Resurrection

Yes, I have resurfaced. I don't know how regular these posts will be, but we'll see. I've been doing nothing but run around lately, though all is well, busyness is goodness. Through flippantly today while talking to my boss we hit on something (everything begins in triviality as you know). We are an age and a people who are far more stressed out and overworked than any other group of people in history. We are a people who often get cancer for inexplicable reasons and have cancer levels higher and lower correlated with the most RANDOM of foods and lifestyles. Now of course it's chicken and egg, has cancer always existed and it's only NOW that we're detecting it? Is cancer in the modern world such a big deal because of the excessive monological individualism we all feel, making ourselves into these personalities ex nihilo that can move at a moment's notice and are determined by arbitrary concepts and comfort? Maybe... Probably.... Probably not... I'm ranting. But it's true to a certain extent. We live in a world that our ancestors died for. We have all the comforts that we could ever want, we have more political freedom today than any other people have ever had in the history of, well, ever. This conversation continued with my other boss when we began talking about unions and the Quebec government and how here, the unions are almost unnecessary since the government is so ridiculously socialist (not that that's a bad thing, through free hand outs to the undeserving piss me off to no end) that unions are just superfluous wastes of money most of the time. And what do we do with it? What are we using all this comfort for? The sake of comfort itself. It's weird, it's almost as if when finally achieving what we've striven so long for, we just give up on striving altogether. Was the quest for understanding that every human being has been on since the dawn of time simply a quest for comfort? For knowing how things work to be the most comfortable damned animal possible? Or was it something more? Then of course I started to think about how everyone has that yearning for something more, even the ones who seem really content (try talking politics, religion or death with them and they clam up... why?) The problem (and it's a big one) is bridging not only cultural/linguistic gaps, but epistemological ones too. The frameworks of knoweledge that every individual has and holds are shaped by SO many things. Personality, willpower, background, economic circumstances, fate, coincidence, etc... etc... etc... But then, that said, how do you find and determine that uniting thread that links up the dissatisfaction felt by Joe the strip-joint owner -when he sees what his life has become one night with a mouth that tastes like stale beer and ashtrays, or that small sinking feeling he gets when he looks around and thinks "is this it? this is what I wanted..... right?" then shoves that thought out of his head as some of his regular patrons walk in and ask if Cindy's working tonight- with that of Gordon, the succesful venture capitalist with a new gorgeous condo in a newly gentrified area of town that has that cute little californa-vietnamese fusion restaurant that he loves so much, at the peak of his career, he wakes up one night and can't get back to sleep. he goes for a walk, and doesn't know what's wrong. everything is coming up roses and yet something still istn' right... he's got it all, and he's got nothing....- to that of Vlad, the brilliant young philosopher who sees all and understands all these different frameworks but just has an unfailing pessimism he can't seem to shake off, understand, or justify- How do you link those and show the commonality of HUMANITY in them, not humanity in the sense of a really cool and noble animal, but something actually different in its very substance and being... something that is above simple comfort and searches after something more, something noble, something true? All I know is that you have to start at the bottom... Its only when the strip-joint owner/patron, the businessperson, the corporate courtier, the academic, the intellectual, the suburbanite, the west-island soccer mom, etc... are united in their common nobilty which is their common dissatisfaction can any real work begin at all.... But how do you tie together words, languages, and systems that are radically different? Kierkegaard was onto something, but I think choice of system happens in a very few extremely lucky individuals... the rest of us have these systems that make the most sense to each one, and we all run around all day and all night knowing something's wrong, but never speaking the same language... *** Photos in this post are courtesy of http://www.vonnagy.com/photoblog/ and http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html . I highly recommend the second website to all those who are interested in Chernobyl, what happened and how it is now.