outWORD by Matte Downey

Photo by Ryan Remiorz, Canadian Press. May 14, 2014 I live in a pretty charged city. Opinions on hockey, politics, religion, and food are strong in Montreal. Last night the Canadiens (our city's hockey team) won a spot in the NHL semi-finals and Dean and I went downtown to witness the ensuing celebration; if you live here, you just know the fans are going to take to the streets and make a scene. Sure enough, the sidewalks were filled with fans wearing their bleu blanc rouge jerseys. People were driving around, hanging out of their windows, waving flags and cheering. People ran down the streets high-fiving every person they met (yep, I gave a few high fives myself). The noise was pretty deafening in certain parts of Ste-Catherine street where cars were honking and people were yelling in celebration of their team's hard-won victory. The police and riot squads were out in full force, making sure that the traffic kept moving and nothing got out of hand. One Hummer, festoon...

I watch reality television. Mostly competitions like Masterchef and The Voice. Not Survivor or American Idol, oh no, that’s a bit too contrived for me. What I find, especially on the shows which deal with specific skills like cooking or singing, is that the participants invariably get a lot better the longer they are on the show. And in their carefully edited interviews, the participants also remark on how much they have learned, how they have been pushed to do better than they ever dreamed, and how they discovered something deep inside themselves that they were never quite sure they had. But something about these shows has always bothered me a bit, and it is this. Is the competitive platform the only way to get the best out of people? Must we be pitted against each other in order to personally succeed? Why must we always compare ourselves to others? Why must others be eliminated in order for me to get ahead? Most of our culture is based on competition: our entertainment, ou...