These days, I've become something of a peacenik. The overwhelming emotional exhaustion of everyday life that once turned me into a constant nervous wreck has now revealed itself as the perfect catalyst for realizing how underwhelming it can all be in light of the fact that each day offers more reasons to live than not, no matter what happens. There are always other people smiling, even when you are not, and I am at my happiest when I'm around others because it's a lot easier to make light of the heaviest happenings when someone else is there to laugh with you. A good sense of humour is an important ingredient in the recipe for a sense of peace and contentment that I inch towards more and more as time goes on.
But I don't like fighting, and you run a great risk of finding yourself in a fight you never intended to start just by arguing with people. Not everyone thinks the way I do and not everyone thinks you can have a cool, calculated argument on a controversial topic without emotions getting in the way and when that's the case, the person you are arguing with can very easily take any opinion that is contrary to their own as a personal attack. I still want to talk to these people and I make a concerted effort to make them understand that there is a difference between "I disagree" and "I hate you and your opinions make me angry."
I've always been a people person, despite not being nearly as socially active as some of my other friends, but as my philosophy becomes more resigned and passive with the elimination of stress from my life, I've begun to value people in a whole new way. I am much more receptive to ideas that clash with my own--in fact, I welcome them. I've become studiously interested in the way other people think and my respect for the intelligence of people that I used to think were stupid has seen a huge increase.
I love talking to different people and my preoccupation with how and why other people disagree with me allows me to make my arguments in a calm and unbiased manner, no matter how passionate I might feel about the subject. There are some subjects where I used to get frustrated with the brick wall I would run into when arguing with others, but now it's as though there is no subject that is more deeply important to me than talking to other people and listening to whatever ideas they bring to the table.
I love talking to different people and my preoccupation with how and why other people disagree with me allows me to make my arguments in a calm and unbiased manner, no matter how passionate I might feel about the subject. There are some subjects where I used to get frustrated with the brick wall I would run into when arguing with others, but now it's as though there is no subject that is more deeply important to me than talking to other people and listening to whatever ideas they bring to the table.
Most people are fundamentally good, which is why I try to show as much respect for every stranger I come in contact with as possible. Most people just want to live long, happy lives with freedom and well-being for themselves and those they care about. We all share this basic philosophy, but have different ideas about how to go about making it work and it rather makes it look like we all have different goals and personal agendas that couldn't possibly be aligned towards a common purpose across a world so vast. The destination is the same but everyone has chosen to take a different path and I suppose that's what life is--a mapmaking journey to a place you'll never quite reach.
If we could reach that place though, he who penned the best route would certainly share that route with friends and family, who would in turn share it with theirs, because it only stands to reason that if we all want the world to be the best it can be, we need as many people fighting for that purpose as we can. The only thing that stands in our way is our hesitation to share, our empire-building--our perverse belief that some humans deserve to benefit from human achievement more than others. Slowly, we are starting to see unity in the world as more people are realizing that we all really do share the same goals. As advances in medical science begin to have an impact in third world countries and as the internet spreads across the globe to remind everyone that they are all part of a worldwide network of people, we are closer to being one world than ever before.
If we could reach that place though, he who penned the best route would certainly share that route with friends and family, who would in turn share it with theirs, because it only stands to reason that if we all want the world to be the best it can be, we need as many people fighting for that purpose as we can. The only thing that stands in our way is our hesitation to share, our empire-building--our perverse belief that some humans deserve to benefit from human achievement more than others. Slowly, we are starting to see unity in the world as more people are realizing that we all really do share the same goals. As advances in medical science begin to have an impact in third world countries and as the internet spreads across the globe to remind everyone that they are all part of a worldwide network of people, we are closer to being one world than ever before.
Douglas Adams once said:
"First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure."
The portability of the internet in the modern era has allowed the technology to spread remarkably fast compared to a lot of other industrialized innovations from the wealthier parts of the world. Poor children in South American villages who live in mud houses and play outside with rocks and sticks now have mobile phones. WiFi access can be found in parts of Africa that you never would've guessed--and I know you're probably thinking they don't have computers. But they do--they come with a handcrank on the side that can be rotated for about sixty seconds to generate just enough watts of power to connect to the wireless network for a few hours. (see here for more info)
Now, Africa needs food more than it needs computers, but the cost of getting the internet to Africa is pennies by comparison and yields arguably more prosperous benefits in the long term. How? Because it's a brochure for the world--it tells you and it shows you exactly what the world can be, its tremendous diversity, its vast scale and gives a vision of hope to many who had never seen a brochure for the world and life's potential, and wouldn't have been able to for many generations if someone hadn't seen the value in sharing instead of keeping it for themselves.
That's a roundabout way of trying to say that it's worth respecting each and every person, and when we all occasionally come together to realize that we're on the same team despite our differences, great things can happen. Throughout history, only our mistrust of one another, our belief that we are somehow different and the drive to act on those notions has stood in the way.
That's a roundabout way of trying to say that it's worth respecting each and every person, and when we all occasionally come together to realize that we're on the same team despite our differences, great things can happen. Throughout history, only our mistrust of one another, our belief that we are somehow different and the drive to act on those notions has stood in the way.
Many would argue that we are different and that happiness, freedom and good health are not common goals, but I don't really see any evidence of this. Anyone who holds that opinion has probably already passed judgment based on the wrong idea, because these are very basic ingredients for life--everyone wants to be happy because happiness is what it is to live feeling mostly good, most of the time. Everyone wants to be healthy because you're less likely to die that way, which leaves more time to live feeling mostly good. And everyone wants to be free, because freedom is your right to choose what is best for your happiness and for your health.
Even people who are caught up in wacky fundamentalist religions that heavily restrict freedom, happiness AND health want all three of those things; you can tell because they are inevitably offered up as posthumous gifts once you ascend to the heavens after a hard life of faithful obedience.
For those who believe in eternal prosperity in the afterlife, their behaviour here in the real world doesn't often frame itself in a way that is easily relatable to your own goals. In fact, I think it makes people uncomfortable to think that they might have something in common with, say, someone who kills their own child on suspicions of being possessed by a demon (see here)--even if they are doing it to supposedly protect the health, happiness and freedoms of the family and friends they love. Any good parent believes in those things, it's just that not all parents believe in black magic that could turn their own child into a barbaric demon from the underworld.
The only thing missing is the right knowledge, the right education to make them understand that they need to retain their care and compassion for who they love in life, not death, and that love needs to be stronger than any witch doctor diagnosis or religious code. Humans are very good at figuring out the difference between right and wrong when there's billions of them working together naturally--we get better all the time. The moment you decide to hurt other people or try and tell them what they can and cannot do by taking away their freedoms, you are standing in the way of our natural path to happiness.
Even people who are caught up in wacky fundamentalist religions that heavily restrict freedom, happiness AND health want all three of those things; you can tell because they are inevitably offered up as posthumous gifts once you ascend to the heavens after a hard life of faithful obedience.
For those who believe in eternal prosperity in the afterlife, their behaviour here in the real world doesn't often frame itself in a way that is easily relatable to your own goals. In fact, I think it makes people uncomfortable to think that they might have something in common with, say, someone who kills their own child on suspicions of being possessed by a demon (see here)--even if they are doing it to supposedly protect the health, happiness and freedoms of the family and friends they love. Any good parent believes in those things, it's just that not all parents believe in black magic that could turn their own child into a barbaric demon from the underworld.
The only thing missing is the right knowledge, the right education to make them understand that they need to retain their care and compassion for who they love in life, not death, and that love needs to be stronger than any witch doctor diagnosis or religious code. Humans are very good at figuring out the difference between right and wrong when there's billions of them working together naturally--we get better all the time. The moment you decide to hurt other people or try and tell them what they can and cannot do by taking away their freedoms, you are standing in the way of our natural path to happiness.
Many of you are probably wondering what this has to do with voting. Totally a fair question. The reason I've chosen to preface my stance on voting with this babble about global human values, respect for all people and the importance of freedom is to make it clear that I am optimistic about the future of an intelligent civilization and the ability that all people have to learn from one another. People give me shit for being negative so often that I'm getting tired of mentioning how often it occurs and the more I hear it, the more I begin to think that I'm not the one being negative. Dismissing another person's opinion without even acknowledging their point seems to reek of negativity, yet the instigator gets the label just for bringing it up.
I prefer to think that optimism is an important tool for cooperation and to drive the initiative of other people to accomplish something worthwhile. And I think it best manifests itself in people who are willing to have the discussion instead of those who refuse to thoroughly talk through anything that has even the slightest chance of failure.
I prefer to think that optimism is an important tool for cooperation and to drive the initiative of other people to accomplish something worthwhile. And I think it best manifests itself in people who are willing to have the discussion instead of those who refuse to thoroughly talk through anything that has even the slightest chance of failure.
I yammer on about open discussion, the power of cooperation in numbers and the value of freedom because I believe these things are all very real and I believe that not many places in the world do a better job of bringing them to fruition than we do in Canada, a democracy. It would be easy for me to draw an imaginary line between the success of democracy and my idea that "people + freedom = happiness", but I don't really believe that and I do not normally vote in any election. Some people are vehemently passionate about voting, some don't care one way or the other and some refuse to vote as though they're really making a stand against the establishment. I am neither of these, and I'll go into a bit more detail after putting this into some context.
Here in Calgary, the municipal election is the hot topic of the moment. Without an incumbent mayor, all kinds of people have tossed their hat into the pool and the result, although now decided, isn't really important to my point. In keeping with the times, the final candidates included one dude with a lot of degrees and ties to community groups, one local TV personality and one actual politician. When something like this happens in a city of this size, the entire outdoor landscape is decorated with flyers, billboards and signposts telling you to vote for EVERYONE for EVERYTHING (often on the same lawn).
There's also usually two or three smear campaigns going on at once in the media as well, telling you why whoever's winning the most recent polls will surely poison our city's future. The media outlets themselves are often guilty of presenting the poll numbers in such a way as to make the race for mayor look a lot closer than it is (not exactly the case this year, but certainly demonstrated in the past) and the combination of all of these things fuels the hungry stomachs of passionate voters who have been chomping at the bit to show what responsible citizens they are and are keen to drag everyone they know along with it.
There's also usually two or three smear campaigns going on at once in the media as well, telling you why whoever's winning the most recent polls will surely poison our city's future. The media outlets themselves are often guilty of presenting the poll numbers in such a way as to make the race for mayor look a lot closer than it is (not exactly the case this year, but certainly demonstrated in the past) and the combination of all of these things fuels the hungry stomachs of passionate voters who have been chomping at the bit to show what responsible citizens they are and are keen to drag everyone they know along with it.
Like I said, some people are intensely passionate about voting and I'm here to say that that's okay. It's okay to be passionate about something--it's okay to make it your entire life's work, if you want. However, like any good cause, when a large number of passionate people pool their resources to do something positive in the world, they are filled with a sense of self-importance that can quickly turn a well-intentioned philosophy into a crusade against those who aren't in their circle--and once again, the pavement on the road to global cooperation suffers another crack.
When you're surrounded by people who agree with you, it's easy to start to think that your group is right and whoever's not in it is probably wrong. That's how these activist crusades get started: "Hey guys, you know, if everyone did things this way, the world would be a better place!" And so, they put together a posse and storm the castle, implement a new government and draw up a plan to deal with the inevitable hoards of people who will disagree that the world is a better place and try and bring the new institution down themselves. It is a cycle, yes, but we learn a little bit each time--so now instead of fighting by hiring secret medieval assassins to lace the king's wine goblet with poison talc, we now do it by showing black-and-white images of the incumbent on television and overlaying bold red text on the screen showing how many millions have been wasted during their tenure, all while ambient doomsday music looms over the ad in the hopes of scaring you into voting the other way. It beats poisoning the people in charge, sure, but I still don't think it's particularly civilized and that's part of the reason I'm not much of a voter.
When you're surrounded by people who agree with you, it's easy to start to think that your group is right and whoever's not in it is probably wrong. That's how these activist crusades get started: "Hey guys, you know, if everyone did things this way, the world would be a better place!" And so, they put together a posse and storm the castle, implement a new government and draw up a plan to deal with the inevitable hoards of people who will disagree that the world is a better place and try and bring the new institution down themselves. It is a cycle, yes, but we learn a little bit each time--so now instead of fighting by hiring secret medieval assassins to lace the king's wine goblet with poison talc, we now do it by showing black-and-white images of the incumbent on television and overlaying bold red text on the screen showing how many millions have been wasted during their tenure, all while ambient doomsday music looms over the ad in the hopes of scaring you into voting the other way. It beats poisoning the people in charge, sure, but I still don't think it's particularly civilized and that's part of the reason I'm not much of a voter.
Now, this part is aimed particularly at those of you who think that it's everyone's undisputed responsibility to vote. This is for anyone who has ever told me that "you have to vote" and meant it, as well as anyone who has ever said to me, "if you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain." And most importantly, this is for anyone who thinks less of someone else when they choose not to vote--often, these are the same people:
We live in Canada. A free country whose citizens' lives and behaviours are governed under a Charter of Rights & Freedoms drafted to protect an individual's civil liberties, including their right to speak freely, their right to say nothing, their freedom to create and express ideas, their right to keep their ideas to themselves, and their right to vote in a democratic society, as well as their right to choose not to.
That's right, Canada is a free country--whether you think I should be able to or not, I can live here forever, watch all the elections and write a book attacking the candidates and complaining about all the things they're doing wrong each and every time without voting ONCE. It would be kinda stupid, but when you're living in an increasingly intelligent and civilized world, it's easy to forget what freedom is.
"Freedom" is your right to do something that everyone else thinks is stupid.
"Freedom" is your right to do something that everyone else thinks is stupid.
For example, the consensus is that driving 200 kilometres an hour through a playground zone is stupid. The government agrees that this is stupid and is detrimental to the safety and well-being of our people, therefore a law was made restricting the speed in playground zones. On the other hand, if you are sitting in traffic and the car in front of you has a diesel engine but you think diesel engines are stupid, you cannot--in a free country--walk up to the driver and tell him that he doesn't have the right to drive around in one of those and expect compliance.
Where you draw the line is an extremely contentious issue and in a democracy, that issue is theoretically left up to the voters. The challenge with protecting freedoms and acting in the best interest of the people is finding a balance between the rights and freedoms that they have been granted and the best means of protecting the society from the flaws those freedoms create to allow for continued prosperity. It's a complicated equation and far from a perfect system, but the government has, by and large, done a very good job at creating a "safe" society for free living.
However, the protective bubble in which free societies rest is so thick that the citizens who are now used to living "free" have begun to take notice of all the freedoms they've had to give up in order to create said bubble. That's why we still fight for change and impassioned voters have decided that voting is the best way to affect that change. I don't think it is, and I'm not alone.
Where you draw the line is an extremely contentious issue and in a democracy, that issue is theoretically left up to the voters. The challenge with protecting freedoms and acting in the best interest of the people is finding a balance between the rights and freedoms that they have been granted and the best means of protecting the society from the flaws those freedoms create to allow for continued prosperity. It's a complicated equation and far from a perfect system, but the government has, by and large, done a very good job at creating a "safe" society for free living.
However, the protective bubble in which free societies rest is so thick that the citizens who are now used to living "free" have begun to take notice of all the freedoms they've had to give up in order to create said bubble. That's why we still fight for change and impassioned voters have decided that voting is the best way to affect that change. I don't think it is, and I'm not alone.
And please, for those of you who like to bring out the heavy artillery on these issues, I must politely ask that you don't give me that "you have to vote because soldiers are dying overseas to fight for those rights" jive--you try and make me out to sound like a criminal if I don't vote in a country where the right to vote and the right to choose not to are both equally valid principles in a world that is truly free. If the outcome of a military operation hoping to spread freedom and democracy includes the caveat that all citizens in the newly free country must have to vote by law, you're not fighting for freedom at all.
This should not be confused with voter apathy, either. It's not as though I don't care who influences our tax dollars and how that position comes to be decided--I'm just not the right person to do the deciding, and I don't think you are either. Which is the problem I have with the relentless encouragement of the democratic process: it applies arbitrary value to uninformed opinions and then pressures people into using their uninformed opinions to make important decisions about the society at large. What do you know about running a city or a country, really? What makes us as individuals think that we know so much about leading the public into a brighter future?
I'm not saying you're stupid and I'm not saying that you shouldn't have the right to vote and have a say in what happens in the world around you--I'm all for protecting that right. But the reality is, you don't have to poke your head in the door of too many offices of elected officials to realize that a lot of voters don't know what they are voting for. They are encouraged to vote and those who are doing the encouraging are usually trying really hard to make the individual feel like they can make a difference and that their opinion has real value in a political setting. That's not realistic even with only a few layers of administration cluttering up the political process, but that's not always clear when the importance of your one vote gets artificially inflated like that.
We just can't be abusing our right to vote by making uninformed choices, that's all. Politicians in democratic societies are regularly ridiculed by their own electors for not being able to do their job but the voters never share in any of the blame.
We just can't be abusing our right to vote by making uninformed choices, that's all. Politicians in democratic societies are regularly ridiculed by their own electors for not being able to do their job but the voters never share in any of the blame.
I work for the City of Calgary. Right in the middle of it all--one of the 13,000 or so minions that fall under the mayor's umbrella of employment. I don't pretend to know everything, but I know a more about how the City council and administration is run than the average voter. I know the incredible amount of time, money and work that goes into making a change that would even subtlely impact the day-to-day lives of citizens around town. And I know how little the winner of the mayoral race truly impacts an average citizen's life--getting worked up about local politics is largely much ado about nothing for almost everyone, but the way some people get their teeth into this, you'd think we were voting on whether or not to bring in the Nazi's .
I have some basic idea about how the city works now that I've been working for them for a few years, but I don't know nearly enough to say that I'm qualified to choose who should be running it at the top. Everyone who gets involved in these debates suddenly acts like an expert on city management as a result of the overinflated importance of their vote and it can be a little infuriating. In a democratic system with a consistently low voter turnout, nobody will ever try to discourage uninformed voters from placing their ballots, but that is what I'd like to see.
I believe that if you don't understand what a mayor really does and have no knowledge of the workings of municipal politics, you should not vote--out of good conscience. If you really want the best out of your democracy, the key to weeding out the crap is not to get more people voting, it's to get all the right people who are both interested and qualified to vote. Otherwise, it's a little bit like letting a stadium of football fans to choose their team's final play of the game instead of the coaching staff--sure, the fans may think they know a lot about football, but do you really want the whole Super Bowl riding on their drunken yelling??
I believe that if you don't understand what a mayor really does and have no knowledge of the workings of municipal politics, you should not vote--out of good conscience. If you really want the best out of your democracy, the key to weeding out the crap is not to get more people voting, it's to get all the right people who are both interested and qualified to vote. Otherwise, it's a little bit like letting a stadium of football fans to choose their team's final play of the game instead of the coaching staff--sure, the fans may think they know a lot about football, but do you really want the whole Super Bowl riding on their drunken yelling??
Well, maybe we do, maybe we don't. In the end, it doesn't matter whether the fans or the coaches are calling the plays, it's the guys on the field who have to execute them. In Calgary, it appears Mr. Naheed Nenshi has come out of the shadows to lead the next offensive rush towards the endzone. It's big news now and will continue to be for a few days, but things will be back to normal for most people soon enough--after all, it's just another ball game.
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