Enslaved

As I have stated in previous entries to this blog I am not an economist in fact I have a very limited understanding of economic models or principles. I am, however, a participant in one of the world’s most influential economic system, North American Capitalism. The veracity of capitalism is astounding, elegant, almost as if it had evolved like the hunting skills of a great white shark. It seems to act independent of its participants like some form of sci-fi artificial intelligence that has overwhelmed its creators to enslave the human race. The most terrifying characteristic of this monster is that it only seems to be satisfied if it’s growing.

Capitalism doesn’t like holding constant and is certainly not happy when it’s forced to shrink, only when it is growing is capitalism content. With a finite amount of resources available on the planet a model of continual growth seem to me to be fundamentally doomed and yet capitalism fights on. It fights to survive, creating new and ingenious ways to keep its impossible appetite at bay. Again I am not an economist and I am not going to pretend I understand the mechanisms by which capitalism continues to sustain its own growth but as a participant I find myself amused and terrified by its tactics.



Water is a great example. Water a basic requirement of life. When I was a kid you didn’t buy water, it came from the tap and you drank it. We may have paid to maintain the municipal systems that provided the convenience of delivery to the tap but we certainly didn’t pay for the water itself. How did capitalism convince billions of us to start paying for water?

I picture a board room with window walls, downtown in some big city. A guy in a pin striped suit standing next to a piece of white bristle board balanced on an easel. In front of him stretches a long table full of pale faced balding men also suited up. The oldest and most distinguished resides at the end of the table. You can tell he is in charge because of the old man reading glasses he wears too far down his nose and the way he sits back from the table’s edge leaning slightly in his chair, his legs crossed and his hand in a thinking position on his chin. The young presenter flips the piece of white cardboard over revealing a picture no one has ever imagined. It’s a plastic bottle with a picture of mountains and a cascading water fall, “EVIAN” in bold arching letters across the top. No one says a word, the silence grows, the presenter reaches for his collar as a man in the second row asks the obvious, “What is it”? “Bottled water” the presenter answers in a wavering voice. Again the room fills with silence. The man in the second row who obviously has an affinity for obvious questions asks “can we really sell people something they currently get for free”?

Heads start to turn towards the older man at the end of the table. Slapping both hands down he stands up and shouts……….. “I love it”!!! The room erupts with applause. Once the back slapping subsides the old man speaks again. “Although…….I’m not too sure about the name”…….the table of suits all start nodding and looking at each other making sure everyone else is nodding. The presenter clears his throat…….. “EVIAN……sir…… its naïve spelt backwards”. A sinister smile creeps onto the old mans face……..”Perfect”!.

My body-wash claims to be selling me time. “Time for more manly things” is the claim on the bottle. The body-wash can be used on both my body and my hair which is why it will save me time. I’m not exactly sure what kind of manly things I am expecting to accomplish in the 2.3 seconds it takes me to grab a bottle of shampoo, flip the lid and squirt a glob into my hand. Yet over and over the capitalistic monster continues to prove its ability at create problems no one knew they had and then selling the solutions.

While 30,000 (1 every 3 seconds) children die a day of starvation, North Americans are marketed low calorie foods to keep our obesity from effecting our health. While 2 billion (30%) of the world’s population lives without basic requirements of life (adequate shelter, food and water) we buy special shelving units to house our shoes.
As the number of things I need to live in this North American economy increases I find myself feeling less and less satisfied, less and less lucky. Instead I’m feeling more and more embarrassed, more and more overwhelmed and more and more enslaved.

Paying Your Dues

One of the stages of any cycling career involves “paying your dues”. No matter how strong or fit you are there is no getting around the fact that when you are new to cycling there is a lot to learn. The basic structure of the sport is designed on the basis of paying your dues. Everyone starts in the bottom category and only by performing and proving your worth do you earn the right to move up into more competitive and prestigious ranks.

When describing the payment of one’s dues words like: dedication, desire, drive, hard work and even luck are used. It may sound cliché but the fact is that achievement in sport at any level does take hours and hours of hard work, full of early mornings and loads of sacrifice. This is undoubtedly the reason we can all relate to achievement in sport. I have never launched myself off a 120m ski jump but I can relate to the achievements of Eddy the Eagle because I can understand the inherent “paying of dues” that went into his success.

To achieve anything in life requires the payment of dues. When I think of my success it’s all about hard work.

There were so many opportunities and excuses to give up. Everyone has a list of barriers they overcame to succeed. The size of the barrier is less relevant that the event of overcoming. I know I have had every opportunity in life and I feel lucking for that, but that doesn’t mean that my obstacles weren’t just as formidable as the next persons. In failure any excuse is good enough.

It’s all about long hours painting houses to put myself through an undergrad degree. It’s about working in graduate school as a stock boy with a B.Sc. to save up for our first house. It’s about my wife a certified teacher working two and often three jobs to put me through school.

My wife never once complained about waking up early teaching all day, going directly from school to her retail job and then writing provincial exam questions for $20 a question before falling into bed, hopefully before midnight, only to wake up and do it all over again the next day. She did this for 300 plus days a year for two almost three years.

That’s paying your dues!

She taught me the real trick to happiness is wanting what you have not wanting what you don’t have. There is no room for envy in my life, only bike envy.
It’s about taking risks and making the best of your circumstances. In the end it’s about being proud of how you did it.

Success is a state of being not an end result which is why success doesn’t exist without hard work.

Success on the bike, success in life, the Olympic podium or a Perogy XC sport class second place finish, a mansion on the lake or a house in the burbs.

The manifestations of your successes are irrelevant only the sacrifice in achieving is important. I think Paris Hilton demonstrates this point clearly.

When you see the gold medal and hear that anthem played that tight feeling in your chest and the tears you are fighting back are not an expression of national pride but rather your recognition of the dues that were paid. That’s why we don’t care that Donovan Bailey was born in Jamaica, it only makes his sacrifice that much more important.

  My first memory is of being babysat. I’m three maybe four. I clearly remember sitting on the lap of a girl at a low-key late 70’s basement party. The party is being thrown by my cousin, my babysitter. I can still see her face.

 Dirty blond, a pink tube-top, tight jeans and too much eye makeup.  

 Talking with my wife about placing our three children in non-parental care for a night out, I’m struck by how things have changed. 

Do baby-sitters still exist?

Do people still trust a neighborhood teenager they hardly know to care for there children armed only with a list of phone numbers posted on the fridge and a threat of “wait till your parents get home”

I recently asked my mother about the babysitters in my childhood and as expected she proceeds to describe a few of the more memorable misadventures.

“Oh there was that one that you and your brothers tied up, she never came back”

“Oh remember that time that your regular babysitter, now what was her name, anyway, I guess she was sick so she sent her brother” “ Ya he was a bit off, I think he was mentally diminished or something like that.”

Now for the record my parents were not in anyway negligent this was simply acceptable parenting for the era. No seatbelts, bike helmets or life jackets combined with significantly more freedom to roam it’s amazing my brothers and I survived at all.

I often wonder if in protecting my children, not only from the physical dangers of the world but also from any and all hardship, I’m actually doing them a disservice.

When I think back on my childhood I can definitely recall a few incidents where I was lucky to escape unharmed but in those close calls I learnt resourcefulness, a sense of self, that has served me well. 

Without facing adversity how can one be expected to deal with the challenges of the “real world”?

I recently read a story that discussed the raising demand on student services in Canadian Universities. Apparently student today don’t quietly flunk out but instead seek support and sue Universities for wrongful dismissal.  

Are we over parenting?

Have North American parents created a generation of over praised, under achievers, with a sense of entitlement and no ability to solve there own problems?

Or maybe I’m just getting old……. 

Life is Too Short

The average Canadian male lives 79 years as reported by the World Health Organization (83 for females). That’s only 28,835 days, which means I only have 16,425 days left on this planet. If I was born in Afghanistan I would only have 2920 days of living left as statistically a male only lives to be 42.

Now I know this is not exactly a ground breaking idea, I know you have heard it all before; Carpe Diem “seize the day” and all that, you probably saw Dead Poets Society in ’89 and for a day or two were seized.

For me these ideas evoke feelings of guilt: Why can’t I seize the day every day? Why do I waste time?

If I have learned anything in 12,410 days of life it’s that Robin Williams is not a good measure of success at anything including “seizing the day”. The truth is Seizing the day requires resources and resources require sacrifices like jobs and jobs make you tired and tired people need to rest and sometimes resting involves watching TV or staying in your PJ’s all day or doing nothing even though the great big beautiful world is waiting and you know you only have 16,425 days left to experience it.

For me Carpe Diem is about seizing your own free will. It’s about realizing that you are in control of your life. Life really is too short to live under a regime of circumstances you feel are outside your own control. An abused wife who finally get the courage to leave her husband only to enter another abusive relationship.

Seizing your own free will takes courage. The older we get the more likely we are to accept our circumstances. Carpe Diem is about having the courage to exercise free will especially as we get older and set in our ways. Like moving half way across the country to live in a place you want to be rather then accepting the distance between you and your loved ones.

No decision can’t be undone; no circumstance can’t be changed or accepted.

As I see it if you find yourself unhappy with your circumstances you only have two choices: one is to collect your courage and make a change and two is to exhale and accept it because life really is too short to live outside your own free will.

Family

Cross season started this past weekend with a flat tire on the second lap. I was in a lead group of five riders. We had pulled away from the pack. My legs felt good and I was just starting to settle into a rhythm when the rider in front of me went down and I ran my front tire into his crank (front chain ring). The tire exploded and was completely flat before I could apologize for stepping on his hand as I tried to untangle my bike. He was not hurt and able to continue, unfortunately my race was over. It was a long windy drive for 10 minutes of racing. Thanks to everyone for their support at the race.

When it comes to family support I feel pretty lucky.

I enjoy truck loads of support from family members that have made enormous sacrifices to allow our family to function as it currently does. The following is a list of sacrifices’ that I DID NOT MAKE to allow this family to work:

- I did not leave a place I had known and loved for 5 decades
- I did not leave my mortgage free housing situation to take on a new mortgage in my 50’s
- I did not leave my close knit French family far a bunch of non-separatist socialists
- I did not move into a house that’s over prices and stretches my finances to their limit
- I did not come out of retirement to pay my new mortgage
- I did not leave all of my well established social networks and start fresh
- I did not leave a good job with a small company I had proven myself with to take on a new job with a huge company that threatens to lay me off monthly
- I did not leave an economy where $60,000/year is enough to raise a family for a place where $60,000/year won’t cover groceries.
- I did not face social ridicule for my decision to move
- I did not give up retirement for a longer work life

I did not make any of these sacrifices but I do appreciate them. Every day I feel lucky to be benefitting from the support of my family and every day I think of the choices that were made so my children can have the support they unknowingly will never fully appreciate.

Extra Pepper Please

Honestly the thing I love about racing my bike is the humility it affords me. There is a reason that cycling, even at the professional level, isn’t overrun with arrogance. From the outside it may appear that cycling like all pro sports is full of egotistical adrenaline junkies but honestly my experience has been the exact opposite.

Last night was my first cyclocross race of the season. Cyclocross (youtube video) is the punk rock cousin of road cycling and combines both mountain bike skills and road tactics. The big difference with a cross race is that it only last an hour. Even at the top levels the longest races are only 60 min. This means that to win you need to ride “flat out” for the entire race.

Last night’s race started out reasonably well and I found myself holding third place through the second lap. I was in a group of five that had broken away from the main field. I took a small wrong turn and ended up at the back of the group but at least I was still in the lead pack.

I was starting to settle in and felt my legs coming around when Pepper Harlton a junior female racer put the hammer down and handed all four of us in the lead group a huge helping of humility. Pepper rode away from us all with what seemed like very little effort. The thing about cycling is there is always someone faster and last night it happened to be a 17 year old girl.

"SPEND MORE STUPID"

I’m not an economist nor do I follow economic trends closely. I would say I have an average understanding of the North American economic system. However, listening to National Radio the other day I found myself baffled by the current economic message.




Spend, Spend, Spend!!!

Spend more is the message we are getting. The best way out of this recession is for consumer confidence to return and for us collectively to spend more…..

“We’ll Spend Our Way Out of Recession” Business News

I’m reminded of a scene from the Simpsons when Homer and Chief Wiggum literally dig a hole in the ground to deep to climb out. Homer’s solution is “were going to have to dig our way out” and as they start franticly digging Wiggum says “no, no, dig up stupid”.

I mean are we really going to swallow this. Does anyone else see a fundamental issue with spending our way out of a recession? Now before you point out the obvious I want to be clear that I understand the basics. I understand that spending more means businesses will have less suffering to pass on to their employees. I understand that the rate at which money moves around the economic “buy – sell” system is directly related to the economy’s health. But are we not missing the point when we say spend more and everything will go back to normal.

Do we really want it to go back to normal?

In North America every dollar I earn is hunted by a relentless army of “must have” products. My life is full of junk I don’t need. I spend my time organizing it, finding it and moving up the property ladder to accommodate it all. Seriously I am surrounded by junk I don’t need and the logistics of managing this empire consumes most of my time.

Why not use the current economic downturn to take a look at how you spend your time and money and evaluate what is really contributing to your life positively.
As I listened to the national radio call in show I heard person after person call in with their stories of hardship.

“I’m a teacher but since my husband lost his job we are having real trouble keeping up, we have burnt through our savings and I just don’t know what we’re going to do”??

Where is this woman living that she can’t survive on a teacher’s salary? I felt like reaching through the radio and shaking this woman.

Here’s a solution for you lady, how about spending less!!!!!!!!!!!!

One income for a family used to be enough. Certainly the income of a teacher was enough to raise a family on.

According to stats Canada the average teacher’s salary in 1981 in Ontario was $28,983and it costs $320 a month to feed a family of four (two parents and 2 kids) that means that over a year the cost of food represented 13.2% of a teacher’s income. In 2008 the average teacher’s salary in Ontario was $58,467 and it costs $600/month to feed a family of four which represents 12.3% of a teacher’s annual salary.

When I hear that a family can’t survive on one parent’s income in today’s world I really have to wonder if that is true or if society’s definition of “survive” has simply changed.