Sustainability.

Fucking snow! Completely ruined my evening today. I drove home from Vaughan for two hours (a ride that should've taken thirty minutes)! I was driving at 5 km/h, bumper to bumper, passing at least four accidents, and countless snow-ploughs. And I missed my kickboxing classes today. No warm-up now for Wednesday's class, no chance at the punching bags, and no chance to oggle any girls. I'm almost annoyed!

There's a topic I've been meaning to write about for some time, but I kept putting it off due to lack of enthusiasm. I'm fascinated with the idea of evolution and transmission of tradition. Living in a so-called Developed country we see how quickly technology and method changes from decade to decade. The methods of farming and irrigation we use today is not the same as they were five decades ago. But in many areas of the world the lifestyles of the locals have been the same for generations. For perhaps centuries their traditions and way of life had not changed, passing on their techniques from one generation to the next. The North American Aborigines or the Bushmen of Southern Africa are great examples of that. These peoples learned to find a sustainable lifestyle with their environment for many centuries. Often when we look into "natural lifestyles" we take the Aboriginals as an example. But where did they get that knowledge from? Unless one believes that knowledge was divinely passed, they too must've developed it at one point. And that's what piques my curiosity. The point where the natives weren't even native to their environment, where they were in fact alien. That reminds me of the first North American inhabitants that came over from Asia, who met the Wooly Mammoths and hunted them, possibly to extinction. It fascinates me to think of the point of time where modern native cultures struggled to adapt themselves to their environment and find a lifestyle that was sustainable. Certainly I thought about that when I read this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8517748.stm. It challenged the idea of a rural farmer, in my mind. One would think in a country like India, where civilization stretches back several millennia, farmers would be so well adjusted to the harsh temperature deviations. And perhaps they have. But the fact that thousands still suffer in famine says something about their unsustainable lifestyle. But unlike the first peoples who migrated onto North America, these Indians aren't walking into a new world. Rather their population has exceeded what their land can offer, and now they struggle to stay alive by scraping what little they can from underneath their feet.

On a final note, I'm really proud of the Canadian athletes who competed in the Olympics. Even the ones who failed to receive a position on the podium; they practiced so hard, conquering physical and mental barriers, to come to where they were, face to face with the best human beings in the world. That takes a lot. I think Meryl Davis is very pretty. She's American and even if she steals Canada's gold medal I would forgive her. She looks a little weird and I like that.