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Goodness Me!

These thoughts came to me as my dog Sophie and I did a circuit around the Chemainus Lake Trail.

There are four categories of ‘goodness’ I can identify: Absolute, Fundamental, Conditional and Contingent. I’ll describe each in a moment, but first a little context.

I have long been baffled by the word ‘good’. More to the point, whenever someone tries to define what ‘good’ is, as opposed to what it is not, or what is bad, I find myself unconvinced. Their definitions and my own come up short, seeming as incomplete and arbitrary as castles (aka fortresses) in the sky.

But over the last few days I have been studying ethics from a Stoic perspective, reading an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There I came across the apparently standard definition of ‘the good’, to which “all parties agree”, namely that: “…possession of what is genuinely good secures a person’s happiness.” What tweaked me in that definition is the notion that it’s not what goodness ‘is’ that’s important, it’s what it does, or it’s effect.

It ‘secures a person’s happiness’.

Which, of course, begs the question: What is true happiness? Until we have answered that, we can’t possibly determine what constitutes a ‘good’ thing or event, and will be unable to direct our lives in a way that makes us truly happy. Like a dog, chasing his tail, we’ll only succeed in making ourselves dizzy.

That second variable of the goodness-happiness equation has become more clear for me recently, in the form of a personal philosophy that begins with the fundamental statement: Value Life. I say ‘fundamental’ because for me that is an ethical stance that does not require ‘proof’. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way, and if anyone asks ‘Why?’ the only answer I can offer is ‘because it’s a part of who I am’. In fact, my recent meditations have led me to the conclusion that valuing life is at the very heart of my ethical being.

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With what’s been said so far, I can hazard a definition of ‘good’ that is meaningful and useful. For me an event, action or thing is good if it allows me and my community to live up to my fundamental principle of valuing life, because valuing life makes me happy. That’s not to say there aren’t other things that will make me happy, or that valuing life isn’t an ethical commitment fraught with contradictions.

However, I know that unless I make choices that do value life, I will not be truly ‘happy’. Worse, when I make choices that devalue life – and despite myself I do – I undermine my own happiness, usually in the pursuit of immediate gratification

So I now have a criteria for determining at least some of what will be good choices for me. Not good because they are laudable from other people’s points of view, but because they bring me closer to my own – let me use the word I prefer – fulfilment.

Now I can attempt a definition of the four categories of goodness I mentioned at the outset of this essay:

Absolute Goodness – I actually don’t believe such a thing exists, an act, or event or thing that everyone would agree was good, if they fully comprehended its nature. If I believed in god, or Platonic ideals, I could speculate about the nature of absolute goodness, but I’m a spiritual-atheist, which precludes a belief in god or any sort of disembodied ideal.

Fundamental Goodness – That is, goods which directly relate to my personal philosophy and set of values. They are ‘fundamental’ because they are essential events, actions or things that express and make real my set of values. Unless I participate in, demonstrate or possess these goods I am not engaged in meaningful and positive ways with my world.

Conditional Goodness – We are conflicted beings, and almost all the ‘good’ we do or experience has side effects or consequences we don’t desire. Conditional goods are directly related to my values, but they are conflicted because, viewed from a different perspective, they are also contrary to them. For example, I value life, but must kill in order to live. That tension cannot be resolved, it can only be mitigated by best possible choices.

Contingent Goodness – These are goods, not directly related to my philosophy or values, but which add to my well-being and enjoyment of life. Most of the good things I experience, enact or possess fall into this category, and if I examined them I might discover that they do support my values indirectly, or at least don’t contradict them. Wealth, for instance, doesn’t necessarily contradict my desire to value life, and it might give me the means to support causes that value life more effectively… or my unrestrained pursuit of wealth might damage life on this planet in irreparable ways.

What do I celebrate on Canada Day?

Canada Day?

It’s become an emotional, moral conundrum for me. On the one hand, I am a grateful citizen of one of the most prosperous, industrious, democratic nations on earth; on the other I am confronted with a legacy of deadly oppression and ongoing discrimination, perpetrated against the indigenous peoples of this land.

So what is it I am supposed to celebrate this July 1, as the tally of children who died in Canada’s infamous residential schools comes to 1,000 and counting – with estimates of at least 6,000 more than likely?

I certainly can’t celebrate a deliberate strategy of containment and re-education designed to enforce European occupation of the land. Nor can I celebrate the present deep rooted biases that are built into my country’s fibre. My only hope is to look toward a future where truth has been disclosed and reconciliation achieved, and make that commitment part of my Canadian citizenship in a meaningful way.

Our only hope as a nation is to accept the fact that a genocide was carried out, and take responsible action to compensate the individuals and communities that have been ravaged by a deliberate, sustained effort to eradicate their culture. I can sum that attitude up in a simple phrase: Take responsibility, or accept blame.

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That mantra has to be put into its modern context. First Nations in Canada have proven themselves resilient. Despite a long history of brutal oppression, they are in the midst of a ‘renaissance’. They don’t need paternalistic meddling in that enterprise; they are entitled to recognition and an equitable share of this land’s bounty, which will allow them to thrive.

They are also entitled to understanding as they express their sorrow and anger. And to respect. Everyone lost when Canada embarked on its genocidal policy. What we could have learned from indigenous peoples about the importance of family and community, and coexistence with nature, is incalculable.

My celebration of Canada Day 2021 will be mixed. What I will be celebrating are the tremendous accomplishments of our history; what I will be condemning is the fact that a cornerstone of those achievements was a genocide.

The full measure of personal and national stature is a willingness to re-evaluate our stories and base our actions upon the truth. Will Canada live up to that standard? Will we become a nation that admits when wrongs have been committed, compensates the victims of those wrongs, and writes a history that ensures they are never committed again?

Only time will tell. For now, I think a token of my determination to that end will be to wear orange and red on Canada Day. It’s a small gesture, but one that tends toward a redefinition of what it means for a nation to be ‘great’.

Expanding our definition of a ‘book’

My favourite place to read is an armchair, in the northeast corner of our living room, which has one window facing out on our suburban street, another with a peekaboo view of Stuart Channel and the Salish Sea.

Most often I have a hardcover or paperback opened in front of me, either held up in my hands or propped on my lap. It’s a comfortable portrait, most would recognize instantly, and most readers would sanction.

It fits our notion of what a book and, by extension, literature should be.

**The Mural Gazer** Direct to Web novel invites readers to ‘Buy-In’, an example of rethinking the concept of a ‘book’.

The flaw in that picture, however, is the word ‘most’. If most of the people show up most of the time for an activity that happens most every day, it won’t be long before most people aren’t showing up at all.

Literature is too important to allow incremental slippage. Books Unbound is not about denigrating what remains the most popular literary medium, a position printed books will occupy for a long time to come.

It’s about imagining new ways of writing and sharing, ways that broadcast storyteller’s voices and, by extension, the reach of literature.

Our stories have to unfold in places where readers go. To me that means books that are dynamic, interactive and versatile, presented to ‘audiences’ on social media, websites, in video readings and book trailers, episodically in eMagazines, and…

In ways that promote literature in its vital role as the art form that challenges readers to experience their worlds from new, diverse perspectives.

Connect with CraigSpenceWriter

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MAGA-lomania isn’t great, eh? It’s dangerous!

Saw a picture the other day of an Albertan wearing a baseball cap with Let’s Make Canada Great Again emblazoned on its peak.

I suppose it’s not surprising that a Trumpian brand of nationalism is spreading north of the 49th. There will always be a segment of the population drawn to what is essentially a fascist ethic. It’s sad to see, though. Our saving grace – for the time being – is we don’t have an egoistic personality of Trumpian MAGAtude to incite Canadian worshipers to the kind of nonsense exhibited in Washington DC recently.

Before the madness takes root here, we should consider what the historic ‘greatness’ this Albertan proclaims consists of, then compare it to a version of greatness that isn’t a lie.

When, in the mid-16th Century, Jacques Cartier ‘claimed’ the territories he had explored for King Francis I of France, he was ignoring the fact that the land was already occupied. ‘Ignored’ doesn’t quite describe the Eurocentric hubris and nascent French nationalism of that historic moment. The fact that the land was already inhabited simply didn’t occur to him, which is tantamount to saying the original ‘owners’ were not really considered people.

That to me is not a mark of greatness; it’s a mindset that resulted in despicable acts of genocide by colonizing nations the world over. ‘Greatness’ today – true greatness – will be the successful reconciliation, and genuine recognition that we have much to learn from and share with resurgent First Nations across this land.

The name ‘Canada’ is a Europeanization of the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning village. It’s a crowning irony that the very hunting-gathering cultures our Canadian ancestors almost destroyed, and which still face pervasive discrimination to this day, gave our country its name.

Having confiscated huge swaths of ‘free land’, including approximately 25 million square kilometres in North America, the world’s colonizing nations prospered during the transformation of the global economy in the 18th and 19th Centuries. And the economic ‘greatness’ of this continent and the European homelands of its settlers, was in large part due to the vast resources that could be extracted, grown and eventually manufactured here.

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But plundering, not living in harmony with or even sustainably managing the land, was the order of the day. As the industrial and consumerist revolutions took off, fuelled by an insatiable greed for more and more ‘raw materials’ clawed and hacked form the motherlodes appropriated in North America and all over the colonized world, the toll on the environment became increasingly ominous.

So the ‘greatness’ of North America has been based in part on the economic equivalent of an environmental reverse mortgage taken out on our continent… oh, I forgot, it wan’t really our continent to begin with, so in truth it’s a reverse mortgage taken out of other peoples’ land. Any way you look at it, the ‘greatness’ we’re so proud of in that equation is unsustainable, and to think of making ourselves ‘great again’ through that kind of rapacious appropriation doesn’t take us to paradise. It’s a fool’s dream.

So what could that misguided Albertan possibly aspire to as a form of ‘greatness’ not morally corrupt and environmentally disastrous? What would give us true pride?

Never in the long record of evolution has there been species that could consider its actions and circumstances, look into the future, and consciously proclaim: ‘What we have done and are doing is neither morally acceptable nor sustainable.’ Humanity is the first life-form that can deliberately adopt an ethic that goes beyond the cruelty and ultimately self-destructive impulses summed up in the phrase, ‘survival of the fittest’, or more aptly in the 21st Century, ‘bloating of the richest’.

Our only chance is to adopt lifestyles and technologies that allow us to live in harmony with each other and the environment, and which prove what intelligent, morally upright creatures we really are. That’s something no species or civilization has ever attempted, and – as with every historic challenge – it requires courage, vision and generosity of its champions, the true hallmarks of greatness.

CraigSpenceWriter.ca

Rote is the past-tense of write

Why write?

Words are such fascinating things! So versatile. So nuanced. So ultimately… meaningless? That thought comes to mind as I attempt a review of my 50-plus years as a writer. I occasionally analyze what has become for me a habit, and as I begin a rewrite of my novel The Boy From Under, I feel it’s time for a look through the microscope and see where this impulse lives in my DNA.

There are two views through this microscope of mine: the pro and the con.

As a pro, I have achieved states of being I would never have experienced otherwise. I have surprised myself with inspired moments, and done my best to share emotional and intellectual highs and lows with readers. I’ve felt the verbal pyromaniac’s joy at igniting imaginations. I have made words work for me, pulling long trains of philosophical reasoning up steep hills and down dangerous grades. I have had meaningful fun.

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As a con, I have dragged my reluctant carcass to its work station, as if I had a ball and chain attached to my ankle. The urgent clatter of my keyboard has drowned out any real sense of celebration, as I hurried to file another story, making sure the facts fit whoever’s case I was trying to make. I have become lost in wildernesses of uninspired words drivelling toward ‘The End’ or, in forgotten journalistic jargon, -30-.

What I’m getting at, here, is writing for me as a way of life. Whether I’m up or down, I have no choice, I have to write, and in my more introspective moments, I do what I’m doing now: write about writing. I hope you won’t hurt yourself laughing, but the following image is a partial visualization of what I’m writing this moment. I sometimes sketch my thoughts before setting them to words, a reminder of why I chose literature rather than the visual arts as my goto discipline…

The point I’m trying to make, sharing that ‘idea map’, is: There should be way more spinning round in my head as I’m writing than I can possibly include in a story or article. My choices should be excruciatingly and wonderfully difficult. There should be plenty left over for future instalments!

CraigSpenceWriter.ca

The Speed of Light

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A theory of special relativity for the soul

Surely there’s enough room in the universe for everyone who has died.

That’s a relief, I suppose. It means there might… just might… be a heaven out there, even a god, who only need occupy a tiny corner of the 13 billion light year breadth of measured space and time… and who knows what lies beyond the known, how far we’d have to travel in our transcendental spaceships to reach the ever expanding membrane of infinity.

Language can say things it’s impossible to comprehend. Thirteen billion light years, for example. Uncle Franklin tried to describe the speed of light for me once. “If I flicked on a light switch, here in Chemainus, say at the tip of Bare Point, you’d see the beam – it’s a wave, actually, but for the sake of argument, let’s say you’d see that beam in just over a second, if you were standing on the moon, say in the Sea of Tranquility… one-point-two-five-five seconds to be exact, that’s how long it would take.”

Uncky Frank couldn’t have understood that most nine year olds wouldn’t have a clue what the heck he was talking about, of course. Or what the speed of light had to do with my father’s coffin, making its slow progress down the centre aisle of our church, borne on the shoulders of six strong friends and relatives. He was just trying to describe, after the fact, the theoretical speed a soul could fly according to his own theory of special relativity.

Mum and Dad used to laugh at Uncky Frank and his ‘weirdo theories’. “He should leave the science to Einstein, and stick to building houses,” Dad said. “He’s good at that.”

“His inquiring mind takes him to strange places,” Mum agreed, as if Uncky Frank’s brain was a poorly trained Pitt bull yanking him around on its leash.

They loved him, though. He was everybody’s favourite uncle.

“Your dad isn’t very far away, once you know ‘C’,” he said, sitting beside me at the wake. “That’s the constant that stands for the speed of light in a vacuum,” he added, when I gave him a puzzled, pleading look. “Three hundred thousand kilometres per second.” He smiled benignly.

“How far is it from your head to your heart?” he persisted. “Show me.” I put my left hand over my heart; my right on top of my head. “That’s how far away your dad is from you, always,” Uncle Franklin said. “He’ll never leave, and – at the speed of light – he’ll be with you in an instant, whenever you need him.”

Uncky Frank had a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, on a special shelf next to his favourite armchair. He’d read it every evening, as if it was the world’s longest novel, from A to Z with occasional side-steps to look up an incomprehensible word in another article, then another word in the explanatory article, and another, and another, and so on.

“Unless someone’s reading it, these are just lumps of masticated wood, glue and fake leather, gathering dust,” he told me once. “Knowledge doesn’t reside in books. Squiggles on a page don’t mean anything until someone reads them.”

To his dying day Uncky Frank claimed to be an atheist. I visited him near the end. Gaunt, pallid, and weak as he was, he still smiled and gazed at me with his pale blue eyes. He could tell what I was thinking, and put his left hand over his heart; his right on top of his head. “That’s how far away from you I’ll be, if you ever need me,” he said.

I tried not to show it, but he laughed. “Just cause I’m what you call an atheist, doesn’t mean I don’t believe something. A few more days, and I’ll be gone, but I’ll live on in your memory,” he smiled benignly.

“And when I die?”

“You’ll live on in the memories of your friends, your colleagues, your family. And I’ll be a smidgen of that, which is enough for me.”

Uncky Frank bequeathed me his set Encyclopedia Britannica. I browse them from time to time, but there’s no reference to any history of mine in there, just antecedents. The speed of light hasn’t changed, though, and the time it takes a beam to get from Bare Point to the Sea of Tranquility on the moon.

End Note:

Writing is rarely a linear process. For example, this video has a typical pedigree. Yesterday I was working on Episode 43 of The Mural Gazer. In this scene Buddy paddles out onto Cowichan Lake, teetering on the brink of suicide. There, he encounters the spirit of Hong Hing, the Chinese merchant, bootlegger and gambling den operator, depicted in Chemainus Mural #4, who is tying to dissuade him. Although he’s alive and talking, Hong Hing is decked out as a deceased, oriental patriarch, and he’s floating to the forever-after on the mirror-calm surface of the moonlit lake.

I’m on aqua incognito for this description, so I started researching Chinese funerary traditions online, a fascinating glimpse into the rites of an ancient culture.

At the same time, I have been trying to get my head around Immanuel Kant’s metaphysical theory of Transcendental Ideals. Although that’s not the kind of subject matter you can throw undiluted into a novel, as a thematic undercurrent, I believe speculative philosophy enriches stories. And the rites I was learning about the Chinese belief in an afterlife, particularly the burning of Joss Paper and representations of things the deceased need to be happy in their new world, evoked by association Kantian proofs of god, heaven and immortality.

There’s no logic to the sequence that lead to The Speed of Light, but its origins do trace back to The Mural Gazer.

The Mural Gazer: My Direct-to-Web experiment

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TheMuralGazer.ca

Direct-to-Web is more than just a digital format that allows me to distribute and share books cost-effectively and in an environmentally sensible manner, it’s also a way of opening up the boundaries of literature to new possibilities.

I’ve written 35 episodes of the The Mural Gazer, now, and have developed a format that works. But I’m only just beginning to appreciate some of the possibilities D2W offers. The most immediate pluses for readers and authors:

A D2W book can be read on a mobile, a laptop or a desktop computer. No special devices or programs necessary, other than access to the internet and the web.
Audio readings of a D2W story can be bundled with the print edition, so audiences can read or listen depending on their situations or preferences.
The cost of a getting a D2W book into readers hands is a fraction of print or eBook editions because there are hardly any distribution and printing expenses.
A D2W novel can be the modern equivalent of a serial, published episode by episode on the fly.
Graphic elements can be incorporated into the Direct-to-Web experience.
For those who want to lessen the environmental impacts of producing and distributing books, Direct-to-Web offers a much more sensible format than conventional publishing.

Those are immediate benefits of Direct-to-Web. Some of the possibilities that go beyond what is normally expected of literature, and which I haven’t even begun to explore:

Audience interaction. An author can communicate with his audience while he’s writing a book, and remain in contact after a book is published.
Side-stories. Links can be included in a book that will take readers off on side journeys. The possibilities of this feature for subplots, or excursions to actual settings, or… are enticing.
Collaborative opportunities. Musicians, visual artists, photographers, actors, all kinds of arts disciplines can be brought to bear on a plot or theme. Again, the possibilities are limitless and fascinating.

So, much as I like to see The Mural Gazer as a direction literature needs to go in, I’m pretty sure my vision is dwarfed by the reality of the medium I’m so excited about! Of course print editions of books are going to be the mainstay of most readers for some time. But I’d be surprised if mid-21st Century readers are toting paper and hardcover editions around with them; in fact, I’d be surprised if literature occupies anything other more than a shrinking niche in public consciousness if authors and publishers don’t develop the potential of Direct-to-Web books.

Circumference

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A circle has no ending,
no periods or dates.
No beginnings either
no pre-determined fate.

Some think it has a boundary
scribed in rock or sand
a sharp, defined circumference
that we can comprehend.

But geometry's no pattern
for what our minds embrace,
our circle's not a border,
fixed in time or place.

We're gathered here as writers
looking in, and up, and out
and all our conversations
admit a note of doubt.

The only thing that's certain,
at the centre of our sphere,
is sharing, comparing, preparing
are the reasons that we're here.

Rialta travels – French Beach & Bamberton

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We took our new Rialta camper van on its second inaugural run over the weekend, heading for French Beach, via Lake Cowichan and Port Renfrew, then on to Bamberton via Sooke, Goldstream and the Malahat.

The trip redefined our concept of perfect weather to include foggy, thought provoking days, that force you to bundle up and wear a hat, to ward off the droplets condensing on pine needles and leaves.

I always tell people, “I’m not a photographer, I’m just a guy who takes pictures.” But as an ex-journalist (if there ever was an ambulance chaser, who could combine those contradictory terms) I have taken thousands, probably tens of thousands, of shots.

So, although the technical and compositional skills of photography remain outside the view finder for me, I have learned something about the Zen of photography – the delight one takes in capturing a perfect moment in the neural circuitry of mind and camera.

B.C. offers so many opportunities for those focusing clicks. In this series, my favourites are the two images of Diana walking on a gravel spit off Bamberton Beach. The fog obscured much of the background, which made the parts it revealed more meaningful, more symbolic.

Careful as she was, observing the seagulls in the first shot, I anticipated the instant she would nudge just a fraction of a step too close, triggering their flight instinct. Birds taking wing are an inspiring image for me, and seagulls, with their long, elegant wings and immaculate white plumage, are a constant metaphor of my coastal existence.

Pleased with my photo prowess, I was repacking my camera, when glanced up and saw Diana heading back to shore, and about to step into the frame of a surreal composition that placed a ghostly boat in front of a ridge of hills looming out of the fog. The territory between that moored boat, and the mysterious landscape, is incognito, which means it’s a zone of possibilities, of unknowns.

Shafts of sunlight penetrating a forest canopy; a fungus encrusted log, the haphazard architecture of a driftwood hutch… to encounter those kinds of visual wonder on a couple of beaches, in a few hours… that’s part of the endless fascination of Vancouver Island.

Stay tuned. We’ll be heading out for the third inaugural trip in the Rialta soon… just as soon as I can get a mechanic to tell me why the engine light came on, as if our camper van didn’t really want to leave Port Renfrew, and complete our South Island circle tour.