Artistic Footprint

As far as climate change goes, there seems to be a trend of ideas that don’t seem to jive with a process of understanding that is truly necessary to find solutions.

First of all, it’s important to know, that the solution to climate change is already fully available, it simply needs to be implemented

When the size of our planet is grasped, and even accounted into its potential, Earth is simply a closed system. Nothing comes in or goes out of significance. What we have to work with is all we’ve ever had and ever will.

It’s also important to be aware of the chemistry and physics of change. The expenditure of energy will likely result in heat or the storage of it’s potential energy. There is no quick solution like inventing a product that makes cold.

In select cases, it’s very possibly to get more by using less, which, if implemented as a systemic change, can create a dramatic solution. Simple technological advancements, powered by the capitalist demand for sustainability can alter our impact without compromising the comforts we have evolved to become accustomed to.

What is key is knowledge. We must be exposed to the realities of Earth’s fragility on a daily basis and passionately believe we are responsible for its conservation. We must appreciate, on a cellular level, how we are at the mercy of its will.

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Even a humble witness of the world can say that good is stark. From the beginning of conscious memory we are indoctrinated to believe that all is good and that if evil prevails, our innocence at stake. It’s easy to concentrate on either side, but what does the world look like if it were placed on a spectrum of good and bad? Where would we sit? would the trends shift over variables like gender? nation? wealth? species? Who is the best of us all, and who is the worst? how do we set that standard? Who is responsible for altruism, and who for evil?

The childhood innocence is a false vile toxin. To grow up with the expectations of prosperity and unlimited resource, only to realise one day that it has costs – makes one feel undefined by the standards of true human nature. How do you break it to a child that nuclear weapons exist? How that the environment is exploited? or that people are tortured? Do you break it all at once over the dinner table? or do you slowly let him realise it on his own?

But how do we gauge the bad against altruistic progress? Is the world getting better? Are we advancing towards bliss?

Unfortunately we have all been force-fed the concept of super-sized all-inclusive bliss, and while we were enjoying the ample supply of life-multiplying resources, nobody stopped to wonder where it all came from. How were we able to leave the quest for food water and shelter, only to enter the rat-race of taxes, vanity,groceries, and dividends?

The advancement of privatized investigation, the growth of information technology, and people seeking truth, has brought the truth of human existence out of news-networked fear gimicks to our doorsteps to help us understand those costs. Over the past few years those of us willing have been bombarded with the truth – where our comforts, wealth, health, and happiness comes from – and at who’s expense.

A part of me forces myself to sit through gruesome, horrifying documentaries. Perhaps because I was born into the grouping of humanity, and I feel responsible for the actions of this species as a member. Perhaps because of my addiction to truth and my hatred for ignorance. I quickly felt my vision of a perfect world diminish in my dreams. The eden of good was never worth the cost of atrocity. I want to fight for the vision that was falsely placed in my dreams.

But I cannot live in fear of doom and hatred. I need to have a cause in my fight. So I listen and I watch, and I feel for all that is good to me. I understand where my happiness comes from and I seek it with whole-hearted appreciation. From the filling of my lungs and stomach to the beauty captured by my eyes and the excitement of life, I seek preservation of this overall sensation. I seek homeostasis, harmony, and sustainability. Eden can grow from there.

More than anything, I have begun to understand that the definition of humanity is wavering at best, dynamic in optimism, but likely more questionable and critical. If you are like me, and you seek truth through this new and overwhelming form of revealing information, you may find yourself scared into action, but helpless in your situation/ Remember this, because this is what helps me sleep at night:

1. You are not alone

2. Seek like-minded individuals

3. Relate your mindset with your environment

4. Make your beliefs part of yourself

5. Stand up for your beliefs

6. Take action at every opportunity

7. Expose the truth

8. Remember what you’re fighting for, sometimes which is worth dying for because to you, the cause is greater than yourself.

9. Seek new ways to overcome obstacles, and share them with the world.

We are at a turning point in humanity. We have reached our lowest point without even knowing it. You may say it’s not your fault that you were born into the world this way, but those same events are what made the world an acceptable place for you to be born into. It doesn’t mean volunteering for a food bank, or travelling to the far corners of the globe to save a whale – these are either for the die-hards or the miss-americas. Your debt for the right to live is to fulfill the definition of how you call yourself human. Thats as simple as believing in the air that you breathe, the food that you eat, and the laughter you share. This is your opportunity to fill your life with all these amazing things that make you you.

Time is an invention. Time is nothing more than the amount of things that can happen before another bigger thing happens. A year is divided into days and hours just it is divided by the number of earth rotations, and the Earth is divided into sections. A comparison for a comparison. Like we compare the distance to a star based on time, we compare the length of our lives on that same system. Imagine finding a person who had never thought of time. How old would they be? We would gauge their age by the grey in their hair or the wrinkles in their smile. Some people live for 20 years, others for 100, but each life is simply made quantifiable based on a comparison of other events. How can we break the math, and suggest that the 20 year-old lived longer? The difference is the immeasurable variable of quality. And to understand this, it must be made relative. The same relativity of time can be used to qualify knowledge, happiness, space, and eventually, if left to expand, the concept of evolution and a starting point to existence. This would be the first concept to tie human minds together beyond the realms of information technology, to foretell the future using trends, and maybe to explain the uncertainty of supernatural perfectness.

Quality inherently is not just a better-made product. Quality is a word that can explain something without using numbers. Quality is relative to one person’s experience, and further relative to another’s. Quality has limitations, from nonexistent to perfect. But using situational trends, one could predict what perfect would look like, relative to our species.

Broken down, humans are special in one specific way: our minds are more powerful than our bodies. The body is just a portal with which the mind manipulates its environment, information is received through sensation, then reacted to through muscles and dexterity. We enhance our bodies through invention and the ingenuity of our minds. If the body was the definition of human, then we are superhuman because of what our brains want to do. Our perspective moves beyond the limitations of our bodies through the use of lenses. We can communicate through time using the stored language of folklore and scripture. So our minds are relative. It is only fair to provide a relative world to live in.

The number 3 does not exist, but 3 kilometers does. Why? Because distance is relative to a comparable distance we are familiar with. And we use that relativity to satisfy our mind’s curiosity of space. Because it is a cure, or even a survival tactic, to keep away from danger, or to know how close safety is. “Away” being a safe distance behind the car infront of you. “close” being walking distance to a store for life-sustaining nutrients. Kids get lost in grocery stores, and think their world is over. Their minds evolve beyond the sliding doors and into the space of travel, beyond the limitations of their feet, beyond all that is familiar, and can still feel at home. Therefore, space is relative.

With this understanding, definite answers now turn into spectrums of possibility. Impossibility can be achieved, because so far, the human mind is limitless. We have already overcome so many obstacles that our bodies couldn’t. The most amazing thing, I find, is that our complexity has ancestry of such simple things, yet we can still be born and trained to understand the changes from then till now, and still grow and expand our minds. We are Relative.

http://www.unisci.com/stories/20011/0227013.htm

Nowadays, people are migrating from formalized education and are now at least gaining insight on their tangible worlds through new means. They are gathering at their computer screens, magic 8 balls, and tabloid magazines to get answers for all these “how comes” that before the digital revolution, could only be answered by with a library card, and well – when was the library ever cool?

Oddly enough, it seems that no one has thought to figure out what these people want to know, and it seems as though the best place to find out is the google autosearch function. This is the same method used to create individually markettable targets in retail, but I think it’s far more entertaining just to see what’s concerning people. Interesting questions that I think show people reaching out to relate themselves to a standard or norm. Some of these google queries might strike you as shockingly introverted, ignorant, or fearful, but others might pose the realities of how the average citizen sees their world.

Keep in mind that google has created these auto completes based on the lower mainland area.

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Either you love what you do, or you make enough money to do what you love. The latter are sold on the sloppy seconds of the realities of those who live how they want. The product being the escape from their chosen reality instead of the life they naturally gravitated to. Those who book time off work to enjoy their weekends are the statistical income of those that barely survive on their daily transaction. I’m speaking of course about mountain life. The tireless backstage hands of these mountains that are built by, operated by, and maintained by, but never prepared for, the people that breathe its existence. I’ve come to realise that there are some things that you cannot choose in life, passing events that seemed inevitable from the start. I gauge my life by the moments that seer the flavour of “I can’t believe I’m here right now” into the deepest parts of my memory. The feel of being on the edge of nature versus man is what fuels that fire, where you’re at its whim or you’re haunted by its power, you can either exploit it or have your mistakes glaringly unveiled, but there is no room for pride, only appreciation of that boundary. And at the end of the day, the heartrate drops and the beers are cracked to the sound of folk music as I write the day’s resolution as a mountain employee.

The life of a ski bum. Foamies, kraft dinners, wild cats, hostels, and hitchhiking aside, I’ve never felt at a loss when I’ve finally reached the summit of my destination. Consider that lifestyle and relate it to the industry as a whole; nobody gets into starting a resort with the idea of making money. Even the evil conglomerates of intrawest are on the verge of bankruptcy since birth. Not to mention half of their staff is there for the free pass and feels no guilt calling in sick after a dump. As a survival tactic, all mountains have incorporated the concept of invoicing every step you take from gas to parking to lodging, beer, food, lessons etc. Us bums have watched this happen and learned to skirt our way through the fine print with covert thrift.

But unfortunately we keep knocking shoulders with the overwhelming crowd of weekend warriors. I remember glimpsing the freedom that all mountains brought – the rustic vibe of rotting mouldy improvised shacks, local riders who knew the secret trails by referral only, and the shops that hooked you up with sweet deals. All replaced with shiny new highspeeds, uniformed tacky jackets and standard operating procedures. The Wal-mart effect of bringing more people to the industry, albeit people only more disassociated with the mountains, forcing the die-hard cabin-sleepers to fight over the scraps of the rich tourists. My soul needed to be free of this silent assimilation, and I started to understand the true costs of fresh lines.

So I migrated from the corporate skiworld, the highspeeds, apres-skis and lattes. I found myself patrolling on privately owned Mount Seymour, with its 12 minute chairs powered by 50 year old electric motors maintained by some sleepless gnarly staff. Once used to the ricketty 2 seaters, I quickly realised that those chairlifts don’t get you to the start of your run, they get you close to the best runs of your life. Because they drop you off at the trailhead to freedom, where you strap on the snowshoes or slap on the skins and seek out a line that you can name your own. Where every gasping sweaty breath you suck in makes every second of downhill feel that much more worthy of your exasperation, and every sip of beer at the end of the day taste that much more real. In a world where time is the most precious resource, the fixed-chair makes the earth spin slower.

Mount Seymour is a special place. Its rarity comes from a fire inside that sparks ideas through necessity and improvisation. Seymour’s history runs deep, riddled with old trail cabins that mark it’s past. It was one of the first places to permit snowboarding on its hills and has since led to the development and creationism from pro riders like Roberta Rodgers, Devun Walsh, Sean Genovese and Kevin Sansalone. Now it boasts a park that rivals that of Snow Park, yet remains quietly unheard of. Amongst the goings-on of mountain ops one can immediately see the loyalty that some have for this mountain. Not just the forever staff like Alex and Bob who are never shy to chat about the way things used to be, but still those seymour locals on a quiet day pop out of the trees for another ride up. These people complacently and without hesitation hide in solitude at the foot of a mountain, never seeking fame or fortune, but the harmlessly conceded satisfaction of daily runs between jobs as a barmaid or skitech or 40 year old paperboy. This is the quiet army of people the magazines write about but rarely ever find. They are your mountain locals, and they’re the ones who are probably still drunk and disorderly on the chair above you or interrupting your business call with the inviting phrase of a rambling “Hey dude welcome to Bakerrrrr….” or “wanna hit of somea this dude?” But they’re well connected, exemplified by the “get-some’s” to the nicknames of those dropping cliffs below. They are friendly enough to stammer through an awkward ascent and stoked to just not be hung over that morning. Consider these folks as the near-extinct and magesticly duct-taped wild animals. They will reward your patronage with secrets of the true hidden stashes so that you can experience the real mountain life – even for a day.

These hills are like the drive-in theatres of yesteryear; a dying breed of history that should never be lost. A place where we can associate our toes and fingers with the realities of appreciating their existence by the snapping in of bindings or the grasp of a skipole through cold fingers, and the pitter-pattering of feet as we leer over the edge of a sudden drop into a cloud of fresh. We did not choose snow, snow chose us. Sounds rather deistic, but thats the only way I know how to explain it. That white fluffy stuff that falls from the sky under immaculate conditions is what keeps me glued to the forecasts, radars, and general 6th sense of unstimulated giddiness. And upon the light of first chair I awaken to the grasp of seat and cable as I rise to the heavens, and come to rest upon the potentials of gravity. Never awaiting the invitation of crisp mountain air infused with the wretched stench of anticipation, accompanied by the torque of adrenaline to calm last nights hangover and the fear of a self-destructive motivation to huck.

Most atheists and agnostics ridicule religion because they claim its easy to see the magic in miracles. Magic of course, being something beyond misdirection to something so inexplicably impossible. And yet in the same instance I believe in miniscule atoms and distant galaxies and evolving cells – all of which I have never seen and will likely never see in my lifetime. I am exploring my world through the scriptures of scientists the exact same way as someone learning from the experiences of ancient teachers. So incidentally, we both satisfy our hunger for answers by accepting the discoveries of others, as opposed to finding out ourselves. Yes it is important to learn from the mistakes of others, but never forget to make your own mistakes too, because the outcome of your decisions however exact they are to another’s, can produce totally different results. This I call relativity. Something inside of us insists that we need to question other people before we question ourselves, or we desire to govern our select imperfections with mass ideologies, and worse yet, fear the imperfections that make us perfect. We set standards of how humans should be, but only focus on the countless times we fail to meet it.

I find that regardless of how much I try to push away from the principles of religion, I can see how visibly it relates to the methods of living. The motivation to have altruism like love, respect, and truth, to find happiness in the pursuit of those things, and to understand the consequences of hatred, violence, and self-destruction. I’d like to add the need to question. To blindly live in the repetition of bible and text is the antithesis of human nature. If I could define humans with one word, it would be “curious.”

Lets just come to a simple agreement – we question our existence, our answers often are surprising, we are very eager for our thoughts and ideas to influence others, and those ideas evolve with technology and conclusions. That is all that makes us different from other animals. That doesn’t prove the existence of divinity through science or god, but it acknowledges that we are individuals first, and we have the right to be so, without fear of impression or prosecution – and that only further diversifies us to find more interesting answers to explain our surroundings.

So I say lose yourself in curiosity, but never lose trust in yourself to be good.

In a world of disconnection, it’s easy to flip a switch, twist a tap, or swipe a card, and all the conveniences of civility rush to your fingertips. And if ever something goes wrong, there are lights and sirens to grasp you from mistake. It’s hard to find a place where the borders of such comforts dwindle and the human is left to its own vices. We seek a world to promote a civilized, comfortable, unstained life and always have. I say, we have forgotten how powerful we are when left to the whims of nature and ourselves. To take off the blindfold of society and accept the risk of trust in oneself or one’s other and to become a local with the source of our being. To experience a tangible world by sipping from a river, leaning on a tree, or accepting the warmth of the sun. To simplify the future and prioritize the present based on the building of the past. One cannot be happy until sadness has been felt, and the same applies to hunger, loneliness, or safety. The only way to be scared, hungry, or lonesome is by taking the first step into the unknown and leaving the structure of sterilized life behind. Escape from the rat race makes time slow and life last longer.

I miss the days when machine was operated by hand instead of button, when you knew someone loved you because they’d actually look into your eyes or touch your hand. When warmth came with the smell of smoke and light had a time limit, or when the classroom was the story of a salty-dog’s chance at life. The feeling of being animal cannot be fabricated in the synthetic jungle of career and commute; the smell of sanitized air and taste of purified water is toxic to me.

Whats lacking is the recognition of truth; that life is meant to be a struggle. The materialism of consumer greed, social status, and hardship solving has turned us into incapable wimps set on providing solutions to every problem. Its said that one person will surround themselves with like-minded people in order to achieve what cannot be done alone. I look at the world and I see people who will pick up a phone the moment disaster strikes, as opposed to dashing to the streets to sustain civility until hiding in the hills from it. I take comfort in the friends that are awaiting disaster, in fact packed for it, because they are the ones who  have already lived and plan on inserting another quarter.

How can you appreciate your life if you have not felt close to death?

Call me crazy here, but I must have missed the consumerism boat. I hate Christmas, I own a used vehicle, I sleep on a foamie in a room. I live for work and work to live. I don’t have any debt which probably makes me one of the richest Canadians. Which brings me to my next period of angst. I’ve spent the last 3 days researching and number-crunching for a “new” truck that I could afford, and have had some interesting experiences, all painting a bigger picture about what makes us all consumer whores.

I have recently noticed that a lot of my friends and co-workers have a lot of nice things. Key words lots and nice. And on the grander scale, I notice older folks with way more super expensive things. I feel subjected and pressured into aiming for those goals – it seems that everyone wants to be rich. But then I ask: How the HELL do these people afford such things? I mean I make some decent coin (modest, but still a surplus I feel) and there is no physical way that my wallet could stretch more than $500 in rent and the upkeep of a simple car.

After spending hours in car dealerships (lying about my income and budget) I have found out how. People borrow. Like a lot. The concept of owning something before you own it is just customary in the west. For example, a truck I looked at costs more than I make in a year, and yet somehow this dude in a leather coat and fresh hair says I can have it TODAY for $400 a month, and he says it’s MINE.

This may be simple in principle, but consider the structure of the everyday person. After highschool you go to university and drop $30,000 for an education that statistically you are unlikely to use, and probably pay off until you’re 35. At the same time you try to afford a vehicle at roughly $15000 – which really only lasts as is for no more than 6 years. This of course doesn’t include the mortgage of $200,000. And ontop of all this debt there’s inflation, asset depreciation, maintenance, and taxes in the double-digits. And even worse, the value of these assets is not even in your control. One person in Ottawa can sign a paper that curve-balls your financial plans and leaves you with nothing but debt.

There are people out there that just make money on money, like collection services who buy debt at increased rates, stock investors that play games, banks that give money away that they don’t have and gain immeasurable interest on loans…

This is how we operate in a capitalist system. If no one is buying, then no one is making money. This is why the government bought out corporations and devised plans to make people spend more money that they didn’t have – just to keep the system running. Adding more to the national debt. The concept of buying out a private corporation with taxpayer’s money IS by definition, communism. I laugh at the fact that General Motors was briefly a state-owned company in the most capitalist country on the planet – but no body says anything!

Can this be linked to resource depletion? overpopulation? climate change? Considering that even a quarter of the worlds population has this kind of mindset and these kinds of transactions are happening immensely large and immensely fast, I think so.

I can’t stand being in debt. being in debt means that you are a negative to someone – be it a friend, parent, or a company – you are a liability. You literally own nothing or at best small percentages of nothing. – Which means that you are enjoying the fruits of luxury at someone else’s expense. The problem is that the person you owe to WANTS you to owe them money, because they make money from your interest! If every citizen has their part in national debt, who do they answer to? Who pays for it? Who do we hurt to pay it off?

These luxuries should not exist – not for our population and not for our comforts. Life is supposed to be hard, and when it is, you learn to appreciate it a lot more.

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I’ve spent the last 6 years living in or visiting the mountain skyline of Vancouver. As anyone would comment, the west is the best impression is immediate and addictive. I, like others, have made the long trek to be immersed in its endless adventure, instant escape, hidden corners and impossible views. Vancouver has made me love monthly downpours and the expectation of always being wet. Sunny days to me are a shocking anomaly that strikes my spatial sense with awe, but almost makes me feel uncomfortable without the solitude of fog and the wrappings of a soothing and healing curtain of rain.

The familiarities of the City of Glass are dynamic with the comings and goings of short term visitors. Hostels are always full and the airports are always busy. It seems that with the rush of people wanting to immigrate to its awesomeness has driven the native Vancouverites out; the people that had this pocket of the world to themselves have been naturally assimilated through commerce and tourism. With the passing of the Olympics, the BC government has given birth to fortresses of tourism and foreign investments to exploit the diverse wilderness, excitement, and landscape.

It’s a rarity to be at a party or bar or concert and find a surplus of home grown BC folk. The majority of my friends are not from here. This either means that the immigration of foreigners has forced them underground with a bad taste in their mouths, or that they simply have been diluted by the population of new folks.

Conversely, in Hogtown, the most criticised and trashed city, lies the citizens of the old opportunity of business and industrial wealth. Toronto was in direct contact with its people, not a storefront for industry, there was no posh veneer face to the inner workings of an operation, it was a clash between the two. Commuters from Steeltown would conduct business in the structures that they designed at home and travel on the trolleys and subways that were built just hours away. Toronto was the corporate hub that ran the nation more so than the capitol, where Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal seemed like outreaching fingers of Toronto’s power. There was a pride and arrogance in a Toronto businessman’s step as he grasped his subdivisions by the binder-spine and made changes that affected all Canadians.

Now, Toronto is the Lost City. Many of its children have left to pursue a life of clarity and cleanliness, and none have stopped to look back. But I have. Grabbing some street meat from the vendors on Front Street, walking past the colossal venue that once housed Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar, I can still see the line-ups of people in blue and white waiting under a summer sunset for the game at 7, shadowed only by the Tower that epitomized the prowess of Toronto’s might. Even still I tune into the Dean Blundell show and the History of New Music. I (almost) miss the endless parking lot of traffic and city artery intersections unheeded by the workings of a rusting crazy homeless man dancing in their path.

Onwards I grabbed the subway and listened to the grinding and screeching metal as I headed to Dundas Square. In the station, floor tiles have been cracked for years and never repaired. Tacky-coloured walls are covered with soot and tar from the seemingly haunted trains that have been running since Trudeau. Business execs, highschool students, officers, waitresses, and labourers all ride in the same seats, no division to separate their wealth, race, group size, or health. They have never needed a route map or station name, their commute almost autonomous. You could look at the face of any of these people and imagine what they’re thinking about; the hockey game, the bitter winter, the wife’s grocery list, university GPA’s, or an eastern domestic beer.

Both in Vancouver and Toronto, 15% of the citizens are Canadian. The difference is that in Toronto, all of the people all have a sense of belonging. People move with purpose and direction. No matter where they are from, what they look like, or who they are, they seem to have a secondary characteristic that defines them as Torontonian.

Vancouver is a very clean city. The Transit system is new, computerised, and clean. Sketchy neighbourhoods are rebuilt to be refreshing and exciting – to flow tourists in and scare drug-addicts and homeless out. Images of the coast’s wildlife are projected on street signs and raingutters, reminding us of how close we are to nature here. The people walk the streets with a bewildered look, they ride the train twice, they seek niches of comfort and en route they keep to themselves with headphones and newspapers so as to avoid conflict; their final destination a quaint hipster café.

I’m not too sure what I’m trying to say here. Perhaps one is that there is a certain rawness to Toronto that forces its people to recognize that the world isn’t all peace and bliss, and that the world is not hidden behind some expensive drapes. Toronto has also taught me to see an inner beauty and to feel a longing for its character and people. Perhaps we should all look back on our homes and forget the harsh bandwagon titles we give them, and appreciate the friends, family, and culture for making us who we are.

Its always been “They” – this organized group of people, like mystical creatures of the night building and inventing and designing ways to make the world turn, only to earn the name “They”
They have always been on the top floor looking over us with eagle eyes and conspiring ideas to make us walk in step. Something behind every TV screen, inside every nameless face on the bus, every question of inadequacy. But They are nobody. They are not the executives or diplomats. They is the world which we have created. An economic god that produces progression necessary for growth, documented by autonomous media centres and enforced by standard justice, created by us to live in a world of bliss.
The new human is no different from the old. necessities, hardships, experience, and stimulation are the drive to make us “we”. We walk the fabricated hallways, breathe the synthetic air, taste the modified food. You and I are smart, but We are stupid. We obey flashing lights. Stare in the same direction and step in stride. We live in materialism and pursue infunctional dreams in systemic lives of structure, like death was an appointment.
A confrontation between the created supremity of They and the sheepish world of We is upon us. Our advantage is only the last breaths of memory in an unsterilized environment. To seek a world outside of that which we created. To see the beyond the retailers, plastics, memos, bank books and structure to reenter the wild from whence we came; and understand the real necessity, hardship, experience, and stimulation.