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IS MORE EVER ENOUGH

10/10/2020

Why is more always better, when it can never be enough?
Economic growth and technological advancement can be good means to accomplish something but when do they become obsessive tools for the power hungry scientists and techies and others. They are but security seeking measures because we humans aren't sure about our place in the cosmos.

And the more we have, the more anxious we become because deep down inside we know that is not really not what we are seeking. The more we rely on technology the more disconnected we become from the ecology of the natural world. Yes solar panels are good but in the end are they enough to assuage our feeling of separation from our place in the cosmos.

The ecological crisis is also a spiritual crisis. We have veered far away from our womb in our pursuit of power and control and in the end especially with facing a plague we have to realize that we are not in charge here and surrender to the natural order of things and accept our more minor role in the scheme of things than we would like to have. We are stewards of the earth and its master.

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Which Society Works?

10/10/2020

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I have given more thought to what kind of societal system would work best for people. Actually it is a very difficult discussion without discussing what kind of people would be in power. So far whether there is communism or capitalism the outcome seems to be the same because the people in power as individuals are cut from the same cloth namely possessing human foibles like greed, self-centredness and are motivated by individual egos. Even in communism that supposedly cares about the masses a black market usually is born because people want to get ahead as individual. It is still the problem of believing progress and evolution are inter-related, namely there is a food chain and each person wants to be at the top.

If people truly recognized that the world is a self evolving organic system that is constantly creating itself and all matter on it, and that we are inter-related in a horizontal fashion and not hierarchal; that humans are not here necessarily to be at the top of the food chain but maybe be in service to all of life, we would organize society in a much friendlier fashion for everyone.

We have reached a point where Darwin's theory wrongly interpreted is causing the demise of millions of species, plant and animal and now even human, because of our ego propensities towards wanting to be wealthy and comfortable at the expense of all other lives. Just because humans can create culture does not give them license to forget our origins. The Universe is self-creating and doesn't care about human's big brains...if in fact our brains create desolation on earth, we will be spun off this planet as quickly as we are killing other life forms.

So which society is best? The one that has truly enlightened leaders, and sometimes that is a lawyer, sometimes a poet and sometimes a drama teacher. Enlightenment is a process whereby a person understands the interdependence of life and is compassionate and is willing to fight all the egotists trying to bring him/her down!

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We Are Between Worlds

10/5/2020

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Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to our urban jungle became industrial selection in the pursuit of money and has produced Extreme Capitalism where we are directed only by self interest and our goal is to achieve happiness, as manifested by wealth. And those people who achieve wealth feel like they managed on their own to achieve life's goal. As Ayn Rand said (the prophet of the wealthy) that Capitalism and altruism are incompatible. Meaning we no longer have to care for others in our society.

Trump and others (Republicans and Conservatives) uphold this philosophy and that is why Trump did not bother much with Covid seeing it is part of the natural selection process. Yet knowing that if he contracted it he would be cared for by the best public institutions possible. He even went so far as to say he is God, meaning he can do what he likes in this life because there is no higher power beyond himself and no other life beyond this one. The religious group he belongs to is a play act to appease those with a conscience still and a networking device for himself and friends.

This philosophy is also why our ecology has been devastated. Robbing the earth is a natural outcome of Darwin's philosophy that man is the more evolved being and therefore has more rights to be comfortable, but really only the most select man, meaning the one willing to exploit others and everything in self interested pursuits.

Our awareness is changing due to many factors Climate Change, meditation and indigenous ancient teachings showing us that all life is sacred. That we are not individuals in this life but part of a living system connected to nature and to each other and the cosmos. Science has proven that butterflies in one part of the world behaving in a certain way can change the behaviour of butterflies in a very distant other part of the world. In other words we are in this life together. This is more in line with what the political Left believe.

We are at crossroads between an old world view and a new one for our lives, and sitting on the fence can be a very painful experience. Especially when we try to figure out how to govern ourselves within in.

So far feeding the poor is seen as a saintly pursuit and keeps the old world intact, but when people are now asking why there are the poor, the Capitalist system can easily come tumbling down.

The Conservatives and Republicans are trying so hard to keep the old world intact and yet look like they are making minor concessions. (telling people they will tax them less individually and save money for them? by cutting social services in society.)

We are at a stage where we know change needs to happen so there are no poor, where we can only be happy if our society is a happy one and yet it is difficult to make the choices necessary for this to happen. There is no way the super wealthy will give an inch by appealing to their morality, as they have already clothed themselves with religious institutions that offer them support in the belief they are chosen.

So society needs to tax them sufficiently to make it happen, but they will evoke the military and police who are on their side as we see happening all over the world. Natural disasters don't even
frighten them as we have seen in the US and here, into a moral stance in life. And I believe Nature will not ease up until we change sufficiently.

We need to make sure we have the right leaders at this juncture in history otherwise an apocalypse is eminent.

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Does Canadian Art Exist?

10/1/2020

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We need to stop expecting that Canada will ever be homogeneous in life, culture or the arts. To say Canadian art is a fallacy, unless we mean world art. Because we have all arrived here from different worlds.

Canada is a multicultural country with many immigrants. I have never felt more like an immigrant then when I took a writing course at Ryerson in autobiographies. I happened to be in a class with predominantly white women whose parents were born here but great great grand parents came from Scotland or England. Our first assignment was to write about a memory from when you were 4 years old and we were to share it next class.

Well, I was one of the end readers and listened to others who wrote about chimneys, lovely Christmases, toys and nicknacks on the mantles of their nana's place.
I wrote about how the KGB pounded on our door in the middle of night and dragged my grandpa away to prison for being a "kulak", a business man, terrifying all of us.

The other ladies were stunned into silence. No feedback for me...

I dropped out of the course.

As immigrants we all arrive with different past experiences. As artists we express those experiences and also the archival ones from where we came from. It is the childhood ones that last the longest.

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IS MORE EVER ENOUGH

Which Society Works?

We Are Between Worlds

Does Canadian Art Exist?

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