From a Distance

I remember thinking as a young man that this world is always changing and that when I grew up, the world would be different. I know this now for a childish illusion. Things may appear to change on the outside when you focus on the aesthetics, but deep down things remain much more constant than we like to admit. As Mark Twain once said, “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” This has much more grounding in reality than we all like to admit.

I was in elementary school when the towers fell. It wasn't my country that was attacked, but Canada and the U.S. have always felt linked by some bizarre incestuous shared fate.

That was the first time I really thought I was witnessing change. I thought, in my childish way, that the world would never be the same and that we were entering into a new era.

In some ways this was true when looking at the surface of reality.

Airport security tightened up dramatically. People started using the word "terrorist" much more actively and the entire concept of global terrorism became common place. The discussions around war, patriotism and "supporting the troops" also entered every day conversation and opposition to these ideas, no matter how well founded became culturally taboo.

There were some who talked about conspiracy theories regarding the towers' destruction, debates around Iraq's involvement and WMD's and an overall discussion around the U.S.'s role as a global enforcer of "democracy". These conversations floated over my head as a child and I, like any good boy, agreed with the consensus thinking.

In Canada, though we were only more directly involved in Afghanistan and all in the name of "peace" if such a justification can ever make sense, we weren't as "devoted" as our brothers across the border. However our dollar told a different story. We would always be linked to the fate of the U.S. for trade and economic reasons, and this was unavoidable.

This was the first time I began to learn what poverty could feel like.\

Our family lived in a small town in B.C. on Canada's West Coast and we had always lived relatively well. With the crash of the U.S. stock markets, which was the business my mother's business revolved around, running an Investment News company, we felt the impact of this both personally and financially.

Suddenly there were different discussions that had never occurred before around outings with friends, Birthdays and Christmas as well as what our lives might look like in the future.

As the financial strain increased, so did the stress in our family and this is when I truly thought I was in the midst of a great change.

This is where the illusion of change dwells. In our personal bubble, every new toy and technology, every new friend or lover, every new job or home, all seems so radically different. To many these are the only changes that matter.

But in reality these changes mean very little and disguise the fact that nothing has truly changed in any meaningful way in the world around you.

Each new President of Prime Minister seems so important and different when looked at through this lens of personal self interest, but these changes are only skin deep.

Suddenly I heard so many discussions around Bush versus Clinton, and how much America's policy towards war had changed. Our Prime Minister was seen as too cautious by some and too aggressive by others.

I watched as the opinions changed and as I entered my first year of high school, music changed me from a supporter of the "mainstream" agenda and thinking, to someone who began to mistrust and reject authority. As I was introduced to Punk and Rap music, suddenly I was hearing rival opinions in a new light and as I learned guitar I began to empathize more with those who mistrusted war, the Government, authority and "the system".

Between movies like "The Matrix" and being introduced to songs like "Fuck Authority" and "Fuck the Police" and bands like Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, suddenly I thought of myself as a rebel.

Now I was convinced that I had to stand up and make change happen in this world. I had to join the revolution. Me and the people like me were going to change the world and overthrow the system.

As an older man now I look back at my younger self with a sense of sadness and pity. I knew so little about the true nature of the world or the consequences of such ideals or that fact that such thoughts of change are unrealistic and naïve.

Growing up as a child in Canada, I went to a non traditional school and learned about civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi and Che Guevara before I learned about Prime Ministers, let alone Presidents. I idolized these revolutionary figures, but there was one part of the story that remained consistent, none lived to see their ideas become a reality.

The same could be said for my musical heroes as I grew up and entered high school. I read books on Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Jim Morrison and idolized artists like Chris Cornell, Prince and Biggy Smalls. A dark and twisted fate would befall all of them by the time I reached the present day.

When I first stated reading classical literature I was drawn instinctively to Hemmingway, only to find he too suffered a dark end.

Even when I began to look into politics more closely, of course I was drawn to Robert and John F. Kennedy, and of course I was haunted by the cost of their great efforts.

By the time I reached my twenties, all the rebellion in me had instead turned to bitter nihilism in the face of the cold hard truth, that those who fight most effectively against systems of oppression are doomed to an early death, after which their ideals will become compromised, commercialized and ultimately used by the very systems they sought to overthrow. It was during this phase of my life that psychedelics and cannabis entered my life as I looked to destroy my very concept of reality in the face of such a horrifying history.

With these new drugs came new idols such as Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Terrence McKenna and Kurt Vonnegut, but reading their amazing works only added to my sense of depression, helplessness and nihilism.

If so many great men could write so many great works in so many different time periods, why did all of the same problems persist?

Aldous Huxley described a perfect society in "Island" but even he couldn't imagine such a society lasting, even in a fictional setting.

Through music, art, literature and history I was slowly confronted with the ugly truth that only on the surface layer of society does change occur, but beneath this thin veneer, there is a constant world that exists which budges not one nanometer.

Governments, Kings, Pharaohs, pick your poison, they all preach the same thing and offer the same reality. "Look to me for protection, safety, security and guidance" they say, but they offer nothing but more of the same: control, oppression, manipulation, exploitation and corruption.

I remember being fascinated with First Nations history as a child and loving the classic story we seem to tell over and over again in literature, though books like Shogun, or film, whether through Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai or Avatar, of the so called "civilized" man joining with the natives to fight the society from which he came.

I couldn't help but remain confused as to why my ancestors, those of Western civilization, had not simply joined the native way of life, that of worshipping and honoring nature and harmony in life, a culture of respect and dignity and honor, a people of beauty and violence just like nature itself, instead of murdering, pillaging and systematically destroying every beautiful aspect of their culture. Why would we choose bureaucracy and lying and dishonor over beauty, honor and honesty? How could we get it all so wrong?

The further I studied history, whether that of my own country or of others, the more I saw this cycle of indignity repeating itself endlessly.

By the time I reached my thirties, I had abandoned all ideas of change. I knew there was turning the great wheel of human ignorance. We were destined to repeat these cycles endlessly, and to try to change things, was to offer oneself as sacrifice to future stories and legends which would be used to manipulate and control the next generations.

So what do you do when you reach such a mental block? You go to work and learn focus on the simple things.

I began to focus on skills and trades. Carpentry and cooking became my obsession. As new technologies began to take over the lives of everyone around me, I dove into more timeless skills and focusses. Every generation of humanity has needed craftsman and carpenters. Every generation has needed cooks and butchers. These skills and trades had also became passé and looked down upon as we entered into the 2020's which meant they were becoming niche, but also harder to find masters to train under.

Friends of mine found more lucrative careers in online marketing and social media related jobs, or others joined the perpetual school system of learning slowly only to eventually get a job teaching.

Technology was the best advertisment yet for the illusion of change. Machine learning systems and clever apps and programs were going to change humanity, at least that's what they advertised. The reality was I saw people sucked into a digital dystopia that ate all of their time, destroyed their ability to socialize or take in the world around them and made them work more than ever, though they pretended they were free.

The work I chose was "hard" by comparison because it relied upon my physical body and there was no way to "cheat" or "automate" my day. Sure we still utilized technology to make our work flow more efficient, but there would still always be the need for me to be physically and mentally present for the whole 8 hour shift each day. This idea seemed repulsive to almost everyone else my age and younger. Even those older than me had become to doped out and desensitized by technology and pharmaceuticals, specifically opioids, to continue working in the physical world. They too opted for "sitting" jobs or "remote work" as it would be branded to them.

Oh yes technology advanced rapidly and claimed to offer changes so great people could hardly resist, and most were incapable of resistance by this point. For myself, my teachers, my heroes, my inspirations, the artists and historical figures that raised me offered the last resistance left; self reliance.

I wasn't focussed on revolution or fighting the system or trying to alter this supposed change to humanity. Instead I was aiming to opt out. My goals were simple and small and the illusion of change was no longer a thought that allured me.

Food would always be needed, and those skilled in making it, harvesting it and preserving it would always be needed. Builders and craftsman would always be in demand for a niche and functional items.

"What about when the robots come?" some of my more foolish friends would ask me. Well the ironic truth was that as the beginnings of AI emerged into society, it seemed the "remote workers" were the most at risk, not I.

AI systems were better editors and writers, they simply required original ideas, which I was still capable of generating. AI systems were better at coding and editing code, they just required ideas for apps and businesses, which I could still deliver as my work still forced me to problem solve and innovate. AI systems made better accountants and lawyers and would one day make better CEO's, CFO's, Government officials and judges in the near future.

What's more unbiased, incorruptible and likely to follow the exact letter of the law than an AI system designed to do just that?

As both the U.S. and my home became more divided politically and socially, human judges and politicians could no longer be trusted by both halves of the populace...but would the same be true for AI?

As we entered into the present day, I saw my friends and peers, who once seemed so confident in their place in the future, become more disillusioned and terrified for their lives. What place was there for them now?

This is when suddenly I saw an uptick in trends leaning back into my thinking. Suddenly self reliance, autonomy and skills like farming, foraging, hunting and carpentry became the hot thing. Everyone stated looking for their escape hatch, but the die had been cast.

They trouble with these more old fashioned skills, which I had learned early in my twenties, was they take time to master, and there are no shortcuts.

Learning coding or accounting is simply memorization and requires no muscle memory. Butchery is an art form, and can take decades to come close to mastery.

The consequences for failure for the more modern tech based skills were also much lower than old fashioned skills. Screw up a code or a tac return, and face a fine or penalty, but the code can be adjusted and the tac return can be fixed. Harvest the wrong mushroom, improperly cook a meal or fix a load bearing wall incorrectly, and the consequence could be your life.

It was during this chaotic time of so called change that I met my wife and we had our daughter. This story is less about me and more about them. They became the purpose I had long been searching for in my life and though they changed my life greatly on the surface, the underlying values remained the same.

This world will always offer us the illusion of change, but at the end of the day everything remains the same. Governments will always oppress and exploit their people, if not all of them then at least a select minority, and will present themselves as saviors and leaders. Artists and revolutionaries will always push back against these systems of oppression, but will always fail or have their ideas corrupted by the very systems they fight against. Food will always be essential to culture and survival and will always require skilled chefs, farmers and butchers to maintain the hard won knowlege that has been gained. Craftsman will always be needed to maintain and repair the societies we live in, even though they will be underappreciated. Elites will always justify their existence to those around them, even though they are consistently the most useless sect of society. Technology will always offer change while maintain the status quo. Life will always seem meaningless, even though a variety of cults and religions will offer convenient and simplistic answers to complex unanswerable questions.

At the end of the day change is just a fever dream of humanity, even the seasons repeat on themselves, but by ridding myself of this dream, I was able to focus on the one constant that matters most. We will always need family to find meaning and purpose, and through family this hellscape we call life will always be made worth living.

My wife and daughter taught me that much and so much more, and this is their story, not mine.