Total change of pace here as I’m awake but not particularly with it. Every few years or so I rediscover ska and it seems to be happening again. The first time around was the mid 80’s when I came across some of the artists on the Two Tone label like:
The Specials
The (English) Beat
Madness
The past few years have been an exercise in empathy as delivered by “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.” Fortunately, I think I learn a lot this way. Lately I’m being educated in what it is like to not speak or understand well. This, as you’ve seen here, has been very difficult for me and I only realized this week why it is. I am as self-conscious as I am about how I speak because of how much I judge others based on how they speak. In my case it isn’t so much for people for whom English is a second language – I am not one of those “why can’t they speak #(&$**@ English!!” sorts of people. However, when it comes to those who have spoken the language all their lives I realize I judge very much based on how they speak. If they say “ain’t” or don’t know the differnece between your and you’re (or to a lesser extent my pet peeve insure, ensure, and assure) I can get a bit of an attitude and make some assumptions. The same assumptions, I realize, that I worry that people are making about me when I don’t know a particular word, butcher tense or gender. As I grow older, I am finding that learning that sort of thing gives me more sympathy and a motivation to change my own attitude and care less about what others think.
Another great example was back in late summer last year when I had my bike accident. For those who weren’t reading then, I was cycling down the Don Valley trail up near Sheppard when I came around a corner rather quickly and caught my pedal on a large bump in the pavement caused by a tree root. I went sprawling and ended up having to call a cab to get home. The next day I took the TTC to work and found that I had to walk and take stairs very slowly. Where a week before I might have mentally heaved a sigh when getting stuck behind an old person taking the stairs, the shoe was now on the other foot and I found myself understanding just what it was like to be unable to briskly walk through a subway station taking stairs two at a time.
Parenting, too, is like that very often. On some days you feel empathy for your kids and how they feel when you are, for example, working late and unable to spend as much time with them as you’d all like. On other days, you get the same sort of understanding about how your own parents felt when you were a kid and things start to make sense a little bit more.
The next step that I”m trying (and hopefully succeeding in) is to get that same sort of empathy without actually having the exact experience. I don’t really want to have to be homeless, for example, to get some sort of empathy for the guy who asks me for money every time I walk by the Boulangerie here. I don’t want to have to have someone say something hurtful without thinking to teach myself to watch what I say. And at the same time, I think it helps to have a bit of empathy when bad things happen. Yesterday, as I tried with great difficulty to ask for a carte d’abonnement (ID card) for the transit system, I noticed the teenage girl I was speaking to trying really hard not to laugh. It would’ve been easy to feel bad about that and let that affect my willingness to try to speak here. But instead, I know what it is like to be on the other side, and there are many reasons why someone might laugh that don’t involve my being a fool. And even if they do include my being viewed as a fool, who really cares? After all, The public you is not you anyway. (thanks, Jimbob, for pointing out that blog.)
Taking that attitude has paid off. Yes, there have been many cases here where I have been in situations I might have described as “making a fool of myself” but am trying to reclassify as putting myself out there and giving it a try. Derek Sivers also recently mentioned that we should do whatever excites or scares us and in this sense it is being really good for me. People who know me know I am, at least on first meeting, a huge introvert. Why? In many cases because I can’t really come up with anything to say, but in other cases because I am not certain how what I say will be received. But here I’m being forced into socially uncomfortable situations. And you know what? It’s paying off on almost a daily basis. I’m reclassifying the experiences where I feel dumb (asking for billets and pronouncing the ‘l’ like in bill instead of as a ‘y’, for example) not as judgements of my intelligence but as improving myself. And then there are the other experiences like chatting with the owner of the local Asian grocery for a bit and lamenting the lack of fresh thai chillis and having him offer to order me some. I have academically known I should view life as an adventure for a long time. It is only recently, though, that I’m actually really starting to apply it in areas that I”m not 100% comfortable in.
It’s kind of like at least in some ways I’m able to leave behind the self-conscious teenager and grow up a little. Finally!
Yesterday morning I lounged about the room until late morning when I walked outside to find, you guessed it, another 8-10 cm of fresh powder on the streets and yet another layer of ice made extra-slick by several cycles of warm days and cold nights. Still, something must have changed because a few hours ago when I looked out the window I saw the pavement of my street for the first time in weeks. Wet pavement with a strip of ice/snow running up the centre but pavement nonetheless. It was a sign and after hanging out with the family on Skype for a little bit, I took the bike out of the closet, hauled it down the stairs and unfolded it on the sidewalk.
It’s strange, despite cycling busy Toronto streets in all different sorts of weather, I was a bit nervous about getting out on the road here. I don’t know if it is just the fact that it was a new city and a new language but I wasn’t my usual comfortable self. I suppose part of it is due to the fact that I don’t completely know where bikes fit in the transportation plan here. I know in Toronto my rights as a cyclist and as a result I know the expectations of the drivers around me. I needn’t have worried, though. Traffic was light, drivers were courteous and gave me ample space. Lanes were relatively clear of snow and icee.
What I should’ve worried more about, though, were the hills. Toronto, for the most part, is quite flat. At least the parts I tend to cycle are. Here, though, there are some rather substantial hills. And since I live in the old city almost anywhere I want to go requires that I go uphill from the start. Add to that the fact that I haven’t been cycling regularly since December. The result is that the 10 km ride I took left me feeling as if I went much farther. It looks as if I am 10-15 km from work and once I have some warmer mornings that I don’t have to worry so much about ice I’ll be cycling in to work. I”m not sure if I am ready physically for it just yet, though. There are a couple of HUGE hills between here and there and probably countless other smaller ones that I don’t remember because I have been riding the bus instead of cycling.
Still, it was wonderful to be out. And despite the fact that it was still below freezing, I was not alone. Rue St. Jean – one of the more touristy thoroughfares (think Queen West meets the Danforth) looked like Queen West on a summer day. Cycling on St. Jean is much like cycling on Queen West also. The street is narrow and one has to watch for doors and pedestrians. However, traffic moves slowly – slower than I can cycle – and so it doesn’t pose as much of a problem. And of course there are no streetcars to watch for.
One final whine – I really hope the snow goes away soon as the bike storage for the hotel is totally snowed under and carrying the bike down three flights of steep, narrow, winding stairs is going to get old fast.
Okay, not really schadenfreude because there’s a victim and I feel bad for them. That said, the Toronto city counselor known for the statement “I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.” is up on criminal charges. I guess it is more confirmation that he really is a bit of a sociopath.
And now I have the song stuck in my head.
Sage was here all last week and managed to capture a good illustration of just how snowy it has been here. While she was here we got another 30 cm (that’s a foot of snow to those of you south of the border). The snow has stopped and now it is back down to -20 again.
Sadly while she was here she also accidentally dropped the camera. Anyone have any good suggestions as to what we should replace it with? Don’t want to spend a ton but something that takes decent photos would be nice.
This is far better than anything the feature film ever could have been.
By the way, is it me, or has Wikipedia actually become The Hitchhiker’s Guide?
Praise Dawkins, I am once again doing my part to upset Christians – at least those without a sense of humour. Russell’s Teapot is a really hilarious comic strip critical of conservative Christianity. Sage and I found it some time ago and after reading every entry Sage decided that it suited itself well for audio adaptation. So today I make an appearance as a couple of characters in the Quirky Nomads podcast episode Russell’s Teapot. It was tremendously fun to record and Sage did a great job putting it all together at the end.
And if you’re not yet feeling certain of your eternal damnation, why not go play the tremendously addictive game Bible Fight!
Sorry – Cats Only! No dogs, birds, or people allowed.
Sure, it may have snowed 30-40 cm last night. But spring is coming. No need to cry.
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Earth Hour Cynicism
Earth Hour is at 8PM tonight and I think it is a great idea. However, I have to say that I feel very cynical about it. Sure, in the short term it is good and raises awareness but really to me it smacks of the sort of empty no-discomfort sort of gesture that middle class north americans love. At 9PM, everyone’s going to turn their lights on and many will head out the next morning in the SUV to work, stop and buy a bunch of crap they don’t need at Wal Mart on the way home and toss the packaging in the recycle bin (forgetting completely about “Reduce” and “Reuse” which actually come before the less-effective “Recycle”.
And meanwhile, our media and advertising are marketing the western lifestyle around the world selling more cars and more crap that people don’t need to people who lived without it happily before and from whom perhaps we could learn a bit about conservation.
Maybe if it were “Earth Week” or “Four earth hours/day” I’d be more impressed.