Caffeine is a drug (surprise!)

I thought the day would never come. 

Maybe when I hit 70. 

But I’m doing it. I’m switching to decaf. Call it a mid-year New Year’s resolution, a fresh start, a better way to live. 

No more caffeine in the afternoon. (C’mon now, there’s no way I’m giving it up altogether.)

I live for coffee. This may sound overly dramatic, but I can’t deny my addiction. I find some comfort that I share this caffeine addiction with 90% of the world’s population. Whether you prefer it in coffee or tea, it matters not. You’re still an addict. Get help... or... keep drinking. 

In high school it was one of the few things I looked forward to after my morning shower. That precious single cup allowed me to survive grade 12 French in the dead of winter. It didn’t help me to speak the language, but I still know a few key phrases, like j’aime café. 

As a fully grown adult, I drink three to four cups in the morning – depending on how you define a “cup” – and typically one in the afternoon. 

They say four cups is great for you (and don’t ask me who “they” are), so it’s not like I’m overdosing. But I may be pushing the limits in the afternoon.  

Plus, it might be contributing to poor sleep patterns. Coffee has a quarter life of about 12 hours, meaning a quarter of the caffeine you consumed at 2 p.m. will still be in your nervous system at 2 a.m. Caffeine, in case you didn’t know, is a stimulant. Stimulants are great for keeping the mind alert – something you don't want in the middle of the night, unless you work the night shift.

It’s hard to say how much of an impact it has on our sleep, but according to Michael Pollan, it’s greater than we think. At the age of 60, he took the plunge and gave up caffeine cold turkey. After a few days, he was sleeping like a teenager (or so he claimed).  

Never mind the “brain fog” he had to deal with for the first week, or the lack of motivation to finish his chapter on, of all things, caffeine. It was a small price to pay for better sleep... or not.

It didn’t take long before he was back on the wagon, chugging down his morning java, with fantastic results (he cleaned out his house and backyard in one day).  

This is how, according to Pollan, caffeine helped fuel the industrial revolution – by getting people out of their warm homes and onto the cold, dark factory floors. It was the lure of a cup of coffee. In the 18th century, factory owners soon discovered that their workers could handle an extra hour and a half of hard labour if they were given a coffee break in the morning and afternoon. These workers eventually won a court battle to have these coffee breaks paid for – a benefit that lasts to this day. 

 Unlike Pollan, I’ve only tried a couple times to give up caffeine completely and it hasn’t gone well. One time prior to a medical procedure (see my detailed blog post on colonoscopies), and another to try a juicing diet. 

I had no idea the lack of caffeine could make juicing so miserable. My misery had nothing to do with juicing, as it turned out. Better to give up only one thing at a time because that diet only lasted until 11 a.m. 

That’s about the time when the withdrawal symptoms set in: The headache. The fatigue. The lack of a will to live. It takes 24 hours for caffeine’s effects to wear off. Like most addicts, I was surprised to learn, we’re not so much addicted to the buzz anymore – we’re avoiding the effects of withdrawal. 

And so I’ll take it one step at a time by cutting out my afternoon cup.... Since I’m not going to write a book about it, and a blog post won't lead to financial gain or fame. 

At least it hasn’t yet.

Vaxxed to the max

 The following article may not be entirely true (in fact, it may be entirely fabricated). But hey, in this strange world we live in, it could happen... 

I watch from a distance as the motley crew exits the community centre in a small Manitoba town. In unison, the four men strike a pose – heads bowed, fists exalted high into the air. 

I can only wonder what the people waiting in line think of these four ragged white men as they attest to some mysterious power. What exactly did they get vaccinated with?   

A better question might be, have they been vaccinated one too many times?  

Out of sheer curiosity, I began following their leader on Twitter a couple weeks ago. Like most people, I thought it was a joke. Most media attention is paid to the vaccine hesitant, the anti-vaxxers, and the anti-maskers. But a much smaller group of people – perhaps no less harmful – is falling under the radar. They are the vaccine hungry – those who can’t get enough vaccine. I call them the super-vaxxers. 

In a normal year, these men from rural Alberta would never be able to pull off such a stunt. To get a vaccine, whether needed for travel or as a regularly scheduled inoculation, requires the proper checks and balances. You can’t just walk into a medical clinic to get your third dose of measles vaccine. 

But that all changed with covid-19. To get a shot in the arm, all you need is a health card. And it doesn’t have to be yours. 

“Oh yeah, they’re easy to get,” said Todd, a forty-year-old former oil rig worker with lanky arms. “With so many anti-vaxxers out there, all it takes is fifty bucks.” 

His long-time friend, Randy, looked at him with horror. “Fifty? I never pay more than 20!”  

Their strategy to over-inoculate themselves is ironically dependent upon an opposing force: the anti-vaccination movement. For some cash and a fully vaccinated health record, anti-vaxxers are more than willing to let these super-vaxxers get another shot. All they have to do is lend them their provincial health card. 

“One dude actually paid me to get two doses!” said Liam, the youngest in the group. He’s only nineteen, but has already been injected with 18 doses of the sacred trinity of approved vaccines. 

“I got the A-Zed first, then the P-fizer” – he enunciates both the p and the f – “then the Modern stuff. Then I got them all over again! And then again! And then again!” He keeps repeating himself as the others chuckle. 

Todd, who hatched the scheme as soon as his age group was eligible, has had 46 doses as of this writing. “I’m getting to the point to where if I go a day without a vaccine, I’m in trouble,” he confides. “Like I literally get the shakes. It’s wicked.” 

None of them seem to worry about the short- or long-term effects of consuming too many vaccines. 

“You know, there’s no research on it,” Todd explains to me. “That’s just it. Everyone says, get your vaccine. Get two vaccines. But no one says, don’t get more than two vaccines. On that front, they’re suspiciously silent.” 

And this is where it gets a little hokey. Don, the eldest of the group – a fifty-eight-year-old retired Roman Catholic priest – claims something supernatural is at work. 

“This, er, vaccine...” Don's voice is hoarse – he almost whispers when he talks. “It’s been in the making for twenty years – look it up, it’s true. They’ve been keeping it from us. Because...” – his voice grows even quieter – “...there’s a divine being in each dose. No, no, I'm not talking about aborted fetuses. That’s conspiracy. I’m talking about a touch of God in every vial. They’ve been keeping it from us – feeding it to the elites. But now they gotta share it. They had no other choice. But they don’t want to give us too much, you see – just enough to stop covid.” 

Conspiracy theories (and other symptoms) aside, the four men say they’re having the time of their lives. Travelling from province to province, they’ve gotten to know a lot of different Canadians. 

“I mean, who knew anti-vaxxers could be so hospitable?” said Todd. “They invite us for dinner, give us a place to sleep. Such a blessing. They give us a fresh dose of immunity, and we give them a fully vaccinated health record.” 

Randy, whose wife left him last year, is simply grateful for the opportunity to spend the time with his friends. “I’ve never felt so alive than after V-day, travelling with my buds. I know it won’t last forever. But the summer’s long, and hey, new nasty variants are on the way!” 

Our conversation could only last so long, as the group was already late for an anti-covid rally in a nearby town. But before they left me that afternoon, I had to know one more thing: Did they feel at all guilty for indirectly supporting the anti-vaccination cause? Anti-vaxxers, after all, spread such dangerous theories, like believing that vaccines cause autism in kids.  

After a long pause, Liam finally spoke up. “Listen, everyone’s got their beliefs, and I respect that. But personally, I think vaccines actually prevent autism. Like, after my fifth dose of P-fizer, I think I have less autism. Maybe I’m becoming, like, a genius or something. Anyway, that’s all I think.” 

I suppose it doesn’t matter to them what people think. So long as there's free will, these super-vaxxers will milk the anti-vax movement for all its worth. 

A little book worthy of your bookshelf

Please add this to your must-purchase-but-may-never-read book list: Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society, by Ronald J. Deibert. I understand if you never get around to actually reading it, but at least have it displayed prominently on your bookshelf. 

 Another option is to listen to the five-part series on CBC Idea’s podcast (I know, I’m asking a lot...) 

But I’ll give you a few reasons why you should at least consider. First, he’s Canadian. That counts for something, right? Second, he’s despised by the Russians and other autocratic states. That tells you he’s doing something good, right? 

He also knows a lot about our new digital world. What could be more relevant? But as with all books we don’t really want to read, there are some messages we don’t necessarily want to hear. It’s like reading about climate change in the 1980s or covid-19 in December 2019, before we could ever conceive of the global impact. Why should we be interested? My iPhone works fine. Facebook serves me well. I’ve got nothing to hide! 

But the effect of our new communications ecosystem is having a significant impact on all of us, where “accountability is weak and exploitation is endemic.” 

It’s reached the point where everyone is vulnerable. 

Diebert, who founded the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, has been the target of attacks himself because of his mission to dig beneath the surface of government and corporate use of the internet. It's strange, but governments of all stripes don’t appreciate it when a small Canadian research group uncovers their methods of espionage. 

But it happens. One wrong click (as the Democratic Party learned in 2015) and the Russians gain access to all your data. It’s become common for foreign governments to hack the phones of their political opponents, even those living abroad. With such easy access to information (your contacts, your messages, your location), human spies have become obsolete. 

But it’s not just foreign governments. Edward Snowden revealed how the U.S. government invaded the privacy of its citizens by seamlessly hacking their personal social media accounts. Ironically, he now lives in exile in Russia. 

Corporations don’t even need to hack your data. They just take it, because we’re all too willing to give it to them. Facebook and Google, to name a couple, rely on this model. Through “free” services, they get to know you and your likes and how to target you as a consumer; how to even manipulate your consumer choices. It doesn’t sound so bad, does it?  

They might even track your location through your phone. Does it bother you then?  

You might say that you have nothing to hide, but the truth is, we all have something to hide. Facebook owns billions of life stories that are now the company’s life stories. Something doesn’t sound right about that. 

But I digress (I assure you, Deibert’s book is much more to the point). Diebert covers all aspects of new technologies, from their addictive nature to their impact on the environment, which I hadn’t much thought about. 

The screens we use portray such a clean, environmentally friendly surface. No longer relying on the physical use of paper, we can instead send and share documents via email. Instead of driving to a meeting, we can now chat over a Zoom call.  

Yet this all requires energy. Every Google search creates the equivalent carbon dioxide of driving your car 50 feet. It may not sound like much, but think about how many searches and webpages you view in a day, emails and texts you send and receive, and videos you watch online. 

All this digital action, which I naively thought of as benign to the environment, adds up. About 7% of greenhouse gases are now caused by our online activities. So much for saving the world by going online! A video conference is still better than flying across the country to meet, but it’s not negligible. 

There are other frightening issues that Diebert touches upon, like the mining of rare earth elements that make your smartphone so smart. But I’ll leave those depressing details for another day (we can only digest so much in a sitting). 

To be clear, the book isn’t calling for an all-out war on technology. Deibert isn’t some idealist from left field. In fact, his title is misleading. He's not actually advocating for a complete reset on our technological progress, but rather restraint, as he reveals in his final chapter. 

He understands there’s no stopping social media, as he shares his own struggles with the addictive features of his phone. There’s no stopping technological trends, where we pretty much need a phone to operate in today’s world (to be sure, there are still ways to live without one, or so I've been told). 

What he wants is a re-evaluation of how tech companies and governments use our data; how technology is being used to impact democracy, the environment and human rights. 

That message alone is worthy of your bookshelf. 

Will church survive the Trump pandemic?

While in university I used to have fun arguments with my atheist friend (at least I thought they were fun). In one of our discussions, she suggested churches in North America would eventually cease to exist.  

I scoffed at the thought. While I could agree church participation was declining, I had no conception of it disappearing. Certainly not anytime in my lifetime. 

It was the “liberal” churches, after all, that were losing members. Their pews tend to be filled with the elderly – those who've spent a lifetime involved in traditions and community within a religious institution. For various reasons, their children didn’t find the same fulfillment. 

Evangelical churches have had more success hanging on to their congregants. They offer programs (endless programs!) to keep people of all ages engaged and they offer community where it is often lacking in our individualistic society. 

But as one of our pastors confided in me a few years ago, even these churches aren’t growing. He went on to say that their only "success” has come through attracting “people who grew up in church, like you.” He was referring to me and my family, whom he had never talked to before – perhaps he perceived the pastor’s kid’s look on my face? (I didn't tell him his lack of interest in people could be part of the problem.) 

This pastor eventually left our church to start a new one – one where there were more pureblood converts, I presume, and less chaff from other churches. I'm not sure how he’s been doing, but he struck me as the type who could create a small congregation by sheer determination. 

Because that’s what it would take. Over the past year, I doubt it’s gotten any easier. 

The pandemic has disrupted everyone’s lives, and for many church-goers it will have been the first time they’ve stopped attending church for a lengthy period of time. When I grew up, the only time I didn’t go to church on Sunday was when I was gravely ill. It was then I realized there was something else waiting for me on Sunday morning – they were called The Smurfs. To this day, I cannot understand what TV programmers were thinking (11 am Sunday morning? Really?!). 

  Once you get hooked on The Smurfs, or other Sunday-morning activities, it can be hard to go back to church services. The pandemic may have given people the excuse they need to simply stop attending. 

But I think there's an even bigger issue that’s still playing out. It started four years ago, when the White evangelical church placed their faith in a man named Donald Trump.  

He was a means to an end. He was their King Cyrus, if you prefer justification from the Old Testament. He vowed to protect their interests: To create laws and appoint judges who would interpret laws in their favour. It didn’t matter that he was a racist, a misogynist, or prone to incite violence. As a rare anti-Trump, white evangelical columnist wrote just yesterday: “[Trump] exemplified a type of politics where cruelty is the evidence of commitment, brutality is the measure of loyalty and violence is equated with power.” All that mattered was that he protected the White (emphasis on White) evangelical church’s interests. 

I never had much respect for the Religious Right before Trump, but I’ve lost all of it now. Trump, an utterly irreligious man, has turned people off from Christianity in droves. People who didn’t need to be driven away, like those of colour who attend multi-racial communities of faith, and women, many who were already second-class congregants in patriarchal church structures, may not return. 

It’s important to note that the Black evangelical church (just as fervently evangelical/fundamentalist as the White church) did not support Trump. They supported the devil in Joe Biden (please permit me to be facetious). This alone demonstrates how much this is a political issue about power, not a religious or, heaven forbid, a spiritual one. 

But do most people differentiate?  

Trump did a number on the church, and the pandemic has given people the time to reflect on this. 

For many churches, it will be a difficult return to normal.