The fifth generation of mobile telecommunications is rushing toward us with promises of speeds somewhere between 3 and 200 times faster than the previous generation. 5G will meet our “vast needs” for transmission capability, so that we can connect everything from our toaster oven to our pet’s collar to the Internet. We are in a flat-out sprint to … where? Here’s a fable that is probably familiar to many. The surprise is how fresh the story feels.  Running is no use. You need to set off with care. The hare and the tortoise bear witness to this.  Let’s wager, said the tortoise, that you will not reach the finish line before me.  Before you? Have you given this a thought? The…

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Her hand on my pulse, my acupuncturist told me today that my energy was better than she’d ever seen. Did I feel more energetic? Well, now I felt a little zippier, because she’d told me I was. Was I on a new diet? No. Well, I might be eating less sugar than last month. Who isn’t eating less sugar in January than they did in holiday-riddled December? But I’m not eating no sugar. Give up chocolate? —Certainly not! So, no, diet was not the cause. Not that I don’t intermittently (okay, often) feel tempted to try any number of the new diets that come out every week, promising to change my life. The latest is eating “pegan”—that’s a combo of…

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Gillette released its Believe video last weekend, stirring up much controversy. The video takes a bold stand against toxic masculinity, calling out aggression, fisticuffs, bullying, sexual harassment and other manifestations of the unhealthy boys-will-be-boys and men-will-be-men behaviours. As I was brushing away my tears and wondering if Gillette made women’s razors that I could start buying (oh, I already do but they’re called Venus, so I didn’t realize they were Gillette), there was wild pushback from men vowing to never shave with a Gillette razor again, claiming the right to be “real men” and to let the “soy boys be soy boys”. An aside: Among a certain quite large cadre of men, being vegetarian, as in, eating soy products, is considered…

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I feel helpless in the face of the enormous endemic problems in the world. Rampant consumerism, environmental degradation, the structural inequities of capitalism (a topic I’ve been stuck on latelysee Let The Winds of Change Topple Capitalismand The Impact of Capitalism Will Be Felt Long After It Dies). This can mean that I spend a lot of time complaining, because solving the problem feels way beyond my capability, something only a government or giant corporation can tackle. But when I do that, I’m giving away my power to make change. This is the time of year we think about change a lot, whether we are making resolutions or taking on an annual challenge (my preferred approach). And any change, even…

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Last week I suggested we get rid of capitalism (The Sooner We Start Mourning Capitalism, The Sooner We Can Move On: The Young Widow). Many of the responses I got were along these lines: It’s the only system that can work in a free society. Capitalism has become an incontrovertible, first principles, core truth in our imaginations. For an idea so young in the history of human society, capitalism towers over us. But does that mean it’s unassailable? It is particularly apt to look back for perspective, given that capitalism (and the United States, its most loyal booster) did not exist in its current form in the 17th century when Jean de La Fontaine’s was writing his fables. One day…

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I’m in Paris for the month of December and just passed through my first weekend of the Gilets Jaunes protests. Action sparked by the fuel tax France is supposed to impose (in some form) under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. As of last week, the fuel tax is no longer, but the protests continued this weekend, expanding the mandate to the pervasive, systemic problem of income inequality. While I am in favour of taxes, as a way to encourage fuel efficiency, the question of who pays and how for the depredations wrought on the environment is a high wire act. In our capitalist system of “intensifying inequality” (as Jonathan Beller puts it in Cabinet), the less money one has, the…

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Has the Holocene Era ended and the Anthropocene Era begun? And with this new era comes a host of indoor pathologies because we humans spend too much time indoors and largely immobile. The Holocene (“entirely new”) Era began about 11, 700 years after the last major ice age. Anthropocene-ists (“new human”) argue that humans have so reshaped the environment of our planet, that our age merits that new designation. When humans emerged during the Holocene Era we were biologically designed to use our bodies in the outdoors to work and play. We don’t anymore. Instead, we reshape our environment to suit our sedentary, consumptive society, laying waste to our home planet. We’ve lost touch not only with our physical selves,…

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Last week was exciting, intense and exhausting. I was at the University of Illinois for auditions to cast my first ensemble play (as playwright). Pinch me! The week ended with a 13-hour travel delay. These are the ingredients for psychological wreckdom. The next morning, to clear the jumble inside my head, my partner and I went to a new coffee shop in our neighborhood, right next to a clothing store I’ve never paid a lot of attention to. In the shop window was a lovely blouse—sheer black with silver pinstripes. Exactly the kind of thing I would buy to reward myself after the kind of thrilling and grueling week I had. Except, I’m not shopping for clothes (or shoes, or…

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A poem from La Légende des Siècles, by Victor Hugo, translation by Mina Samuels A lot of us are asking ourselves these days, what can I do? That question contains another — How should I be? This poem offers an answer that returns to the heart of the matter.   What do we know? Who then understands the depths of things? The sunset glowed in the rose-hued clouds. It was the end of a day of storms, and the west Set the showers aflame in a ferocious blaze. Near a ditch, at the edge of a rain puddle, A toad looked at the sky, dazzled creature. In solemn contemplation, horror considered the splendor. (Oh! Why is there suffering and why is there ugliness?…

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Last Monday I handed in the new book I’ve been working on. Stay tuned for more on that. Publication will be early June 2019. After breathing a sigh of relief, I played catch up on the accumulation of deferred tasks. Then I spent the weekend and last week taking advantage of a window in my schedule to see friends. That’s why there was no fable last week. I was sharing conversation and celebration and good food and theatre and movies (Colette, Smallfoot, Border and Beautiful Boy) and meditation and charcoal and pearl facemasks with friends from ten-years old to eighty-one. Spending time with quite a few of the different and wonderful humans who people my life has provoked me to…

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