All Systems Down

You know in Star Trek when suddenly you all the lights on the Enterprise have gone out, the ship is shaking violently and there's a red alert. Yeah, that's us right now. And by us I mean Planet Earth.  Unfortunately there's no script that tells us things are going to be resolved in the 45 minutes by some stroke of technical genius (Data) or brilliant leadership (Captain Piccard). I'm not sure why I'm using a Star Trek analogy..I haven't watched that show in at least 12 years. But, well, we have been boldly going where no man has gone before in the past hundred years and, as it turns out while we may have gone boldly, even brazenly, we've not gone wisely.  And so, all the systems that have kept our ship going are failing. Each one so dependent on the next that they seem to be in a crumbling competition.   Every where I turn I see another system with red alert lights flashing - Wall Street, Maple Leaf Foods/centralized food system, educational institutions (no one fails and no one thinks critically), ecosystems, healthcare systems (superbugs).....oh dear me.   What are we to do? NOTHING that any leader is proposing as a solution to any one of these problems addresses the root of all these system shutdowns which is that they were never built properly in the first place.  These systems we've constructed, they are the problem and so long as we try to save the day by plugging solutions into this system, we might as well start counting down.   

I could rant much more poetically and coherently but I'm tired and need rest.  I'll get back to this when I have time...maybe over Christmas.....

 

Great Expectations

I've discovered I have an allergy...to expectations.  Oh how I cringe at the idea of living up to someone else's expectations. Heck, I have a hard enough time living up to my OWN expectations. Well, it turns out that in deciding to go to grad school I've opted to let myself be subject to others' expectations. I can't count the number of times I've been reminded that I'm a grad student - and occasionally that I'm a grad student at Queen's. Apparently that has merit, apparently they don't accept just anyone. Sigh. I'm not saying this to toot a horn of any kind, I'm saying it because it freaks me out. I don't want to be subject to expectations regarding my ability to perform to standards set by others, and particularly those set by an academic institution with particular views of what merits worthiness and what doesn't. Eek.  I decided to embark on this journey because I had a passion that wasn't being nurtured, but now I am getting a bit stressed because it turns out, as a grad student, people expect certain things of me - namely that  I can think critically and produce higher quality work than I did in my undergrad.  

And I don't doubt my abilities. I'd just prefer not to have the pressure to demonstrate them all the time. Can I not have an off year in my ability to think critically? Seriously.  I have completely neglected my creative writing since the  craziness of summer began and now with school in full swing, my dedication to myself seems only to be with attending to my physical well-being. That is to say, I am still going to the gym every day and doing WW, but not sitting at the computer, writing creative stuff. Nor am I checking out indie films or reading anything besides food literature and environmental assessment articles. Gah.  

OK, moan over. I am going to go back to writing my SSHRC application b/c apparently I have to seek out scholarships. Fun!!

Weight A Minute Mr. Postman

So I've not been vigilant with my writing as of late. Truth be told, I've not been particularly vigilant about a lot of things as of late. I'm not going to list the excuses, nor make apologies. I'm not sure what the point would be, and I'm quite sure no one but me would be interested in considering the reasons for my lack of vigilance in writing, eating, studying, etc.  Luckily for me (and for all of us), the past is past and life is a process of creation. This means every morning brings with it a chance to start anew.

Maybe I should be sharing with you what I've been up to for the last month. Or perhaps I should use this space to rant about the election results. Or maybe should I be telling you all that I have learned thusfar in graduate studies.  But I'm not going to. Instead I am going to rant, possibly rave and maybe say something worth thinking about, but that's a big maybe considering the late hour and the fact that I'm suffering from both back and head aches.

PLEASE CORPORATE ENTITY, MANAGE MY WILLPOWER

So today I paid $63 to have my willpower managed by a large corporate entity that makes Billions of dollars repackaging the Canadian Food Guide and selling it to people who want to lose weight, and want support in doing so. Yes folks, that's right, I joined Weight Watchers.

Now, you might think me rather cynical based on the tone above, but I'm not. I simply find it fascinating that we are willing to fork over $15 a week to step on a scale and let someone else see the number that appears! And we're quite happy to take the time to Point our foods so we don't eat in excess, but actually going to the local farmer's market to buy decent food (i.e. the kind of food that if eaten in proper portions would ensure weight was never an issue) is not worth the time or money. 

What gives? Why are we spending so much money and time on a system that is available to us at no cost via the Canadian Government's food guide? Or heck, if you don't trust the government, simply follow the tenants of Michael Pollan's book 'In Defense of Food'. This book truly is the prescription to a healthy diet: eat food (and Pollan's definition of food excludes all imitation foods such as margarine, hydrogenated thingies, low-fat/no-fat substitutes, etc.),  eat mostly leafs (yay spinach!), and don't eat too much. 

Oh, but let's face it, it's not that simple. We've surely gotten ourselves into a wee mess of a diet and lifestyle here in the Western world. How did we manage to get rid of basically everything good in our diet, while simultaneously replacing it with basically everything bad for our body? Not to mention our physical activity..or lack thereof. Well, in any case it seems we've forgotten something that, to every other species on the planet, is purely intuitive. We forgot how to eat.  

And now we are bombarded with messages every day telling us how to eat, telling us that we can eat whatever we want and lose weight, telling us it's the Omega 3s or the antioxidants that matter. Right.  When did food get so complicated? Or, more precisely, when did we decide to make food so complicated?  I daresay it was right around the same time we, as a society, decided to make everything else in our lives complicated by embracing economies of scale and the miracles of laboratory science. 

Last week I was at a conference (this is what they make us do at grad school !), and the focus was on 'Functional food and Natural Health Products'. So I listened to the speakers (most of them corporate reps or researchers) talk about soybeans, GMOs, the whole gambit. And all I could think was how amazingly effective we've become at repackaging and marketing nature's goods at premium prices.  Hmmm. The two things that bothered me the most (and trust me, there is a long list) were the following comments by speakers: 

1. 'We have to become more efficient at growing food because the population is increasing'.

THis from the the GMO advocate. OK, fair enough, the population on planet Earth is growing. But the question to ask is: why is the population growing? The very simple answer - because we are feeding it.  Yes, that's right, an amazing concept: feeding life begets more life.  And if you look at a graph of human population over the centuries you'll notice a remarkable thing - the population never reached more than  1 billion....until the last agricultural revolution. You know, the one where we became more efficient at growing food.  So yes, our efficiency has resulted in a population explosion. Some would argue there is nothing wrong with this as growth begets growth (of human innovation and evolution). But then you've got a wee problem called the ecosystem, upon which our survival as a species is totally dependent. ANd this ecosystem is built to accommodate species that follow a normal peak-ebb in population numbers. The ecosystem is NOT built for sustained growth of ANY species, particularly the one at the top of the food chain.  The more of us there are, the fewer there are of everything else on this planet and eventually...that will translate into fewer of us.  My point being this: we don't need more food production. 

2. 'FOr the first time in recorded history of ten thousand years our children will not outlive us. They will die at a younger age than their parents due to the health issues that they are experiencing - heart disease, diabetes, child obesity'.

What? Really? Has it really only taken two generations for the Western diet and lifestyle to wreak havoc on a generation of children born in 'times of plenty'? What does this mean for the health care system? What about the future of our workforce? What about China, India and all the other fast-developing countries that are adopting western diets and ways of life? What kind of legacy are we passing on to these nations that are steeped in eons of traditional culture and richly unique diets?  How did this happen and what can we do about it?  Who's to blame? And who's responsible for addressing this problem? 

OK, enough for now.