Sit and Be Counted

Greenland sharks can live hundreds of years, presumably because they don't sit very much. Image from NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program

"Sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time linked to higher risk of cancer death"

That’s how the article on The Guardian begins. Here’s how it ends:
“There were limitations to the research, including the fact that the researchers performed a statistical analysis of an observational study, so could not prove causation.”

Everything dies. Greenland sharks, trees, and tortoises can live for hundreds of years but still shuffle off their mortal coil. Even stars die eventually. The one thing that will never die: this story that sitting for a few minutes a day will be the cause of your death.

I suppose I could do more. I could add bars in the toilet and do a few dips and pull-ups in the bathroom. I could squeeze in a few squats at the dinner table. I could forgo chairs entirely and sit, in the Japanese fashion directly upon the floor, though, that’s still sitting isn’t it? I could add weights to my knapsack to get some good old fashioned rucking in. I could ignore that brake pad squeezing awkwardly on my bike’s rear wheel rim just to have some added resistance. If I’m being honest, it wouldn’t hurt to fill my pockets with stones when I go swimming as I do tend to float a little too easily. The less said of how much more movement I should be getting while sleeping, the better.

Read more »

Seen in June

City Choir performing at Rosedale United Church

More free time has not, unfortunately led to more movies but here’s what was seen in the last 30 days.

City Choir
Rosedale United Church
There’s not much better than hearing a choir of human voices singing together in a beautiful setting on a warm June night.

I Like Me
Prime Video
This documentary about John Candy is pretty standard stuff: talking heads, archival interviews, and film clips. The problem, as Bill Murray articulated, Candy is too nice a guy to make a thrilling film about. Candy was simply a talented, amiable, family-oriented and good person, who grew up in Toronto (not far from our current home). He lost his father at a young age, which led to a lifetime of feeling responsible for all those around him. That is the suggestion here, that Candy’s anxiety, and work ethic (too many films and projects), came from the loss of his father and led to his early death from a heart issue. Too soon. We miss you John Candy.

Read more »

Second Wind

It's all relative.

I’ve been thinking about time lately. I should have “more of it” but it doesn’t feel that way. In truth you can’t have more time. Time just is. You can’t make it or reduce it. Time doesn’t care about your to do list. It happens regardless of you. We’re just observers/experiencers/voyageurs. We are in time but can’t change it yet doesn’t Einstein’s Relativity say we can all experience time differently? Or at least our perception of it. Clearly I am not a student of Einsteinian physics but I am thinking about my perception of time.

The Egyptians may have been the first to divide time into twelve. They noticed a year had twelve lunar cycles which led to twelve months, of 30 days each (they knew the year was longer than 360 days but like an eager junior designer were more keen on the integrity of it all). Wanting to divide the day into equal halves, they assigned twelve hours to daylight and twelve hours to night time. To make their system work seasonally they simply made an hour longer in the winter to accommodate longer nights rather than mess with the balance and beauty of twelve. After the French Revolution, when the French created the metric system, they even tried to change time keeping from a duodecimal (base twelve system) to a decimal system (base ten). It failed. There is only so far a salmon can swim against the current before it dies.

Did we conquer time or did time conquer us? I’m with the latter. Though I suppose with electric light we can fool ourselves into extending our waking day into the night. The solstice has just passed meaning the longest day is behind us and the days are already growing shorter. That is an odd phrase: to grow shorter. It is also cruel. It means summer begins by shrinking towards winter. Our days will contract for six months before they expand again. The Egyptians had it wrong but it was a valiant effort to bring simplicity to the complexity of time.

Read more »

Who Killed Friday

"Hey everybody, it's Friday!"

Fridays used to be fun. Fridays were indulgent. Fridays were an oasis in the desert. Fridays were something to look forward to. Fridays were a joyous sigh released by an entire city. Casual Fridays meant comfy jeans, and well-worn flannel shirts. Fridays were without ties. Fridays were without peers. Fridays had their own special kind of energy. Everyone you met felt the same relief that the weekend was upon them. Fridays had drinks on the patio. Fridays had late night movies. Fridays had raucous concerts. Fridays used to be the chocolate fudge sundaes of weekdays. Fridays used to be cool. Then I retired.

Now Fridays are just one day of seven. There is no expectation of a little bit of a “lie-in” on Saturday. Any day can have a “lie-in”. When you can do something special anytime you want, it isn’t special anymore. Friday is just one of those boxes on the calendar, hardly different from any other box anywhere else on the calendar. 

Read more »

Needed

We are man, and somewhere we are needed.

The morning after being told I was laid off was sunny and warm. I had officially joined the sacked lunch bunch. Without any more excuses or reasons to be busy, I decided I should tackle assembling our new patio table. It was a flat-packed metal thing that required a handful of bolts to be tightened. Strangely, the manufacturer had included not only a small wrench and a hex-head key, but also a cleverly cheap little ratcheting wrench. It was so clever and cheap that it didn’t work at all. I realized, of course, that I own a ratchet set and should probably go and fetch it rather than follow my instincts and try and fix the nonfunctional piece of junk in my hand.

As I put together the last connection and tightened the last of the bolts, it occurred to me that some people may not own such a fundamental piece of kit and would be cursing their scarred knuckles as they struggled to use a typical screwdriver. It then dawned on me that while I had been made redundant, I was not, in fact, redundant but may still be needed. I may actually be necessary. “Yes,” I thought, “I am a man and I am necessary.”

Who else do you know that can refer to his own analogue barometer and hygrometer? Who can you count on for 1980s CFL trivia? Who can you go to when you’re wondering who designed the CN logo? Who else has thought about a New Yorker profile about the man who designed the Verdana typeface? Who will hold the other end of the board? Who will replace blown bike tires? Who will re-chain your bike using only a house key? Who will stand outside of a construction site and tut-tut that they are making a mess out of this? Who will roast your vegetables instead of steaming them? Who will grill your meat even if you’re in the mood for pizza? Who will bake the bread a hundred times until it’s better but really no one can notice any difference? Who will spend far too much time creating personalized birthday cards? Who, unsolicited, will pass judgement on the pictogram choice of public signage? Who will know trivial facts about Roman-era London? Who else is currently thinking about a recipe for homemade lemon custard raspberry swirl ice cream? Only me. All of this is needed and necessary. I am a man and I was, am, and remain necessary.

Concept of a Plan

I have a concept of a thing that may or may not be planned.

When a presidential candidate claimed to have a concept of a plan for healthcare, people laughed. Now that same candidate is a president in a war and when asked what was his exit plan for this war, he said, “It’s simple.”, then said an outcome. Not a plan. What he thinks is a plan, is really the outcome of whatever the plan is. He could be an idiot (most likely) or, and stay with me, the most incredibly adept liar of all time.

OK. For the record, he is factually the most incredible liar of all time. No one else is even close. So I thought, why can’t I have a concept of a plan? If someone asks what my plan is for the next five years, I can just say I have a concept of a plan.

I have a notion of a thought.

I have a rumination of a dream.

I have an ideation of a reality.

I have a sketch of a position.

I have a cartoon of a hypothetical.

I have a maquette of a theory.

I have a charette of a policy.

I have a System of a Down.

I have a bromide of a platitude.

I have a recipe for disaster. It’s really something, which is better than nothing, even as it’s worth noting that it is actually no thing. It is without a doubt, a concept of a plan.