Talking to Bees

I don’t think bees consider why they are bees.  They are just bees, but humans do consider why they are human because it’s never been clear.  Is it to dominate? Like Russian wants to do with Ukraine?  China with Taiwan or the United States with the Alaskan panhandle.  Remember 54/40 or fight?  Is fighting our raison d’etre?  If it is, it is a narrow objective little different from the territorial wars of the male lion alliances who in the name of ‘protecting’ their pride’ kill other intruders.

If it is something more, what would that something more be?  I don’t think it’s getting to a gated celestial community called heaven as Saint Augustine would have us believe.  Nor do I think it’s endless free choice as Sartre would have believe.  Life is both intensely personal as Sartre preached and inherently social as Augustine preached.  The conundrum is they were both right. We create ourselves in creating society as Augustine liked and we are fundamentally alone as Sartre liked.

Humans often feel lonely and like bees are never alone.  We are social creatures. We exist not just as a singular wonder.  My old profession, politics is intensely social and so are the people who are attracted to a partisan life.  Unfortunately, the answer of the meaning of political life, like the meaning of social existence is too general to be partisan. To be happy was Aristotle’s very general take on life’s meaning, and no one has ever seriously challenged that thought. Nonetheless, his answer is not entirely clear either because our large brains also like a challenge, and challenges don’t always produce joy.   Aristotle’s teaching career certainly had its ups and downs.  He never got to be principal of Plato’s Academy and was forced to start his own school.  Moving to Macedonia to tutor the young Alexander wasn’t exactly his first choice either.

During my Ottawa political life, my great political challenge was to help create a more sustainable city. It came from my conviction that the legacy we seek is to craft a life that enhances not impoverishes the earth’s existence.  To me, this is the principal thing that matters because if the planet evolves into an uninhabitable form, what is the point of your money, family and prestige?  Without a livable planet, these personal ambitions become as empty as the inside of the pyramids.  This is what the young Greta Thunberg has been saying since she was a high school student.  She has said it with the clarity of a child and the force of a mature adult.  I hope she finds ways to keep her spirits up. To not let fears of failure drag her down which is the fate of many reformers.

The more ardent an activist is the more difficult it can be, for changing society is a larger job than any lifetime can address. Like the Tolstoy peasant who dies trying to walk around so much land in one day that he dies in the attempt, reformers often suffer the same fate of the unreasonably ambitious.  Even Thomas Paine whose books “Common Sense” and “The Rights of Man” were enormous best sellers and were central to the birth of two modern Republics died unhappy with his contributions. Paine didn’t regard the American revolution a success because while using the Rights of Man to justify the American revolution, the new government left slavery in place, and the French uprising was characterized by volcanic, unchained violence that ignored the rights of those beheaded.

I am sympathetic to the despair of having a reach which exceeds heaven’s possibilities. In my own legacy roll, it is the failures that stick like gum to my soul, not the successes. On my failed rosary is gun control, a light rail system for Ottawa and a green park at the city’s  centre, not a shopping mall.

At the Department of Justice, my principal file was new gun control legislation after the deaths of fourteen student engineers in Montreal.  I felt these murders very deeply because my own daughter was at university and about the same age as the girls killed in Montreal; and because I was utterly convinced easy access to weapons meant more innocent people would die.

The great news was the support in the media for new gun control legislation was close to a hundred per cent from the St. John’s Evening Telegraph to the Victoria Times Colonist, and so was the support across the country.  This is almost never seen. It was amazing!  And ‘we won!’  Minister Campbell introduced a comprehensive gun control package which was passed successfully in the House of Commons.  It was a wonderful success and gun deaths in Canada declined every year until after ten years they has reached an all-time record low. 

I was sure, no matter what, I could chalk up gun control on the success side of my life’s ledger.  In this way, I had won life’s race to be useful but the twists in the road weren’t over. Ten years later, a new Prime Minister amidst much partisan celebration rescinded the Campbell laws and gun deaths in Canada immediately began increasing. They are now at an all-time, record high.  There was more to come.

Our city light rail project which Mayor Bob Chiarelli and I had fought three tough elections over and had signed an international contract with Siemens to begin construction was cancelled. It would have been the cheapest, longest urban line in North America. It was cancelled for parkway commuter line, more congenial for developers who owned land along the river front.  This riverfront transit system is presently running an 8.6 billion dollars deficit and city transit use has declined.  The new mayor also cancelled our plans for a green park at the city centre in favour of building a mall. Opposing all this, I ran against two former, developer supported mayors.

We ran a good campaign and did well but came third.  On losing, it is impossible to describe my despair. Like Job crying out, I cried out as if God could hear me and do something about it.  I told the same stories to anyone who would listen.  Job was not a fun guy.  Nor was I. 

One of the many good things about bees is that they have taught me I am very small, and they are very large; that life is longer and larger than I ever could have imagined.  Happily, my original idea about life’s meaning has not changed but I have had to search for new ways to find content without betraying the idea that has animated my life.   Meaning is made by doing what we can to help each other, and our home, the planet.  This is the complex heart of the mystery to which Albert Einstein referred to when he said: Do not grow old. No matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.

Clive Doucet is a former Ottawa City Councillor for Capital Ward and author.   Last book was “Grandfather’s House, Returning to Cape Breton”.  He lives in Grand Etang where he keeps bees.