Print Edition: November 20, 2013
Adult is an attitude
The transformation has been happening for some time now. I moved out on my own. Bills addressed to me arrive in the mail. Sometimes I even speak and sound a little too much like my mom, but I still find myself wondering: when do I start to feel like an adult?
It’s mid-November, and excited whispers have begun to flurry like the first flakes in a snowstorm: winter is coming. I was once filled with excitement around this time: ready to skate, build an igloo, have a snowball fight.
All I can think of are slushy roads, jerks who purposely drive through puddles to splash pedestrians, overpriced everything, and all-day wet socks encased in sopping shoes. A snowball fight sounds messy and cold. I’ve already grumpily berated some friends and family members for cheery Christmas humming, counting down the days until holdiays, or wistfully longing for snow.
Thus, I have come to a realization: the “feeling” of being an adult is no longer wanting to be one. Someone, anyone, challenge me to a snowball fight before it’s too late.
Democracy was nice
Democracy looks good when the sun is bright and the flags are waving.
But our government, right or wrong, is not always going to give us democracy.
The truth is, our government will only give us what we tolerate. As long as we want cheap consumption, cheap food, cheap transportation, cheap media, and cheap spirituality, we will never have democracy.
Because democracy requires value and will.
The rule of the people has been overrun by the rule of the market. A market that sells us political ads years before an election. A market that places illusions of profit over dreams of justice.
We have a faux-democratic system that wields brands instead of leaders, logos instead of thoughts, and attack ads instead of ideas. We’ve given ourselves to media consumption instead of giving ourselves to the connection of each other. We used to vote for ideas, now we vote for a colour on a sign or a photo-shopped face on a billboard.
Our governments have become corrupt businesses, ruled by the prices of oil and gas. Instead of saying, “That’s the way it works,” maybe we should vote “NO!” at the ballot box.
One child, two child?
Apparently China relaxed its “One Child” policy a little bit further, and now allows parents to have a second child if one of the parents was an only child themselves.
To be honest I’ve always respected China for instituting a cap on children. Our species is expanding at an alarming rate, and China is basically the only country with the balls (and the near-dictatorship power) to institute a fire break against that. You have to respect that, at least a little.
I used to read a lot of science fiction as a kid, and Isaac Asimov—one of the greats—always said he believed a couple should have no more than two kids. It’s a one-for-one equation: two people bring two children into the world. When the parents eventually, you know, kick it, the children will fill their societal hole exactly. Lose two people, gain two people.
However, I somehow doubt China has Asimov’s science fiction ideals in mind with this new relaxed policy. I think China is getting more than a little bit terrified that they aren’t going to have enough workers to replace the current ones when the current ones, you know, kick it.
Where art thou, pencil?
Popular culture puts socks on the front line of randomly disappearing objects, but for me, pencils are the worst.
It has come to the point where I no longer purchase decent pencils because I know they will disappear almost immediately after purchase.
The pencil in question was a Staedtler sketching mechanical pencil, and my favourite in the whole world. We had a good relationship until he mysteriously disappeared. I looked in my book bag, backpack, desk, bedside table, book shelf, under the bed, near the TV, the bathroom – you name it. Still there was no sign of my good friend. To make it worse, it chose the worst time possible to disappear. Right when I needed to take notes in the margins of my class readings.
A few days ago I located my favourite pencil. It was exactly where I had left it and where I had also looked several hundred thousand times. Right in the pouch of my backpack with all my other pens.
I have come to the conclusion that poltergeists are responsible for this strange phenomenon of disappearing writing utensils. I just wish they would leave us all alone.
