Living history

‘History fan’ and master of long-form podcasts Dan Carlin circulated an email yesterday which describes several things which I have also been powerfully feeling:

But, we ARE living through absolutely momentous times (and dangerous ones). Don’t allow yourself to be gaslit about that. Any fan of History can see it. And as someone who fretted for years (and bored the people around me to tears) about the trends we are now seeing play out, it’s personally a bit of a crisis for me. I spent my life since I was a teen paying attention to ideas, and approaches and arguments to keep from reaching the point we’ve reached. I wrapped my whole career around it. I am less well equipped (and of course totally inexperienced) with dealing with things now that we have arrived here. I feel I have less useful commentary to offer. I don’t know how to get us out of the mess we’re in. At that point what’s there to say that’s helpful? I am sure there’s something. But I haven’t figured out yet what it is.

But it’s haunting me. And it is thwarting me. It is sapping my energy and I feel angry and I feel stuck. Normally when I have things to say I will talk your ear off. I am silent these days. I’ve turned inward and want to read and study, rather than communicate. Even around the house. My wife is driving me nuts saying “are you ok?” all the time. But I am worried about the future. I think all intelligent Americans are. And like a computer that gets co-opted trying to figure out the value of pi to the last digit, my mind goes over our circumstances, endlessly and without answers or resolution.

…

I still go in the studio every morning. It just is slow going and frustrating, and the days when the energy and Muse/inspiration come together as they need to for a successful end result are fewer per week than they used to be. And maybe this is just age, maybe it’s that the traditional vast amounts of coffee seem almost powerless over me now, or maybe its the weight of the times in which we live. It would be nice to not be thinking about politics or the latest dangerous, divisive nightmare every day from the moment we wake up. But that’s not the reality in which we currently live.

I share that sense of having prepared all my life for this moment, and yet often feeling uncertain and disempowered now that it is here.

Brainiversary

It has been one year since my brother’s successful brain surgery. I am eternally grateful to everyone who helped him: the surgical team, the nurses and rest of the hospital staff, and his friends who organized his ‘big brain benefit’ and provided post-surgical support.

The last few months have been a really tough time for me — with more challenges ahead — but the anniversary provides a reminder of what is most important and makes me once again filled with relief and gratitude, as I was in Victoria a year ago.

Dr. Ian Fleetwood — thank you. Perhaps one day I will unveil a project which I am undertaking to thank the land at a scale commensurate with my gratitude.

Phages for treating pathogenic bacteria

I have been deeply worried about antibiotic resistance for ages. Last night, Paul Turner’s Martin Lecture on leveraging evolutionary trade-offs for phage therapy was very encouraging.

Professor Turner, who is Rachel Carson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale, provided a fascinating account of how bacteriophages (viruses that attack bacteria) can be used in synergy with antibiotic drugs to avoid the development of drug resistance.

His Martin Lecture doesn’t have a public recording, but he suggested his TEDx talk for people interested in the subject. Though he was not featured in it, he also recommended the documentary “The Good Virus”.

Use or forfeit every hour

From this we can see just one thing: death is a meaningful part of life, just like human suffering. Both do not rob the existence of human beings of meaning but make it meaningful in the first place. Thus, it is precisely the uniqueness of our existence in the world, the irretrievability of our lifetime, the irrevocability of everything with which we fill it—or leave unfulfilled—that gives our existence significance. But it is not only the uniqueness of an individual life as a whole that gives it importance, it is also the uniqueness of every day, every hour, every moment that represents something that loads our existence with the weight of a terrible and yet so beautiful responsibility! Any hour whose demands we do not fulfill, or fulfill halfheartedly, this hour is forfeited, forfeited “for all eternity.” Conversely, what we achieve by seizing the moment is, once and for all, rescued into reality, into a reality in which it is only apparently “cancelled out” by becoming the past. In truth, it has actually been preserved, in the sense of being kept safe. Having been is in this sense perhaps the safest form of being. The “being,” the reality that we have rescued into the past in this way, can no longer be harmed by transitoriness.

Frankl, Viktor E. Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything. Beacon Press, 2019. p.44-5

Toronto’s bike season re-emerging

Snowbanks are still dwindling and another winter blast is still expected, but I was nonetheless able to ride my bike every day from Saturday through Monday.

Official Neon Rides likely won’t resume until April, but if attractive weather warrants it we might undertake some unofficial rides sooner. For me, that would represent the re-emergence of a social community which I have badly missed through the winter’s flurries and pools of slushy brine.

Meadoway 2025 report

I have been suffering for a week from a vexing stomach bug that has had me living on nothing but an hourly soda cracker and oral rehydration salts.

It has nonetheless been very exciting to read about the excellent work being done by the Meadoway project, in which a 16 km stretch of hydro corridor has been turned into a giant re-naturalization project. The corridor runs all the way from the eastern edge of the Don Valley to the Rouge and Toronto Zoo area.

Their 2025 annual report is detailed, beautifully illustrated, and inspiring. Toronto has a great opportunity to add new ways of getting around the city on foot and by bike, avoiding cars, while achieving all the erosion and biological benefits of re-introducing native plants at scale.

Their restoration manual is highly interesting too, and shows a laudable desire to share lessons with everybody.

As soon as ground conditions, weather, and health allow, I want to take my first real bike trip of the year to see the early emergence of the plants of interest out in Scarborough.