So, a few days ago I was commiserating with a workmate about the year ending and the year ahead and it was not a happy conversation, folks.

On a global level we have evil, greed and incompetence operating at staggeringly high levels. Politics, religion and business — the three pillars on which we’ve constructed our civilization (and, frankly, three flavours of the same thing: control) — are more toxic today than we could ever have predicted. The gap between rich & poor, educated & deprived and powerful & powerless is wider than ever and this is exactly what the very powerful and very rich have been working toward since, like, forever.

And 2008 will be worse, no doubt about it. The war will continue, the North American economy will continue unraveling and the U.S. election will be both divisive and, ultimately, won’t change a goddamned thing. Locally, the effects of the world getting crazier will be felt through inflation, lost jobs and lost homes. Increased violence. And we’ll all be lulled into complacency — if not idiocy — by a media owned by the very people, the very powerful organizations, who are architects of our global, national and local quagmires.

And, as I’d mentioned a couple of days ago, if you feel “depressed” — or are actually diagnosed with clinical depression — you’re not alone, not by any stretch. You’re simply a thinking human being who just happens to be alive in the first years of the 21^st century.

And yet, as human beings who just happen to be alive in the first years of the 21^st century, we are possessed of some survival skills acquired during the evolutionary process. We keep on. We keep on eating and shitting and working and thinking and fucking and creating and destroying and we keep on keeping on. It’s what we do because it’s what we’ve been programmed to do. And these are the only lives we’ve ever had and ever will have, so whatthefuck are we gonna do about what lies ahead?

We’re going to do the only sensible, human thing we can do: Try. Try hard. Try harder. Try hard with a vengeance.

And we’re going to do it for two very good reasons: trying makes us better and it really, really pisses off the forces which profit from us not trying.

Try paying more attention to what you put into your body.
You already know what’s good for you and what’s not good for you, and if you feel you don’t know enough about nutrition, well, you’re sitting in front of an awesome resource for some research on the subject. Pay more attention to the food you put into your body as you’re preparing it and as you consume it.
Think about the farms on which it was grown, think about the weeks (or months!) it took to get to your kitchen and think about whether you really want to eat produce that was picked well before it was ripe and sprayed with toxic chemicals to hasten or retard ripening and prevent pests.
Turn off fucking CNN in the background! You’re trying to nourish yourself, fercryinoutloud, and having that endless stream of fear and stupidity poisoning the process is counterproductive.

Try paying more attention to what you do with your body.
Get to the gym and if you can’t afford that, get out walking or running or cycling. A healthier you will eat better, visit the doctor less and make you sharper, more productive and seriously happier. You’ll also be fighting the forces which profit from your sloth and unhealthy lifestyle. Going to the gym will thrust you into a social environment in which you can actually connect with other human beings, too.
Dance. Dance! It can be in a club or by yourself with the music blasting through speakers or headphones. You can even use the radio, although… have you actually listened to that shite lately? You don’t need drugs or a DJ, you just need to be able to choose which tunes get you moving toward ecstasy.
Speaking of which: have more actual sex. That means spending less time in front of your computers, lying to each other with your boxer briefs around your ankles, you homos. Promise yourself you’ll have only safe(r) sex, so you can keep having those scorchingly hot fuckfests for another 50 years.

Try actually connecting with other human beings.
I’m not going to downplay how spectacularly social the intertubes can be, but let’s get real. No, really, let’s get more real in 2008. That means actual, face-to-face connection. Those friends you haven’t seen or even spoken with in many months? Call them, have them over (and, yes, I’ll be calling you soon, Michael). Those ridiculously cool people with whom you interact on the web? Make plans to meet up (and I can’t wait for that inevitability, Eric). Seeing a sparkle in someone’s eye when they get you and you get them simply cannot be reproduced in messaging or webcamming. It just can’t.

I mean it. You are more docile and complacent and fearful — and therefore exactly the kind of consumer-citizen which governments and business desire — if you separate yourself physically from other human beings. Fight that shit head-on.

Try following a few more rules.
Yeah, I know, “nobody tells me where to drive or park or walk or stand” but seriously, dude, you being a prick about your self-determination is, well, really pricky. It makes you angrier and it totally makes everyone who encounters you angrier. Is that the mark you want to leave on the world every day?

Try thinking more critically about your cultural consumption.
2007 was the year that popular culture really, really died. It was the year in which infotainment overwhelmed news reporting to a ridiculous degree. And if you believe in a soul, then you need to realize that popular culture today is actually hurting yours. What gets all the attention today is so ephemeral, so utterly devoid of lasting meaning — of any meaning! — that it wastes any time you could spend enjoying the enriching, artistic expression of real talents. If it’s reported from “The Entertainment Desk” of your local newscast, you know it’s been distilled from last night’s Entertainment Tonight, and you know it has absolutely no cultural worth. None. So why are you spending any time, energy and/or money consuming that crap?

This next one’s a big one, and one that doesn’t even have a “try” attached to it…

Turn off fucking CNN. No, wait…

TURN OFF FUCKING CNN!!!

And that goes for any other 24-hour news network, too. News networks are toxic, they are liars, they are distorters, they are fearmongers, they are devoted to maintaining the status quo of you not knowing what’s really going on, they are nothing but mechanisms for getting you to consume more and watch more and fear more and feel more inadequate and more helpless and more hopeless. And they make you stupider! If you think you’re more informed by watching CNN or having it on in the background of your life you are sorely mistaken and have drunk their koolaid and seriously need to detoxify.
No, seriously.
Stop watching for a week and I absolutely guarantee you’ll feel so much better. You’ll feel better able to make yourself healthier, you’ll feel better able to meet the indignities of modern urban life head-on, you’ll be untethered from a constant feeling of dread about the events of the world unfolding.

Try thinking more critically, period.
You’re being lied to constantly, every moment of every day, by the media, by politicians, by advertisers and especially by the institutions you trust the most. I’m not suggesting you embrace every dumbass conspiracy theory you encounter, but there’s something seriously wrong with the way the world is being projected and it embiggens you to think more critically about the things you blithely accept as normal or, well, acceptable. There’s a little movie called Zeitgeist which I’d like to recommend (but do so with a huge sack of salt). See it and don’t swallow its message whole. Think critically about the film while it tells you to think critically about the world. Some of it might offend you deeply. But just… think about it. Use it to start researching what’s really going on in the world. You’ll feel more empowered, more informed and more in control. Honest.

Try fighting the normalization of bad behaviours.
Toronto’s gaybourhood is a perfect example. With the growing emancipation of gay and lesbian persons in Canada, there became less need to embrace exclusively-homosexual entities for safety and solidarity. And what became a haven for oppressed queers has now become a haven for druggy, sociopathic street people. And it`s a hellhole now. Because stupid hippie thinking dictates that “if we don’t tolerate everyone and everything, then who will tolerate us?”
Bullshit.
Tolerance without critical thinking simply normalizes all behaviours, good and bad. We tolerated the use of dangerous, fucked-up drugs and it gave us the crystal meth epidemic we can’t seem to shake. Tolerating “negotiated unsafe sex” gives us continued (and increasing, in some demographics) HIV infection rates. The words “gay” and “community” can only be used in the same sentence when you start behaving like a community again.
And tolerating bad behaviours extends to all aspects of our lives. Driving in downtown Toronto is a nightmare because simple rules of the road — simple courtesies! — are flouted, ignored and nonexistent. Negotiating sidewalks and malls is a nightmare because children of hippies have no skills with which to parent their children, since they were raised to believe that the entire universe revolved around them. It fucking doesn’t.

But you can’t change other people. You can change yourself. Try it. At the very least, you’ll lose the guilt you had for behaving like all the other assholes.

Try paying more attention to what you’re doing (and not doing).
Most people can’t multitask to a degree anywhere near that which they think they can and they really, honestly can’t multitask while talking on their fucking cellphone so cut that shit out, like, right now. If you pay attention to what you’re doing, you get an appreciation for the task and the solution, and you can think about innovative ways of accomplishing the task rather than merely getting it done.
Own the shit you pull when you fuck it up. People respect someone who admits their mistakes and who makes effort to right them.
When you’re caught fucking up, don’t blame others or point fingers, saying “well, they do it!” What are you, twelve?

Try to remember that the dumbass shit which people pull — and through which you must suffer — was pulled not out of malice but out of stupidity and/or ignorance.
After you read the above a second time, remember, too, that the reason they’ll never admit fault in doing so is that no one likes to look like a stupid, ignorant dumbass.

Try relying less on faith.
I’m not going to dis the positive qualities for which people turn to their faith systems but if you accept that faith is belief without evidence, try thinking about evidence which conflicts with faith. Try thinking about the forces which profit from your continued, blind acceptance of faith as a means to navigate the world. Try to envision hope as being separate from faith. Try questioning everything you believe and try discarding those aspects of your belief system which get in the way of making the world a better place for everyone.

Try not buying.
This year has been an interesting exercise for Canadian consumers. We’ve seen our dollar meet and exceed the American dollar and yet our retailers continue to profit unreasonably by our sheep-like march to their cash registers. They gouge and they lie about their gouging. And we continue to reward them by buying their products. The auto industry is in crisis because people aren’t buying cars as often as they were and because gas prices are ever-climbing (and for reasons more ludicrous than thinking persons should accept). But, seriously: fuck them. Who needs a new car every three or four years? You don’t.
Try to stop rewarding the forces which treat you and your intelligence with contempt. The lies and deception of the business community — and please, don’t get me started on banks and insurance companies — need to not be rewarded with our endless, meaningless consumption. And the collateral benefit of consuming less? You get to reduce your debt load. Which is a delicious double-whammy to the forces which seek to keep us slaves to their products and services.

Try being more honest.
To yourself. To everyone.

Try knowing yourself better.
You have strengths and you have weaknesses. Why aren’t you doing what you love every day? Why are you still doing the things you hate?

Try participating more.
Call your councilor, your provincial and federal representatives. Write them. Sign petitions. Tell them you will not support or accept in any way the erosion of our social fabric by businesses and governments staffed by greedy incompetents. Even if nothing substantial comes of it, you have participated, you have contributed, you have at least tried to make this world more habitable.

Try thinking about the cumulative effects of positive, incremental changes to your life.
If doing just one of the things I’m talking about makes you feel smarter or stronger or better in any way, think how you’ll feel if you try two. Or three. Modern urban life is now a series of incremental indignities, the cumulative effect of which is societal depression. Fight that shit in the way it was heaped on you: Incrementally.

Try being more thankful.
Trying for a little bit more grace in your life will make you feel a helluva lot better, and the best way to do it is to recognize the gifts you’ve been given and who gave them to you. Thank your children for making you laugh and teaching you more about yourself than you thought was possible. Thank your friends for making you laugh and challenging you and supporting you and giving you the opportunity to support them. Thank your boygirlfriendspousepartnerlover for giving you physical passion and love and ecstasy.
Thank a stranger for letting you go first.
Thank someone who displays uncommon courtesy and maybe it’ll become more common.

These are things you already know. These are things you have done and are doing and can try doing some more. These are the weapons in your arsenals with which you can fight the helplessness and hopelessness you’ve been programmed to feel. Making yourself more aware of the world around you and the world within yourself makes you stronger and it spits in the face of the forces which seek to keep you stupid and complacent and fearful.

And, of course, by “you” and “your”, I absolutely mean “me” and “my”. Duh.

Thanks to everyone who’s read all this stuff and will read it at some point in the future. Big thanks to those who’ve commented and who’ve led me to their own sites of humour and thought and vitality. Thanks to all my friends and family and acquaintances who show me real love every day and who give me the opportunity to show real love in return. Thanks to Champ, most of all, for putting up with me and my shit, and for being so damned amazing.

I’ll try harder next year if you will. Maybe it won’t be worse than this one after all.