toweringflat

I, for one, hope that Alain de Botton is right that 2009 will become best known as the year that the western world (and some of its followers?) welcomed and even heralded the redefinition of 'wealth' and happiness.

Botton's article in the latest issue of Monocle (a collector's item when you consider how 2008 is ending and how this will affect the opening of 2009) opens with his saying:

"I believe 2009 will be the year when the question of how society should be arranged will cease to be an idle, abstract topic, dwelt upon by ivory-tower-intellectuals after a few glasses of wine, and will instead enter the workday mainstream with a vengeance."

And then he goes on to add the following commentary on the transition of western culture from a flock of CNN ingesting sheep to a more politically sensitive beast:

"Everyone will become a political philospher; and all of a sudden, some of the great issues facing our world will be up for grabs. It will be a frightening, exhilerating time. Expect to see record numbers of people reading political blogs, attending classes in political theory and turning once again to Karl Marx, Adam Smith and John Ruskin."

And later on Botton incites John Ruskin because his definition of 'wealth' (contrary to stereotypical images of investment bankers hoarding bonuses) involves growing wealthy in kindness, curiosity, sensitivity, humility and intelligence - a set of virtues he referred to as life". A far cry from the house, SUV, purse and watch wielding patrons of status that many of us in the West have become. I, like Ruskin, hope that I can begin to forget all of the trappings I have been inculcated into during my lifetime. I want to lapse into an amnesia which obliterates my selfish gene so that when I wake, it is  to a blue sky which makes me feel alive and human once again. Are we so far gone that we don't see we have become Romans punch drunk on our own wealth mythology?

May 2009 usher in the year of the honest man and the generous woman. As Pentagon Principal, Paula Scher, explains in her own Monocle contribution, 'the seriousness of the times demands serious dialogue. We need teachers, not demagogues, we need reason without apparent bias, and we need to be called to action by self-evident truths and not blind faith or what's in the leader's gut. The times will make (or break) the man'. Obama is one positive step in the right direction, and a presentation last night by Canadian Malcolm Gladwell on his latest book, 'Outliars' opened to a packed theatre auditorium confirming the fact that many of us are hungry, even starvin, for some honest, intelligent truths.

 

My two-week stay in Montreal is now coming to an end. I was lucky enough to catch the last of the warm summer in Montreal and Stowe, Vermont. My one swim this summer was in our dark, bottomless-looking pond in Vermont. I couldn't believe it was the one time all summer that I spent in a body of water, but cool English weather doesn't inspire the desire for swimming even for a Canadian. 

Now is one of the best moments in north-eastern weather; the foliage shifts to reds and oranges and the air cools to autumn standards. You smell the leaves and the hint of winter. Autumn always used to be my favorite time of year. It meant the start of the school year and the possibility of new discoveries. New texts, new notebooks, new pens, new teachers.

The start of fall used to signify renewal; something more elusive once you graduate from academia and emerge in the adult nine-to-five world. A part of me wishes I could go back to that time, where there was always more to learn and more to discover. And another part me realizes while that is impossible, maybe there are other ways to continue to inspire renewal with the seasonal inspiration of transition.

I'm still looking...