I don't do life-changing events

 There was a dear couple from my home church who frequently came to tears when talking about their children. As kids, we would smile whenever they’d stand up to share, knowing the water works could come at any moment. 

Some people are more emotional than others, especially when talking about their family. Other people, like my wife and daughter, get sentimental about things. I’ve learned this the hard way when I accidentally remove a cherished item from the house. How could I have known?? 

I don’t usually get sentimental about things, but I do get possessive (two very different feelings). And I typically don’t get emotional when discussing personal life events, nor very excited about sharing them.  

So I was a little taken aback when my dad texted us with a request. This Christmas he wants his kids and grandkids to talk about a "highlight" that happened in our lives this past year. An event that might even be life changing, he added ominously. 

This is a hard ask for someone who struggles with attaching meaning to life events. Most things that happen to me are purposefully pedestrian. 

For example, this year I got my own office at work after a decade of working in a cubicle. Sure, I can now close the door to change in and out of my biking gear (and I’m not talking about spandex shorts here), but can I honestly say it fundamentally altered my life?

This summer I also got a double-dose of Pfizer vaccine, which was about as life changing as it can get during a pandemic. More than anything, it was life-enhancing (as in keeping me alive), but did it make me feel any different? Nope – no side effects, good or bad. 

What else? Well, I wrote a story this year. A loooong story. I had intended to write it for my daughter but so far she’s only gotten to page 30. In fact, only one person has read the entire ghastly thing through... and that person is me. But at least I finished it – a great feat for someone who has troubles completing writing projects. Was it life-changing? Not until I get my million-dollar book deal (ha!). 

To be perfectly honest, I’ve only experienced a few life-changing events over 44 years of living. Some of them I cherish, like our wedding day or the night our daughter was born. Some other things, not so much. At this point in my life, I’m not even sure I’d want a “life-changing” event. What if the change is for the worse? I’m pretty content when changes are gradual; slow and steady, like hiking up a medium-sized hill.  

My dad has obviously become a little more sentimental in his later years, which is understandable. Perhaps when I’m in my seventies, I’ll be full of sentiment, too. 

I know somewhere, deep down inside, I have it in me. Just the other day, I nearly came to tears when Pachelbel’s Canon started playing on our stereo. I have no idea what brought it on. Perhaps it evoked in my mind an image of my daughter in a wedding dress – a thought I refuse to conceive of voluntarily. So there, I got emotional. 

On such occasions I can be brought to the verge of tears, but rarely do I let them flow. Because if I do, I tend to bawl like a baby, which gets a little tricky in social situations. For some reason people get uncomfortable when you release years of repressed emotion in one prolonged wail. 

So I keep it all inside. 

Trust me, it’s better that way.

Golden age of video gaming is back

 

I grew up in the 1980s, or as I like to call it, the Golden Age. For it was the dawn of the video game – the era of Atari, ColecoVision and yes, even the Commodore 64.  

Every one of my friends had a console except me. Perhaps this is what made them so enticing. There was only one thing I had on my mind when I visited: playing their newest video game (any boy will admit to this freely). 

Asteroids, Frost Bite and Donkey Kong are a few that come to mind. My friends seemed to have an endless supply of games that took anywhere from 30 seconds to three minutes to play before Game Over. When you got tired of one, you simply plugged in another. 

Simple games, like the free ones you now play on your phone, were fantastically addictive. Every game had the same motive: Kill and/or be killed (except Pong of course). 

Gaming was further transformed with the advent of computers. Adventure, role-playing games like King’s Quest came with my family’s first computer. We spent hours figuring out how to play this thing until it finally dawned on us that we had to key in commands. 

Next came portable gaming... Quite honestly, the Game Boy changed my life. The designer of this handheld device wanted simplicity to be its appeal, and it paid off with Nintendo selling over 115 million units. This colourless micro-screen offered me and my siblings endless play-time, but at a cost. You had to share it, after all (what were my grandparents thinking, giving us only one?!) 

But that's where it ended for me. Sadly, my passion for video games was stunted after the age 16. Maybe I thought myself too mature, or got too busy (we all have our excuses). Whatever it was, all that changed the second year of the Great Pandemic... 

Isolated at home in the middle of winter, there was only one question I needed to answer: Could someone in their 40s, approaching midlife (crisis?) still enjoy some old-fashioned video games? 

Heck, yeah. As it turned out, one game alone could answer that question. I had played Zelda in its most basic form on the Game Boy but this.... this was something to behold. We’re talking open-world gaming that makes you wonder if bathroom breaks are really necessary. Did I really have to go three hours ago? 

Yes, the addiction was real; for my daughter, myself... even my wife, who swears she’ll never touch a game controller. Instead, she’s taken on the role of strategic advisor. 

Gaming has come a long way since Atari, yet the nostalgia overcomes me each time I foolishly dish out money for a re-make of an old favourite. Tetris, Turbo Chase, and Mario Brothers – the feelings of childhood come rushing back as I re-learn how to play these deceptively difficult games. It’s so much harder, you see, when Mario doesn’t quite run like he used to. It’s like he has arthritis in his 35-year-old legs. 

“Dad, it’s okay,” my daughter consoles as I fall one more time into the abyss of Mario’s defunct world. 

She has no idea how much my hand-eye coordination has regressed in the last thirty years. I used to be able to make those jumps in my sleep, darn it! 

More frequently than I like to admit, I ease my gaming tension through some Psychedelic Tetris (not it’s real name, I assure you). This spectacular version of a simple game has lights, colours and cult-like music for middle-aged folks who need to trip without the LSD (only a game, I assure you). 

It’s a whole new world. And if you’re so willing, you can join me. 

We can play covid-safe, online... Just give me some time to figure out how that works.

Confronting our greatest challenges with blah blah blah

For any challenge facing society, the greatest obstacle is fatigue. 

You’ve probably heard of donor fatigue. How many more organizations can ask for my money? 

How about covid fatigue? Do I care enough to change my behaviour again, even if our hospitals are at critical capacity? 

And how about climate change? How many of us pay attention when another dire report comes out from the IPCC? Do you perk up when a scientist explains we are on a path to ecological destruction... again? 

Even in the middle of a crisis like the current pandemic, we can happily live in denial. We can only take so much bad news before we tune out. 

We tune out to the scientists, the analysts, and especially the politicians. Greta Thurnberg, the teen aged climate change crusader from Sweden, made this point most memorably at a youth climate summit a couple weeks ago: 

“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.” 

Her interpretation of politician speak reminded me of how my friend and I would make fun of adult speak when we were kids: “Did you hear blah blah blah?” “Yes, how terrible... blah blah blah!” 

We could extend this to science speak as well. Most people want simple answers – not the vagaries and uncertainties of what a scientific understanding of the world entails. 

Bill Gates tries to plain speak in his book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, and succeeds to some extent. Before reading, I had no idea most of our greenhouse gases are produced by making stuff, most of it overseas for our consumption. 

Ironically, his book demonstrated to me that we will likely not avoid a climate disaster – at least not entirely. There’s a reason why politicians can’t just wake up one morning and say, “Okay, folks, the age of oil is over. From now on, it’s organically grown vegetable oil or nothing!” 

All our progress, our wealth (including a massive reduction in poverty worldwide), and modern-day technologies are a credit to the fossil fuel boom of the last century. Cheap, powerful energy from fossil fuels continues to keep our societies from literally collapsing (as much as I hate to use the word literally, I need it for emphasis). And, based on the most realistic scenarios, the transition to cleaner energy sources will take longer than what the Earth has patience for. 

Getting over our fossil fuel dependency is no small feat. Tackling climate change requires more than small individual choices, as much as we’d like to think that driving a little less and recycling a little more will make a difference. What’s required is government action on a global scale. 

If we’re really concerned about climate change, we need to demand government action that will hurt: like making conventional energy more expensive, including all the products produced overseas. We need hordes of people on Parliament hill with placards that read, “Increase prices! Make us pay!” 

I can only imagine what it will be like when Canadians have to pay $5 a litre for gasoline. We complain enough with the current jump in energy prices. 

There is still hope, but our window to act is closing quickly. There are visible signs of climate change in my own backyard, like forest fire smoke in October (a strange occurrence in Saskatchewan), sudden flooding in June (amidst a two-year drought), and hurricane-like storms in January (winds clocked at 126 km/h!) All of this in the past year. 

Don't get me wrong, I like plus 22 in the middle of October. But this in itself should make us ponder... what will it be like in 10 or 20 years? What can governments do today? It has to be more than blah blah blah.

Pandemic continues to drive election

As much as Justin Trudeau has been criticized for holding an election during a pandemic, it could be to his benefit. At the very least, it won’t hurt him. 

 Erin O’Toole, on the other hand, has embraced a “Liberal light” platform to the consternation of his most libertarian supporters. That support appears to be drifting to the People’s Party of Canada. The fourth wave has become a boon for Maxime Bernier, who happily holds the monopoly on the anti-vax vote, not to mention anti-immigrant and anti-government.  

Bernier, ala Trump, sends a subliminal message of, “Let's blow things up.” This is strangely appealing to many people.  

 It doesn’t help that O’Toole has wandered further and further into Trudeau’s liberal policy workshop – a dangerous place for any conservative to be. Indeed, O’Toole could be called a New Democrat (gasp!) if he were running against the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin Liberals of decades past.  

But such are the times. The Canadian public is not thinking monetarily at the moment, and could care less if the books will be balanced in 10 or 20 years. Most Canadians are preoccupied with a pandemic, and their message is quite clear: Do everything you can to prevent a fifth wave. 

In today's environment, that’s no easy task. How to overcome the anti-science sentiment that pervades an ever-growing minority of citizens? How to foster trust in government and institutions that uphold our society? How to safely shut down the Internet? (kidding... kind of...) 

There still remains a vaccine-reticent population that asks, What about my personal freedom? Isn’t it my right to not wear a mask or refuse a vaccination?  

You do have rights, but only to an extent. Freedoms that harm society are curtailed for a reason. It’s for the same reason you can’t drink and drive without penalty. Mandatory masking and vaccinations are about protecting the vulnerable, saving our healthcare system, and getting our society back to normal.  

Believe it or not, we've been through this all before... Back in 1919, Toronto’s medical officer of health ordered mass inoculations to prevent the spread of smallpox in schools. Smallpox was a real threat to children and adults... Thousands of Canadians died from this deadly disease, yet there was strong resistance. 

The anti-vaxxers even had their own Anti-Vaccination League, a group so effective that it took two more decades for the disease to be eliminated in Canada. By the 1970s, it had been eradicated worldwide. Thanks to vaccination campaigns, we no longer require smallpox vaccinations. 

It’s hard to believe, but vaccines have been around for over 200 years (the smallpox vaccine was discovered in 1796). The covid-19 vaccine technology, although different, has been in development for decades.  Today our science is so much more advanced, yet many of us still act like we’re in the Middle Ages.

In conclusion (was I talking about the election?), I’ll leave you with a little poem that was published in Canada’s national newspaper in 1919, but still resonates today: 

 

Vaccination is vexation, 

Smallpox is much worse; 

The former leads to irritation, 

The latter to a hearse. 

 

A little dark, but prescient nonetheless.... Please, have a safe and happy election.