Author: Matt

Author, Registered Psychotherapist. Former circus animal.
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Happy New Year (he says)

I tried making a list of notable things about 2008, but it just felt like a Grade 8 writing assignment (you know, the sort that teachers give out so that they can finish their homework while the students are placated). In short, it’s not me nor is it my style to dwell (publicly at least) on events which transpired over an arbitrary period of time. When you do this, you sort of miss the greater (dare I use the word “holistic”) scheme of things.

Beauty and Tragedy happen on their own schedule; they do not pay attention to calenders. A handful of countries are currently pummelling the shit out of each other – fa la-la-la-laaa, la la la laaa – without regard for newspaper editors’ deadlines for concise and snappy end-of-the-year roundups. It continues into 2009, as do you and I.

Uncertainty is a necessary cloud upon us; we choose to see it, but often – as we get caught up in living our lives – we are oblivious to it. We try to contain our lives and achievements in temporal measuring cups because…well, time matters to us. Days matter, as do months. And so, being the end of another year, we feel we have earned a spot of detached reflection.

“So there!” we say to life during this artificial pause.

Life does not respond, and we are reminded that, when we reflect we reflect alone. Given more reflection (and ideally some solace, perhaps with a jazz radio station playing in the background and some dark roasted coffee), we realize the awesome power of reflection.

Use it well. And may the new year (and all of the ones to come) be enlightening and fulfilling for you and those dear to you.

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quote

“If you’re looking for a deeper meaning, I’m as deep as this high ceiling”

– Lou Reed, Images
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Merry Christmas

I have not been posting as much as normal for various reasons. However, I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone (Christian, agnostic, indifferent, Orthodox) a Merry Christmas.

This blog does not power itself. It is motivated by the fact that you, dear reader, by your interest, provide sustenance and motivation. I thank all of you for your visits, your comments, and feedback.

Take care of yourselves. Be nice to those close to you – even strangers. Keep your pencils (and your minds) sharp, and your hearts open (if only just a little).

– Matt

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Turn Off The "Lite"

I was scoping around the various newspaper sites, as I do every morning, and found myself staring at the following headline at the top of the Toronto Star: “Frost/Nixon Up For 5 Golden Globes”.

Generally speaking, I have nothing against “entertainment news”, conceptually anyway. Most will agree: we can’t always be bombarded by the depressing day-to-day reality of just how potentially stupid we are as a species of animal. Sometimes we need our Robert Mugabe cut with a little Brad Pitt to make it go down easier.

I will accept that, as a species, we can’t eat our broccoli without the promise of something else more appetizing, like dessert.

Perhaps it was the fact that the Golden Globe awards are a second-rate contest, occasionally with fixed odds; a calliope’d portent of what the Oscars will be in a year or so (at the rate they are going). Perhaps it’s my bewilderment that a Canadian newspaper is putting it at the top of its site at a time when our Parliament has been prorogued by the government to protect its divisive reign, at a time when smart people have stopped investigating how and why the Vesuvian economic crisis in the U.S. happened, at a time when several African countries – not least of which Zimbabwe – are undergoing crises which the world will undoubtedly pay for down the road.

I admit, I am jaded by the media. I sometimes wonder what would happen if we were somehow able to harness the energy otherwise spent on detailing the brunch menus of Hollywood stars, to put it to use in better investigative reporting (or more investigative reporting, which would be nice…you know, fifth estate and all that).

There is a time for “lite” news. Some of what some people consider to be “lite” is actually – in small doses – tranquilizing in a nice way (cats that use toilets, public school spelling bee competitions, the ubiquitous athlete crossing the globe to raise money for x, etc…). I’m not, after all, nailing a manifesto to someone’s door. I’m questioning the proportionate worth of “lite” in a capricious world which, for now, is not “lite” at all (unless you’re a Buddhist, in which case everything is Nothing – please find another blog to read).

Rather than constantly anaesthetizing ourselves with the likes of the Golden Globe nominations (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” hasn’t even been released yet!), I wish our media could put the likes of “lite” into a corner rather than, as if under hypnosis, regurgitating the same soulless AP and Reuters items without care or discernment of the type of world we wish to portray.

Happy Thursday.

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Goodbye Oxymoron

To write “an interesting time in Canadian politics” would probably lead most to wonder if they had missed the beginning of a joke. That said, the oxymoron was turned on its head quite unexpectedly over the last few days.

Context: we had our federal election in October, shortly before the one in the U.S.; at the time, our minority government – lead by Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada (right-of-centre) – was challenged by the Liberal Party (centrist) and the three other federal parties: the NDP (left-of-centre), the Bloc Quebecois (Quebec separatist), and the Green Party (this party is too young within Canada to accurately say where they stand on the scale). In short, Harper won (or resumed) another minority government. At a cost of $300 million to the taxpayer at the dawn of an economic recession.

So, last Thursday (just after my moody, dark piece of a few posts ago) the Conservative finance minister announced, in a financial update to the country, three things:

  • they would not offer an stimulus package for sake of the sagging economy until the next budget (in Spring 2009)
  • they would temporarily withhold the right-to-strike for federal public servants
  • they would eliminate the public funding of political parties (ie. their opponents)

In other words, it was perhaps the stupidest, most cynical thing I’ve seen since the days of Mike Harris (Ontario’s former premier, and one of the most divisive, contemptuous politicians to grace the country). Sure, there is no immediate proof to show that the stimulus packages being made in nearly all the G8 countries will have a desired affect. However, in the midst of the nation-wide financial crisis, to basically offer nothing…combined with a thinly-veilled attempt to bankrupt the federal opposition parties. You could hear a mass “wtf” across the country. Hell, even the National Post dedicated a front-page column criticizing the move.

So what happened? Well, the Liberal Party decided to talk to the NDP. The NDP and the Liberals decided to talk to the Bloc. They have decided to form a coalition party which, if ratified by the Governor General (long story), would – without an election – give them a majority of seats in Parliament, and thus change the face of government in a (nearly) historically unprecedented move.

Canadians, politically apathetic as of late – with good reason, I must add – have been glued to their television sets and news sites since this weekend as if they were watching the Stanley Cup finals. It’s potentially an historic moment for the country.

It’s now a question of whether Harper will prorogue parliament – in other words dismiss it in order to avoid a confidence vote in Parliament – or ask the Governor General instead for a new election (and another $300 million). In other words, we could either have a new government in less than two weeks or a new election. Either way, it’s a hammer blow to a self-described “new” government filled with Machiavellian technocrats – and it was their own arrogance which has brought this on.

Amazing…and from a karmic perspective, delicious.

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