Telling the Truth is Like Making Oxygen.

Great quote, no?? In a fantastically irrelevant, utterly self-indulgent posting given the seemingly apocalyptic times in which we find ourselves.

And rather than writing fantastically self-indulgent essays like this one, I should no doubt be going to the laundromat to finally wash my winter stuff, say – or something really practical like that. If this posting is too outrageously irrelevant & pointless for you, just bail & go read my recent posting of funny stuff that's had just under 9000 views (isn't that wild??). We're all desperately in need of some laughs these days, if you ask me.

Okay. So. It was Buddhist thinker/writer/scholar/sometimes-anti-nuclear-activist Joanna Macy who said "Telling the truth is like making oxygen." At a talk she gave in Toronto in June 2009.

I was there, & took notes, and, as a long-time collector of memorable, inspiring quotations, I was sure thrilled to write that one down!

Just reciting the quotation makes me pause ... take a deep breath ... & sigh. And reflect on how very brilliant – how very true! – it is.

And. Has there ever been a time in human history when we've been so deeply steeped in lies, liars, lying (& psychopathy?) as this one??

Can't say for sure.

I can say it's breath-taking to contemplate the sheer volume of lies we're all being fed daily these daze. All the Kool-Aid we’re being asked to swallow.

But also, on the "bright" side, a time when so many lies are being uncovered, as well!

Anne Lamott, a brilliant (& often very funny!) writer, once said

“There is not much truth being told in the world. There never was. This has proven to be a major disappointment to some of us.” – Anne Lamott in the Prelude to Grace (Eventually) – Thoughts on Faith

Since I've long thought of myself as a truth-teller (truth lover!), count me among the seriously disappointed.

Daniel Moynihan said

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”

We sure all have a lot of opinions these days!

Few of us realize how much of what we believe – of what we are told/have always been told – is a pack of lies.

• pure propaganda – media-sponsored & delivered.

• pure PR spin. Think "safe and effective," hmmmm?? Among other things...

The Covid era has been/still is a real doozy for dividing up the populace into our opposing camps – our silos of work & interests & beliefs – many of them constructed of pure B.S. & nonsense. Kool-Aid, essentially.

Sigh.

A good example to me of how very bamboozling it all is, & bear in mind I'm a person who spent 30+ years as an environmental activist (a confession I realize may immediately send some readers scrambling for the door, but let me quickly add, just for the record, that environmental issues/problems go well beyond climate change):

Depending on which "expert" or set of "experts" you listen to, the global climate is either heating up markedly, year in, year out, year after year – or it is absolutely definitely cooling. Pick your expert – both (opposite) claims are being made, & with convincing graphs to back them up.

Dizzying.

Just plain dizzying!

Now. I’ve always liked this quotation:

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.” – Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941

Here’s a miscellaneous collection of things that are true for me

• Life has taught me to be very wary of so-called "experts." I could tell a couple outstanding stories about how this came to be true for me. One of which involved a man I then believed to be terrifically intelligent (he had a PhD from Oxford University, for heaven’s sake, which for me was proof positive he was smart as heck, & I a mere know-nothing peasant!) saying something so outrageously ill-considered & stupid that the whole putting-PhDs-onto-pedestals habit began to wither away for me. It took a while longer, but in time I came to view people with PhDs as being individuals who likely know a very great deal indeed about a topic that is likely very-very narrow indeed in focus ... & not necessarily very much at all about vast boatloads of other topics. In some cases, maybe, even how to tie their own shoelaces, almost. (Some supposedly "very smart" people appear to lack even the most basic common sense. It's shocking!)

• I joke that the sound of pedestals crashing in recent years has been – & not just for me! – simply deafening. I think a lot of us have learned to drop that old pedestal habit. Sure hope so!

• I do really stupid things sometimes – & have been terribly slow at times to connect the dots on really important matters – but at least I've always remained a curious person. I am not wilfully blind. The wilfully blind really give me the willies. The foolishly, stubbornly naive give me a case of heartburn.

  “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” – Gloria Steinem

• I've made a shit-ton of mistakes as a mother – I suspect all mothers/all parents have! I know there are things for which I need to make apologies to my children (who are in their 40s now). The number of things their father & I did not know all those decades ago? When I was pregnant, when they were newborns/infants, toddlers, children – even teen-agers? Ai-yi-yi but it's a longggg list! (We were not wilfully blind, you understand – but terribly-terribly naive, plus there was just so very much we simply did not know, & which nobody was trying to tell us about, either – or was even conspiring to hoodwink us about, actually – plus, so much has been learned, for example, about vaccines, & about various environmental toxins that we were utterly clueless about back then.)

“Life is a long lesson in humility.” – James M. Barrie

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.” – Benjamin Franklin, quoted in Thimerosal – Let the Science Speak, edited by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

• The best thing I've ever done in my life – by far the most profound, most exhilarating, frequently exhausting & sometimes infuriating, but ultimately the most hugely satisfying, rewarding (& humbling!) – was to become a mother. A Mom. Phew! Note that I am not saying motherhood is for everyone. It is definitely-definitely not – & these days?? Well. To embark upon it now would take a simply gargantuan leap of faith in humanity (which I myself now lack entirely) to take that ginormous plunge.

• And? I think my kids think I'm a kook. And okay, I’ll just be brutally honest here. I've always been kind of "different." Not too much "like the other Moms." Not “like everybody else.” Always pretty inclined to colour outside the lines, shall we say. (I've given this some careful thought in recent days, & it's true I've done a lot of stuff well outside the boundaries of the behaviour of "regular" people. Vis-a-vis activism. That's maybe a different essay?) And my children love me deeply, and I them! But there are things I know, things I've learned – 'cos as I've said, I'm a curious person, & keep on learning new stuff, even though I'm "old" now. I really wish they'd listen to me more! I've learned a lot.

  “Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” – Karen Kaiser Clark

  “Curiosity is the first step down the path of awakening.” (spotted on a church billboard in my neighbourhood – a church that later restricted its services to the vaccinated during those crazy times, I might add. !?)

• I come from a very dysfunctional family. (Heh heh; don't we all??) Not going to go into any details here. It could've been worse – a lot worse! Could've been better, too. I survived! Even came away with some decent genes, good habits, manners & values & experiences. My siblings were very good to me, which was no small thing. They pretty much raised me! And, I like this:

  

  Easier said than done, of course...

• My father took part, during World War II, in the bombing of the incomparably, uniquely beautiful, uniquely special German city of Dresden. !?!?!?!? Whoa. I am not making that up. I have a copy of his flight log – from his days as a Canadian air force bomber pilot – to prove it. (For the record, I am not proud of him for this; rather the contrary. Let's put it this way: I feel ashamed on his behalf. Deeply disgusted with the war machine that gave him his orders. Though I doubt my father felt shame about it – or maybe he did; how can I know for sure?? – & I do understand he no doubt deeply believed he was doing the right & brave & patriotic thing at the time.)

• I once spent four years working as a federal parole officer in Toronto. Not making that up, either. (It was a very long time ago now. More than 40 years.) Plenty of juicy stories from those memorable years! The best lesson I took from that job that I could pass along to my kids was this: if you're ever in a bad situation – when you feel the circumstances or person/people around you are "off," or dangerous? Get the hell out. Listen to your guts. It was a very ... hmmm ... unsettling day that a very particular set of circumstances taught me this very important – potentially life-saving – lesson.

• Truth? I have always felt kind of like an alien. I don't mean really from another planet, I just mean that I've very often felt I don't really fit in. Maybe we all feel this way?? Dunno. At some point along the way in my life, lots of things had happened, & I came to feel I now belonged to a loving & trusted tribe. You know, "lefties" & environmental activists. Then, along came Covid/March 2020, & the left went (in my view) desperately, horribly, inexplicably & utterly sideways & off the rails, and whoosh! I suddenly found myself no longer part of a loved & trusted tribe. This was hard! Kind of heartbreaking for me, to be honest. Oh well. As Canadian journalist/podcaster Trish Wood likes to say, #truthovertribe!

• Friendship has always saved my ass. Friends have come & gone as the years/decades have gone by & I've passed through different stages of my life, with different interests & preoccupations. But some have lasted. There's a very special woman I've been friends with for almost 50 years now! Our friendship has evolved over the decades as our lives have changed & gone through different phases. In recent years? We've learned we cannot discuss (because we disagree vehemently on) the topics of Covid, the Covid vaccine, mainstream media, pharmaceutical drugs, the trustworthiness of conventional medicine, Donald Trump, & the American political scene. Shockingly, we still get together & have great conversations! We're still super-solid friends. I suspect there's an important lesson to be found in this.

• This friend said something really interesting to me recently. She never had children, btw, but has known mine since before they were born, in a manner of speaking. Heck, she's known me longer than my kids have! She said this: parents have to lie to their children, 'cos they have to tell them they can do – & be – anything they want to do, & be – even though, as we all know, this is demonstrably untrue. That kind of set me back on my heels. It's true! She's right. I'd never thought about that. I don't relish lying to children, and I now have my doubts that all that tooth fairy & Santa Claus stuff is anything we should be indoctrinating children with. But I can see we have to paint a slightly rose-coloured version of the world for them ... don't we?? It's a conundrum.

• The way I got into the practice of eating & valuing organic food? It's bananas. A friend I've long since lost track of told me (back in the early 90s) that I shouldn't compost my banana peels (I'd recently become a determined composter, given how much the practice reduces household garbage) because, although in North America DDT was outlawed decades ago, we still export it to the countries where bananas are grown. So the bananas we buy from South America are laden with DDT, which is probably not really something we want to be putting into our compost (assuming we’re later going to use the compost in our garden). Thus began my growing conviction that eating organic mattered – well, that & for overall health reasons, of course!

• I love Joe Rogan's podcasts! (Okay, many, if not all of them, & sometimes I do roll my eyes at some of what Joe says.) This will immediately convince at least two subscribers I can think of off the top of my head to conclude conclusively that I'm a really pathetic intellectual lightweight – but they don't know how great the conversations JR has with his guests are! I never even knew who Rogan was until the Covid era, when he bravely interviewed both Dr. Robert Malone & Dr. Peter McCullough – two medical doctors/scientists who were dissenting noisily from the mainstream Covid narrative. The man conducts very fine interviews! Not interviews – conversations. He is so gifted in the art of conversation I find it amazing. Last week I watched/listened to his long one with long-time documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, & found myself utterly riveted. Such a fascinating, intelligent, thoughtful, insightful man! I'd never heard of Burns before, but wow ... what a great conversation. I learned stuff about American history I'd never had any clue about. It's here.

For the record, I happen to believe that if human beings had more simple conversations – if more of us sat down around a table in good faith & really listened to one another – many of the world's problems could be greatly changed. Talk may be "cheap" – but it sure has the potential to sort out a helluva lot!

“It’s one of the secrets of the world. We all have the key to one another’s locks. But until we start to talk, we don’t know it.” – Michael Silverblatt, host of KCRW’s ‘Bookworm’ radio show

“Many of the things we all struggle with in love and work can be helped by conversation. Without conversation, studies show that we are less empathic, less connected, less creative and fulfilled. We are diminished, in retreat.” – from Reclaiming Conversation – the Power of Talk in a Digital Age, by Sherry Turkle.

• I've long believed air pollution to be a very major elephant in the room. Nobody ever talks about it – though decades ago, we used to. Do we really think bad air quality is not having serious impacts on our health?? Come on, people. Clearly it only grows ever worse. But you never hear people talking about it.

• I have ZERO trust in the medical establishment, including any organizations like "health units" that gobble up millions in taxpayers' dollars (those who work in them sure get paid mighty generously! Whoa; talk about golden handcuffs!) & do absolutely the complete opposite of improving public health. It's beyond scandalous; the word scandalous does not begin to describe how sick & perverse it all is. My loss of trust began many-many moons ago, & kept evolving slowly over time as I started connecting the dots about my own health issues & those of the people I care about the most. How poorly we were (& are) all being served by the "health" professions – and then, whatever trust remained (by then it wasn't much!) went absolutely into the toilet during the Covid era. Almost certainly anybody reading these words knows exactly what I'm talking about. Hospitals have become downright scary places. What a topsy-turvy world!

• I'm an unapologetic "anti-vaxxer." Only because becoming a grandmother motivated me to start researching the vaccine issue. Did I ever get a shock! A whole series of shocks. And you know what? No single issue I've ever delved into, & I've delved into a lot of them:

acid rain/air pollution, cancer/cancer prevention, chemtrails/geoengineering/weather modification, chlorine, climate change/the greenhouse effect, dioxin, endocrine disruption, energy conservation, food issues/GMOs. forest issues, glyphosate, Great Lakes issues/pollution, lead, nukes/nuke accidents/nuke waste/depleted uranium, the ozone layer, pesticides/lawn chemicals, plastics/PVC plastic, renewable energy, toxics in air/water/food/personal care products/our bodies, war's environmental impacts, waste issues (both household & industrial), water issues.

… has ever shocked & sickened me the way this one has. Does. No other issue has kept me awake at night, the way this one sometimes (still) does. I've written about this plenty elsewhere, on this site & my other one. If you want to know more about what I'm talking about, you can read this (short) posting, or this longer one.

• I read a crazy number of books! Likely more than anyone I know – except maybe for that very long-term friend of mine I mentioned a while back. Both fiction & non-fiction. So I learn a lot! But with fiction? The plots & characters go in one ear & right out the other. I just don't retain the plots of novels. It's embarrassing! Oh well. We all have our flaws & shortcomings, don’t we??

• "Smart" phones? Cell phones? A very dear, very smart friend of mine, who unfortunately was tragically killed in a car accident more than 20 years ago now, warned me of the dangers of electromagnetic radiation wayyyy back when. So. I've always been very skeptical about cell phones’ ... benefits? And use them minimally. I also turn my WiFi off at night, & would use the Internet on my laptop wirelessly if the bloody computer weren't malfunctioning somehow. Sigh.

• I believe our species is circling the drain. Sadly, I’ve thought this for decades. I would sure be delighted to be proven wrong! I don't bother talking about it much, or writing about it these days – though I used to do so on my old site a fair bit. Nobody wants to talk about it. Even me! So we're terminal? Meanwhile, what's important is, how are we to live?? (Like a terminal cancer patient, yes? Who knows her/his disease is terminal. How then to best spend the time that remains?)

• I've grown almost numb in recent times. You know? I don't feel good about feeling numb; it's just where I've landed after many years of working (I always thought) to help make the world a safer, cleaner, saner place. And gradually taking in more & more horror stories, learning more & more & more about the madhouse we now live in here on Planet Earth. So I'm just being honest here. I will add, though, that the vaccine issue & all its nastiness, health impacts & the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry & the captured regulatory agencies & the corporate & political & medical industry minions that help it reap in its obscene profits … that stuff can still make my blood boil. Again – the truth of that whole scene is beyond scandalous. I think we need a new word to describe how seriously, entirely off the rails it all is. & not just the vaccine thing, either. Of course. We may need to invent some new vocabulary!?

• I am – just as you no doubt are, dear Reader – a work in progress. I keep growing, & learning, & while I did some kind of "out there" things in my years as an environmental activist (these two involved gigs I “dressed up” for on the anti-nuke front)

  

  

  (well; a few on the vaccine front too!), I know there are some things right now that I need to show more courage about rassling with. There are things I need to talk about with my kids – who are both, for the record, rather fierce. I don't want to piss them off so badly that they exile me from their lives … right? If only "kids" these days valued more deeply the (very) hard-won lessons of their mothers, eh???

In the words of Del Bigtree, host of the awesome weekly Highwire show, I guess, I need to "Be Brave."

Let's all be brave!

& help create some more oxygen in the world ... with our simple truth-telling.

Janet

p.s. remember way back at the beginning I quoted from Anne Lamott's book Grace Eventually? One of the essays in her book is called 'Bastille Day.' In it Lamott explains that her father had published a book in 1967 called The Bastille Day Parade, "in which protesters carry signs that read 'Turn Off the Lie Machine.'"

How I wish we'd all turn off the freaking lie machine!?

p.p.s. I'm kind of a broken record on a few topics. Vaccines. The great value I place on the simple habits of regular walking – & of actively practicing gratitude. On the power of conversation! (I call it the Whole Darn Karmic Enchilada! Some great quotes about conversation here.) The world is a madhouse, & these things (not the vaccines, but the walking, & the gratitude, & the conversations with friends – or even strangers!) help me stay just this side of sane. Sanity is important to me! The last thing my kids (& neighbours & friends & family) need is for me to lose my marbles ... you know??

p.p.p.s. why do I write? Maybe it's like therapy for me, I don't know. I'm just very addicted, I guess. It's a pretty long-time habit by now.

p.s. # 4: I'm also very addicted to pithy, inspiring quotations! There are plenty great ones about truth here. And oodles more on the main page of my other site and especially, on topics from A - Z, in the Quotation Central section there. Words are pretty darn important!!

“Words are a form of action, capable of influencing change.” – Ingrid Bengis

“Our best hope for going forward is learning to let go, and part of that is letting go of anger and delusion. Much of the current finger-pointing is fundamentally conservative as it seeks to maintain an impossible status quo, even if it waves a radical banner. But the big conversations we need to have are with each other. And for that we’re more in need of wounded healers (grateful, uncertain, compassionate, complicit) than raging prophets.” – David Korowicz

“Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift.” – Margaret Lee Runbeck

“Actions speak louder than words.”

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