNK & 20 for much of that time, but even so those will always be remembered as some of the happiest days with some of the funnest, quality people I had ever met over my first 2 decades on this planet. These were the friends I thought I would have forever. And then life just happens to happen: these few friends finished school, married, divorced, had babies, started careers, went to more school, traveled, and, well - just kind of grew farther and farther away from me. To this day, few remain at all. Yet I like to still think that even if facebook.com or the internet all of a sudden died forever overnight, this gaggle of guys and gals from a decade ago would still be considered some of my greatest friends... 

By 2007, a lot of the kids I had come to "know" were getting all grow'd up. Some had some solid work experience or relationship experience or life experience or all 3. And as a result, the kids were hardly even kids anymore. My friends were developing into the character-types they would become for the rest of their lives (for better or worse, I dunno)! Some already had families, some had already fought cancer, some had sadly departed from this world.  Personally, I felt a little bit behind the curve with respect to my place amongst my peers,  but fortunately found that surrounding myself around the most positive outgoing people in the world: people who were ready to set the world on fire with their passion and devotion to "all the right causes", I might still have a half a chance. Socially conscious, active, healthy, hard-working, hard-partying, environmentally motivated, self-consciously aware. The people that had come into my life over this time motivated me to be a better man: less cynical, non-apathetic, more active, HOPEFUL even... Unfortunately this realm of quality people sllooowwlllly phased out of my life as well, despite my attempts to draggggg out & cling on to a few of these friends/relationships just a little bit longer --- people Just Moved On.  And today, many of these inspirational people continue to do well for themselves, although often more privately and without feeling the urge or necessity to inspire, attract, or motivate others to see things the way they do. These friends may be so far gone doing their own things by now, but I still cherish the impact they had on my life and for them encouraging me to indeed looking at the world - with all its wonders & atrocities - for what it's worth.

Enter 2010. All done school and working away as professionally as I could manage. Punk shows done up equally as professionally.  Becoming closer friends with kids from shows, still seeing friends from school on occasion. Facebook takes my own social networking more global than I could have ever imagined. Then boom. My Mom gets cancer. Plans get changed. I try working for a while then realize that it was not worth it. There was simply no way I could devote the energy into the engineering profession that was asked of me then also maintain that energy to take care of my Mom to the level she deserved.  Ovarian cancer is the silent killer - the 5th most common cancer-causing death (after lung cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and pancreatic cancer). And there was just No Telling if treatment would be effective. After 27 years of my Mom taking care of me, it was time for me to work overtime on taking care of her - while I still had the chance. Work could wait. Family? Family never really got it. They were all always tooo far removed and didn't have all those same values that I have come to realize that I have ultimately my Mom to thank for. The friends that had made an impact on my "adult" life for 10 years were merely other people that had been brought up with similar morals and outlooks on life that I had. And in a lot of ways, these  ideals including sincerity and concern were displayed by the closest of friends, mostly moreso than any family member of my Mom. The values & feelings I had about life only flourished as I was able to listen about and learn from friends' experiences related to cancer (here is one example I wanted to include). Even the friends that couldn't (thankfully) relate would show us empathy and compassion. Empathy & Compassion go a long ways when a person hasn't had to go through the painful experience of having an otherwise young, healthy, loved-one live with terminal cancer for any period of time. Many of them had even come up with various suggestions for "outside-of-the-box" treatment options, pain management options, diet options... I had friends who provided me some comic or intimate or psychological relief just by being able to connect with them on some level. Even if it were just online when I was needed closer to home and couldn't really go out, or travel abroad, or even socialize by the water cooler at coffee break. Those friends were so incredibly important to me that they will probably never even begin to realize it. Being able to outreach online with quality-grade people has made this "journey" all the more bearable for me. Being a full-time caregiver is a tiresome, demanding, tragic, and rewarding role to play. I suppose I have had "breaks" from that role to some extent as I tried working when the cancer was controlled (but not ever gone)  - but between the death of my Grandma in early 2012 & learning that my Mom would have to change chemotherapies only months after being treated for her first recurrence with an ineffective drug, I quickly re-entered the full-time caregiver position - work would wait. Again, the best of friends were there for me and my Mom. Family got used to the idea of Mom being sick: the phone calls & house visits dwindled steadily. The adjustment of getting poison shot into their sister's vein, once, twice, sometimes more, I guess, was an easier adjustment to make than having it happen to themselves. Slowly, I abandoned my own social life all but completely - lost a good girl in the process - so I could devote even more of myself to my family life. Even time online plummeted, along with the relationships that I only ever had with people online. But No Regrets, as I have had this opportunity to make amazing memories and have incredible experiences with Mom this past while: seeing the world, walking down Whyte Avenue, having a couple fancy meals, talking... just everything - it's all just been really tragic and special.

For 3 years I did my best to support my Mom and her struggle against ovarian cancer by participating in a huge cycling fundraiser. By doing so, I believe I was able to raise a lot of awareness about ovarian cancer as well as raising over $10,000 for gynecological cancers over the 3 rides I did. Friends stepped up HUGE in helping me achieve this, as I had more donors than many others on my team. In addition to the funds raised for The Cause, the amount of support provided to me through my team for 3 years was equally as helpful. More Quality Friends. In total, friends and family raised over $100,000 as a team. Think I got much from my family? Not much. Despite e-mailing and making my family aware of my efforts to raise money in support of my Mom, I was able to raise a total of $0.00 from my family members this past year. Stop. This makes a guy really truly think about & appreciate what he has in his life: the support, compassion, empathy, and GENEROSITY of his friends. His friends - whether they be near or far - are often a lot more receptive of the reality of the situation than even members of his own family. Even "close" family often fails to recognize or appreciate the tragedy of this reality... I don't know if they are in denial, disinterested, self-involved, or just plain ignorant but it feels that a lot of my friends have a lot better understanding of what my and my Mom's life has been this past period of time. And for this, I am thankful. My family is my closest friends: those people that at least TRY to empathize with me, offer legit, sincere support, share their own Ups & Downs with me, and allow me to be sad, so, soooo sad sometimes too. MY definition of family, I think, is actually pretty well summed up in this book I have just begun reading recently. 

3 years, 6 years, 10 years, 29 years. Over this time I have come up with some pretty basic qualities that I look for in a friend: integrity, respect, self respect, patience, sincerity, forgiveness, temperance, honesty, and a willingness to just be there when called upon...and when NOT called on too. I find myself thinking what if 60% of my life is over Right Now? At Age 30, I can't imagine that in  20, 25 years it will all be over. And I hope it's not. But if it did end, then I hope I can spend a good portion of the remainder of my days with friends (family) that have the values have been passed down to me and that I have learned to cherish so much as I get closer to this next chapter of my life with each passing day. 

...So will you make it onto my "list*"? 

*note: I do NOT actually have a list like Danny McGrath. 

I Used To Write Songs.

So you're a musician.

Well Me too. I have a guitar, a piano, a keyboard, a harmonica, a drum to beat on, annnnnd some spoons. My skill level at each of them? Not great. But I could get better, I swear. Then I could maybe even one day be famous. Quasi-famous? Non-famous? Infamous.

I stopped writing songs when I realized I couldn't sing. This was an unfortunate realization since the songs I wrote were actually pretty good!

The idea of someone possibly falling asleep at night to the melody that you created is pretty special. The thrill of  having someone clinging onto every last lyric of a song that you wrote is especially exciting!  Especially when you can secretly fool them all with some deep, dark & mysterious metaphor in your song that only truly makes any sense to the people you are most intimate with in your life. Or better yet: nobody else in the world but yourself.

The potential for metaphors and symbols and often not making a whole lot of sense makes the art of song-writing a very romantic endeavor. It doesn't matter if you are writing a song about pain, love, life, or death. Heck, even the punkest of punk bands can still write a song that tears at the heartstrings because of the degree of passion put into, say, bringing down the government! But outside of punk rock, a guy can still write a heartmelting song that can truly make the person he devotes it to become short of breath, perhaps a little bit dizzy, and maybe weak in the knees.

The opportunity to create intense admiration (ranging from "just a fan" to "I know all your songs" to "sexually stimulated" to "cyber-stalker" to "roadie/groupie" to "follow me to my van after the gig") from members of your fanbase is also intriguing. With only 3 1/2 minute songs, a musician can gain this kind of power over their audience. Songs that beckon each and every one of its listeners to fall head over heals in love with its creator. Songs that are so incredibly beautiful, sensitive, and tragic that the degree of vulnerability on display with the artist's most inner soul will make even the most straight-faced cold-hearted cynical person weep. 

These are the songs that I would sing for you. These songs I would dedicate to you.

Dedication. This is what having success in most things comes to in the end. A little luck doesn't hurt either.  Dedication: to tour, to write, to perform, to endure, to put out easily accessible & affordable non-tacky music & merch, and to not sell out.  Any musician seeking fortune or fame has to put in some pretty serious dedication - year after year after STD after year.        

  

Since I no longer write songs, and it is unlikely to ever become a viable vocation for me,  I often think about the other ways that I might be able to get her attention/fill up my days.  In life, don't a lot of people at least try to develop themself into a more dimensional, complex individual? Enroll in a Mediterranean cooking class. Take Tai Chi. Learn another language. It would be sooooo much easier to just be a musician! I think it must be like living in a dreamworld to be a successful musician - especially a lead singer in a band - where alll of those endless, fantastic things happen to you, whether you are drunk or high or not. The mundane routine of playing the same songs while earning little money at dirty little clubs with the same sleezy cocktail waitresses time and time again... WOULD BE GREAT!!! For a while. I can understand how some bands cannot overcome the ennuyeux of similar setlists and drunken fans/cyber-stalkers/roadies borderline harassing them (or begging to get harassed by them). But in the end, I think that the band learns to  evolve and put out incredibly stimulating material less frequently (TOOL, Propagandhi, Radiohead), or else fizzles out completely. For this reason, I guess I just have to be happy that I do not write songs. If I can simply spend some time with people I like that also don't mind wasting their nights away watching these musicians give themselves up for us, then that's fine too. 

SNFU can be credited to the title of this blog:

chapter 110.

Let's Save The World!!!

...before it's too late...

I am not a cynical person. Especially when it comes to globalization and the human state.  I am not (blissfully) naiive about the way the world is either.  I am a realist in every reasonable, pragmatic way that a man needs  to be for 21st Century living. When I'm not dreaming, anyways.

First let's make it clear that I do indeed see a lot of good in the world. Everywhere around me amidst this insane world of depravity, inequality, pain, and suffering, I can still find beauty. Beauty beyond nature. Beauty beyond engineering, even. But on another level, I feel that the soul and spirit that lies deep within some of the  most beautiful creations in existence are likely because of some higher being.

But this blog is more about when that higher being happens to call in sick, and we are all left down here to fend for ourselves and try and come up with a creative way of not totally destructing the planet - or each other.  Because even if there is someone/something up there watching over us poor lost souls, we still remain prisoners of our own device here on earth, and therefore we might as well pimp out our "prisons" as best as we can  - for us and especially for the generations that will follow us. We live an incredibly insignificant amount of time on this planet in relation to how long it has taken our Maker to allow everything on the planet to evolve to the point it is today!
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I say this now because time is running out. Sure, tell me that the fear mongers' have been saying our time has been running out since the start of the Cold War. But I do believe that a world with 8 Billion people is different than a world with 3 Billion only 50 years ago.

The hardest thing to grasp is this whole timeline thing.  A planet that is 100s of Millions of Years old is still spinning today, despite the endless atrocities that human beings have committed to it (and each other) in the matter of their lifetime.  On the same level, a lot of good can happen in a person's lifetime but mostly I think, just on a very personable level. Implementing a simple idea that could lead towards long term global sustainability likely transcends one person's lifespan. For example, electricity is nice - but when it comes at the cost of burning thousands of tonnes of coal or mitigating the threat of nuclear waste, generations of imagineers are what the world needs most.

 It's especially tough in achieving this though, with the attention span of most people nowadays. Watching these wasteful unforgiving people piss their time away can be very taxing on the human spirit. Their apathetic and selfish attitude puts unsurpassed pressure on the rest of us trying to make any sort of progress or significant impact for a lasting world.  The tiny window that we have here with our time on earth to make lasting positive change becomes even smaller. Frustration  sets in and the achievers either succumb to the prevailing, draining attitudes of most people, or else they just decide to end their time in this twisted world, under the belief that there just has to be something better than this. Killing time is indeed just another form of murder after all, and the fact that people either kill themselves in a desperate need to escape or people kill time by under-utilizing the imminent opportunities they have on this planet (like me, here, now) really pisses me off.


 


Reduction Now.
  Less is more. This is another radical philosophy that a lot of people in the Western World will never fully be able to appreciate. Certainly not in a place where we are in a love affair with wasted space.  No Impact Man takes things to the most extreme with the protagonist's attempts to raise a family in Manhattan and reducing his footprint to nil. He got the point across, but in reality, a modest footprint is probably acceptable if we ensure that we are progressing towards a globally sustainable lifestyle for the majority of the world's inhabitants. Immensely modest.  i.e. not the path we are currently on.
 
The necessity to make drastic changes in the way we live our lives is now. Unplug. (I can't wait until the day that I have someone to talk  to about some of the good/bad ideas that build up in my head, instead of having to try and sort them out here). Park your car,  don't commute farther than you have to, don't eat meat, shop local, kill the box store, don't drink bottled water, change to CFLs,  put on a sweater, blah the fuck blah.
 
There is a widely accepted proposition called the Jevon's Paradox which environmentalists like Monbiot like to use in order to describe how even in the present day of fantastic technological progress and advancements, we are - of course - still doomed.  It describes how as we develop more energy efficient ways of doing things, there will be only that much more greater demand for more of those things! And beyond that, it must be understood that with every quantity of energy saved by doing some form of efficient work, there is a complementary amount of less efficient work that is freed up for the doing. George describes this in his book waaaay better than I am doing here...

I think, mostly when it comes down to it, we must be truly proud of the work we do, and the outcome that results from this kind of work on a long-term scale. And as workers, we are all getting paid in order to contribute to our role of consumers. Likewise, it would be nice if the consumer could (afford to) be proud of the choices he/she makes in their life of consumption.

So those are some of the things I think we need to keep in mind when it comes to making the most of our time here on this big blue orb. But how do we get there when we are soooo effing far off track?!?!?! These are a few ideas...

We need:

1) A leader that is RESPECTED ---- Perhaps something like having a total restructure the UN and IMF combined, where the idea of Peace Before Prosper dominates. Perhaps with no Veto players and no Americans? We need someone to lead this UN that is heard and respected by the world. Certainly not someone like Obama who is more interested in going on holidays with his family in Cape Cod when the world is going to hell. We need a leader that can not just say "Oh, my very best advisors will give us the right answers that will lead us to a solution", but instead we need someone who can just present the concise steps towards the solution, having already consulted with the "imagneers" I referred to earlier.   This leader needs to appreciate the limited opportunity he has to leave a lasting legacy to the planet and all of its civillians, plants & animals, that are all essentially at the mercy of one person's decisions.

2) Education of the Youth. The world over. Especially women. They have the brains & the know-how. Give them an opportunity, but please just don't take my (high-paying?) engineering job away from me.

3) A WORLD Commitment. With leaders like Jack Layton who can really inspire people across entire nations to be loving, hopeful, and optimistic. When people have hope, they will tend to be less antagonistic about everything!

4) Good parenting that includes raising one's children with values such as temperance, focus, and commitment. It is hard to find this nowadays.



This whole political part is unfortunate but necessary in the year 2011. Leaders that have clout and can make bold decisions are the ones that hold the key towards long-term global sustainability, just as Jack Layton was trying to do until his untimely & unfortunate departure from the power-position that he briefly held.  Now, with a majority government hell-bent on destroying most things good in the world, it's especially sad to see that the wrong leader is likely going to push us all further to the brink of destruction. The alternative is to possibly have an all-controlling government with the opposite ideals of Harper's conservatives, and we end up living in a Big Brother state like in any of the dystopian futuristic novels. Either way, I guess, dictatorships: still bad. But having faith in a leader in a time of our greatest need? Kinda necessary.

We simply need to understand the reality of the potential for any Wall-E/Tank Girl type scenarios. The privileged and elite will survive. You and me? Probably not. The Global South? GOOD LUCK!



time is running out.




chapter 46.

Chapter 52.1: 2008 - A Year in Review and a Few Thoughts About My Future

Sure, this blog is 2 years late, but I say: "Let It Be Written" nevertheless. After all, not tooo many of my thoughts about life have changed since then. Just the bad thoughts might have got a little bit better and my good thoughts have probably been a little bit tainted.

Maktub. It has been written. Destiny. Just follow the path & pay attention to the omens. I recently read The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. I read it at a somewhat significant time in my life as I was nearing the end of my degree and finally ready to get my life going - complete with living it with my own ideals and convictions that I felt are most important to me in this world. So in late 2008 I was asking myself where I really wanted to see my future heading. What do I want to accomplish in life, what do I really want to do for a living etc.

I considered the things I might like to do: go back to school for a MSc or MEng, travel the globe, settle on the east coast where life has a slower pace, or flee to BC where good environmental jobs might be more readily available? I am pretty certain I will never work in Fort MacMurray. If I was to ever venture that direction it would likely be to cause a slowdown of development until the world came to realize what a more appropriate way to energize this world might be. Then there is Water Treatment. It would be terrific to get that same gig that I had while I was in school. I did so many amazing things! Not to mention those few weeks when I got to work with the most amazing brunette ever. Then again, the privatization of the world's water is something that I strongly disagree with as water is the one resource that needs to be made readily available for everyone. But for the salaries that the private sector offers? Sign me up, please! I can be bought. After all, there are much worse humungous multi-national corporations out there that are simply at the mercy of the stockholder and would sell their own mothers for the interest of making another dollar without the blink of an eye.

Oh, speaking of "mother", what role does family have to play in all this? Did the values your parents raised you with rub off so that you make the same conscientious decisions that they have made? Is it okay to abandon your family that you have been with all your life for the sake of wishing to start your own life in, say, New Zealand or Scotland or Brazil? A fresh start sounds intriguing. But what about reasonable? I wish I wasn't so reasonable...

Do I really want to work for a government that I don't believe in? I don't want to be just some stooge that can be easily bought, and go to work for the rest of my life working for "the man". The idea of it just never sounded appealing. And that goes for any level of government too. I would probably feel different if I believed in some of the policies of the Alberta or Canadian conservative parties, or if the city council would have the balls to make some decisions that would actually have an impact on the perception of Edmonton (this cold desolate wasteland). But no. Noone does fuck all. And for that reason, I don't really want to be a pawn playing the part in it. True. It is possible that I could play the "mole" in any one of these bureaucracies and work towards their eventual, inevitable downfall. But I don't think I am quite that jaded. Yet. Ask me again in 2010.

As an engineer, I want to truly work for the good of the people. Not for the good of the economy or the good of the state. Fuck that. The masses of humanity do not always have to suffer. Dr. Graffin was wrong. But he was a kid when he wrote that, so we will forgive him. But you would think that if a guy had at least some idea of what he might be interested in doing in his life, then opportunities might present themselves, as long as they heed the message conveyed in Coelho's book. I am trying to follow the omens and all that philosophical whimsy, and I do understand that having to really - i mean really - work towards something develops character. (God knows I am not enough of a character already). So either I have totally missed the boat on this one, or the answer I am seeking is right in front of my eyes and I am just not seeing it, or else I am just not working hard enough to get what I want out of this world...

Saving the World's GREAT!

Chapter 46

2010. The number even looks science-fiction-y. And what a year it's been! What with the unprecedented amount and degree of catastrophic earthquakes, twisters, freezing temperatures, fires, snowfall, drought, and flooding all around the world. Anthropogenic? Who cares. Even if it wasn't, we are screwing up this world bad enough with the uneffingbelievable unaccountability and the most retarded regulations that policy makers and/or industry leaders seem to think are acceptable. What gives?!

We need to face up to the fact that we are heading towards another abyss. When one of the hugest MNC conglomerates of all time came out with a little movie in 2008 about a robot designed to compact our waste, people mostly just giggled and wondered what Eve and Wall-E's kids would look like. And when she tried to get some justice after the world's power players pissed away all of our resources including fresh water, any impending feeling of dread or doom was overlooked when we were really just hoping to see the sex scene between her and her fuzzy kangaroo-alien friends. (F'ing sex-crazed kids these days...) Now North Korea is causing a raucous again! With every breath we breathe, the threat of nuclear war seems closer than ever these days with everything being so unstable.

- Time is running out! -

Some environmentalists are called alarmists. Or fearmongers. Why can't anyone else really see that things have to change now. Change takes for EVER after all. And just like in the 1951 classic, it wasn't until the earth was on the BRINK of destruction before humanity realized that some big changes need to happen, and they need to happen quick. Even in more recent future depictions of the world, it is not hard to believe that only the most privileged & elite will have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving at all.

- REDUCTION NOW -

It's a key philosophy behind a registered Canadian political party, based out of BC. (of course). A lot of it makes sense. A lot more sense than the anarchy or riots or G8/G20 protests or pipeline bombings or destructive revolutions that most extremists tend to fall back on. Just waste less. One of the ideas that this party also puts to use is called Jevon's Paradox. It's an idea that's been around since the industrial revolution. It is alllll about energy efficiency and how as we "progress" towards more efficient ways of doing things, that only allows for more non-spent energy to be used on LESS efficient things, or at the very best: more demand for producing the whatever it is for ever-increasing consumption. Remember, less is more.

- be the change you want to see - even if that includes voting -

What we need is a leader like no other. We don't need an Obama or a Ban Ki-Moon or even an Oprah. Someone sent from out of this world - perhaps a messenger from God that can demand the world's attention might, might have some impact. Otherwise, a total restructuring of the UN with all the world players - philanthropists only please - should come together to realize that Peace Before Prosper is essential to taken to us to the attainable goal of less devastation. Yes, I fear a "Big Brother" state, but really, aren't we already pretty damn' well there?! Let's just try & keep those custodians working for us honest. Or shoot'm. (Kidding, Benito, you liar).

On the individual level, we are only really capable of so much. Some more than others, as after all, we are all born into circumstance. But those of us that can and are providing our planet with a fighting chance need to DOUBLE what they are outputting - while still keeping in mind the kunundrum that I mentioned earlier. However you look at it, there is an urgent necessity that we make drastic changes in the way each of us live our lives every single day.

the impossibility of sustainability - it's really only down to you

And on the flip-side we have people out there that are just plain ignorant. Or even worse: apathetic. The apathetic are worse because those are the people that are the 1st to change into something worse than someone who is ignorant: they become pirates. Pillagers, exploiters, and destroyers that especially don't give a damn' and only want to reap every sowed seed and rape every virgin (land) not yet seeded. These people are drains. They get fat and suck the positivity out of everything good in the world. Ignorant people only have a lack of parenting to blame.

A Few Suggestions

1 - turn the furnace down

2 - unplug your computer (for the rest of your life)

3 - unplug your tv (pick up a newspaper & kill a tree instead)

4 - increase gas prices so that you actually DO rethink your job, your commute, your life

5 - eat no meat, drink no bottled water

6 - free the commons, kill the boxstore

7 - de-militarize the military

8 - FIND A WORLD LEADER THAT IS WELL-RESPECTED GLOBALLY

9 - EDUCATE THE YOUTH TO BECOME NON-APATHETIC AND ARE ABLE TO BE THE CHANGE THAT IS NEEDED TODAY

10 - COMMIT THE WORLD TO MAKING THE EARTH A BETTER PLACE

My final plead.

None of us have a lot of time here on this earth. It takes generations upon generations to make any sort of significant progress from only a single generation worth of actions resulting in a devastating negative impact. So please, please, please try and not piss ALL your time away so your lack of imagination will lead us to the ultimate destruction of our planet.





Yay! for these:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1280011/
http://www.workersoftheworldrelax.org/

This is not what I signed up for...

There exists an air of arrogance within the engineering discipline. A sense of entitlement and self-righteousness that might be all too expectantly acceptable. I mean, who else can spend the time learning a whole other language and then using it to come up with the most intricate solutions to solve some of the world's most pressing problems. Like cleaning water. Or making electricity. Doctors and lawyers memorize Latin terminology and ... business grads? Well, they are all just capitalistic pigs with hearts of stone.

So, become an engineer. Or try to anyways. You can become a steward of society. Really, it's like the ultimate thankless service industry job. God knows that there is money in it, too. And for one year now, I have held my engineering degree while working as a box cutter, getting paid box cutter salaries.

In all honesty, it's not a bad job. Especially for a student working part-time, earning habit money and having few other expenses. At work, all you have to do is deal with a couple of ungracious or effing rude customers that come through the store from time to time and try to get along with your co-workers. The hardest part of that is getting over the condescending attitude of people that look down on box-cutters and realize that you are going to get paid well below your Earning Potential that you have hoped to be enjoying by now. Then again, living the good life of having minimal responsibilities & being accountable only to yourself is nothing to sneeze at. There's casual weekday drinking, affording to go out to shows, going on vacations, and the like. It's not all bad not having to worry about the pressures of a high-expectation engineering job.

But I hate it. It's a time-consumer and a head-do-er-inner. Every day that I cannot find a job I am actually interested in, is another day that I am not developing and using the skills that I went to school for, and not working towards that ever-important salary-booster called a P.Eng. I feel like it's eating into the best years of my life (although I know that in all honesty that those were between 1992 and 1996). In addition, this company - like many others - thrives on environmental devastation and corporate greed. It breaks your back and it eats your soul. Although, they did pay for me to get my teeth cleaned...

Everyone should have to go through it though. The service industry is atrocious and everywhere. Working in it gives the consumer a much better perspective of the hard work that goes into whatever commodity it is that's being sold. It also gives a person a reality check. Without it, you don't have as much of a clue about how nasty day-to-day interactions with some people can get. It makes you actually look at the cashier at the supermarket in the eye and say "thank-you" with a little bit more sincerity than you would otherwise. It will make you neater - no matter how neat you think you are, and it will help you watch exactly what kind and how big of a consumer you are. Especially when making service industry wages.

This wages thing blows my mind. To think that so much disparity exists between the different kinds of rich and the different kinds of poor in this world is just: GAH! We are all just people born into circumstance, after all. Next round you could be living in subsidized Projects Housing in Harlem or the slums of Bangladesh (surely, not only India and Africa have slums, hey?) Then there's the opposite extreme where even Edmonton Police are making upwards of $85K after only 5 years of service. "And then she became a cop." "Shut the fuck up!" I think in my next life I am going to become a successful rock star. But engineers really do alright too. Even Civil Grads, with no real experience! And ol' recession-proof Alberta, with all of it's Oilsands and industry needs these grads to help run projects!!! But I still can't get a job I want. Bastards!

Then again, I know I am not alone. At least one other engineer and one geophysicist I know are not working. Another mate with credits from NAIT, UofA, and GMCC is working at the bottle depot with no real aspirations to focus on a career in any of the areas he spent time studying in! Then the real motivated ones had jobs set before they were even graduated! I don't know how, aside from their good fortune, and to some extent, willingness to relocate.

If I go anywhere, it will have to be for something worth while. "Like a girl?!" "No, Ryan, not a girl." Well, we'll see. But a sweet gig where providing/treating water to people who would really appreciate it, or anything related to the environment would sure be sweet. If I could get a sweet deal like that, I wouldn't even care if my salary was double of what it was now, rather than triple, as it very well COULD be. Half it and send me to a well in Kenya, I would also be thrilled. And I'd probably be blogging about something more important like poverty, water resources , disparity & conflict or something!

My issues with not getting the work I want could be psychological. In that I am psychotic. I am complacent and apathetic and idiotic for not trying harder to get any fucking job that will help me use my degree. That, or perhaps employers just don't like me. Real possibility. What can a guy do?!

As intermediate box cutter, I am taking it for what it's worth as yet another stepping stone in character development. God knows I'm not enough of a character YET! There is nothing glamorous or prestigious about this job that gives me anything more than just that. One of the things that comes with a sweet-ass environmental engineering job (aside from the money & independent that it brings), is confidence in having/building relationships. A guy can feel a hell of a lot better about himself knowing that the girl that he is after won't laugh at him for being, say, a box cutter. Even with the prestige of an engineering job, I feel that the humility of the box cutter's realism will earn him bonus points with her. "Real Workin' Man" points, where blackberrying and e-mailing and sitting in the cushy office chair are out of the equation completely. One might even go as far as to call it "honest work". Then with that non-box cutter job and a real engineering job - she will immediately think to herself: "Oooh - Brains And Money. But when was the last time he washed that shirt?"

Alright, this is gonna have to do as I have to finish my 2nd beer and have to get up for work in just over 4 hours. I wonder what the Jobs section will look like in The Journal tomorrow...


ch. 80

It's What You Do With It!!!!!!! (Part 4)

We Whistle While We Work

(or Ch.6.4)

People need to get paid. This much we know. Without getting paid, there is little hope that we have in enjoying the finer things in life: that 2500 sq ft dream house, annual vacations to the Domincan Republic, romantic dinners on the lakeside, 18% table cream instead of just coffee whitener, new shoes for our kids in the fall, and Thursday afternoon drinking at Dewey's. But it's the idea that so many people are willing to sacrifice so many of the finer things in life in exchange for that extra few dollars that gets to me. Some people thrive on the recognition of being an outstanding worker. This reinforces their desire to work more. Produce greater results. Get that fatter paycheque. I have 8 days of classes to go to before I am finished my degree and am expected to enter the workforce. I just need some clue in deciding what in the world I should do about it!

So this blog looks at a few things:

• the appreciation of workers with formal educations vs non-formally educated workers
  
  

• people that are comfortable with working "less desirable jobs", but still have a socially relaxing and relatively low-stress atmosphere, sufficient job satisfaction, and a quality of life that it provides them with enough things to get by day-to-day with a smile on their face.

• the hours of work per week needed to support a certain lifestyle, and the effect of working those types of hours
  

• working towards the preservation and improvement of our environment, rather than the destruction and exploitation of it

• who benefits from this work, really?
  


• do-gooders and volunteer workers & wanting to make an impact but ask for nothing
  

I get a large appreciation for how life is lived, could be lived, and should be lived by looking at my own past & present decisions, actions, experiences. Take now for instance. Rather than studying for a midterm that accounts for 30% of my mark, I am working on my blog that really only about 4 or 5 people ever read. No doubt that more time could have been put in studying for this/any midterm, in reality, a person has to really pick & choose what they want to be doing, where & when to do it, who they are going to be doing it with (or for), and lastly, why they feel that this work being done is actually going to be worthwhile in the end.

All along, I have made decisions to "work" at my engineering degree, so long as I e v e n t u a l l y pass the required courses. In hindsight, it really is a crying shame that I missed Raised Fist at Red's about 5 years ago to the day, because of the emphasis that I had placed towards working on my engineering degree and studying for that statics mid-term. It is with the work ethic demanded from the engineering program in combination with my acknowledgement of the extent of corruption & inequality in the world, that I now look at what work is a lot more extensively: who does this work benefit when and where it is finally directed, and at what costs to the individual, family, community, or society result from this work? For every 600 engineers that enter the workforce upon graduation every year, how many of them will find work that is not only A) self-satisfying, but will also satisfy the needs of: B) their economy, C) their employer, D) their planet, E) their family? And how often do each of these things work against eachother?? And which of them will govern??

There are a lot of people out there who have landed themselves "respectable" jobs. Respectable, in the sense that society appreciates having the person's skills used in a way that extends out to both the social and physical infrastructure of the community. Social infrastructure would include things like working to establish a healthy foundation for health/childcare providers, teachers, non-profit support groups; whereas physical infrastructure would include those of us who work to build roads, strip malls, and water treatment plants. However, since any and all of these types of work generate wealth & cash flow, Harper "smiles" and the country prospers, in terms of GDP anyway.

On the flip side, a lot of these well-respected jobs out there are not given any respect at all. Lawyers. Politicians. Teachers. Endless pay hikes are in sight for these "professions". Their professional expertise, in my opinion, are in their capability to coerce people into supporting their salaries/lavish lifestyles for the dirtiest, nastiest work we ask of them: Keeping us out of jail, legislating rules that must be followed in order to stay out of jail, and Raising Our Children. Glorified babysitters that supposedly inspire future generations to give us all a brighter future. Okkkkaay. But my ideas for the revamping of public education is a blog for another day...And the lawyers, with their years of university education and Armani Suit-Wearing, compensating lawyers' salaries for the commitment they made to simply become a lawyer just baffles me. I say this now til I need a lawyer. (Secretly I am actually a HUGE Boston Legal fan). But my dream would be that one day we wouldn't even need any lawyers because everyone could just accept & respect eachother and eachother's stuff.

- Office Jobs -

8 til 4:30. 5 days/week. 2 weeks vacation/year. Show up: 8:10. Turn on computer, get coffee #1: 8:30. Read e-mails: 9, 9:15. Sort out plan for day: 9:30. 2 1/2 hours later? Lunch time. Back to desk: 12:30. Check facebook account and get coffee #3 or #4: 12:45. By 1:00? Back to it. Only 3.5 hours left. Make that 3 with 2 good pee breaks and a little bit of gossiping with the cute girl in the cubicle next door. 2:30: Roll eyes at Michael Scott for second time today. And we all know that last half hour doesn't really count, since we seem to have forgotten where we put our keys, afterall.

Not a bad gig. Whether these office jobs earn $15/hr as an administrative assistant or $85,000 per year as an professional engineer with 12 years of experience, essentially the daily routine is just the same. Similarly, labourers in construction can get paid well too. (And rightfully so!) One of the jobs that an associate of mine gets paid respectable wages to do is scoop sludge into a large steel bin with a shovel while I run around with a pen and a notebook in my attempts to fill this bin as efficiently as possible. This kid gets paid approximately equal wages to a junior engineer, and will be comfortable doing so for the foreseeable future. He will be able to raise a family and afford that summer vacation and would also enjoy his new 54" plasma tv with the Christmas Bonus he got, all for shovelling sludge. Mr. Will Hunting didn't have a problem with emptying trash cans and sweeping floors in a school either, and was still able to mack on Harvard students... If anything, maybe he could earn more than them by the time that those students got their loans paid off!

In the lumber yard, these teens are happy enough to rake in 30 hour weeks just so they can keep their cell phone and use it to text for when they are gonna need to buy some more pot (pure speculation, with some degree of confidence). Alternatively, these guys are working in the lumber yard to earn wages as their second or third job. One friend there is 40 years old and works 40 hours parking cars at the airport, 10 hours at a restaurant, and the same 12 hours that I work there every week load trucks, just for a little bit of income. Then this is compared to:

a teacher who has endless out-of-office hours to endure in order to be considered a well-respected teacher making a difference on our kids lives,

an engineer who is responsible for spending the countless hours making the reports that will result in millions of dollars being spent on the implementation of a technology,

a field engineer who is compensated for "working" as they drive to the site for 90 minutes and then back again at the end of the day.

These people will be getting paid better overall wages than the guy who parks the car, loads the lumber, or scoops the sludge. 62 hour weeks though! The average work week for Albertans is 38.8 hours (highest in Canada), but depending on the field, it is not uncommon for Albertans to reach 80. This, compared to some European countries that work 35 hours each week & have at least 4 weeks of holidays each year. Remarkable! With this time, it is expected that a person will have time to enjoy their family and friends. It provides a more wholistic approach to life. Somehow it just makes sense to me to work less. I mentioned this before, http://eternalhappyness.blogspot.com/2008/03/daylight-savings.html ,but thanks to the Sociology 363 course I am in right now, this topic of working has been on my mind like some'n wicked. And with the election last month, I looked at the registered political parties and found one out of Vancouver's East Side called the Work Less Party. They go into a very reasonable argument for the way we can have a better Canada based on less productivity. Its platform does have some problems, yet they are nothing that a young capable engineer couldn't get paid to handle... The best information on the workless.org party website is a short video which talks a lot about working less, enjoying life more, and having a smaller impact on the environment as a result. Check out http://www.workersoftheworldrelax.org/ .

- The Environment -

Another form of work is dedicating oneself to the protection of Mother Earth. In Alberta, especially, this is an admirable choice in that the province's resources are being depleted insanely fast (water & oil) and the air, soil, and source water are being damaged as a result. So you go tree-planting. 2 cents a tree or something right? And you do this, despite the rate of deforestation will at least keep up to the rate that you are putting them into the ground. Mike Hudema's greenpeace hippies might like you to go and blow up an oil well or tamper with some oil field equipment to deter growth. The privatization of yet another utility like the Goldbar waste water treatment plant might make a person think twice before applying for a job working there (yeah right). Working for a water utility like EPCOR might be frowned upon if a person has the education and inspiration to make a true difference working for an NGO like watercan.com that promotes equal opportunity to access to clean water and basic sanitation services. But then again, why should a person deny themselves the opportunity to be making, say, $60,000 ± $10,000 right out of school? Is this the reason why we only ever see pensioners out there showing their concern for Canada and the environment? Is the rest of our labour force just too consumed with making all that money?

If so, then how big of an impact is their work really having on our environment - our world? Automakers shut down in Windsor and put people out of work when sales are down. Pulp mills in Port Alberni shut down when prices being paid by the US market are low. And then what will these people do? Come to Alberta for a job in Energy. Pillage and burn that environment even faster. (Not to mention the increased crime rates, and decreased quality of workmanship). Or else, the outsourcing of work allows for rampant degradation of other countries' environments - in my world. On a global scale, The World Bank makes it impossible for impoverished countries to develop through industrialization to any degree without having a terrible impact on the environment, thanks to the lack of emission regulations set by the country. In Confessions of an Economic Hitman and The Secret History of the American Empire, John Perkins describes what is involved in getting a country industrialized based on the potential for the economy to eventually become self-sufficient. But what happens is once these loans have been granted to the developing countries, they are never able to pay back these loans, and the people there suffer with insufficient drinking water provisions, terribly low wages, and unimaginable sanitation services. Yet the construction and engineering firms that go to these places not only make a killing, but there employees are well compensated for the work they do to for this "development" to become possible.

Gah!!!

But then again, there are just sooo many people out there in the world who wish to work to make a positive difference. They want to make their life's work worth while. Most people like to think that their work will be appreciated by at least someone, and that they will help at least one other person. Mr. Engel was my first inspiration - a grade 5 teacher (who I've dedicated a facebook group to) for his commitment to challenging 10 year olds to become better people. Mr. Goldethorpe was a highschool physics teacher who said "it's going to take the skateboarders of the world" to make the change necessary for a sustainable world. Even with weird metaphors, he had incredible intentions of making his students better. Engineers Without Borders - what can I say? Pretty much the best kind of people in the world. So receptive, willing to work for the good of others - expecting only the knowledge to take back with them to Canada to spread the importance of how we can playyourpart.ca . There are those of us who simply volunteer out of our own good hearts, knowing that work can wait. But this is a very small fragment of the population. It's not so much because people don't care - it's just that sometimes caring - and feeling - anything different than how we have been raised to feel about our potential to make a significant impact on the world, is hard. A person has to really feel and then want to continue caring in order to do more thinking, reasoning, believing in something more.

Shit, I'm late for work.

80 X 40

Chapter 13: The Overburden of Being Underpaid as an Edmonton Area Teacher

As we enter into another year, I reflect on the past 6. That's how long it's been since I have finished high school & entered into my first year of post secondary. That's as long as junior high and high school combined. That's as long as you lived your carefree life as a child before having to enter into kindergarten. That's as long as your parents might have to carry on with their daily routine until they retire. That's as long as it will take to pay off your Brand New Car at that ridiculous interest rate.

That's... a long time.

But what's longer is the career life of a teacher. Just like that inspirational, wonderful person from your youth that was sooo full of knowledge and depth and charisma - so much so that you decided that you too should become a teacher. You will make a difference in the lives of generations to come. Well congratulations. You did it. Hell, if you did it right, you might even be starting your second year of teaching tomorrow!! Only 38 more to go. But good on ya!

I thought that I was going to be a teacher. Mr. Mike Engel was the man back in '95 that really gave us kids some perspective on life. He showed us how we could be good people in a very large world. "Leaders of Tomorrow" if you will. As it turns out, one of his students will be starting Harvard this fall! But teachers like that are the ones that inspire the majority of kids wanting a post secondary education to go into teaching. Not a lot of kids are very adept to English literature, organic chemistry, or environmental engineering after all. But they know they want that degree that will get them a job. It's what middle-class white families that live in the suburbs expect from the children they raise after all. So Ed. Easy way out. I mean, it's not like these 17 and 18 year olds finishing highschool really have a fucking clue as to what other career options are out there for them besides teaching, given that teachers are the people that a kid spends the most time through 12 out of the first 18 years of his/her life; and especially when there is that societal/parental demand of getting that damn' degree. So Ed. Congratulations on your life decision.

I admire teachers as individuals. Mr. or Mrs. Borchert - both very admirable teachers. Mr. Cook - probably the most focussed teacher that the system will see in the next 20 years. Miss Bouten - amazing with kids! But the problem I have has really more to do with the way the system educates. It offers a stressful position for students, teachers, and parents. First the parents. They have the most responsibility of all (though some don't quite understand that) which includes making their child become smart. Only so much can be absorbed by the student in the classroom when they are up all night screwing around on the computer** or playing X-Box. And there is only so much ridilin in the world. FAS, abusive dramatic on-again off-again relationships from Mum & Dad, junk food, the expense (and demand) of extra-curricular activities + the need to "keep up with the Jones's" also make it hard for parents to give their child a wholesome upbringing. Balance right? Isn't it all just about balance? Well sometimes when parents get a little bit off balance, it's the child who will start to suffer - and this will become apparent where he/she spends the majority of his/her time: in the classroom.

Students are put through the ringer too by the way the system is. The curriculum is bullshit. Matric? Like come on!! A lot of kids shouldn't be forced into the 10-20-30 stream when it is quite apparent that they will have a hard time with hit. There are other options after all. The other parts that I remember being in the curriculum too, are also a lot of BS. I know history is important, since history repeats itself, yet my knowledge of the French and Russian revolutions far outweigh anything about the Trudeau government, the Great Depression, or The war of 1812. Permutations and Combinations? wtf. The origin of AIDS or the genocide by Milosovic or the battle between Tutsis and Hutus or ... So many important things are left out of the curriculum while so much more needs to be taken out! Suffer the children.

Lastly we have the Teachers. The "let's work 7 months of the year, pay hike or strike, stressridden, fieldtrip chaperones that have to come in soooooo early for volleyball practice and stay up soooooooo late at night to prepare their lessons" teachers. The same people that either copped out of engg to teach math, or coasted through highschool with ease but thought "why bother to go for something greater than something that I already know soo well already?" The same people who have to do the proper raising of your children while you are too busy bringing home the bacon. The same people who will get the first grey hairs, the first lines under their eyes. The same people that are in Zimbabwe or Guetamala that can only dream of getting to have such a prestigious career because anything beyond that is simply way beyond the hint of affordability. The same people that had that arrogant budgetmore.ca campaign only 1 year ago (when I first really wanted to write about this) stating that teachers simply have much to difficult of a job given all of the resources they have at their disposal that they didn't have 15 years ago for the pay they get. We sure as hell realize that it must be difficult taking your 3 ADD students in addition to the other 22 nine year olds to BodyWorlds on the first Tuesday after a long weekend. Or maybe it was that Thursday before a PD Day. Or the stress of Pizza Day. Don't forget that. Horrible times. Or the end of year trip to Rundle Park or at Christmas where you do nothing but sit at your desk and collect chocolates, coffee mugs, and presents. Tough life.


So I guess this 6 year degree really hasn't been that long. I do have 2 years of engineering work experience after all. That 6 years is certainly better than having to start work as a teacher after only 4, for the next 40 years. Because by that time I know I would feel like I'm 80.


**on a side note: this is the 15th year of having the Internet in Alberta. Wasn't this world really a much more beautiful, wonderful place without having to be soo dependant on computers, e-mail, and the net???