If you’re an amateur hiker like myself, consider this your most recent warning.  If you’ve never hiked before, consider this your first deterrent.  Hiking is terrible.  It’s an awful, grueling, physically demanding experience that leaves all amateurs sweat-drenched and oxygen depleted—but the results are worth it.

You should know that the journey ahead of you will be a struggle.  For any amateur, hiking is like an exercise in coping with loss.  You will experience all five stages of grief over the course of single hike.  That emotional turmoil is unavoidable, but it’s a worthwhile experience.  There are few better sources of catharsis than the acceptance that comes when you’ve reached a hike’s final destination.  I urge you to pursue that path, and I hope I can prepare you for the trials ahead.

1.  You Are Not Physically Prepared for Hiking

Your current level of physical fitness has a smaller effect on your hiking ability than you think.  It does have some effect, but its overall importance is minor.  Just as someone who spends time in the gym will be better at other active pursuits, so too will your lungs and heart work more easily while you hike, but your muscles are not prepared for this experience.

“I work out every day.  Regular bike rides are part of my weekly routine.  My legs are strong enough to handle an easy hike.”

Each of those statements and all possible permutations have been uttered by amateur hikers as their feet hit the hills and they begin the climb.  I’ve uttered them myself.  Trust me when I tell you that they’re all lies.

Hiking uses a specific set of muscles that I’m certain never activate for any other activity.  I don’t know which specific muscles they are, only that they hide below the surface of regular physical activity, like a child in gym class hoping not to be picked.

If you don’t hike often, you’re not physically prepared for the effect that several hours of outdoor, upward physical activity will have on your body.  All the statements written above—and every desperate lie like them—are just weak utterances that amateur hikers hide behind as a hill starts to take its toll.

 2.  The Online Ratings for Hikes are Lies

“Hold on, did he write ‘several hours’ above? The website said this hike would only take two hours.  That cannot be right.  How long have we been hiking? FOUR HOURS? I hate this.  I hate nature.”

Did you read an online review for a hike that lifted your enthusiasm? Did that website say that the hike was easy, that it only takes a few hours, and that even elderly people do it with their dogs? Prepare yourself for conversations exactly like the dialogue written above, because everything you read on that website was false.

I have hiked trails with easy ratings and trails with moderate ratings, and I can say with absolute certainty that easy hikes do not exist.  The only accurate rating for an amateur hiker is difficult.  If this is your first hike in five years, you need to double the recommended time.  You’ve been deceived.  Anger is a natural response.  Try not to let it spread.

3.  There Isn’t an Easy Way Out

“What if you had stayed home instead of engaging in this inexorable struggle? What if you had simply chosen an easier hike?”

At a certain stage of every hike, amateurs are consumed by pointless hypotheticals.

You’re already on a hike.  You made that choice.  Now you must face the consequences of your actions.  Hypothetical questions are worthless.  Ask them only if it helps you escape your brutal new reality.

“What if I turn around now? What if I just stop here?”

You cannot bargain with a hike.  It exists in a state of perpetual stoic silence.  If you turn back, you’ll only be depriving yourself of what the trail has to offer after all the hardship you’ve already endured.  Something special is waiting for you at the end, but adversity still waits ahead.  You must face it.  Only walking onward will save you from this situation.

4.  You Still Have to Walk Back

Congratulations, you made it beyond the needless bargaining stage! Your journey is nearly complete.  Each new step brings you closer to the end—and further from your starting point.  That growing distance comes with a grim realization for most amateurs.  Every step you take now is a step you’ll have to retrace later.

Each step up is an inevitable step down.  Every sweet downward slope on the way out toward a hidden waterfall is an insidious peak that must be mounted again if you ever hope to return from your ordeal.  The realization of that inevitable turn will cast a dark cloud over every step you take from now on, up or down.  Try not to focus on it too much.  All trials end eventually.  This hike will end too.

5.  The Results of Your Struggle

When I talk about results, I’m not talking about some kind of transcendental spiritual transformation that brings epiphanies about humanity’s relationship to nature.  If you do experience that kind of reflection, I’m happy for you.  In my experience, it’s difficult to find any kind of solace while I’m ruefully trudging up a steep incline, wondering if it’s possible to take too much albuterol.

I’m also not talking about the bulging, stony muscles that will naturally develop in your legs if you keep hiking.  Your body will eventually thank you for the exercise, but first it’s going to punish you.  The cost of admission to the house of gains is muscle pain.  There might be benefits beyond those doors, but they’re not the reason you should start hiking.

The results I’m talking about are the fantastic, otherworldly views of mountaintop calderas, hidden waterfalls, and verdant flowering valleys; vistas that I hope I’ll remember even as my last anxious breath escapes my clutches.  If I have ever had occasion to consider my place in the universe, it’s been when I’ve seen the faces of immortal stone giants looking down at me.

One thing I let prospective writers for The Voice know, “If you can write funny, about pretty much anything, I’m interested.”  At least one Voice reader agrees with me, and suggested this article for inclusion in the Best of.  Plus, if I’m being honest, I hate hiking.  I have to admit that was also a factor.  It’s funny ’cause it’s true.  

One of the defining elements of science fiction is the prevalence of predictive plot details.  That portentous writing is one reason why the genre is more broadly referred to as speculative fiction in certain scholastic or literary circles.

The speculation of science fiction authors breeds fascination, criticism, and debate, which could all be considered hallmarks of excellent fiction in any genre.  Those predictions are even more interesting to modern audiences, who can look back at which have come true, which have proved completely unbased, and which have yet to pass..

I’ll only travel back as far as the late nineteenth century.  Relatively recent predictions are interesting enough.  By looking at a few popular books — and films — from the past four decades (more or less), I’ll highlight which events we’ve missed and which, according to popular science fiction, are yet to come.

War of the Worlds — H. G. Wells

I’m talking about the original story here, not the radio drama narrated by Orson Wells or the Hollywood film starring Tom Cruise.  H. G. Wells’ original story takes place during the mid-1890s, contemporary with the date of its original serialization in 1897.

The obvious major event to be found in Wells’ narrative is the Martian invasion.  I don’t think it’s quite fair to label that as a prediction, but only because it hasn’t happened—yet.

Beyond the tripod alien spacecrafts lasering people and harvesting their life essence, there is a significant event that occurs near the end of the novel which could be considered a prediction: all the Martians on Earth are killed by a pathogen; it’s a pandemic to which they have no immunity.  Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

Beyond the clear allegorical representation and deconstruction of the binary relationship that characterized European colonialism—and the role that disease played in that historical period—Wells’ pandemic conclusion also garners consideration in the context of pandemics throughout history.

The black plague of the medieval era certainly shines as a source of inspiration for Wells.  Did you know the Bubonic plague survived into Wells own time? It became known as the modern plague as it spread from the 1860s to 1903.  Survivors of the Spanish flu, which spread only 21 years after War of the Worlds was published, might certainly have had Wells on their mind.  Recent history has also pulled Wells’ story forward, as the Covid-19 pandemic has spread and evolved throughout 2020 and 2021.  I’m sure Wells wouldn’t be surprised to hear about all the pandemics that affected earth between 1897 and today.

1984

The period during which George Orwell’s 1984 takes place is as obvious as its prestige and influence — both in the genre of science fiction and on the greater milieu of western culture.  Anyone who’s spent a guilty hour watching Big Brother has embraced the influence of Orwell, whether they know it or not.

Mass surveillance of the public is Orwell’s most significant prediction.  It would be difficult to deny that those imagined ideas haven’t become real with figures like Edward Snowden entering the public eye — and escaping it.  The widespread mass surveillance being conducted by world governments and agencies like the NSA is a well-known—and surprisingly well-accepted—public idea.  It’s one of Orwell’s most prescient predictions, which is why the rest of his visionary commentary is so important.

When one compares the political indoctrination and psychological manipulation carried out by the Party in 1984 to the political strategies and events of the past decade, it doesn’t seem like doublethink, newspeak, and thoughtcrime are so unusual.  In fact, those predictions may have already come true too.

Mad Max 2: Road Warrior

Mad Max 2 follows its titular hero through the blasted desert landscape of Australia in the futuristic year of 1987.  As the supplies of oil were exhausted, global war broke out and civilization collapsed.  I can’t say I’m sorry we missed that.

The plot of Mad Max 2 evokes common sub-genres of speculative fiction: post-apocalypse and dystopia.  The apocalyptic science fiction stories that take place in our past, such as Mad Max, cast a warm light on contemporary events — as our society of intelligent apes continues to avoid the total annihilation predicted by so many doomsayers in the science fiction genre.  Unfortunately, not all those cataclysms have been avoided; not yet.  There are plenty of global catastrophes awaiting humanity in the remaining future dystopias of science fiction.

The setting of Mad Max and the antecedent events that created it are a clear commentary on the continued use of non-renewable resources and the ongoing effects of climate change.  The destruction of the environment to fuel power plants is as contentious an issue in Canada as it is in Australia, where substantial environmental ruination has resulted in acute emotional responses among residents; a feeling that professor Glen Albrecht calls Solastalgia, “the pain of losing the solace of home” (Muller, 2020, p.  39).

Inception

Christopher Nolan’s Inception represents an interesting form of speculative fiction.  According to Nolan, the setting is meant to reflect the contemporary period of the film’s release: 2010.  As such, Inception is an example of predictive fiction that takes place both during its current era and during our current era.  That setting presents a particular challenge—for both the storyteller and the audience.  Any elements of science fiction—any fantastic predictions—must reflect a level of human development that’s realistic for the current age.

The key scientific development of Nolan’s narrative, the titular process of Inception and the associated dream invasion technology, is the most speculative aspect of the film.  The elements of relativity and time therein present confusing challenges to the audience, but the actual technology is presented as something not all that unusual.  It’s a chemical process of mind control conducted with intravenous medical apparatus that closely resembles the equipment used in anesthesiology.

The biggest challenges to contemporary audiences watching Inception are the metaphysical, ontological elements.  The actual chemical process and the required technology are easy concepts to accept as contemporary, even if they represent a level of technology that isn’t quite present in today’s world—at least, as far as we know.

References

Muller, P.  (2020) A World Lost.  National Geographic, April-2020, 30-41

If you’re an amateur hiker like myself, consider this your most recent warning.  If you’ve never hiked before, consider this your first deterrent.  Hiking is terrible.  It’s an awful, grueling, physically demanding experience that leaves all amateurs sweat-drenched and oxygen depleted—but the results are worth it.

You should know that the journey ahead of you will be a struggle.  For any amateur, hiking is like an exercise in coping with loss.  You will experience all five stages of grief over the course of single hike.  That emotional turmoil is unavoidable, but it’s a worthwhile experience.  There are few better sources of catharsis than the acceptance that comes when you’ve reached a hike’s final destination.  I urge you to pursue that path, and I hope I can prepare you for the trials ahead.

1.  You Are Not Physically Prepared for Hiking

Your current level of physical fitness has a smaller effect on your hiking ability than you think.  It does have some effect, but its overall importance is minor.  Just as someone who spends time in the gym will be better at other active pursuits, so too will your lungs and heart work more easily while you hike, but your muscles are not prepared for this experience.

“I work out every day.  Regular bike rides are part of my weekly routine.  My legs are strong enough to handle an easy hike.”

Each of those statements and all possible permutations have been uttered by amateur hikers as their feet hit the hills and they begin the climb.  I’ve uttered them myself.  Trust me when I tell you that they’re all lies.

Hiking uses a specific set of muscles that I’m certain never activate for any other activity.  I don’t know which specific muscles they are, only that they hide below the surface of regular physical activity, like a child in gym class hoping not to be picked.

If you don’t hike often, you’re not physically prepared for the effect that several hours of outdoor, upward physical activity will have on your body.  All the statements written above—and every desperate lie like them—are just weak utterances that amateur hikers hide behind as a hill starts to take its toll.

 2.  The Online Ratings for Hikes are Lies

“Hold on, did he write ‘several hours’ above? The website said this hike would only take two hours.  That cannot be right.  How long have we been hiking? FOUR HOURS? I hate this.  I hate nature.”

Did you read an online review for a hike that lifted your enthusiasm? Did that website say that the hike was easy, that it only takes a few hours, and that even elderly people do it with their dogs? Prepare yourself for conversations exactly like the dialogue written above, because everything you read on that website was false.

I have hiked trails with easy ratings and trails with moderate ratings, and I can say with absolute certainty that easy hikes do not exist.  The only accurate rating for an amateur hiker is difficult.  If this is your first hike in five years, you need to double the recommended time.  You’ve been deceived.  Anger is a natural response.  Try not to let it spread.

3.  There Isn’t an Easy Way Out

“What if you had stayed home instead of engaging in this inexorable struggle? What if you had simply chosen an easier hike?”

At a certain stage of every hike, amateurs are consumed by pointless hypotheticals.

You’re already on a hike.  You made that choice.  Now you must face the consequences of your actions.  Hypothetical questions are worthless.  Ask them only if it helps you escape your brutal new reality.

“What if I turn around now? What if I just stop here?”

You cannot bargain with a hike.  It exists in a state of perpetual stoic silence.  If you turn back, you’ll only be depriving yourself of what the trail has to offer after all the hardship you’ve already endured.  Something special is waiting for you at the end, but adversity still waits ahead.  You must face it.  Only walking onward will save you from this situation.

4.  You Still Have to Walk Back

Congratulations, you made it beyond the needless bargaining stage! Your journey is nearly complete.  Each new step brings you closer to the end—and further from your starting point.  That growing distance comes with a grim realization for most amateurs.  Every step you take now is a step you’ll have to retrace later.

Each step up is an inevitable step down.  Every sweet downward slope on the way out toward a hidden waterfall is an insidious peak that must be mounted again if you ever hope to return from your ordeal.  The realization of that inevitable turn will cast a dark cloud over every step you take from now on, up or down.  Try not to focus on it too much.  All trials end eventually.  This hike will end too.

5.  The Results of Your Struggle

When I talk about results, I’m not talking about some kind of transcendental spiritual transformation that brings epiphanies about humanity’s relationship to nature.  If you do experience that kind of reflection, I’m happy for you.  In my experience, it’s difficult to find any kind of solace while I’m ruefully trudging up a steep incline, wondering if it’s possible to take too much albuterol.

I’m also not talking about the bulging, stony muscles that will naturally develop in your legs if you keep hiking.  Your body will eventually thank you for the exercise, but first it’s going to punish you.  The cost of admission to the house of gains is muscle pain.  There might be benefits beyond those doors, but they’re not the reason you should start hiking.

The results I’m talking about are the fantastic, otherworldly views of mountaintop calderas, hidden waterfalls, and verdant flowering valleys; vistas that I hope I’ll remember even as my last anxious breath escapes my clutches.  If I have ever had occasion to consider my place in the universe, it’s been when I’ve seen the faces of immortal stone giants looking down at me.

I can think of several sentences I would enjoy hearing less, but the necessary preceding context for them is so outrageous that I doubt whether my ears will ever be punished by their utterance.

“What prompted you to fill out the census?”

“We got a card in the mail,” responded this being, more saturated with morning energy than a desert cactus, “And you have to fill it out.”

“Oh yeah,” I replied, “or what?”

The cactus could not respond.  Truthfully, I also didn’t know the answer.  I flicked the statement out more as a sardonic end to the conversation than as a challenge, but the question hung in the air after I released it.  Soon, my curiosity got the best of me.

What does happen if you choose not to fill out the census? My inquest brought me to a trove of information, all available on the federal government’s website.  The facts available there led me to an inevitable conclusion — like a blind man being led across the street by a reckless clown.  The Canadian Census is ridiculous.

What Happens if You Don’t Complete the Census?

If your first guess is nothing, then you’re not alone.  I find it difficult to imagine anyone being chased down — or more ominously, mailed a summons to appear in court — because they failed to complete their census.  In fact, the census is not something that I ever think about, until a windbreaker-wearing worker appears at my door and a wave of relief washes over me — generated by the realization that I won’t be politely listening to a sales-pitch before I’m forced to repeatedly decline their offer.  Nothing is more anxiety inducing than the sound of my own doorbell.

You may be surprised to learn that all Canadian residents are legally required to complete the census questionnaire, in accordance with the Statistics Act.  I’ve never heard a more numbing title for a legal document.

Such a sterile name might suggest a venerable patina covers the Statistics Act, much like the green roofs of Parliament, but that would be an incorrect assumption.  The bill has only been in effect since 1971, although many of its laws are so ridiculous that they seem draconian.

The penalty for refusing to participate in the census is a fine of up to $500 — and absurdly, a court order to complete the census questionnaire.  I can only imagine that sentence resulting in a cyclical pattern of $500 fines and repeated court appearances — or else a representative of the court watching over an indignant census participant like a vigilant proctor watching a devious child.

What are these Strange Stipulations about Census Years?

Did you know there is a census every five years? I didn’t.  If you had asked me how often the census is completed, I probably would have answered every year, or every decade, but the Statistics Act mandates a five-year census “for more up-to-date, detailed information about the country and its population” (Statistics Canada, 2021).

That five-year period isn’t so absurd.  What I find amusing about this particular law is the specific stipulation for which years to conduct the census.  Every year ending in zero and five would make the most sense for a five-year framework, but like many things related to governance, these laws do not follow logical reasoning.

The Statistics Act stipulates that the census should be conducted on every year ending with one and six.  Maybe Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had a vacation planned in 1970.

Why is There a Census of Agriculture?

Did you know that there are two different forms of the census? Residents of Canada are required to participate in the Census of Population, but there is also a Census of Agriculture.

Why is there a Census of Agriculture? I don’t know.  Some quick online research about Canada’s GDP breakdown by industry shows that agriculture is nowhere near being the top industry in Canada.  Maybe farming topped the charts in 1971, but that doesn’t explain why the Census of Agriculture is still conducted.

Statistics Canada doesn’t seem to know either.  Their own answer for why they conduct the Census of Agriculture simply states that they collect data on a wide range of entities in the agriculture industry so that they can create a “comprehensive picture of the agriculture industry across Canada every five years at the national, provincial, and sub-provincial levels” (Statistics Canada, 2021).  That explanation satisfies me as much as my mechanic saying I should get an oil change because I need to change my oil.

I’m sure there’s also a fine for those who don’t comply, so dealing with the Census of Agriculture might be something to consider before you commit to starting up that hobby farm.

Why Does this Matter?

Some silly sections of the Statistics Act don’t matter.  Whether the census is completed on years zero and five or one and six is a pedantic concern — and it probably has more to do with the date that the Act was passed into law than anything else.

Other odd sections do deserve some consideration though.  By Statistics Canada’s own admission, the census is an expensive operation.  Saving “millions of taxpayer dollars” (Statistics Canada, 2021) is their reason for conducting the Census of Agriculture in May, when it coincides with the Census of Population — even though many farmers are busy at that time.

Is the Census of Agriculture really so important that it needs to be conducted? It seems to be a nuisance for farmers; agriculture is not an industry that needs so much focus; and Statistics Canada doesn’t even seem sure why they do it.  Wouldn’t that money be better spent elsewhere? Couldn’t they save even more millions of taxpayer dollars by simply not doing it?

Even laws that have only been in place for fifty years should be considered in the context of current events.  If we don’t take the time to consider why things are done and if they’re still necessary, we won’t be able to effectively address today’s issues.  Puerile or pointless laws of the past can prevent progress in the present.

References
Statistics Act of 1971, R.S.C., c.  S-19, s.  2.  (1985).  https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/s-19/fulltext.html
Statistics Canada.  (2021, April 30).  Frequently Asked Questions.  https://census.gc.ca/faq/general-eng.htm

“The office is one thing, and private life is another.  When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me.” (Dickens, 1861)

Private life and work don’t mix.  Charles Dickens knew that 160 years ago and his words are still relevant today.  Wemmick’s dialogue in that scene from Great Expectations reflects an old British phrase: “Your home is your castle.” Its traditional meaning is that people should be free to do whatever they want in their own homes; that you are the ruler of your domain.  However, the word castle has many associated connotations.  In the case of Wemmick’s home in Great Expectations, comfort, not sovereignty, is the prime characteristic.

Wemmick’s sentiments have become more relevant recently, as the shift toward working from home quickens.  It’s true that many professionals can do their work from anywhere with a computer and a reliable internet connection — lagging video calls show that the speed and reliability of that connection doesn’t need to be exceptional.  This transition might be convenient for those who prefer working in their pajamas, but convenience comes at a cost.  The toll you pay for bypassing the barrier between your public and private life comes directly from the vault in your mind.

Working is a mental state.  Creating space between your place of work and your place of relaxation is essential for maintaining your mental health.  Much like Wemmick, many people are not the same individuals at work that they are when they’re relaxing at home.  I’m certainly not.  Wemmick’s philosophy has been a fundamental practice in my life for years.  Everyone I’ve ever worked with has only known a reflection of a real person.  I wear a Halloween costume every day.  My coworkers will never truly know me, only the Goodwill vampire version.  I wouldn’t even use my real name if I could get away with it.  I’d go by Pip, or Wemmick, or Charles Dickens.

That fake personality threatens to take over your mind when there are no boundaries between your work and your home.  Your residential personality is exposed.  Your serenity is compromised.  Once it’s allowed past your castle walls, work begins creeping into your psyche like vines on yellow wallpaper.  Soon your professional personality completely takes over, destroying your real identity in the process, like an evil clone that kills its original copy.

I can’t argue that there aren’t benefits to working from home.  I get at least a half-hour of extra sleep that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to spend pressing snooze on my alarm.  I don’t have to spend my morning awkwardly squished against a stranger in a train car.  I never even have to leave my house.  In fact, I often go outside less than three times each week now.  It has been five days since I’ve seen the sun.

All those benefits are certainly convenient for indolent people like me, but none of them are enough to balance out the slithering invasion of work into the places where I want to relax.  I set up the Hovel (my leisure space) as a place for relaxation and personal development.  The shelves are adorned with D&D manuals and Blu-Rays.  There is a large flatscreen TV.  The computer I’m typing this on was only ever intended for personal use.  Now, I have a whole cluster of icons lurking in the upper left-hand corner of my computer monitor that are essential for my job.

I can no longer use my computer without thinking about work.  The Hovel has become more like a cubicle than a leisure space.  There is no room for relaxation among the cluttered thoughts that still hang in the air above my desk for hours after I’ve finished my last task.  Every second that I spend working in this space catalyzes its mutation from a place of leisure into a place of labour.  There is no longer any delineation between where I spend my energy, and the place where I used to get it back.  That extends to all the other areas of my home as well.

Your commute creates a barrier between work and home.  The time you spend sitting on the train or leaning on your horn in Monday-morning traffic is when the mental transition between your individual selves takes place.  Working from home eliminates that barrier.  It also reverses the process of going to work and coming home that Wemmick describes in that quote.  Instead of going to work and leaving the Castle behind, you’re bringing work directly into the Castle, where that little labour seedling will grow like an invasive species, spreading throughout every room in your home.  Your living room becomes a conference room.  Your kitchen becomes a breakroom.  Your bedroom becomes that small, dark place where people go when they’re having painful migraines in the middle of the day.

First, you lose your personal space and then you lose your personal wardrobe.  I used to come home, rip off my work clothes, and assume the costume of a leisurely kite as I drifted between rooms with the weightless tranquility of silk in the wind.  I only wore comfortable clothes at home, but now I wear my work clothes more often than my leisure-sweats.  Instead of drifting casually, I engage in a kind of desultory spinning — with all the subtle grace of a paper bag caught by an isolated garbage tornado in an empty grocery store parking lot.

“But you wouldn’t have that problem if you just didn’t dress up for work.  Why bother if you’re not actually going to the office?”

Wearing my weekend wardrobe while I work isn’t a benefit of working from home.  It’s the final sign that my personal identity has perished.  It’s the swan song of the self.  Work clothes are the only barrier that people working from home have left.  Putting on your uniform and leaving it lying in a heap at the end of the day is the only way that anyone can still transition between the beleaguered work consciousness and the untethered serenity of the Castle.  Those khakis are the only defence I still have against the indefatigable waves of work slamming against the cliffs of my mind, slowly eroding the weathered psychological walls that separate work and home.

Work is a term for both what people do and where they do it.  You do your work, and you go to work.  Those two definitions are inseparable, which means that if you do your work in the place you live, your home becomes your work.  The Castle becomes an office — but an office can never be your Castle.

References
Dickens, Charles.  (2008) Great Expectations.  Oxford University Press, p.191 (original work published 1861).

Burgers are the simple barbeque option for beginners, with layers of nuance for seasoned pit-masters.  Yet for some reason, people seem to feel the need to complicate them. You could step up your game with the five following recipes for pristine patties, carefully researched and collected here for easy access, but that would be a mistake.  None of these recipes deserve even the smallest pinch of your attention, because the best burgers have only one ingredient: meat.  (salt and pepper optional).

The Classic Grilled Burger

This is your most basic burger.  Some people call it the Plain Jane—even though it’s clearly not.  If you’re just looking for an easy recipe to get barbecue season started—and desecrate the most sacred shrine to flames in your home—then look no further.  You’ve arrived.  You’re in the town of Duck Soup.  It’s Vanilla Ville baby.

Ingredients:

• 2lbs 80/20 ground beef (For novice practitioners, that’s usually ground chuck.)
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons minced onion (Gross.)
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (It doesn’t matter how you say it. It’s never mattered.)
• Salt
• Pepper

If you’re not completely turned away by that ingredients list, mash all that stuff together into some kind speculative slop that mimics the finished product of a burger and then I guess just drop it on to your grill in big chunky ice-cream scoops like carnivorous cookie-dough.

The Hawaiian-Teriyaki Burger

This is a tangy, sweet, delicious option that many people like to try, but here’s the thing I really want to say: you don’t need to add anything extra to a burger patty.  If you have a good ground mix of fatty cuts and lean cuts, it’s going to taste great on its own.  Adding unnecessary ingredients to your patty overpowers the meat’s natural, savoury succulence.  It’s also complete overkill, since anything you want on a burger can be added after the patty is perfectly cooked.  I’m not arguing that onions are gross.  Far from it.  I’m arguing that you should never add anything to a burger patty before you cook it.  Anything you want on a burger should always be on the burger, not in the patty.

That’s one of the best things about burgers.  Any ingredient, any taste profile, any possible combination of the five flavour elements (spice, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami) can all be built within the bun, but only if you retain the strength of its essential foundation: meat.  A little salt and pepper will enhance the meat, but anything else is just a shameful mask for bad beef.

Ingredients

• Ground Beef
• Grated Carrots (Really?)
• Chopped Scallions (Overused and overrated)
• Grated Ginger
• Reduced Sodium Soy Sauce
• Sriracha (See my note on scallions)

I don’t even know what to say anymore.  The recipe I found for these patties didn’t even say to add salt and pepper.  Technically, carrots and onions do cook around the same rate, so you could add them, but why would you want to?  Do you like chunky unpleasant burgers?  Do you like patties that crumble apart because their structural integrity has been compromised?

Stuffed Burgers

This is just a regular burger with extra steps.  Stuffed burgers have never made any sense.  They’re a cheap novelty, ideal only for gawking in disturbed delight.  They’re like a lady with three-foot fingernails or a three-eyed sloth.  Interesting?  Sure.  I might even say intriguing, but ultimately freakish, unusual, and unnecessary.  Only humanity’s insatiable, vociferous gluttony could lead to these monstrosities.

I’ve already talked for longer than I care to about the reasons that this doesn’t make sense.  Just put the toppings on the burger.  Why do you need to put them inside?  Are you trying to make life more difficult?  Burgers don’t need to be complicated, and they shouldn’t be.  You don’t need a bunch of rare, bizarre ingredients to make a patty taste tantalizing.  You just need a good mix of meat and maybe two additional, basic seasonings.

Look at the popular bacon, mushroom, swiss burger.  Sauteed mushrooms, sizzling bacon, and creamy swiss all combine for a unique, outstanding amalgamation that transports you up and away, into a fugue state characterized by caramel breezes and unimaginable satisfaction.  None of those ingredients are inside the patty.  They’re all on top.

Black Bean Burgers

You don’t deserve to eat burgers.  Close this article, turn off your computer, and spend the rest of the day thinking about what event from your life affected you so deeply that you would even consider this level of sacrilege against the lords of meat.  (And while I’m at it, stay in your lane vegetables, grains, and other passable non-meat alternatives.  You already have a purpose, and you’re well-suited for what you do now.  Stop trying to be meat.)

Withering vegetarians have struggled for years to find a meat alternative that makes a great burger.  There is no alternative.  Beets might be red, but their saccharine crimson juice is no match for iron-rich sanguine blood.

The Best Burger

The best burger patty is whatever you enjoy eating.

Just kidding, that’s wrong.  The best patty has an ideal mix of meat and fat (I prefer 70/30, but 80/20 is acceptable), a pinch of salt, sprinkled over the meat like magical dust from a grease fairy, and just a touch of pepper, plucked from the lingering scent of an explosion.

However, just because that’s the best burger patty, doesn’t mean that’s what you have to eat.  That’s just one the opinion of one supplicant under a mighty, meaty suzerain.  There are many reasons not to eat meat (especially beef): from the extremely poor treatment of most livestock, to expressing devotion for another, equally mighty deity.  Whatever your reasons are for abstaining, I support you.  Everyone has their own priorities, goals, and needs.  You should never take the deranged ravings of a lunatic writing articles on the internet as anything other than what they are.

If you’re one of those people that do eat beef, and you claim that burgers are better with chunks of onion inside of them, or volatile bombs of cheese and bacon placed in the center to make victims of ignorant eaters, then I can only ask Prometheus for strength, and hope that eventually you join Aristotle, Hesiod, and I in eudaimonia.

Moderation in all things, including burgers.

I know what you might be thinking, and for a long time I thought the same thing.  D&D was a boundary that I wasn’t willing to cross, but I can tell you with confidence that what waits on the other side of that barrier is worth the crossing.  Playing the game once is fun, but if you can find a group of people for regular revelry, there’s a special sorcery that gets cast by your collective imagination, like your shared subconsciousness is feeding everyone the same dream.  Some people doubt the significance of dreams and the power that comes from their ephemeral theatrics, but the trance of a great game of Dungeons & Dragons is like the state of hypnosis that comes from a good book.  It’s an opportunity to learn more about yourself and connect with other people as much as it’s a chance to slay a dragon by throwing a fireball down its throat.

Nobody needs to tell you how stressful life is, especially right now.  Thanks to artists, writers, and other lunatics, there are myriad chances for escapism.  Today’s anxious people (which is pretty much everybody if we’re all being honest with ourselves), can choose from so many magnificent, wonderful, strange, and unique movies, books, poems, songs, TV shows, podcasts, and other forms of entertaining distraction.  When was the last time you tried make-believe?

Children pretend all the time and look how happy they are.  Sure, many of them are so innocent and pure that happiness comes as naturally and easy to them as geese come to Canada, but still, doesn’t part of that youthful naivety come from the capacious capacity for self-generated escapism?  Dungeons & Dragons is a chance for everyone who’s lost that fanciful refuge to find their way back to fantasy.

Over the last year, I have spent most of my time indoors, studying, applying for jobs, and now writing.  The room I use as an office is affectionately called “The Hovel” by me and my friends.  It’s a small cellar storage space that I renovated with a bright shade of golden yellow paint and a black IKEA desk.  I have spent more time sitting in here over the last year than anywhere else, but I haven’t always been in the room.  During certain regular digital meetings, I’ve climbed the moss-covered misty pathway that leads up through an alpine forest to a glacial reservoir.  I’ve trudged sullenly across miles of towering sand dunes and dusty roads, through wild and dense sandstorms that sucked away my breath and bit my face, and through the packed snowy streets of a gleaming marble city, filled with a small mountain range of towering cathedrals.

I have talked with djinn, and partied with Norse gods, and slain unusual, strange, frightening creatures who spun webs in the dark hollows of abandoned mines and lunged at me with clawed hands attached to long arms and mandibles that dripped with reeking poison.

I’ve been in stasis for months because of the current crisis, but a simple, easy game with infinite possibilities provided the greatest escape I could ever ask for.  I’ve recovered an immeasurable value of gold, jewels, art, and magic items, like spears that allow the wielder to throw bolts of lightning and clear stones that orbit your head and protect you from the need to eat or drink (the degree to which that can be qualified as “protection” depends greatly on the degree to which you enjoy eating.  For the real me that might be a curse).  In real life, I got to experience the majestic treasure of escaping into a world of imagination, and in that fictive place I learned more about myself that I could have ever hoped to discover surrounded by the four flaxen walls of The Hovel.  The experience is like reading a novel as well-crafted as The Hobbit and as interactive as Goosebumps.

Dungeons & Dragons is intimidating to a lot of people for a lot of reasons, many of them are the same reasons that keep us off stages and out of improv classes.  Others have heard about an exhaustive set of rules.  Some have seen media that depicts people dressed in costumes.  Some are simply turned away by the idea of childish games or the reputation that D&D has in certain circles.  None of that should stop you from reaping the twin rewards of self-discovery and an entertaining escape from reality.

It’s true that the game can involve all of those things, (although costumes are involved only in a minor sense and only for the most dedicated players), and for many players that’s a badge to be prominently displayed, but the casual player doesn’t need any of those inhibiting elements to play the game.

At its core you only need to follow three steps to play Dungeons & Dragons:

1. Imagine yourself as a fictional character in a fictional setting.
2. Describe what you would like to do in that setting.
3. Roll dice to find out if you successfully do that thing.

(I’m being a little reductive here.  There are some extra steps, but if you’re lucky you’ll have someone who can take care of all those other little details the first time you play, so that you only have to worry about the three steps above.  If not, well, bumbling your way through the first couple attempts is a part of the game that everyone experiences anyway, and it has its own unique flavour of associated comedy.)

The most difficult step is number one.  Everything else flows from there like water from a slowly melting glacier, decreasing in size more and more quickly from the impact of a barely understood global process that may already be unstoppable and which some of our most powerful leaders, despite the obvious observable impacts, refuse to believe is even happening.  (Can you see why I need this?)

The game has had its controversies in the past because of the inclusion of elements from certain mythologies or, perhaps even more significantly, because of the associated mien of some of the groups of people who originally played the game’s earliest editions.  However, the current version of the game is the most accessible edition that has ever existed, which is partly why the game is picking up popularity these days.

If for no other reason, you should try the game because it’s fun, because a group of people seated in circle making up stories together is a form of human spellcasting that we’ve been participating in since we drew on walls with a mixture of charcoal, spit, and animal fat, and because all of us deserve to enjoy a journey back to a time when we knew less and laughed more, if only for a few hours.

And it’s not like you’re travelling anywhere else right now anyway.

I was recently given a mug, decorated with the opening lines of nearly two dozen books that would all be considered literary classics.  Excerpts of excellent writing cover the sides of the mug like novel wallpaper.  (Does a mug have one side, or multiple sides?) Included in the featured quotes are excerpts like “All this happened, more or less,” from Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, “It was a pleasure to burn,” from Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and “Mrs.  Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself,” from Woolf’s Mrs.  Dalloway.  I was given this mug because of my education in English literature, but as an English major, I was almost ashamed to admit that I had only read nine of the novels.

“Oh,” said my friend, “All the books on there must be good though.”

And I said, “That depends on how you define “good” books.”

Someone with a stern education in English might now bring up the term literary canon, but you can take that term and blow it out of an actual cannon.  Just because a work of literature is considered a classic does not mean that it is good literature.  If you ask me, the root of the definition of “good” books grows out of how you describe the purpose of literature.

And I’m talking about an academic definition of literature here, not the literature that gets mailed to you every week with coupons for hamburgers or the monthly publication you get full of the latest news about accounting.  Although even going that far is liable to start a debate about semantics, so I better get back on track.

Many might say that the purpose of literature is to reveal a specific truth about the world, but that would be wrong too.  Revealing truth is one thing that literature can do, maybe even something that good literature does, but the purpose of literature is not so philosophical.  The purpose of literature is to entertain, and not everybody is entertained by the same things.

All three of the books that I quoted in the first paragraph of this article are examples of excellent works of literature, if you ask me.  But if you asked me, then you would be asking someone with an English degree.  It’s my opinion that most people who choose to study English are masochists when it comes to reading, and four years of university taught me that many writers are sadists.  Why else would I drag out the point of this article so much? Slaughterhouse five, Fahrenheit 451, and Mrs.  Dalloway are all excellent stories that I would not ever recommend to the average reader, although Bradbury is absolutely the most accessible author in that list (again, if you ask me).

By “average reader,” I mean somebody who reads around a dozen books in a year.  That’s the average according to Pew Research Center (Perrin, 2016).  People with limited time and a limited interest in reading will not want to waste their time on a book that is going to challenge them, unless they’re a masochistic English major who just watched Bladerunner 2049 and now wants to explore the significance of Nabokov’s Pale Fire in the narrative of the movie (which is incidental, as it turns out).  A challenge is exactly what Vonnegut and Woolf present to readers with their shifting points of view, nonlinear narratives, and unreliable narrators.

Likewise, average readers won’t be interested in a book with low entertainment value, which can be a huge detriment to older books.  Much of the interesting fiction in Bradbury’s science fiction is lost to a reader already familiar with the novel ideas that Bradbury predicted, like flat screen TVs, earbuds, and bank machines.

Just because these novels are considered innovative, unique pillars of literary creativity and radical thought, does not mean they will entertain somebody today.  To one person they are good literature, to another they’re not.

Consider Stephen King, one of the most prolific and successful authors of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, but a constant recipient of the criticism of failing to be a literary author.  What does “literary” mean when people say that?  Is he a poor writer?  Not if you ask his dedicated readers.  In 1998 Stephen King was “the world’s best-selling novelist, with 300 million books sold, in 33 languages” (Singer, 1998).  What about if you asked the readers of Barbara Cartland, whose published romance novels and sales dwarf King’s by a large margin?  Shakespeare may be the best-selling fiction author of all time (arguably), but Agatha Christie is right there behind him, penning whodunits in second place.

There are myriad ways to judge literature.  It can be done with a panel of experts assembling an accepted canon.  It can be done by measuring book sales and revenue.  It can be done by counting print runs and re-prints, but none of that matters if you put the book down halfway through because you don’t even know where, or when, Billy Pilgrim is.

I can say that so far, all the books on my mug are good books, because the only books that are truly “good” are the ones that you enjoy reading.

(Unless you want to get into an argument about the definition of the word good and it’s grammatic correctness in this entire article.  To which I say, again, semantics.)

References
Perrin, Andrew.  (2016) Book Reading 2016.  Pew Research Center, September 2016.
Singer, Mark.  (1998).  What Are You Afraid Of? – Profile of horror writer Stephen King.  The New Yorker, September 7, P.  56.

Many of my friends and acquaintances have expressed their own personal growing anxiety and depression over the possibility of a doomed world, or at least a doomed generation.  Many of them feel powerless to control their own futures.  While I might be able to recognize that sense of social and political impotence, it hasn’t seemed to build its way into my particular cocktail of mental illnesses.  My mom always said, “you control the colour of the sky in your world,” so while all of us continue to struggle to affect the course of history for the better, this article might at least be able to relieve the dread hanging over some of us like an elephant from a ceiling fan.  The premise is simple.  An apocalyptic event isn’t something to be afraid of, it’s something to take advantage of.  Many of us have already started to do so without even knowing it.

I’m not about to recommend that you start raiding and looting as soon as California sinks below the waves.  Apocalyptic human barbarism is the last thing I want to advocate for and if that’s what you’re looking for then there’s a plethora of post-apocalyptic literature to satisfy any misanthropic and pessimistic reader.  For many of us, the current quarantine has led to the learning of new skills and hobbies, many that will be particularly useful for those of us living in the end-times.  That’s the opportunity that doom presents for us.

Many of my friends have also taken up gardening this year, which is a hobby that provides its own obvious benefits, even in the present days of mounting cataclysm.  The difference in taste between a store-bought tomato and a home-grown tomato is undeniable.  Gardening has also proven to be a great outlet for anxiety (according to some of the grimmer fatalists among my friends), and I believe that in the days that follow Ragnarök these budding cultivators will grow and thrive.  Some of us already experienced the minor effects of a brief disruption in the global supply chain this year.  I like to believe that somewhere out there somebody is sleeping soundly each night on a thick mattress of bathroom tissue, but toilet paper shortages would only be the beginning of trouble in a true catastrophe.  A significant enough global debacle could permanently disrupt the global supply chains.  When we can no longer get peppers and tomatoes from California, or fruits from B.C., it will be the gardeners that rise to feed their communities.  The greatest badge of honour in the post-apocalyptic world will be a green thumb, assuming that the soil is still fertile.

Those are just two examples of the many skills people are building now that will aid them in their attempts to survive underneath the grey skies of the post-apocalypse.  If you’re feeling helpless about the apocalypse today, try a hobby that can help you in a distant tomorrow.  If you’re worried about rising sea levels, maybe take up diving, unless, like myself, you have asthma and are thus barred from obtaining a diving license.  In which case, maybe move further inland.

With that short disclaimer out of the way, let’s continue.

Somewhere in the city where I live an expert chef is tossing a starchy parachute of dough into the air while someone else in the kitchen is cooking a delicious sauce next to a table of resplendent ingredients.  Across town, a pimply teenager is sliding a pre-shaped slab of dough into a greasy oven, caked with years of blackened burnt sauce and cheese.  Either of these two places could offer the best pizza in the city.  Before you read the rest of this article, close your eyes and picture what you think is the best pizza place in your city or town.  Now prepare a tablespoon of sugar and brace yourself for the next words I’m about to write.

(Please do not actually eat a tablespoon of sugar.  I can only imagine the unhealthy response my own body would have to such a gross intake of raw sweetener).

That place you imagined is not actually the best place in your city, not because something is wrong about your chosen pizza slingers, but because the concept of the best pizza in a city is a fallacy.  Such an object or location does not exist.  It can’t.  I am willing to concede that there is one situation where my declaration isn’t true, but we’ll get to that at the end of the article.

I’ve already heard all the objections to my declaration from other people:

“This place has the highest rating in the city.” “This place was on a TV show.” “This place has the best ingredients.” “This place has the cheapest prices.” “My friend Todd works at this place and he told me that they definitely wash their hands.”

All the reasons that people use to claim one restaurant or another offers the best pizza are also the reasons that none of those places can truly be the best pizza joint in the city.  The principle behind this claim is simple: not everyone is looking for the same thing when it comes to pizza.

A specific pizza place in my city was recently recommended to me as the best place in the city.  That recommendation was quickly followed by an addendum where I was told that they also had a three-hour wait and stopped taking orders after a certain hour in the evening.  They also don’t deliver and they’re a half-hour drive away from my house.

“But the toppings are the best I’ve ever had,” said my friend.

The only situation in which this pizza is going to be the best for me is if I eat it sitting in my car while the steam from the open box fogs up my windows and hides my embarrassment from the world.  However, for the individual who recommended this pizza place to me, who happens to live only five minutes away and doesn’t mind calling three hours in advance of when they want a pizza, this place is the best in the city.

Anywhere you go to get pizza, you’re going to encounter this binary relationship.  Somewhere with cheap pizza is also going to have cheap toppings.  Somewhere with great tasting pizza might also charge you twenty-five dollars for a 12-inch pie.  (This happened to me).  For those with healthier diets than mine, that’s generally the size of a medium pizza.  Somewhere that your friend claims is great might be down the street from them, but forty-five minutes from your house.  In that case, you could have a second pizza delivered and be eating it by the time that first pizza gets to your front door.

The point I’m trying to make here isn’t that you shouldn’t like your favourite pizza place.  It’s that there are so many factors and personal tastes involved with pizza, there’s no possible way that one place could ever be the best place to order a pizza for every person living in a single city or town.  Except for one situation.

If the city or town you live in is so miniscule that there is only one place to order a pizza, then I must concede, that is absolutely the best pizza in the city.  In every other situation, keep on ordering from the place you imagined in the first paragraph of this article.  It might not be the best in the city, but isn’t that fine as long it’s the best for you?