Week 100.
When the pandemic began, Elder Advice never thought he would end up writing a hundred Elder Advices.
But then, he never thought he would see the day a Canadian government would fund a booklet for the nation’s schoolchildren titled: Confronting And Preventing Hate In Canadian Schools, that explicitly identifies the Conservative Party as a harbour for racists and white nationalists, condemns the Red Ensign (Canada’s national flag until 1965) as a hate promoting symbol, and cautions children to beware of and report classmates who brazenly claim that the right to express controversial opinions is a free speech issue. Which only strengthens Elder Advice’s resolve to lobby for a requirement that all Liberal MP’s offices display the signage: “Warning: Contains Nuts.
Or the day the same government, whose Customs Tariff Act prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labour, would refuse to enforce it when the goods are from China and are indisputably made using the forced labour of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang.
Or the day a senior public health official in Oregon would cancel a critical meeting because: "We recognize that urgency is a white supremacy value that can get in the way of more intentional and thoughtful work, and we want to attend to this dynamic. Therefore, we will reach out at a later date to reschedule…” and directs readers to a website which also claims that white supremacy values include “wanting things to be written down”. And “perfectionism”. And “becoming defensive” - possibly, Elder Advice muses, about wanting things to be written down and perfectionism. Which, of course, have no place in the provision of health care.
Or the day US state legislators would implement appalling regulations that criminalize activities such as travelling out of state for a legal abortion and receiving birth control medication by mail. Those same states are now drafting legislation to outlaw smoking by women and charge those who continue with murder, because smoking causes fetal injuries and miscarriages; it says so right on the packages. And it is a testament to the breathtaking level of absurdity we have reached on this continent that, until Elder Advice finished this sentence, you thought the last one was true.
Sadly, all those days are upon us.
Granted, there has been some welcome comic relief this week with Boris Johnson finally being shown the door at 10 Downing Street - a door that should never have been opened to him in first place - simply for exhibiting the mendacity that has been on full display for the entirety of his time in public office.
Whenever Elder Advice despairs at the seemingly endless parade of human failings and frailty, his thoughts turn to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It is not because he prefers the camaraderie of other elders. After all, Pieter is remarkably poor company. Largely because he is dead. And has been since 1569. Rather, it is because of Pieter’s masterpiece Landscape With the Fall of Icarus, shown below:
Icarus, you will recall, was a feckless, reckless and ultimately lifeless youth who took the magnificent feather and wax wings fashioned by his father, the brilliant craftsman Daedalus, but not his father’s wise counsel about the connection between wax and 70 degrees Celsius. He then flew too close to the sun and … well. In the bottom right of the painting you will see the disappearing legs of the drowning Icarus. Elsewhere, you see a farmer stoically plowing his field, a shepherd apparently admiring the view, a ship full of cargo and crew on its way to port, an angler casting his net and the sun going about its daily task of setting. None are paying Icarus the slightest attention. He is of little moment in the great scheme of things.
Elder Advice? Landscape With the Fall of Icarus is not, as some would have it, a canvas depicting the callousness of some to the tragedy of others. The real and timeless message of Landscape With the Fall of Icarus is that the lineup to personify hubris and ignore timely elder advice is without end. And the rest of us have more important things to do than focus on the undeserved ascent, the brief flight, and the inevitable fall of the foolish, incompetent and vainglorious in our midst.
Our collective task is to prevent them from acquiring wings in the first place.