Living With Trauma 12

Today I was enjoying the illusion of being middle class. I stopped in the local Flight Centre where I purchased my plane ticket to Costa Rica last week in order to fill out the questionnaire for my travel medical insurance, bought different kinds of produce and some lovely crackers in various shops, treated myself to an Americano at a Mexican café in Kitsilano where I had been in another fine shop looking at bedspreads, then finishing the afternoon with my Mexican friend in a local café, bakery and eatery. Yes, the good things of life, or some of them anyway. Even though I am considered in this country to be working poor my life is greatly and richly blessed these days. While I was conversing with my friend in Spanish I noticed a gentleman of a certain age trying to get inside with a walker. I got up to help him in, then he asked me if I could buy him something to eat. I let him choose whatever he wanted and paid for it gladly, though thinking at the same time that since others could see my act of kindness perhaps God would be less inclined to give notice. I am a strong proponent for random and anonymous acts of kindness and love. I felt there was no need to baulk about the price. I had been thinking of going to the local Cinametheque to see a film soon, and the price of the food I bought for this man would have been about the same as the admission to a foreign film, but I don't really need to go to the movies right now, so I'm okay with the trade off. While my friend and I resumed our visit in Spanish a young lady, on her way out, touched me on the shoulder and told me I was very kind-hearted. I thanked her of course, because that was from her a kindness, and I am glad if I and the gentleman with the walker could have somehow helped inspire and encourage kindness in those around us, but I still feel uncomfortable about being noticed. Besides, whether or not I had the option of refusing this man, not only as a Christian but as a human being, I felt that it was also my duty to try to help as I was able. The gentleman with the walker did tell me a bit more about his situation. He was just in the hospital undergoing dialysis for his malfunctioning kidneys, has cancer, is homeless and sleeping on the street. I already mentioned that he is older, at least sixty, and needs a walker to get around. Here in one of the richest cities in one of the richest countries in the world. On my paltry earnings I am still able to travel to Costa Rica for a month, buy elegant costly bedding, see a foreign film, and eat decently. Mind you there are many other pleasures and entitlements that I do not spend on, especially in order to afford the things that really matter to me: alcohol, clothes, dinners out, owning a vehicle, going to movies, plays or concerts, to name a few. But my life is nonetheless very privileged for someone of my station and I hope I never forget this. In a way, I am glad that others got to see what I was doing with this man, if only to remind them that there are people among us who are hurting tremendously and are worthy of dignity and respect, which our incredibly rapacious and selfish economic system simply does absolutely nothing to accommodate. We are all being traumatized by extension and by proxy by this kind of capitalism without brakes and I think it is finally sinking in that we are all being hurt by this. I think that more of us are going to have to feel a lot more pain until we really begin to take action. And action is going to be taken. It has occurred to me that the reason we had our lovely liberal social reforms that gave us a social safety net before those rapacious bastards began to shred it was to prevent the Great Unwashed from revolting and lynching our elected leaders. I believe that the time is soon coming when our government bigheads are going to find themselves in a very unenviable predicament as mobs of thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised citizens all begin to organize, to march, and to attack en masse. It isn't going to be pretty. And it doesn't have to be inevitable. I do fear that the paralysis of greed that has so slowed the necessary reforms from taking place could easily make violent, ugly and bloody resistance into the necessary evil they have long been dreading. And yes, Gentle Reader, I am still a pacifist. And even if there are violent uprisings, I am neither encouraging nor approving of them. This is simply a warning of what could and likely will happen if the reforms to our economic system and our social support services, including and especially housing for the homeless and low-income individuals and families aren't fast-tracked. The greed and selfishness of our capitalist system and the greed and selfishness this has awakened in many has got to be opposed through education and through action. Now is the time, Gentle Reader. We are collectively traumatized by this evil and we are the ones who are going to heal ourselves and one another, and so we must if we don`t want to see everything continue going to hell.