The Pipe: Worldline

The idea of a timestamp is a curious one. It locks in a word, a phrase, a sentence typed into the temporal ether. You chat, you text, write an email, or a letter, and those words, those ideas suddenly have a place, in all four dimensions. It is no longer floating free. It becomes concrete, solid. Real.

I came across the idea of a worldline, and it struck me as poetic. You could say Einstein, who came up with the notion, was the poet of physics, and indeed the way he interacted with science was with an artist's genius. It goes like this: a worldline is the sequential path of something through both time and space, from the moment it is created to the moment of it's non-existence. A worldline is the string that binds us to place in this universe, as we know and see and perceive it. Invisible to the naked eye, but as real as the touch of the keyboard beneath my fingertips.

When we are gone, when we no longer exist, our worldines ended in this place, that string remains. A record of ourselves is left behind in some form or fashion. In the gametic DNA that we pass on, in our letters, or in some book. We weave together, one string ravelling into another.

A ship's worldline is it's log. It must contain the date and the position, and you can see the course that it charted through the brine and spray. This is my log, as small and insignificant as it is. This is where I can stamp my mark and say: Phil was here.

Spring

Time passes and hope springs eternal
Leaves bud, ready to burst
There's a feeling in this cold, near-spring air
That brings back memories of summer's fragrance
And the promise of verdant warm days
The cusp of change approaches
And summer threatens to spill over
Heralding its journey with the bird's call
And sweet southern winds
That lie around one's neck
Like hearth-warmed mantle

A little something pastoral to change the mood, eh?

Mirage

Ah Love, I languish at the thought of thee
The ghost of your embrace haunts me
For I have never known your touch
Instead Your spectre follows me
And mocks me
Are you dead?
Or is the whisper I hear
But an echo on the wind,
A moment's idle imagination
Or the distant discourse of lovers
In some hidden glen
The like I have not known or seen
Or felt the soft crush of grass
And Your voice murmuring in my ear
Such like is not mine to have or share

Mix this with two parts angst and one part loneliness. Much inspired by Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther."

Compulsion

Desire's voice drives nails
Of madness into my head
That yearns only for rest
From this fearful enchanted slumber
To wake from this unholy consciousness
It does not stop, pushing me further
Into the valley of its longing
Like water spilling over the cliff
Of suicidal sickened love
It's empty whispers tell me tales
Of satisfaction and gratified wishes
Of hypnotizing dreams and fantasie
That one can wake to
Desire's mirage leads me
Stumbling to false oasis'
In this desert of my life
Thirsty for the springs of companionship
Its whispers turn to sand and dust
Widening the hollow inside my chest
And withering away the face of reason
Till I turn away from its chapped
And blistered visage
Into the wide maw of the howling gale

Solitaire

Love is absent
Mere glimmers of a fool's gold
Dreams rail, chained and pent
And my arms have nothing to hold

Flint

The spark waits to be struck
Of inspiration and blind luck
The mind calls to be lit
By the gift of Perseus, illicit
This hearth is damp, spoiled and spare
And chilled by a lonely wintry air
Throw open the shutters and let in the light!
Too often closed by some imagined night
Stoke the dimly glowing coal
Think phœnix, mind! Soar like a kite

An Insomniac's Second Note

The Muse is strong upon me tonight, so: I've got a bunch of poetry to inflict upon you all.

An Insomniac's Note

After rereading my last post, I have decided we should all move to Norway. It's better there. They have all the things I want already changed, so I'm guessing all the complaining has already been done.

The Soapbox: Today I Vote

Today is a day that I get to exercise my right as a citizen and vote. It’s something that I take for granted, but a right that I honor. Here in Alberta, it is important to note that I have grown up in a era where there has only been one governing party. There has only been one status quo, there has only been one political perspective that has shaped this province.

I have only a few years behind my belt as a voter, but there are a few things that I know. I know that I need to express an opinion, and that I get my chance today. I have taken my Ralph bucks and laughed, I have seen the howling byways of my city get worse, I have seen a province and a city expand without thought of the consequences of that growth.

Earlier this week, I experienced those consequences. Our household experienced an emergency of a medical nature, and as I result, I rushed to the hospital with my roommate in my car, and worry in my heart. We checked him in, and waited. And waited.

And waited.

We left without seeing a doctor. We arrived at the stroke of 10 at night, we left at 4:33am in the morning. The next day, my roommate was able to go to a clinic, and his troubles taken care of. But, for me it was an object lesson in some of the gaping holes in our province.

There are other ways I have experienced them. As a student, my university increases tuition every year, simply to keep up with their expenses. This is the result of the load shifting onto the back of the student, and a lack of support and direction from a government that has been in power for over 35 years. A few years ago, the university cut faculty funding by 15% in order to meet the black. My classes are bursting at the seams, there hasn’t been a class this year that I’ve taken under 200 people, and I’m in senior level courses. There haven’t been substantive improvements in the lot of my university or government support in my lot as a student.

As a youth worker, it was only in the last year that there was a wage increase, after a long period, years of drought. As it is, I make less on an overnight shift than a janitor does doing overnights at a nearby grocery store chain. As a part time worker, my company is unable to pay me overtime, even when I work 16 hour shifts. This is due to the contractual nature of the private not-for-profit business model that the government uses to take care of its most vulnerable: the children of the state. Social funding has seen the scalpel knife many times, and the only people that get hurt, truly hurt, in the end are the unfortunates who are in the system in the first place. I can always find another job than youth work if I chose to.

There is a philosophy of the status quo at work in the province, and I wonder if we will ever see political change that instead of fulfilling cliché phrases like “forward looking,” and “value added,” and “sustainability,” actually looks at the problems of the province and substantively moves on them. A change that sees public transit as a real and valid option to the long commute in the car. A change that sees the sick at the very first opportunity, their cares looked after immediately. A change that supports the next generation of workers, the students, the shapers of our society. A change that protects and ensures the future of our most vulnerable. A change that supports the people that protect and care for them. A change that doesn’t serve the interest of the few that have shares in oil and gas, but the people that own that oil and gas. We, the people of Alberta. A change that protects people from the vultures of landlords eager to make a profit. A change that sees that no person should be homeless. A change that sees an environment as worthy of protection in its own right. A change that looks less to the padding of the coffers, and more to the blood and sweat of the people that generated that money.

We have wealth. We have a hard working ethic. We have bright minded people in our province that struggle to get by. We deserve better, we deserve more than a government that is the mouthpiece of corporate interests. We are more than the oil and gas beneath the ground we live on. And it’s time we see that.