Some thoughts on what we are

"Our brains are ethical by design."

A while back, I read a book titled "Why We Believe in God(s) -- A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith." It was written by J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., MD with Clair Aukofer.

In my opinion, the book is brilliant, and explains a lot of things to me that never seemed to make sense before. It's all about how we humans have evolved, specifically our brains and body chemistry, to produce the kinds of behaviour we exhibit as modern homo sapiens. Obviously, from the title, most of the focus of the book is on how our brains and body chemistry function to make most of us susceptible to belief in higher beings for which no tangible proof exists.

This post isn't about atheism though. This post is about, well, about biology, I guess. What makes people people. How our brains work and why we are the way we are.

Anderson and Aukover's book has made me more convinced than ever that human beings are no more special or unique than, let's say, ants. Certainly we're far more complex. But we really are nothing more than bags of meat and chemicals that are programmed to react to the outside world (and the inner world too) in predictable ways.

I'm completely comfortable with this concept. I suppose being the hard-core atheist that I am makes me more predisposed than most to be able to accept that people are no more special biologically than ants or any other living thing. Evolution has given us abilities that set us apart from other creatures, but our ability to empathize with a fellow human being, or believe in gods, or write poetry stems from the same place as the evolved ability of birds to fly in flocks and never bump into each other or to find their way from their nesting grounds to a winter feeding ground and back again.

However, when I presented this concept to a group of writers I interact with regularly online...a very intelligent and open-minded group of people if there ever was one... some of the people who responded were outright offended by the idea and even those who weren't offended refused to accept that humans don't have some special "something other" that no other creature on the planet has. Even those who are also atheists wouldn't accept it. That blew me away. How can you call yourself an atheist and still sit there and insist that humans have "something special" that makes them somehow "more" than every other biological creature on the planet?

They almost seemed to think it was disrespectful of me to suggest it. Disrespectful to who?? To god, I guess, if they believe in one, or to humankind, if they don't.  Even the atheists were so protective of their precious status as the dominant species on the planet that they couldn't, or wouldn't, entertain the idea that we'd got where we are by simple chance and evolution.

I guess that blew me away as much as the concept that most of the people on the planet believe with all their hearts that there's some imaginary sky-god out there looking down on them, hearing their every thought and caring whether they eat a mollusk, say "goddam", or make love with someone of their own sex. To believe that humans are somehow more than collections of cells, chemicals, meat and bones, you cannot, in my opinion, truly consider yourself an atheist.

Excerpts from the book
Here are some of my favourite passages, that I'd highlighted in the book (don't worry, I didn't deface a book, though I'm not averse to highlighting favourite passages in printed tomes. This particular book was an e-book I bought through Kobo:

"Your snap judgements are millions of years in the making."

"Religious beliefs are basic human social survival concepts with slight alterations."

"Just to believe in a god, our mind bounces off no fewer than twenty hard-wired adaptations evolved over eons of natural selection to help us coexist and communicate with our fellow homo sapiens to survive and dominate the planet."

"Severe climate variation between 70,000 and 100,000 years ago apparently reduced our population to perhaps as few as 600 breeding individuals. That is what modern genetics now tells us. That means that every one of the 7 billion people on this planet is a descendant of that small group of hunter-gatherers who lived in Africa and survived the harsh climate change."

"The fact is, we never lose the longing for a caretaker." (This is in reference to the strong need of most people to feel someone is watching over them, even once they become adults.)

"It begins with our ability to mentally separate their [other peoples'] minds from their bodies, which in turn circles back to our ability not only to believe in what we cannot see, but also to interact with the invisible. We are born with the ability to read what others may be thinking even when they are not there to tell us. In a way, all of those to whom we are attached sometimes become imaginary friends."

"Belief in the supernatural is not something learned from our culture as we grow from infants to toddlers and more cognizant children. It is original equipment, requiring no social prompting."

"This human ability for self-deception is crucial to religious belief. If many believers could see their own minds more clearly, they would see that self-deception plays a role in their acceptance of faith."

"Most people live their lives as if there is no god. We stop at red lights, we put our children in car seats, and we act responsibly to protect our safety and the safety of those we love. If a person is religious, he is an atheist in relation to others' gods and the gods of history. He also will almost invariably live as an atheist in relation to his own worshipped deity." (In other words, we tend to behave as if there was no god protecting us even when we do believe...ie: we stop at red lights, not trusting that a god will save us if we go through.)

"We in the west have become so used to religious people not really, truly and fully believing what they say they believe, that we are startled when, as on 9/11, we encounter people who really do believe their religion and put their beliefs into murderous practice."

"At heart, we are all born creationists. Disbelief requires effort."

"The less you abide by scripture and the more you use your basic moral intuitions, the more moral you are likely to be. Genuine morality is doing what is right, regardless of what we may be told; religious morality is doing what we are told."

"We evolved to favour those with our genes over those without. Religions evoke and exploit kin emotions."

"Most religions are preoccupied with sex, and that in itself offers strong evidence that religion is man-made."

"The sacred is found between the ears." (Danish neurobiologist, Lone Frank)

"It has been documented for years that many individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy, which comes from electrical disturbances in the temporal lobes, have intense religious experiences, and that extreme religiosity is a common character trait among such patients." (he goes on the cite the following examples of people who are thought to have had temporal lobe epilepsy: St. Paul was having an epileptic fit when he was "struck down" on the road to Damascus; others: Ste. Theresa of Avila, Feodor Dostoevsky and Marcel Proust.)

"We often hear that if it weren't for religion, we would be immoral and unethical. Mirror neurons resoundingly refute this." (mirror neurons, put simply, are responsible for humans' ability to feel empathy. You'll have to read the book to get it.)

Ten Years Later - Remembering 9/11

Ten years ago today, I was at my office at the Ottawa Business Journal. For some reason I'd started work early that day, because I was at my desk when a commotion started in another part of the office. I got up to see what was going on.

Because I worked for a newspaper, there were a few televisions around the office. I noticed a group of people clustered around one of the TVs in the editorial department. There were two or three similar groups around other TVs elsewhere in the large room. I went over to the nearest one to see a scene on the screen of smoke billowing out of a tall building...one of the world trade centre buildings, someone said. They said a small plane had crashed into the building.

I remember thinking at the time that was odd, because not too long before that, a small plane and a helicopter had crashed into buildings in other cities in separate incidents. What's going on with these pilots, I wondered?

This was the first view we had
of the second plane, just before it hit.

But then, as we watched, a second plane crashed into the other world trade centre tower -- and it wasn't a small airplane, it was a huge passenger jet and it was surreal. I stood there with my hand over my mouth. I  felt how wide my eyes were. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. The view we had at that point showed the plane going into the far corner of the building, and then fire and smoke immediately spewing out the other side.

"That was not a coincidence," I said out loud. "That was deliberate. This is terrorism." No one else said a word, but there were gasps and moans from all of us.

We all stood watching, horrified and worried. Soon after, the news outlets began reporting on the attack on the Pentagon and then the plane that crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I was scared.

It seemed like the world was tilting on its axis. Where would the next attack happen? When would it stop? Who was doing this?

We all stood and watched for a long time, but it was still a work day and, feeling disjointed and confused, I finally forced myself to go back to my desk and try to work. I made frequent trips back to the TV for updates. After a few hours, when no further attacks occurred, we all relaxed a little and started feeling safer. Because, even here in sleepy Ottawa, Canada, we feared we might be victims. We're not all that far away from New York, Washington and Shanksville. We are the capital city of a modern, affluent, democratic country that is best friends with the United States. We could very conceivably be the target of the kinds of people who'd highjacked those airplanes. We still could be.

Of course, as soon as I got home that day, I turned on the television and sat there all through the evening watching the horrific scenes and reporting from the three sites. I still couldn't really get my head around it. This was really happening. The things I was seeing just wouldn't square up with my understanding of reality, or even of what was possible in reality. I felt confused, frightened, unsafe. After the first shock of watching the live incident, it almost seemed to get worse and worse as the reports came in, and the steady stream of new film and photos that had taken a while to reach the news agencies.

The film and photos that horrified me the most, which made me burst into tears of shock and compassion, were those of bodies falling from the towers. People who were so terrified of burning to death in their offices, that they had leapt out of shattered windows and fallen to their deaths below. I couldn't imagine the terror that must have preceded such an act.

I was also intensely disturbed by the shot of a massive cloud of ash and smoke spewing around the corner of a building toward a group of terrified, running people. It looked like a giant monster seeking them out with evil intent, a live, solid, evil thing chasing them.

Of course, all the things I saw on television that day where shocking, disturbing, intensely unsettling. For days and days I couldn't watch anything else. Couldn't refocus on my normal life. I know that pretty much everyone else in North America and many other places felt the same way. The world was changed on that day. An act of unspeakable malignance and evil was thrust upon us. Not just on the over 3,000 people who lost their lives directly because of the attacks, but every single human being on this planet that was alive at that time, and who were and will be born since.

But it will always be especially personal for those of us who lived through it, whether in person or through the breathless reporting of every news agency out there, because of the ways it has changed the way we think, feel and automatically react to certain situations. I don't think I'll ever get over the automatic worry I now feel every time I see a low-flying plane over the city. I'll never again feel completely safe from people who hate the world I live in. I'll never be the same again.

I think the most profound and disturbing change that those events spawned in me, and I'm sure many, many others, is the regrettable suspicion and, if I'm to be completely honest, bigotry, that I now have toward people of the Muslim faith.

It shames me to admit it. I have always considered myself a very open-minded, tolerant, unprejudiced individual. But not as much any more. Not since my eyes were opened that day to the fact that so many people of that faith hate us, want us dead -- especially if we're Jewish -- want our way of life eradicated and replaced with their stone-age anti-culture in which women are barely-human baby factories and slaves, and men sit on dirt floors and excitedly plot the demise of anyone who isn't like they are. Not since I have seen how little was done to repudiate and vilify those events by others of that faith who claim not to hate us, yet never demonstrated that they hate the villains of 9/11. Not since the violence and the attackes have continued around the world. Not since the rejoicing in middle eastern cities at the news of the events of 9/11. Not since people of that faith tried to spit in our faces by trying to build a mosque within blocks of Ground Zero.

As an atheist, I reject all forms of religion. But now I particularly reject Islam and its followers, for it spawns hate and fear and backwardness, and puffs out its chest in defiance of civility, peace and love.

And I deeply resent their so-called "culture" (for Islam is not a culture, it's just a template for hate) for making me more like they are.

Shhhhh - the curse of noise pollution

Cultivate solitude and quiet and a few sincere friends, rather than mob merriment, noise and thousands of nodding acquaintances.
William Powell

Before I started working from my home, I never noticed the almost incessant noise and clamour that goes on around my apartment building during the day. I am a quiet person. I prefer silence when I work, and during most other activities around home. My neighbours are generally pretty quiet people too, which is nice. And, since the landlord fixed an astonishingly noisy plumbing problem (imagine the sound of God blowing his nose...a deep, booming brrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaPPPPP that frequently woke me from a deep sleep in the middle of the night), the building itself is quiet enough by any standards.

It wasn't too bad in the winter here either. Except for the frequent snow ploughs, which are annoying enough, because they usually get started around five in the morning.

But during the nicer weather, it sometimes seems that there isn't a minute that isn't spoiled by some kind of hideous racket outside. The lawnmowers and the gas-powered edge trimmers and the leaf-blowers. Add to those the seemingly constant exterior renovations going on, necessitating the use of brick saws, hammers, sand-blasting equipment, noisy trucks constantly backing up with their beep-beep-beeps or simply idling with the engines running outside my office window.

The buses go by every five minutes or so and their noise echoes off the building next to mine. They also create a weird, melodic whistling sound which mystifies me. There's a fire station just down the street, and as often as it seems to come into my driveway, the sirens still blare up and down till they're too far away to hear anymore. There are occasional police cars and ambulances too. Not to mention the loud-talkers who stand outside yapping their heads off, oblivious to the fact that someone's probably sitting near the window they're talking next to, listening (quite unwillingly) to every word they say. Have you ever realized how little of any value is said during quick conversations with your neighbours in the yard?

And the dogs. Oh my god, the dogs. I love dogs, okay? I adore them. But keep them quiet, dammit. There are so many people in these two apartment buildings who are constantly walking their dogs out on the grass (it's a toilet out there folks...stay off the grass around my place). And it seems that most of those people have no clue as to how to keep their dogs quiet.

I almost forgot about the car alarms. There is a special level of Hell reserved for people who have over-sensitive car alarms. And if they allow those car alarms to go off in the middle of the night...if those alarms go off every half hour during the middle of the night...if those alarms go off every half hour, every night for a week...well, then whoever owns that car will have to wait for their trip down to meet Beelzebub because I'm going to spend a little time with him first, and he'll look forward to the trip downstairs before I'm through with him. That's how car alarms make me feel, anyway.

I can't really complain about the sirens. They're just doing their jobs, helping people. And most of the traffic noise just fades into the background most of the time. I'm a lifelong city girl. You get used to it.

What bothers me the most, and what would, in its absence, make all the other noises tolerable (except the car alarms), is the constant noise created by the work going on outside here all the time. The lawnmowing, grass-trimming, leaf-blowing, brick-sawing, hammering, trucks idling god-forsaken DIN it all creates just drives me completely to distraction and makes me want to go out there with a baseball bat and shower down destruction on every bloody noisy contraption I can see.

I'm convinced that the guys who operate the gas-powered grass trimmers and leaf blowers really, really enjoy their toys. The way they rev the engines constantly rrr-rrrr--RRRRRR-rrr-rrr over and over and over again. What's up with that shit? I mean really! Just do the damn job and go away, already. Don't stand there wailing on the throttle like you're some idiot in a hot rod trying to impress some hot chick on the street corner. You know what kind of chicks are impressed by that kind of behavior, and you deserve anything you catch with that bait. And I do mean "catch."

I keep wanting to complain to the landlord, but I just know what he's going to say. It's work that needs to be done. Yeah. He's right. I know it. The place needs to be maintained. And it's just because I'm home all the time now that has made me so aware of all the daytime noise.

I just don't see why we can't just leave the edges a little rough, and let the leaves lie where they fall or rake them up. Seriously...leaf-blowing cannot be any more efficient than raking. Probably less so. Get a damn rake.

If I wasn't so averse to doing my own lawnmowing and snow-shovelling, I'd move to a little cottage in the middle of a cow pasture where the only noise I have to listen to is cows and birds and the occasional tractor in the distance. That sounds like heaven to me.

In the meantime, I just want some peace and quiet!!

Christopher Hitchens: An admired voice in peril

I have recently been worried and saddened to learn that one of my favourite writers and commentators, Christopher Hitchens, is battling esophogeal cancer.

I've been a fan of his since buying and reading his book, God is not Great, (twice...once in paper and once in e-book format), and subsequently googling and enjoying many videos in which he butts heads with naysayers, or converses with other favorite atheists such as Stephen Fry and Bill Maher. I've also recently started reading his autobiography, Hitch 22. His writing style is elegant and intensely literate. Every sentence is a perfect, self-contained statement which says exactly what he means to say, and leaves no room for misunderstanding. I can only dream of writing as convincingly and articulately as he does. He is a brilliant communicator and an unapologetic critic of the things he dislikes, the most notable being religion and belief in supernatural beings.

One of the memes going around asks who would comprise one's guests at a dream dinner party. Christoper Hitchens would be the first name on my list, followed, in no particular order, by Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins, John Stewart, Bill Maher and Dennis Miller. Looking at that list, it's apparent that I have a penchant for funny-looking, outspoken, brilliant, often British, anti-PC atheists. I think every one of those men has some very important things to say to the world and I would hate for any of their voices to be silenced.

The fact that Hitchens is suffering from cancer of the esophogus in particular is ironic indeed. In many recent videos I've watched of him, he frequently clears his throat. Obviously a sign of the danger lurking within. For a man who makes his living so much with his voice, the coincidence is just too rich, and I'm sure the irony of it hasn't escaped Hitch himself. I'm sure it hasn't escaped his detractors either, though I've been deliberately avoiding reading or watching any of their vile gloating.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect their reaction. "Turn the other cheek" is, I think, one of Jesus' least obeyed bits of advice. Judging from the reactions of Hitchens supporters who've commented on the wave of theist "told you so's", there's a lot of people who are happy that Hitchens is suffering this calamity. They think he deserves it. They think it's a punishment from god...a long-overdue punishment at that. It never seems to occur to them that their reactions are completely opposed to what their god and their church teach them to do, which is to forgive, tolerate, love and support, even those people you consider your enemies. They don't see their own hypocrisy at all. No wonder this world is so fucked up.

I admire Christopher Hitchens on many levels. As a writer, I admire his incredible skill with words, and his ability to express his ideas so clearly and concisely. He allows no literary chinks in the walls he builds through which debators might access vulnerabilities. I love his sardonic wit, which is delivered with such finesse and such confidence that I'm often left in awe of his brilliance. As an atheist, I admire his ability to speak his mind, without apology, without fear, without concern for the opinions of others. I like that he doesn't hold back. I wish I had nerve and wit and intelligence like his, rather than being yet another namby pamby atheist -- I'm 100% convinced of my stance, yet I usually try too hard not to offend anyone with it, so I might as well be an agnostic or even a weak believer for all the progress I make with my opinions. Hitchens inspires me and gets my blood going, much like King Leonidas of the Spartans inspired his small army. Hitch makes me want to change the world.

It's my true and fervent hope that Hitchens's cancer treatments are completely successful and that he will be back at his writing and debating and offending the true believers as quickly as possible. I suspect this brush with ultimate fate may influence him to give up some of the habits...the smoking and drinking...that probably played a major role in putting him in this situation in the first place (contrary to what the god-botherers would say, which is that his opinions and his mouth got him in this mess). But even without the ever-present fag and glass of amber mystery liquid by his arm, I know he'll continue to be a voice of reason and intelligence in this world that so often clamours with the insanity of unprovable superstition.

Writing...I love it, but it scares me

I think I'm a pretty good writer. Better than average. I have a lot to learn, and I expect I always will...and that's as it should be.

I've been producing short stories, opinion pieces, poems, journal entries and all manner of other written works for as long as I can remember. Three of my short stories and two of my poems have been published...all of them for money. I vehemently object to the practice of allowing publishers to make money off your work and give you nothing but a couple of author's copies in return.

I've made two concerted efforts at writing a novel. The first one I gave up on twelve years ago, as it became obvious to me that it was little more than an attempt to escape from, and in some ways deal with, the pain of my marriage, which was on its last legs at that time. The second one, which I'm working on now, shows much more promise, a storyline that has nothing to do with my personal life, and takes advantage of all that I've learned in the interim.

And I've just noticed that almost every sentence in this post so far starts with "I." *sigh* Well, it IS the most common word in the English language after all. And this IS a personal blog. So you'll just have to forgive me. But I'll try to do better.

There's just something about writing that I find incredibly satisfying, in a way that very little else satisfies me. While watching television or reading or puttering around on the internet, I usually have some kind of snack on the go (surprise, surprise...HA!). But when I'm writing, I barely even stop to take a sip of whatever beverage I have to hand. Writing completely absorbs my attention, and hours can go by in the blink of an eye.

It doesn't matter whether it's a simple two-sentence email or a new chapter in my novel. I will happily write, rewrite and write again the same sentence over and over to get it just perfect. In anything else I do, if I don't get it right the first time, well, too bad, that's how it's going to stay. And there's little I hate more, in my non-writing time, than having to do something over again. I *hate* that!! I hardly even ever cook the same recipe twice...unless it's really spectacular and I can do it from memory.

Have you ever written a sentence that gave you goosebumps...made you think "wow...did *I* write that??" I have. It's the best feeling in the world. To string together a bunch of letters in such a way that they say absolutely and perfectly the exact thing I wanted to say...that's one of the most sublime things that I can experience. Writing the perfect sentence is kind of like drawing a portrait of someone you know well. Even the tiniest misplacement of a line or shadow will make the face look wrong. But when you get it right...it's sooooo right. It feels so good. I see reality reflected there. And the fact that I did it myself never fails to blow me away. I think that writing well is the most self-affirming thing I've ever done...when it works.

So, can anyone explain to me why I avoid writing so much? I waste so much valuable time doing other things that aren't nearly as creative or productive. Sometimes I literally have to force myself to go sit down at the computer where I write. Sometimes I can't even get that far. I will easily sit here and spend an hour composing a self-serving blog entry that no one but myself is interested in. But sitting down to work on my novel which I know in my heart is a winner and will sell someday...it's one of the hardest things I ever do.

For about five years before I started my current job, I used to write almost every day. It was during that time that I sold those stories and poems. I started my current job ten years ago. December of 1999. For almost the entire time since, my muse, my desire to write, has been AWOL. I've wanted to write. But I just wasn't able to. It was as if all my creative energy was just gone.

And there's fear too. Fear of failure. Fear that I'll never finish, or that it won't be good, or that it will be good and still no one will want to publish it. I'm not so high-minded that I want to write *only* for myself. I guess I'm kind of like an actor...and what is an actor without an audience?

And I'm lazy. I don't have enough drive or motivation to keep my ass in the chair, writing. That's one of my biggest obstacles. I keep reading that you need to set yourself goals if you really want to accomplish anything. That's never worked for me. Possibly the backhanded effect of living a blessed life in which I've almost always gotten what I wanted without really having to work hard for it.

I don't know what happened to bring my muse back, but whatever it was, I welcome it. I welcome Her. I imagine her as a woman named Hesta, who has a spiral tattoo radiating out from her navel. Don't ask....she's not a real person, just a vision I had once during a meditation.

I still struggle every day. And most days I lose. But many days now I win. And that alone is a success. I've written 10,000 words of a horror genre novel. I'm happy when I'm writing. I lose myself in it and it feels gooood. When I'm not writing, I'm often thinking about writing, or reading about writing, or coming up with new ideas for other stories and books I may someday write.

Perhaps you don't just need the urge to write and the talent to write. Perhaps you need the bravery to write as well. You need to overcome the fear of failure. Will I ever finish this novel? What's the use if I'm never going to finish it? Will anyone like it? Will it all have been a waste of time? Are people going to think my writing is overblown? Melodramatic? Silly??

One of the things that's got me writing again now is my friend Tonia, who is reading my pages as I go along and offering her honest opinions and suggestion. Just knowing someone's reading it...that it's not just fantasies in my head and electrons in my computer...that makes a huge difference. Knowing someone is waiting for the next few pages is a real motivator for me.

So, in the end, the answer may be that simple -- for me. Every writer is different. For me, maybe it's just knowing someone likes what I'm doing that keeps me going. Thanks Tonia. Love ya, girl.

Gloom and doom

It feels like this winter will never end.

You know that ad on TV for the vacation company? The one where people are stuck in their car in a huge snow drift, or the guy who's trying to shovel out a driveway piled deep in snow, or the woman at work who looks outside at 4:30 pm and it's pitch dark outside and snowing. They all start sobbing from the bleariness of winter.

God, I relate to that commercial. Especially the woman at work in the late afternoon darkness. There's just something about waking in the dark and returning home from work in the dark, and for such a long time, that's really starting to get under my skin. The days are perceptively longer now than they were two months ago at the winter solstice, but even still, it's not enough. I really think I'm starting to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. It never used to bother me, but both last year and this year, I find myself feeling low and hopeless as February plods along. It's the shortest month of the year, but it feels like the longest. Last year it was May before I started feeling like myself again. And here I am going into the busiest time of the year at work, when tempers are short and patience is a rare commodity.

It doesn't help that every time I turn on the TV or radio all I hear about is how many people are losing their jobs, how many companies are going bankrupt, how bad the economy is and how it's only going to get worse before it gets better. And then there's the environment news. I've been unfortunate enough to come across a few articles lately, written by true pessimists who say that it's too late to fix what we've done and that the next generation or, with luck, the one after that, will live in a ruined world with too many people and not enough clean water or fresh air, where they have to hide from the sun and scratch out a living from the broken down leftovers of our generation's excessive lifestyle.

And we won't even have the advantages they had in the dark ages, or even in the Great Depression. We're all so dependent on the modern conveniences now that we haven't got a clue how to survive in a world where we have no job, no home, no electricity, no heat. We've lost the ability and the tools to live off the teat.

It reaffirms that I made the right decision not to have children. I'm child-free by choice not because of the environment or any concerns about over-population. My decision was not a noble one, it was a selfish one. Kids don't interest me, they get on my nerves really fast, and I don't have any patience for them. They take too much time and attention, and I'm VERY selfish of my time and attention. Oh, many people have told me they think I'd have been a great mother, but I know better. I can barely take care of myself and a housecat, let alone be responsible for children. But with all this gloomy news lately, and in this most gloomy time of the year, I've been thinking there's another benefit to not having had children: I don't have to worry about them going into a bleak future where they have none of the advantages or luxuries that I had.

I lay in bed the other night, wide awake, after realizing that I am probably of the last generation that will enjoy progress, plenty and a decent lifestyle. We are at the end of the Renaissance, and heading back into the dark ages. And this time it will be our own damn fault too. Last time it was because of religious intolerance and the ignorance and stupidity it fertilized. This time it will be because of short-sightedness and greed.

I wonder how long the coming Dark Age will last, what the new Renaissance will be like. And what will bring it down in the end?

Pattiabulary: "Change"

Change -- noun: The act, process, or result of altering or modifying. 2. The replacing of one thing for another; substitution. 3. A transformation or transition from one state, condition, or phase to another.

"The only constant thing in life is change."

How true. However, in my life, change is so constant as to be a relentless and ever-present force. And I'm not just talking about changes around me. I'm talking about changes within me, changes that I create on my own and changes that are created for me or to me by others. I suppose all people can claim the same, but somehow it seems to me that capital-C Change has been the defining element of my life, more so than usual for most people.

There has never been a time in my life when the tides of change were still. If it isn't major life-altering changes like moving from one province to another, or changing jobs or going into or out of a relationship, it's inner changes, like becoming interested in something or losing interest in something or deciding I feel some way about something or deciding I don't feel that way after all, or loving someone or not loving them anymore.

And if some kind of change isn't actively in play in my life, I will create it. I don't even realize I'm doing it most of the time.

It seems that constancy is not something I can ever hope for.

For a short while, back in the 80s or 90s, I was seeing a counsellor for some reason or other. Stress-related issues probably. The counsellor asked me how did I deal with change. I thought about it for a moment, and then I said what is probably the most profound and true thing I've ever said or thought in my life: "Change is my salvation."

"Change is my salvation."

Sal·va·tion -- noun: Preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil.

Now, there has been astonishingly little destruction, difficulty and evil in my life. At least on a large scale. Like everyone, I've been through difficult times, some more difficult than others. But I have never lost a parent, sibling or close friend. I have never suffered serious injury or illness - nor has anyone close to me. There have been scares, but thankfully, everyone is okay. I have never experienced any kind of natural or man-made disaster. Perhaps the only destruction I could name would be the destruction of my family when I was very small and my father moved away. I'm sure there have been been more deep and lasting impacts of that than I will ever know (perhaps it was the birthplace of my change-lust). And Evil? No. At least no more than most women encounter in their lives, as the object of unwanted attention. No harm done, though, and in fact, my resulting heightened alertness to possible lurking danger can only be a good thing.

So, does change deliver me from destruction, difficulty or evil? Is unrelenting change necessarily a bad thing? Does it signify some kind of inner strength or weakness? Fear or courage? To all those questions, I think the answer is "yes and no."

I know that my desire for change has often been a way to run from things that were making me less content with my life. If I didn't like my job, I would change jobs rather than try to find a way to improve my situation at the old job. If I was having trouble with a boyfriend, I would leave him, rather than try to work it out. Perhaps in that way change keeps me happy - or at least keeps me from being unhappy.

My desire for change has also led me into wonderful experiences, such as moving to British Columbia for seven years, even though I had no job there, and no place to live. It allowed me to accept an offer to go to Halifax to work for a year, even though I didn't know a soul there and didn't even know if I was up to the job before me. My desire for change took me out of an unhappy marriage that was slowly strangling the essence out of me. My desire for change brought me back to Ottawa, where I have been happy ever since.

But my willingness to change so easily has also probably drained some of the joy from my life, because I don't stick to things long enough to really see them bear fruit. Perhaps if I had stuck with my husband longer, worked harder and longer to save the marriage, we would still be together. I still have never met a man I was as content and comfortable being with as I was with him. Perhaps if I was not in such a hurry to change all the time I might never have moved to BC. I might have stayed in Toronto and had a completely different and wonderful life there. Perhaps I would have more finished projects rather than half-finished ones.

If I didn't crave change so much, if it wasn't part of my DNA, if it wasn't constantly scratching at my brain, demanding that I look the other way and see what's down that road, maybe I would have found more contentment in life. Or maybe not. Maybe I am not built for constancy. Or maybe my only constancy - the constant need for change - will lead me eventually to the one thing that change has never given me: a passion.

I have loved. I have been a friend. I have had a semi-successful 27-year career. I have pursued hobbies and interests. I have enjoyed this thing or that thing. But never has anything...anything...been passionate, at least not for more than a few weeks or months.

Is that because change has never let me dive deep enough into anything before yanking me up and putting me down in some other physical, emotional or intellectual location? Or is it because change has just not put me down in quite the right place yet? Will I ever find the elusive passion that keeps me wandering? If I ever do find it, will my Change-lust allow me to stay with it, or at least bring it along as I am plucked up and dropped elsewhere like a dandelion seed on a light breeze?

But that is not a good analogy. Even dandelion seeds take root somewhere.

Does the Internet make us smarter?

I came home this evening and the power in my building was out...again. Seems to go out a couple of times a week. At least this time it was because they were trying to be proactive and avoid future power outages.

Seems like every time the power goes out the one thing I find myself most frustrated by is the inability to use the Web to look up things I'm wondering about. Like, I wonder what the English lyrics to Bizet's Carmen are (while watching a movie rendition of it on TV), or I wonder when the Carp Fair starts (in order to mark my Google Calendar), or I wonder how a map of modern-day Europe compares to ice-age Europe (because I'm reading The Valley of Horses by Jean Auel).

Since I couldn't look up what I wanted to before the power came back on earlier this evening, my mind was wandering a little and as it often does at such times, I wondered how I ever got by without the Internet. Having to run to the library or dig up a dusty old Encyclopedia Brittannica to find stuff out just wasn't as cool, as fast, as timely or as satisfying as plugging in a few key words in Google and having the information within seconds.

And since the Internet now allows me to satisfy even my most idle curiosities (almost) as often as I want -- and I'm a pretty curious person -- I have to wonder if it's making me any smarter. If I was curious about something 20 years ago, I might never be able to satisfy that curiosity. I'd wonder about it and then it would just fade from my mind as the next thought took its place. Now that I can find things out any time I want, I figure I must be smarter because of it. Cool.

Mind you, I'm not saying I'm more intelligent because of the Internet. If the Internet made me more intelligent, I wouldn't spend so much time on it! Talk about a Catch 22!

Losing our memory

In the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Jim Carey's character pays a doctor to literally erase specific memories from his mind. Eventually he realizes that his memories are precious to him and he struggles to stop the process of them slowly disappearing from his mind. While none of that is literally possible, it does still happen in a way.

The other day at work, I accidentally deleted a file I'd just finished creating. Bah! So I called IT to see if they could recover it for me, but unfortunately they couldn't. The way our server is configured, if you delete a file from the server, it's gone for good, right away.

For some reason, that made me think of something my mother told me once. There was a day when my grandmother made my mother help her burn all her private papers. Old letters, cards, notes, etc. My mother was stricken that Nana would destroy her own history like that. But Nana didn't want anyone reading her private stuff after she was gone. I can't say I blame her...I'd probably have done the same thing. But I can totally relate to my mother as well, wishing that we still had that connection with Nana.

I have a box full of old love letters. I have old diaries and greeting cards and photos. Some of them I wouldn't want other people reading, most of them I wouldn't care. But more and more these days, my memories are kept on my computer. I have this blog. I have tons of photos and letters and emails and chat logs and all kinds of stuff that, ten years ago, would all have been on paper, if I'd even bothered to keep most of it.

There's considerably more of it now too, than there would have been ten years ago. Nowadays it's so easy to just file an email away on the computer. No need to find room for it in a box full of other letters. And when I want to read it again, I can find it in seconds. I don't have to go riffling through boxes and boxes of old paper letters that probably aren't sorted in any order at all.

But you know...that's kind of the shame about it, isn't it? We can neatly file thousands of emails and chat transcripts away on a single computer where they're very easy to find. You can go straight to that single letter you were looking for. No scanning other letters to see if they're the one you wanted. But that was part of the pleasure of it all, wasn't it?

I remember poring over old boxes of letters and cards looking for a particular one, and along the way I'd come across dozens of other things I'd completely forgotten about. I'd stop and read and smile or shed a tear and enjoy that memory all over again. I could spend a whole afternoon looking for one letter, getting sidetracked by dozens of others and in the end I might never have come across that particular letter I'd set out looking for. But I didn't care, because I'd had such a wonderful time with all the others I'd found.

And what about when I'm gone? That box of love letters (if I haven't destroyed it) may make interesting reading for someone someday. But will they bother to get on my computer and find all those many, many files on here, or better yet, stored out there on the Internet. Will they read these electronic voices I've saved away?

Somehow I think not. I imagine someone finding my computer and simply wiping it clean without looking at the files. Maybe keeping the programs to use for someone else, and deleting all the "data" I've created or collected over the years. My computer, for someone else, is not so much a repository of my life's experiences as it is a tool they can use themself to hold their own memories.

Will we lose our history as a society because of this? For the average person, whose collections of papers would often wind up in libraries or museums as examples of their way of life, will we disappear in the future because everything is on computers now? Will historians of the future actually have a harder time digging into our lives because it's all in bits and bytes, easily erased or overwritten by the next generation?

For the current generation, growing up typing and hardly being able to write longhand, there will be no pleasant afternoons spent poring over the old letters they forgot they had, no dusty old photo albums being dragged out. I just dont believe it will ever be the same once the paper generations are gone.

Then again, being from the paper generation, how could I imagine any other way but my own could ever be as special.

It's A Wonderful Life

I realized last night that I am very, very happy with my life right now. I am back in Ottawa with my family and friends. I love my new apartment. My job is going great - no undue stress at all yet. I'm healthy. I have no debts. I've been seeing a lot of my friends and have really, really enjoyed having them over to visit at my place and cooking for them. And last, but not least, I now have the most perfect pet . It's like Bugsy was custom-ordered for me.

And you know what? I think this is the first time in my life I can honestly say I do not regret the lack of a man in my life. I'll be happy if one comes along, but he will be just one more happiness among many. Before, not having a boyfriend somehow tainted everything else. Now it doesn't.

I hope this sticks... I like it!