cktimes.ca Archives for Notes from a Garage


Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

Don't forget to fulfill your social responsibility – buy a couch!

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Each week, I get a huge thrill reading through the offerings of my cktimes columnists. I'm telling you, folks, we have a lot of really good writers on this site. This week, you'll want to check out Jim Gilbert's Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent for a look at the possible fallout of not supporting the Capitol Theatre. Two cktimes' columnists were at the Dresden Sports Hall of Fame banquet on the weekend (three if you include me), and both John Weese and Gary Patterson talk about that wonderful evening in their columns – great stuff. Ecowrappin' columnist Tom Chatterton talks about environmentalist David Suzuki's visit to Chatham-Kent earlier this month and Reverend Brian Horrobin finds hope in a troubled world in Pastoral Lense. And this week, we add The ROCK Files with ROCK DJ Tanya Vance. She'll be writing about new music and the local entertainment scene and I think she'll be a great addition to the cktimes staff. We just keep on growing and growing and trying to improve the product for you.

Life continues to run along at an amazing rate of speed these days. I can't quite understand it, but time seems to be passing more quickly with each day. It's like being on a treadmill where you started out crawling really slowly, and, by the time you reach middle age, you're running so fast you're having trouble staying on the darned thing – then, suddenly, you're thrown off – you get sick, you get old or you come to your senses. I think there are a number of factors that are leading to this quickened pace of life. For sure, media like television and movies have to take some responsibility. The style they use to make tv and movies these days with all those flashing images is deliberately designed to speed you up. Computers are having a big impact. Have you noticed that the faster your computer goes, the faster you seem to go? I have. I'm convinced that if there were no computers, life would move at a slower pace. I remember talking to a friend of mine back in the early 1970's about the computer revolution. This guy was the first person I knew to become entangled in the world of computers. I asked him if it was true that computers would save people huge amounts of work in the years ahead. I still remember what he said. "All computers do is speed up the pace of work so people have to work faster and longer to keep up with them," he said. Strange, but very prophetic. And, of course, this speeding up of the human condition is a very deliberate thing – you see, the faster you go, the more territory you cover and the more you consume. And, as I explained in a column back just after 9-11, it is your sacred duty as part of Western Civilization to consume at least 3% more than you did yesterday. I came to this realization after I heard that our economy would go into the dumpster if it didn't maintain at least 3% growth after the terrorist attacks. Problem I see with that plan is that it can't be maintained indefinitely – you can't spend 3% more each day forever – it can't happen. So, sooner or later, the wheels are going to fall off. I hope I don't live to see it – but it'll happen and it won't be fun. Remember, you read it here first.

Here's my take on SARS and what it means. It means we could be in deep trouble and I'll tell you why. I think a lot of these new viruses that are popping up around the globe are being caused by the chemical cocktail we've created in our environment over the last two hundred years or so. I mean, how many synthetic chemicals do we release into the environment each year without really knowing what they do – I mean, not only do we usually not know what one specific chemical does, we have absolutely no idea what a bunch of these chemicals do when they're all mixed together. Heaven knows what type of concoctions are being created in the places we can't see. I thought much the same thing about AIDS. One guy was telling me last week that he thinks this will be how we have our day of reckoning – it'll be a virus, and the scientists won't be able to control it and it'll get out of control and large numbers of people will die. Scarey, but possible.

You know, the strange thing is that I feel badly that I've just written a couple of fairly negative things on the pages of cktimes. I generally like to tell people we're upbeat and positive about things, so how does this fit? Well, I'm idealistic enough, even at 50 years of age, to think that we can still turn it all around. I still think we can create heaven on earth if we could just all try to pull in the same direction. If we could realize that there should be no real purpose to life other than improving the condition of all life, then we'd take a large step forward. If we'd realize that making money and buying trinkets that other people sort through at garage sales when we're dead and gone can't possibly have anything to do with it. It's like someone up in the stars is playing a huge practical joke on us. Let's put these creatures on this planet and give them something totally useless to do – let's see how soon they figure out they've been tricked – let's see if they figure out they've been tricked. This is so weird it could be true.

Anyway, I've got to go for another week. I'm glad some of you are reading along. I really appreciate the support. It's sometimes lonely work that I do here at cktimes, but it's worthwhile knowing a few people might be reading. I'm hoping to make my own small positive difference on the globe. It's the least I can do. And remember..."Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may."




John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.