Balancing Act, 1

I had an interesting chat with a friend yesterday. He was going on as he often does about how annoying he finds everyone. I have to admit that I do sympathize, being sometimes rather irritable myself, when it comes to having to field the kind of rude, selfish, moronic, antisocial and narcissistic behaviour that seems to go unchecked these days. It's like a culture of entitlement, I suppose. But, wait a minute. There's more to this, I think. I suggested to my friend that he try thinking of those people he gets annoyed over, next time, as infants. We all were at one time, you know: helpless, tiny, weak, unable to do anything but eat, shit and sleep, and cry: oops, that actually sounds a lot like some of the young adults I see on the bus every day. But seriously, I don't think many of us do adulthood all that well, and I'm not sure if anyone ever did, really, but these days, we don't have to worry so much about our basic survival needs, which does leave us a lot of spare time, energy and resources for simply being stupid. I have often observed, how much older my parent's generation appeared to be as young adults. I don't think it was just because they were my parents, and that they have always been much older than me, and always will. But people did behave differently back then, during the Depression, the War and the fifties. There was a lot more deference to authority (not necessarily a good thing), and everyone was expected to take life very seriously (ditto). The social safety nets that we now take for granted (despite their heavily eroded condition these days) simply did not exist. You left school to start working as soon as possible to help out the family and support yourself and save for marriage and starting a family which usually happened before anyone turned twenty-five. Girls were expected to keep their virginity till the wedding night and boys were allowed to experiment with prostitutes and the town "bad girl", but nothing else. In my parents' case, Mom was already five months gone with my brother en utero when she and Dad tied the knot. In city hall. She was not wearing white and there were never any wedding photos on display in the house. My mother's parents did not come out from Saskatchewan for the wedding. It was harvesting time on the farm and Mom was, well, already five months pregnant and could no longer fall back on the getting fat excuse. And this was in 1952. But everyone still dressed, acted, smoked, drank and did almost everything, like adults. It was only after the sixties that things began to change, and change happened fast and furious. We had the hippies, LSD and marijuana (legal in this country in October), space travel, the Cold War, race riots, civil and human rights marches and one of the most sweeping social revolutions of my lifetime. Everything changed and suddenly the expectations of my parents' generation no longer held for us. We dressed the way we wanted, partied, listened to psychedelic and acid rock and blues music, did tons of mind-altering drugs, and talked about revolutionary politics and overthrowing the capitalist-materialist system (but really couldn't come up with any credible substitutes, although the devil we already knew wasn't so great either). And suddenly everyone was hopping in and out of bed together. In the seventies, when I was twenty-three I was having a chat with the woman who lived downstairs with her boyfriend. She was telling me how much she owed to the sexual revolution. I replied, Uh, Susan, all that really has changed from the Sexual Revolution is this: before, if you were a good girl, you didn't. Now, if you are a good girl. You have to. Whether you want to or not. My next door neighbour (and best friend at the time), by the way, was a radical lesbian feminist, and boy did we have things to talk about. I still remember just the way she rolled her eyes when I told her about my conversation with Susan! Of course, the Sexual Revolution benefited men more than women, who were expected to not forget to take that little pill that came out in the sixties, and only now with the Me Too! movement is it really coming out in the open just how badly women have done thanks to, not only men`s piggish behaviour, but the enormous double standards that we still find ourselves negotiating. So, now, in the early twenty-first century, we have turned into superannuated kids. Adult men tend to dress like eight year old little boys, and except for their much larger size and the rather scary effects of puberty and testosterone, there aren`t really that different from little boys. Gentle Reader, if you don't find this chilling, then really, you ought to.

Surviving The Fall, 58

Did you wake up, this morning Gentle Reader? Are you breathing? When you opened the curtains or pulled up the blind and looked out the window, was everything more or less the way you left it yesterday? Do you have food in your fridge for breakfast? If the answer to each of these questions is yes, then you are doing okay. Do you have something to do today? People to see? A job to go to? Classes to attend? Employment to seek? Are there people for you to contact or respond to by phone, email or social media? Then you're still doing okay. Are there things today that you can do that you are going to find downright enjoyable? (drugs and booze don't count here) Do you get to be active? Going for a walk, a run, or a bike ride? Do you get to do this in an area that you like, find beautiful, interesting and peaceful? Do you have family? A spouse to wake up with, kids to pack off to school, parents to visit, an extended family? Friends? People who want to see you, and whom you want to see? Then you are doing really well. Do you find it easy to laugh, or at least to smile. When you step outside are you aware of the others around you? Does the person walking in front of you on the sidewalk have existence to you? The homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk? The person next to you on the bus? In the other car? Can you dare to say good morning to a complete stranger? Or if you are greeted by a stranger, how are you going to respond? Are you able to pull yourself away long enough from your phone or your listening device to actually see the people around you? Then you are doing even better. Do you notice nature? Is there a tree you particularly like to walk by every day, perhaps even to pat and say hi to (when no one is looking, of course?). Do you notice the birds? Squirrels? /will you dare to stop and pet a friendly cat or dog in your way? Then you are doing better than average. Are you able to get angry about the social and economic inequality that we all have to live with, and the doofuses who run our countries and keep threatening to destroy the world as we know it and bring our planet to ruin? Then, you are almost a complete human being. Can you balance gratitude with righteous outrage? Even better. When you return home today, are you going to have food to eat? Very good. A bed to sleep in? Yes! now, being grateful for what you have, and for who you are, and for who you have in your life, can you also dare to be angry? Outraged? That there are people who do not have these same blessings that you have just said yes to? Remember the saying, If you are not angry then you are not paying attention. Be grateful and get angry. If the world is going to change, then it is going to be people like you and me, Gentle Reader who are going to change it. Be grateful, get angry, and do something!

Surviving The Fall, 57

I don't believe in conspiracy theories. They are the language of the disempowered who still want to appear intelligent, but only come across as paranoid and stupid. But it is still hard not to wonder if at least some of what has been going on in our world and in this city has been somehow planned, or at least allowed by default, in order to placate the demands and whims of the wealthy and greedy. I know that there have been agreements in place to make Vancouver a welcome place for foreign investment, but that we are rapidly spiraling into a kind of Grand Cayman for offshore land speculation. And now the lid has just been blown off of the use of casinos in this area as money laundromats, which also suggests some very embarrassing connections between foreign land ownership/speculation; illegal money laundering, most of it from China, and the previous Liberal government of BC. Even with some of the new taxes and regulations being placed on foreign land ownership and speculation, this still appears as too little too late. Vancouver has become such a internationally coveted place to live, and our elected officials have proven to be such useless windup dolls and puppets of greed as they passively obey the uber-wealthy, so that property values remain stratospherically high in Vancouver, and it is almost impossible to find a liveable one bedroom apartment for under two thousand a month, or the entire income of a low wage worker. So little is being done to actually make living in this city affordable, because our politicians and their wealthy support base are still worshipping at the altar of market greed, and no one wants to offend the mammon deity. But offend it we must, or this city and many other parts of the world are going to continue spiralling out of the reach of ordinary workers. This is where it is hard not to think of conspiracy theories. Perhaps in one of the Bilderberg conferences, the leaders all agreed to reserve certain coveted, attracted cities as havens only for themselves and their lackeys, people of obscene wealth, and everyone else can live in favelas. But now they are discovering just how backward this is with the huge social fallout of growing wealth and social inequality and the way it is impacting everybody. Yet, the wealthy and their minion politicians whom we stupidly re-elect every four years still don't want to budge. They are still building giant phallus condo towers throughout Metro Vancouver, and only the very well off will be living in them. The rest of us will have to move, unless we can endure the massive waitlists for the paucity of social housing that is available. Yes, they say they are working on in, they always say that they are working on it, and that they are investing another billion here, half a billion there, but where are the results? Why are people still left with no option but to live on the sidewalk or in low barrier shelters, or they have to move out to...Newfoundland? At least people are friendly in Newfoundland. Or maybe our chicken politicians are going to have to start heeding and obeying the will of the people, not the wealthy, but everyone who has to struggle and work hard for a living in this city and elsewhere. Maybe it is time to expropriate those same condo towers, obscene profits and tax revenues be damned, and start renting out those units at affordable rates, which is to say, by strictly adhering to the thirty percent of income for rent formula, with a balance of incomes so that everyone c an enjoy a decent roof over their heads, the rent gets paid on time with money left over for food, retirement and vacations, and no one has to move out of the city, no one has to end up living on the pavement. There are some very simple and straightforward solutions and it simply takes a little bit of courage to implement them. We have to change our thinking a little, is all, and un-brainwash ourselves once and for all of this poison of capitalist greed. If we want an economy that is going to work for everyone then we are going to have to start thinking of the economy as people, and of people as being the economy. Otherwise, disaster.

Surviving The Fall, 56

We never get what we want, nor what we feel entitled to. Such is life. And should our lives take a direction not necessarily of our families' and peers approval? So much the worse. I was not upwardly mobile, for example, and therefore I have been shunned by my family. I don't have a car, I don't own my home, and I don't have stock options for my retirement. They are too embarrassed by my humble arrangements to even acknowledge that I exist. Am I sad about this? Not in the least. I feel liberated from the judgement of some very selfish, shallow and odious people and I am only proud to be disassociated from such a loathsome tribe. I am grateful that I am alone. And I am grateful that there are people in my life who share some of my most cherished values. No regrets here that none of them are blood relations. I believe strongly in gratitude. But gratitude with a person in the equation. I don't mean just a vague nice and warm and fuzzy feeling of twee that is offered to the Universe for all the nice things in our lives. I mean directing our gaze and attention to God. A personal, Creator-God, who actually is and does exist, and who fills and inhabits every single facet of our lives, our planet, and this universe. The hardest pill for nonbelievers to swallow is that they might be somehow complicit in their denial or nonregard of the Divine. Don't thank the universe. Thank God, who created, who gave birth to, and fills and sustains this universe. Even if you say you don't believe in him, you actually know that he is, that he exists and that he is awaiting a response in your heart no matter how much you turn from him. Still not biting? I don't expect you to. But I am concerned about the trouble some of you might be putting yourselves through with all your efforts and contortions that you twist your lives into in order to avoid and deny this most essential truth. I am not telling you to become a Christian, or Muslim, Jew, or Zoroastrian or whatever. Simply that you stop resisting this most irresistible force of love that occupies every corner and particle of the universe, except for one little place: your personal, individual will. God will not step there. He will only have from each one of us a voluntary and loving response to his love, otherwise this is not a relationship of love, but of compulsion. So, if this is something you don't want to do, don't feel you are able to do, don't feel quite ready to do, Gentle Reader, then by no means are you expected to. But now you know where we stand. So then, gratitude. To God. Acknowledging that I am not the centre of the universe and that it isn't all about me, and that I could be grateful simply for one beautiful and marvelous thing: this gift of life. Life, Gentle Reader, is a gift. We did not will ourselves into being, and not even our parents did this for us. Likely, while they were in the middle of making whoopee, you and I were probably among the furthest things from their endorphin-flooded brains while they were doing just what we get all squeamish about imagining our dads and moms doing with each other. Especially when we owe our existence to this bargain. But not even their act of coitus made you and I a certainty, but whatever concurrence of events in their bodies that assured that another human being should be born into this world, and this concurrence of events I call the work and will of the divine. So life is a gift, and we are all gifts to one another? To the planet? The universe? Oh! That it were true, Gentle Reader! Oh, that it were true! Now, I have life. We have life. I have existence. We have existence? We are part of this beautiful, intricate web of life, and regardless of whether or not we have realized, or never will realize our dreams and ambitions, we are still all here together, and we all have something, our very selves, lives and souls to contribute. And whether you choose to believe or not in the Higher Power, perhaps simply give thanks to that which you cannot name and open our eyes to this hidden vision of heaven that ever shines before us, though often hidden and obscured in the darkest nights of our souls.

Surviving The Fall, 55

Good morning, Gentle Reader! Happy Tuesday! I am thinking this morning about what it is like to live downtown. I live downtown, you know. In beautiful and too expensive for ordinary people Vancouver. It isn't my first pick of a neighbourhood. Rather, a necessary evil. I was on several wait lists for affordable housing some seventeen years ago, most of the buildings being in not the nicest neighbourhoods. Beggars can't be choosers, you know. And if you're not already making shitloads of money in this city, then you are already a beggar, not a chooser. You ae considered a loser. So, my name came up for this new project being constructed, Candela Place, and since there weren't any places in lovely West Side neighbourhoods competing for my coveted tenancy, here I am, downtown, on Granville Street, these last sixteen years, in a part of town I would never have chosen had I had the financial options. Now, I can at least be grateful that I can still live in Vancouver, despite my low income. This makes me a rarity. A lot of people are moving out of this city, and most of them aren't really that poor. They just can't afford housing here. Living downtown does have a few assets. It is very central, and transit is fast and accessible. Services are nearby, but affordable food shopping, not so much. It's noisy. and crowded. If you thrive on being surrounded by indifferent strangers 24/7, then you will likely be rather happy here. If you prefer to be around friendly, more neighbourly types, then not so much. When you live downtown you all ignore each other. Or, you're expected to. And you go out when you have to When you live downtown, you don't go out. You stay in. I don't see how the constant noise, be it construction racket or first responders' sirens or mouth breathers from the suburbs who still haven't been toilet trained, can be healthy to live with. The sirens alone are maddening. As are the garbage trucks. I have to remember day after day that those people are also me, and that I am also those people, because as I mentioned yesterday, Gentle Reader, whether we like this or not, we are all one. We are all the same person. If I am tired and feeling overwhelmed from a busy work day, even if it's a beautiful summer evening, I usually stay in after dinner. I never used to. but living downtown in a subsidized apartment with neighbours who often have mental health issues, sometimes even getting through the hallway, down the elevator and through the lobby to the front door can be an exhausting ordeal. Saturday evening when I actually did score a lovely walk outside, what was I treated to when I stepped through the front entrance of my building but the stench of urine, as someone (I think a tenant with bladder incontinence) had peed all over the floor, from front door to elevator. And this is not to mention the various people outside on the pavement, many of whom live with mental health issues, addictions, brain injuries, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, as well as those who like to exploit them. There is also the liquor store next door. This is not a nice neighbourhood. And this leaves me feeling often like a hostage in my own home. Yesterday I wanted to go outside after supper, but I am going through a difficult sleep cycle and am overloaded with work as well as work I have to do from home. I didn't have the time or energy to do something I used to really enjoy. Because I lived in less toxic environments. So, I stayed in and went to bed early, since I was exhausted. I am still not well rested, though better than yesterday,. I still have a lot of work to do, but fortunately a last minute cancellation leaves the morning free for me and I plan to do what I do every day in order to cope with living here. I seek quiet, beautiful green places for long walks, usually Shaughnessy or Stanley Park. I thrive on those outings and I can actually breath and feel my blood pressure lower for an hour or two. This isn't to say that I'm not going to keep trying to go out in the evenings. Of course I am, but it has to be in small steps. This isn't really so bad. there are also good people around and I have been blessed with some very good friends, some of whom I see quite frequently. And for all my complaining about where I live, it is not the worst option. To imagine the other extreme, have any of you ever heard of North Sentinel Island? It is in the Indian Ocean, situated in the Bay of Bengal with the Andaman Islands. It is considered one of the most dangerous places on earth. You see, the native inhabitants are not very nice people who will kill anyone who comes onto their island. They are one of the last untouched indigenous populations on earth, and they want to keep it that way. They have inhabited those islands likely for the past sixty thousand years, and they remain much as they were in the Old Stone Age. I am also reminded of the backward fascist politicians being elected in such countries as Hungary, Slovakia, Turkey, the United States and other places, all united in their hatred, fear and loathing of outsiders, immigrants, refugees, vulnerable people fleeing from hells of violence and persecution, and being turned back for posing fictional threats to the pure cultures and racial integrity of those sad, backward nations. Maybe not that different from the North Sentinelese. Yes, it can be difficult living among others, and having to adapt to diversity. And yes, to some extent one has to accept the loss of certain cultural certainties, but the trade-off is enormous, but it is only our selfish fear and hate that holds us back from these new possibilities of actually growing and becoming full human beings. I might complain about living downtown, Gentle Reader. But this has been an education and an opportunity for growth and for this reason I am going to accept it and go with it.

Surviving The Fall, 54

I think that one of the hardest and most bitter truths for some of us to swallow is how alike we all are. I mean, despite social class, economic differences; despite race, gender, nationality. We are all the same DNA, with only the vaguest variations. This has been one of the more startling findings from mapping the human genome: that race accounts for absolutely no significant difference between human beings. Our differences, such as they are, are merely superficial, given to hereditary glitches influenced by climate and geographic isolation and inbreeding. I see this day after day in my work. I remember recently talking with a coworker, rather highly placed professional, going through a difficult and prolonged personal crisis. Even though my professional status is considerably lower than his, I was still taken into his confidence, and my counsel, experience and wisdom seemed welcome and greatly appreciated. There was no noticeable difference between my colleague's experience of stress and angst and what some of our clients have to go through. It is like this everywhere. When I walk by someone begging on the sidewalk, even if I am unable to help, I can at least remember that we are no different. We are the same people. I was once myself homeless and in extreme distress and vulnerability. I never ended up begging, but on one occasion a fellow who was panhandling gave me permission to sit with him for a while as he begged for alms. It was a startling experience, seeing life from his part of the pavement. It is impossible to describe. But we were there together, brothers in need, though I didn't take any money with me, for I only wanted to know what he was experiencing. This will live with me for the rest of my life. On a couple of other occasions, shortly after, I did sit on the sidewalk and watched and waited as people walked by me. It was odd and something indescribable looking up at all those passing feet and legs and averted eyes. I don't often give to panhandlers. My budget is extremely limited. From time to time I do help, maybe with a toonie, or with food, but what matters isn't so much what is given or received, but what is understood. We are all alike, and in a way, we are not only similar and not only are we the same people. We are the same person. Yes, our experience is going to be unique, alone and individual, but we need to somehow grow beyond that. I think this is the essential, necessary step beyond empathy. We are the same person. Gentle Reader, try this, please. When you are out in public, and some stranger does something that really annoys you, be it a careless driver, cyclist or pedestrian, say this to yourself immediately: we, you and I, are the same person. If you are on the bus, and a stranger sits next to you, regardless their race, gender, economic status, age or smell, say to yourself, "We, you and I, are the same person." The next time you see someone adhering to a religious faith, or a political party or philosophy with which you sharply disagree, say to yourself, immediately, "We, you and I, are the same person." Whether it's a child, a youth, an adult, a senior, whether this person is a white Canadian, Asian, African, Latino or South Asian or Aboriginal, even if it's someone whom you feel you have every right to hate, even if it's Donald Trump, say those words and say them with conviction and force: 'We, you and I, are the same person." In a store while making a purchase, or in a coffee shop while giving your order to the barista, say those words to yourself, and even dare to say it to the other: "We, you and I, are the same person." Bless you, Gentle Reader, and do not forget this essential truth, that "We, you and I, are the same person."

Surviving The Fall, 53

Gentle Reader, I am writing tomorrow's blogpost today, which will give me one less thing to have to think about, should I need to sleep a bit later before starting work tomorrow. I am in the next stage of decluttering, to which, there is never going to be a final stage since decluttering is the gift that goes on giving. I am going through old writings and papers and suchlike, consigning to the blue bin anything that doesn't seem fit for posterity. Everything else I am transferring onto Microsoft Word, or maybe on these pages. A letter from a dear friend, now deceased, I am going to use as a bookmark. I also came across scraps of paper with various things written on them. I do not know their date, nor their provenance, but they seem worth sharing and commenting on, so here goes: 1. "There is no single message to look for or decipher. The symbols are holograms not unlike the Egyptian hieroglyphs. They are what you might refer to as the language of the soul. They seem to operate directly on the consciousness of the observer. Their energy is understood on a level far higher than one's mind or personality. In this way, the human intellect cannot contaminate their real meaning or purpose. " 2. "The patterns are archetypes for creational harmonic frequencies. This is all part of the geometry that creates our reality. The geometry of certain crop formations reveal new, previously unknown, mathematical theorems. This involves ratios that correspond to the intervals of the octaves of the musical scale." 3. "A few years ago, at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the gun, they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All, that is, except one little boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple of times, and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned round and went back......every one of them. one girl with Down's Syndrome bent down and kissed him and said, "This will make it better." then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line. Everyone in the stadium stood, nd the cheering went on for several minutes. people who were there are still telling the story. Why? Because deep down we know this one thing? What matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What matters in this life is helping others win, even if it means slowing down and changing our course. Now, Gentle Reader, let me first of all use this little format as a platform for justifying the Christian Church's decision to condemn Gnosticism, which rather resonates in the first two selections. All this high-falutin pseudo arcane, pseudo esoteric gobbledegook about energies, rhythms and frequencies and the human soul and not contaminating such wondrous truths with the human mind. It isn't so much that's it's nonsense. I think there is some truth in both statements, and that there is an incredibly intricate and complex spiritual geometry that is woven throughout the universe, including this planet of ours, and our own human selves. But this isn't the essence of things. It is only the structure, or if you will, the scaffolding of the cosmos. The real truth, the real germ of spiritual reality and enlightenment is going to be read in the third statement about the little boy in the Special Olympics. It is also my way of making sense of what the minister said today in his sermon when he mentioned that Baptism is the heart of the Church. The care, empathy and compassion that the other participants showed the child who stumbled provides us with the key to understanding all the mysteries of the universe. Even though what the minister said about Baptism doesn't really resonate with me, I can at least appreciate the heart and very essence of this beautiful symbol and sacrament and relate it to the three selections. God is Love. This is said, but once in Christian Scripture, in the first letter of St. John, but it holds the very heart and essence of the Christian faith and, I believe, the whole structure and purpose of the universe. Love is the harmony that binds us and everything together into a creative, life-affirming whole. Love is what occurred that day at the Special Olympics in Seattle. Love is what occurs when we die to our old selfish lives to take on the new life resonant with love in Christ Jesus. Love is the Sacred Mathematic of the Universe. If we wish to unlock these mysteries, that child and his peers in the race can only be our best possible teachers. We are all in this together.

Surviving The Fall, 52

What happens to us who don't make it? Those in the stats who give up looking for work? Those who never quite make it at that dream job, that dream home, those dream cars, that dream spouse and dream kids, and those dream vacations in luxurious tropic resorts? Well, we can be seen almost everywhere, even if we are treated as invisible. We are sitting on the pavement begging for spare change in front of your favourite nail salon. We are scrounging bins and garbage cans for unwanted food behind your favourite bistro. We are wandering the streets yelling in unmedicated frenzies, nightmares and euphorias, we are banging drugs into our veins in the back alley behind your favourite shoe store. We are in many other places, too. We are pushing shopping carts full of empties and our only worldly possessions, we are sleeping on the sidewalk, under the bridge, in tent cities, in the park, we are taking one of those walks over the bridge, wondering if this will be the night when we will plunge into the icy waters and end it all. We are in shelters, low barrier shelters, we are sleeping on the couches or in the garages or back yards of friends. Some of us sleep in our cars, if we have them. Or on the bus. Or in a bus shelter. Or in Tim Horton's. One of us recently died there. We are in other places. We populate mental health group homes. Some of us are lucky to live in subsidized social housing. Some of us even find real jobs and manage to cobble together a decent living, though always living under the vaguely foul-smelling shadow of stigma. Some of us work in low-paying and meaningless jobs, hoping that we can scrape enough money together for the tuition and extra job and vocational training that will get us just a little bit ahead, perhaps to even have our own apartment, since owning your own place in this city is a pipedream for the very well-incomed. We were born here. We have come here from other countries. Far too many of us are aboriginal, and having lived in this land for hundreds of generations, we deserve much better, many of us are the white offspring of the settler cultures, and we are particularly despised because we didn't make it. We didn't take full advantage of so-called white privilege, not because we were lazy, and not because we couldn't be bothered, but because we were already exhausted and broken down from lives of poverty, abuse and social disadvantage. I also forgot to mention those who fill our remand jails and penitentiaries, and people stranded in survival sex work, and the women whose remains still have not been identified on Picton's pig farm. So many of us end up being blamed for our misfortunes by the more fortunate, who simply don't or don't want to imagine that they just might live in a world that is neither just or fair, because who wants to live with guilt? So, we still haven't answered the question. Who are we? I have told you where many of us can be found. But who are we? What are we, besides human refuse, the parts that can't be made to fit into the machine, and therefore must be discarded? It is sad, and so deeply tragic, that the rest of the world is never going to know just what they have lost with us: all that human potential, all that beauty of soul, those gifts, that fine sensitive intelligence, that spiritual awareness, that prophetic voice, all is lost because we have been discarded and because we have never been able to keep up with the merciless pace of capitalism, we have been left behind, we who have gifts of insight, discernment, sensitivity and beauty that the rest of you had might as well be spared because this really is casting pearls before swine. but as long as we are viewed through the lens of stigma and rejection and disability, you are never going to see how great a loss this is for you and the rest of the world, and how many of you are really aware that you also might be just one bad troll comment on social media away from a fall? Or less than one chequebook away from the food bank? We are all in this together and most of you would prefer to ignore us because instinctively I think that you all know just how fragile your lovely little lives really are.

Surviving The Fall, 51

Yesterday morning, when I stepped outside, I was overwhelmed with a sense of wellbeing. The cool air following our recent heat wave seemed to help and the lush greenery of June was all around me. The cool air of June, in the early morning, is particularly lovely. And I also reflected, while seeing others rushing around me, how little cause I have for unhappiness. Yes, I know, the world is going to hell. The world has always been going to hell. Some days we know it more than others. But not all the world is going there, is it? I know that we have science on the side of pessimism for our future outcome and that is not an easy prn to swallow. But is science always right? It seems that as we have abandoned religion and faith, we have simply come to put our faith in science. We are still a religious species, us humans. We simply just channel it where it's going to be most convenient. From Christians to born-again atheists. So the scientists and medical doctors and researchers have become the new priesthood, and their word, of course, is going to be infallible. It isn't that I reject science and rationalism. Of course I don't. But as a person of faith, I also accept that our knowledge of ourselves, the earth and the universe is always going to be very limited and very restricted, no matter how much we learn. We have hypothesis and theory upon theory and hypothesis, and then in the next generation some new research blows out of the water the accepted dogma from the previous. and it is also well known how the various scientific establishments are generally very reluctant to consider any knew knowledge or findings that contradict their cherished dogmas. I remember how upset I got a room full of Anglicans a few years ago. It was during a book club discussion. The subject of climate change came up and suddenly everyone was going on like professional mourners or like Jeremiah wannabes as they lamented the dreadful, dark and deadly future that our reliance on fossil fuels is going to plunge Gaia into, and then I had to open my mouth. I simply asked one little question: "Whose earth is this?" They got really mad at me, especially as I tried to explain to them what I wish to repeat on these pages to you, Gentle Reader: God is in charge...of the universe, the planet, and (although we don't like the idea most of the time), he is also in charge of our lives. Still with me? Yes, we have our part to play by being good and responsible stewards to this planet, and that we do everything in our power to halt this destruction through reliance on fossil fuels, plastics and the eating of meat. And we are dragging our hienies. Still, it is God, and not us, who is going to write the final chapter for our Mother Earth, and not all the scientific research and findings in the world is going to do anything to change this. This doesn't absolve us of our responsibility. We have a lot of work to do and for the most part we would rather go on throwing garbage on the landfill and fowling the earth and water with our toxins and none of this bodes well. Scary, yes. because it makes our future all the more uncertain. But uncertainty can also germinate new hope. For my part, I am not going to make myself miserable over any of this. I have a natural predisposition towards joy, and this is going to be my strength, and joy is what is going to fuel and empower me as I do my part to work towards a cleaner, more sustainable and healthier planet. If I simply focus on what's not being done by others then I could get pretty miserable, and sadness and depression only serve to paralyze. Joy, fueled by righteous anger and love will be just the cutting instrument to help get us through this. and if we all get swallowed up in planetary destruction? I will still go down laughing. Even Dr. David Suzuki has said that there is hope and that without hope we cannot possibly move forward. And move forward we shall. One step at a time. But we are going to have to make sacrifices and some of those sacrifices might be very big and difficult. Get ready!

Surviving The Fall, 50

I am trying to see the future of our planet through the eyes and experience of people much younger than me. I was visiting with a couple from Colombia yesterday and they are both at least thirty years younger than me. In our conversation we were touching, among other things, on fossil fuels and global warming and I mentioned that when I am ready to die, things will be likely getting really bad, but that my friends and others of their recent vintage are going to have to live through it. and they are inheriting an earth that my generation has damaged, just as we have inherited from our parents and grandparents the damage that they had inflicted and the toxic beat goes on. I read most of an article in the weekend Globe and Mail about why it is such a difficult and long process to switch from fossil fuels, and how the planet might not have enough grace time to sustain this lengthy process. What the writer failed to mention is that we are also going to have to accept certain sacrifices and cut back on our consumption....of everything!....if we expect to survive the transition. Some of us really do make an effort. I am one of those people. I do not drive a car. I don't eat meat. I don't use single use plastic bags for shopping, and I have found that even by using plastic bags from frozen vegetables and other products for garbage disposal, I still must have at least a five year supply of plastic bags under my kitchen sink and plastic, as we all know, does not break down. Plastic is forever. En cafes I will only order beverages in glasses or ceramic cups, even iced beverages, because it has been noted that in my moderately sized city of Vancouver, alone, 2.6 million paper disposable coffee cups end up in the landfill every week. My record is not flawless. Even though I rely on public transit, some of the buses are diesel powered. I also fly every year and plane exhaust is a particularly notorious and noxious contaminant. When I observe the behaviour of those around me, I am not exactly inspired with hope. Our roads are still choked with polluting motor traffic, and we even have one conservative candidate for mayor promising to dismantle some of the bike lanes in this city! I have also noticed that the mast majority of people are not going to stop eating meat. In the grocery check out almost everyone still opts for single use plastic bags. And no one in the coffee shops seems interested in following my example of asking for reusable washable beverage containers. Depressing? Sometimes. Are we on a countdown? Yes. Is this getting desperate? I think that the vengeance of Gaia is going to have to become so undeniable and so deadly to our survival and comfort that we will see that there is no option but to change our habits. By then it could be too late. I think we really have to start getting our heads out of our backsides and learn that democracy is not simply a right, but it is also a privilege, as is this incredible earth that we live on, as is the fact that we get to live here. Life itself is a gift. We are starting to wake up, but we need to wake up faster. Time is running out.

Surviving The Fall, 49

Welcome to summer, Gentle Reader. Today, in the Northern Hemisphere, we celebrate the first day of summer, the solstice, the longest day of the year. After that it's downhill. I kind of regret that I haven't been able to stay out till sunset, for the simple reason that I go to bed early now. It isn't that I start work so early in the morning, though sometimes I have to, given early meetings that happen occasionally, but in order to cope with my sleep disorder. I often cannot sleep for longer than four hours without waking up then staying awake, at least for a couple of hours. So, knowing this beforehand, I try to get to sleep by or before 9:30 at night, after between ten minutes and an hour of reading in bed (depends on how tired I am). I probably am able to stay asleep, though I still usually wake up once or twice in the night, in order to log a good seven hours at least. But two or three of those nights every week are something different. I am suddenly wide awake at one am, but I stay in bed for another couple of hours, just to make sure that my brain can get some benefit from ling horizontally (it has been found that we need to be lying down at night for at least six hours and that this somehow helps cleans and renew the brain. Don't ask me for the facts, this isn't a science blog. But you can always ask your Uncle Google) Three am, sometimes earlier, I will tumble out of bed, often on four hours or less, then get started: brushing teeth, shaving, doing my shower, cleaning my place - quietly - then writing something on these pages and having breakfast. I will be listening to up to four different fascinating radio documentaries on the CBC, broadcast from Australia, Europe and the UK or the USA, as well as here in Canada, and it will be about a diversity of themes: families, racism, the environment, political experiments, the economy. Between four and five am, I will usually have finished the dishes and I will curl up in my recliner chair and go down for a three hour nap. It doesn't always go well, and I sometimes go through the day feeling jetlagged. But it's better than the alternative: staying up till ten, eleven or midnight, not sleeping well, then having to get up for work on less than adequate sleep without enough time to get more rest before having to begin my work day. I don't work tomorrow and I might stay up to see the sunset. Just to see what happens. This is all, of course, part of the daily struggles we all go through, the balances and compromises we end up agreeing to just to get through the day. We all have our part to play, keeping the economy god fed and placated with our daily human sacrifice. I at least have meaningful and satisfying (if severely undercompensated) work, and I generally have a lot of freedom from difficult supervisors and coworkers, being out in the community all day. But for those who work and slave at thankless and soul-destroying occupations, sometimes up to twelve hours a day or longer at different jobs? Just to buy a house, or a car. Or to put your kid through university? Or to pay gambling and credit card debts? Or simply to accumulate stuff that you don't need? I don't have a lot. My only piece of furniture that I bought new is my recliner chair. everything else I have bought second hand or have come by free. And I am surrounded by my art. I have just resumed reworking a painting of sun conures (a golden coloured parakeet from South America), that I had left for months, and I even wonder if this is helping me to sleep better. I decided to stop putting it off, and that I am no longer going to believe the excuse that I am finished as a painter, so why bother. I am never finished. I still draw. Now I am painting again. And this just might be key to sleeping better.

Surviving The Fall, 48

Here is something that really sticks in my craw, Gentle Reader. It is the blatant discrimination in our society against those who work hard as caregivers all their lives, and then are shunted into situations of marginalization, poverty and want. This happens over and over. I get angry and nauseous when I hear judgmental successful immigrants when they crow on about how lazy we are if we don't make it the way they did. If within five years our children aren't in university and we don't already have the mortgage half paid on our lovely monster home. Please don't ask me why it happens that way, but too often it does. And of course we never hear about the immigrants who do not make it, the more than half that return within a year to their native country because they cannot handle the pressure of living and resettling in Canada, or those for whom the cultural shock and the unexpected poverty and sudden crises end up plunging them in their own downward spiral into mental illness, poverty, or homelessness. It is those who made it, regardless of how much help and support they have had from others, who seem to believe that they did it all on their own, all by their dear sweet little selves; and the rest of us are just lazy. And our government, because of the PR cred, simply praises and glorifies those successful immigrants while continually forgetting about the many who don't make it, and while also continuing to neglect and ignore their own homegrown poor. Oh, that's right, it's our own fault, silly me! We didn't work hard enough. We get what we deserve. Just like that fat, obnoxious American woman on the bus who mentioned, when I told her about the growing crisis of homelessness in Vancouver, that we all make our choices. And those same people, despite their ability to succeed financially and materially, in human values and emotional intelligence, are themselves usually monumentally stupid. But this is what happens when greed, materialism and consumerism trump real human values in our effort to build a just and humane society. Winner takes all. And for those of you who are already sicking on me the Politically Correct Thought Police for being anti-immigrant, I will ask you please to reread what I have just written, my little mouth breathers, and you will find that I am not at all anti-immigrant. I am anti-selfishness and anti-stupidity and I don't care whether that's coming from a homegrown tenth generation Canadian, or the guy who just got off the plane from Manila. When you descend to being mean-spirited stupid and nasty, especially to vulnerable populations, then you are going to be fair game on this blog. I will spare you no quarter, show no mercy, I am taking no prisoners! One of the many little insults I have to cope with in y job, is the fact that the mental health teams that contract my services give us peer support workers the most difficult and challenging clients to work with, unsupported, out in the community, and they still expect us to believe that fourteen dollars an hour is a living wage! Sure, we've just been granted a whopping two dollar raise, but only because the government was already raising the minimum wage, and this put a gun to my employers' head. But this mentality is so pervasive, and so like the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, that I just simply want at times like this to vomit all over my keyboard, but I do want to get this written so I will hold my stomach. In the meantime, dearies, let me give you this little koan to think about: what does one make of a nation, society, a culture where someone will spend their entire adult lives taking care of sick, traumatized and homeless and unwanted people, as I have. In my twenties and thirties as a home support worker, I gave support and comfort to the dying and their families and friends, cleaned up their messes, made sure they were eating properly, attended to their personal care, and offered ongoing support and friendship while connecting them to other relevant care and support, all for a scandalously low wage, and then several years more in street ministry, befriending and comforting the unwanted who were dying from AIDS and other causes, befriending survivors of child abuse of all genders stranded in the survival sex trade and connecting them with relevant help and services where possible, and now, in mental health support services, mentoring and supporting others, some profoundly ill and challenged, towards improving their quality of life and finding some sense of meaning in their lives, keeping them out of hospital, and from spiralling downward into suicidal ideation, All these things I did for low wages, or for nothing. All these kinds of work, whether paid or not, I did for love. I did not go into other vocational training or post-secondary education for the simple reason that those things were unaffordable and unavailable to me, because I lacked even the most basic family support to help sustain me while not earning income in order to study, not to mention coping with high tuition, nor having the emotional strength to balance night classes with daytime work, especially in the stressful work I have been doing. Where is my reward? Why am I expected to shut up and put up with government subsidized housing for the rest of my life in an unsafe neighbourhood? Why can other people completely Hoover out of existence any sense of compassion, empathy or social conscience in order to make shitloads of money in industries of greed, and they get to have lovely homes in beautiful neighbourhoods and the privilege of retiring well and in comfort. I am not complaining, I have done better than many others in my situation, but we are not valued and we are doing work that is of infinitely higher value than those swine who work in banks or for corporations. We deserve better than this, and our way of thinking and our values of greed and selfishness have to be challenged and undermined. We have to start embracing true human values if we don't want to push our species and many others past the threshold of extinction.

Surviving The Fall, 47

Soon, in less than three years, I will be on my full retirement pension. I don't know how much it's going to be but the research I have done indicates that I will be okay if I decide not to work again, and that likely I will be getting even a little bit more. I expect to be staying in government subsidized housing for the rest of my life, if I am going to live out the rest of my years here in Vancouver, and that is not an absolute certainty, just as there is nothing in life that is an absolute certainty. Not even this blog, Gentle Reader, is an absolute certainty, but I will continue trying to entertain, inform, scandalize and inspire you (but hopefully never bore you!) every day for as long as I am able to get my fingers to work. I don't expect that I shall ever run out of things to say. I could remain working full time, though I no longer actually work full time, but four days a week, but I will likely shrink my work week down to two days in order to devote more time to writing, art, and creative indulgence (you'll have to guess!). I am tempted, once I hit sixty-five, as a lovely birthday present to myself, to simply tell all my supervisors and bosses to take this job and shove it, but in rather more colourful and less nice language. But I don't know. There is the possibility that I will remain so attached to my work and the idea of being useful that I will simply just ignore the details that piss me off at my employment providers, and continue with my clients and coworkers, smiling all the way through and instead of swallowing my bile, simply barf it up every day on these blessed pages. Some of our homeless people are seniors. This is a scandal and it looks like it won't be changing much by the time I'm officially old, so I sometimes feel like I'm walking in a graveyard at night. The housing and services available for us simply do not match the need or the demand. There isn't a lack of housing in this city. Every day, it seems, there is a new condo tower or townhouse development going up, but almost none of it is affordable to people of ordinary means, much less for the poor, so naturally the new housing gets offloaded onto the offshore wealthy or to real estate scum who shadow flip. This white collar crime is coming more to public attention and some measures are being taken against it, but really, unless all levels of government move assertively and aggressively against the greedy swine who are taking over the housing in this city, things are only going to keep getting worse, and we will be seeing more people like ourselves ending up begging on the sidewalks and, who knows, we might end up there ourselves. I am confident that as the public outcry becomes louder and more strident that our elected officials will be so ready to pee themselves that they are going to have to start obeying the will and need of the people. I am hopeful. In the meantime, I have only to imagine what it must have been like to be a senior citizen some one hundred or two hundred years ago. There wouldn't be that many, since people were usually considered old after forty, and generally anyone who wasn't already well off and well provided for wasn't going to see much more than sixty. Ageing, as we know it, is really a phenomenon of modern and postmodern times. Our diets are better, our knowledge of health and wellbeing is incredible and most of us have the means and resources for taking proper care of ourselves, plus our huge advances in medical care and technology and publicly accessible universal healthcare. I am optimistic and I believe that the public outcry will eventually gain enough ground to take over the reins of power that have been high jacked by the interests of greed and selfishness. It has taken us a while to wake up, and if we can put down our smart phones long enough then we might be able to get something done. Or, if we simply skip Amazon and our Facebook status and start tweeting and emailing one another and people in positions of influence, then actually doing something about it...It could be a tall order. It's almost summer, the silly season, but right now it's unseasonably hot and the resulting irritability might be just enough to turn more of us from delicate snowflakes into fire-breathing monsters, and just maybe we can constructively channel our wrath for change.

Surviving The Fall, 46

I think that hating your job, at least sometimes, is just a normal part of life. I like to think of all the things I could do if I didn't have to work for a living: all the art I would be working on, and marketing and promoting and selling, all the extra writing, the lovely walks and hikes I could take, the better quality of sleep I would enjoy, and I would likely be broke, and maybe even homeless again, or if not, then just so bored, rudderless and directionless that I would be on medications and in community mental health care before you know it. Or that's what we're all led to believe. It seems to be the current mythology that we only do well if we are working for a living and there is nothing like retirement to send grandpa into an early columbarium. Very few of us have the luxury of being independently wealthy. Most of us will always have to work for a living. And almost all of us are going to be somehow dependent upon this creaking dysfunctional system we are living in, whether we like it or not. We are stuck with this. There are always going to be coworkers we are going to hate, or love to hate, and vice-versa. I don't know what I would do if I didn't work. I know that it is for my benefit that I am able to interact constructively with others in the community. I have seen what happens to people when they don't, and it is frightening. I think that we all have a love-hate relationship with work, and this is a reflection of our love-hate relationship with life, with ourselves and with the universe. Yes it does suck that there is no free lunch, that we have to sing for our supper and that our sweat and effort is going to pay for our keep, but that's the way it's always been. The idle rich, the landed gentry, kings, rulers and aristocracy, have always been a pampered and freakish minority among humankind and one has only to have a look into the lives of the Windsors in order to get a little bit of insight of how psychologically damaging this life of privilege can be. But it always looks nicer from where we are, you know, the grass is always greener over the septic tank? (apologies to Erma Bombeck). Even if we don't like our jobs (and often, we do not) we can't live without meaningful work. What is problematic is that a lot of jobs are meaningless. They have little or no socially redemptive value and in themselves they provide only soul-destroying work. This has to be addressed, but I think the real reason we have this kind of meaningless employment says a lot about global capitalism and how this has separated humans from the economy. Despite certain conditions and persons and policies in my job that I find a little bit onerous, I feel that I am one of the lucky ones. I get to participate in other peoples' journeys towards wellness and this is a huge privilege. I also get to spend a lot of time outside and out in the community and I take long and enjoyable walks, often in beautiful neighbourhoods, between job assignments. If I paid market rent for my apartment then of course it wouldn't be adequate employment, but I am blessed with BC Housing. If I were paying market rent I would have to be earning double my current income, and I can still afford extras, like foreign travel every year. It could be a lot worse. Still, in less than three years I retire. This of course does bring me that much closer to the death zone, but it also means that if I stay in BC Housing, then I likely will be able to quit working and still enjoy a decent quality of life. But then what will I do with my time? I'm sure I'll figure it out. In the meantime I have only 985 days to go.

Surviving The fall, 45

a homeless couple has momentarily squatted in the alley across from my building. I had to close the window and turn on the fan, which I am loath to have to do when it's already nearly summer, but I can't function well when I am constantly hearing other people's voices from my home. It makes it all the more difficult for me to rest, recharge and feel the illusion of safety long enough to be able to function again in the outside world today. It is too easy to blame people like that for their problems and for the problem that they are for the rest of us, and it is also very unfair. I remember a friend, I would suggest, an ex-friend now, who years ago protested loud and bitterly about how rude a homeless girl was to her a few years ago. I replied that she didn't know what she might have been going through at the time, but first of all she was homeless and not likely to be feeling her best. She didn't know the stress she was under, nor if she had been traumatized, was dealing with drug and mental health issues. Why is it that when people are already pushed beyond human endurance they are still expected to keep a stiff upper lip, smile, be polite, put on a happy face, and maybe also perform for us a little song and tap-dance too? Well, needless to say, that individual and I are no longer friends, and my little lecture to her was likely the real nail in the coffin. So be it. With friends like her I don't need enemas. (not a typo, Gentle Reader!) I know those people squatting outside my building in order to sort out their empties are not at their best this morning. They probably haven't slept all night. I suspect addiction issues and mental health problems, perhaps (maybe likely) fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as well. They are not to be blamed. ................Gentle Reader, my eggs are ready and I am hungry. We will resume after breakfast..............Well, breakfast was good, the usual, two soft-boiled eggs, three small hunks of homemade bread with peanut butter and apricot jam and a slice of extra old white Cheddar, the good stuff. Hm...not bad for someone living on a low income. And coffee from Costa Rica, which I am still drinking. I stayed in my recliner chair following breakfast for a nap as my sleep last night was a little incomplete, and now I am much better. The street couple is gone and my window is open again. Just following my nap, I heard a very loud testosterone fueled voice shout, three times, "Fuck you!" I was concerned, so instead of waiting till it's time to leave for church this morning, I just took the newspapers, cereal box, plastic strawberry container and empty orange juice can down to recycling, to see if there was anything going on. There is a man, perhaps in his fifties, sitting on the curb just outside our fenced-in parkade. I said good morning, and he sort of ignored me. After I emptied the recycling I asked if everything's good. He nodded. I wished him a happy Sunday. I don't know if he was the person shouting, but I suspect that he probably could be. It has also been quiet since I returned to my suite, so I expect that what little I could offer this man of friendly human contact might have helped. I do not know this man, nor anything about his identity or history, but I can tell when someone has been suffering a lot. We have so many people who are walking and breathing wounded. There are those who cope and fit well within their role in society and no one can usually guess who they are. Then there are those who, through little or no fault of their own, just slipped through the ever widening cracks and now there they are, populating our streets, openly suffering, showing forth the festering wounds of our shame. I alone can't really do a lot, except to show what kindness I can, and to pray for people, to find out their names, and to always see and recognized in each person the suffering face of Christ on the cross. This is how I believe in God, not as a remote CEO of the universe, but as a very human Jesus who suffers like us, with us, and through us. Happy Sunday, Gentle Reader.

Surviving The Fall, 44

I wonder if Introversion is a default mode. If that becomes the category or waste bin for those who don't cope well socially, the rejects bin, so to speak. I often noticed this in school. They were the jocks, the cool kids and the rock stars, and they were always hosting parties or getting invited to parties and they were all the popular and best-liked in the school. They were also (surprise, surprise!) the best looking, best dressed, strongest, healthiest and most competitive. If Darwin is to be taken by the letter, which is the tendency of fundamentalist scientists and atheists, then that is simply natural selection in motion. The survival of the fittest, and since those are the same kids more likely to get laid, naturally they get to pass on their genes (or there but for the grace of Trojan and birth control pills go you and I). Their time was so fully taken up by sports, concerts, parties and sleepovers and whatever, that with all that togetherness and the angst involved into getting into university and mapping out your professional life, no one could possibly have time to acquire or develop an inner life, nor even have the remotest idea of what an inner life is, nor even that such an experience and perception of things could ever possibly exist. In fact, to leave any one of those little darlings on her own for more than half an hour, without a smart phone, without anyone to distract him, would probably meet the UN 's definition of torture or cruel and unusual punishment. She would implode, he would need to be put on medication and need complete and prolonged community psychiatric care, fast. Then there are the nerds, the geeks, the misfits and loners. Probably maybe one or two genuinely don't like to be around people, and might even live somewhere on the autism-Asperger's spectrum. The others? They are not good-looking enough, or butt-ugly, or as in my case they are Jesus freaks or practice a strange religion, or they are just socially dyslexic, or as in my case they are living in dysfunctional and abusive family situations, or are highly sensitive or really bright and gifted so that the other kids either can't relate to them or are so put off and envious that they will do anything in their power in order to make to keep our lives miserable. This isn't to say that some people aren't naturally disposed to being less social, as there is quite a spectrum to our human natures. Neither do I believe that natural introverts are necessarily antisocial. But this is what is wrong with the language we are stuck with here. We tend to think in useless binaries. We are a social species, one of the most social species on the planet. Our survival depends completely on the collective, without which we each become so weak, impoverished and vulnerable that we literally perish. Does anyone ever notice young people, be they children, adolescents or twenty-somethings when they are in groups out in public. They are noisy, bold, brash, sometimes reckless, often obnoxious, rude and at times intolerable. They rule the world. Now, what will happen if you separate one on those little mouth-breathers from their protective herd. That's right. Watch how fast the little snowflake melts into a useless little drip. The poor little darling, without the protection and backing of their collective self of friends and gang members is suddenly shy, scared, frightened, and looks like they have just done dookie in their designer knickers. But, Gentle Reader, in a way, we are all like that. Then there are those who are naturally inclined, not really towards solitude, but having and celebrating an inner life. We aren't in a hurry to be liked or to make friends. It isn't that we don't like people, but often are so attuned to other realities, and a lot of us are artists, writers and poets, but we really do not deal in the same currency as the regular and popular folk, but for the slim chance of becoming famous, and rich from our talents, and then we become the trend setters and we become the gods and goddesses of the common rabble's desiring. Doesn't happen too often, and usually it is those who are already well-connected, and having a particularly ruthless streak is going to be an asset. In the meantime, I have opted to embrace my inner silence and to continue to live at the rhythm of the spirit. It doesn't make me rich or popular, but it certainly teaches me to be a good friend as I seek to find and touch Christ in each person on my path. This has nothing to do with introversion or extroversion and everything to do with taking the time to acquire a vision for your life and the world that you live in and then living true to this vision. If we have enough people actually doing this, then maybe we just will survive the coming challenges.

Surviving The Fall, 43

I just heard the last bit of a short interview on the radio with an individual who is apparently one of the most hated individuals by Vladimir Putin. He was just expressing how Putin isn't a legitimate political leader, but a criminal who runs Russia like a Mafia boss and is only doing it to amass as much money for himself and his cronies as possible. This makes sense. It is also depressing news, given the huge arsenal of nuclear weapons that he has at his command. The world is a scary and frightening place. Or is it? This morning the sun rose. I got up after a good eight hours of sleep (doesn't always happen). I have bread baking in the oven. I have just had my first sip of coffee made from beans grown in the fertile soil of San Luis, near Monteverde, Costa Rica. The coffee is a gift from the owners of the bed and breakfast where I stay when I visit Monteverde and the owners of the coffee farm are part of their extended network of family and friends. I will be submitting the forms and documents this morning to my housing providers for the annual rent review, which means that for another year I will be paying low and affordable rent for my apartment that has sheltered me these last sixteen years. Which means that I can actually go to Costa Rica every year. This coming March will be my sixth visit, always in Monteverde with the legendary cloud forest and incredible wildlife. Yesterday I hung out with a young couple from Colombia as we are doing language exchange, and this helps my Spanish as it helps their English. Today, I will start a new drawing, go for a long walk and later have coffee with a Mexican friend for more language exchange. Tomorrow I can enjoy my quiet day. Sunday I will be in church in the morning and later enjoying a beautiful solitary hike. I am sixty-two with good health and feeling actually better than in my forties. Putin is like a Mafia boss extorting Russia and threatening the world with nuclear annihilation and there is nothing I can do about it. The sun will set tonight. Tomorrow it will rise again and we are promised beautiful weather. There are two pigeons nesting above my window and this feels somehow like a good omen. Even though we have nightmares like Putin and el presidente Dump, the Great Deplorable squatting in the Oval Office, it is still a beautiful day. Even though the early Edition on CBC Radio has been playing all week this smarmy tribute to dads in celebration of the upcoming Father's Day, and even though this triggers me for the abusive relationship that I had with my own father, none of this wretched toxic masculinity is going to stop the sun from rising, setting then rising again, nor is it going to stop the world from turning, and I will still be making bread and drinking lovely coffee and enjoying the friendships of people from other countries as well as here in Vancouver, and I will continue to pay small rent as I age into a new life. Yes, there are problems in the world, and there are some really awful people with power to harm millions, if not billions, but that is not going to be my focus, and I refuse to believe that they are ever going to get away with it. Living in fear never solves anything. Neither does getting angry. But our anger can be used in redemptive ways as it fuels us to work for the greater good and for justice. But we still have to work carefully. We have to work together. The bread will be ready in six minutes. I am enjoying my coffee. I have had to close my window and turn on the fan to block out the construction noise nearby. The toxic masculinity that is destroying our planet is also rebuilding our city and making it into something unaffordable to the poor. I am one of the lucky ones. I am grateful. And because others cannot access what I have been given, I am angry, and I will continue to fight.

Surviving The Fall, 42

Don't get me wrong, Gentle Reader. I am not glorifying extroverts, some of whom can be some of the most obnoxious mouth-breathers crawling on our planet. They are people who act without thinking. Introverts tend to think without acting. I really don't know which is worse. The other day, I was out with a young client for the first time and we ran into a much older friend of hers. Now, I am not in the habit of disclosing anything about my clients on these pages, as we work under the strictest policy of confidentiality and for very good reason. So, you will forgive me for not disclosing any revealing details in this account. I will just say that this individual was a person of my parents' generation. (Believe it or not, Gentle Reader, there are still surviving representatives of my parent's age demographic and they are not yet centenarians!) This individual I would call an uber-extrovert. They were immediately slapping my back and shaking my hand and telling me all the things I should be doing with my client to help improve the quality of her life, and this was just so very embarrassing. I was polite, but said nothing and backed away, later explaining to my client our practice of confidentiality. I really don't like this polarity or this binary about extroverts and introverts, by the way. I often wonder if, rather than being born one way or the other, we simply just adapt as we fumble our way through childhood. Those who are able to read cues and adapt and conform are going to be the most successful children, and adults. There is no way around this. It doesn't matter how gifted and bright the social outsiders. Lacking those essential skills and the courage to actually try with others will become for us a huge disadvantage, and we will be the most likely to spending at least part of our adult lives in some kind of community care, an emergency shelter, or pushing a shopping buggy through back alleys at night. I don't mean to sound so bleak. But so much depends on our ability to adapt and conform with others. There is also a need for the collective to learn greater flexibility and compassion and empathy. It is the lack of acceptance and chronic social rejection that makes shy and socially awkward children into maladapted and problematic adults. I am often amazed that with what I had to suffer both from my immediate family and my peers that I haven't turned out a lot worse, myself. But I was also fortunate that strategic people and groups intervened in my life when I most needed those interventions, largely through my Christian faith and experience, and this whole dimension of spirituality and seeking to be part of community and to live out the teachings and precepts of Jesus and his apostles has likely done more than anything to hold me up and protect me from those horrific vortices and downward spirals. Ageing well also seems to help. I was reflecting yesterday about how much I enjoy being in my sixties. I cannot think of a time in my life where I have felt better, happier, more content, better connected, and more creative. I also got to enjoy yesterday a very interesting extroverted but introverted kind of day. I had to work from home, as I am putting together some rather challenging course material about great artists for the art classes for some of our clients. I started at home just after 7:30 and continued till after 11. Then I took a bus to the rich neighbourhoods, and did a three mile walk. I sometimes said hi to strangers, usually wishing people a happy Wednesday, since the day was neither Tuesday nor Thursday, and it certainly wasn't Saturday. To one Chinese woman, who seemed delighted at being wished a happy Wednesday, I explained the origins of the greeting. There is a tenant in my building who is developing dementia and once he asked me what day it is. Since then, when I run into him, I smile and say, Happy Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or whatever day it is, and it seems like a warm and playful way of touching the day with people, so I've gotten into the habit of using it. In the coffee shop I chatted a bit with the lady on duty, who liked the rose that I have been drawing, and chatted briefly but warmly with a couple of other patrons. On the way home, walking more through the wealthy neighbourhoods, I was singing "Cry Me a River", since a lot of the lovely elegant homes and front gardens are being currently blighted with very angry red and white signs protesting a very tiny additional property tax on particularly expensive homes, for general revenue and I really think those rich douchebags have nothing to whine about. When a letter carrier approached me, I told him I was singing for them a special little song and he just burst out laughing. l A bit later a little rich boy coming home from school called out to me "Hey Mister, how are you today?" and I replied "Pretty good, Mister, and how are you?" He wanted to know if I had a tie and I said, not today, and he also wanted to know what happened to my hair. I replied that this often happens to men when we get older and who knows, it could even happen to him. He asked me if I was working today and what kind of work I do and I replied that I have been working today and I work with people who have problems. Then he wanted to know my age. I said I could be his grandfather, but probably I'm not. He said he is nine. I replied that if you multiply his age by seven and subtract one, he would know my age. He wasn't sure about the math so I did it for him. Then, he turned into one of the smaller mansions, saying "this is my house." I replied that it looks like a nice house and wished him a good day. On my way to the bus stop I noticed that I might have to run for the approaching trolley. Instead of running for it, I just waved to the driver and we both arrived almost simultaneously at the stop. As I boarded I mentioned that it just seemed less inelegant wave and wished him a happy Wednesday and he seemed warm and welcoming. So, gentle Reader, this is an idea of how I manage to balance introversion with extroversion, but really it's about rejecting the binary and simply living our lives, eh?

Surviving The Fall, 41

I have noticed similar traits in most of the people (almost all of them males) who tell me they are introverts. They're all, even just a little, socially awkward. This is very chicken and egg. Did their social dyslexia make them introverts or did being introverts make them socially dyslexic? I also suspect that some of them might be somewhere on the spectrum, perhaps with mild Asperger's. When they were children in school did they want to be numbered with the cool kids only to meet with cruel and persistent rejection? Or were they all already individually too cool for the common rabble and from the very beginning shunned the madding crowd, being themselves a superior race, inhaling rather too refined and pure an air to be appreciated by lesser mortals? I do not suspect the latter. However, gifted children often have a terrible time integrating with their peers, but I don't think it's because they don't want to have friends. I was a gifted child. I wanted friends. We were not on the same wavelength. I think that all children, unless they are severely autistic, really want to belong, they really desire to participate with others. However, we have a very nasty and pernicious Darwinist trait in our little developing human natures, and yes, especially children, who can be so cruel, sadistic and excluding. The schoolyard is a vicious and nasty place, and it is a very horrible petri-dish that forms us into the rabid mouth-breathing consumer-capitalists that the corporations expect to help keep their profit margins nice and wide. What I find problematic are all these walking wounded, now adults, mostly men, who are so traumatized and stigmatized for not being numbered among the cool, but oh so shallow kids, that they lie and dissimulate. Their macho pride, forged in the black flame of toxic masculinity forbids them from admitting that they weren't exactly introverts. They were simply socially dysfunctional, if gifted and extremely bright, geeks whom no one wanted to be seen with. It is a hard and brutal truth to have to face, and men are particularly delinquent when it comes to this kind of humiliating dishonesty. We would rather believe beautiful lies about ourselves, and even if we are smart enough to not fall for that crap, we still want others to believe them. There is no support for us. At least now, in the public school system, they are finally calling out and confronting this kind of bullying that really destroys and deforms those who would otherwise develop noble and inspiring souls. I don't know how far they'll get with it, but when I first heard of queer kids actually being stood up for and defended by their peers (pink T shirt, anyone?), I felt suddenly gladdened and hopeful. There are always going to be those small numbers of particularly and peculiarly gifted individuals among us. It isn't that we don't want to have friends. We want friends, because like the rest of you, we need other people. We might also have a legitimate need for more solitude, more alone and breathing space, because we're highly sensitive, or need time to think, to reflect and digest things, to hear the inner voice, so to speak, and to acquire the kind of wisdom and knowledge that we alone are able to contribute and without which the rest of your lives would be empty, barren, colourless and desolate. It is sad that so many of us who have survived the nightmare of school cannot be honest about what makes us introverted loners, that we were never accepted or appreciated by our peers. We still have to give ourselves time to heal, and this need for quiet space is what often defines us as introverts. It is safe. We don't have to deal with other people's crap, and usually, being more perceptive and discerning than others, we really do know that most of what binds the shallow, mouth-breathing extrovert majority together, is pure and utter horseshit.

Surviving The Fall, 40

I was never an authentic introvert, even though I have and do spend a lot of time alone. And I wonder if this is also the case for a lot of self-defined introverts. There is so much bullying and mistreatment when we are children: in my case I was daily beaten up by my older brother and my mother, then when I came to school I would get the same from other kids (though usually they didn't hit me, they just called me names and shunned me, and likely because I was so broken down and hostile already from my lousy home environment that I wasn't exactly an attractive kid to hang out with) Going for long solitary walks, even when I was eight years old, became for me the default option for feeling safe. No one could usually find me. I really wanted to be with other kids, but even when I was tolerated, the closer friendships always seemed to pass me by. Certain other kids, who also were disliked or not popular, did try to befriend me, but we would eventually lose interest, because no one wants to be a default option. It hasn't been all bad. In fact, it's all turned out pretty good. All this enforced solitude, even if it wasn't welcomed, helped me develop an inner life. I became introspective and reflective. Even when I was just eight years old and out for a walk at night after dinner (neighbourhoods were much safer in those days, or maybe parents were a lot more negligent. Take your pick), usually on my way to the corner store, a half mile walk in our semi-rural neighbourhood, to pick up lettuce, tomatoes, cigarettes for mom and a chocolate bar for myself, I became particularly aware of the moon and its phases. It came to be like the moon was walking with me, because it was always moving with me, or so it seemed. So, I came to claim as a friend the moon. Likewise the stars, and especially the constellation Orion. I cannot remember how I came to identify Orion when I was just ten years old. I think it was because, as an introvert by default with also a powerful and rapidly developing intelligence, I spent a lot of time reading encyclopedias. Orion became my friend, and a kind of protector and cosmic companion. The particularly brilliant star in his sword also became very special to me. I was already a deep thinker at the age of twelve and already concerned and knowledgeable about world events. I wasn't distracted by sports, or in adolescence by the brutal popularity competition that comes to consume kids' lives as they get ready for the work and corporate world when they become adults. This is the dance that God has kept from me. I have no regrets. So, I've always lived at the margins, never popular, and always seeing what others don't, because mistreatment and rejection from others can actually foster depth and perspective, and in my case it has. Now, I am sixty-two, long past childhood. I have accepted that I will never be a popular person. But that's okay. I have friends and I have had to learn to be patient and forgiving in order to keep my friends. I have had to uproot the kind of toxic self-pity that thwarts and cripples the growth of people who have been bullied and ostracised. In my work with people living with mental illness I have really had to look beyond my own pain and get over my neediness. Everybody hurts. And we are all incredibly fragile. I still spend a lot of time in solitude. I have come to enjoy it and often to even prefer it. It isn't just that it's safe, which it is. But it allows my mind, my imagination, my entire soul, free rein, and I can go places in my mind, in my feelings, my insights and perceptions, that just don't really get mapped out from me when I'm around other people. But there are exceptions. And in my visits with friends there are always things that come out in the conversations that teach me something. It completes the circle. Life isn't really safe for anyone and we need to reckon with this at an early age. We also need to become for one another a safe place and this is what I try to cultivate in my contacts with others. It doesn't mean that I'm always going to be safe, but there is something about reaching out in love and care to others that makes our own journey somehow easier and less threatening. Even in our alone times, our solitude, we are giving to others, but we have to get out of the swamp of self-pity. It will only strangle us. It is also completely opposed to love and if we are busy feeling sorry for ourselves then we are far less likely to reach out to others, and it is the reaching out that helps build and foster community.

Surviving The Fall, 39

We need one another. We are a social species, a very social species and we simply do not cope well alone. In fact, our survival is so interwoven with others that, alone, no human being would be able to manage. We are not really, fully human without one another. Now this can be interpreted and actualized in any number of ways. And within our humanity we find a great range of expression and need. There is of course that useless personality binary of extroverts and introverts. Rather okay as a very crude guide, but it still says very little about who we are. In fact, I would go as far as to say that introversion is a luxury fostered by our human social institutions and infrastructures. Without the services of computer technology, books, art materials, hiking equipment and clothing, automobiles, gardening and home supplies and all the many other activities and diversions that facilitate an introverted, less than social life expression, anyone claiming to thrive alone would simply implode, collapse and die from starvation, boredom and loneliness. This reflects some of my own experience. I am actually directly on the borderline of introvert and extrovert, at least according to Briggs-Meyer. Being with others is vital to my wellbeing, just as being alone. But the times of solitude help me process the together times and to restore and refresh me for my next social forays. I like to think of this as balance, I suppose. And the balance is going to look a little bit different for each person. But this is very much a First World Problem. Without our advanced technologies and our many cultural achievements we would have to stick all the closer together, for safety, food and shelter. I really don't think a lot of us understand that privacy, as we know, practice and accept privacy by entitlement, is really a huge luxury. living alone in your own place, your own apartment, having a room of your own? Essential, maybe for the wellbeing of self-defined introverts, and others, but still a huge luxury that has arisen out of millennia of human evolution and developing civilization. Even the most introverted need to be protected from loneliness, which is different from solitude. When you think of all the mass murderers in recent history, have you noticed the one trait they all seem to share in common? They are all dysfunctional loners. I think in many cases originally very sensitive and delicate souls that got badly hurt by others, got somehow sacrificed on the altar of toxic masculinity, and have since festered and mutated underneath their rocks or inside their cave into something ugly, frightening and deathly. Being hard people to be friends with, to even tolerate and endure, they often feel driven away from others. Chronic rejection makes people inflexible and untrusting. There is a lot of work that needs to be done on both sides to bring people like that out of isolation, and unfortunately the burden of effort lies on society, families, friends, concerned volunteers and professionals, and others. I am not very good at this, either. I was long at risk of turning into this kind of toxic loner, and only my desire and need to connect with others, and the tremendous patience and unconditional love I have sometimes been surprised with, have helped me stay on keel and ready to move forward. I have also had to learn how to forgive and cultivate empathy. and these are qualities that are generally lacking in toxic loners. Now my emphasis isn't simply to not be isolated, but to be a good friend. And this is where the real work begins.

Surviving The Fall, 38

Gentle Reader, I wrote this sixteen years ago, in 2002, just after the then newly minted BC Liberal government had pushed through some of the nastiest and most pernicious legislation in living memory. I crafted together a contingency plan. Here it is for your reading discernment and study. Happy Sunday!.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................We are facing in this province the greatest human rights debacle since the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. As it becomes increasingly difficult for one to obtain social assistance while employment also becomes more scarce and harder to find we re heading towards a major social catastrophe. In April 2004, the first wave of welfare recipients will have exceeded the two year limit. Unless either this pernicious bit of legislation is repealed, or unless sufficient contingency plans have been put in place, we will be facing a catastrophic nightmare. This issue must be confronted on three levels, simultaneously: No effort should be spared in coercing the Campbell Liberals to repeal the two year limit, the three week wait, as well as the other drastic cuts they have made in social services funding. People on disability 2 should not have their cases reviewed, and single mothers should be allowed to stay at home with their children until they are at least six. Basic income rates should be raised to accurately reflect the rising cost of living, thus permitting recipients of assistance to live in some modicum of dignity, while being encouraged and motivated wherever possible towards re-employment, government funded employment training, and all levels of post-secondary education, including all university faculties, government-funded. The punitive attitudes that most Canadians harbour towards the poor and unemployed must be effectively and consistently challenged! In the event that these legislations cannot be significantly reversed, then a contingency plan will have to be developed and immediately put in place. I see this alternative as involving participation and funding from both federal and civic levels of government, involving also the participation and facilitation by church, community, political and volunteer groups, and wherever possible the (gag!) business community. There should also be federally funded legal aid made available to persons who will wish to litigate against the Campbell Liberals for their persons and lives being endangered and destroyed due to legislated disenfranchisement. Other provinces, and, if necessary, other nations, should also be briefed and encouraged to receive as economic refugees, certain numbers of our welfare exhaustees. This will certainly make Canada a global laughingstock should we ever have such countries as Costa Rica receiving refugees from our own British Columbia! The contingency plan would involve funding from Ottawa and the civic governments jointly pooled in order to continue giving economic assistance to those British Columbians whose welfare has run out, while also continuing to encourage and support them towards training, education and employment. The churches and community and volunteer organizations would have to redouble their efforts in working together along with the business community and federal and civic funding, with anything that could be squeezed out of Victoria, to develop on three levels restorative housing to the homeless and vulnerable: emergency shelters, intermediate shelters, and low-cost housing. Vacant buildings and lands should be immediately re-appropriated by the city, with assistance from Ottawa, for the purposes of developing intermediate shelters and stable, affordable housing. Supermarket chains and corporations should be encouraged, and if necessary, coerced, into providing free food assistance. 3. A campaign towards public education and awareness of the issues of legislated poverty and its deleterious impact on the quality of our lives as individuals and as a community needs to be immediately launched and AGGRESSIVELY PURSUED, using every possible medium and outlet to disseminate this information. Unless these steps are effectively taken we are going to be faced with an alarming increase of poverty, violent street crime, murder, suicide, child and spousal abuse, prostitution, and drug trafficking. We will see vermin and disease ridden shanty towns springing up such as are commonplace in such cities as Manila and Rio de Janeiro. Our streets will be choked with beggars. This does not have to be inevitable, but we have just eighteen months remaining in which to act. As long as even one person has to go without food or housing, this can only bring shame upon us as a society.

Surviving The Fall, 37

Humour helps, in fact, humour is essential if we want to survive the fall. It isn't simply escaping into silliness, but deliberately showing and exposing the things and people and parties and institutions that threaten us that they are really nothing, or at least very little, and especially reminding ourselves of how ridiculous they are, and of our own little absurdity for buying into the fear. Humour is born from suffering. When another, more powerful party tries to harm or damage us, they are really showing themselves as weak, brittle and fragile. That they would think that we could possibly get in their way and ruin their nefarious plans only shows then for what they are: sour, bitter little shadows; loathsome chimeras. Nothing more. It is unfortunate, though, that they also have at their ready the weapons, tools, control and influence to wreak great harm to us and we have to be ready for this, and these little forays of rebellion could easily cost us our lives. In some countries, anyway. We have things relatively safe here in Canada, but you never know, the widow said. Not being embedded in the power structures does give us a freedom and flexibility and a creative intelligence that are lacking in those hierarchies of authority. In a way we have the power to become spiritual guerillas. This has nothing to do with committing acts of violence because we are warriors of peace and there is no way to peace. Peace is the way. Blogging, for me, is a helpful outlet. It isn't just a matter of getting things out of my system and it is rather boring when others make that kind of assumption. Blogging is public. It is to inform others, to influence, to challenge, to inspire, to make people think and eventually to act, and hopefully to act in constructive ways. Our margins for action, for activism, are often narrow and hard to find, unless we want to go the route of wholesale violence and want to take the Man down. But this kind of thinking is always destructive, and we are the ones who end up getting hurt, not the power structures. So we have to take care. Our major victory is moral. When they go low, we go high. This also gives us tonnes of street cred. By laughing in the face of power, we are despoiling them of their most essential control over ourselves. We are taking back our lives because we are telling the dragon that his fire has gone out and it will no longer be kindled again. Getting our souls back is the first and most important step towards a complete revolution. The rest is not necessarily going to be a cakewalk, but when we know, and not simply they, that they no longer have power over us, then we can really begin to move forward and take what is rightfully ours.

Surviving The Fall, 36

First, the opening stanzas to a famous Leonard Cohen song. (pardon the lack of formatting, Gentle Reader. Microsoft's sin, not mine!).......... They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin I'm guided by a signal in the heavens I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin...................... I first heard those words, I think, back in 1986, or so, When Jennifer Warrens released an album of her interpretation of some of the songs of Leonard Cohen. Those words have long resonated with me. Of course there is also the subtext of terrorism implied in these lyrics, of vengeance and a kind of anger turned into rage that will not be abated. I have given up on trying to change the system, from within or without. I haven't been silenced, but I do like to think that I am parsing my words and stewarding my energy with the wisdom of my rapidly approaching old age. After years of working within a system that thrives on its own stubborn bureaucratic rigidity (Kafkaesque, maybe?) I simply shut up now and do my job. But I still do everything I can to motivate my clients towards autonomy, dignity and self-actualization, since my bosses have clearly defaulted on this most elemental responsibility to people receiving mental health services. I am also lucky that I have a lot of coworkers and supervisors who think the same as I do. It makes things less lonely and desperate. So, despite this anger that has been smouldering in me to a white-hot wrath, I am not about to take up weapons. I am not going to start an insurrection, everybody can still feel safe around me. I am using this anger as a fire of personal transformation. This anger has made me strong, and I will continue to use this as an energy transmogrified into love.............................. I am reading right now a fascinating novel, a thriller, actually. It is in Spanish translation, originally written in Italian by Valerio Massimimo Manfredi. Now a moment please, while I listen to this segment on the radio about white collar crime.............It wasn't that interesting. Anyway, this novel, published in 1990, deals with an archeologist in Greece who discovers an ancient Mycenaean vase and all hell breaks loose. it is 1973 and there are student riots in Athens against the brutal military dictatorship at the time. A young woman is raped and murdered in custody, her Italian boyfriend beaten and tortured and their companions, one French and one English are also cruelly implicated. Ten years later, the Italian, presumed dead, wreaks havoc in Greece as he returns to systematically and brutally bump off all the Greek military and police officials implicated in his girlfriend's murder, and he is helped by a leading figure in the Greek secret service. I am just a little more than halfway through the novel. I picked it up in a second hand bookstore in Alajuela, when I was last in Costa Rica three months ago. I must have paid the equivalent of one dollar for it. I had never heard of this writer before, and, really, I am always on the lookout for interesting reads in Spanish to help strengthen my fluency. This one is unputdownable. It also has me thinking about this whole idea of anger and revenge and vindication. I cannot endorse this fictional character's actions, but I do sympathize. I know the cry for vindication. I have heard it get ripped out from my lungs many times already. But I have already decided that vengeance is never a solution to the bigger problems at hand. I can only use this anger to change myself, and to effect whatever small influence in the world that I live in. If applied wisely, strategically and with great compassion for others, I think that this will in time become a winning and indomitable force. I have faith.