Daydreaming with Rainer Rilke

Not all that much has been going on these days, I've just been trying to get back into the swing of things at the office and getting used to being in the arctic again. I did become a proud owner of a microwave last week thanks to a coworker that's moving to Calgary today. I can't say that I'm not a bit jealous... It isn't particularly that she's going to Calgary, I mean I like Alberta and the west in general, but It's more that she's actually leaving Nunavut. She's just picking up and leaving this evening. I miss that feeling... I wish I could just sell all my crap and move, start anew again, it's an exhillerating feeling.

Anyways, I've been spending my spare time reading these days. As I said before, I'm still reading the Time Traveller's Wife, but I've also been getting into the works of Rainer Maria Rilke. It's some pretty amazing stuff. I loved it immediately. I can't and won't claim to know much about poetry, or literature in general, but I really like the writings of Rilke.

For those that don't know, Rainer Rilke, was a Prague born poet from the late 19th century. He lived in a very interesting time in Europe, Everything was changing, new ideologies were forming. his poetry is beautiful, it flows very well with undertones of meloncholy. Here's a snippet from the Duino Elegies:

"Sing, in your lovelorn

longing, of the losers.

Make their dark fame glisten.

Sing of those whom you are

nearly moved to envy in the

purity of their despair:

hearts more loving in their pain

than many never broken.

Sing again-and yet again-

your altogether insufficient

praise of them.

The hero lives!

His ruin is but a pretext

to be born again."

In other news... I've been thinking about the upcoming election and dreading the increasingly real possibility of a Conservative majority. This Blogger pretty much captured my sentiments, but the whole thing boggles my mind. I refuse to believe that the majority of Canadians are actually conservative. It can't be, they can't know what they're getting themselves into. How did it come to this?

Most people in Canada dislike the politics south of our border, There are very few people that I've come across in Canada that think George Bush is a good president or that his ideology is beneficial to anyone except the wealthy elite. We see all the time what the Right is doing to our neighbors and we don't like it. But then why in the hell are we even considering electing a right-wing nut job in our own country?!? It doesn't make any sense to me at all. Is our collective memory that short? Do we not see the clear ideological parallels between the conservatives and the republicans? Religion in Nunavut is strife. Most communities up here are basically run by the church, in one of the communities I lived in, most people went to church three times a week. (It was kind of scary sometimes since I was usually the only non-religious person) So obviously the populace up here at the moment is against same sex marriage, abortion, and basically anything secularist that the Tories have so skillfully attatched themselves to like some sort of hideous leech-like creature. It's quite clear that the Conservatives are anti-gay, which is a popular sentiment up here unfortunately, but what they don't realize or at least let themselves realize is that thier policies are also anti-aboriginal. I think it's a pretty safe bet that if Harper gets into the PMO on Monday, we, the aboriginals in Canada can say goodbye to the promises made in First Minister's Meeting in Kelowna.

So yeah, it looks to me like Canada is in a lose-lose situation politically. The Center is corrupt, the Left is unorganized. That leaves the Right with a clear path to majority control of the country... I, for one am dreading the next few years, looking for work abroad has never looked better.

I guess we'll see what happens on Monday.