Still reeling from the election.  I was wrong again, of course.  But I was even wrong about the victor!  The bad guys won.  Even they were surprised!  Mind you, the good guys were hardly good.  Just less bad.  And even that judgment hinged on wishful thinking.  We’ll never really know.

I somehow need to rid myself of the poison and vitriol streaming through my system and I cannot.  Not yet.  This kind of thing eats at me like a cancer.  It is so wrong on so many levels.

One of those levels, of course, is that this blog is supposed to be about living-off-the-grid.  So, I am kinda wrong just to be writing about politics.  So, I’ll curb my tongue for awhile.  Again.  You know how it is for me.  I can only go so long without ranting but I’ll try to stuff the spleen back into the bag.  For a while, anyway.

Still, I have a bit of a tangent rant to share today.  Something  indirectly related but not specific to the election. Kinda philosophical.  Here it is: Capitalism and democracy are, in our current thinking, good things.  If not good, then better and more efficient than many other such systems.  Democracy for the voice it gives the people and Capitalism for the efficiency and supposed egalitarian nature of markets.  And I think to some extent there is some truth in those views.

But what about the combination of them?  And, even more important, is that all we need?

Prior to the ascendancy of Democratic Capitalism or Capitalist Democracy, we had morals, value systems and a number of things in life that were not commodified, not monetized, not boiled down to dollars and cents.  We would not engage in slavery, for instance, regardless of how much money could be made, because it was morally repugnant.  We had values.  We had ethics and we had things that money simply could not buy.

That has all changed.  Now we will sell and buy anything we can.  Human organs, political favours, degrees from universities, even wombs are for rent.  We have put a monetary value on virtually everything.  And in doing so, we have sidelined morals, values and the Golden Rule.  The result is rampant greed, corruption of institutions and focusing of governments on the almighty dollar.  We have become a society – an international society – of whores.

One could argue that it is not my business if someone rents out her body in  surrogate motherhood and, I suppose, it isn’t.  Nor, I suppose, is it my business if they are prostitutes.  And I suppose anyone can choose to take drugs or not.  Freedom of choice.  But those decisions, when combined, can lead to destructive lives, sick children and incredible social costs, not to mention sadness and tragedy.  In the past, we intervened in that person’s life on a moral basis.  And we had the morals to back us up.

Now we don’t.

Today, the governments of the world have abandoned morality as a factor in their deliberations.  Gambling is legal.  Prostitution is mostly legal.  Surrogate motherhood is legal.  Organ donor selling is legal (and where it isn’t, it is hidden by fake organ donations).  We sanction anything we want and we usually want.

None of this is enough for me to even write a blog.  Honest.  Ugly and sick is part of the human condition.  Old news.  But when Capitalism and Democracy co-mingle without morality present as a chaperone, trouble can and does ensue on a large scale. They create wars, for instance.  Next thing you know, that pair could screw up the planet.  And then, like social and cultural decay, we have environmental decay and then we all suffer.

Put more succinctly: it is yin and yang.  Again.  Capitalism and Democracy together sometimes merge the worst of both, it is not always for the best.

Sometimes the egalitarian, for-the-greater-good aspects of Democracy are eroded by the avarice of Capitalism and sometimes the efficiencies of the markets are turned into amoral monopolies by manipulation of so-called democratic systems.  The rich get richer and poor people don’t get elected.

I believe that is what is happening all over the world.  In all walks of life.  It is not just Microsoft/3M/Starbucks/Google becoming ubiquitous, it is their ‘way of doing things’.  Starbucks morality.  And Starbucks morality is profit oriented.  The Capitalist way.  The values of the local people are expunged if they want to work at Starbucks.  To be a citizen of Starbucks and work there, you drop the values you were raised with and you adopt the new corporate ones.  It’s better.  You get more money.  Starbucks gets more money and your Islamic grandparents are left scratching their heads.  So are the Catholic grandparents of your co-workers.  Their values are no longer their children’s values.  Money is the only guide.

And, of course, sometimes the Starbucks/Microsoft/corporate lawyer gets elected.  And governments start to think like Starbucks.  They consider selling naming rights to civic buildings, selling exclusivity rights to Coke in schools and selling ‘fast-lanes’ in government line-ups at the borders.

We sell out.

Is it any wonder that our governments are so inclined given that they are made up of so-called successful people who have mainly just drunk the kool-aid?  Is it any wonder that ‘bottom-line’ is more important than clean air or water?  Or profits take priority over nature?  Is it any wonder governments, that just a few decades ago would have been jailed, are now re-elected with their crimes and faults fully exposed?  All they have to do is chant, ‘Jobs!  Money!  Prosperity!’ and they will be re-elected despite evidence of corruption and evil.  They can even show disregard for the common good.  Why?  Because we have accepted that Jobs, Money and Prosperity are the most important things.  We don’t want jobs and prosperity for all.  We want it for ourselves.  Pass the kool-aid. 

Doing the right thing?  Fuggedabout it!  Wealth is the new false idol. And Democratic Capitalism is sold as the most efficient way to get it.

We don’t need no stinkin’ morality.  

The above title refers to the election we are enduring in our province that ends tomorrow night.  That is my prediction.  And I have never been right in an election call ever.  Hard to believe.  But I have a perfect record of being wrong.  So, take the title and content of this blog with salt and, if you are so inclined, a glass of scotch.

I also think Christy Clark (our current ditzy premier) will lose her seat. PLEASE!  If there is a God!

Reading and listening to the poli-speak for the last few months (and before, actually.  I have a weakness for this crap) I am inclined to believe that the numbers estimated don’t really mean much.  So what if they (the victors) win by 20 seats or two?  In our system of democracy (fatuous nonsense and lies) if you win by one seat, you rule like a tyrant.  So the actual amount of the majority is less important than simply having one.   And I think folks know that.

One’s vote is diluted or ‘stepped on’ in so many ways by our system.  Deep down that is likely the single greatest reason that people do not vote.

Well, that and the fact that each government seems to be like the last.  We are always voting in the clones or the clowns, it seems.

I also don’t think it matters a whit what they say when they are campaigning (they being politicians).  Politicians all lie.  But few electors realize that they  have to.  Well, they want to, as well.  They belong to a party and they all believe a party has to speak as one.  Ergo, the majority are not speaking their own truth, let alone the elector’s truth.  Fuggedabout the real truth.  So, they lie.  You know, to show a united front?

Most gangs and thugs operate like that.

Whatever the excuse – they lie!  From the get-go.  And then from then on in.

So, if their lying-all-the-time is a given, why vote for anyone?  (Doesn’t that just encourage the bastards?)  Answer: we do not know what else to do.

Neither do I.

So, I rant now and then.  Call me crazy.  I have kept it to a minimum this time.  Give me that!

Still, I would like to offer up a radical alternative to the current status quo.  Whoever gets in passes a law that makes political lying illegal punishable by removal from office.  ANY lie.  If you tell the reporter you had a burger for lunch when, in fact, you had a BLT?  GONE!  And I mean gone from the building.  Back home you go.  Tail between legs.  Never allowed back.  Ever.  Boy would that re-incent the media to ‘dig’ and do investigative journalism.

Yes, I know it would never work.  For one thing that would mean we would have vast empty government buildings a lot of the time, wouldn’t it?

It is hard to imagine my thoughts being right about this but they are definitely right for me.  I think that mankind is naturally inclined to be more nomadic than as fixed-in-place as they generally are.  I think people like to roam, change and wander.  Go sailing, trekking, rv-íng and touring.  Pick up camp. Shift to light speed.  I think people need to move.  It is natural.

And I think two week vacations are a poor and minimalist sop to that basic human requirement.

I think the Bedouin and the Tuaregs and the First Nations and the Polynesians are more indicative of a natural way of life than are members of strata-title condo villages, high-rise apartment-dwellers and crowded subdivisions.  I don’t even think traveling in buses, trains and airplanes counts as real travel.  Too crowded, too managed, the route too fixed.  Not even warp speed. 

Having said that, there have been people fixed in place for eons, from farmers to sheep herders, so I could be wrong.  But the current state of congested urban living just doesn’t feel right.  Not to me.  The idea of being able to hear my neighbours party, work, converse or flush their toilet is just appalling to me and more so now that I have the luxury of no longer having to.  I do not think I will ever live amongst the people (in any numbers, anyway) again.  Separation is not just a preference, it is now a necessity.

No, I do not hate people.  I would opine that we have a few too many but that is more an expression of my antipathy to cities – where the congestion is so visible.  Maybe if 7 billion people were evenly spread around reasonably livable parts of the planet, it would not seem so ‘populated and polluted’ and it would not seem like too many then.  Hell, I might even come to like some of them. 

I mention all this because I was motivated to move off-the-grid for a number of reasons and lack of enough ‘personal space’ was one of them.  Now I have enough space and I appreciate it.  It is good.  Very good.

It is as if a subtle burden has been lifted.  I didn’t really know I wanted more cat-swinging room til I got it.  I didn’t really know I needed such space until the always present mild claustrophobia of living in the city was lessened, if not eliminated. Crowded elevators and mass transit, classrooms and office blocks, department stores and traffic jams should have been a bit of a clue but I didn’t really get it til I got out of it.

It was a bit like growing up with some kind of physical handicap and then, by way of surgery or medicine, getting relief.  It was like someone finally undid the bench vice and I took my hand out. In football they call it ‘running for daylight’. The hockey player ‘breaks open’. Prisoners ‘break out’.  We got off the merry-go-round, out of the rat-race and off-the-grid.  All are similar ways of expressing some kind of freedom-seeking.

And I think that is natural.  Rare, nowadays, but still part of who we all are.

The internet is not really freeing.  Maybe a little bit.  But it is really part of the problem because it feels like a large part of the solution.  The internet promises a new kind of freedom and anything associated with the concept of freedom is being embraced.   I am saying people need freedom, not the internet.

The city is getting tighter, society is getting more controlling and rights and freedoms are being reduced.  But people can ‘break for virtual freedom’ cheaply and easily on their computers and so they do.  Some go virtual for many hours, even days at a time.  But virtual is not real and so that kind of escape will not prove satisfying in the end.  It will become yet another part of the grid and it will trap the player instead of free him.

“Dave!  Thinking that way would have to include being trapped by having to live on the planet.  You can’t define the jails for others.  They choose their path.  Lighten up!”

Of course you are right.  Almost anything can be restraining.  I know people who would willingly go back to their cells should the doors accidentally open and offer them freedom.  In their case constraint is security and comfort, not restriction.  And neither cities nor forests are exempt from that conundrum.  I know that.  But, still, it feels like there is inherently more choice, more freedom, less restraints, less constraints, fewer restrictions in the forest.  It really does.

Mind you, if I could, I would take a job on the Starship Enterprise and boldly go where no one has gone before.  Now that feels like even more freedom…………

Living off the grid has a romantic ring to it, don’t you think?  It implies adventure, challenge and an element of survival.  Right?

Well, part of that is definitely true.  There really is some of that.  But much of the time, like sailing or being a soldier, the bulk of your time is taken up with the tasks of everyday living.  Chores.  And everyday living tasks take longer than they would if in the city.  In other words: our life, fun as it is, is outdoors, simple and mostly just task-oriented.

We are basically engaged in survival but not because we are fighting for it, repulsing enemies or prevailing during hurricanes or tsunamis but simply because we have to work harder to do the simple things that make up the bare necessities of life (sung to a Disney tune).  And there is no one else to do it but us.  If civilization means anything in the aggregate, it primarily means easing up on the personal time and efforts required for the providing of the basics in life.

One of the contradictions I have marveled at out here is the universal desire to get back to basics and then everyone manifesting that desire by building systems to make the basics easier and easier.  In effect, we try to build the mod cons of the city in the forest.  Kinda weird.  But human, I guess.

I am certainly guilty of that.

But that is not my point – well, not directly anyway.  Here’s the point…….Sal’s motor needed some maintenance.  All motors do.  This one was slightly overdue.  Sal is capable and she scheduled it in for herself yesterday.  ‘Should take an hour or so.’  That chore was set amongst all her other chores.  She was doing the washing, cleaning some equipment, re-filling feeders, stocking some shelves, doing some paperwork and we were also going to put in an hour or so of wood-getting. Plus cooking dinner.

Not a big day for her but a busy one.   And I had my list (shorter, I admit)

The motor needed an oil change, a lower-leg lube, a zinc anode replacement and a few tiddly-up things that were optional.  Had we taken it in to a mechanic, we would likely look at $100-$150 for what is one hours work by someone set up for it and a few minor parts.  Very few.  But taking it in is a huge chore and no one ever does anything right away and, in the marine industry, no one ever does it right the first time, either.  So, we do it.

Back to basics.

Sal started at 10:30 am, just after starting the genset and putting on the washing. By 11:30, she was still at it and had returned from the dock for more and more tools.  Even tho I had been warned off helping her, I went down anyway.  Some things were on too tight for her to loosen.  Some things were a bit confusing.  So, we worked on the little outboard together.  And Sal went back to the house a few more times to swap washer loads, hang up laundry and get more tools.  As it turned out, we both struggled quite a bit on that little chore.  What should have been an easy task, took us the day.  This was partly due to reluctant bolts, newly revealed chores and the fact that we now had half the tools we owned down at the dock.  May as well do a few other things since the tools were present.

We returned home (1/8 of a mile away) in just enough time to feed the dogs.  It was 5:00 pm.

Sal was tired.  I was tired.  We had done one basic chore that a ‘shop’ could have done in an hour.  Plus she had done a few other little things like laundry and ‘tidy-ups’.  It had taken us 6 hours.

To a large extent, that is living off the grid.  Simple, basic, living chores take more time and more effort than they do in the city.  In fact, some of lifes basics in the city are invisibly provided.  They are delivered by the grid.  The romantic part of doing it our way is doing the chores while lying on your back on a dock in the sun while the sea laps at your feet and wildlife fly and swim by.  Your dogs sit nearby.  There is no pressure. The work takes longer but is much more pleasant in the doing.

The alternative?  I could have driven through heavy traffic from my cul-de-sac home to the mechanic, paid $150.00 and picked up the motor a week later.  (An exercise likely to be repeated within a month because it is the marine industry)  Total elapsed time for the urban process: optimally, three hours and $150.00.  Here in the wilds: on a difficult day, including a few extra chores, 6 hours and $10.00 in parts.

Apples and oranges.

Interesting times……….

He who says out loud first what everyone else is already thinking is dubbed brilliant (i.e. Malcolm Gladwell).  He who says out loud what is true but which no one has been thinking is a genius (Einstein).

I find that I often say out loud something that was already clearly debunked in the Vancouver Sun or even Reader’s Digest a few months back so my status as a thinker is pretty low on the register.  Still, I can’t help saying stuff out loud.  Often.  I think I operate on the theory that if you have no clue, say a lot of stuff out loud and hope some things may turn out to be right.  By luck.  Kind of a personal variation on Big Mouth mixing it up with the law of big numbers.

I didn’t say that the Canucks would implode early because he who says out loud what is too bloody obvious and everyone already knows it, is a doofus.  But I was tempted.

I could say that the NDP will likely form the next provincial government but I have never ever predicted an election right and I don’t want to curse them.  So, on that score, I have to keep quiet.  Mind you, I do want to curse the Liberals but in a more profane way.  Well, in every way.  So, I’ll keep that to myself also.

I will predict that this will be a hot summer.  ‘Cause, OHMYGAWD!  We had temps of 25C/80+F in the first few days of May already.  The prawn fishery will be bleak.  Real estate prices will go lower….still.  The NDP will screw up early and often.  Jimmy Pattison will hire Christy Clark (I have no idea what that is about but it is likely).  The Green party, regardless if they get any seats will have become a much more credible political force as a result of this election.  It is not because of Jane Sterk – it is because their platform is starting to make sense.  They are talking economy now and other important issues.  Whew!

I think Harper is done.  I hate the idea of a spoiled brat, no-nothing using his name to lead a political party but the Federal Liberals will regenerate from  choosing Justin Trudeau.  It is disgusting.  But it is true.  Ugh!  And the Fed NDP are staying the course and, tho not gaining in strength, they are not losing it.   Harper (cagey politician that he is) is still simply alienating people and doing bad stuff.  That has to have consequences.

The quiet revolution will continue apace.  Digitally.  And locally.  Life will change.  Things will change.  Work, food, homes….family structure and culture will change.  More radically.  Faster.  It has to.  The boomers are bowing out and Gen X and Y are way more adaptable to change and more comfortable with it.  That will show up more and more.

Plus the rest of the world is on the move.

Here’s a weird one: Animals are on the move, too.  You will start to see different animals in different places.  Yep!  You heard it here first (well, I read it in an old Reader’s Digest).  Just for instance: an Eastern Gannet has been living off California on the Farallon Islands for over a year.  They are a North Atlantic bird.  This the only one to have ever shown up there.  The first one, actually.  Animals are already moving off traditional routes in their adaption efforts from the urban coyotes and raccoons to the explosion of feral/domestic cats in the wild. Bees, amphibians, mosquitoes.  The whole bio-world is adapting to climate change.

While we still (in a few places) argue climate change, deer populations are exploding, salmon, caribou and polar bear populations are declining and anything that can move is.  I think we will be reading more about this….for what that is worth.

The Chinese Curse:  “May we all live in interesting times”.

Sal went to electoral procedure class yesterday in town so that she can ‘work’ the coming election.  I was busy buying hardware and second hand doors.  After shopping, I went to get her.  While I was waiting the women at the front desk were receiving the public and the public were voting.  Not revolting as usual but, in this case, voting.

“Is this some kind of advance poll?” I asked.

“Yes.  There are only two of these advanced voting stations in the province.  The other is in Port McNeil.  BC is the only province that has advanced-advance polls.  They are because so many men are going North and staying in camps, this gives them a chance to vote.” 

I noted that the people I had seen so far vote were all very elderly, hardly the types to go north to work in camps.  “Well, that’s because the senior’s centre is just around the corner and they like to have a little outing.”

“Am I allowed to vote, too?  I am a senior.  I like outings.”

“Of course, dear.  Show me the right ID and you can vote, too”.  Her voice had changed so as to accommodate my newly recognized senior senile status.  And she gave me a fake smile as a bonus.

The reason I chose to vote early is because Sal is going to be an electoral officer and, in anticipation of that I had asked her, “When you are behind the desk and I show up, surely you are not going to ask for my ID.  You’ll just give me the ballot, right?”

“No way.  You have to show me the proper ID or you don’t get to vote!”

“But, but, but Sal!!  We’ve been together for forty four years.  You know me.  You do not have to see my ID.  You know who I am!  What the hell!?”

“Sorry.  Rules are rules.  No ID, no ballot.  Don’t try to cause trouble, now.”  

“OK.  That’s it!  That is now the craziest thing you have ever said and, believe me, there are a lot of them from which to choose.  But this takes the cake!  Imagine demanding ID from your own husband!  I am going to show up without ID.  I promise.  And then you’ll see trouble!”

After that conversation, Sal had sneaked my ID into her purse so that she could pull it out on the 14th when I showed up without any.  She was going to provide me with ID whether I wanted it or not.

I share this with you all because I love Sal and we are pretty close.  But she is as mad a hatter and you have to know that.  You know, in case I snap one day?  I may need character references.  GOOD character references.  I have plenty of the other kind already.

But I knew that she had secreted my ID away.  I knew she was going to go all bureaucratic on me when I showed up without ID.  She was prepared for me and my idiosyncratic ways.  I knew that I was gonna get processed properly.  And it rankled me.  GAWD!  Being married for almost half a century should count for something, don’t you think?  Shouldn’t I get a pass on the ID check?  From my own wife!?

So, when the chance came to by-pass that little fiasco-in-the-making, I took it.  I voted in the advance-advance poll while she was learning how to vet out potential impostors such as me.

Yes, I know that I had to show the smiling woman at the desk my ID.  Don’t bug me!

And you thought our relationship was simple.

My neighbour came by yesterday to check on our ‘studio’ progress.  Finally, we have the foundation completed and are just awaiting the energy to go get 30 sheets of plywood.  It is not a chore I am looking forward to.

He just stared at the joists and the posts and the squareness and level of it all. After a long and appreciative pause, he said, “Geez, Dave, you are starting to do work like Roger!”

It was a compliment.

Roger is a mutual friend who does everything perfectly and then does it again with reinforcement so it is done even more perfectly – just to make sure.  Roger is a perfectionist.  If 1/4 inch steel and one bolt is enough, Roger employs 1/2 inch steel and four bolts.  And then he worries that it will be strong enough.  He built his dock so strongly, I was compelled to say, “Geez, Roger, The Spanish Armada wasn’t built that strong.  Only an American Aircraft carrier is built stronger.  Sheesh!”

I immediately regretted my statement.  Roger started to worry about an aircraft carrier tying up to his dock.  It might not be strong enough.

To have my work compared to Roger’s is both a tribute and a worry.  Am I getting obsessive?  Was that extra bolt and steel plate overkill? 

And therein lies the problem with getting better at building…………..when in doubt about something we say, “Hmmmm…….what would Roger do?”

Some people say, “What would Jesus do?”  Not us.  (Jesus would hire a contractor.)  We ask what would Roger do if the matter had anything to do with strength and durability.  If it is a question of skill and finesse, we ask, “What would Gary do?”  And, if the problem is unusual and needs a creative and outside-the-box-type solution, we ask, “What would Doug do?”

These three guys are our models, our shining examples, our quasi-mentors.  They are not our real mentors because they don’t mess with our little projects.  They are too busy with their own to notice us toiling in their shadows admiring them like groupies.

We try to keep a distance which, by the way, we prefer.  The other day Doug was going by and seeing us at work, he turned his boat and headed in to visit us.  “Oh, God!  Oh, God! Sal!!  Doug is coming!!!”

Sal didn’t hesitate.  She placed a piece of ply over a sloppy bit.  I quickly put a board in place to cover another.  We looked around and, together, freaked!  “Ohmygawd.  He’ll say it will fall down.  He’ll say we didn’t do something we should have.  Oh God!”  We trembled in anticipation of his scrutiny.

Doug looked everything over like he was the president of the company and we were temporary interns with more than a few developmental challenges.  “Well, he said, ya don’t need those braces, ya know….the ply will tie it all together.  they were unnecessary.” We hung our heads.  Ashamed at the profligate bracing.  Sheer gilding.  He was on the verge of offering up more observations but, over the years, has come to accept that we are hopeless and so just wrapped up everything with, “Well, it only has to last twenty or so years, right?  Not like this is Europe, eh?  Now they make things to last!  This should do ya, I think.  We can only hope, eh?”

Sal and I breathed a sigh of relief.  This was high praise indeed. For him. We beamed at his over-the-top compliment.

But Doug, my neighbour, Roger, Gary.  They can’t help it.  Neither can we.  The thing (healthy) people don’t really understand is that, once you have turned your hand to building, you can’t go anywhere without looking at the standard of construction.  We visit people and, instead of seeing a nice tapestry or piece of art, we look to see if the corners of the room are square.  We drag our feet to feel the floor surface.  We check out the construction.  And Sal is just as bad as I am.  “I saw you looking at that corner.”

“Yeah, I know.  I can’t help it.  It was off a bit, ya know?  I could see that the line was out.  They fudged it to get it to come together.”

“I know.  Saw it the second I walked in.  Roger would have fainted.  Doug would have snorted in derision and I think Gary would have gone to his truck and gotten his tools.  He would have torn it out and fixed it!”

“Good idea!  Should we………..?”

Sal goes postal today.  But the weather is good and I have plenty to do by myself.  And it is a beautiful day.

But not for working hard.  Not today.  For the most part, we try to work together whenever there is some kind of potential danger such as when falling trees or even working with heavy and awkward stuff.  It’s safer.  Sal keeps the first aid kit close by.  Without Sal nearby with the bandages, I stick to the lesser challenges these days.

Plenty of guys work alone falling or blasting or building or fishing or whatever and I respect that.  But I am simply not experienced enough in that kind of work or even confident enough in my own abilities to push it anymore.

Well, better put: I am experienced enough at pushing it and I have plenty of scars reminding me not to do so anymore.

Today will be filled with the small, leave-it-to-when-Sal-isn’t-here list of chores.  I started with the dishes.  Maybe change the oil in the genset.  Then I may go add some trim to something.  You know, basically just putz?

I mention this because these are the best days of all.  Well, the very best days of all are when Sal is here and we are both just putzing at things together.  Even if we are working on separate things, it is all good.  But second best is when I am just putzing around on small, easy things that are unlikely to inflict bodily harm. I sometimes even do something artsy.  And I sit a lot, looking out at the sea.  Watching stuff.  So much easier on the back.  And there is no blood loss to speak of.  Usually.

Mind you, I have been in shorts for the last few weeks and the ‘shorts’ season is also the season of blood.  One tends to forget that old skin tears more easily and the nerve endings have also been somewhat dulled with age.  Typically, at the end of the day, I walk back home from some chore with blood-covered legs and red streaks on all my clothes.  Colourful, to say the least.  But it is only surface scrapes.  Doesn’t mean anything.  Sal used to shriek but now she is used to it.  The first aid kit is not wasted on small cuts and scrapes.

No, today is just a good day to be.  And so I am off and being.  See ya.

I have a tendency to trip down the philosophical path now and again.  It is not good philosophy – it is just my philosophy and I make a lot of it up as I go.  It is just questioning, really.  Fertile imagination mixed with a little paranoia and even less education makes for thoughts, opinions, ideas and not just a few whacked out theories.  I thought I might float one by you………

WHY I THINK OF REVOLUTION……

We have our ways of doing things.  We all have.  And those ways, when managed cooperatively, become organized into teams, clubs, societies, companies, countries, religions and the like.  And, of course after a time, they become established, confirmed, recognized and institutionalized.

And some progress is made.

When something becomes institutionalized, it becomes an entity in itself and harder to change.  And the longer the institution prevails, the stronger it becomes and the harder it is to change it.  Few institutions have a real renewal gene built in.  They are built to survive, not change.   And this can be a good thing when you are seeking standardization, efficiency and control of the progress you are making.

And who doesn’t love standardization, efficiency, control and progress?

(Unless you are the one being standardized and controlled)

The building block of these organizations is, of course, individuals.  And individuals are all different.  Not only are they different but they respond to environmental change much faster than does the institution.  It doesn’t take long for the individuals to become out of sync with the institution they work for and or believe in.  In year one when say, 85% of the people involved felt much the same way, only 30% of the people might feel that way 25 years later.

But institutions are built to survive.  And so are people.  So the institution bribes them to stay the course.  We all get paid or promoted or tenured or pensioned or whatever it takes to re-instill some commitment to the institution.  NOT the goals of the institution but the institution itself.

And therein lies part of the problem.  The individual eventually no longer believes in the survival of the institution if the institution has forgotten or diminished it’s ideals or goals. Instead the employees put their faith in the money they are given so that they can survive.  In other words: they sell out.

Typically, an institution starts with a visionary.  These people are dedicated, driven, focused and usually morally and ethically (for their times) girded for the battles they encounter achieving success for their dream.  George Washington, Martin Luther King, the Beatles.  And, God bless ’em for those innovations.

But the idealists eventually need help and they hire people and then the originators, initiators, founders and dreamers die and so the remaining people stay the course not out of faith but because they are paid.  This new generation of institution-keepers stay the course because of money and for the sake of their own survival rather than the higher aims of the original founders.

There is another inherent weakness built into the institutional construct.  Life, circumstances, fashions, conditions and times will change.  And eventually some people won’t want to be standardized anymore regardless of the money (or, perhaps, they were left out in the first place or outsourced and downsized afterwards).  If they can’t thrive and survive any longer, the people will give up on the istitution altogether.

So far, our idealism in the western way of life has been eroded considerably  but money is still flowing and is still king.  People are surviving even if they are not thriving.  But it is also true, right now, that a lot of our people are barely surviving and almost all are not thriving in the least. Hell, even a suburban cul-de-sac dweller doesn’t feel as if he/she is thriving.  ‘Live to work or work to live?’  The system has left the poor in the dust and is now leaving the middle class bogged down in the mud.  That is now the plight of the majority of the people.

I think.

When neither idealism, survival or thriving is possible, the institutions lose their followers.  I think we see that happening now.  And then, inevitably, the people will really want to affect change.  They will rebel.  They want a revolution.  They need a revolution.

These people are problems for the too-big-to-fail institutions and so the institutions have rules and laws and police and other means of controlling those who are contrary.  Homeland Security?  Really!?  Keeping us secure from whom?

At this point, it is just a numbers and scheduling game.  Are the majority still thriving and surviving?  Or not?

And I think we are close to declaring it:  NOT!

Mostly the institutions aren’t stupid.  They know that a bit of change will salve the savage breast.  At least long enough to maintain the status quo for those still doing well.  So they have annual general meetings to appoint new directors or they have institutionalized and managed minor change mechanisms to give the appearance of change.  CEOs and board members come and go.  We have elections.  Popes change.  New Stanley Cup champions emerge.  The system  definitely knows how to make the appearance of change.

And yet the institutions (when looked at in the larger view they form the ‘system’) remains the same.  Such is the staying power of institutions and the system.

How is this inertia possible?  How can these Frankensteins continue?

The answer is simple: carrots, sticks and drugs.  OK, maybe a little rock and roll, too.   

The carrot is the dream of ‘making it’ and ‘being rich and successful’. That rarely, if ever, happens.  Money cannot buy happiness and, when it does a good simulation, you still need health and friends and a healthy planet.  The carrot is enough to keep some people in line but it is really not enough and they eventually come to realize that.  The stick, on the other hand, will keep most people in line a lot longer.  Police, laws, fines, lawsuits, Homeland Security and other means of intimidation work.  For awhile, anyway.  Right now the government has stopped holding out the carrot but have begun to emphasize the stick.

But neither is as effective as the drugs.  The drugs will work forever.  Media, entertainment, drugs, booze, TV, whatever takes your mind away from the reality of the situation – that is the most effective way to control the people.  The more time we spend ‘entertained’, the less likely it is that we will revolt.  It is that simple.

The game changer may be the social media.  It is currently quite apart from the system.  Twitter is becoming the voice of the people.  And it has already been employed in revolution.  See Arab Spring.

The carrot is rotten.  The stick can’t control the social media.  Not yet, anyway.  But the drugs persist.

I wonder how it will all play out.

Aaaaah.………my daily soapbox………….“So, what’s happenin’, Dave?”

Nothin’ much.  Ran out of wood.  Going to get some more today.  May have also managed to purchase some doors for the studio on Craigslist.  Can’t pick ’em up til next week, tho.  So, I started in on the winter wood-getting in the meantime.  Things are rolling along.  It’s all good.

But I am trying for deeper thoughts and well, coming up a bit short…………

Is there a deep thought about the BC election?  I don’t think so.  The incumbent is an airhead, a disingenuous, self-centred imbecile who talks and acts like Sarah Palin without the sex appeal.  Our slated-to-win guy is a wishy-washy doormat who only has to remain silent to win and he can’t seem to do that.  Our only real leadership-charisma-type contender is as old as Methuselah and attracts neo-Nazis and pervs to his camp.  And my personal favourite can’t seem to punch her weight class.  Sort of the Tinkerbelle of politicians.

I don’t see a worthy out there.

Where is a good Hun when you need one, eh?

I am intrigued by the social media phenomena, tho.  Seems only 2 billion of us are currently connected.  Basically, the first world.  The remaining 5 billion are slowly coming on stream and then the world will be able to be person-to-person connected.  Experts predict a major sea change in the world at a certain point.  Institutions, governments, economies will change even more so than they have already.  We are still in the first decade of the new Digital Age.

The revolution, it seems, is happening after all.  Just didn’t see it happening this way.  Ones and zeros!  Ooohh…..wheeee!

Or is it?  With this kind of world-changing technology comes revolution to be sure, but it also seems to bring homogenization.  We may become closer but also more the same.  Are we revolting against our cultures and institutions just to embrace a new social construct of sameness?  And a great dumbing down?  Will we replace what passes for different national cultures for the universality of celebrity and the flash-moment or ADHD of thinking?

Kinda looks that way, don’t you think?

I am also feeling like another shoe is about to drop.  I can’t explain it…..not really………..just feels like another big WORLD SCALE shock is about to happen………….call me paranoid.  I had an inkling about the crash of 2008.  That one was not so much predictable in it’s precise timing as simply inevitable.  It was obvious, really.  You could see the economy getting out of whack from about 2003/4 on.  At least I thought I could.

But this next one is much more intuitive……..can’t place it…………can’t describe………just a feeling………….ya know?

Well, there have been four or more years of quantitative easing that has not yet manifested (officially) as inflation and that doesn’t make sense.  And then there was the huge drop in Gold right out of the blue……………that doesn’t make much sense unless……there are countries on the brink and they have reserves they may dump but……………….that would be trackable.  And it wasn’t.

And then there are countries who seem to have an investment in freedom and liberal social structures going all jack-boot on us like Harper and the US, Britain and France.  Cut social programs and clamp down on freedoms seems to be the rage.  Free societies are getting less free.  That seems to be a popular but weird turn of events.

I guess what I am saying is that weird change is in the air and I feel it.  But I don’t know where to look for more details.

Could it be that the two or three seemingly unrelated concepts described above are truly, deeply connected?  The accelerating ‘connectivity’ of the masses and the increasing clamping down of the governments led by increasingly incompetent so-called leaders that we don’t respect any more?  Is this the invisible pressure I feel?

Or is it just the running out of wood when I did?  I do have a tendency of taking small personal experiences and trying to extrapolate universal lessons from them.  It’s a bit whacked.