When I started this blog I stated that it was to be about world issues and not personal matters. Well, with this posting that’s about to change somewhat. Yet, there’s still not going to be any teen-girl drama.

I had intended to write a blog post last summer, after the G20 fiasco in Toronto. I was appalled at the heavy-handed conduct of the police and government authorities then and the lack of remorse, contrition or even serious introspection since. I was also quite disappointed in the acceptance of these actions by a large contingent of the population, reflecting a profound political disengagement and apathy that warrants a reminder of “First they came…” However, I just couldn’t find the words to express my outrage any better than many others who were echoing my sentiments.

The issues of the G8/G20 meetings being protested were sidelined by the policing issues, many details of which I won’t delve into here as they are well documented elsewhere. That is not to say the latter were not important; indeed, they are (especially, given the billion dollar price tag!) and there needs to be a serious inquiry into how this was allowed to happen as it did and why there has been so little done to assure it will not happen again. Unfortunately, the mainstream media dwells not on what is most important but rather (to them) what is most urgent, that is to say, they instead cover what’s sensational. Sadly, there is very little investigative journalism anymore.

For instance, the Harperialist agenda of the G8 meeting in Muskoka prominently featured the funding for maternal health initiatives in the developing world. Significant media attention was (justifiably) drawn to the fact that such funding did not include some family planning initiatives that were at odds with Conservative ideology. However, little attention was given to the larger smoke-and-mirrors issue that this funding announcement was nothing new; it was just the reaffirmation of previous commitments to fund United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) initiatives. Yet, what was left unsaid (or at least under-reported) in the mainstream media is that many of the other previous MDG commitments were left unfulfilled by the G8 countries.

At the time of the G20, Toronto was in the midst of the pre-election mayoralty race and an already unbelievable amount of attention was being paid to a comic fringe candidate running on a Palinesque populist platform. In the fall, Toronto elected right-wing buffoon Rob Ford as mayor and he set about immediately to undo much of what good had been done by his predecessors. Not long thereafter, Canada re-elected the Harperialist federal government, only this time with a majority after years of wheedling an electorate that is largely disengaged, apathetic and disgusted with political maneuvering. We can expect the government to continue, now unhindered: kowtowing to the economic interests of industrial-age resource-based industries; attacking social programmes while ensuring tax breaks for the wealthy; avoiding, indeed deriding, scientific and fact-based policy development, especially anything to do with climate change; imposing more oppressive surveillance, policing and tough-on-crime sentencing, likely including a step-up of the widely repudiated War on Drugs; and enforcing even more draconian intellectual property laws than the United States. Coming in the fall of 2011, I fully expect Ontario will elect a Conservative government, having grown tired of the lackluster performance of the Liberals, whereupon more attacks will be visited upon social programmes and green initiatives will be curtailed, particularly in the energy sector. Oh, and south of the border the Republicans have assumed a majority in both the House and the Senate.

In the year prior, I had been seriously dismayed by the collapse of the climate change talks in Copenahagen, after which the green movement seemed to give up pursuing geo-political solutions, while climate denialism continued to flourish. Obama, who had been elected on the audacity of his platform of Hope was fighting an economic collapse and a rear-guard action against Republicans during the mid-term elections, did little to address any of these larger issues. Of course, he was reflecting the mood of the people, who were more concerned with their own immediate economic situation than the seemingly abstract issues of climate change, peak oil, etc.

So at about the time of the G20, I was undergoing some personal stress, a sort of existential crisis. I had become extraordinarily anxious about many of the global issues (about which I’ve previously blogged) that we confront as a civilization, indeed as a species, as the sustainability of our way of living becomes more untenable on a finite planet.  A sense of futility exacerbated my cynicism of the political process and I was beginning to succumb to a feeling of deep depression and despair. I think I’ve posted about how I had become disillusioned with my software development career, how I’d abandoned some of my early environmental ideals to pursue the manufacture of bits, which arguably did little except improve the efficiency of capitalist interests. (Of course, having to deal with entrepreneurial psychopaths didn’t help!) I felt a personal guilt for having been part of the Hippie generation that first embraced and celebrated environmentalism, then turned our backs on it as we grew up, took up careers, settled down to raise families in the suburbs and commute in SUVs. It has only been over the past few years I’ve re-awakened to many of these issues and I’m now dealing with the psychological fallout.

I can’t say it was the events or aftermath of the G20 per se, or my disillusionment about them, but it was about that time that I realized that I needed an awakening of a more profound kind to shake me from my neurosis. So, for the past year, I’ve been pursuing an inward journey of personal development along a more spiritual path. Oh, I’m still an avowed (agnostic) atheist, although I’m less militant about it, now. I’ve been reading about Advaita Vedanta (a non-dual form of Hinduism compatible with atheism) and Buddhism (which originally derived from many of the same concepts), although I’m still wrestling with how to reconcile their metaphysics with what I know and believe about the reality in which we live. This also led me back to reading more science, especially cosmology, psychology and philosophy. I’ve also taken up reading literature  — and not just my favourite existential authors (Camus, Dostoyevski, etc.)! — which is quite a departure from my strictly non-fiction diet. I think it’s working.

All in all, I’m fairly happy with life and have a more positive outlook than last year at this time. I’m back to work on a voluntary basis with a not-for-profit organization that is a clearinghouse for information on social justice and environmental issues. In the short-term, I’ll be leveraging my IT skills to upgrade their infrastructure and I hope to develop a new website or, at least, enhance what is already there. Afterwards, I hope to do more in the area of writing and editing of articles to be published online. Apart from joining a career networking meetup group recently, this is the first concrete step, after some considerable time not working, I’ve made towards rebuilding my career. I had thought of abandoning the IT field altogether but I’m reconsidering that now and think that I’ll keep it as an option going forward, at least in terms of seeking out transitional opportunities.

The journey continues…