Category: philosophy

cancelled

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For the record, I don’t want anyone cancelled, not really.

I believe in accountability, in taking responsibility for our actions, but the idea of wholesale cancellation, of ruining people’s lives for a misstep, a poor turn of phrase, heck, even sometimes, just the perception of a poor turn of phrase…

It turns my stomach.

There are people who ought to be cancelled. Weinstein, obviously. Every motherfucker at Cornell involved in that Jane Doe shit.

Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Vivek Ramaswamy, etc., etc., Republicans, etc.

These people have committed actual crimes, and show zero remorse for their godawful behaviour.

But in most cases, reaching out, education, is better than condemnation. Condemnation tends to make people defensive and push people into doubling down. It’s a tool to radicalize, mostly unintentionally, against the very people that condemned them in the first place.

It’s a bit like the way the Conservative Party in Canada deals with health care and education. The system’s not perfect, obviously, nothing is. But instead of looking at the problems and working with the healthcare industry or teachers to find solutions and common ground, they just break everything, and then go, see, it’s broken, damn those nurses and doctors and teachers, none of whom set the policies that created the break.

No one, and that means absolutely no one, ever, in history, is perfect.

Utopias are stupid and unreasonable.

Aim for improvement, not perfection. Aim for understanding, not condemnation. There is no joy in Whoville if they burn the Grinch at the stake.

His heart will not grow three sizes if it’s on fire.

Anyway, save the condemnation for the truly evil and the truly remorseless; their ouster from our society is key to our survival as a species. For everyone else…

Education and evolution. Understanding. Patience. Perspective.

Otherwise, all you’ve done is reveal your own myopia. Your own desire for the dehumanization of your perceived enemies.

And who really wants that? Is that going to solve our problems?

Or sow greater division?

Remember: kindness and empathy, understanding and compassion, are not some lefty plot or bleeding heart nonsense. They are not irrational.

They are the heart of logic. After all, what could be more logical that working together, helping each other, and taking the time to create greater understanding?

How could that possibly make the world a worse place?

Logically, it could only be better.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1450 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 45-48
Music: Hell's Ditch, The Pogues

neurodivergent

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I think I’ve been pretty clear here that I’m not entirely normal. I’ve dealt with melancholy, with frustration, with anger issues and isolation.

I don’t think like other people.

My mind immediately rejects any presentation of any perspective with questions about other possible perspectives.

I’m a little bit OCD. A little bit ADD.

(a little bit of Erica by my side.)

Probably bipolar, but you know what? Fuck you.

I don’t have a single actual diagnosis. I don’t need one.

For my entire life, I’ve looked at labels with suspicions. It is very easy to reduce people to less than, to caricatures, based on a label.

Oh, she’s ADHD. He’s gay. Norm’s a Republican. Tara’s a leftie.

Depression, social anxiety, autistic, black, trans, women, disabled, these are all unfortunately convenient shorthands used to make all kinds of assumptions about people that only serve to reinforce stereotypes and tribalism, instead of opening up space to actually learn about who people actually are.

It’s too easy.

And it’s bullshit.

I refuse to get a diagnosis, because I do not want that diagnosis to define who I am. Indeed, today, I listened to two people openly mock the neurodivergent, despite the fact that at least one of them was fully aware that there was one in the room, reducing them to oddballs and weirdos. They rolled their eyes at the idea that we might take the time to recognize them, or accommodate them in any way.

It pissed me off, mightily, and my boss did nothing to push back.

That’s why I don’t get tested. Not because I don’t want to fix the problem, but the second that label is attached, you are now less than, a joke, no longer an actual person, but a diagnosis.

You are not Empty; you are (insert diagnosis).

The farther away we can move from boxing people in with labels (a favourite pasttime, it seems, of the millennial and Gen Z crowd, although Boomers are great at labels as well, though theirs tend to be a little cruder, and more bigoted), the better.

Remember how you chastise and cancel people for every little thing; when you’re no longer the youth in charge, you too, will be labelled horrible, and probably for this. Your children will reject you, and the stigma of your endless labels.

The reduction of the human is tragic; the pasting of a prefab schematic onto anyone’s life (and I’ll include our pets in this), is a fucking monstrosity.

There. Go cancel yourselves now.

You deserve it.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1479 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 41-44
Music: Hefty Fine, Bloodhound Gang

tuesday the thirteenth

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Thanksgiving is over.

We did not do a proper Thanksgiving dinner (a mistake I will rectify in two weeks’ time).

But I took a moment to give thanks for the parts of my life where things don’t suck.

My immediate family. My cats. My dogs.

My continued existence.

The faint hope that maybe, just maybe, some sanity will prevail and the United States and Alberta will both vote in the best interests of humanity, and not their own selfish, misguided bullshit.

Thanks, hopefully not for nothing.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 432 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 29-32
Music: Heaven & Hell, A Tribute To The Velvet Underground Volume, Screaming Trees and others

why am i always apologizing?

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I know I’m Canadian but it’s a bit ridiculous, even for us.

I was thinking about my grandmother today, my dad’s mom, and all I could think was that I wish I’d been a better grandson, that I’d spent more time with them, that I’d been just… better.

I do this all the time.

I feel like a failure – as a father and a son, a husband and a writer, a person, a political entity, a human being.

I’m sorry for that, and I don’t know how to move beyond it.

I feel responsible for everything, and powerless over all.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 2524 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson (I understand the ending, but something about it seems unfinished, doesn't it?)
Comics: The Walking Dead 25-28
Music: Heaven :x: Hell, Sum 41 (better than you'd think, bit of a throwback)

we are blind

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The very first poem I wrote in this era of actually trying, over two and a half years ago, was about how the things we don’t acknowledge are the things that take us down.

Governments ignore the masses to ply to billionaires, and the masses get taken in by a populist con man.

Billionaires ignore the long game in favour of short term returns, and when the cataclysm comes, they will be shocked. No one on the ground will; we’ve been tied to the tracks with a train bearing down on us for years.

One domino will fall, and the rest will follow.

Pay attention to the things you neglect the most; they will be the things that bring you down.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1736 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
Comics: The Walking Dead 1-4
Music: Heart In A Cage, The Strokes

the fifth was a monday

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And a day of reckoning. Do I give up?

Do I move on? Why is every day an existential crisis?

At least, every work day.

How do I move beyond it?

This is the point where the lesson of kindness I sought in Father Lightning should kick in.

Unfortunately, the lesson I’ve learned out of that has become something else. It’s a story about men and women, and how even the best of intentions can blind us if we don’t address the reality around us.

It’s one thing to say you support women and you’re an ally in the face of sexual aggression.

It’s a whole other thing to actually pay attention, and help where it’s needed.

And sometimes, boys, that means leaving it alone. This has nothing to do with the book; our hero should have done more sooner, but with trauma, sometimes, your support must be indirect.

If a women has been abused by a man, is a man who she wants to comfort her? There’s an inevitable mistrust there, in many cases, whether it’s warranted or not. It doesn’t matter.

Sometimes, you need someone who knows what you went through to offer the helping hand. You don’t want to hug someone who might just be your next abuser.

So, do what you can boys, jump in where needed. And if you see any of those boys from Cornell (or their enablers in the police or the administration, feel free to let ’em know what’s what. Fucking garbage people, every last one of ’em.)

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1698 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Proof Of Conspiracy, Seth Abramson
Comics: Cloak And Dagger v5 3
Music: Healthy In Paranoid Times, Our Lady Peace

holy hell, a whole day

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Like, legit.

A whole day, no chores, no outings, nothing in particular that takes up any time except what I need to get done.

Editing, reading, relaxing.

Enjoying life, for once.

Silence is golden, and silence without need even better.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 2136 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufmann
Comics: Strange Tales 9-12
Music: Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Sonic Youth (no, it's not. I'd ban all guns, if it were up to me.  I see no need for them in a civilized world.)

epilogged

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Epilogued? What’s the best way to say that?

The return of complexity; we are preaching kindness as logic, and logic as kindness, but there are those still too lost to see past their own suffering.

Where does kindness stop? Is someone’s refusal to accept someone else’s kindness the line to draw? Or do we just hold back a moment to let them catch their breath and think it through?

Can cruelty be kindness? (Not actual cruelty, but hard truths, spoken softly, things people don’t want to hear, but needed to.)

Where do we draw the line? Where does compassion end?

For example, Donald Trump. In an absolute application of kindness, we’d show it to him as well, even though, at this point, it’s pretty clear he’s unredeemable. At this point, he just needs to be removed from office, and exorcised from society. Locked up, whatever. Out of power, along with all the other Republicans.

There’s still kindness in that, however. Maybe not for the Republicans, although we’re technically saving them from themselves.

But the greater kindness, to the rest of the world, the people being affected by their monstrosity.

The needs of the many, and all that.

Thanks, Spock, you’ve helped me prove my point – kindness is logic, logic, kindness.

We miss you, Mr. Nimoy, but thanks for what you left behind.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1463 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Jagannath, Karen Tidbeck (minus the body horror short stories, I rather enjoyed this.  Very accessible.  Nice.)
Comics: Invincible Universe: Battle Beast 12, Capes 10
Music: Ham Fisted, Local H (do these guys even have a bad album?  Same schtick, but it remains great.  Maybe their debut was a little weak.)

happy endings

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They’re kinda bullshit, aren’t they? I mean, all endings can be happy if they release the tension risen by the narrative, but still, complexity is better than 80s style TV wrap-ups.

I love it when a plan comes together, says Hannibal, chewing his cigar like cud. Yep, everything wrapped up nice, no real damage done. Lots of bullets fired and things blown up, cars flipping sideways over conveniently placed ramps, yet everyone walks away with nothing but a bump on the noggin and no concussion or post-injury brain bleeds or whatever.

Whatever.

People should end up scarred and broken. It gives them something to work on and overcome.

Like Scott Snyder wrote in American Vampire, scars on the skin aren’t bad things; they’re part of the story.

It’s a shame to filter them all away.

(Speaking of which, is that what’s behind this skincare craze, beyond corporate greed? People trying to make sure they have absolutely no blemishes, like an Instagram filter that scrapes away a person’s leathery skin, so when you see them and you think, yikes, what happened? Are you okay?)

Anyway, be proud of your aging skin. It got you where you are.

Nothing wrong with aging gracefully. Just me and Harrison Ford and Leonard Cohen. Looking like silver-haired gods.

(Them, not me. I’m but salt-and-pepper yet.)

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1597 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Jagannath, Karen Tidbeck
Comics: Invincible Universe: Battle Beast 10-11, Capes 8-9
Music: Hallowe'en, The Misfits