We are living through a summer of madness. I cannot recall a time of greater rage, unhingement, outbursting, cruelty, silliness, and above all, humourlessness.

Truly, this pitchfork summer has been ruled by the narcissism of small differences. Never have I seen people so unwilling to let things go, especially when the confluence of horrors is so intense. We are all a lit match.

I find it calming to think of Greenland sharks, the longest-living creatures on Earth, some of them 500 years old, moving through deep Arctic waters while far away and above, hot little humans squabbled and slaughtered each other and Shakespeare wrote his plays. Take the long view. The Greenland shark certainly does.

The first prong in the pitchfork: we are enduring the hottest year in history. Thats a grand claim that morally condemns us as a species, yes, but what it really boils down to is this. In June, Calgary was hammered by hail the size of canned hams. This week, a sudden huge rainstorm killed power across much of Toronto, which killed air conditioning which kills sanity.

It only takes one more thing could be stink bugs, could be a Harpers.org letter defending American free speech and suddenly everyones hair is in flames. Opponents want free speech for themselves, not for those who signed the letter, and now everyone has third-degree burns.

I just watched Jaws I sense a mordant fish theme here which holds up remarkably well, and it strikes me that on social media, everyone thinks theyre Chief Brody and regards everyone else as the great white shark. But the shark is the only blameless creature on the boat, doing what sharks do.

Take the most recent Ottawa scandal failing to grip the nation. Reporters tell us with glee that aside from paid work by the PMs brother and long-famous mother, the WE charity the one no longer running a hasty cross-country student COVID jobs plan had paid Sophie Grgoire Trudeau $1,400 for a speech in 2012.

My reaction was anguished. Why are Canadian scandals always so quaint? Why cant we do big shameless American crimes? Crime better, Canada.

Second prong: we are in early- or mid-pandemic. Although people are carefully trying to edge back into work with its lovely pay, few jobs are worth the risk of painful death alone in a hospital room, spatchcocked by a tube. So were at home, which breeds paranoia. We love our co-workers, who are probably out to get us.

The third prong is destitution, and if not that, heart-clutching financial worry. Pinned to the wall this summer, good people have gone off their nut.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said that a white gunmans failed invasion of Rideau Hall proved that the RCMP was racist, since a mentally ill Mississauga man of colour, Ejaz Choudry, and others, had been shot to death by police recently.

This person showed up with weapons, publicly, at the residence of the prime minister of Canada and was arrested without being killed, Singh said. So hes saying a nonracist RCMP would have shot Corey Hurren out of a sense of fairness. Singh did not regard the gunmans survival as a police success, which it is.

He then said Trump had done more to check police violence than had Trudeau. Sound of Canadians dropping their groceries.

If Singh has a point, and I dont think he has, its in questionable taste. But public discourse is like that now, weird, self-centred, hurtful. The Conservatives wanted Parliament reopened and then had the worst attendance record of any party at COVID-19 committee meetings.

Conservative party house-sitter Andrew Scheer, seen maskless and smirking in Pearson airport, was talking to Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, who later apologized for having briefly de-masked. (Another dollar-store scandal.) Scheer didnt apologize, taking his cue from Donald Trump, who now says he wants to build a monument to statues.

The Liberals face no credible opposition in Parliament, not by design but by opposition panic and confusion. Right now the Conservative party emblem is the bright little face of Erin OToole, an ex-soldier who wants to send every Canadian to basic training.

He wants us shipshape and military-style, hes talking gun rights and bouncing loonies off our beds. We dont need this level of strange right now.

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In a pitchfork summer, back to those Greenland sharks swimming quietly, their massive cartilaginous bodies bending in black water. I find it comforting that the shark has always been there, while humans were crabs, pairs of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas, temporary scavengers out of our collective minds in 2020.

Emulate the shark. Move slowly. Think before you attack. Let nothing faze you. Try not to take offence at small things, just as the shark doesnt mind the long dangling parasites attached to its corneas.

We will all be judged on how we behaved in the summer of the pitchfork.

Link:

Free-speech hypocrites, unscandalous scandals, and endless heat got you down? Here's how to survive the summer of madness - Toronto Star