The Forces of Nature

Today, I begin by remarking on my not having done much writing during the past six weeks. With classes being suspended this long, I figured I would have ample time to opine on all sorts of happenings in the world, but alas, I found myself demotivated most of the time... well, that's not entirely true, for I have spent more time with family and friends than I normally would have had I been in school, and, hearkening back to an earlier piece, I'm better off living and interfacing with the world than I am sitting and typing quasi-coherent discourses on my computer, not that I do not enjoy the latter.

As I write this, our city is being bludgeoned by a ferocious winter storm that has not relented since morning. I could have heeded the warnings and spent the day alone in my dungeon, but I said to myself "Fuck it! I'm going out!" and bundled up for the cold. I went downtown to the park where I picked litter this summer, thinking of the friend I made there. As much as I miss seeing him, I hoped he wasn't spending the day outside in the storm. I did not see him in the neighbourhood, but I did see many other brave souls bearing the brunt of all Mother Nature threw at us. Today was a great day for a walk, I thought; the kind of day that makes me feel alive. I wanted to bask in the alacrity of the winter storm. I wanted to be punched in the face by its mighty fist. I wanted to rise from this steaming pile of shit I call my comfort zone and experience this. Besides, not all of us are as fortunate as I am to seek shelter from the elements.

As I was walking, I started thinking, which was probably a good thing at the time, as it takes one's mind off being cold and soggy. I thought about this strike that has crippled our university, and whether or not it will ever end. I thought of the war of rhetoric being fought by both sides, wondering which side's argument seems more plausible. You must be wondering, "What's there to wonder?" (I can't believe I used the word "wonder" three times in the span of a line and a half - make that four times in two lines.) "Of course the workers are in the right!" and you would be correct, for I tend to side with the underdog. I agree that not living below the poverty line is not an unreasonable demand, and that the President of the university ought to be careful complaining about a lack of funds when he garners a half-million-dollar salary per annum, his York to the Power of 50 campaign raised roughly 160 million dollars (according to CUPE), and he demands that the university supply him a private car and driver. Still, I wonder if CUPE isn't playing politics, not to take anything away from the striking workers themselves - bless their hearts for making such sacrifices for the betterment of education! - but over the years, CUPE has become a major player in the political arena, complete with a hierarchy of executives. I know others who have and continue to work as members of other unions and have had less than spectacular things to say about them - examples I cite are the tendency for a certain teachers' union to defend a callous, obtuse educator rather than confront the person and seek to rectify the situation, and the tendency for certain unions to order their members as to how they are to cast their vote come election time. I hope someone more knowledgable can correct me on this matter.

I was also thinking about the students who are affected by this work stoppage, particularly those who are incensed they are being short-changed and/or fearful of not graduating on time (I am of the latter category, though I'm not exactly fearful at this point in time). I do not doubt this is a trying time for them, having invested so much into their education, but at the same time, I wonder if people, being so eager to ascertain a degree and move onto "bigger and better things", become willing to acquiesce to the will of the authority who issues said degree. What choice do we have, really? I, along with many others, aspire to attend graduate school starting next year; many of us have become frenetic trying to jump through the series of hoops laid out on the path to this goal, yet how many of us have stopped to question what we are doing? Are we really becoming enlightened, or are we in this for the grades? How will we fare as researchers, having only known how to attain said grades? Do we really need a university to experience "higher learning"? Can't I do the same thing at the library?

Keeping in the spirit of "resistance", I turned my thoughts - only as I began writing this - to the youth uprising in Greece. Last I heard, this isn't simply an isolated incident on a given day in a given locale - no, this has spanned three weeks now in several cities across the country, with little signs of relenting - nor is it simply about the shooting death of fifteen-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos at the hands of police, but also high youth unemployment and decaying quality of education (Kaplan, The Atlantic: 2008/12/19) all leading to disenfranchisement. Kaplan concluded his editorial with the following: "Pay close attention to Greece; at a time of world-wide economic upheaval, it might eerily presage disturbances elsewhere in 2009." My feelings on this are mixed: on one hand, I am eagerly awaiting a mass awakening in the face of this mess in which we find ourselves; on the other hand, I fear the consequences of a violent upheval, for no matter how many blows we strike at the establishment, it has the firepower to quash us several times over. Furthermore, what are we really doing when we hurl rocks and flaming bottles of alcohol at cops? What are they doing when they fire tear gas and rubber bullets at us, and beat us down with their truncheons? We're killing each other, that's what, while those pulling the strings sit in their ivory tower constructing machinations to take advantage of the chaos. We're all in this storm together, thus it makes no sense to wail on each other. What happens when the police officer discovers that the people who made off stinking rich after closing the plant/office where her/his spouse once worked are cut from the same cloth as the people who sign her/his pay cheques, that they think nothing of putting this person and her/his colleagues in mortal danger in the name of throwing more people in jail and bolstering the bottom line of the arms manufacturers? I tell you, there won't be a wall of blue anymore.

Walking through this storm made me cogitate the similarities between it and the socio-economic storm we face. Storms of nature can destroy our physical infrastructure, after which we must build anew. Similarly, this grand storm that is ravaging our economy, our society and our very well-being will lay to waste everything in its path. Try as we might to hunker down, ultimately, we will be left to salvage whatever is left and start over. Either we can let it break us and fight each other like mad over whatever crumbs we find, or realize we are all in this together and will get through it much easier by working together. We must cease tearing fissures between each other - administration versus student body, civilians versus authorities, nation versus nation, religion versus religion - because the forces of Nature do not distinguish between any of us: our turmoil only exacerbates their ferocity.