Succumbing to the Digital Age, Part 2

Politics, Technology and Cultural Spells

I’ve never really paid attention to politics or the ‘news’. A good bit of my disinterest might simply come from my privilege as a cisgender white man from one of the wealthiest, politically stable countries in the world. It’s not like I have nothing to fight for, I am still a subject of a colonial system, but I’ve never had to fight for my life or right to exist. I’m even less interested in sports. I don’t see the connection to my life or any reality, so I have no time for that. Usually the only thing of interest that the news has to offer me is the weather. Even that I take as just an opinion. I know which way the wind is blowing and can look out the window for myself. And indeed even their weather predictions are often over-dramatized “emergencies” to boost ratings, like the rest of the news spin. And as often as not they’re wrong. I’ve only really cared about what’s happening in politics in my rural county because I can see the issues might affect me directly. I’ve never found provincial, national or international news relevant to my life. Yet a strange confluence has happened that has brought me into this imagined realm of the ‘informed’. The drama of politics these days combined with me having a phone has connected me into the zeitgeist of today’s culture. I’m watching every move now like it was a limited series on Netflix. Although I’m quickly getting sick of it.

I overheard my son chuckling as he said to one of his online buddies, “my dad’s just discovered the internet”. Not true. But to him at 17, scrolling youtube or instagram is the internet. I’ve done research and had email on the internet since the 1980’s from the start. Back when we imagined it was a fad. I also remember we were all wary of it back then because the internet was first developed by the US military. So I’ve always assumed anything I did or said could be monitored because of that connection, perhaps long before our content actually was being looked over. But he’s right that I’ve never dipped into social media or scrolling. Having had a smartphone for less than a year, this media immersion is still all an experiment for me, so I just let it happen. Alarmingly, from scrolling for a couple hours a day for a couple weeks, when I’d normally be watching movies or documentaries at night, I can feel my attention span disappearing. With a diet of those juicy bite sized pieces everything else starts to look like too much work. And at any lull in the day you feel a craving for its dopamine drip of distraction. I get it now why everyone’s hunched over their phone for their own personal parade of one hit wonders and ignoring the less edited un-scored version of actual reality, nature and the people around them.

It’s actually a lot like smoking cigarettes. They both tap into the same neurochemistry, providing dopamine and endorphins. Not sure which is less healthy. Smoking might hurt your lungs and cardiovascular system but scrolling can kill your attention span and motivation; deadly. I know I’m in the dragon’s mouth looking at its teeth now and I’m being as careful as I can be in here. Don’t worry, I also know I’m the addictive type and that this is a real danger for me. I’m still watching some news but I deleted those scrolling apps. At this point I could still just not have a phone and might go back there if I get more fed up with it all. I do like the flashlight though and the camera. So my experiment is complete and the conclusions... scary.

For our business Megan has Instagram and other apps but has put a block on her phone to keep her from scrolling during the day. Ironically, a little help from the phone can help you get off the phone and shift the habit. Which is a reminder that the thing itself is ultimately just a tool, it’s not evil in itself, it’s how this powerful thing is being used that I question. Most people aren’t willing or couldn’t give their phone up like I might, but you can control how you use it. When I was a kid things that were dangerous looked dangerous, like a chainsaw for example. You knew what you were in for as soon as you looked at the thing. Part of the problem we are having is the phone looks so harmless, even sexy, but I think it’s more dangerous than a chainsaw in its hidden capabilities and ability to become such an indispensable part of our life.

All that is to say for better or for worse I feel very connected to world events and the news cycle now. One good thing that’s come of all this media contact is for the first time since I was a kid in 1972 when the Canadian hockey team beat the USSR in the Olympic finals, I’m actually feeling proud to be Canadian. And happy to not be an American. Usually I don’t buy into all that jingoistic stuff but Carney is blowing my mind with his bureaucratic moves and measured response to the whims and tantrums of the little orange monster in charge of the country to the south of us. Let his name not be said lest we evoke his foul rank, coming through the sulphur tendrils of his digital reach.

I’ve never been one to wade in on politics and I don’t think I’ll start now, but I am paying more attention. Like all of us I have limited time and have chosen to focus my time on that which sustains the Earth and myself directly. The hard truth is I’ve never felt motivated to invest anything of myself in politics because I feel the system is hopelessly backward and corrupt. From the start of our colonial history as a nation we have been geared towards a GNP based almost entirely on the exploitation of people and land resources. And no matter who is in power the profited exploits have always flowed back to the higher ups. THIS ISN’T A CONSPIRACY, ITS BEEN THE SYSTEM FROM THE START. We optimistically call our version “free-enterprise”. Indeed, a ‘free for all’. Back in the day the exploited wealth of timber and beaver pelts flowed back to the King, Queen and Church. Now it’s things like Canada’s oil, minerals and industry that generates the major flow of wealth flowing back to governments, corporations and their oligarchs.

I vote but it’s tricky because why fight over the best captain when the whole ship and all of us are being swept downstream towards a waterfall with such a force that steering seems to have no effect. But that orange menace has forced me to answer that question. We have to be involved because it’s the right thing to do, however futile our little contribution may seem. Our actions seed the future and you don’t know what might grow. I’ve done things and said things that I thought weren’t enough or anything special and then later been told that they changed the course of people’s lives!

That rightness we feel is like magnetism to a pole, it’s in our nature to follow. We can feel what is right and wrong in our bones. That’s why in gambling we throw ‘the bones’ to see what fate will be cast. Our bones hold and channel the truth beyond temporal attachments. We might think this innate sense of what’s right is just about having a threshold of intelligence, but it’s deeper and more universal than that. It comes partially from what we’ve inherited from our ancestors, who also always tried to follow the truth in their hearts. Like looking to the northern star for direction, this truth is and always has been a constant for us to live moment to moment by, generation after generation. But I suppose even this star is just an outer manifestation of the truth. Given tens of thousands of years, stars shift away from the pole and other stars take their place that better align with the earth’s axis. A new truth to guide us to the same unseen pole.

If we surrender to the power of corruption, if we ignore the truth thinking it’s all just subjective opinion and stop fighting, then our spirit leaves us, and our ancestors back away. From ignoring the truth in our bones, our immunity that is generated from the marrow is lost. And from not following the guidance of our heart it’s not surprising that the number one cause of death world wide is heart/cardio disease. We cannot turn from ourselves without dire consequences. The second and more practical reason is it might be worth paying attention and participating in politics is because while we are generally being swept along by the strong flow of corporate domination, the flow of the river is not uniform. There are eddies. And so in times like now when things are spinning around so quickly, spiralling in on themselves, we’re in an eddy and our direction becomes uncertain. That’s when with some effort we can actually change our direction. We’ve had many opportunities to change our direction during this last half century of corporate industrial domination, when things have gone sideways. But at each turn the majority of people have been ‘played’ through media propaganda and colonial programming.

As a culture we’ve shrunk from the challenges, driven back into our fear, trauma and paralysis. The most recent turning from the industrial highway could have been during Covid but instead the highway just got repaved and widened. There was some descension, but much of it became quickly radicalized through the internet toward conspiracy theories. And these protests became quickly too divisive to reasonably question or change the mandatory medical procedures being inflicted on the population. There were some eruptions of activism during this time, like Black Lives Matter and for transgender rights but no leadership or consciousness around individual sovereignty and what was being physically forced on us. The authorities killed any media or word about alternative treatments. Even when it was evident from other countries that herbs like Sweet Annie (Artemisia Annua) had worked for millions of people in Africa and India, this real ‘news’ was also suppressed. Any healing businesses and alternative treatments were closed and websites were shut down if they even said anything about “immunity” or treating covid. That was so fucked. And every fifteen minutes on CBC the national broadcaster they pushed the vaccine agenda. They dove the listeners into a fear response and aggressively attacked anyone who was questioning or not following the directive. Our whole war-like approach to this dark visitor was backward. What could have been a gift was turned into a terrifying monster. We unconsciously repeated the western narrative of battling nature and trying to conquer her with our technology. And it’s worth noting here that this wasn’t just the normal vaccine debate. This was a vaccine that used an RNA reprogrammer. A vaccine that was developed decades ago for the treatment of AIDS, but which was ultimately rejected as unsafe.

If you think we had no choice in how we approached this virulent virus let me explain. I’m not a virologist, but as an apiarist who has taken care of bees for generations I learnt that there are two options for treating bees when you have an ‘epidemic’ pathogen. If you try to kill or control the viruses the host stays vulnerable and you are evolving the pathogen. This leads to a lingering or chronic condition where you keep having to make new poisons to kill the evolving pathogen. By contrast, if you let nature take her course you may have more deaths and damage initially (which in the case of Covid could easily have been managed with herbal protocols), but over a short period of time you increase the group immunity limiting the virus’s strength and effectiveness. When a virus is allowed to run its course it generally happens over a 4 year cycle and then drops into the background, with no effect on us. Relative to the vaccine or RNA route which was meant to save or slow that first wave of illness (debatable if it did that), but in doing so kept the virus strong and revitalized through its evolution. And because of that this vaccine is still causing all sorts of wacky immunity/inflammatory responses 6 years later. Not to mention the serious side effects of the RNA vaccine, such as cardiovascular related deaths. Also, by isolating everyone for much of two years we became susceptible to many other pathogens that had been relatively harmless seasonal viruses and bacterial strains. So from that choice we made ourselves weaker and sicker as a group, perhaps indefinitely.

We didn’t realize what was at stake, we acted out of ignorance and fear and so as a culture we missed the boat back to a holistic earth centered reality. Instead we went further into the digital corporate reality. Further into divisiveness, coerced by and hiding behind old fears, propped up with backward reasoning. Now a chance to change direction has come again in another form and we are once again faced with a choice. Speak out and act with bravery and conviction, and risk losing what we have. Or stick our heads in the sand like we have been and hope the whole beach doesn’t get washed away, and us with it.

The problem with my previous overly cynical view of politics is that it kills any interest or chance for change. And then when we walk away from the table the elite pull up closer to take the whole cake. If open-minded people of spirit, of intellect or of an artistic persuasion continue to turn away from politics, economics and business as my generation did then the same old-boy’s conservative agendas will be served. No new vision, no path to follow. But it hasn’t always been this way, even in Canada. For the most part we were well known as a liberal country. Back in the day, in the 40s and 50s everyone used to be involved in politics. 80+% of people voted during the 1950’s elections. Globally, Canada has been seen as not just liberal, but leftist. One of our proudest achievements, our government subsidized health care system resulted from a long run of NDP leadership, and is based in communist ideology.

But these left leaning people began moving away from politics in the late 60s and 70s. I believe this exodus came from the disillusionment we felt after the Vietnam war, the Kennedy and Martin Luther King killings, and later the watergate scandal. While I am Canadian I grew up with American news and these events undeniably shaped our culture through the trauma of betrayal that was being broadcast our way. This was a turning point, fifty years ago, where the level of corruption in politics was revealed and the bubble of the 1950s righteousness burst. It was then many of us stopped believing and participating in the system. The thrust of the civil rights movement dropped off following this time period not just because some goals of equal legal rights were achieved, but from an overriding sense of disillusionment.

From that trauma, a generation of leaders, late Boomers and early GenX’ers floated off into their own areas of interest and expertise, thinking they were somehow above politics and okay in a separate world. (Me being one of them). I think millennials are more political so there’s hope but they aren’t in power yet, and few are motivated beyond a social media ‘like’ to protest in a disciplined and prolonged fight. For my generation the exodus from politics was a huge mistake because it enabled the right to step into the political vacuum. This phenomenon of conservative majorities that started with Reagan in the 80s and has run through to the orange menace, and it happened because of democratic/liberal disinterest. For Canada it started later with Harper. And from these conservative ‘leaders’ a world that was healing from two world wars got sold on the 50s ideals of more industry and returning to a simpler time, (that never existed). Ya, a time of naive consumerism and faithful and unquestioning citizens.

Now, a similar feeling of complete disillusionment is happening again but in a more full blown way. And this time it looks like the opposite outcome may happen. I think the pendulum of public opinion and fate is on our side this time and is going to swing back hard to the left. It may be that the time of cynical disillusionment is ending for the left and just starting for the right! Our cynicism has to end, for our survival. The horrors we see these ‘leaders’ are capable of inflicting on the public is snapping us awake, right before it happens to us! We know now that no one is going to save us. We all have to step forward as individuals and together to stand behind what is right and speak our truth. We want turn away as we have in the past but now we have the wisdom to know thats how these fuckers keep getting in and getting away with so much.

This is a letter to myself as much as it is to you, if you’re ignoring politics because you have no relationship to it. May it be that we can all step forward into a place where our time, energy and actions can help turn that larger cultural wheel of fate, away from the top down abusive systems toward one of harmonic synergies and co-creative initiatives and leadership.

We need to make personal sacrifices, but not be sacrificed to the cause as many have been. We love a hero who gets sacrificed or a martyr but it’s unnecessarily tragic. We’ve followed this narrative since times before patriarchy but we can change this narrative of sacrifice to something more sustainable if we stop unconsciously repeating it. I’ve seen many friends fall, burn out or turn away from the cause following the hero’s path, and it could have gone other ways. We need to each work in an inspired way, and find a balance between giving to our community, our family and ourselves. I hope that in my days as a teacher I’m giving and changing hearts and minds for the greater good of the Earth and my community, but I also write letters, sign petitions, show up physically to protests when I can, and donate to just causes. Not because I believe in the system but just to participate in it and do something that might help in small ways. And for the spell that might come of those small actions. I also vote and speak out on local issues to exercise the privilege I have as a democratic citizen. Admittedly, where I live in this right wing bastion my vote might not be inspired as much as it is voting to help pick the lesser of evils. That is clearly important too, as is illustrated by the chaos and losses of our American neighbours.

Now that I’ve stuck my head out in the direction of political thought and community, I’m going to shift my weight back to my usual Earth centric stance. While being informed of the ‘news’ and casting our vote may help, is it not ultimately not what you believe but how you live that casts spells that will crystallize into the future? Not through what we say but what we do. Raising children teaches us that. It doesn’t matter what ideals you have for your children, they just follow your lead, monkey see monkey do.

The way the spell of industrial life is cast over and over is so simple it’s more like a math equation than magic. It works like this. If you buy all your food and stuff new and as cheap as possible through the big chain stores, then the spell that you are casting for our future comes through your cheapness and ignorance of the hidden costs (exploitation and pollution). So just by shopping carelessly we are unconsciously impoverishing our community and our children’s future. And we are feeding an industrial corporate future of centralized power and wealth, global land exploration, slavery and huge transportation costs. By contrast, if you grow, forage or hunt for your food or buy it directly from someone who does, we are perpetuating a culture of local wealth and individual sovereignty. If everything in your life is controlled, sanitized, synthesized and surrounded in plastic, then you are unconsciously perpetuating a doomed industrial world separate from nature. If you make what you need from the land or buy it directly from someone who does, we’re casting a spell for a future of independence, sovereignty, wealth and protection for the Earth.

Governments and corporate oligarchies don’t have any real power, it’s mostly just spin. We the people have the power. But to claim that power and use it we have to face our own weaknesses. Because we’re unwilling to look at that darkness in ourselves we’ve manifested these corrupt politicians and greedy corporate oligarchs. We are scapegoating them because they’re reflections of our own deficiencies. If we all addressed these things in our own world and changed accordingly the exploitation would end and the politics would change to be “for the people” once again. All the distractions and finger pointing could stop and we could once again work communally and co-create with the Earth to secure a sustainable healthy life for everyone and a good future for those coming.