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31
May
2021
Thursday May 20, 2021
A few columns ago, I wrote that I had great optimism about individuals, but pessimism about humanity as a whole.
But a reader told me that my concept contained an inherent contradiction. Humanity as a whole is made up of individuals. Logically, therefore, I cannot be optimistic about individuals without also being optimistic about the whole. And vice versa.
I can’t agree. There are discontinuities in everything. Transitions, where one reality morphs into another.
And you never know exactly where, or how, those discontinuities occur.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Transitions, discontinuities
15
Thursday May 13, 2021
The hummingbirds are back. Probably two pair of them, although I’m not quick enough to identify individual features.
They seem to play, like otters, for the sheer joy of living. They perform aerobatics overhead that would make a stunt pilot green with envy. They soar vertically, flip over, dive at dizzying speeds, zoom past at low altitude, do barrel rolls, meet in mid-air, come to an instant stop…
I also notice they have different feeding habits. One visitor perches on the feeder while sipping nectar. Another hovers constantly while dipping his (or her) beak into the plastic blossom. For each bird, always the same blossom, always the same perch.
And I wonder which bird is headed down an evolutionary dead end.
Tags: vulnerable, Evolution, hummingbirds
8
Thursday May 6, 2021
The Kelowna Art Gallery is hosting a show about nuclear exposure, until July 18.
The gallery’s promotional leaflet says, “BOMBHEAD is a thematic exhibition organized by guest curator John O’Brian that explores the emergence and impact of the nuclear age… encompassing the pre- and post-war period from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daachi in 2011.”
It’s not just about nuclear war, although the visual images do include mushroom clouds and flattened cities.
It’s also about the invisible threat of nuclear radiation.
I felt that the exhibit failed.
BOMBHEAD is a visual arts display. But how does an artist portray something invisible?
What you can’t see CAN hurt you.
Tags: Art, BOMBHEAD, nuclear threat
30
Apr
Men don’t like talking about emotions. They have a hang-up about discussing their hang-ups. If you want to get men talking, ask about their first car.
This tactic doesn’t work as well in mixed groups. Some women don’t care about cars. A few have never actually owned a car. They’ve left car ownership to their boyfriends or husbands.
Cars seem to matter more to men. It’s a macho thing, I guess.
That first car was a rite of passage. An entry to the adult world. A portal to an alternate universe.
Tags: cars, Peter Egan, Road & Track, men
23
If this column seems a little lighter than usual, it’s because I completely forgot about writing it for the local weekly paper. Until today. Which happens to be Earth Day, 2021.
A few years ago, a visiting friend asked me what I thought of the state of the world.
At the personal level, I said, I’m an incurable optimist. I don’t know any individual who would refuse to help out another individual in need.
I know, I know, there are occasional stories of someone being murdered while 27 eyewitnesses did nothing. But those stories make the news because they’re the exceptions.
Most individuals can be, and are, compassionate to other individuals.
At the collective level, though, I am equally pessimistic. As a human species, we seem incapable of thinking beyond the present. We are terminally short-sighted.
Tags: Earth Day, optimism, pessimism