Over the years I have been contemplating and expanding a set of practical ethical statements that give structure and meaning to my day-to-day activities. A clearly defined ethics synchronizes my behaviour with the world around me in a way that accords with my core beliefs.
I meditate upon the following statements most mornings, centring myself and trying to better understand my role in society and nature.
Value Life
I am defined by what I am-not, as much as by who I think I am
Give with joy and grace
Receive with gratitude and appreciation
Live the tetrahedron, express my physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual aspects
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Reminding myself of these principles every day helps me become the type of person I want to be, and deepens my commitment to living well. I have no desire to convince others that these are ethical standards they should adopt; on the other hand, I believe an adult should not hesitate to articulate and explain the roots of his purposes and behaviour.
In future posts, I hope to explain more fully the implications and relationships between each of these ethical statements, and look forward to sharing ideas with others, who question their place in society and hope to make the world a better place,
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This morning’s sun dawned on me, a bleed of light in the ambient air, impressing with its metaphor of glory.
And I asked: Is this the shining way… the path?
And I asked: How many dawns have bathed me in their blare of blinding light?
And I say: Dawning’s beyond conception.
I don’t remember my mother’s face, from that first day she held me swaddled in her arms. My earliest memories are assembled pastiches retrieved from jumbled collections, fading images in forgotten albums... Brothers, sister and me in defining moments picked from the scrabble of growing up... Growing old.
And I ask: Is this the past I wanted? My only possible inception?
And I say: Their love was good enough to endure a lifetime.
And what of my own sons, misunderstanding, misunderstood, good as me at finding fault? Is their's a future untold, stories in the making, or a history already that I’m to blame for?
In the midst of this day’s dawning a flight of geese honked and gabbled up our street; our suspiring phalanx of cedars, arbutus, and Douglas fir stood firm, and jagged against the sky; a frog croaked in the yard, awakening my admiration for ants, and beetles… and lowly worms.
My morning mantra harkened, urged me to complete The Circle…
‘We are defined by what we are-not As much as by Who we think we-are,’
The moment I sense my self I disappear, become part of the very nature that shapes my solitude... my joy, my fear.
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LitHits are snippets of prose and poetry. They can be stand alone provocations, collaborations, or excerpts from longer works that encapsulate completely an insight or feeling. Got a LitHit in you? Want to get it out there? Send it my way…
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You've heard about the water wheel, has Chemainus in such a flap? Well, now the truth has been revealed... what turns its forward back.
The culprit's name is Flibber T, that's Flibber T Gibbet for long. He's the one you're gonna see if you listen to this, my song.
Oh Flibber T, Oh Flibber T You're such a curious fellow, your cap's as red as red can be and your shoes are bright, bright yellow
Flibber T is a naughty elf, as naughty as naughty can be. Never thinks of anyone else, out on his troubling sprees.
Turning clockwise the other way for unbelieving eyes is just the sort of trick he'll play to shock, and tease, and surprise.
But when it comes to elfish kind you've gotta believe to see you have to alter your state of mind with the likes of Flibber T.
Oh Flibber T, Oh Flibber T You're such a curious fellow, your cap's as red as red can be and your shoes are bright, bright yellow
These thoughts came to me as my dog Sophie and I did a circuit around the Chemainus Lake Trail.
There are four categories of ‘goodness’ I can identify: Absolute, Fundamental, Conditional and Contingent. I’ll describe each in a moment, but first a little context.
I have long been baffled by the word ‘good’. More to the point, whenever someone tries to define what ‘good’ is, as opposed to what it is not, or what is bad, I find myself unconvinced. Their definitions and my own come up short, seeming as incomplete and arbitrary as castles (aka fortresses) in the sky.
But over the last few days I have been studying ethics from a Stoic perspective, reading an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There I came across the apparently standard definition of ‘the good’, to which “all parties agree”, namely that: “…possession of what is genuinely good secures a person’s happiness.” What tweaked me in that definition is the notion that it’s not what goodness ‘is’ that’s important, it’s what it does, or it’s effect.
It ‘secures a person’s happiness’.
Which, of course, begs the question: What is true happiness? Until we have answered that, we can’t possibly determine what constitutes a ‘good’ thing or event, and will be unable to direct our lives in a way that makes us truly happy. Like a dog, chasing his tail, we’ll only succeed in making ourselves dizzy.
That second variable of the goodness-happiness equation has become more clear for me recently, in the form of a personal philosophy that begins with the fundamental statement: Value Life. I say ‘fundamental’ because for me that is an ethical stance that does not require ‘proof’. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way, and if anyone asks ‘Why?’ the only answer I can offer is ‘because it’s a part of who I am’. In fact, my recent meditations have led me to the conclusion that valuing life is at the very heart of my ethical being.
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With what’s been said so far, I can hazard a definition of ‘good’ that is meaningful and useful. For me an event, action or thing is good if it allows me and my community to live up to my fundamental principle of valuing life, because valuing life makes me happy. That’s not to say there aren’t other things that will make me happy, or that valuing life isn’t an ethical commitment fraught with contradictions.
However, I know that unless I make choices that do value life, I will not be truly ‘happy’. Worse, when I make choices that devalue life – and despite myself I do – I undermine my own happiness, usually in the pursuit of immediate gratification
So I now have a criteria for determining at least some of what will be good choices for me. Not good because they are laudable from other people’s points of view, but because they bring me closer to my own – let me use the word I prefer – fulfilment.
Now I can attempt a definition of the four categories of goodness I mentioned at the outset of this essay:
Absolute Goodness – I actually don’t believe such a thing exists, an act, or event or thing that everyone would agree was good, if they fully comprehended its nature. If I believed in god, or Platonic ideals, I could speculate about the nature of absolute goodness, but I’m a spiritual-atheist, which precludes a belief in god or any sort of disembodied ideal.
Fundamental Goodness – That is, goods which directly relate to my personal philosophy and set of values. They are ‘fundamental’ because they are essential events, actions or things that express and make real my set of values. Unless I participate in, demonstrate or possess these goods I am not engaged in meaningful and positive ways with my world.
Conditional Goodness – We are conflicted beings, and almost all the ‘good’ we do or experience has side effects or consequences we don’t desire. Conditional goods are directly related to my values, but they are conflicted because, viewed from a different perspective, they are also contrary to them. For example, I value life, but must kill in order to live. That tension cannot be resolved, it can only be mitigated by best possible choices.
Contingent Goodness – These are goods, not directly related to my philosophy or values, but which add to my well-being and enjoyment of life. Most of the good things I experience, enact or possess fall into this category, and if I examined them I might discover that they do support my values indirectly, or at least don’t contradict them. Wealth, for instance, doesn’t necessarily contradict my desire to value life, and it might give me the means to support causes that value life more effectively… or my unrestrained pursuit of wealth might damage life on this planet in irreparable ways.
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On August 2, 2021 a March for the Children, organized by the Penelakut Tribe, made its way from the BC Ferry terminal in Chemainus, through the town up to Water Wheel Park. An estimated 1,500 people joined in the commemoration.
Penelakut Island is the historical site of the Kuper Island Industrial School, a site of the Canadian genocide of Indigenous people. The march was for the children, healing, and reconciliation.
Like many, I have mixed feelings this Canada Day 2021
Canada Day?
It’s become an emotional, moral conundrum for me. On the one hand, I am a grateful citizen of one of the most prosperous, industrious, democratic nations on earth; on the other I am confronted with a legacy of deadly oppression and ongoing discrimination, perpetrated against the indigenous peoples of this land.
So what is it I am supposed to celebrate this July 1, as the tally of children who died in Canada’s infamous residential schools comes to 1,000 and counting – with estimates of at least 6,000 more than likely?
I certainly can’t celebrate a deliberate strategy of containment and re-education designed to enforce European occupation of the land. Nor can I celebrate the present deep rooted biases that are built into my country’s fibre. My only hope is to look toward a future where truth has been disclosed and reconciliation achieved, and make that commitment part of my Canadian citizenship in a meaningful way.
Our only hope as a nation is to accept the fact that a genocide was carried out, and take responsible action to compensate the individuals and communities that have been ravaged by a deliberate, sustained effort to eradicate their culture. I can sum that attitude up in a simple phrase: Take responsibility, or accept blame.
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That mantra has to be put into its modern context. First Nations in Canada have proven themselves resilient. Despite a long history of brutal oppression, they are in the midst of a ‘renaissance’. They don’t need paternalistic meddling in that enterprise; they are entitled to recognition and an equitable share of this land’s bounty, which will allow them to thrive.
They are also entitled to understanding as they express their sorrow and anger. And to respect. Everyone lost when Canada embarked on its genocidal policy. What we could have learned from indigenous peoples about the importance of family and community, and coexistence with nature, is incalculable.
My celebration of Canada Day 2021 will be mixed. What I will be celebrating are the tremendous accomplishments of our history; what I will be condemning is the fact that a cornerstone of those achievements was a genocide.
The full measure of personal and national stature is a willingness to re-evaluate our stories and base our actions upon the truth. Will Canada live up to that standard? Will we become a nation that admits when wrongs have been committed, compensates the victims of those wrongs, and writes a history that ensures they are never committed again?
Only time will tell. For now, I think a token of my determination to that end will be to wear orange and red on Canada Day. It’s a small gesture, but one that tends toward a redefinition of what it means for a nation to be ‘great’.
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I try to avoid the thought, ‘This isn’t so bad.’ Because that might lead me to the admission that ‘it’s kind of nice’, which I’m sure would be misinterpreted. The procedure is meant to be purely clinical. An elderly man, in a sterile room, having patches of his body shaved so the receptors of a heart monitor can be glued to his sagging torso. My sentiments are strictly in the ‘like-being-around-young-people’ category, but the specifics of our situation, the semblance of intimacy, make me nervous.
The nurse’s hands move with a precision that suggests there’s no room for error here. Scrape, scrape, the plastic razor removes the short and curlies from five points of contact: two on my chest, three on my upper abdomen. Then she rubs the ointment on, peels the parchment from each of the receptor’s pads, and sticks them onto me, so they hang there like leeches.
It’s hard, under the circumstances, to keep the conspiracy theories from manifesting. ‘What exactly might they be listening to, through this harness that’s fastened to my skin?’ Those suspicions intensify when I realize the metaphor of ‘leeches’ doesn’t quite describe the species that will be clinging to me for the next 24 hours. They’re more like tentacles of a five legged octopus, whose neurones connect to a little black box the size of a mobile phone I’m to carry around with me as the creature sucks data out of my body.
‘What can you learn about a person by listening so intently and unremittingly to the beating of his heart,’ I wonder.
When she’s done with the techie stuff, the nurse shows me a ‘Patient Diary’, which she will later insert into a plastic zip-lock envelop that has the warning ‘BIOHAZARD’ emblazoned on it in both official languages. I’m to insert the scribble of my diurnal, minute-by-minute notes into a pouch on the outside of the envelop, the heart monitor and harness into the zip-locked compartment behind, then hand my pulsed record in to the ‘ambassador’ at the hospital entrance, who will make sure it finds its way to where it needs to go.
My record keeping must be curt. There are three columns to the diary: one to log the time, another to name my activities, and a third to list any symptoms I might experience. Activities might include ‘walking the dog’, symptoms things like ‘shortness of breath’.
The example are appropriate, I will discover. You really don’t know how boring your life is until you are asked to record the minutia of your days. If they’d cited an example like, say, ‘Wing Suit Flying!” or ‘Formula 1 Racing!’, I would have felt even more inadequate than I did before this bloody stroke added a knife-edge to my existence. ‘Shortness of breath’ wouldn’t even come close to describing the heart pounding rush of zooming through the alps at 200 kph, skimming over jagged granite teeth within centimetres of my life.
“Every decision entails risk.” I can hear Herbert pontificating over a pint of Dark Matter on the Sawmill’s patio. “You might get run over, deciding to cross the road,” he would say. Then add, in that nuanced, pain-in-the-ass mode of his, “Even in a crosswalk.” With Herbert repetition is sort of like the rivets and welds that hold a ship together. His logic has structure, you get exhausted just thinking about how you might dismantle the unassailable integrity of it.
“But happenstance doesn’t add zest to my risk-taking!” I want to shout at him. He’d have some kind of answer for that. I can see him smiling smugly, casually taking another sip of his beer, while I try to calculate the significance of a ‘mini-stroke’ on the future tense of my life’s story. “I didn’t decide to have a stroke!” I would complain.”So how can you call that ‘risk-taking?”
I know Herbert would have an irrefutable answer. One that would make perfect sense, even though it might be… would almost certainly be… perfectly wrong. That’s the thing I like most about Herbert, his ability to reason to wrong conclusions from almost any point of view. He’s like Socrates on steroids, his brain a network of unassailable algorithms that yield their own truth because they are based on false, hidden premises and mysterious assumptions. He makes me feel sane.
When I got home from the hospital, I made my first Patient Diary entry, aware of the octopus clinging to my flesh, monitoring my heartbeats as I struggled to enter the time. Everything I do with my right hand is a struggle now, especially writing. That’s how I knew something was wrong in the first place. Leanne asked me to write down an email address she was reciting during a phone call, and my hand couldn’t form the letters. They came out all shaky and crooked, sloping down the page like a five year old’s script.
What the fuck! No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my hand and fingers to manipulate the pencil in a way that looked anything like normal. I pretended not to have heard her, left the room, threw the incriminating envelope into the garbage.
‘Drove home’ I scrawled under ‘Activity’; ‘3:20 PM’, under ‘Time’; I had nothing to report under ‘Symptoms’. I could have said ‘Depressed’, but that’s not the kind of information they were looking for. I could have added that it felt like my right arm was dying, that the weight of it tired me out if I insisted on actually using it. That, even if I let it hang limp from my shoulder like meat on a hook, just the sensation of its dead weight fatigued me. But there wasn’t room for that kind of descriptiveness in the symptoms column, so I left it blank.
Leanne got mad at me when I finally told her what had happened. After the chicken-scratch episode, I phoned my doctor’s office and was instructed to get my ass to a hospital and not to drive. I wanted to have some idea what was happening to me before I told Leanne, because she can’t stand uncertainty, has to fill in all the blanks and gaps with plausible explanations, followed up by the likely actions we need to take to deal with her scenarios. I’d have to stop my compulsive snacking, improve my posture, spend less time at the computer and watching TV, walk the dog vigorously twice a day, get rid of my belly fat and body flab… plus do what the doctors told me to.
She lectured me all the way from Chemainus to Duncan on our first trip to the hospital. Scolded about my slovenly habits and secretive attitudes. When she asked if I needed a drive to get the heart harness fitted, I said I’d be okay. “No need for you to sit around the hospital waiting for me,” I advised.
No matter how you slice it, the brain looks like a stalk of broccoli. I’d never seen my brain before, and if you showed me my CT and MRI scans, without any accompanying information, I wouldn’t recognize the folded cortex as my own. But it’s me all right. More me than the photos fading in our family albums, or imprinted in the circuitry of my friends’ mobile phones. Everything I know, or am capable of ever knowing or believing, is right there, in those pictures.
Everything!
Seeing images of my brain, collected by clunking, squawking, beeping, flashing machines, operated by technicians, who didn’t know me from Adam before I stepped into their clinical chambers, and would forget me almost before my moment of departure, confused me. It was like stepping into a house of mirrors…
No that’s not it. More like becoming an insect skittering about in my own neural network, able to see the inside of my own eyeball, then scurry up axions and hop synaptic gaps, until I burrowed my way into buzzing, vaulted chamber of my own brain and could sense the chaotic wonder of its electricity.
No! That’s not it either! It was as though I’d become an electron, aware of every other electron in the universe, and of the fact that I wasn’t an electron at all, but a something indefinable, an essence, a substance at the very core of living energy and matter, that could not be classified as either, or seen through the eyepiece of a microscope, or captured by the whirling cameras of a CT scanner.
If I wasn’t an atheist, I would have classified the experience of truly seeing my own brain as ‘religious’. And perhaps I’m not an atheist, after all, but a spiritual being who wonders, not at a god out there in a place called heaven, but at the ineffable miracle of every living moment.
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We didn’t realize it until we were returning from our Miracle Beach foray that dogs are not allowed down to the water’s edge. Some signs are meant to be obeyed, some you just gotta wonder about, and do what you think is right.
My impressions coalesced into a poem…
Miracle Beach - rites of passage
We broke a few rules, trudging the arced shore beyond the subtle sign, deleting dogs of any sort. Sophie’s nose came with us, snuffling things out, we might otherwise have missed, being merely human.
Death, of course, is ever present, a sickly sweet scent on salted air, a peeling back, layer by fibrous layer, of muscle and bone, the tendons and ribs that hold us in, bind us to joys, hopes and sorrows like the taught stings of a harp.
Impressions criss-crossed our wondering ways, sometimes the past tenses of others, or our own, at all times intriguing, the comings and goings, heres and theres of life in the making, out on the substrate sand.
Where it dawns on us, that all’s touch after all, the tingle of light in our eyes, the rush of the sea, its thrashing echoed in inner ears, the tongue’s excitement at what once was… it's all touch, vibrant on the boundaries of who and what we’ve become.
A convergence, really… at the point of being… if there is one?
I look to where my sky touches the ocean, land curves beyond my horizon, sound reveals its silence… and discover it’s all part of me, particles of who I am in this exact, eternal instant.
As for meaning? We’re ever on the lookout, gathering what we can from the clatter and clutter of worlds that engulf our common senses, defy purpose… and leave me asking: What remains of all this, once I am gone?
My favourite place to read is an armchair, in the northeast corner of our living room, which has one window facing out on our suburban street, another with a peekaboo view of Stuart Channel and the Salish Sea.
Most often I have a hardcover or paperback opened in front of me, either held up in my hands or propped on my lap. It’s a comfortable portrait, most would recognize instantly, and most readers would sanction.
It fits our notion of what a book and, by extension, literature should be.
The Mural Gazer Direct to Web novel invites readers to ‘Buy-In’, an example of rethinking the concept of a ‘book’.
The flaw in that picture, however, is the word ‘most’. If most of the people show up most of the time for an activity that happens most every day, it won’t be long before most people aren’t showing up at all.
Literature is too important to allow incremental slippage. Books Unbound is not about denigrating what remains the most popular literary medium, a position printed books will occupy for a long time to come.
It’s about imagining new ways of writing and sharing, ways that broadcast storyteller’s voices and, by extension, the reach of literature.
Our stories have to unfold in places where readers go. To me that means books that are dynamic, interactive and versatile, presented to ‘audiences’ on social media, websites, in video readings and book trailers, episodically in eMagazines, and…
In ways that promote literature in its vital role as the art form that challenges readers to experience their worlds from new, diverse perspectives.
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