I’m not.   I saw it coming at least a few years ago.  I mean God, the signs were there for anyone who was watching.

I guess that we live in a time when far, far too many people have learned how to believe whatever they’re told by those in authority, no matter how unlikely.   Or are too busy soaking up advertising and cheap comedy to examine the world around them.  Or have simply ceased to believe anything that they’re told.  Which may be the safest route.

And now, as I write, Barack Obama stands in front of the elected representatives of the American people to try and put a brave face on what I call an economic collapse.

And now governments around the world  struggle to find a way to put the genie back in the bottle, to bring order to the house of cards that is falling around them.  ”How,” they must be asking, “Could this happen when  we did just as were told? When we gave business leaders and financiers and speculators carte blanche, removed so much regulation, let then move capital and jobs to whatever backwater would maximize their profit.”

Well guess what guys – the “invisible hand of the market” may not be just what you were told.   Or may be more so than you imagined.

Did it really not occur to anyone that The Market is not altruistic, is defined in every way by self interest and self-perpetuation?   And that as it, and the men who run it, gain more and more power their self-interest would find less and less reason to moderate their behaviour or to balance the good of a nation or people against the drive for profit?

How could any thinking person look at the growing number of people living and begging on our streets in the past two decades, and the rocketing prices of everything from housing to coffee to toys and gewgaws and not be conscious of the gulf that was being created between Rich and Poor?  Could anyone be so blinkered not to see that the massive cuts to healthcare and other social programs reflected a dedication on the part of governments to hand more and more money and advantage to those who were already comfortably endowed?

Did no-one else understand that when governments abdicate their responsibilities with things like P3 contracts and deregulation they create a vacuum into which someone else will step, will claim power over that realm, and use it to their own advantage? That a profit making business will never, ever act in ways that put clients and citizens ahead of profit?

And of course, why did so few in the Media challenge  the claims of these people or question the assumptions that guided our government’s actions?   I could see that problems on the horizon. I could see why some things are just very bad ideas. I could see that there are roles that have to be filled by a responsible government, not by Aspers or Trumps or Buffets.

We have laws that abridge our lives in so many areas – crime, medicine, parking, dog poop – why on earth shouldn’t we also have laws that constrain business?  Why shouldn’t our government step up and say “No, that is too much power, too much debt, too little responsibiliy, and is not in the best interest of the people of this country.”

How many of of the individuals who led us to this economic collapse will be sent to jail? Any?

How many of them will wind up living on the streets, begging for handouts? Any?

And how many will admit their culpability, will avert their eyes, and will try to make amends?

Yesterday I found myself typing the program for a music recital – essentially copying student names, composers, and works into a list.  It’s the kind of thing that I’ve done hundreds of times, but which has stopped being an everyday thing since I escaped the world of non-profit organizations.

In doing this work though – it took maybe twenty minutes – I realized how much I love working with words, and how it has been missing from my everyday experiences.  I guess that anyone who follows this blog is too aware that posts have dropped to nothing in the last few months.

The question that I am examining this week is why I stopped writing.  I have time, I have energy, I have many wonderful things happening, and many more comment-worthy things happening around me – gang wars, Olympics, a nascent financial Depression.  Each of these is worth examination, and each I think is an area where I have opinions worth adding.

Maybe it’s a a question of being very happy, very settled, and  relatively free of strife and anxiety. Maybe it’s because of my shrink. Maybe it’s because I feel less that I have to prove myself.

Or maybe it’s because I’ve been holding back, collecting ideas and thoughts so that I can write with more depth and substance.

Part of the reason that this now seems important is that I do see the need to broaden my income sources, both to make little more money, and to ensure that if one jobs falls through – like construction work – I’ll have at a least some cushion.  I no longer see poverty as an option, and frankly like having enough money to pay my way, pay my bills and even treat myself and those around me on occasion.  I am conscious that there were people who helped me out greatly during a few very hard years, and now I am “paying that forward” by helping out where I can.

What I am doing though is helping out individuals, people that I know, rather than supporting causes and charities.   Somehow, for some reason, that seems to be most important right now.

Perhaps it’s because when I fell on hard times it was friends and individuals who helped me most,  not the institutions that one would hope were there (with a couple noteable exceptions).  Perhaps it’s my way of transforming charity from an a abstract to a real and immediate act.  Perhaps I look around myself here on the North Shore of Vancouver and understand that for many a charitable donation is in fact a way to not deal with the problems that beset an otherwise affluent city, and serve to insulate one from the reality of say the Downtown Eastside.

When living in Hamilton the poverty was in my face, deeply ingrained in the local culture, and by a political climate that steadfastly refused to deal with any of the core problems.  In North Vancouver it feels as if everything exists in a soft, warm middle class, and that poverty is something that happens far, far away, or at least across the Seabus.

That comfortable culture is appealing, and for me at least offers great relief and a chance to heal and to catch my breathe and plan my next moves.   It worries me though that at the same time I might begin to see the drug addicts and gang members and all of the troubled souls as “them” instead of “us.”  That compartmentalism is what allows our leaders to spend billions of dollars on games and edifices while allowing tens of thousands of people to live in abject poverty.

The time has come to remind myself that putting ideas into words is how I clarify my thoughts, and how I set myself in motion to take action.

I have never understood why someone would play golf, much less watch it on TV.  Middle -aged (usually) white (usually) guy hits teeny ball with stick, then walks or drives to the ball and hits it again.

Spectators (!) applaud quietly, as if in a library.

Yawn.

Well, I have found a “sport” that’s even more boring.

Monster Jam, in  nutshell goes:

1) Really loud “truck” with really fat tires drives over passenger car (or bus), which is crushed.

2) Repeat Step 1.

Really, that’s it.  Over and over and over, except sometimes one truck tips over (see Gravedigger, in photo*) or has  flat tire.

In fact there is a scoring system that seems to be modeled on figure skating, with points for three distinct elements which are added up to give each driver a score.  I have no idea what they are scored on, but apparently they are.

Problem is that unlike say wrestling, there is no drama, no suspense, no theatre. No good versus evil, no rooting for your favorite driver that I could see.  It really didn’t matter who “won”, and the points seemed pretty arbitrary, so how could people get excited?

If all ten trucks raced at once it would have been exciting. If even one truck spent more time crushin’ and jumpin’ than circling around it would have been exciting.  If there had been flames, or contrived rivalries, or name calling and threats of violence it would been exciting.  If there had been smoke and fog and exotic lighting – even a couple of Intellibeams for God sake – it would have been exciting.

Instead one or at most two trucks drove around, looking very small in a large stadium, and only periodically ran over something.

Yawn… at least golf has water hazards.

* The picture above was taken during the show, and represents one of the most exciting moments!