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Trekking the Southern Cordillera
At this time last year, a few friends and I were beginning our exploration of Torres del Paine National Park on the Chilean side of the Patagonian Region. Part of a larger adventure that took us to many remote terrains.
This picture was taken at one of the numerous lookouts along the highway, each with its own hike and unique view of the Andes. We tend to romanticize things, and I definitely had a mixed vacation owing to an illness that lingered throughout, but I still cannot believe that I was there only a year ago. Its memory may as well be a dream, for all its waning impressions.
The upside-down night sky of another hemisphere was an apt metaphor for a most unusual break from waking life. Outrun briefly but not escaped.
If you are curious, you can read my thoughts on the lure of faraway lands (what we seek), pre-trip musings (what we expect), or the more meditative post-trip reflection (on time and its binding nature).
The southern cordillera still calls to me. May the next retreat be as inviting.
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Wiped Out
This image – of our family’s dog in his preferred state – is an accurate reflection of my current condition. Today’s pic: the pooped pug.
I am at the end of a whirlwind couple of weeks, largely spent in transit around the Lower Mainland. Reconnecting with friends in an attempt to strengthen tenuous bonds. One of my fears is to become memory when I am only a text away; sliding glacially into irrelevance on the tertiary of social circles. Especially as everyone’s narrative gathers pace, or settles, into familiar patterns.
To avoid the idle feat of being forgotten takes energy, often more than I can muster. Though promises made need to be kept and commitments cancelled leave sour aftertastes.
It will all happen again, too soon for this chronic crowd-sidestepper. Wholly tiring yet gratifying, dreaded yet welcomed in equal measure.
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And/or
Note: In Difference is on hiatus during August, and no newsletter will be sent next month. Updates will resume in September.
“There is more than one sort of prison, captain. I sense you carry yours wherever you go.”
– Chirrut Imwe, as written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
(Spoilers on all things Star Wars related ahead.)
In “Narkina 5”, Episode 8 of Season 1 of Andor, Cassian arrives at an isolated prison surrounded by a lake, on a moon in the Outer Rim. He is greeted by boilersuit-clad guards, one of whom delivers a cold orientation to the facility. The guards, we hear, do not rely primarily on their weapons to keep order. Instead, they lean on routine and “minimally invasive enforcement techniques”, which include an environment capable of sending painful shockwaves through unshielded bodies. Self-policing and self-preservation are entrusted to be key motivators. The prisoners are told to use their time “productively” to avoid harsh punishment.
Cassian is then uniformed and taken to his “level”, a floor of the floating forced labor camp, and mini-factory where a cohort of prisoners is fighting against the clock to complete their tasks. He is given another shot of key messaging by the ‘floor manager’, Kino Loy, a prisoner closing in on his sentence’s conclusion. Institutionalized and assertive, Kino has been installed in the upper echelon of slave ranks, responsible for ensuring those under his purview stick to the script:
Kino: “Listen up. It’s a twelve-hour shift. Productivity is encouraged; evaluation is constant.”
“The seven tallies are the running shift totals of all the other rooms on this floor. You play against all the other tables in this room. I play against all the other rooms.”
Cassian: “Play?”
Kino: “Call it what you will – the point of this conversation is that you understand one thing most clearly. I have two hundred and forty-nine days left of my sentence. I have a free hand in how I run this room. I’m used to seeing my room in the top three on the level. You will want to keep that happening. I’m sensing you understand me.
Sick? Injured? Come and talk to me. Problems with another inmate? I will know before you do. Losing hope? Your mind? Keep it to yourself.”
Cassian is directed to his assigned table and meets the small group of prisoners who have to facilitate his assimilation into the Narkina 5 system. What follows is my favorite scene in the entire series.
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Alberta’s Fossil Trove
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of driving into the Canadian prairies for the first time. (No sarcasm there; I had a companion, and our entertaining conversation was invited to fill the pleasant emptiness of the flatlands.)
The journey had actually begun in Richmond. Eleven hours through winding roads and mountains later, I was in Calgary, to connect with an old friend visiting from the U.K. I had proposed that we drive out to Dinosaur Provincial Park, because it was a bucket list item and because I had no interest at the time in surveying another car city (living in one is bad enough).
We agreed to the plan, met the morning after, and made our way there. It was another two hours or so East from Calgary to the park. Endless farmland, blue skies and scorching sun. The occasional, lonely cloud or tractor interrupting the monotonous land- and skyscapes.
To get to the dinosaurs, you have to zig-zag via gridded farm roads. And just like in the movies, the ancient reptiles leap out at you dramatically. It is genuinely unbelievable how abruptly the fossil-ridden badlands appear. One moment, you are coasting through wheat and pavement. The next, you are descending on rock and gravel as the land around you concaves into another era. Canyons and valleys of unbelonging hills, buttes, and most surprisingly, greenery, emerge from nowhere, evocative of another, older time.
The park is a must-see. The bus tours are largely family-focused but informative for all. It was cool to walk around and see millions of years of our history so accessible; bones protruding from soil as commonplace as the straw-like grass stubbornly staking its claim to the area. It was also clear to understand why the badlands were considered sacred by the local Indigenous populations. Among the many reasons they originally left it undisturbed were the shadows cast by the hoodoos – interpreted as spirits lying in stone. After all, much of what casts shadows is living. People, trees, animals and the like.
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Stop Committing Crimes
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is one of many that represent the height of our absurdity as a species. We are waking up daily to news of starving civilians, mostly children, being used as political pawns between world leaders with colonial ambitions beholden to extremist groups, who are trying to cling onto power amidst countless domestic scandals. World leaders not held to account by state or corporate media, or by the discordant noise of the online rage-farming social media machines rife with propaganda. Leaders and their crony elite enriched and emboldened by crises of their own creation.
In their care, populations overwhelmed by debt, labor and information overload, attempting to get a grip on their role in global affairs.
Israel/Palestine is the most visible modern example, but hardly the only one. Of the dozen or so genocides underway globally, this one captures the world’s attention precisely because there is an almost universal consensus on the appropriate way forward that is not being implemented. Unfortunately, the states that have refused to action this consensus dating back to 1967’s Six-Day War and its aftermath, primarily the U.S., U.K. and Israel, have instead chosen to enable decades-long suffering and torture. Which entirely tracks with the rest of their historical record, but grinds the gears of anyone charged with listening to their empty words as they continue to feed their supercharged war profiteering industries.
Their allies are not blameless, but complacent. Canada among them. Statements condemning atrocities abroad have no meaning when no substantive action follows for decades. While the world has talked around the problem, the Western-facilitated and -catalyzed rot at the heart of the Middle East has created deeply radicalized societies that will continue to foment conflict for generations.
But there is a route towards healing that the West can take. The same one people have been protesting for repeatedly. Rarely entertained (with exceptions), given the governments of the West largely answer to oligarchs and lobbyists, rather than their citizenry, unless the public sustains a disruptive presence in the streets en masse.
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Land of the Rohirrim
Exploring Rohan (a few kilometers from Mount Sunday a.k.a. Edoras) and taking in the temporarily tranquil Canterbury landscape (until the mighty winds return), December 2018 -
The Price of Connection (repost)
This post was originally published on January 31, 2024, prior to the publicizing of this site and the newsletter e-blasts. I have recently, begrudgingly, reactivated an old social media account in the hopes of reconnecting with some long-lost acquaintances. That experiment will end soon, for many of the reasons articulated below. I am resharing these thoughts now as they are front of mind. Take them with a grain of salt, from someone who has essentially lost all close friendships in part out of a stubborn refusal to engage with the un-engageable. For those interested in more overviews of online systems from Jaron Lanier, see here, here, here and here.
Sometime in the mid-2010s, there was a chorus of researchers who began to seriously consider the long-term effects of modern, digital social media on our personalities. At this point everyone with a mic, pen, and laptop had already waxed lyrical about the positive and negative impacts of online networks invading every corner of our daily lives. The foundation of the dual life – of your actual person and your profiles on digital platforms – had long been consolidated. Facebook was the dominant player (and remains for now as the most utilized site for connecting), essentially ubiquitous among younger demographics who had grown up with technology at their fingertips. Even youth who were living in poverty could afford simple flip phones where they could access the basic Facebook mobile interface and messaging services – something I witnessed working with children in rural Uganda back in 2013.
These researchers may have been motivated by the unexpected and anecdotal rise in social isolation, especially among youth (early adopters and heavy users of large social media sites). MySpace had been an experimental precursor where the potentially harmful effects of social media may not have made themselves apparent. The rise of Facebook, a digital party for all your acquaintances, with a constantly updating feed, and Reddit, which allowed a window into the general zeitgeist and its flowering subcultures, led to increased critical scrutiny of the underlying infrastructure that was fast forming our new social connective tissue.
Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Whatsapp and over in China, WeChat and QQ, were also fast becoming relevant in the workplace. Links to each began to be embedded not just on webpages designed for entertainment and fun, but also for professional use. There are still vast swathes of industry in East Asia where an email or mobile text may not be exchanged during an entire workday; instead, interactions on a single platform like WeChat may be all that is needed to accomplish daily tasks.
These researchers did surveys, looked at all publicly available data, and spoke to industry experts, users, promotors, and critics of social media platforms. They quoted twentieth century intellectuals such as B.F. Skinner, Bertrand Russell, Alan Turing, and Norbert Wiener in their search for an answer to the question: should we be worried?
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Palette of Cloth
An artist embroidering a silk ‘painting’, somewhere in the gardens of Suzhou, June 2014 -
Edge of the World
Standing at the “edge of the world” atop Taaw Tldáaw on Haida Gwaii, October 2023 -
Prime Matter
I learned of Mark Snow’s death yesterday. He produced many memorable scores, though probably none more iconic than the X-Files Title Theme, today’s Measures feature. (Its title is an alternate form of “prima materia”.)
The X-Files was a flawed but wonderful show. Each episode was capable of engendering intrigue via explorations of conspiracy, the supernatural, and at its best, the worst of human behavior. Our biases, assumptions, predilections and constant need to believe. Mulder and Scully’s dispositional interplay was always an effective draw. Placement of the religious impulse into a scientist and doctor, opposite an incorrigible expert on the nuttiest theories ever concocted, was a brilliant decision. Their dialogue often rose above the sometimes-mediocre plotlines.
And Snow’s score was the perfect frame for it all. When the setting was spooky, but also when it was lighthearted. The eerie notes and whistles amplified the nightmare fuel as much as they did the humorous eccentricities. The same beats that set up the horrific “Home” somehow also worked for “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster”. Despite the strength of the show’s early run, the latter is still my favorite episode of the series overall; it is hard not to love its subversion of the genre and of the writers’ own tendencies.
If you are curious, you can hear Snow describing how he stumbled upon the inspiration for the tune and the resulting process in this interview.