Reflections on 4 AM with four "radical" white men and a bottle of tequila.

Flowing in lightly on the white winds, whispers of privilege elicit hot responses shot from the hipsters, blowing hard out of XY windbags. In our heady defense of our own efforts to "modulate the dominant academic discourse," we throw around big words and fill rooms with the loud sound of our white-male apologeticism. In that quintessentially Canadian manner, sorry is a word often invoked; yet the other words on either side indicate, with complex subtlety, that we are sorry not for being domineering but for the fact that no one understands that we understand that we have something to apologise for.

We formulate apologies of hierarchy and try to talk over each other the whole time. We apologise with such dominance and verbosity as to preclude even the acceptance of our apology; no one else can get a word in edgewise. Thus, our educated, white males' polemical monologue on injustice blows on, ruffling feathers, rattling the drums of privileged resistance, and never permitting the other's existence or experience to enter the equation.


We dominate all that we touch. How do we cease when it seems we cannot stop dominating even our friends and our families? Nous--les hommes blancs--who seek education so that we might better the world, how can we apply what we learn? How do we fight domination without dominating? How do we proliferate a worldview that values all people without establishing hierarchies not just of quantity of knowledge, but also of kind. To assert a radical, white, straight, educated, colonial male analysis and to project the resulting worldview onto all issues is to appropriate and colonise the discourse of resistance. So if we are truly committed to change, what are we learning for?

A Message to My Younger Self

Relax! Eat those double chocolate muffins more slowly; sit and watch the birds; always make time to write. Good or bad, this too shall pass, so take a moment to savour it--to reflect upon it--before it does.

 

After all, the Dark-eyed Juncos outside the window will not tell you anything about life if you never stop to ask. Let your eyes wander and your mind roam and let no one tell you how you should live. You were not put here to worry whether you are living a good life, but to live it; so feel it out and think not too hard about it.

 

It's all very well and good to know where you wish to go: if you focus you will get there one day; but do not chase your dreams so fast as to overlook the present. You can be only where you are now; if you spend your whole life trying to make it "there" then you will never fully be here.

 

Life should be a short walk, not a long drive; so go where your feet take you, not where the road dictates.

Sunday at my new place

Overlooking the lake, I sit sheltered under the veranda roof. Chirping birds fill my ears at the same time as does Supertramp, and I watch the reflection of the trees bouncing up to me off the rippling water. The tranquil, vacant wharf floats soaked with rain and I can hear a woodpecker chipping into a nearby tree. Looking up, I can see it gripping upside down the branches of a slender little deciduous, its white-striped black head shimmying up a slim limb.

A new roommate at this new place of mine shares the name of the ex-girlfriend with whom I used to live, and even from outside I can hear her remark incredulously that it is almost October. Reflecting on her disbelief, I note that I too can hardly believe it: it is so warm out and, though it rains no longer, all things outside rest wet, the moisture held so well by the mosses, lichen, liverworts, grasses.

Some small form of waterfowl floats across the surface of the lake, which mirrors the argentine-cloud sky. I cannot yet tell what species of waterfowl; its shape resembles that of a loon, but it is clearly too small.

Woods surround the lake, including numerous old growth Douglas-firs. The sun begins to shine and I feel sure that I should stay put: I have reading to do; I am back in school and constantly working. Yet, how often does one live in the woods on a lake? This is my first time living in such a locale and I feel inclined to relinquish a great many of the pursuits that now detract from the time I have to wander, to swim, to enjoy, and to explore.

What am I doing here typing on my computer? Do I hope to convince myself with the elegance of my phrasing that words could somehow ever be as beautiful as life uninterpreted?