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Games, Trains, and Automatons
If you want to understand the lame state of contemporary capitalism, you need not look any further than Toronto’s Union Station. At a first glance, the place will look sickeningly clean, but upon closer inspection you’ll see that it’s quite dirty. Buried beneath a facade of elemental dirt and dust is the tasteless alienation familiar…
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Universal Healthcare: An American Sci Fi
The movie Elysium makes a very obvious critique of class systems. The premise of the film—that the wealthy live in luxury in space while the poor suffer on Earth—isn’t subtle about this at all. Quite literally, the two opposed classes live on different worlds, made obvious by the contrast between the clean white palettes of…
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School Sucks…
… but yes, it could be worse! Believe it or not, I learned about residential schools on vacation. I was twelve years old, maxing and relaxing in Phoenix, Arizona with my family; and my mother brought us to a residential school museum in the city. I don’t remember many of the details—only that the conditions…
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invisible ink
I was having a chat with a bartender friend of mine who has a particularly lovely tattoo of the serenity prayer on her forearm. It’s my favourite prayer, so I asked her why she got it. “Honestly, anxiety,” she told me. I said I loved her answer. That’s precisely why I love that prayer: it’s…
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Notes towards a manifesto (take 2)
A generation of nihilists In my first ever philosophy course (back in high school), I made the mistake of thinking Nietzsche was a nihilist. My teacher gently corrected me, albeit in a way I misunderstood. Now, seven years later, I think I get it. Now I understand the death of God as the death of…
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“Creatures of worship”
I’ve often heard Christian apologists — or apologists for religion more generally — describe human beings as “creatures of worship”. Each of us have a “god”, they’ll say, so don’t make gods of things that aren’t God. The implication, of course, is that human beings are naturally inclined to worship something, be it the God…
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Heroes
I was asked the other day how I identify someone as one of my “heroes”. It was a good question… Really good, actually. To tell you the truth, I’ve never really thought about it. Whenever I’ve identified someone as a “hero” to me, it’s been almost instinctive. I simply admire them and feel inspired by…
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different wrapper
Once I knew a man who was, at one point, discerning a life as a Theravadan monk. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the various strains of Buddhism, allow me to explain: the Theravada School is perhaps the earliest form of Buddhism practiced in the world today. I won’t claim that it goes…
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ethics personified
What is ethics? Often people assume that it’s something that’s rule-based. “Do this, don’t do that, it doesn’t matter either way, etc.” Certainly, that’s how many ethical systems have been constructed, going all the way back to the Ten Commandments—and even before then! While they can be burdensome, on some level it cannot be denied…
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