Weighing life III

When we travel, my wife is the photographer. Sometimes I chide her for missing out on the immediacy of life because she sees too much of it through a viewfinder and doesn't let enough of it bump up against her face. I can tell from her behaviour and know from my own that one can start looking at the world as if through a viewfinder. Once that nonsense starts, then you're really using someone else's eyes to see and not your own.

I was reminded of all of this a few minutes ago while walking through our Uptown, surrounded by a small bustle of people heading to stores, waiting for buses, painting fresh new storefronts, delivering loads of veggies to our little organic market. My thoughts drifted towards the sad notion of the futility of all of this activity in a world hurtling towards some kind of apocalypse. None of the activities I witnessed, including my own, made any sense at all. None of it meant anything. None of the past meant anything. None of what I had done meant anything. All that mattered was this current moment, the air I breathed, the feeling in my chest, the nice tightness in my legs, the pretty tink-tink sound of my steel thermos sitting in the backpack behind me. Oh, so very mindful of me, except that at the same time that something, if not profound, then at least enjoyable was trying to burble up to the surface through my workaday thoughts, the whole experience was overshadowed by my hulking, ponderous self-awareness, hovering, peeking, prodding, wondering how I would write all of this down.

So I guess that's what this blog is. It's my camera. It's my way of mediating reality. It's my way of keeping my distance. It's a giant pair of oven mitts so that if I ever feel like taking the cookies out of the oven, my fingers won't be singed.

I walked on, thinking about the report that I'd just read this morning describing China's escalating economic growth, her dizzying output of greenhouse gases, destined to overtake US output in just a very few short years, quicker than anyone had thought possible. Not long after that, Chinese industrial effluence will equal that of all other industrialized nations put together. Chinese authorities recognize the environmental impact of this, but express a desire to catch up to the West first and THEN tackle the environment. A small part of me wanted to have faith that such a thing was possible -- that the combination of a massive population, legendary Chinese drive and ambition, and downright cleverness would somehow solve this problem, perhaps even for all of us. But the greater, more sensible reaction, was to realize that there is already no shortage of cleverness in the world. Among our billions, we have IQ points to spare. It's not being smart enough to save ourselves that we should aspire to, it's wanting to save ourselves, our children, our grandchildren.

I came across another Facebook entry yesterday (my children object strenuously to my use of Facebook, by the way. I argue that if people decide to email one another publicly, then they are really inviting the public to read what they say. They look at me like I'm the creepy middle-aged guy who hangs out at the video arcade to ogle teenagers in crop tops). There was an entry by a young man whom I know to be very intelligent and technically gifted. Suddenly, he said, as the last two generations realized what a mess they had made of things, they were screeching about nano-this and quantum-that and sustainable-something-else, hoping that the bright young sparks of the upcoming generation could fix all the problems caused by greed and laziness. Not him, he said. He planned to sit back, smile in the sunshine, and welcome the coming apocalypse with open arms. That, I suspect, is an attitude that we'll see more and more of, and it's a nice illustration of my point. Our species won't die because we're too stupid to figure out how to live. It will die because we're too stupid to figure out why we should want to.

In the end, it has nothing to do with buying that summer cottage, saving for a happy retirement, building a pyramid, or writing a book. It's much simpler than all of those things. Just as so many times before, I had it in my grasp for a half-second this morning before the monkey of self-reflection climbed on my back.