Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

Remembrance Day

I’ve seen a lot of war memorials in my time, from the USS Arizona to the Eternal Flame over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.  They’re all very much the same – structures cut out of quiet stone, asking us politely not to forget.  In England, every crossroads with a pub has a cenotaph to World War I because that’s where those boys came from.  In France, there are rows and rows and rows of white gravestones because that’s where they ended up.  If you’ve ever seen them, you can never forget.

One hot summer day when I was a young man, I paused in front of the World War I cenotaph in Hedley British Columbia.  It’s a single grey obelisk about two metres high.  I’d seen it many times before but never bothered to stop.  On that day in the glorious sunshine, its weathered grey was bright and warm and dry. There was no breeze in the drowsy afternoon, and no sound, just settling puffs of dust at my boot heels.  No one was there but me.  There were four or six or maybe even eight names etched at the base (Hedley wasn’t a very big town in 1918.)  I touched the stone where the names were cut and read them to myself.  These were men my age — sons and brothers.  They had looked at the same mountains I saw that day; saw the same creek wandering down to the Similkameen River.  They’d played games on that street, run and laughed and learned how to talk to girls.  They were in their time what I was in mine.

Every year on November 11th, Remembrance Day, we pause for a moment.  We touch the names cut into stone.  Every year, I remember that I’ve forgotten those names.

Information Overload

One of the serious side effects of living in the 21st century is the incredible amount of intrusive information that comes our way every day.  I’m not just talking about crap either but high grade ore suitable for framing.  I found out Berlusconi was going down for the count while I was standing in line at McDonald’s, probably before some of his own party members knew it.  Most people will tell you this is a good thing: that information is power (and all that other claptrap.)  This is not true.  Giving too much information to people who don’t want it, need it, or understand it is a dangerous thing.  Information is like any other commodity: when supply overwhelms demand its value decreases.

Let me give you an absurd example.  The Louvre has one of the greatest collections of art in the world.  There’s enough paint on canvas there to wallpaper an entire condo development — with lots left over.  However, talk to any ordinary person (read “non art student”) who’s been there, and after they mention the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and a few others, they invariably run out of things to say.  That’s not because all the other works are second rate.  There’s one huge room filled with wall-to-wall Rubens, for example (which, by the way, was actually commissioned as wallpaper by one of the Medici girls.)  No, it’s because there’s simply too much to see.  At the end of two hours (three hours, max!) the average person just can’t take any more.  The senses shut down, fold up their tents and wander off.  The bratty kid, ying-yanging on the guardrail, gets equal attention to the Titian hanging on the wall behind her.  People just can’t process that much stuff in that length of time.  It’s difficult enough to appreciate the intricacies of a single masterpiece in isolation; it’s impossible to do it when you’ve upped the ante by a thousand.

Information works the same way.  Here’s another absurd example.  There have probably been more words written about the Kardashians this week than anybody else on the planet.  The mega-hours of reporting Kim’s wooing, wedding, build-up and breakup when laid end to end (pardon the old pun) would likely last longer that the marriage itself.  Yet, despite tons of information, even the harshest Kardashifan has no idea what’s going on.  The whole sordid spectacle could be anything from a brilliantly executed publicity stunt to the tragicest love story in the history of Reality TV.  Mere information is helpless if you’re looking into the heart of a Kardashian.

Out of sheer self defence many people make a couple of big mistakes when dealing with the volumes of information coming at them.  First of all, they confuse information with knowledge.  While knowledge is especially useful in a world that’s travelling faster than a speeding Tweet, information on its own is the closest thing you can get to useless without actually going there.  In fact, it’s actually detrimental.  Just because you know something, doesn’t mean you understand it – and that can cause problems.  For example, back when I cared about such things, I knew a bunch of stuff about cars.  I could open the hood and tell you where things were and what they did.  However, even then, as I found out a couple of times, give me a wrench and you better call a tow truck.  I had information but no understanding, and without understanding, I couldn’t postulate far enough to solve even minor problems.  In order to make a reasonable assessment of anything, you have to understand it, not just recognize it exists.

The second big mistake people make about information is assuming it’s an end unto itself.  It isn’t.  Information is the raw material that we build things out of, it is not the final product.  Even though I know the attributes of a right angle triangle, that doesn’t make me Pythagoras.   I might think I am, but unless I have a practical application for a2 + b2 = c2, it could be written in Greek for all the good it does me.  Most of the tons of information we receive is like that: we hardly ever apply it.  It lies dormant; its usefulness wasted by benign neglect.  Essentially, it’s like sitting on the sofa getting all the answers (Questions?) correct on Jeopardy: if we aren’t contestants we’re never going to win any money.  It’s not the information we have that counts; it’s what we do with it.

Here in the 21st century, we believe there is intrinsic value in the possession of information.   We think a well-informed population will naturally make well-informed decisions.  While this is basically true, the problem comes from the minor annoyance that the general population is not well-informed, at all.  They merely have access to information; they’re two different things.  Without understanding and application, the information we do have is useless.  In fact, the tsunami of data that assaults us every day is actually a hindrance to informed decision-making.  Not only do we think we already have the information we need, but in many cases our brains have already shut down from information overload.  Therefore, we have to rely on those comfortable sound bytes and buzzwords we already know to guide us.  The problem is that just isn’t real information: is it?

Mythology and the New Reality

It’s hysterically ironic that, while pop culture has elevated the End of the World Mayan Calendar to pseudo-scientific status, the real history of the decline of the Mayan civilization is largely ignored.  The thing that makes this doubly funny is that the collapse of Mayan society two millennia ago actually offers some insights into our current situation, whereas the more celebrated Calendar is simply fatalistic hocus pocus.  However, as with a frightening amount of analysis in our contemporary world, facts are largely irrelevant in the face of overwhelming mythology.

The Mayans were a hugely successful civilization that flourished for a couple of thousand years in the Yucatan peninsula, Guatemala and Belize.  These people lived in a well-structured, sophisticated society at the same time my ancestors in Northern Europe were still cracking each other over the head with stone axes.  (Not really, but you know what I mean.)  The scale of Mayan urban development is absolutely breathtaking – even today.   Unfortunately, somewhere around the time of the birth of Christ, things started to go to hell for the Mayans.  A number of theories explain why, but rather than debate them here, suffice it to say that the glory days of Mayan society were over by the time Augustus ruled Rome.

The Mayans faced a series of severe economic, environmental and social changes they simply didn’t understand.  Instead of adapting to these new realities, they insisted on clinging to their old way of life.  They demanded that their leaders call on the gods to maintain their world.  In Mayan society, that meant human sacrifice – more and more of it.  Eventually, however, the old ways were simply unsustainable in a new age, no matter how much blood was spilled.  Out of mindless frustration, the people stormed the pyramids of power and tore their society apart.

It’s a bit of a stretch to compare the later day Mayans to contemporary North Americans but like the Mayans, our society is going through some massive changes that most people do not understand.  Those same people seem intent on preserving the old ways, come hell or high water, and they’re relying on some serious mythology to do it.  We might not be Mayans, but we have a lot in common.

The big myth we’re faced with these days is income inequity.  This is the pointed stick that everybody with a grievance keeps waving.  The problem is … it’s a myth.  It has no factual base.  However, it’s being touted as not only the cause of all our problems but also the solution.  Prevailing wisdom says too much money has been gathered into too few hands.  The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting screwed.   Therefore, to preserve the old ways, we must redistribute the cash through the newly minted “Robin Hood” tax.  It sounds good, but Robin Hood is a fictional character.

The reality is very few people with a tendency to protest have studied economics.  They figure somehow that the money supply is just a big bag of gold coins somewhere, and a bunch of greedy billionaires got there first and took them all.  They also believe that all we have to do is make the billionaires give them back and everything will be fine.  Then there’ll be enough for everybody.

The problem is these ideas are crap.  There is absolute no connection between the fact that George Soros can buy New Hampshire and I’m coming up 45 bucks short on my credit card payment.  I could personally ask George for the $45.00 but I don’t think I’d get past his roomful of secretaries.  Besides, why should he give it to me in the first place?  The idea is absurd.  Yet, it seems to gain immeasurable credibility when it’s distributed across our entire society.  The whole “Robin Hood” tax business is just a bunch of people asking the government to throw their muscle behind all of us poorer folks, asking the George Soros of the world to pay our credit card bills for us.

In actual fact, it doesn’t matter how much money George Soros or any of the other billionaires have; it matters how much us poorer folks don’t have.  The Haves aren’t taking anything away from the Have-Nots (or even the Have-Lesses) but that is the myth that sustains us.  And that’s the real problem.  As long as we abide by our mythology, we can’t face the reality that our world is changing.

Back in the golden days when western economies ruled the world, our government’s largesse was endless.   There were innumerable programs, loans, projects, subsidies and payments.  There were high-paying jobs and whole careers based on government intervention.  Those days are gone.  They didn’t survive the new global economy, and unless we quit whining about it and adapt to this new reality — like the Mayans — neither will we.