Gentle Reader, I have mentioned in earlier posts that I live in an affordable rental building run by an organization of fundamentalist Christians. They are not bad people and many of them are lovely, kind, supportive and caring. A few, especially those in upper management have struck me as being harsh, paranoid and intolerant. I think of such as Christian fundamentalists. They are not really Christians but because of their conservative and fearful mentality they tend to find expression of their intolerance of others through the Christian religion. They could as easily be Muslim fundamentalists or Jewish fundamentalists if it weren't for their intolerant fear of people who are different from themselves. Now I could well be misjudging these people, since I don't really know them. But let's just say that my personal experience of them has been anything but positive so you will identify a certain bias in my writing.
Generally, the managers and staff in my building seem pretty respectful of diversity even if it means respectfully agreeing to disagree, and I have become quite fond of them. But then I found this horrid little fundamentalist tabloid in the foyer, called the Light Magazine, a lot worse than the BC Christian News which at least encouraged people to think out their faith. It is pure, paranoid, self-righteous fundamentalist crap. There was one interesting article about the recently passed bill for doctor-assisted suicide and generally I found myself in agreement with the writer that it probably isn't a good idea, but where we part company is:
1. I think the horse is already out of the barn and we are going to have to adapt and live with the legislation because it does represent a major shift in popular thinking, and this is rather different from continuing to protest and try to revoke. I call for damage control, but this I have mentioned already in other posts, so there is no need here to repeat myself.
2. While I agree that suffering is part of life and needs to be accepted and embraced as such the writer of the article showed a marked lack of empathy about those who are living with intolerable suffering and for whom death would be the best way out, even if I might have qualms about this.
3. They really went off the rails when they quoted an organization of fundamentalist right-wing nutters, who believe, among other things, that educating children should be the responsibility of the parents and not of the state, or society. They appear to believe that this is the way that God ordained it and so on the Eighth Day God created Home Schools. Well, Sunshine, let me tell you this much. Had my parents been the ones to educate me I would have ended up in really deep shit, for which reason I thank our public education system, the time I spent in community college, and all the thousands of intriguing books, articles and essays I have read and enlightening radio programs I have heard and documentaries I have seen and lectures and public forums and presentations I have attended, none of which my parents would have been any more useful in for me than putting four tits on a bull. But here I digress. Here is the quote from one Mark Penninga, executive director of the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada:
"What happens to a society that discourages new life, kills vulnerable life, surgically alters healthy bodies to conform to unhealthy minds, puts the greatest taxes on those who are the most economically productive, and treats a basic building block of life (carbon) as if it were a pollutant? That society is committing suicide."
Well, Gentle Reader, far be it from me to dignify such blatant, egregious stupidity by replying but I will say this much: Any society that would force women unable to cope with having unwanted children to be perpetual baby machines till they have died a premature death without being able to fulfil any of their dreams; any society that so blatantly judges queer, two-spirited and transgender people to conform to a binary sexuality that is completely foreign to them, just because it conforms to their very narrow and erroneous interpretation of the teachings and life of Jesus Christ; any society that denies the responsibility of the wealthy to pay their share for the common good; and any society that is set to deny and ignore the findings of science about climate change due to global warming, for me anyway, would be worse than living in a theocratic North Korea.
While I am entirely in favour of freedom of speech and for this reason would not think of opposing the right of anyone to leave this kind of noxious garbage in the communal area of my apartment building, I am equally in favour of addressing and denouncing the dark and twisted message of a very crippled and crippling version of the Christian faith that is being promulgated here.
There you have it.
Thursday 30 June 2016
Wednesday 29 June 2016
Irritable
That is the word, or its Spanish equivalent, that I used today to describe what happens to persons of a certain age. Actually the Spanish word is the same, irritable, but it is pronounced quite differently: ee- rrrree-TAH-blay. Don`t forget to roll the r. I was having a conversation in Spanish on the bus today with two young Mexicans in their twenties. They have been here for a month. They are from Guadalajara. At the bus stop they tried to get in front of me and I began to advise them in English, good-naturedly of course, but then quickly switched to Spanish, as I told them I`m getting on ahead of them because I am a lot older than they are. We kind of became instant friends and chatted during our short ride together. When I learned that they were roommates, making it easier to pay the bills, I mentioned that when you get as old as me you become selfish and irritable and especially don`t want to share the bathroom. They of course laughed but there is a lot of truth in what I said, which is likely why they were both laughing.
I am more than aware of my irritability. I carry it with me like a running sore whenever I venture out in public and often when I am home alone. Noise is my biggest irritant. There was a customer in the café I was in who decided to whistle for a while. I am particularly bothered by whistling so I plugged my ears till he could see me and then stop. Then he started again, likely taking a defiant childish mentality of I`ll do what ever the f-you see-k I want. So I packed up my art materials and went upstairs where things were a little more tranquil. While walking in the forest I was annoyed by joggers, first a young couple that nearly ran me over without so much as an excuse me and then later a lone jogger who didn`t bother to say thank you when I stepped well out of his way to let him pass. Then there were the two women yapping in loud voices on one trail making it necessary for me to avoid going there so I could enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest.
Now I don`t suppose all the aforementioned examples betray me as an irritable old man but in some ways I would have to say that yes I am to the manner born, and all I can do is find ways of coping and adapting even if it means having to physically distance myself from the irritants. Where I am beginning to draw the line is by refusing to allow my irritability to become an excuse for rudeness or for a lack of empathy. This is not easy and it often means refusing to believe that the irritants are hurting me intentionally, and I do experience the blows of irritation like physical pain. It means transcending my selfish reptilian brain-sourced need for instant gratification and refuge in order to give place to the other. It is an act of the highest unconditional love.
To you Gentle Reader I confess that every day and many times a day I never fail to fall short of this high calling. I profess that I am a Christian yet my behaviour and more often my thoughts and feelings and perceptions indicate a selfish, frightened and spiteful old man. This is my shadow. I do not disown it. But neither am I going to permit my shadow to rule my life and deprive me of the blessing that is there for me each moment of every day should I greet life with a spirit of gratitude and joy. Even if I get sideswiped every time by irritability I am going to get up again, dust myself off and proceed with this all-consuming business of walking and living in a spirit of love. My shadow I am already leash-training, like an aggressive pit bull that will move me forward under my strict control with its unquenchable energy without turning to bite or attack me.
I am more than aware of my irritability. I carry it with me like a running sore whenever I venture out in public and often when I am home alone. Noise is my biggest irritant. There was a customer in the café I was in who decided to whistle for a while. I am particularly bothered by whistling so I plugged my ears till he could see me and then stop. Then he started again, likely taking a defiant childish mentality of I`ll do what ever the f-you see-k I want. So I packed up my art materials and went upstairs where things were a little more tranquil. While walking in the forest I was annoyed by joggers, first a young couple that nearly ran me over without so much as an excuse me and then later a lone jogger who didn`t bother to say thank you when I stepped well out of his way to let him pass. Then there were the two women yapping in loud voices on one trail making it necessary for me to avoid going there so I could enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest.
Now I don`t suppose all the aforementioned examples betray me as an irritable old man but in some ways I would have to say that yes I am to the manner born, and all I can do is find ways of coping and adapting even if it means having to physically distance myself from the irritants. Where I am beginning to draw the line is by refusing to allow my irritability to become an excuse for rudeness or for a lack of empathy. This is not easy and it often means refusing to believe that the irritants are hurting me intentionally, and I do experience the blows of irritation like physical pain. It means transcending my selfish reptilian brain-sourced need for instant gratification and refuge in order to give place to the other. It is an act of the highest unconditional love.
To you Gentle Reader I confess that every day and many times a day I never fail to fall short of this high calling. I profess that I am a Christian yet my behaviour and more often my thoughts and feelings and perceptions indicate a selfish, frightened and spiteful old man. This is my shadow. I do not disown it. But neither am I going to permit my shadow to rule my life and deprive me of the blessing that is there for me each moment of every day should I greet life with a spirit of gratitude and joy. Even if I get sideswiped every time by irritability I am going to get up again, dust myself off and proceed with this all-consuming business of walking and living in a spirit of love. My shadow I am already leash-training, like an aggressive pit bull that will move me forward under my strict control with its unquenchable energy without turning to bite or attack me.
Tuesday 28 June 2016
The Day I fired My Financial Aid Worker
I think I've already mentioned elsewhere in these pages, Gentle Reader, that I spent three and a half years on welfare. I wasn't completely unemployed but simply not able to get by without assistance. During that time I was doing a little house-cleaning and selling the occasional painting through carefully installed exhibits of my art. I also worked two short-term jobs: interviewing for Statistics Canada, and providing care to a severely disabled young man. The Stats Can job was temporary and they made it abundantly clear that they would not be considering me for future work.. The caregiving position required that I learn the training a lot faster than I was able to.
I ended up on welfare after I ran out of alternatives. I had spent 1989 to 1992 in fulltime ministry with the Christian community I was living in. We were funded by many sources but principally through prayer and faith and we seemed always able to pool resources even though we also experienced some real hardship. As we appeared to be running out of funds I took part time work as a home support worker in 1992. Then I began painting and did rather well for a while on sales of my art. My employers kept refusing to increase my hours beyond twenty a week as they were averse to spending more money on providing me with dental benefits. They of course didn't admit this but you didn't have to be a genius in order to figure it out. So I remained severely underemployed and rather lacking in energy and resources to find another position (I didn't realise at the time that I had PTSD) Our community broke up in 1996 and I had to find an apartment.
I could barely afford the rent on my scant earnings. From time to time I went to welfare for emergency assistance but refused to stay dependent on social assistance so I refused to apply for regular benefits. They still refused to increase my hours at work, bending over backwards with their lame excuses and I was disabled for four months with crippling toothaches. They still wouldn't do a thing to help me with dental coverage. Let's just say that hate would be a very mild word to describe my feelings towards my employer.
In 1997 my mental health began a downward slide and I began to go through a series of breakdowns with no help in sight. I quit my job in the summer and decided to live by faith since the people at welfare were relentless hectoring bullies and I had become quite terrified of them. I managed to hold it together for almost a year and then I was evicted from my apartment for not paying the rent.
In 1998-99 I spent nine and a half months couch surfing while battling symptoms of mental illness. I came perilously close to killing myself. In the spring of 1999 I finally applied for welfare and found a room in a shared apartment for one year, then for two years a room in a shared house. It was not a safe living situation. I wanted to work but like everything else in my life at the time, no matter what I did to improve my situation doors were slammed in my face and I couldn't find a work environment where I felt welcome and comfortable. I also knew I wasn't well enough to work so I spent my days painting, promoting my art, learning Spanish, reading and taking long walks. I wanted to work but besides house cleaning I didn't know where to look and felt really very daunted by the obstacles. I felt paralyzed.
During this time the culture around social assistance was changing rapidly and market interests were dominating and controlling policy. We were seen as people who really did not want to work, even though in most cases this simply was not true, and they decided to punish us for being a burden to society. They applied increasing pressure on us to find employment though in most cases employers could not be persuaded to hire us and in many cases we simply were not well enough to work.
I was assigned for a financial aid worker a miserable sociopathic hectoring bully. I nicknamed her the Brown Cow. I was busting my ass seeking a job, any job. As I was returning from an interview for a home support position in Langley I got from Brown Cow a very nasty message. She told me that since I was not pulling my weight enough to look for a job that she was going to put me in a job-finding club. That was the ultimate. I left on her voice mail two very angry messages, since I knew that most of those job clubs simply forced, pushed and threatened their clients into seeking and accepting any soul-destroying work no matter how unsuitable and how unlikely that they would actually be accepted for employment. I was also coping with aggravated symptoms of PTSD and was becoming increasingly emotional, agitated and anxious.
I fired my FAW. I told her I was no longer working with her. I called her an intimidating bully who took pleasure in grinding our faces in the dirt. I demanded to speak to her supervisor. The following day I got a phone call from Brown Cow's supervisor asking me to come in to talk with her. We spent an hour in her office. I found her incredibly compassionate, concerned and supportive. She apologized profusely for what I had been through, changed my file and reassigned me to a compassionate worker. Because it was likely that I had mental health issues they agreed that I would be under no pressure to seek employment and I was encouraged to try to go on disability. During that time I moved into social housing and took full advantage of this rest period. The spring and summer weather were incredibly lovely and I went through daily long walks in Stanley Park, painted, showed my art. I began seeing a psychiatrist, moved into another social housing building, networked with excellent employment counsellors and eventually found long term employment, where I still work in the mental health field, twelve years later.
Firing Brown Cow, my erstwhile financial aid worker was one of my smartest and most courageous acts and I believe this was every bit as critical in putting me on the road to recovery as were my four years with a competent psychiatrist. I only shudder to imagine what the whole welfare system must be like now, fourteen years later.
I ended up on welfare after I ran out of alternatives. I had spent 1989 to 1992 in fulltime ministry with the Christian community I was living in. We were funded by many sources but principally through prayer and faith and we seemed always able to pool resources even though we also experienced some real hardship. As we appeared to be running out of funds I took part time work as a home support worker in 1992. Then I began painting and did rather well for a while on sales of my art. My employers kept refusing to increase my hours beyond twenty a week as they were averse to spending more money on providing me with dental benefits. They of course didn't admit this but you didn't have to be a genius in order to figure it out. So I remained severely underemployed and rather lacking in energy and resources to find another position (I didn't realise at the time that I had PTSD) Our community broke up in 1996 and I had to find an apartment.
I could barely afford the rent on my scant earnings. From time to time I went to welfare for emergency assistance but refused to stay dependent on social assistance so I refused to apply for regular benefits. They still refused to increase my hours at work, bending over backwards with their lame excuses and I was disabled for four months with crippling toothaches. They still wouldn't do a thing to help me with dental coverage. Let's just say that hate would be a very mild word to describe my feelings towards my employer.
In 1997 my mental health began a downward slide and I began to go through a series of breakdowns with no help in sight. I quit my job in the summer and decided to live by faith since the people at welfare were relentless hectoring bullies and I had become quite terrified of them. I managed to hold it together for almost a year and then I was evicted from my apartment for not paying the rent.
In 1998-99 I spent nine and a half months couch surfing while battling symptoms of mental illness. I came perilously close to killing myself. In the spring of 1999 I finally applied for welfare and found a room in a shared apartment for one year, then for two years a room in a shared house. It was not a safe living situation. I wanted to work but like everything else in my life at the time, no matter what I did to improve my situation doors were slammed in my face and I couldn't find a work environment where I felt welcome and comfortable. I also knew I wasn't well enough to work so I spent my days painting, promoting my art, learning Spanish, reading and taking long walks. I wanted to work but besides house cleaning I didn't know where to look and felt really very daunted by the obstacles. I felt paralyzed.
During this time the culture around social assistance was changing rapidly and market interests were dominating and controlling policy. We were seen as people who really did not want to work, even though in most cases this simply was not true, and they decided to punish us for being a burden to society. They applied increasing pressure on us to find employment though in most cases employers could not be persuaded to hire us and in many cases we simply were not well enough to work.
I was assigned for a financial aid worker a miserable sociopathic hectoring bully. I nicknamed her the Brown Cow. I was busting my ass seeking a job, any job. As I was returning from an interview for a home support position in Langley I got from Brown Cow a very nasty message. She told me that since I was not pulling my weight enough to look for a job that she was going to put me in a job-finding club. That was the ultimate. I left on her voice mail two very angry messages, since I knew that most of those job clubs simply forced, pushed and threatened their clients into seeking and accepting any soul-destroying work no matter how unsuitable and how unlikely that they would actually be accepted for employment. I was also coping with aggravated symptoms of PTSD and was becoming increasingly emotional, agitated and anxious.
I fired my FAW. I told her I was no longer working with her. I called her an intimidating bully who took pleasure in grinding our faces in the dirt. I demanded to speak to her supervisor. The following day I got a phone call from Brown Cow's supervisor asking me to come in to talk with her. We spent an hour in her office. I found her incredibly compassionate, concerned and supportive. She apologized profusely for what I had been through, changed my file and reassigned me to a compassionate worker. Because it was likely that I had mental health issues they agreed that I would be under no pressure to seek employment and I was encouraged to try to go on disability. During that time I moved into social housing and took full advantage of this rest period. The spring and summer weather were incredibly lovely and I went through daily long walks in Stanley Park, painted, showed my art. I began seeing a psychiatrist, moved into another social housing building, networked with excellent employment counsellors and eventually found long term employment, where I still work in the mental health field, twelve years later.
Firing Brown Cow, my erstwhile financial aid worker was one of my smartest and most courageous acts and I believe this was every bit as critical in putting me on the road to recovery as were my four years with a competent psychiatrist. I only shudder to imagine what the whole welfare system must be like now, fourteen years later.
Sunday 26 June 2016
From My Past Self To My Future Self 3
Gentle Reader, this is a conversation between my twenty-year-old self, Greg, and the person that Greg has turned into over a span of forty years, me, Aaron. Greg, or Gregory, is my birth name which I legally changed in 1995 to Aaron.
Aaron: How did you get in here?
Greg: Is that any way to welcome an old friend?
Aaron: Yes, I suppose I have always been a bit on the snarky side.
Greg: You wear it beautifully.
Aaron: Flattery will get you nowhere.
Greg: It sure didn't get you very far.
Aaron: Are you disappointed?
Greg: No.
Aaron: Are you sure?
Greg: This is a nice apartment.
Aaron: It's small.
Greg: It's beautiful. With all the art and the books and the exotic table clothes and everything it looks so magical.
Aaron: Well, you always had a flair for decorating, didn't you?
Greg: These are all your paintings?
Aaron: They are all your paintings.
Greg: I always wanted to be an artist.
Aaron: Well, Greg, you are going to become an artist.
Greg: When?
Aaron: I'm not telling you that. I don't want to ruin the surprise.
Greg: And are we famous now, Greg?
Aaron: That's no longer your name. You will change it, legally, to Aaron. And no we are not famous. I have sold quite a few paintings but not enough to live on.
Greg: Why Aaron, and why am I going to change my name?
Aaron: You know I cannot tell you that. You are going to have to find out when it is time.
Greg: What'll Mom say?
Aaron: It seems that we really obsessed over that one on our first acid trip. Do you remember?
Greg; I'm amazed that after forty years you still remember that. For me it was only last year.
Aaron: When you change your name Mom will already have been dead for a few years.
Greg: You can't be serious.
Aaron: Don't worry about it for now. You still have many years to cherish her.
Greg: What about Dad?
Aaron: He won't like it. There will already be problems between you, you will lose each other and then he will die.
Greg: How long has he been dead?
Aaron: Don`t let me spoil it for you. How do you like our paintings?
Greg: They're amazing. I see I'm going to revive my interest in birds.
Aaron: Are you ever.
Greg: What about our brother?
Aaron: We haven't seen or heard from each other in many years. Don't ask any more questions about him. You will be dead to each other and it will be for the best.
Greg: But-
Aaron: Never mind. There are worse things in life than having a family of people who neither love nor understand you. You will have friends, some damn good friends, and you will learn how to be your own person because at the end of the day, that is all you can be. The sense of relief and peace will always weigh more than the occasional loneliness,. Pull that chair over- will you?- and I will show you my laptop.
Greg: Show me your what?
Aaron: It's a small portable computer. Watch as I open it and now I type in the password and here we have a menu of shortcuts. I will show you how to write an email...then we will go onto Google. Lost already? Can`t say I`m surprised. I didn't learn how to use a computer till 2002. We have always been slow to learn new things, you and I, especially new technologies, which seem to still frighten us. But before I go on, Greg, let me offer you one little word of advice.
Greg: Go on.
Aaron: You are a dreadful dreamer. And you know, unlike what Mom used to say, that is not a bad thing. I`m not going to tell you to live your dreams because I have already done that which means that you are going to do this. You will waste several years trying to recapture a golden age that never really existed, except really in your dreams. And you know something else, Greg? One day you are going to have to wake out of your dream and that is exactly what I have had to do. And you know how I did it? By living my dream, and that is what woke me out of it. And you know something else? I have not lost my dream. You are not going to lose your dream, Greg. It is going to become a part of you and you will be able to live a full and rewarding life out of the beauty and richness of your dream which will become integral to the person that you are.
Greg: How did you get this nice little apartment?
Aaron: I was very poor for a few years and that qualified me for subsidized housing.
Greg: Subsidized?
Aaron: The government pays more than half the rent. I pay thirty per cent of my monthly income for rent.
Greg: Tell me how you pay the rent?
Aaron: I work at a low-paying job with vulnerable adults. We hang out together, go for coffee, talk about things, we do art together, I support them in their recovery from mental illness.
Greg: That is my future career?
Aaron: You could do worse. Right now you are what I call raw material. You've hardly lived. You have become a voracious reader and that is a very good sign. Have you finished reading "The Waves" by Virginia Woolf?
Greg: It's hard to follow. It's stream of consciousness and it kind of gets you inside each character but there is something very strange about this style of writing, and I find that I am always experiencing something so exquisite that it'll drive me mad.
Aaron: Get used to it. You have a rare and deep intelligent sensitivity. You are going to have to master it because it is going to lead you through some very interesting doors...By the way, how do you like me so far?
Greg: I like you very much. I am glad that you are what I am going to turn into.
Aaron: You`re not always going to enjoy the process of getting there. Even now, at sixty, I am in a state of process. I am still becoming the person that God has ordained me to be.
Greg: When do we arrive? When do we get there?
Aaron: Oh, don't ask stupid questions! And by the way, as you have noticed from that particular bookcase of books in Spanish, you are going to become fluent in Spanish, the language of Cervantes, and you are going to get pretty good at it, and then you and I will be able to ask dumb questions in two different languages.
Aaron: How did you get in here?
Greg: Is that any way to welcome an old friend?
Aaron: Yes, I suppose I have always been a bit on the snarky side.
Greg: You wear it beautifully.
Aaron: Flattery will get you nowhere.
Greg: It sure didn't get you very far.
Aaron: Are you disappointed?
Greg: No.
Aaron: Are you sure?
Greg: This is a nice apartment.
Aaron: It's small.
Greg: It's beautiful. With all the art and the books and the exotic table clothes and everything it looks so magical.
Aaron: Well, you always had a flair for decorating, didn't you?
Greg: These are all your paintings?
Aaron: They are all your paintings.
Greg: I always wanted to be an artist.
Aaron: Well, Greg, you are going to become an artist.
Greg: When?
Aaron: I'm not telling you that. I don't want to ruin the surprise.
Greg: And are we famous now, Greg?
Aaron: That's no longer your name. You will change it, legally, to Aaron. And no we are not famous. I have sold quite a few paintings but not enough to live on.
Greg: Why Aaron, and why am I going to change my name?
Aaron: You know I cannot tell you that. You are going to have to find out when it is time.
Greg: What'll Mom say?
Aaron: It seems that we really obsessed over that one on our first acid trip. Do you remember?
Greg; I'm amazed that after forty years you still remember that. For me it was only last year.
Aaron: When you change your name Mom will already have been dead for a few years.
Greg: You can't be serious.
Aaron: Don't worry about it for now. You still have many years to cherish her.
Greg: What about Dad?
Aaron: He won't like it. There will already be problems between you, you will lose each other and then he will die.
Greg: How long has he been dead?
Aaron: Don`t let me spoil it for you. How do you like our paintings?
Greg: They're amazing. I see I'm going to revive my interest in birds.
Aaron: Are you ever.
Greg: What about our brother?
Aaron: We haven't seen or heard from each other in many years. Don't ask any more questions about him. You will be dead to each other and it will be for the best.
Greg: But-
Aaron: Never mind. There are worse things in life than having a family of people who neither love nor understand you. You will have friends, some damn good friends, and you will learn how to be your own person because at the end of the day, that is all you can be. The sense of relief and peace will always weigh more than the occasional loneliness,. Pull that chair over- will you?- and I will show you my laptop.
Greg: Show me your what?
Aaron: It's a small portable computer. Watch as I open it and now I type in the password and here we have a menu of shortcuts. I will show you how to write an email...then we will go onto Google. Lost already? Can`t say I`m surprised. I didn't learn how to use a computer till 2002. We have always been slow to learn new things, you and I, especially new technologies, which seem to still frighten us. But before I go on, Greg, let me offer you one little word of advice.
Greg: Go on.
Aaron: You are a dreadful dreamer. And you know, unlike what Mom used to say, that is not a bad thing. I`m not going to tell you to live your dreams because I have already done that which means that you are going to do this. You will waste several years trying to recapture a golden age that never really existed, except really in your dreams. And you know something else, Greg? One day you are going to have to wake out of your dream and that is exactly what I have had to do. And you know how I did it? By living my dream, and that is what woke me out of it. And you know something else? I have not lost my dream. You are not going to lose your dream, Greg. It is going to become a part of you and you will be able to live a full and rewarding life out of the beauty and richness of your dream which will become integral to the person that you are.
Greg: How did you get this nice little apartment?
Aaron: I was very poor for a few years and that qualified me for subsidized housing.
Greg: Subsidized?
Aaron: The government pays more than half the rent. I pay thirty per cent of my monthly income for rent.
Greg: Tell me how you pay the rent?
Aaron: I work at a low-paying job with vulnerable adults. We hang out together, go for coffee, talk about things, we do art together, I support them in their recovery from mental illness.
Greg: That is my future career?
Aaron: You could do worse. Right now you are what I call raw material. You've hardly lived. You have become a voracious reader and that is a very good sign. Have you finished reading "The Waves" by Virginia Woolf?
Greg: It's hard to follow. It's stream of consciousness and it kind of gets you inside each character but there is something very strange about this style of writing, and I find that I am always experiencing something so exquisite that it'll drive me mad.
Aaron: Get used to it. You have a rare and deep intelligent sensitivity. You are going to have to master it because it is going to lead you through some very interesting doors...By the way, how do you like me so far?
Greg: I like you very much. I am glad that you are what I am going to turn into.
Aaron: You`re not always going to enjoy the process of getting there. Even now, at sixty, I am in a state of process. I am still becoming the person that God has ordained me to be.
Greg: When do we arrive? When do we get there?
Aaron: Oh, don't ask stupid questions! And by the way, as you have noticed from that particular bookcase of books in Spanish, you are going to become fluent in Spanish, the language of Cervantes, and you are going to get pretty good at it, and then you and I will be able to ask dumb questions in two different languages.
From My Past Self To My Future Self 2
Having travelled forty years into the future from the year 1976 I am still winding my way through Yaletown. I have already seen the new public library (well, twenty-one years old by 2016, but time is relative, eh?) which resembles a brown mock-up of the ruins of the Roman Coliseum. I have never seen such amazing architecture in this city, especially new (relatively) architecture which has ordinarily never appealed to me. Wandering through the various six levels or so I notice computers, those strange typing machines with window screens everywhere, and people sitting in front of them doing...what? I stop to chat with one of the librarians and I ask her about the computers. I am careful not to mention that I am visiting from forty years in the past as I really don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention.
She says that a lot of them check email. They check what? I ask. Electronic mail, she says. What's that? I ask. She replies that they can type letters on the keyboard of the computer and send them electronically. Where do the letters go, I ask? Anywhere, she says. All over the world? Yes, all over the world. What do they have to pay for this service? It's free, advertisers foot the bill. And anyone can do this? Anyone. And the letters can go anywhere in the world? Europe, Africa, Japan? Mexico, Australia, the Philippines. It must take a couple of days for the letters to arrive. She looks at me as though I am truly daft and replies, that the emails, as she calls them, are received instantaneously. She proceeds to tell me about Skype, a kind of video phone service, and Facebook and Twitter and other things that she calls social media. Then, realizing that she is talking to someone very simple and unaware of things, she describes to me what she calls the internet and that it is like one vast encyclopedia of all the knowledge, information and entertainment in the world and that you can access all of it at the click of a button (I think she called it...a mouse?) I ask her about the little machines that everyone carries on the sidewalks, staring at them, hunched over, like addicts getting a fix, almost walking into streetlights and other pedestrians and almost getting run over by cars. They are phones, she tells me in a very patient voice, and little computers. And you can get the internet on them? Yes you can. And emails? Everything. On a tiny piece of plastic? She stares at me, exasperated. Where have you been the last forty years, she hisses.
I find myself in the West End, where there seem to be more towers than ever. On Davie Street I notice two men walking together holding hands. Then I notice two more. I did overhear someone say that gay marriage has been legal for more than ten years. I am reminded of the intolerant bigots in my church, forty years ago, or yesterday.
On the news there is war in the Middle East, as always, but it's worse and more brutal than ever with bombings and beheadings and Islamic fundamentalists not much different from their Christian counterparts, perhaps more violent, wreaking havoc throughout the civilized world. They want to return to the dark ages and drag the whole world there with them. I hear of refugees from Syria and Iraq, thousands, millions. I hear about a horrible billionaire with chronic bad hair who hates everyone running for the US presidency. I hear of China, no longer strictly communist but still authoritarian and now obscenely wealthy and buying up as much as the Western world as they can get their hands on. There is news about global warming, climate change and the possibility that humanity might not see much of the Twenty-First Century unless they stop using fossil fuels and stop eating red meat. Russia is still sabre-rattling but the Soviet Union no longer exists and its fall twenty-five years ago has provided the world with more than ten new countries. It is all too much to take in and I find my way to the small apartment where my future self is now living.
She says that a lot of them check email. They check what? I ask. Electronic mail, she says. What's that? I ask. She replies that they can type letters on the keyboard of the computer and send them electronically. Where do the letters go, I ask? Anywhere, she says. All over the world? Yes, all over the world. What do they have to pay for this service? It's free, advertisers foot the bill. And anyone can do this? Anyone. And the letters can go anywhere in the world? Europe, Africa, Japan? Mexico, Australia, the Philippines. It must take a couple of days for the letters to arrive. She looks at me as though I am truly daft and replies, that the emails, as she calls them, are received instantaneously. She proceeds to tell me about Skype, a kind of video phone service, and Facebook and Twitter and other things that she calls social media. Then, realizing that she is talking to someone very simple and unaware of things, she describes to me what she calls the internet and that it is like one vast encyclopedia of all the knowledge, information and entertainment in the world and that you can access all of it at the click of a button (I think she called it...a mouse?) I ask her about the little machines that everyone carries on the sidewalks, staring at them, hunched over, like addicts getting a fix, almost walking into streetlights and other pedestrians and almost getting run over by cars. They are phones, she tells me in a very patient voice, and little computers. And you can get the internet on them? Yes you can. And emails? Everything. On a tiny piece of plastic? She stares at me, exasperated. Where have you been the last forty years, she hisses.
I find myself in the West End, where there seem to be more towers than ever. On Davie Street I notice two men walking together holding hands. Then I notice two more. I did overhear someone say that gay marriage has been legal for more than ten years. I am reminded of the intolerant bigots in my church, forty years ago, or yesterday.
On the news there is war in the Middle East, as always, but it's worse and more brutal than ever with bombings and beheadings and Islamic fundamentalists not much different from their Christian counterparts, perhaps more violent, wreaking havoc throughout the civilized world. They want to return to the dark ages and drag the whole world there with them. I hear of refugees from Syria and Iraq, thousands, millions. I hear about a horrible billionaire with chronic bad hair who hates everyone running for the US presidency. I hear of China, no longer strictly communist but still authoritarian and now obscenely wealthy and buying up as much as the Western world as they can get their hands on. There is news about global warming, climate change and the possibility that humanity might not see much of the Twenty-First Century unless they stop using fossil fuels and stop eating red meat. Russia is still sabre-rattling but the Soviet Union no longer exists and its fall twenty-five years ago has provided the world with more than ten new countries. It is all too much to take in and I find my way to the small apartment where my future self is now living.
Saturday 25 June 2016
From My Past Self To My Future Self 1
In this video (imaginary) I am twenty years old. I have just survived a tumultuous year and have recently been kicked out of a house full of difficult young male Christian fundamentalists I don't call them fundamentalist Christians, but Christian fundamentalists. These were not Christians. They were profoundly fundamentalist. They just happened to describe their fundamentalism as being Christian. They could take on Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist characteristics but they would still be basically fundamentalists. Their real religion is fundamentalism. Christian is an afterthought. I have also known fundamentalist Christians. Despite their tendency to take the Bible a bit too literally they are, if I may use the word, fundamentally Christian and generally very kind and loving people despite their ignorance on biblical hermeneutics. I was at that time, I suppose, a fundamentalist Christian living among Christian fundamentalists. And I was just embarking on my long and perilous journey out of a Christianity that was fundamentalist to something broader, richer and deeper, which I still cannot define because it is still developing and evolving.
I left this house in disgrace. They didn't like me. Of course not. I was a Christian and they were fundamentalists. We really had nothing in common apart from a presumably shared belief system. They wanted me to work fulltime because they couldn't imagine any young male Christian fundamentalist not working fulltime for a living. I could only find part-time employment as much as I tried for fulltime.. It couldn't occur to them that it wasn't my fault, for the simple reason that, like all fundamentalists they were not able to think either critically nor compassionately.
It was early December and fortunately I could couch surf at my mother's for a while. During the two weeks or so that I stayed with her I really began to think and wonder about what to do with the rest of my life.
I could not imagine turning out the way I have now, forty years later. Neither could I have envisioned the many changes in our world and in our society that we now take for granted. Had I time travelled from downtown Vancouver then, towards the end of 1976 to this month of June, 2016 what would be the first thing to notice? I think I would find the streets decidedly different. Opting to begin walking west from Main and Hastings I would notice a degree of squalor unheard of even in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The Carnegie Centre before was still seven years from being reopened as a community centre and the living room/kitchen/dining room for many local residents. I would have been shocked at the open drug market and the open drug use. I would have stumbled by the Insite injection site absolutely puzzled and dismayed about harm reduction. I would have felt equally puzzled about the pot shops and the nice new restaurants and boutiques opening as well in the area, sort of like a Creeping Gastown dynamic. I would also have been completely appalled over the visible street homelessness, I think the contrasts would have been too much to take in.
I would detour towards Yaletown, unable to comprehend why our city suddenly looked like Hong Kong with all the condo towers rising where there used to be an industrial wasteland, I would notice a lot more Asian and other ethnicities represented and fewer white people and a plethora of new restaurants, bars and cafes. I would notice these coffee shops called Starbucks and wonder why there were so many and why everyone was carrying a paper cup full of coffee with them and I would be absolutely gobsmacked by all the different lattes etc.
Everything would appear more crowded, busier, noiser, with almost everyone absorbed in their little tech plastic rectangles. I would later learn that they are telephones that also doubled as personal computers with internet. I would ask what the hell is the internet? The confusion and the bewilderment would be absolute. I would feel very strange and very out of place.
I left this house in disgrace. They didn't like me. Of course not. I was a Christian and they were fundamentalists. We really had nothing in common apart from a presumably shared belief system. They wanted me to work fulltime because they couldn't imagine any young male Christian fundamentalist not working fulltime for a living. I could only find part-time employment as much as I tried for fulltime.. It couldn't occur to them that it wasn't my fault, for the simple reason that, like all fundamentalists they were not able to think either critically nor compassionately.
It was early December and fortunately I could couch surf at my mother's for a while. During the two weeks or so that I stayed with her I really began to think and wonder about what to do with the rest of my life.
I could not imagine turning out the way I have now, forty years later. Neither could I have envisioned the many changes in our world and in our society that we now take for granted. Had I time travelled from downtown Vancouver then, towards the end of 1976 to this month of June, 2016 what would be the first thing to notice? I think I would find the streets decidedly different. Opting to begin walking west from Main and Hastings I would notice a degree of squalor unheard of even in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The Carnegie Centre before was still seven years from being reopened as a community centre and the living room/kitchen/dining room for many local residents. I would have been shocked at the open drug market and the open drug use. I would have stumbled by the Insite injection site absolutely puzzled and dismayed about harm reduction. I would have felt equally puzzled about the pot shops and the nice new restaurants and boutiques opening as well in the area, sort of like a Creeping Gastown dynamic. I would also have been completely appalled over the visible street homelessness, I think the contrasts would have been too much to take in.
I would detour towards Yaletown, unable to comprehend why our city suddenly looked like Hong Kong with all the condo towers rising where there used to be an industrial wasteland, I would notice a lot more Asian and other ethnicities represented and fewer white people and a plethora of new restaurants, bars and cafes. I would notice these coffee shops called Starbucks and wonder why there were so many and why everyone was carrying a paper cup full of coffee with them and I would be absolutely gobsmacked by all the different lattes etc.
Everything would appear more crowded, busier, noiser, with almost everyone absorbed in their little tech plastic rectangles. I would later learn that they are telephones that also doubled as personal computers with internet. I would ask what the hell is the internet? The confusion and the bewilderment would be absolute. I would feel very strange and very out of place.
Friday 24 June 2016
Vacation
I'm staying home. Nothing much to say about it. I just finished my last day at work and already I'm bored. This after feeling the stress leave my body as I left work today. Now there are the usual household stresses. There are still lingering bedbugs and bites on my skin, suggesting that something is lacking in the competence of the exterminator that my building has been contracting since my unit was sprayed five weeks ago and I'm still occasionally discovering bedbugs and still occasionally getting bitten. There aren't as many as before but they really should be gone by now, shouldn't they? Some vacation, two weeks of sharing my bed with little clandestine vampires.
Then there is the elephant on my ceiling. I don't know if it is the tenant directly upstairs or in the unit next door. I think it could be someone with mental health issues and obsessive-compulsive behaviour with the non-stop stomping around sometimes. And this in a concrete building. At least the current management acknowledges that foot traffic noise is a problem here despite the building materials. Better than their predecessor, a paranoid fundamentalist Christian who expected all of us to vote conservative and is clearly anti anything gay, though himself a suspected closet case. Of course I`m not mentioning any names here. The allegedly Christian organization that runs my building is incredibly thin-skinned towards criticism not to mention extremely vindictive, especially towards any of their tenants who do not love them unconditionally.
There also remains the ongoing nuisance of loud music being played by the superannuated adolescents living in the hard-to-house facility next door. Yes, Gentle Reader, I have opted to stay home and relax and co-exist with the many inconveniences of having to live cheek-by-jowl with inconsiderate idiots in a building run by nasty Christian hypocrite idiots (though the building managers themselves are pretty awesome ) and sleeping in a bed where there still lurks a leftover vestige of that bloodsucking threat and I still half expect to come through the next two weeks feeling rested and energized.
And you know something, Gentle Reader? That is exactly what is going to happen. Right now, this evening, I am down with a brief case of Spoilt Rich Kid Syndrome. My living situation may not be perfect but it is tolerable. I have a place to live that I can afford even though I subsist on an incredibly low income in one of the most incredibly expensive cities in the world. I pay only thirty percent of my monthly income on rent, sometimes less than that. The noise isn't that bad and upper management leaves me alone if I leave them alone and the bedbugs are going away since it is a gradual process getting rid of them.
One day life will be perfect. Until that day I am still going to have a fairly good time.
See how easy it is talking myself out of a depression?
Then there is the elephant on my ceiling. I don't know if it is the tenant directly upstairs or in the unit next door. I think it could be someone with mental health issues and obsessive-compulsive behaviour with the non-stop stomping around sometimes. And this in a concrete building. At least the current management acknowledges that foot traffic noise is a problem here despite the building materials. Better than their predecessor, a paranoid fundamentalist Christian who expected all of us to vote conservative and is clearly anti anything gay, though himself a suspected closet case. Of course I`m not mentioning any names here. The allegedly Christian organization that runs my building is incredibly thin-skinned towards criticism not to mention extremely vindictive, especially towards any of their tenants who do not love them unconditionally.
There also remains the ongoing nuisance of loud music being played by the superannuated adolescents living in the hard-to-house facility next door. Yes, Gentle Reader, I have opted to stay home and relax and co-exist with the many inconveniences of having to live cheek-by-jowl with inconsiderate idiots in a building run by nasty Christian hypocrite idiots (though the building managers themselves are pretty awesome ) and sleeping in a bed where there still lurks a leftover vestige of that bloodsucking threat and I still half expect to come through the next two weeks feeling rested and energized.
And you know something, Gentle Reader? That is exactly what is going to happen. Right now, this evening, I am down with a brief case of Spoilt Rich Kid Syndrome. My living situation may not be perfect but it is tolerable. I have a place to live that I can afford even though I subsist on an incredibly low income in one of the most incredibly expensive cities in the world. I pay only thirty percent of my monthly income on rent, sometimes less than that. The noise isn't that bad and upper management leaves me alone if I leave them alone and the bedbugs are going away since it is a gradual process getting rid of them.
One day life will be perfect. Until that day I am still going to have a fairly good time.
See how easy it is talking myself out of a depression?
Thursday 23 June 2016
Wisdom
I remember one of my last conversations with a certain cousin. We did wind up seeing each other again about five years later, but like everyone else in my family this one has completely forgotten me. I was at a Thanksgiving dinner in his home and he was kind enough to give me a lift home afterward. I was forty-one, just entering middle age. I cannot remember what we were talking about but I did mention something that took me quite by surprise, as I am prone at times to blurting out something wise and profound without having a clue of what I am talking about. This was one of those times. To my cousin I said "We spend the first half of our lives learning what the questions are, and the second (last) half learning how to ask them."
I am now in the second (or last) half of my life. I would like here to examine this homemade little proverb, perhaps test it a little. What are some of those questions I spent my first four or five decades learning about? Perhaps to start, how about, why am I here? I never really asked that question because it didn't occur to me to ask it. I was still learning how to ask it. I was so busy coping with life and trying to survive and learn from my mistakes that I really didn't have time for a lot of existential angst, except for the lame college student version that really doesn't convey a lot of meaning. And when we're in our twenties we really take ourselves and life way too seriously to be able to treat things with the gravity that they merit.
In my mid-forties, while going through one of my worst crises ever, while coping with PTSD and homelessness followed by inadequate housing and extreme poverty I found myself asking that question, why am I here, in a little, frightened, tiny little voice. Then one day I was sitting up in my little room on the roof of a house I was sharing with four other dysfunctional men. I was surrounded by windows and my room was full of my paintings, canvases and paints. Even though I wasn't well, and not able to work, I was painting, showing and selling my art, writing a novel and writing letters for Amnesty International. I felt a strange sense of oneness and connectedness with everything and everyone. This was pre-911 and the tragedy of the attack on the World Trade Centre and its horrible fallout ended up shattering for me this sense of beauty and wholeness. I have only recently recovered it.
So one day, I was up in my tiny room of windows, painting and asking, what is my purpose in life? I was learning how to ask the question. In a tiny, half-frightened kind of voice. Then I saw through the window a little white feather floating on the wind and I thought of Hildegarde Von Bingen's words "a feather on the breath of God." I felt so moved by this little insight that I wrote a letter about it to a friend and mailed it to her. Even though the year was 2000 or 2001 I still didn't have internet so I wrote snail mail. It was also during this time that I found a white eagle feather, and that was when I knew that, in the words of Julian of Norwich, "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."
I understood that joy was going to be the key word of my life. The joy that no one could take from me, the joy of God, the joy of the wind of the Holy Spirit, the joy of the feather bourn on the breath of God.
I have not always remembered this. I have often forgotten. But now I am remembering again and I cling to the hope that this time I will be slow to forget.
I am now in the second (or last) half of my life. I would like here to examine this homemade little proverb, perhaps test it a little. What are some of those questions I spent my first four or five decades learning about? Perhaps to start, how about, why am I here? I never really asked that question because it didn't occur to me to ask it. I was still learning how to ask it. I was so busy coping with life and trying to survive and learn from my mistakes that I really didn't have time for a lot of existential angst, except for the lame college student version that really doesn't convey a lot of meaning. And when we're in our twenties we really take ourselves and life way too seriously to be able to treat things with the gravity that they merit.
In my mid-forties, while going through one of my worst crises ever, while coping with PTSD and homelessness followed by inadequate housing and extreme poverty I found myself asking that question, why am I here, in a little, frightened, tiny little voice. Then one day I was sitting up in my little room on the roof of a house I was sharing with four other dysfunctional men. I was surrounded by windows and my room was full of my paintings, canvases and paints. Even though I wasn't well, and not able to work, I was painting, showing and selling my art, writing a novel and writing letters for Amnesty International. I felt a strange sense of oneness and connectedness with everything and everyone. This was pre-911 and the tragedy of the attack on the World Trade Centre and its horrible fallout ended up shattering for me this sense of beauty and wholeness. I have only recently recovered it.
So one day, I was up in my tiny room of windows, painting and asking, what is my purpose in life? I was learning how to ask the question. In a tiny, half-frightened kind of voice. Then I saw through the window a little white feather floating on the wind and I thought of Hildegarde Von Bingen's words "a feather on the breath of God." I felt so moved by this little insight that I wrote a letter about it to a friend and mailed it to her. Even though the year was 2000 or 2001 I still didn't have internet so I wrote snail mail. It was also during this time that I found a white eagle feather, and that was when I knew that, in the words of Julian of Norwich, "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."
I understood that joy was going to be the key word of my life. The joy that no one could take from me, the joy of God, the joy of the wind of the Holy Spirit, the joy of the feather bourn on the breath of God.
I have not always remembered this. I have often forgotten. But now I am remembering again and I cling to the hope that this time I will be slow to forget.
Wednesday 22 June 2016
Working From Home Today
First, a message to Microsoft, if any of their spies or minions are reading this. Bring me back Windows 7! Now! I am sick and tired of my Skype page suddenly appearing when I am writing this blog, I am sick and tired of my text magically shrinking and expanding, I am sick and tired of entire pages of text suddenly deleting themselves, I am sick and tired of punctuation problems and I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I discovered another bedbug in my sheets at two am last night and new bites on my skin so I got dressed and tried to get back to sleep but on top of the bed covers. Since I couldn`t really get back to sleep I got up at 3:45, had my shower, cleaned the apartment, had breakfast and did some work on the art course I am preparing for some of my clients this fall. It is going to be about the Group of Seven and their use of colour.
At 5:30 am I went back to sleep, more or less, while listening to the morning news program on the CBC Radio One, and lay there more or less for almost four hours. I got up, feeling fairly well-rested, made a pot of coffee and did two more hours of work on the art course. I phoned my building manager to communicate about the bedbugs and he is supportive and sympathetic.
At 11:30 I got on the bus where I chatted in Spanish with my Honduran neighbour, got off in the rich area and walked three miles to one of my favourite cafes. During some of the walk I sang, then I practiced my Spanish on my cell phone, talking to my imaginary friend, Fulano, through my voice mail service. I had a pleasant hour and a quarter in the café where I was working on a bird drawing, a purplish-backed jay from Mexico:
Nice looking birdie, eh?
I also had an enjoyable chat with the barista, the sister of the owner, a lady of around my age. We were talking about how much the work culture has changed because of globalization and how difficult it has become to cope with the changes. Then I walked another two miles to one of the offices where I work to drop off the month's paperwork. I get paid only four hours worth by these people since they always seem to keep me severely underemployed. Since I am taking two weeks off next week and the week after, I am scrambling like mad to get all my ducks in a row.
I took the bus back home and waited around forty minutes in the Mexican café where I waited for a friend of mine. I got some more art done and then we had a great visit, touching a lot on matters of theology, human nature and human perversity. He walked me home where I resumed another three hours work on the art project while making and eating dinner, pausing to read the paper, finishing the month's paperwork and hoping to have a few minutes to work on a painting. I even managed to squeeze in a few minutes to write this blog post.
I discovered another bedbug in my sheets at two am last night and new bites on my skin so I got dressed and tried to get back to sleep but on top of the bed covers. Since I couldn`t really get back to sleep I got up at 3:45, had my shower, cleaned the apartment, had breakfast and did some work on the art course I am preparing for some of my clients this fall. It is going to be about the Group of Seven and their use of colour.
At 5:30 am I went back to sleep, more or less, while listening to the morning news program on the CBC Radio One, and lay there more or less for almost four hours. I got up, feeling fairly well-rested, made a pot of coffee and did two more hours of work on the art course. I phoned my building manager to communicate about the bedbugs and he is supportive and sympathetic.
At 11:30 I got on the bus where I chatted in Spanish with my Honduran neighbour, got off in the rich area and walked three miles to one of my favourite cafes. During some of the walk I sang, then I practiced my Spanish on my cell phone, talking to my imaginary friend, Fulano, through my voice mail service. I had a pleasant hour and a quarter in the café where I was working on a bird drawing, a purplish-backed jay from Mexico:
Nice looking birdie, eh?I also had an enjoyable chat with the barista, the sister of the owner, a lady of around my age. We were talking about how much the work culture has changed because of globalization and how difficult it has become to cope with the changes. Then I walked another two miles to one of the offices where I work to drop off the month's paperwork. I get paid only four hours worth by these people since they always seem to keep me severely underemployed. Since I am taking two weeks off next week and the week after, I am scrambling like mad to get all my ducks in a row.
I took the bus back home and waited around forty minutes in the Mexican café where I waited for a friend of mine. I got some more art done and then we had a great visit, touching a lot on matters of theology, human nature and human perversity. He walked me home where I resumed another three hours work on the art project while making and eating dinner, pausing to read the paper, finishing the month's paperwork and hoping to have a few minutes to work on a painting. I even managed to squeeze in a few minutes to write this blog post.
Tuesday 21 June 2016
Burn Out
This is going to be a short post, Gentle Reader. I am simultaneously bored, tired, exhausted and fed up with the world as presented by the news every day. On the other hand I am often thrilled, inspired and downright amused by the daily life that I see when I am out in the world. I can stay home and see or listen to the news and become so paralyzed with terror that I will never leave my little apartment again. Or I can go out in the real world where I will run into people who are selfish, annoying, friendly, kind, clueless, inconsiderate, funny, beautiful, ugly, and all of the above. People just like me.
On the bus today a young person offered me a seat in the front. Later someone came on who needed it more than me so I gave her the seat. The young person next to me promptly got up and gave me her seat. Then I got up to give it to a gentleman a bit older than me.
I really believe that there are more good people in the world than others, though the toxic influence of evil can be something deadly and terrifying. Let's not ignore our shadow but take care not to glorify the darkness. Let us each in our way light a candle against the darkness, let us look for and reach for the good, the light of Christ burning in each other, in ourselves and in our world.
On the bus today a young person offered me a seat in the front. Later someone came on who needed it more than me so I gave her the seat. The young person next to me promptly got up and gave me her seat. Then I got up to give it to a gentleman a bit older than me.
I really believe that there are more good people in the world than others, though the toxic influence of evil can be something deadly and terrifying. Let's not ignore our shadow but take care not to glorify the darkness. Let us each in our way light a candle against the darkness, let us look for and reach for the good, the light of Christ burning in each other, in ourselves and in our world.
Monday 20 June 2016
The Entitlement Of Pleasure
If it feels good, do it. Remember that little proverb? The Sixties were pretty good to you, eh? The Seventies, too. It was a kneejerk reaction against any constraint of repression, prudishness or inhibition. It suggested a joyous abandonment of all responsibility, of releasing and channeling our inner two year old. It was the clarion call of the sexual revolution, and of all things sex drugs and rock and roll. The hedonists' war cry. The triumph of the reptilian brain.
Of course the reptilian brain, also known as the amygdala, has another side too. I believe it is called fear. Fight or flight, as they say. All I have to say is "Donald Trump." See? It works.
I mentioned yesterday a certain unfortunate douchebag (and I use that term very loosely) living in the building next door and his preference for playing his bass-thudding music on the loud side. Not a nice person and it has taken two visits from police in as many days to persuade him to not play his stereo at an unreasonable volume. He appeared to be playing brinkmanship, so determined was he to keep cranking it up no matter how it affected those around us. This is what I call the entitlement of pleasure. No matter how it impacts those around us, or the environment, we are going to keep doing this because it is pleasurable to us; and it is not only pleasurable but it helps us forget our misery and emptiness, it staunches our pain, the pain of our vacuous, soulless existence. It helps us forget all the pain and misery that life has visited upon us.
This war of hedonist entitlement is waged on all sides for all kinds of reasons and by all kinds of parties: the French insist on their right to foie gras, It is a very cruel way to raise and feed ducks but the descendants of Napoleon must have their pleasure and pleasure as an entitlement is deeply embedded in the French collective unconscious. A sidewalk smoker, because of his addiction and also because of the existential salve he experiences from lighting up and inhaling, is going to forget entirely not only the wrath he is visiting upon his health and lifespan but on everyone around him in breathing range. And there are also the sex offenders. Not just those pathetic men who wait in the bushes to expose themselves to unsuspecting young women, but men in general, or those still so brainwashed by the myth of patriarchy that their piggish behaviour is construed as their natural right as men to their sexual pleasure.
Even though we often and too easily behave like selfish hedonists I don't believe that that is all we are. We are more than our amygdala. I could write of any number of heroic acts that give the lie to this nonsense that we are basically vile, selfish and evil and nothing else. But here I will mention but one little example of the triumph of altruism: today in the paper I read about a number of American Muslims donating blood to the surviving victims of the Orlando massacre. None of these Muslims, unlike the shooting survivors, are gay, since in the US gay men are not allowed to donate blood.
Go figure.
Of course the reptilian brain, also known as the amygdala, has another side too. I believe it is called fear. Fight or flight, as they say. All I have to say is "Donald Trump." See? It works.
I mentioned yesterday a certain unfortunate douchebag (and I use that term very loosely) living in the building next door and his preference for playing his bass-thudding music on the loud side. Not a nice person and it has taken two visits from police in as many days to persuade him to not play his stereo at an unreasonable volume. He appeared to be playing brinkmanship, so determined was he to keep cranking it up no matter how it affected those around us. This is what I call the entitlement of pleasure. No matter how it impacts those around us, or the environment, we are going to keep doing this because it is pleasurable to us; and it is not only pleasurable but it helps us forget our misery and emptiness, it staunches our pain, the pain of our vacuous, soulless existence. It helps us forget all the pain and misery that life has visited upon us.
This war of hedonist entitlement is waged on all sides for all kinds of reasons and by all kinds of parties: the French insist on their right to foie gras, It is a very cruel way to raise and feed ducks but the descendants of Napoleon must have their pleasure and pleasure as an entitlement is deeply embedded in the French collective unconscious. A sidewalk smoker, because of his addiction and also because of the existential salve he experiences from lighting up and inhaling, is going to forget entirely not only the wrath he is visiting upon his health and lifespan but on everyone around him in breathing range. And there are also the sex offenders. Not just those pathetic men who wait in the bushes to expose themselves to unsuspecting young women, but men in general, or those still so brainwashed by the myth of patriarchy that their piggish behaviour is construed as their natural right as men to their sexual pleasure.
Even though we often and too easily behave like selfish hedonists I don't believe that that is all we are. We are more than our amygdala. I could write of any number of heroic acts that give the lie to this nonsense that we are basically vile, selfish and evil and nothing else. But here I will mention but one little example of the triumph of altruism: today in the paper I read about a number of American Muslims donating blood to the surviving victims of the Orlando massacre. None of these Muslims, unlike the shooting survivors, are gay, since in the US gay men are not allowed to donate blood.
Go figure.
Sunday 19 June 2016
Clueless (And Proud Of It)
I think that is how I would describe a lot of people. Sometimes that is how I could be described. Examples abound: for example the stupid douchebag in the building next door who, after getting a visit from police last night still insists on cranking up his stereo making it necessary to call the people in blue uniforms yet again. The guy on staff has told me to do this, since he will only tell this guy once. So, I am keeping my window closed and the fan on and wearing earplugs to shut out the thudding bass of this asshole's stereo. I really do not understand why they allow people who live in small apartments without soundproofing to have stereos unless they could somehow put a limit on the maximum volume capacity or simply confiscate the bloody noise machines and give the imbeciles their own personal iPods. Problem solved, but people are not in the habit of thinking creatively, now, are they? I think the problem tenant might have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. If you are not familiar with this serious mental health/cognitive condition it is brought on by mothers using alcohol during pregnancy causing brain damage to the developing fetus. The damaged child that is born will have serious behaviour and cognitive problems for the rest of his life, and all because he had the misfortune of having for a mother a sad but convincing argument for reviving the practice of eugenics. One of the features of suffering from this syndrome is an absolute inability of learning from mistakes or consequences so that they end up ratifying Einstein's theory, not of relativity but insanity: making the same mistake over and over and each time expecting a different result. I suppose I should feel sorry for him and occasionally I do, but only just a little. For now I am using earplugs and if he is still pounding his stereo away once I've finished writing this screed then maybe I will call the police. He is likely going to be evicted and for this reason I do feel sorry for him because housing (he lives in a social services building for the hard to house) is scarce in this incredibly expensive giant Chinese laundry of a city and someone like him could easily end up back on the street. Something I don't want on my conscience.
It isn't just street seasoned losers and addicts like my neighbour who behave like they haven't a clue. This morning I was drawing in my sketchbook inside a café where I usually meet a friend of mine. There were three transit attendants (the Skytrain station is on the premises) sitting around having their beverage and snack for their extended coffee break. Everything was in disposable, but non-recyclable paper and plastic containers. Like everyone else they don't seem to have yet clued in that we are in the middle of a planetary crisis of Biblical proportions with climate change due to global warming. They didn't need take out and they could have just as easily asked for reusable ceramic mugs and ceramic plates that are available in this establishment. They weren't going anywhere and therefore there was no need on their part to add to the landfill and contribute to further global warming. You cannot tell people like that. They get defensive and really, they just don't care. These are the same people who drive everywhere and usually eat tonnes of red meat (they were all overweight so I'm sure they don't walk a lot and heaven forbid that they be passengers on the same transit system that employs them)
I know that the message is getting out, slowly, about climate change. What hasn't really sunk in is how each one of us through our own laziness and bad lifestyle habits bear some of the brunt of responsibility. We all seem to think that we're invisible, that we don't leave a footprint and that anything that we do is inconsequential. I see this as the next great challenge of the Leap Forward to stop climate change: convincing the clueless to get off their ass and do their part.
It isn't just street seasoned losers and addicts like my neighbour who behave like they haven't a clue. This morning I was drawing in my sketchbook inside a café where I usually meet a friend of mine. There were three transit attendants (the Skytrain station is on the premises) sitting around having their beverage and snack for their extended coffee break. Everything was in disposable, but non-recyclable paper and plastic containers. Like everyone else they don't seem to have yet clued in that we are in the middle of a planetary crisis of Biblical proportions with climate change due to global warming. They didn't need take out and they could have just as easily asked for reusable ceramic mugs and ceramic plates that are available in this establishment. They weren't going anywhere and therefore there was no need on their part to add to the landfill and contribute to further global warming. You cannot tell people like that. They get defensive and really, they just don't care. These are the same people who drive everywhere and usually eat tonnes of red meat (they were all overweight so I'm sure they don't walk a lot and heaven forbid that they be passengers on the same transit system that employs them)
I know that the message is getting out, slowly, about climate change. What hasn't really sunk in is how each one of us through our own laziness and bad lifestyle habits bear some of the brunt of responsibility. We all seem to think that we're invisible, that we don't leave a footprint and that anything that we do is inconsequential. I see this as the next great challenge of the Leap Forward to stop climate change: convincing the clueless to get off their ass and do their part.
Saturday 18 June 2016
Just What Was Said (Or, Why You Should Never Piss Off A Blogger)
I will translate from Spanish to English my recent correspondence with the ex-friends I have mentioned in my previous post:
From me:
When I told you about my tragic history with my father and brother and the support my father gave my brother in order to maintain his drug addiction instead of helping me when I was in need you were offended with me for telling you this. This is not the reaction of a friend and I would prefer to have as friends those who are not offended when they hear about my sufferings. So, we will suspend the friendship unless you want to apologize for your lack of compassion. Till then, goodbye.
When or if you decide to be a real friend then we will talk again. Your reaction to me during our last visit was hurtful and offensive to me.
From el Fulano (Spanish for what's its face):
Me:
I am afraid that you have both exploited me from the beginning and that you never considered me a friend but someone to use to your advantage. Since you found other friends that are more compatible with your social class you completely abandoned me, perhaps because I am an embarrassment to you and no longer useful to you. I believe that you planned to get what you could from me, then leave me and this is what you've done. Your not communicating with me doesn't sit well with me.
If I can help your memory. During our last visit in the Mexican café you asked me about my family. I disclosed to you some very cruel things that my family had done to me. Then you became offended that I would tell you such things because you found them upsetting. Instead of showing empathy you judged me for the abuse of my family. If you want to talk to me in person about the situation that is fine with me. But often I have invited you to visit and you have refused, not just because you are busy but because you haven't felt like seeing me. I am not ending the friendship, but until we do something to resolve the situation I am suspending it. And I hope that we are able to resolve things because I don't enjoy losing friends unless they are not real friends and that they are not lying bastards. And I hope you can prove me to be mistaken. I don't hate you, but I do feel very disappointed in you both. And I hope that we can we do something to save the friendship if you value me as a friend. If not...Goodbye.
Fulano:
You reaction is really pathetic. We don't deserve to be called manipulators, exploiters or snobs, Moreover, the insinuation that we are bastards and liars. And all because I don't reply to your emails right away and don't attend to your requests. Never have I demanded of anyone that they make themselves available to me as friends and never have they insulted me when I haven't responded to their demands. I asked you to be patient with us put I see that patience is not one of your virtues. And where does this story come from that I was offended because you told me about your family life? You must have quite an imagination.
Your accusations are offensive and insulting. I don't believe that I recall having asked anything of you before nor after arriving in your city. Simply we accepted whatever you offered us, for which we thanked you at the time. We have come to know other persons who have helped us move and to meet more people. None of them demand anything from us in exchange and we have a very good relationship with all of them.
I can understand that you are disappointed but not in any way am I going to accept being discredited like this. And after insulting us you offer your indulgence, as the morally superior person that you are, and you expect that we are going to get down on our knees and ask for your forgiveness. The last thing I want to do now is spend anytime at all around you, just in case I am tempted to exploit you and use you then throw you out like a filthy rag. It's your word against ours that you don't hate us.
Me:
A real friend, instead of reacting like this, would wonder if there is merit to the accusation and instead of responding in such an offended manner, would agree to start a mature and respectful dialogue in order to save the friendship and perhaps to see if there is any truth or if it is a misunderstanding. When I received similar accusations from others I have always tried to search for the means of reconciliation as well as admitting my own sins against the other party. And if I am mistaken about you why not speak in a respectful manner in order to resolve and reconcile? I have given you the opportunity to do this and it is still open. And if I have misunderstood you and have misjudged you then I ask your forgiveness. Your email suggests that maybe you are being hurt by the truth and that you are angry that I have exposed your agenda with me, if indeed such an agenda has ever existed. I don't know for sure.
I have not placed on you guys any unreasonable expectations. I only know that you have not been transparent with me. I don't think that you have intentionally exploited me but maybe in a passive way.
Since You have shown me your true colours I see that until there is a change in your attitude towards me I prefer that our friendship remain suspended.
Concerning my imagination of the issues about my family and your offended reaction: the problem isn't with my imagination but with your very selective memory. I think that you are not telling me the truth in order to end the friendship instead of facing your unacceptable behaviour.
I have no patience with this kind of nonsense.
Your very rude response shows me that you do not consider me a friend and probably never have seen me as a real friend. I hope I'm wrong but your tone suggests something else.
I would also like to remind you that I am old enough to be your father and therefore I deserve some respect from you. Concerning my moral superiority, maybe the problem is in your own lack of a moral compass, just like a lot of the poorly raised imbeciles of your generation!
I also ask that you do not contact me for a year and if I receive anything from you in the meantime I will delete it unread!
Goodbye.
Moral of the story:
read the fine print and don't hang out with narcissists.
Friday 17 June 2016
Liar
I hate being lied to. I always try to be honest though I probably never get it right either even if I have often been justifiably accused of being morally superior (Moi?) I find it a touch ironic that the people who accuse me of moral superiority are themselves usually narcissists lacking a moral compass. For me one of the most offensive lies is the effort to completely deny responsibility for an injury that has been dealt. This happened to me quite recently.
Sometime in April I had my last visit with an ex-friend. This is a fellow from Spain whom along with his Mexican wife I helped a lot getting established here in Canada as recent immigrants. When they abandoned me for their new younger and fashionable friends I really became suspicious. I did not expect them to be available to visit often but they seemed to have all but forgotten me. When I raised this concern they, especially the douchebag husband, became particularly offended with me for making demands, usually an indication that says more about them than it does about me.
During our final visit I disclosed to him when he asked some very sad information about my family history. I mentioned that my father was funding my brother's (his preferred son) cocaine habit and this was his excuse for not helping me financially when I was going through a crisis of homelessness (I am not a drug-user by the way, should you be inclined to know, Gentle Reader). Then I went on to say that my father finalized his rejection of me and within a couple of years was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. By this time I was unable to contact him. I didn't learn of his death in 2009 till three years later in 2012, from an aunt who phoned me for the first time in decades and from whom I have heard nothing since. My Spanish ex-friend expressed outrage and horror, not that my family had treated me so shabbily, but that I would tell him something so awful and how dare I upset him.
A few days ago I sent Spanish Douchebag an email expressing regret that he had spoken to me in this manner instead of showing some sense of compassion or empathy. He replied expressing complete ignorance of this conversation and I must be making it up. I tried again to enlighten him also informing him and his wife that they basically exploited and used me for my usefulness to them and have since abandoned me now that I am no longer useful to them. I also elucidated in detail our last conversation. He responded with a particularly abusive email. I replied taking the high road and took care not to exchange insult for insult. I also told him that he was really lying about not remembering what he said to me about feeling offended with me for telling him about what my family had put me through, told him that he has shown me his true colours and that considering that I am old enough to be his father he might speak to me with a little more respect. I also told him that I did not want to hear from him again for a year (or longer) and any email I get from him in the meantime will be deleted unread.
While losing friends this way is always sad and upsetting I feel like I have been set free from this lying douchebag (in Mexican Spanish Pendejo, in Spain Capullo) and never again do I have to encumber myself with such a lying narcissist.
This kind of lying to cover your ass is completely unacceptable. I received this treatment several months ago as well from a coworker. At a staff retreat, with another coworker she was looking at some things with my supervisor on his iPhone. I asked them what they were looking at. She tartly replied that they were looking at pornography. Later I confronted her about the inappropriateness of what she said. She denied using the word pornography. I didn't exactly let her get away with it. Let's just say that for a few months afterward our relations at the office were very Antarctic. Now that we are working together again on behalf of a client she has since praised my work style describing me as someone who knows where to draw the line.
Go figure.
In the meantime, Gentle Reader, let us consider these eternal words first spoken by Our Lord Jesus Christ. "The truth shall set you free."
Sometime in April I had my last visit with an ex-friend. This is a fellow from Spain whom along with his Mexican wife I helped a lot getting established here in Canada as recent immigrants. When they abandoned me for their new younger and fashionable friends I really became suspicious. I did not expect them to be available to visit often but they seemed to have all but forgotten me. When I raised this concern they, especially the douchebag husband, became particularly offended with me for making demands, usually an indication that says more about them than it does about me.
During our final visit I disclosed to him when he asked some very sad information about my family history. I mentioned that my father was funding my brother's (his preferred son) cocaine habit and this was his excuse for not helping me financially when I was going through a crisis of homelessness (I am not a drug-user by the way, should you be inclined to know, Gentle Reader). Then I went on to say that my father finalized his rejection of me and within a couple of years was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. By this time I was unable to contact him. I didn't learn of his death in 2009 till three years later in 2012, from an aunt who phoned me for the first time in decades and from whom I have heard nothing since. My Spanish ex-friend expressed outrage and horror, not that my family had treated me so shabbily, but that I would tell him something so awful and how dare I upset him.
A few days ago I sent Spanish Douchebag an email expressing regret that he had spoken to me in this manner instead of showing some sense of compassion or empathy. He replied expressing complete ignorance of this conversation and I must be making it up. I tried again to enlighten him also informing him and his wife that they basically exploited and used me for my usefulness to them and have since abandoned me now that I am no longer useful to them. I also elucidated in detail our last conversation. He responded with a particularly abusive email. I replied taking the high road and took care not to exchange insult for insult. I also told him that he was really lying about not remembering what he said to me about feeling offended with me for telling him about what my family had put me through, told him that he has shown me his true colours and that considering that I am old enough to be his father he might speak to me with a little more respect. I also told him that I did not want to hear from him again for a year (or longer) and any email I get from him in the meantime will be deleted unread.
While losing friends this way is always sad and upsetting I feel like I have been set free from this lying douchebag (in Mexican Spanish Pendejo, in Spain Capullo) and never again do I have to encumber myself with such a lying narcissist.
This kind of lying to cover your ass is completely unacceptable. I received this treatment several months ago as well from a coworker. At a staff retreat, with another coworker she was looking at some things with my supervisor on his iPhone. I asked them what they were looking at. She tartly replied that they were looking at pornography. Later I confronted her about the inappropriateness of what she said. She denied using the word pornography. I didn't exactly let her get away with it. Let's just say that for a few months afterward our relations at the office were very Antarctic. Now that we are working together again on behalf of a client she has since praised my work style describing me as someone who knows where to draw the line.
Go figure.
In the meantime, Gentle Reader, let us consider these eternal words first spoken by Our Lord Jesus Christ. "The truth shall set you free."
Thursday 16 June 2016
Putting Your Best Face Forward
It was hard not to eavesdrop. This woman was loud. With her two coffee klatch middle aged friends in the upscale neighbourhood coffee shop they all wore privilege and entitlement like a not very subtle perfume. The principal spokesperson, the loud woman, spoke in rather a drawling, but polished bray, a fifty-ish version of the popular but conniving and very capricious bitchy girl who occasionally got laid by the captain of the high school football team. I think I missed not one single word during the hour or so they were there, occupying my usual table in the back with the comfy chairs and I did wait rather impatiently for them to leave since I really wanted my seat back. I certainly wasn't going to expect it. It might have been my favourite chair and perhaps I had a rather neurotic sense of personal feng shui wrapped up with it, or could it be better called a sense of entitlement? But my name is not on that chair and I am not going to expect it to be available every time I want it.
From time to time I would look behind me to see if they were starting to wrap up. It was a very long hour. Their conversation, which was rather the loud woman's preamble, went from one stage of gossip to another. She said something about visiting a family member unannounced, to surprise everyone and to see if everything was going as it ought. I at first imagined she was still referring to her tall athletic daughter. Then she said something about a paper cup containing pills and I wondered if she has a child in mental health care. The word senior's centre came up and eventually I clued in that she was talking about her aged mother. The whole conversation took on rather a sombre tone and the women, especially the loud one, all seemed to be speaking, quite eloquently, from their hearts. The loud one mentioned that people often call her a bitch but really she just likes to speak her mind.
I have generally thought of the word bitch as meaning something a bit different: a nasty, offensive and scolding woman with a bad attitude and a real mean streak, or something like that. I never thought of bitchiness as meaning the same thing as being honest. But isn't that the Canadian way? Women are generally called bitches and men are assholes (they all come from Uranus!) but really if those rather sexually differentiated slurs just refer to plain unadulterated honesty and not horrible, mean and selfish behaviour then I have probably been living with my head buried in the sand. I have always been honest. Does this make me an asshole? Or a bitch? Or just honest? But honesty, in social contexts anyway, is not generally looked favourably upon and most of us lie through our teeth to one another, if only to save face, our sorry little hienies and to make us look good to others.
Are we really all lying scoundrels? And really, is it such a horrible thing to not be brutally honest so as to not hurt another's feelings? But what about those who lie kindly about your creative abilities, and after being lied to enough by well-intentioned others we come to believe ourselves to be the best chef since Hell's Kitchen (and that guy is an asshole if ever one existed on the face of this planet), the greatest artist since Picasso (and that's not saying a lot) or the best singer since Leonard Cohen (now, there's a "musician" who's really believed a lot of kind lies about his singing voice though he does shine as a poet.)
I think we really need to redeem truth-telling so that it is no longer treated as a social sin, but that we can also learn to speak the truth in love, or in such a way that we are really taking the best possible care of one another. The truth hurts the worst when it is clear that the one speaking it doesn't love us. Which is to say, Gentle Reader, rather than put our best face forward as we often do hear in nice polite Canada (until they get on the hockey rink) perhaps we really need to do is to learn how to love. Easy, isn't it? Like cutting grass with cuticle scissors? No excuses!!!
From time to time I would look behind me to see if they were starting to wrap up. It was a very long hour. Their conversation, which was rather the loud woman's preamble, went from one stage of gossip to another. She said something about visiting a family member unannounced, to surprise everyone and to see if everything was going as it ought. I at first imagined she was still referring to her tall athletic daughter. Then she said something about a paper cup containing pills and I wondered if she has a child in mental health care. The word senior's centre came up and eventually I clued in that she was talking about her aged mother. The whole conversation took on rather a sombre tone and the women, especially the loud one, all seemed to be speaking, quite eloquently, from their hearts. The loud one mentioned that people often call her a bitch but really she just likes to speak her mind.
I have generally thought of the word bitch as meaning something a bit different: a nasty, offensive and scolding woman with a bad attitude and a real mean streak, or something like that. I never thought of bitchiness as meaning the same thing as being honest. But isn't that the Canadian way? Women are generally called bitches and men are assholes (they all come from Uranus!) but really if those rather sexually differentiated slurs just refer to plain unadulterated honesty and not horrible, mean and selfish behaviour then I have probably been living with my head buried in the sand. I have always been honest. Does this make me an asshole? Or a bitch? Or just honest? But honesty, in social contexts anyway, is not generally looked favourably upon and most of us lie through our teeth to one another, if only to save face, our sorry little hienies and to make us look good to others.
Are we really all lying scoundrels? And really, is it such a horrible thing to not be brutally honest so as to not hurt another's feelings? But what about those who lie kindly about your creative abilities, and after being lied to enough by well-intentioned others we come to believe ourselves to be the best chef since Hell's Kitchen (and that guy is an asshole if ever one existed on the face of this planet), the greatest artist since Picasso (and that's not saying a lot) or the best singer since Leonard Cohen (now, there's a "musician" who's really believed a lot of kind lies about his singing voice though he does shine as a poet.)
I think we really need to redeem truth-telling so that it is no longer treated as a social sin, but that we can also learn to speak the truth in love, or in such a way that we are really taking the best possible care of one another. The truth hurts the worst when it is clear that the one speaking it doesn't love us. Which is to say, Gentle Reader, rather than put our best face forward as we often do hear in nice polite Canada (until they get on the hockey rink) perhaps we really need to do is to learn how to love. Easy, isn't it? Like cutting grass with cuticle scissors? No excuses!!!
Wednesday 15 June 2016
Exhaustion
Tomorrow I have a sick day off. I get paid for it. I have exhaustion from this trial by bedbugs that has been afflicting me and my apartment these last three weeks or so. The exterminator was here today to do follow up. Apparently my unit is now bug free but he has warned me to take certain mysterious precautions for reasons he would not tell me (a trained entomologist as well as exterminator, there is apparently a lot of arcane knowledge about the dear little buggies that I do not know, cannot know, am not able to know, have never known, never will know, and likely would never want to know) I arrived home from a meeting with a supervisor at work just in time to see my apartment door open and my building manager helping the exterminator tear my bed apart. What a lovely sight to come home to. I helped finish the job and listened with bemusement at some of his recommendations, given that my subsidized apartment is tiny and there is no room for the cushions that are on my bed except on my bed.
I am glad to report that last night, for the first time, I wasn't bitten. I am still going to bed fully clothed for the next few nights and will be sleeping on top of the bed and not between the sheets. It kind of sucks but if I do get bitten it just happens around my wrists and neck. All going well I might return to sleeping normally by the weekend.
I have been feeling like a human buffet. My sleep has been generally horrible and all the extra work of cleaning and sorting and dealing with things has added to my tiredness. I have so far succeeded in not transferring my difficulties at work onto my clients. I have also been very careful not to make my supervisor's life miserable for giving me the pencil crayons that one of our clients had found while dumpster diving without first disclosing to me where he had found them. I might add here, Gentle Reader, that it was just a couple of days, if that, after bringing home the pencil crayons that little bugs began to appear in my suite, near the pencil crayons. I didn't know they were bedbug larvae. I didn't know anything in those days about bedbugs. Now I know more than I'll ever want to.
I haven't had to work a lot today. I had that one meeting with my supervisor who is also my supervisor's supervisor who very conveniently has been cancelling our meetings the last three weeks since learning that she had helped me get bedbugs. At least I get paid for the cancellations, two hours
a pop. After the exterminator left and I was able to put my apartment back to rights (he might have stayed behind long enough to help clean up the mess he'd made) I had lunch and worked on an art project for work next fall, a series of art classes and presentations about the Group of Seven. Then I went for a long walk and bought groceries. While stopping at a produce market I noticed a baby unattended in a stroller out on the sidewalk. While I was selecting fruit from the outdoor display I kept a careful eye. There was no one present. I went inside the store and asked the woman being waited on if that was her baby. She said it was and she looked suddenly worried. I said the kid was alright, and I was just concerned. I didn`t have the heart to lecture her about child neglect so I stayed outside near the stroller, very slowly picking out fruit, keeping an eye on this baby whose stroller could easily have fitted through the door inside the store where she belonged with her mother. One of the staff looked out for a few seconds to see that things were okay. Once the mother came out-she had been in there for quite a long time- I felt I could go inside and pay for my purchase. Maybe I should have said something.
I took the bus home and found that I only had enough energy to lie down and stare out into space while listening to the CBC. I eventually did get up to write this blog and make supper and eat it. Even though I am exhausted I still need to be taken care of and I still need to take care of someone so I have made that person to be taken care of myself and I am now feeling strangely and mysteriously fulfilled. I look forward to doing very little tomorrow.
I am glad to report that last night, for the first time, I wasn't bitten. I am still going to bed fully clothed for the next few nights and will be sleeping on top of the bed and not between the sheets. It kind of sucks but if I do get bitten it just happens around my wrists and neck. All going well I might return to sleeping normally by the weekend.
I have been feeling like a human buffet. My sleep has been generally horrible and all the extra work of cleaning and sorting and dealing with things has added to my tiredness. I have so far succeeded in not transferring my difficulties at work onto my clients. I have also been very careful not to make my supervisor's life miserable for giving me the pencil crayons that one of our clients had found while dumpster diving without first disclosing to me where he had found them. I might add here, Gentle Reader, that it was just a couple of days, if that, after bringing home the pencil crayons that little bugs began to appear in my suite, near the pencil crayons. I didn't know they were bedbug larvae. I didn't know anything in those days about bedbugs. Now I know more than I'll ever want to.
I haven't had to work a lot today. I had that one meeting with my supervisor who is also my supervisor's supervisor who very conveniently has been cancelling our meetings the last three weeks since learning that she had helped me get bedbugs. At least I get paid for the cancellations, two hours
a pop. After the exterminator left and I was able to put my apartment back to rights (he might have stayed behind long enough to help clean up the mess he'd made) I had lunch and worked on an art project for work next fall, a series of art classes and presentations about the Group of Seven. Then I went for a long walk and bought groceries. While stopping at a produce market I noticed a baby unattended in a stroller out on the sidewalk. While I was selecting fruit from the outdoor display I kept a careful eye. There was no one present. I went inside the store and asked the woman being waited on if that was her baby. She said it was and she looked suddenly worried. I said the kid was alright, and I was just concerned. I didn`t have the heart to lecture her about child neglect so I stayed outside near the stroller, very slowly picking out fruit, keeping an eye on this baby whose stroller could easily have fitted through the door inside the store where she belonged with her mother. One of the staff looked out for a few seconds to see that things were okay. Once the mother came out-she had been in there for quite a long time- I felt I could go inside and pay for my purchase. Maybe I should have said something.
I took the bus home and found that I only had enough energy to lie down and stare out into space while listening to the CBC. I eventually did get up to write this blog and make supper and eat it. Even though I am exhausted I still need to be taken care of and I still need to take care of someone so I have made that person to be taken care of myself and I am now feeling strangely and mysteriously fulfilled. I look forward to doing very little tomorrow.
Tuesday 14 June 2016
Seating Arrangements
Has anyone besides me noticed lately how difficult it can be to have a quiet private conversation inside a café? You mean it isn't just me? It seemed to all begin when they started introducing comfy chairs and sofas. These weren't quite the same arrangements as private tables. Perfect strangers could sit each in their own isolation sharing perhaps the same coffee table but otherwise each to their own laptop or iPhone. I had the hardest time negotiating this new arrangement. It always seemed somehow invasive either crashing someone's space or someone crashing my own space. About eleven years ago I took the plunge at a local café where I was also doing an art show. A rather sour looking older woman was occupying one of two sofa chairs with a table in between. I nervously eased my way into the vacant seat and she very sharply told me that I was not welcome there. I asked if someone else was using the chair. She said no she simply didn't want me sitting there. I explained to her tactfully that generally each chair has open season on it. She grudgingly conceded and I sat down with my book. Then she began to whistle, loudly, I imagine with the expectation that she had might as well make things as uncomfortable for me as possible. I asked her politely to stop, explaining that whistling is very irritating to me. She snorted, then stopped. She soon left.
Over the following years cafes began introducing long communal tables, making small two, three and four-seaters scarce. A quiet table alone or with one or two friends or companions became even harder to find. Neither did the comfy chairs around a coffee table or the communal tables do a blessed thing to get strangers talking to each other. Each could be his own little solitude even if a potential loving spouse or new best friend forever was touching elbows but nothing else outside of her keyboard or touch screen and would never say so much as what a yummy looking muffin you have there.
I have become a bit braver about claiming a comfy seat. But usually when there is only one person there and even then I often ask permission first unless it really seems like the other person wouldn't care. If there are two people there and they are having a conversation I will usually leave them alone. Or I will first ask permission if I don't feel like I'm being too great an imposition.
I almost always welcome all comers, even if I often do prefer my privacy. I have since had to really remind myself in the strongest possible terms that when I am in public I have to do everything I can to let go of the pretense that I am all alone. I have sometimes been pleasantly surprised, engaging in wonderful conversations with new people and even making a new friend or two. Generally I leave them alone unless I sense that they might want to chat a little, or even exchange a comment about the weather. Since I am always working on my art inside cafes people will sometimes comment on my work and this can also facilitate a pleasant visit with someone new.
On another occasion, recently, a yuppie mommy with her year old baby sat with me. I reluctantly welcomed them since one never knows whose quiet little angel will magically morph into a screaming demon. My worst expectations were realized and I had to find another seat. Even if I had a right to, Gentle Reader, I would never dream of kicking a mother and baby out of their seat. It is just not decent. She apologized, I mumbled "No worries" and resumed my art at a different table.
Now here's where I really draw the line. Today, a particularly vulnerable person with whom I work and I were having a very private conversation in a café. This person has physical challenges and needs a scooter to get around as well as having suffered far more than their due. There was one vacant armchair that held my knapsack and my sweater and for good reason. I wanted my client's right to privacy respected and I was prepared to do what I could to help guarantee this and they were disclosing to me a lot of personal information.
This old douchebag came in and demanded to use the chair. I tactfully explained that we were having a private conversation and I would like my client's privacy respected. He rudely snapped that it was his chair, demanded that I show him a business card or credentials and I told him that I was not obliged to do this, neither was I going to divulge any further information out of concern for my client's privacy. He tried to argue and I told him to get over it, twice. He went to the baristas to complain, after threatening to throw us out of the café. The nasty piece of work returned and smugly announced that he was just told he could sit with us if he wanted. I replied that when I heard this from staff then I'd let him have the chair. He must have been lying. He slunk over to another table. My client was upset and suggested we leave. I agreed. On the way out I told NPW (nasty piece of work) that I would never dream of treating him the way he had just treated us. He said something nasty in a very gloating tone. I told him he could have the whole table and my client and I left.
Now I am sure that this kind of situation is so full of variables and nuances that it would be impossible to say who was right or who was wrong. I suppose I could have compassion for NPW for having such a shrunken little soul and perhaps for having a mental disorder. Now in retrospect I am also wondering if he was showing early symptoms of Alzheimer's as he reminded me so unpleasantly of my own father shortly before he was diagnosed. He did come running over to his favourite chair as we were leaving like a dog chasing a tennis ball covered in something that dogs like to eat and humans prefer to flush down the toilet.
I really think that coffee shops owe it to their customers to show a little more foresight and thoughtfulness about how they are going to arrange seating on their premises. They might want to fill seats with bums in order to pay their overhead but by the same token customers also need a certain degree of privacy and space, even if we do happen to be in public. And I also would hope that we as patrons might one of these days learn a little humility and emotional intelligence. We live in an age of entitlement and this kind of rampant selfishness does nothing to help us thrive as a community and everything to destroy us as individuals.
Over the following years cafes began introducing long communal tables, making small two, three and four-seaters scarce. A quiet table alone or with one or two friends or companions became even harder to find. Neither did the comfy chairs around a coffee table or the communal tables do a blessed thing to get strangers talking to each other. Each could be his own little solitude even if a potential loving spouse or new best friend forever was touching elbows but nothing else outside of her keyboard or touch screen and would never say so much as what a yummy looking muffin you have there.
I have become a bit braver about claiming a comfy seat. But usually when there is only one person there and even then I often ask permission first unless it really seems like the other person wouldn't care. If there are two people there and they are having a conversation I will usually leave them alone. Or I will first ask permission if I don't feel like I'm being too great an imposition.
I almost always welcome all comers, even if I often do prefer my privacy. I have since had to really remind myself in the strongest possible terms that when I am in public I have to do everything I can to let go of the pretense that I am all alone. I have sometimes been pleasantly surprised, engaging in wonderful conversations with new people and even making a new friend or two. Generally I leave them alone unless I sense that they might want to chat a little, or even exchange a comment about the weather. Since I am always working on my art inside cafes people will sometimes comment on my work and this can also facilitate a pleasant visit with someone new.
On another occasion, recently, a yuppie mommy with her year old baby sat with me. I reluctantly welcomed them since one never knows whose quiet little angel will magically morph into a screaming demon. My worst expectations were realized and I had to find another seat. Even if I had a right to, Gentle Reader, I would never dream of kicking a mother and baby out of their seat. It is just not decent. She apologized, I mumbled "No worries" and resumed my art at a different table.
Now here's where I really draw the line. Today, a particularly vulnerable person with whom I work and I were having a very private conversation in a café. This person has physical challenges and needs a scooter to get around as well as having suffered far more than their due. There was one vacant armchair that held my knapsack and my sweater and for good reason. I wanted my client's right to privacy respected and I was prepared to do what I could to help guarantee this and they were disclosing to me a lot of personal information.
This old douchebag came in and demanded to use the chair. I tactfully explained that we were having a private conversation and I would like my client's privacy respected. He rudely snapped that it was his chair, demanded that I show him a business card or credentials and I told him that I was not obliged to do this, neither was I going to divulge any further information out of concern for my client's privacy. He tried to argue and I told him to get over it, twice. He went to the baristas to complain, after threatening to throw us out of the café. The nasty piece of work returned and smugly announced that he was just told he could sit with us if he wanted. I replied that when I heard this from staff then I'd let him have the chair. He must have been lying. He slunk over to another table. My client was upset and suggested we leave. I agreed. On the way out I told NPW (nasty piece of work) that I would never dream of treating him the way he had just treated us. He said something nasty in a very gloating tone. I told him he could have the whole table and my client and I left.
Now I am sure that this kind of situation is so full of variables and nuances that it would be impossible to say who was right or who was wrong. I suppose I could have compassion for NPW for having such a shrunken little soul and perhaps for having a mental disorder. Now in retrospect I am also wondering if he was showing early symptoms of Alzheimer's as he reminded me so unpleasantly of my own father shortly before he was diagnosed. He did come running over to his favourite chair as we were leaving like a dog chasing a tennis ball covered in something that dogs like to eat and humans prefer to flush down the toilet.
I really think that coffee shops owe it to their customers to show a little more foresight and thoughtfulness about how they are going to arrange seating on their premises. They might want to fill seats with bums in order to pay their overhead but by the same token customers also need a certain degree of privacy and space, even if we do happen to be in public. And I also would hope that we as patrons might one of these days learn a little humility and emotional intelligence. We live in an age of entitlement and this kind of rampant selfishness does nothing to help us thrive as a community and everything to destroy us as individuals.
Monday 13 June 2016
The Expectations Of Gender
As some of you know, Gentle Reader, I have attended a number of Anglican churches over the years. In the penultimate parish there was this rather horrid old British woman with crazy poufy hair (probably she has worn it in this style for the last fifty years or longer). She one day confided to me that she knew of only one hairdresser in New Westminster who still did hair in this style. She was likely one of their most faithful patrons. This church lady from hell was prone to angry outbursts, almost all of them directed at me. Generally it would have something to do with my gender with her snorting derisively, "Typical man!" or something equally absurd like "Men!" I particularly remember one day during the coffee hour downstairs following the 11 am Eucharist. Wanting to be helpful, toward the end I was stripping the tables of their tablecloths. I thought they were going into the laundry to be washed right away so I didn't bother to fold them. This was when the RHOBW (Rather Horrid Old British Woman) weighed in to spit out how useless men were about folding things. I tossed the tablecloth in her wrinkled old face and told her to do it herself.
I spent the better part of four years of my life living with a couple of older women. We were in an intentional Christian community and were consequently in each other's faces a lot. I was in my mid to late thirties. They were respectively twelve years my senior and twenty-eight years my senior (one was the same age as my father) Despite their liberated feminist pretentions these gals were actually pretty conventional about gender. They often tried to get on my good side by cooking and baking, but then I became a vegetarian and besides which I was already a better cook than either of them. I was subtly expected to play the man in our operation. To be the leader (although they really wanted to run the show themselves), the protector, the handyman, when really I sucked at all of those things and they didn't want to forgive me for this. I was often the target of the wrath they would have hurled at their former husbands . I was a unique variety of the male of the species they had never before reckoned with, an androgynous male.
Even though one of the women is dead and the other is off in another corner of the cosmos somewhere (I haven't seen her in almost fourteen years) I still feel targeted by other people's conventional and unimaginative assumptions about gender. Among straight men I feel expected to like sports and to be subtly homophobic and perhaps a wee bit misogynistic. With some women I feel like a stand in for the enemy male, the archetypal hater and destroyer of women.
Friendship is very important to me but it can also be quite difficult navigating these waters of traditional sexism especially given that they spring from some very deep places of the collective unconscious. My best and most lasting friendships are with those who don't seem to see gender when they see me. We respond to one another as persons, as human beings precious in the eyes of God. We have not only learned to tread water but we've also found dry land.
I spent the better part of four years of my life living with a couple of older women. We were in an intentional Christian community and were consequently in each other's faces a lot. I was in my mid to late thirties. They were respectively twelve years my senior and twenty-eight years my senior (one was the same age as my father) Despite their liberated feminist pretentions these gals were actually pretty conventional about gender. They often tried to get on my good side by cooking and baking, but then I became a vegetarian and besides which I was already a better cook than either of them. I was subtly expected to play the man in our operation. To be the leader (although they really wanted to run the show themselves), the protector, the handyman, when really I sucked at all of those things and they didn't want to forgive me for this. I was often the target of the wrath they would have hurled at their former husbands . I was a unique variety of the male of the species they had never before reckoned with, an androgynous male.
Even though one of the women is dead and the other is off in another corner of the cosmos somewhere (I haven't seen her in almost fourteen years) I still feel targeted by other people's conventional and unimaginative assumptions about gender. Among straight men I feel expected to like sports and to be subtly homophobic and perhaps a wee bit misogynistic. With some women I feel like a stand in for the enemy male, the archetypal hater and destroyer of women.
Friendship is very important to me but it can also be quite difficult navigating these waters of traditional sexism especially given that they spring from some very deep places of the collective unconscious. My best and most lasting friendships are with those who don't seem to see gender when they see me. We respond to one another as persons, as human beings precious in the eyes of God. We have not only learned to tread water but we've also found dry land.
Sunday 12 June 2016
Where The Men Are Men, The Women Are Women...And The Sheep Are Scared
I am a habitual caller on certain radio programs. I can never seem to resist getting in my two peanuts worth and there are times after hearing any idiot blather on like, well, an idiot, on the air then I really begin to see blood. For example, the other day a couple of young men were being interviewed concerning their perspectives on feminism, sex and rape culture. They seemed innocuous enough until one of them referred to sensitivity, gentleness and compassion as feminine characteristics. My comment on the phone was succinct enough. I said that these are not feminine, but human, characteristics and that men, in order to maintain power, dominance and hierarchy have simply rejected these most essential and humanizing qualities.
During the late seventies and early eighties, while in my twenties, I was developing my own ethos of feminism, largely influenced by my lesbian feminist friends and by Germaine Greer (if you haven't yet read The Female Eunuch, then get off your duff and buy a copy. You'll also find it in the library.) I was during that time attending a Mennonite house church made up of radical feminists, men and women, and we were all discussing and praying about finding a way of living that is human in the godliest sense without having to define ourselves through binary masculinity and femininity. For me it wasn't a huge leap, given that I have always been naturally androgynous. We were leaning rather heavily on the notion that all people are naturally androgynous and that conventional masculinity and femininity are mere social constructs. I swallowed that one whole. I still think there is merit to it though I have modified my position a little bit.
You see, Gentle Reader, I really don't believe that we live in a one-size-fits-everyone-kind-of-world. I have come to believe that there happen to be, out there, tonnes of naturally masculine, he-man Marlborough Man types. Even without social conditioning, these guys, as toddlers, would not have gone for the Barbie Dolls, nor for the Easy Bake Ovens. Similarly, there are also scads of authentic girly-girls in the world who as young children never would have thought of playing with toy cars and guns. But not everyone fits the binary. There are so many subtle gradations between the poles of binary gender that I think we do everyone a disservice by labeling those who do not fit as androgynous, or intersex or transgender, or pick any one.
I don't know why we have to do everything by labels and categories but perhaps we could at least appreciate that before gender and gender variants we are all human beings. We are individuals, no two alike. But we are still forced from earliest childhood to fit the binary. This is particularly cruel for people with gender dysphoria but it also stifles the rest of us and keeps us from growing. Long ago, it seems, it was agreed that men, because they have deeper and louder voices and are physically bigger, stronger and more muscular, were naturally expected to assume dominance, extinguish all their gentler and more beautiful traits and turn into rampaging dangerous beasts not very different from Tolkien Orcs. Women, in order to cope with being dominated, evolved the feminine exaggerations of their gender identity.
I'm not suggesting that none of this innate. Probably some of it is. Neither am I saying that men and women are completely alike and the same. By the same token I will bet you bagels to donuts that you will find just as much variation within either gender as you will between the genders, if you remove the variable of gender conformity and childhood conditioning.
Regardless of how alike or different people can be because of gender I think that we need to take a new approach to gender. We need to see ourselves and each other as human beings first and from there we really need to get to work, women and men, on reclaiming those traits and characteristics of our humanity that we have had to barter off in order to fit within an artificially imposed gender binary.
As God said to Adam and Eve: "One of you gets to pee while standing, the other gets to have multiple orgasms." Herein lies the difference and therein is where the difference ends between men and women.
During the late seventies and early eighties, while in my twenties, I was developing my own ethos of feminism, largely influenced by my lesbian feminist friends and by Germaine Greer (if you haven't yet read The Female Eunuch, then get off your duff and buy a copy. You'll also find it in the library.) I was during that time attending a Mennonite house church made up of radical feminists, men and women, and we were all discussing and praying about finding a way of living that is human in the godliest sense without having to define ourselves through binary masculinity and femininity. For me it wasn't a huge leap, given that I have always been naturally androgynous. We were leaning rather heavily on the notion that all people are naturally androgynous and that conventional masculinity and femininity are mere social constructs. I swallowed that one whole. I still think there is merit to it though I have modified my position a little bit.
You see, Gentle Reader, I really don't believe that we live in a one-size-fits-everyone-kind-of-world. I have come to believe that there happen to be, out there, tonnes of naturally masculine, he-man Marlborough Man types. Even without social conditioning, these guys, as toddlers, would not have gone for the Barbie Dolls, nor for the Easy Bake Ovens. Similarly, there are also scads of authentic girly-girls in the world who as young children never would have thought of playing with toy cars and guns. But not everyone fits the binary. There are so many subtle gradations between the poles of binary gender that I think we do everyone a disservice by labeling those who do not fit as androgynous, or intersex or transgender, or pick any one.
I don't know why we have to do everything by labels and categories but perhaps we could at least appreciate that before gender and gender variants we are all human beings. We are individuals, no two alike. But we are still forced from earliest childhood to fit the binary. This is particularly cruel for people with gender dysphoria but it also stifles the rest of us and keeps us from growing. Long ago, it seems, it was agreed that men, because they have deeper and louder voices and are physically bigger, stronger and more muscular, were naturally expected to assume dominance, extinguish all their gentler and more beautiful traits and turn into rampaging dangerous beasts not very different from Tolkien Orcs. Women, in order to cope with being dominated, evolved the feminine exaggerations of their gender identity.
I'm not suggesting that none of this innate. Probably some of it is. Neither am I saying that men and women are completely alike and the same. By the same token I will bet you bagels to donuts that you will find just as much variation within either gender as you will between the genders, if you remove the variable of gender conformity and childhood conditioning.
Regardless of how alike or different people can be because of gender I think that we need to take a new approach to gender. We need to see ourselves and each other as human beings first and from there we really need to get to work, women and men, on reclaiming those traits and characteristics of our humanity that we have had to barter off in order to fit within an artificially imposed gender binary.
As God said to Adam and Eve: "One of you gets to pee while standing, the other gets to have multiple orgasms." Herein lies the difference and therein is where the difference ends between men and women.
Saturday 11 June 2016
Why We Need To Be Saved From The Rich, Why The Rich Need To Be Saved From Themselves, And Someone Had Better Save The Rich From The Rest Of Us
Well Gentle Reader, but this has to be my longest title ever. During my happy stroll through one of our wealthiest neighbourhoods today I was thinking exactly about the same thing. The rich are really the most unfortunate people in the world. Why? For lots of reasons. For one thing, they have way too much. When you have too much then really you are harming yourself just as much as you are hurting those whom you are depriving of their means of survival. Greed is a disease that makes the wealthy sick. Sure, statistically they are going to enjoy better health and longer lives than the rest of us but they have basically hoovered their souls out of existence. There have been a number of studies that have shown a clear index ratio between wealth and sociopathy. The more money you have, even if it was given you by inheritance and you didn't work a blessed day of your life to earn any of it, you are still going to feel somehow entitled to it, that you have earned it and that being rich sets you apart from and above the hoi poloi. It makes you believe that you are better than people like me and you Gentle Reader. Being wealthy will cause you to lose empathy and concern for others. It will isolate you as you get swallowed up in the fear that others are going to try to deprive you of your Precious. That's right, you turn into Gollum, or worse, you become Donald Trump. Need I say more, GR?
The wealthy need to be saved from themselves as much as we need to be saved from them. If they are going to enjoy the full benefits of being human, which is to say, if they are going to feel like true contributing members of the community and if they are to enjoy the blessing of true friendship within the human family then some sort of cap is going to have to be put on their earnings and wealth. That is right, I am advocating here for a maximum wage. I am not saying that we all have to have exactly the same income, but perhaps the playing field could be evened a little. Say, that no one should be permitted to earn more than one hundred thousand a year and by the same token that no one would have to subsist on less than forty thousand. Do the math if you don't believe me.
If we are to live in a truly just society then things are going to have to become a lot more equal. If this means frightened rich people taking money out of the country instead of sharing the wealth, then so be it. None of that loot ever goes to the people or programs that need it most anyway. By the same token we are really going to have to recover, to cure ourselves of this epoch of greed. Our culture, our very civilization depends on this. Save us from the rich. Save the rich from themselves. Otherwise the rich are going to have to be saved from us!
The wealthy need to be saved from themselves as much as we need to be saved from them. If they are going to enjoy the full benefits of being human, which is to say, if they are going to feel like true contributing members of the community and if they are to enjoy the blessing of true friendship within the human family then some sort of cap is going to have to be put on their earnings and wealth. That is right, I am advocating here for a maximum wage. I am not saying that we all have to have exactly the same income, but perhaps the playing field could be evened a little. Say, that no one should be permitted to earn more than one hundred thousand a year and by the same token that no one would have to subsist on less than forty thousand. Do the math if you don't believe me.
If we are to live in a truly just society then things are going to have to become a lot more equal. If this means frightened rich people taking money out of the country instead of sharing the wealth, then so be it. None of that loot ever goes to the people or programs that need it most anyway. By the same token we are really going to have to recover, to cure ourselves of this epoch of greed. Our culture, our very civilization depends on this. Save us from the rich. Save the rich from themselves. Otherwise the rich are going to have to be saved from us!
Friday 10 June 2016
Her Holy Heiny
Gentle Reader, you might recall the series I published here in January, eight essays titled Brood Of Vipers: How I Survived The Anglican Church. Here is one facet I have failed to mention and I would like to give it due justice today. This came up today during a conversation with a staunch monarchist who tends to get rather defensive about Her Heiny, also known as Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.
Now I really have nothing against the Queen. I have actually always liked her and she is the only monarch I have ever known, though only in the vaguest public sense. When I was born she had already been on the throne for four years. Now, sixty years later, she is still on the throne and this weekend they are celebrating her ninetieth birthday for the third time. I really do not care enough about the monarchy as an institution to want to make a statement about it. I don't think we would be any better or worse off without it. I guess that makes me a constitutional agnostic even if I do believe rather strongly in God: Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit.
Where I do draw the line is at the British monarchs position as the titular head of the Church of England and, by extension, the Anglican Church of Canada. Or should I say instead that I am quite dissatisfied that I wasted so many years participating in a sacred institution such as the Anglican Church given that it is headed by a monarch, constitutional or otherwise. As much as I disagree with kings, queens and monarchs influencing or in any way controlling or heading a sacred institution, that is the nature of the Anglican Beast. That wretched lecher, or lecherous wretch, King Henry VIII wanted his divorce, remarriage and male heir and he defied the Bishop of Rome, who then excommunicated him, and who consequently declared himself head of the sacred province of England. No self-respecting bishop or archbishop would even think of questioning the primacy of the king, even if he did not risk losing his head.
This does not in any way resemble even in the remotest sense the beautiful work that Jesus undertook, and it certainly bears no resemblance to the church of the first three centuries. It was common knowledge among Christians, almost all of whom were the most devout disciples knowing that they might be killed and martyred for their faith that earthly rulers and the life of the church had nothing in common with each other. That the wealth and pomp and power and violence and cruelty of the nations and their rulers were absolutely inimical to the poverty, humility, love, mercy and peacemaking of the early church. But Christianity gradually gained legitimacy and then came Emperor Constantine making it the state religion and it was downhill from there. The church basically bartered away her legitimacy for secular power and acceptance. This makes the Anglican Church something of a perversion of the Gospel. And I say this knowing many fine and faithful Christians who are also Anglicans. I also say this with a lingering reverence for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist which seems to be the only good thing that the Anglican Church has going for itself.
I think that at least some of my trouble with the Anglican Church can be easily sourced to this conflict. Understanding that God calls us to simplicity and humility I have never been able to reconcile the presence, however symbolic or titular, of the British Monarchy over an institution founded by the One who became very poor for us and is crucified over and over again by his alleged followers and adherents. Unable to reconcile this sense of conflict and compromise my time in the Anglican Church was always filled with conflict and angst. I was worshipping God with others in a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance.
No wonder I have had to leave.
Come ye out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord your God and I will receive you.
Now I really have nothing against the Queen. I have actually always liked her and she is the only monarch I have ever known, though only in the vaguest public sense. When I was born she had already been on the throne for four years. Now, sixty years later, she is still on the throne and this weekend they are celebrating her ninetieth birthday for the third time. I really do not care enough about the monarchy as an institution to want to make a statement about it. I don't think we would be any better or worse off without it. I guess that makes me a constitutional agnostic even if I do believe rather strongly in God: Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit.
Where I do draw the line is at the British monarchs position as the titular head of the Church of England and, by extension, the Anglican Church of Canada. Or should I say instead that I am quite dissatisfied that I wasted so many years participating in a sacred institution such as the Anglican Church given that it is headed by a monarch, constitutional or otherwise. As much as I disagree with kings, queens and monarchs influencing or in any way controlling or heading a sacred institution, that is the nature of the Anglican Beast. That wretched lecher, or lecherous wretch, King Henry VIII wanted his divorce, remarriage and male heir and he defied the Bishop of Rome, who then excommunicated him, and who consequently declared himself head of the sacred province of England. No self-respecting bishop or archbishop would even think of questioning the primacy of the king, even if he did not risk losing his head.
This does not in any way resemble even in the remotest sense the beautiful work that Jesus undertook, and it certainly bears no resemblance to the church of the first three centuries. It was common knowledge among Christians, almost all of whom were the most devout disciples knowing that they might be killed and martyred for their faith that earthly rulers and the life of the church had nothing in common with each other. That the wealth and pomp and power and violence and cruelty of the nations and their rulers were absolutely inimical to the poverty, humility, love, mercy and peacemaking of the early church. But Christianity gradually gained legitimacy and then came Emperor Constantine making it the state religion and it was downhill from there. The church basically bartered away her legitimacy for secular power and acceptance. This makes the Anglican Church something of a perversion of the Gospel. And I say this knowing many fine and faithful Christians who are also Anglicans. I also say this with a lingering reverence for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist which seems to be the only good thing that the Anglican Church has going for itself.
I think that at least some of my trouble with the Anglican Church can be easily sourced to this conflict. Understanding that God calls us to simplicity and humility I have never been able to reconcile the presence, however symbolic or titular, of the British Monarchy over an institution founded by the One who became very poor for us and is crucified over and over again by his alleged followers and adherents. Unable to reconcile this sense of conflict and compromise my time in the Anglican Church was always filled with conflict and angst. I was worshipping God with others in a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance.
No wonder I have had to leave.
Come ye out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord your God and I will receive you.
Thursday 9 June 2016
No (First World) Problem
I was chatting briefly just now with the Filipina lady who runs the mom and pop store on the corner. I was buying bananas and she wanted to know if I`d been on another trip lately as she knows that I tend to go away every year. When I mentioned that I`m starting to think about where I`m going next she reminded me how lucky I am and that there are many people who do not have the luxury of being able to travel every year nor anywhere at all. And for many years that privilege seemed well beyond my reach, as I mentioned to her.
I have made eight international trips in as many years, on an income that is perhaps just a little more than double what a welfare recipient would receive. I do have the good fortune of paying government subsidized rent to the tune of thirty percent of my earnings and that goes up or down every year with fluctuations in my pay. Otherwise I don`t think I have a particular talent in budgeting though many seem to think otherwise. I just don`t spend a lot of money.
I think I tend to spend little because I have always had so little. I have never been compulsive with money as I have always preferred having a roof over my head and food to eat. I have never understood why so many people have to have way more money to spend than they really need, which also often leads to debt. Neither have I ever understood the joy of shopping.
I have been a devout Christian for most of my life. It isn`t simply that I have long adhered to a set of doctrines or religious doctrines. Jesus got inside me at an early age and from the get-go I understood that the Christian life was no life at all unless it was free from materialism and consumerism. My freedom of spirit and soul mattered more than feeling the wind in my hair from a fancy model sports car (back in the days when I had hair) My sense of wealth never had anything to do with the size of my bank account and everything to do with the presence of love, peace and joy in my heart. I have always felt compelled to proclaim Christ to the world, not as a dogma, nor through words but through a holy and dedicated life from which would spring the waters of joy and life.
There were of course some very real obstacles that prevented me from moving forward professionally or economically. I couldn`t even finish college because I couldn`t afford it, not even with the measly student loans I could get, so I had to settle for a life of low-paying work. Unable to pay for vocational training I sought employment in which I could serve the neediest and the poorest among us, so I became a home support worker. The wage was always low, just a bit higher than minimum and the government was always cutting back on our funding and hours making this very precarious employment where I worked serving, caring for and cleaning up after the chronically and terminally ill, the dying and senior and others with physical and mental health disabilities. But I knew that God had called me into this work of love and mercy and I persevered. Eventually it became impossible for me to survive on my meagre earnings and minimum wage employers in the service and retail industry always chose immigrants over me, being a white male and therefore expected to do and be ``better``. I ended up homeless and traumatized. I eventually found housing, then after three and a half years on welfare found precarious employment.
Now I have been working as a mental health peer support worker for the past twelve years. The pay is abysmally low, twelve dollars an hour. Without social housing to live in I would not be able to survive in Vancouver. I still live modestly but feel in no way deprived. I have never owned nor known how to drive a car so I have always walked or relied on public transit. I am not addicted to anything so I don`t buy cigarettes or alcohol. I seldom eat in restaurants, preferring my own cooking, neither do I usually attend movies or concerts or plays as I don`t have time or a lot of interest or energy for vicarious entertainment. Life itself and other people have become for me so rich and fascinating that I don`t feel the need to live vicariously through various visual and performing artists, though I do appreciate good film and great theatre and music. I simply don`t need to be overstimulated.
My life is filled with prayer, stillness, music, thoughts books and words-a lot of them in Spanish-, my work with my clients, friends, art and writing and long meditative walks. I often feel surrounded by beauty. None of these are terribly expensive. I do not need the latest tech toys and I feel satisfied with my five year old laptop and my work cell phone (it is a flip-phone if you must know). I buy most of my clothes second hand and I eat vegetarian (meat is gross!). My life is already full and I feel like an incredibly rich person.
I eventually noticed that as I worked and didn`t need to spend a lot of money that my bank balance began to grow. I was soon thinking of travel. I got a new passport and booked a flight, my second visit, to Costa Rica. Then there was a back and forth for a few years between Mexico City and Costa Rica, then other parts of Mexico and finally two visits to Colombia where I stayed in Bogota. I have always managed to do well with pleasant but inexpensive accommodation in interesting places where I have met some wonderful people. I have improved my Spanish remarkably and have become much more familiar with the lives and cultures of the people who live in these countries.
I am planning another visit to Latin America. I am undecided as to where. I will say this much: never in my life have I felt so rich and so privileged, even now while I still live well below the poverty line in one of the most expensive cities on earth.
I have made eight international trips in as many years, on an income that is perhaps just a little more than double what a welfare recipient would receive. I do have the good fortune of paying government subsidized rent to the tune of thirty percent of my earnings and that goes up or down every year with fluctuations in my pay. Otherwise I don`t think I have a particular talent in budgeting though many seem to think otherwise. I just don`t spend a lot of money.
I think I tend to spend little because I have always had so little. I have never been compulsive with money as I have always preferred having a roof over my head and food to eat. I have never understood why so many people have to have way more money to spend than they really need, which also often leads to debt. Neither have I ever understood the joy of shopping.
I have been a devout Christian for most of my life. It isn`t simply that I have long adhered to a set of doctrines or religious doctrines. Jesus got inside me at an early age and from the get-go I understood that the Christian life was no life at all unless it was free from materialism and consumerism. My freedom of spirit and soul mattered more than feeling the wind in my hair from a fancy model sports car (back in the days when I had hair) My sense of wealth never had anything to do with the size of my bank account and everything to do with the presence of love, peace and joy in my heart. I have always felt compelled to proclaim Christ to the world, not as a dogma, nor through words but through a holy and dedicated life from which would spring the waters of joy and life.
There were of course some very real obstacles that prevented me from moving forward professionally or economically. I couldn`t even finish college because I couldn`t afford it, not even with the measly student loans I could get, so I had to settle for a life of low-paying work. Unable to pay for vocational training I sought employment in which I could serve the neediest and the poorest among us, so I became a home support worker. The wage was always low, just a bit higher than minimum and the government was always cutting back on our funding and hours making this very precarious employment where I worked serving, caring for and cleaning up after the chronically and terminally ill, the dying and senior and others with physical and mental health disabilities. But I knew that God had called me into this work of love and mercy and I persevered. Eventually it became impossible for me to survive on my meagre earnings and minimum wage employers in the service and retail industry always chose immigrants over me, being a white male and therefore expected to do and be ``better``. I ended up homeless and traumatized. I eventually found housing, then after three and a half years on welfare found precarious employment.
Now I have been working as a mental health peer support worker for the past twelve years. The pay is abysmally low, twelve dollars an hour. Without social housing to live in I would not be able to survive in Vancouver. I still live modestly but feel in no way deprived. I have never owned nor known how to drive a car so I have always walked or relied on public transit. I am not addicted to anything so I don`t buy cigarettes or alcohol. I seldom eat in restaurants, preferring my own cooking, neither do I usually attend movies or concerts or plays as I don`t have time or a lot of interest or energy for vicarious entertainment. Life itself and other people have become for me so rich and fascinating that I don`t feel the need to live vicariously through various visual and performing artists, though I do appreciate good film and great theatre and music. I simply don`t need to be overstimulated.
My life is filled with prayer, stillness, music, thoughts books and words-a lot of them in Spanish-, my work with my clients, friends, art and writing and long meditative walks. I often feel surrounded by beauty. None of these are terribly expensive. I do not need the latest tech toys and I feel satisfied with my five year old laptop and my work cell phone (it is a flip-phone if you must know). I buy most of my clothes second hand and I eat vegetarian (meat is gross!). My life is already full and I feel like an incredibly rich person.
I eventually noticed that as I worked and didn`t need to spend a lot of money that my bank balance began to grow. I was soon thinking of travel. I got a new passport and booked a flight, my second visit, to Costa Rica. Then there was a back and forth for a few years between Mexico City and Costa Rica, then other parts of Mexico and finally two visits to Colombia where I stayed in Bogota. I have always managed to do well with pleasant but inexpensive accommodation in interesting places where I have met some wonderful people. I have improved my Spanish remarkably and have become much more familiar with the lives and cultures of the people who live in these countries.
I am planning another visit to Latin America. I am undecided as to where. I will say this much: never in my life have I felt so rich and so privileged, even now while I still live well below the poverty line in one of the most expensive cities on earth.
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