Nuance 9

There is an individual who is often in the news, local and sometimes national. He lives in my city. He is charismatic, articulate and educated. He is a political and social activist, has a lot of leadership capabilities and actually is considered a community leader. I have heard him on the radio, in documentaries, and we have a close friend in common. I have never met this person, and I'm sure that he wouldn't know me from Cain or Abel. He is also a heroin addict. I am not going to name him, since embarrassing others is not the purpose of this blog, unless they are politicians, or a particularly irresponsible journalist. Almost everyone else is hands off here. He was previously in the news on many occasions for his activism for the homeless and socially-marginalized. Recently he has publicly come out as a drug user and has now lent his name to the causes of harm-reduction and legalization of all addictive drugs, including and especially heroin. He is prominent in organizing and advocating in the community for no strings attached availability of heroin for those who use it. There are others living with addictions who are working with him, and have also been emboldened about going public. I find this all troubling. And for one simple reason: No one is talking about treatment or rehabilitation. They are, understandably, using the effects of prohibition of alcohol during the twenties and thirties as their reason for advocating for drug legalization. And, superficially, this makes a lot of sense. With alcoholic beverages being now widely available and the consumption of alcohol being perfectly socially acceptable, one would imagine that we have here a perfect model for harm-reduction. Except for one little detail. Alcohol, like heroin, is also an addictive substance. Both also cause longterm health affects and damage. The legitimization of alcohol has done absolutely nothing to minimize the damage as every year thousands of Canadians are impacted, whether by the health affects of alcoholism, the social fallout of losing their lives and livelihood, the many innocent victims who die in car accidents thanks to drunk drivers, etcetera. Addiction is no cakewalk, and it should never be entertained not even as a lesser evil, except in the context of strict harm reduction programs that is designed to help facilitate treatment and rehab. By the same token, I only wish that had been the object for ending alcohol prohibition, but booze is seen as being so socially legitmate that if you so much as raise an eyebrow about social drinking then you are often not likely to do well socially or professionally. Even if heroin addiction carries a lot of stigma, the parallels are still inescapable. It is also only fair to mention here that the roots of addiction are pretty universal, and many or most with substance addictions have also a very troubled personal history, often including a lot of child abuse and family dysfunction. I agree with making drugs legal. But I am not comfortable with this illustrious gentleman speaking very loudly about getting his daily fix whenever he wants it, while saying nothing about his possible options for treatment and rehab, and for someone in his position this is particularly significant. He is a leader and a role model. Highly visible. If he is unwilling to go through rehab, himself, then what kind of spoken and unspoken messages does this give to his peers, some of whom might be ready for treatment, but will turn it down because it is suddenly okay just to go on being addicted with a lifetime of easy availability of the drug you are hooked on? But addictions treatment is very complicated, and success is contigent upon the willingness of the addicted person, and this doesn't happen that often. Add to this complication the often prohibitive cost of treatment and rehab. This does sound cynical, but I really wonder if our governments would just as soon not spend the money on treatment because it is far cheaper just to keep people alive from fix to daily fix. True it is, that harm reduction does provide people with some safety and protection and it does save lives. Sad, though, it isn't it, that the ones who hold the purse strings just might rather save the taxpayer a few extra dollars than see lives restored from making treatment more available and more possible for those who want it.

Nuance 8

How do we measure success? Or, rather, what is success? I am trying in my mind to juxtapose two, no, three very different occurrences over the last twenty-four hours, or so. The first was yesterday in a coffeeshop, my favourite coffeeshop, I suppose, or at least the one where one is most likely to find me, since I tend to gravitate there two, or sometimes, three times a week. It's often pleasant enough in there, especially if I am able to score my favourite seat in the corner, one of three comfy chairs surrounding a round wooden coffee table. I was there yesterday around noon, nursing a decaf Americano and a near frisbee-size chocolate cookie, or my usual. All was well, tranquil, not too many people, and I was getting tons of work done on a drawing in my sketchbook. Then she came in. A braying jackass. One of two blonde middle-aged women, fresh from some sort of fitness session. The other one was okay, quiet and probably more a captive audience for the braying she-donkey, a rather large woman with long, fake blonde hair and a tendency to sit in total man-spread. Nothing wrong with women sitting like men, though it doesn't really look good on men, either, especially if you want some space to sit next to one of those space hogs on a crowded bus. The braying she-jackass was unrelenting. I was learning everything I could care less about her grooming techniques, her hair, her fear of ageing, her home improvement business, her dog, and finally, convinced I was captive audience to an incurable narcissist, reached into my pocket and pulled out my little orange friends. That's right, Gentle Reader. My earplugs. I don't know if the braying she-jackass saw me put them in, but who only knows. Some people just don't seem able to control or modulate their voice. And I know absolutely nothing about this woman. I haven't a clue where she's from, what kind of struggles she has had to live with, if she has been challenged by child abuse or cancer or what have you. I only know that she was for me a very annoying and almost physcially painful presence, hence the earplugs. She might be a lovely person, a loyal friend, perhaps she does many lovely things for others. Or maybe not. Probably a financially successful person. As a human being? Who only knows? I can't judge her, even if she does seem like an easy target. She certainly doesn't know how to behave in public. On the other hand, I know absolute zip about the stresses and challenges she might be living with. But I have my orange little friends, my earplugs, and they do come in handy. And I didn't even say anything to anyone about the annoyance, not even the owner, who did seem a bit concerned and sympathetic about the situation. This morning, in the small hours, I was listening to a couple of documentaries on the radio, CBC, of course. My frenemies. The first was a documentary about Christians who live in North Korea. Christianity is illegal in the Hermit Kingdom, and known Christians are routinely rounded up and imprisoned, tortured and put to death. Yet they have a flourishing underground church, and people have put their lives on the line for their faith. This is the Christianity of the first three hundred yeaars, and this is the Christian faith that I was reborn into and that I still practice to this day. And I have suffered significant persecution and social exclusion already for the sake of Jesus. If my faith ever became illegal, I would suffer. If the penalty was death, I would die. Plain and simple. The very source of my wellbeing is in God. I will not deny him. Then, on the Ideas program was a piece aboout the current Sobey competition for emerging young artists. The prize, given at the National Gallery in Ottawa, of course, has been doubled to one hundred thousand smackeroos. The finalists were all interviewed and they all had basically the same message: follow your vision, no matter what the cost. Uh-huh. I will bet you bagels to donuts that not one of those finalists have had to go without some sense of support or ballast from others in order to get to where they are now: family, spouse, partner, social connections, prefessional network, birth order, what have you. And I will bet you more bagels to donuts that for every one of those precious little success stories, there are a hundred more equally or even more talented artists, who will never dream of rising to the top, people like me, who are alone, poor and without ballast or support, who have basically had to shelve our dreams just to stay alive for one more day. But in our culture of vicious captialism and competition, only the strong survive. So, what is the success here? I have opted to be a successful human being, whatever the cost, and this is centred firmly in my Christian faith. I am alone and abandoned in this world but God is with me. Perhaps in the eyes of others I am a failure. But if I can get through a single day without harshly judging a stranger or friend, if I can perform at least one act of kindness, if I can give thanks for the sacred moments that are present to me throughout the day, if I can smile and laugh at myself, then I don't care about the other so-called successess of others. I do not know them, and I do not know what they have had to barter of their own human soul to get what they want, to get to where they are now. I will gladly and joyously despoil myself of all that is not God and abandon myself joyfully to his service!

Nuance 7

The radio is very hard to listen to these days, for me, anyway. Even the CBC. I don't know where they went wrong, but they never seem to get it right. Many of us used to equate our national broadcaster with classical music, since that was what they played on their fm station, now known as Radio 2, for many years. Then came a new president who did a major hatchet job, gutted most of the classical music programming from Radio 2 and has with one exception banned all classical music from the am or Radio 1 stations. I find this sad, and troubling. The daily regional programs play a mixture of news, social commentary, interviews and some music. Almost all the music they play is shit to the ears. I often phone in to complain, but they don't seem to care. Classical music has been demoted from being very good to very bad. It doesn't fit their political or ideological agenda. This is the music of privilege, of the elites. Music composed by dead white European males. They don't care that it is beautiful, nor that it is technically superior to any of the garbage that passes as pop music these days. If you play the Mozart Requiem to a plant, the plant grows and flourishes. Not so if it is subjected to Drake. But Drake is Canadian, and young people, who have absolutely no sense of value, love his music, and the CBC does want to be relevant to young listeners, even if they couldn't be bothered. It's like grandma getting all kinds of extensive plastic surgery then struts out in her minisckirt and five inch heels, transformed into a cougar. But everyone knows she's just a pathetic old lady who wants to save btteries on her vibrator and get boned by as many young studlies as she can lure into her lair. And that is the CBC. I think Jurgen Gothe had it right when he was host of Disc Drive on Radio 2 during the 80's and 90's. He managed to integrate classical with jazz, world and some of the better pop and Canadian content, and he pulled it off. I don't know why they can't keep the formula going, nor why they seem to hate classical music so much. Perhaps our national broadcaster no longer has a sense of leadership or sees itself as a role model. I don't know. I do know that in my salad days, when I was a callow twenty-two year old, I began listening to the classical music on CBC fm. It opened for me so many new worlds, and I can only say that I have completely benefited from this largess of classical music programming. It did not turn me into a snob, nor was I from a posh, socially elite family. Rather, I grew up firmly proletarian and working class. I especially absorbed the incredible complex beauty of Baroque music in counterpoint, learning also from the same program hosts about the marvelous benefits of Bach and Vivaldi on the human brain. I was, in many ways, mentored by the CBC. And now they have taken it all away, except for during midday, when I'm at work. Even if Canada is now multicultural, our roots are in Europe, and classical music, as well as being beautiful, honours those roots, and gives us an invaluable education of our history. Yes, it is also the music of the colonizers, who inflicted unspeakable harm on the indigenous peoples, as well as on other people of colour. But pretending that part of our history doesn't exist, and regarding it as something of no value is simply a kneejerk reaciton fueled by postmodernist revisionism. Yes, let's continue to welcome the new and the diverse. But any country that forgets and despises its roots is also going to be shoring up for itself a lot of future grief. And we will be also depriving future genrations of the incomparable beauty of the music and art that flouished in Europe, despite the racism, despite the colonization, despite the warmongering. We do not have to accept or praise those things in order to appreciate the beauty that is also their legacy to us.

Nuance 6

As some of you know, Gentle Reader, I attend an Anglican parish church in south Kerrisdale, which is rather a wealthy neighbourhood full of respectable burghers. Nothing at all wrong here. We get along very well and I am finding with those lovely people a sense of growing community. Go figure! We, like many Anglicans, and other Christians of good faith and good will, are concerned about homelessness and the increasing gulf between haves and have-nots in our country. Being a have-not, myself, having me among them is going to be, at times, quite the learning curve...for all of us. But they help where they can, and we want to grow in what we can do and be in order to serve and help bring justice for the poor. Following the coffee time after the Sunday eucharist yesterday, we gathered to talk about ideas for helping newcomers incorporate more into our community. Somehow the Jehovah's Witnesses came up briefly in the conversation, and I mentioned a particularly disturbing optic. I have seen this many times over while out in the city. You will see two nicely dressed Jehovah's Witnesses flanking their little stand full of literature and other propaganda and maybe one or two metres away on the sidewalk, someone sleeping under a blanket or begging for money. There is absolutely no contact between them and the JW's appear to not even know that they're there. This is sad, of course, and it really makes me angry. I would say something, but those people are usually already so steeped in their ignorance and brainwashing, (and yes, the Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult, and I think a particularly dangerous cult) that it would be tantamount to hitting a child. They also need help, help getting out of that pernicious organizatin that has nothing to do with the principals of the Christian faith and everything to do with aggrandizing and bolstering their own organization. They have zero interest in helping the poor and I have just read on the internet that the JW's idea of helping the poor is in preaching to them about their distorted version of the Christian faith and that then they will make all the right choices that will get them out of destitution and poverty and turn them into clean-cut and productive workers. If only it were so simple. And it isn't just the JW's. I have heard Christians, conservative, fundametnalist evangelicals and Pentecostals, say more or less the same thing. I remember when there were guest speakers, a missionary couple visiting a Pentecostal church I was involved in many years ago back in 1981 or so. They were talking about their ministry work in Venezuela. I had just in the last couple of years become particularly interested and involved with peace and social justice activism, so I asked them about the poor and what was being done to help bring social and economic justice to the many impoverished peoplke in that country. The wife of the couple gave a smug and sanctimonious smile and replied in a very sweet voice that the people in that country are poor because they make poor lifestyle choices. once they become converted and turn into proper born-again Christians, they always turn their lives around and lift themselves out of poverty. If only it were so simple. I just kept my mouth shut, knowing it would be futile to argue with an idiot in a room where I was most likely to be outnumbered, anyway. With what is going on in Venezuela, the spotlight is not on the many poor who have been helped by some of the redistribution policies of Hugo Chavez, but of the now poor and starving members of the middle class. Yes, it is appalling that poverty has become so widespread in what was once, with Argentina, considered the richest country in South America. But when they talk about a country being rich, never is anything said about the poorest citizens whom, in the case of Venezuela, traditionally make up half the population. It is as though they don't even exist, and if they are poor it is their own fault, systemic and political injustice be damned! We have to start seeing everyone in the picture, and not just focus on the ones who are the most like us, or whose values fit our own middle class ethos of greed, individualism and competition. I, for one, am glad that Victor Maduro is on his way out, but with Juan Guaidó all but set to take the reins of power, all going well, I still shudder for the poorest Venezuelans, the camposinos and the low income workers who have always been marginalized and have seen so little justice in their lives. I am waiting to see if the many countries supporting this transition of power will at least give a thought and a kind word about the poorest citizens of Venezuela. I am not holding my breath, Gentle Reader.

Nuance 5

There is a columnist with the Globe and Mail, whom I will not name on this page, but has a tendency to write from a perspective that is decidedly rightwing, and should I say, not at all carefully thought-out. In her column yesterday she was extolling the virtues of toxic masculinity without giving so much as a thought of some of the things she was implying. According to this writer, there is no such thing as toxic masculinity, it seems. The traditional male traits of aggression, violence, competitiveness and inability to articuluate personal thoughts and feelings are, for this writer, normal features of normal masculinity, and that men should not be made to feel ashamed of this. She goes on to cite that such are the features of the male of the species throughout the animal kingdom, particularly noting chimpanzees, which are notoriously violent, male dominant and hierarchical. In the same breath she also wrote that the vast majority of acts of violence and sexual assault, and the victims of violence (but not sexual assault, except in some cases) are all committed by and happen to be men. Here is a quote from an abstract on aggression among female chimpanzees, published by the Royal Society Publishing and authored by Anne E. Pusey and Kara Schroepfer-Walker: "Although rates of aggression are low, females compete for space and access to food. High rank correlates with high reproductive success, and high-ranking females win direct contests for food and gain preferential access to resource-rich sites. Females are aggressive to immigrant females and even kill the newborn infants of community members. The intensity of such aggression correlates with population density. These patterns are compared to those in other species, including humans." While she doesn't appear to be trying to actually justify such behaviour, there does appear to be a tendency to shrug and apologize with the unspoken but very lame excuse, boys will be boys. This writer has quite the tendency to cherry pick, and almost always seems more intent on scoring points than making a carefully and constructively thought-out argument. Or perhaps she is just stupid. For example, she completely neglects the problem of the bonobo, that smaller, gentler chimp-like ape that does not commit acts of violence, and that males as well as females are gentle, affectionate and nurturing towards one another. They also have tonnes of sex with each other. On a series of broadcasts on the CBC Ideas program, recently, I heard historian Margaret McMillan give a series of talks about war, history and human violence. She was asked by an audience member if she believed that the world would be a more peaceful and gentler and more just place if more women occupied high positions of political power. Ms. McMillan, without mincing words, replied, no. She then mentioned the names of three very famous and powerful woman presidents and prime ministers from recent history: Golda Meir, indira Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher, bloody aggressive hawks, even if she-hawks, every one of them. This also seems to square with my theory that violence and aggression, even if vastly overrepresented in human males, is still largely a historical, cultural and systemic construct. In plain talk, it is about power, status and hierarchy. This isn't to say that there aren't inborn differences between men and women. Neither does this say that there are such inborn differences. The science is not in, and the jury is still out. In the mentime, the pressure that is placed on boys and girls, from birth, to conform to stereotyped gender norms is still tremendous and unrelenting. I imagine that testosterone would also play a role, but no one seems really agreed on this, nor in how big a role. Anectodal evidence for these matters is also pretty useless. The writer of this column has a tendency of mentioning her own husband and men of her family and social circle as evidence for backing her positions about men. That said, I would imagine that this individual's social circle is going to be quite limited to persons of her socio-economic class, and who likely vote the way she does and share with her a lot of the same opinions. In my own experience as a male, I can safely say that in her musings about men, that she is quite full of shit, and that she really ought to stick to writing what she knows, which would likely amount to very little (I'm waxing optimistic here, Gentle Reader!) I am not aggessive or violent, and I am articulte about my thoughts and feelings, I am not hierarchical and I value relitonships. In my sixty plus years of life, I have also known an awful lot of men like me, and they are not all queer, Gentle Reader. In fact, some straight men I have been friends with have expressed gratitude that they can be safely open with me in ways that they would feel judged by other straight men and by women. Let's just hope that Peggy will retire from the Globe and Mail and will soon be put out to pasture. (So, sue me, Margaret Wente!)

Nuance 4

Venezuela is much in the news these days. As we all know, Juan Guaidó, till now a virtual nonentity, outside of his country, has been sworn in as the de facto president of Venezuela with several countries, the US and Canada among them, already recognizing him as president. But Nicolas Maduro doesn't seem set on going anywhere just yet as China and Russia and other more or less despotic regimes insist on continuing to back him. I am thinking of all the many sunny reports I used to hear on Co-op Radio from their Marxist Latino Collective about the glorious Bolivarian Revolution, thanks to Hugo Chavez, and how they boldly resisted and overthrew an attempted coup sponsored by the meddling USA and their CIA lackies. Of course they were painting things in broad strokes of black and white, the evil United States being prevented from meddling and overthrowing the legitimate people's government of Venezuela and all the dumb rhetoric that goes with it. When things go wrong, blame the Americans. There is good reason for blaming America, by the way, with how they engineered the fall of the Salvador Allende government in Chile and the brutal fascist military takeover by Pinochet in 1973, not to mention the huge role they were playing in supporting fascist governments in Central American countries leading to hundreds of thousands of butchered citizens and many more refugees creating a mass diaspora. Maduro, of course, is really making hay out of this, and has only managed to very thinly cover his own incompetence as a leader while blaming it all on US sanctions and interference. Perhaps it's more, in this case, both and. I have a Venezuelan friend who hates Maduro and socialism. She doesn't really seem to give a lot of thought to the many poor Venezuelans whose grinding poverty helped necessitate the Bolivarian Revolution. Being of the middle class, for her, they really have little or no existence, and this kind of thinking, sadly, is very typical of many middle class people from Latin American countries. I came across this in Bogotá, Colombia, when on my first visit there I was riding in a car with some middle class Bogotanos. When we were entering a poor neighbourhood the car windows were sealed shut, because they didn't want anyone to threaten or rob us. It turned out, on further research, that the poor and homeless there and in other South american countries are widely despised, feared and vilified. I do not doubt that there have been crimes committed against wealthy and well off South Americans by disenfranchised persons. I also don't doubt for a minute how much the hate and fear of the poor and homeless I have heard expressed by middle and upperclass Venezuelans, Colombians and Peruvians is largely irrational and fueled by hatred and fear. There is still very little compassion for the poor in those countries. I don't know really all tlhe miscalulations and missteps that were made by Chavez and by Maduro, but I think that we have to try to look at the whole picture before we judge. if and when Maduro is voted out or overthrown, there will be a lot of rejoicing and celebrating in the streets of Caracas and elsewhere. What remains uncertain is this: what is going to happen to the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans under the new government that will be presumably headed by Juan Guaidó? It is a very sad fact of the way politics and global economics are done, that no one is going to care much about the most vulnerable, so long as capital can flow freely and the rich can go on getting richer. The other elephant in the room is Venezuela's oil reserves, and how even the good revolutionaries from Co-op Radio seem to think that oil wealth would be great for that country, carbon emissions and climate change disaster be damned.

Nuance 3

Today is Robbie Burn's Day, and despite my Scottish heritage, I don't really care. I hate haggis, tried it only once in my life and that was one time too many, neither do I care much for Scotch whiskey nor other firewater. Neither do I get any of the fuss made about Robbie Burns, who was himself a drunk, a womanizer and at best a mediocre poet. Even when I was visiting Edinburgh many years ago, despite the historic beauty of that city, the stench of distillery fumes made being there decidedly unpleasant. I was listening to the Ideas progam de jour this morning on the CBC, Canada's national propaganda ministry, since I tend to get up in the small hours, and I was perplexed and troubled by the topic and the title of the broadcast, Water of Life, an unfortunate choice of words, given that Jesus has promised living water to all who come to him, and I don't believe he was thinking of alcohol. The head of Ideas, Paul Kennedy, is behind this particular doc, and it is in praise of Scotch whisky, and all the commentary was by socially and economically priveleged (most likely white) folk praising and extolling the alcoholic beverage as though it were a holy sacrament. Given that all those people are likely atheists, and probaby not a few of them are at least undiagnosed alcoholics, perhaps I should be neither surprised, nor appalled. But surprised and appalled I still am, both. There was absolutely no mention given on this broadcast about the cipher for alcoholism in Scotland ( I'll bet you bagels to donuts that it's pretty damn high, no pun intended, Gentle Reader!) nor that, when you peel away the cultural and class privilege nonsense that festoons every bottle of Scotch, it is really just a drug, and nothing but an addictive, toxic substance that eats away the liver, impairs the function of other vital organs, abets and encourages heart disease and cancer, and is itself a guarantor for winding up in an early grave. Neither is there mention of the hideous waste of grain and other food crops that goes into the manufacture of liquor. There is not in Scotland a lot of arable land, and one would assume that at least some of the grain used in distillery would be imported, but with growing world population, should we be reviewing just what we do with the fertile agricultural lands, what we grow on them, and how much of the product actually ends up in the stomachs of the hungry? There are here a lot of ethical nuances that are very conveniently covered over by the smokescreen of culture, history and privilege. Unravelling this ethical mess is not going to be a cakewalk. The vast majority of people, it would seem, accepts as privilege and taken for granted that alcoholic beverages are going to be available and consumed and enjoyed, and there is in human nature a very wilful and stubborn blindness to any facts that run contrary to what we feel entitled to. But these things need to be addressed, and it is very late in the game for addressing and challenging people's privilege, but this has to happen. The incidence of alcoholism and accidents and other social problems that are the fallout of alcoholism are already well known and taken as facts. But now that we are teetering on the precipice of planetary oblivion, thanks to climate change from global warming caused by us and our stupid shortsighted greed, then I would say that no stone should be unturned for correcting these errors, if we can even delay the inevitable by a year or two. And I would guess that if all the grain that goes into manufacturing hootch were to go to where it rightfully belongs, which is to say into the production of real and nutritious food for people, and if there was a large scale awareness of the importance of fighting alcoholism and other drug addictions, then just maybe we would be more psychologically, spiritually and morally prepared to meet the challenges that are awaiting us, and just maybe we would redivert land that is wasted on cash crops for feeding people, using green technologies and bringing to a halt this devolution towards global oblivion that is threatening us all.

Nuance 2

What makes a country a nation? I have often pondered this. I don't have a hugely comprehensive sense of world history, but I know a little bit, so I will try to focus on what I already know, and for this I will begin with our own dear little Cananda. We were once, until fairly recently, a British colony where the white occupiers oversaw the destruction of 634 First Nations in Canada, speaking more than 50 distinct languages. The First Nations peoples had been already almost exterminated, through epidemics, armed conflict, and especially government sponsored and endorsed acts of cultural and ethnic genocide. The colony, Canada, since the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham in 1769, was to be exclusively and unilaterally British, but for the presence of Quebec and the other French presence in the Atlantic provinces, especially New Brunswick. There is of course, the infamy of the genoccide and deportation of the French Acadians from New Bursnwick by the British in the eighteenth century. Canada remained for the next couple of centuries an almost exclusively British-French entity with marginal input from the surviving First Nations, and that became almost nonexistent as the genocide gained momentum during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1867 Canada became a federation first of four then eventually, within the next forty years, nine provinces, followed by Newfoundland in; I think 1949. In 1926, Canada became, with royal consent, a fully independent nation. It is still hard to say, or define, exactly what makes us a nation. The British heritage has been rapidly diminishing, even though this same heritage is what a lot of older generation, and mainly conservative and white Canadians, mainly lay claim to. Following, and even preceeding the First World War came immigrants from other countries in Europe. From the 1880's on, many Germans came from Russia to open up for agriculture and settlement the lands of the prairies, my great grandparents among them. Then came Ukrainians, and of course, Chinese and South Asians had already been embedded since the construction of the railroad as indentured labourers. Then there were several generations of racism and white supremacy keeping them down and oppressed, which also excluded the many Africans who had sought refuge here on the Underground Railroad only to be treated here worse than second class citizens, and of course the handful of surviving First Naitons people were languishing on reserves, or being destroyed for life in residential schools. Especially following the Second World War came waves of other immigrants, from Italy, Portugal, Greece and eastern European countries. They were often treated as less than fully Caucasian by the arrogant British squatters. It was only by the 1960's that Canadian citizenship was equally open to all, regardless of race or nationality, and then we were getting waves of new immigrants and refugees from Hong Kong, India, Fiji, Uganda, Vietnam, Pakistan, Latin America, the Philippines, Latin Anerica and the Middle East. Even if Canada adheres to a parliamentary and legal system based largely on the British model, and even though English and many other British residues help identify Canada as Canada, and even with the influence of the British Crown, as we are still a constitutional monarchy within the British Commonwealth of Nations, this is still a nation in evolution, and the many diverse nations represented by our immigrants, along with globalization, are going to be the tools and instruments that will further define our national identity. This will likely take a few more generations, given that by that time this planet is still in any condition to sustain us.

Nuance1

Nuance 1 reads almost like a Skype address, or someone's email password, but, really, Gentle Reader, I want to explore in this little series of essays the whole idea of nuance and how our failure to grasp this subtle bit of quicksilver often leaves us imaginatively impaired and sticking to lumping everything and everyone into near useless categories. The meat and potatoes of the intellectually lazy, I suppose, though now with the new Canada Food Guide being out and a little more hip and au courant than it's stodgy predecessors, perhaps we could say, plant-based protien and potatoes. Whatever. Today, I am thinking about nationalism and patriotism, two rather useless words that often can cause people an awful lot of problems. I have been hearing a bit lately that nationalism and patriotism do not necessarily mean the same thing. I will consult Uncle Google. Here is Aunt Wiki quoting one Sydney J. Harris: "The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war." Sydney J. Harris was an American essayist and drama critic with a lot of pithy quotes. I wonder if they really are that different, patriotism and nationalism. Here in Canada, there is a tacit expectation that we are all going to love cultural and sexual diversity, feel guilty and horrible about the plight of our indigenous peoples, and to believe most firmly that there is no such thing as a Canadian culture. And we are supposed to wax somewhat passionate about these things. Well...I suppose I do agree with all of the above, except that I do believe that there is such a thing as a Canadian culture, even if it is a Franco-British derivative, but I also like to think that the culture of Canada is still in an early formative stage, and if we're still around in two hundred years, perhaps we will have something a little more cohesive for defining us. But with increasing globalization, that process is going to be a little bit complicated. And there is also that whole business about the Queen and the British Monarchy. This is particularly why I am glad I was born in this country. I would, otherwise, in taking the oath of citizenship, have had to swear allegiance to the Queen, and that is something I hope I never have to do. It isn't because I'm against the monarchy. I am not. Neither am I for the Monarchy. Simply, I don't care. She seems like a nice little old lady, but she has way too much money and her kids and other family tend to be inbred twits, though she has done a bit better for grandchildren, I suppose. I also object to the historic stake that the Monarchy, and by extension, the now defunct British Empire has had in this country. Simply, Canada is an illegitimate country...I will give you a couple of minutes, Gentle Reader, to compose yourselves. Now take slow, deep breaths, close your eyes, visualize something lovely, and deep breathe, slow, deep, slow....deep...now, are you feeling a little bit better? Canada is an illegitimate country based on broken treaties, lies and the unjust expropriation of unceded land from the First Nations of this country. I do not feel guilty about this, because I didn't do any of those things, but I have had the benefit of being born and raised in this country and my life has been largely based on the monumental injustices that other blinded by greed white men have inflicted on the aboriginal peoples here. This elephant is not about to leave the room, but at least he is finally being talked about. I find it impossible to love this country. I could move to Scotland (my father's patrimony) or to Germany (my mother's), but I don't feel particularly connected to my ethnic heritage. I had might as well move to Mexico, Costa Rica or Colombia, since I speak Spanish, and even if those countries have their own blood-soaked legacies of colonialism and genocide, at least most of their populations are of mixed indigenous and European heritage, and that might reduce a little bit the hypocricy quotient. I am more likely to stay in this country, liking it or not, and of course one could do a lot worse than Canada. Even though we fail dismally at income and social equality, and even though there is still little political will to properly house people on low incomes and eliminate homelessness, (but, please, not the homeless!) one can still do much worse than Canada for a place to live, and perhaps also a little bit better. I for one have nothing to complain about. I am decently housed in a cheap subsidized apartment, which allows me to live and eat and travel well on a low wage. As I prepare for my annual trip to Latin America next month (Costa Rica again), it doesn't hurt for me to take stock and give thanks for the many privileges that I do enjoy, even if i am statistically one of the very poor, living in Canada. By the same token, I have no deep love for this place, and not being blinded by patriotism, I can see the flaws of my country while loving the people who live here and taking the time to also exploit one of our many rights and freedoms to go on writing this blog and challenging people to think in the longterm, to stop toadying and capitulating to the shortsighted greed of our leaders and to do everything we possibly can to help secure a bretter, more sustainable and healthier and greener future for all of us, not just Canadians, because our planet is in peril, and we are the ones to blame for this.

Happy Face 21

I really don't see much point in getting too worried about what's coming down in the world. We have always had problems. But our lovely and boring lives here in smug little Canada can become so stiflingly uneventful that we have to have some kind of excitement, which is to say, when we are not going into meltdowns about the state of the horrible world around us. For example, the way the good burghers of Moosejaw, Saskatchewan have been getting all in a lather because they no longer have the world's biggest moose sculpture, since that credit now goes to a town in Norway, which also has resident moose, by the way. I have heard the mayor of Moosejaw interviewed recently on the radio, and he has been waxing apopleptic. Though surely this is all theatre. Or maybe it isn't. But it is rather nice and quaint getting all indignant and mad at something so inconsequential, given how emotionally exhausted we must feel at times worrying about homelessness and climate change and possible nuclear war. I know, I know, Gentle Reader, the stakes are so much higher now. In other eras in the remote and not so remote past, our ancestors had only to worry about getting eaten by sabre tooth tigers, or overrun by foreign barbarians, or perishing in epidemics of plague or getting sacrificed to bloodthirsty gods, or getting burned at the stake for believing the wrong things, or getting their heads chopped off for believing the wrong things, or not getting enough food to eat...All those things were legitimate concerns. But then came industrialization, population growth, nuclear weapons, global warming, and growing income inequality, and more population growth, and corporate greed and more inequality, and more disenfranchized citizens electing to power ignorant and despotic morons such as the Dump in the Oval Office, after years of being ignored by their governments, no matter how much their quality of life and income stability were going down the toilet. And, thanks to the internet and social media, we all have instantaneous information to keep us up to date on such minutieae of international developments and intrigue such as we never would have noticed or even heard about in the past. What we don't know about cannot keep us awake every night. And we love to worry. We are hard-wired for anxiety. Remember the saying, if you are not angry yet, then you have not been paying attention? And we are paying attention because, well...because we have to. Life was never particularly easy for our ancestors, who always had to be on the lookout for the next danger lurking around the corner, and we, in our relatively secure and insular Canadian lives, have inherited this kind of hard-wiring, so we are going to get neurotic, anxious and at times we are going to even wax apopleptic over the size of a silly moose statue. It means our alarrm system is working, even if it is a bit superflous. Or is it? i like the idea of balance. While keeping one eye on the nefarious developments around us, and strategizing on how we are going to address them, to keep the other eye on our own lives and the people around us. To make a priority out of getting adequate rest, nutrition, exercise and enjoyment of life. Most of all, to simply give thanks for each moment of our lives, embracing this sacred and divine gift of the holy present, and to live in that holy present where we will also touch and be touched by the Holy Presence, because we will find that we are not really alone, that we never were alone, and out of this source of love and joy to touch one another's lives in ways that are healing and redemptive. We have ony to offer and give our entire lives to this wonderful divine process, Gentle Reader.

Happy Face 20

I listened to a program yesterday on CBC Radio about sleep. This is a cross nation call-in program, and it is rather interesting to hear from other Canadians. I didn't listen to the whole program, having better things to do during those two hours of a Sunday afternoon, but I still didn't hear anyone addressing the culture and society of stress that may be making getting healthy and adequate sleep such a challenge for so many. Apparently one third of Canadians don't get adequate sleep. I am somewhere on the borderline of that little cipher. Each of these last two nights I have slept four hours, then had to go down for a nap after getting up in the small hours of the morning. I am actually surprised that with the stresses we are all living under that more of us aren't getting enough sleep. We have, among other worries, the spectre of climate change, and the thread of that little threat hanging over our heads has already broken and now we are seeing what is the beginning of sorrows. We are more digitially connected than ever, globally, and now we know all the details of the news being reported whether in Togo, Paris, Beijing, Colombia, or elsewhere in the world. Nasty things occur in the world, they occur throughout the world, all over the world, twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week, and now we can know even more and ever more about all those dreadful acts and events than ever before, thanks to our wonderful global news networks keeping us up to date on news websites all over the internet. It's all there, waiting for you, at the click of a mouse. Gobalism has brought in a vicious, particularly voracious style of capitalism that takes no prisoners, and now the competition for securing decent remunerative employment has become so frenzied and breakneck that workers are being told that they have to constantly be retraining, upgrading, improving their skills and bolstering their resumes, because the stable good paying job is as extinct now as the woolly mammoth, and anyone can be replaced, be it by human or robot. Unregulated market capitalism has thoroughly taken over the real estate industry, and now the cost of housing is way out of proportion with wages and living expenses and it's going to be much worse if you happen to live, like me, in a particularly beautiful city that everyone else wants to move to. These are some of the ambient stresses that have come to dominate and define our daily lives. With everyone addicted now to their smartphones, which are notorious robbers of sleep, then there really aren't going to be a lot of us left who can enjoy a decent eight hour sleep, and with the gowing splintering of community, reltionships and sustainable friendships, is going to further up the ante. I think the particularly vicious environment of competitiveness that global capitalism has brought our way is really affecting us in so many other ways. I heard on a radio documentary early this morning about special apps used by walkers, runners and cyclists to measure their vital signs. All the fun and enjoyment has been robbed of what should be simple enjoyable recreational activities, as testosterone-addled males (and not a few females) lose whatever brain power they might still have in their zeal to compete, improve, make themselves look better than others, and in the end, just making themselves miserable. How can anyone ever possibly enjoy the moment of a walk or a bikeride, while constantly obsessing over how much bio benefit they are getting, how much fitter they're getting, and how much better this is going to make them look than others? This is sad, so sad and it is beyond sad. It is pathetic. As for myself, I really couldn't be bothered. If it's not enjoyable, I won't do it. I don't need to measure or count my footsteps when I walk. I already know by time and estimated distance that I usually walk at least six miles a day and that is sufficient. Otherwise, I'm going to enjoy it. As far as my own sleep needs are concerned, even if I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, I can still get up, take a shower, do some exercise, get dressed, do my sacred readings, make and eat breakfast, start writing my blogpost de jour, then go back down to sleep for three hours or so, as I have just done, and then get up, finish writing my blog and get on with the rest of my day. There has been, by the way, ample reserch that shows that our current obsession with getting a full night's sleep, does not square with reality. Many of us naturally have segmented sleep, and this has been true for many people throughout the history of our human existence. I suspect that this preoccupation with adequate sleep has more to do with our current wellness fixation, which is just going to be all the more anxiety provoking, since it shows that we are not performing to satisfaction, and at the end of the day, or at the end of the night, is going to keep robbing us of sleep. Are we smiling yet? Happy face. And don't forget to laugh.

Happy Face 19

Isn't it interesting, Gentle Reader, what people can do to betray themselves, at times? We are always caught off-guard, and the most lovely, progressive liberal folk, in the moment of a very natural expression of emotion, be it grief, joy or outrage, will so quickly and unashamedly show their true cloth. Solomon knew this, about the visceral, unscripted expressions of emotion, and what they say about us. When two women were disputing their maternal rights to a baby, we might recall how he called one of his soldiers to use his sword to cut the infant in half, giving half to one mother, and half to the other. Of course, the child's natural mother went into hysterics, clung to her child, and begged that his life be spared. The other woman was rather detached about it all. Solomon awarded custody to the child's true and natural mother. Times of grief and outrage also reveal much about us. What I have been finding particularly telling these days is the huge paean of public grief and sorrow over the untimely death of sixteen teenage hockey players last year, or, the Humboldt Broncos, in Saskatchewan, when their bus was collided into by a truck. The grief and outrage were instantaneous and, of course with help from our public propaganda machine, the CBC, soon there seemed not a dry eye anywhere in this great land of ours, from St. John's all the way to Tofino. Even now, many months later, regular white bread Timbits eating and Double-Double sipping real white middle class heterocentric Canadians are still sharing their grief. So, what does this have to do with my blog, we might ask? Well, first of all, I have been very dry-eyed around this bus crash, and not because I'm a callous sociopath who takes schadenfreud in the sufferings of others. Far be it from this blogger. On the other hand, I have often found myself getting annoyed, even strongly and viscerally angry over all this public and near nationalist necrophilia about sixteen dead teenage hockey players. Yes, I know, they were kids, snuffed out before they could do anything with their lives. And that is always tragic. They were also white kids. Males. Jocks. And above all else, they were all HOCKEY PLAYERS!!!!! Likely all heterosexual (though, really, who can tell?). And suddenly there was this outpouring of collective grief, encouraged by the CBC and social media. I got even angrier. Why, you might ask? Well, how about the eight queer men, most of them brown, who were savagely murdered and dismembered in Toronto by Bruce McArthur? Or the mostly aboriginal sex workers ground up in the meat processing machines on Picton's pig farm? True, they and the Highway of Tears, have been given a lot of media coverage. But then after reading or hearing about it, everyone seems to turn amnesic. Where are the collective Canadian tears for those people? Why are we so selective in our affection and kindred sense? How many straight white Timbit eaters are really going to care a crap about some brown guy, likely ostracised by his own tradionalist and conservative family members and ethnic community, for loving and sleeping with other men? Yes, we have legalized same sex marriage in this country and queer people are protected under all our human rights legislations. But when it comes to actual feeling, actual fellow feeling, most of us still have a long way to go. You cannot make people change, perhaps, but if writing these words can at least shame the crap out of some of those closet bigots, then I will feel that I have done my job. Smile. And don't forget to laugh!

Happy Face 18

Gentle Reader, I just pulled this little gem from the Koffee Kult page on the internet, and it seems to fit me almost to a tee, or, pardon the bad pun, please, but this seems to be why I always prefer my coffee dark, black and bitter: "The Purist: Black Coffee Drinker Taking a much more serious look on life, this coffee drinker certainly does not prefer to try different coffee drinks. A typical black coffee drinker is prone to mood swings, but nevertheless, they are the person others can rely on for straight forward answers. Your candid personality balances out those who are much more carefree. You have a sense of humor that can mesh well with others, but do not like to waste time on unnecessary activities." According to Ronnoco. "one might say those who like a bit more drama in their lives—who are drawn to the stronger emotions, perhaps—tend to favor dark roasts." I just pulled some more information about people who like their coffee black and it all seems to square with my personality: we're realists, truthful and have no time for frills or nonsense. We also appreciate the subtle and not so sutle details of real life. We are unadulterated and unpretentious. Friends for life, but don't piss us off. Yes, I know I could have just copied and pasted all of today's post from other sources but then it wouldn't be my own, and like all lovers of black coffee, I prefer to give it to you straight. Coffee is a potent metaphor. When I was younger I used to drown it in cream and sugar, and it was lovely. Somewhere in my later twenties or early thirties, I began to take it black. Always black. I don't know what facilitated the change, but my life was getting very intense and straightforward and I think my preference for black and bitter coffee was a symbol for this. But as I am giving this more thought, I am recalling that at home, I have always had my coffee black and unsweetened, as a rule. Only when I was out did I contaminate it with cream and sugar. Eventually, my life away from home began to conform to my life at home, and to the world I became the person whom I always am while I'm home alone. I am also a faithful and very committed Christian, and according to the secular atheists, I am really indulging in the opiate of the people. If I claim to believe in or,(horrors!) even love God, then I am engaging in a fantasy life, escaping from reality. The psychiatrist I saw for four years, upon learnig about my faith and spiritual experience, diagnosed me behind my back as having a schizotypal personality. I imagine he was an atheist. But not even he could understand, put together or explain how a deeply religious or spritiual person, who claims to have a relationship with God, could possibly be grounded in truth and reality the way I was and still am. But I didn't like my coffee made sweet and pretty, just as I will not have my experience of life made sweet and pretty. Moving into God is moving into truth, and it means facing, embracing and celebrating truth and reality. This doesn't really have a lot to do with doctrine or theology so much, as dedicating one's life to the pursuit and love of truth. I have never experienced cognitive dissonance around this. And this has been anything but a joyless existence. There is somethng so beautiful about the truth, something so whole, right, integral and balanced. I have always loved this wholeness, I have always longed for this balance. Filling your coffee cup with cream sugar and whtever else, you don't even taste the coffee after a while. Putting on a happy face, faking joy is really just the same thing as adding cream and sweetener. It's like going through life medicated. You never get to feel or touch the essential truth of what is happening. I do not find black unsweetened coffee to be bitter, but extremely delicious and sensual. I revel in the many subtle and complex flavours and subtleties, much as I have come to discouver and celebrate joy even in the midst of the darkest and most bitter sorrow. It runs so much deeper than mere happiness, and it provides me with the strength I require every day to move on and actually get something done during the day.

Happy Face 17

It's always been a struggle. The problem? Two things come to mind here: we now have more options than ever, making us a generation of spoiled rich kids, and the spectre of catastrophic climate change from global warming. One other item comes to mind here: growing income inequality, though in many ways that has always been a problem. Many say it's only going to get worse. I agree. Then why aren't we more worried? I would say that we are, but we're all being very neurotic about it. It always works this way. Instead of facing it, we distract ourselves with a lot of nonsense, until it's too late to simply garbage bag everything and then fuss and fret about matters of little consequence. i think there is an ontological reason for smartphone addiction, besides that it is an addictive technology: it provides everyone with a convenient excuse to walk around outside with their heads planted firmly up their asses. Looking at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever every minute and a half while walking in dogshit is not necessarily my idea of a pleasant escape from reality, but people will scurry off into whatever crevice, cave, or underneath whichever rock will provide them refuge from the scary reality that surrounds us. It is very salutary that the appeal of the populist demagogues getting elected into power in the US, Venezuela, Brazil, the Philippines, or wherever, are all promising the people that vote for them that they are going to help them feel safe and protected. The loathesome premier of Ontario, kind of a Donald Dump light, though he must weigh at least eighty pounds more than the Dump, has promised his mostly white male support base cheap beer and other booze. Vote for me and I will soothe the owie. Do our escapes make us happier? Even the rocks we hide under can start to feel a wee bit claustrophobic. But we're not really less miserable, just drugged and stupefied. That is the difference between escapism and real joy. I can get as miserable as I want about how everything is going to hell in this world and this does nothing to diminish my joy in life. I continue to give thanks for the beauty of nature, despite the record number of species extinctions, I continue to give thanks for other people, despite some of the powerful and wealthy idiots who hold our future in the balance, I continue to give thanks for this incredible, miraculous gift of life, despite that it all seems to hang by a thread and it could be snuffed out in the twinkling of an eye, or in the very near future. My joy is not dependent upon the negative circumstances of life, neither is my joy contingent on everything going well for me, which is to say, exactly the way I want it to go. This isn't to say that I don't get miserable when I don't have my own way. Being a human being, of course I do! But with each unexpected and unplanned-for change in life, comes also a new opportunity, new direction, a new door opening. Even this threat of possible extinction from climate change could turn into a blessing in disguise, if we are willing to look for and accept the gift, and this is not to downgrade the magnitude of threat that is hanging over us, but to find ways of working with it to find and secure for us and for other species a better and more sustainable future. I do not know how any of this is going to happen. I wish it wouldn't have to happen. We are dealing here with unknowns and variables such as have never confronted us before, and the least we can do is to get our heads out of our heinies and start to actively and assertively address the challenges that are awaiting us.

Happy Face 16

It isn't simpoly a matter of putting on a happy face, Gentle Reader. Everyone is going to know you are faking it. Nor would it be appropriate to walk, drive, bus, cycle or skateboard everywhere looking miserable, because misery is every bit as contagious as joy. You could simply pretend that you're happy and simply stuff all your problems and issues into three black garbage bags and hide them away, where they will rot and fester till even you end up having to smell it and no one is going to be fooled. It is a matter of finding the joy that is within and accepting it as a gift, even if doesn't appear to exist, but it's still present, if only as one solitary tiny ember, or as the thinnest golden thread. Following a particularly dark period in my life, when I had just been homeless and was showing symptoms of undiagnosed PTSD, I mentioned to a friend that now I could finally be happy. This friend had been involved with me for six years in intentional and brutally intense Christian community, and she didn't think I had a right to be happy. She was not particularly bright, and never was able to see me as a human being with human value, only as a kind of life support for intense Christian ministry, and that mine was always to be a life of martyrdom and suffering. Fortunately for me, this person is dead, and actually ended our friendship a few years later after I began to really call her on her bullshit. Not that I'm dancing on her grave. I'm not, but as she discovered that I was more than just a life support for Christian ministry, let's just say, that the friendship really began to cool. Still, around that time, even as I was just emerging out of the darkness, I came to see that I had a gift and capacity for joy. I think this came as the fruit of gratitude, because I felt then, as I do now, that God had just rescued me out of the darkest of pits and the gratitude soon gave birth to joy. I am not always happy. I have some days that are quite dark, difficult and trying, and any regular reader on these pages is going to know this about me. Knowing that I am not alone in the universe, and really, no one is alone in the universe, and that God is always here with me, really gets me through the darkness. I might not feel it at the time, and there are moments, even days, when the darkness and loneliness are the only overriding reality. We are living right now, all of us, with some unprecedented and huge global challenges, and I think that the most effective way of meeting these challenges will be with the joyous certainty that we are in better hands than we every would have imagined or realized. I don't care if some of you don't believe in God, God still is. This is his world and we are his creation, and we also have a holy responsibility to care for and protect the earth. We do not know the outcome, but we still need to shift our perceptions, if only to refuse to accept that the greedy billionaires and their puppet politicians who seem set on destroying the planet do not have the ultimate say, they do not have the last word, and we are going to win this war.

Happy Face 15

I was chatting with a Skype buddy in Mexico last night and, inevitably, the subject of the dreadful state of the world we are living in came up. He told me that his way of coping, for going to sleep at night, is simply a matter of lying to himself, telling himself that everything's alright, everything's going to be alright, and all is will in the universe. I agree with him, and I do the same myself. But I also wonder if this really is lying? Hear me out, Gentle Reader. Yes, we are living in nations that are governed by fools, and even if many of them are democratically-elected fools, they remain fools, nonetheless, because they are being voted into power by fools like ourselves, and their power is being sustained by the very fools that elect them. There are some very nasty douchebags in positions of leadership right now: whats-his-face in China, Putin in Russia, Bolsanero in Brazil, Maduro in Venezuela, the Dump in the US, Duterte the Dirty in the Philippines, to name but a few. We at least have in dear little Canada a fairly decent prime minister with Junior at the helm, though he can be a bit of a hot-head who still wants everyone to like him, hence the way he is dragging his telegenic butt on climate change in order to placate the Neanderthals in Alberta who want their oil pipeline, come hell, highwater or devastating climate change. I just heard on the news today that 93 percent of Albertans surveyed want the pipeline. More than fifty percent of other Canadians also think that a lack of oil pipeline amounts to a nationl crisis. Scary stuff, and those idiots also vote! I sometimes think that I listen too much to the news and pay too little attention to the world around me as I see and experience it. Yes, there are things that are worrying. People seem really disconnected from each other, and very caught up in their own little lives and confirming their citizenship in Narcissist Nation. But I also see people who are friendly and who really want to do the right thing, despite the many limitations that hobble us and render practically meaningless our small but noble efforts. Walking in the residential neighbourhoods of my city, everything is calm and quiet, and early spring flowers are already beginning to appear in gardens. The air is cool and sweet. Birds are already singing. But we also have hoeless begggars on our sidewalks and live in a city tht has become unaffordable to many, unless they are wealthy or, like me, have the good fortune of subsidized housing. A lot of people want to, and try to help, but there is still a lack of political will to properly channel our efforts and care. I explained last night to my Mexican friend about the myth of Prometheus, the Greek Titan god who gave humankind fire stolen from Olympus, and how the gods responded by chaining him to a cliff face forever while a giant eagle fed on his liver. We were not ready for fire, for this made us powerful and in our own eyes we became gods. Fire eventually has become nuclear weapons and our technological prowess, while still in its infancy, grows by leaps and bounds. We are still, as my friend and I agree, like cavemen or badly behaved children playing with matches. We do not have the maturity to be the kind of adults that alone can be trusted with our gifts. If we are to meet and survive the current and coming challenges, then we are going to have to evolve further, change, and in a way, turn into saints. The way we are now isn't enough for the cirisis we have brought on ourselves and our planet. It is time to start putting forwardour better selves. This is more than uttting on a happy face. This is consciously and intentionally becoming better people, and I only wish that enough of us were willing to do this. Unfortunately, most of us remain too lazy, too selfish and greedy, too weak and too already-damaged to rise to the challenge. My way of coping? Living in the moment. Being glad for the beauty around me and for the many good and wonderful people that I already know. Having gratitude and giving thanks to God for all these many gifts. Taking good care of myself and of those around me. Developing my gifts. I am also coping by reducing my carbon footprint, treating others well, and never shutting up about the challenges that are facing us, and I also refuse to accept defeat. The situation may be dire and critical, but we still do not know the future outcome. Now is the time for us to make the future, for our current steps and choices are going to be very critical for determining our future outcome, and this future is verry quickly turning into the present moment, Gentle Reader.

Happy Face 14

I have a new laptop now, Gentle Reader. It isn't bad and I got it cheap, just $300 including taxes. It is a bit of a learning curve because everything's been re-arranged on my desktop, and links are harder to find, plus, I have to google the website for Skype now everytime I want to make a video call, which is a time-consuming process. I should be grateful, I guess, but I am emotionally exhausted from this sudden learning curve and would prefer to shut down altogether for a while. This too shall pass. It is still a first world problem, but as I was saying to a friend in Mexico yesterday, it is downright embarrassing how dependent I have become on this technology just to get by in life and get through the day. Ironically, technology and other things have in many ways separated me from my local friends and brought me closer to friends who live in Colombia and Mexico. The other thing that sends me ballastic is that I always feel like a helpless idiot while trying to navigate my way through this technology and especially given how alone and ilsolated I often feel from others, but, hey, at least I will admit it, without turning to alcohol or pot or stronger substances in order to cope, but for a while, I was an emotional mess and was susceptible to meltdowns, just last night while figuring out the new laptop. The first thing that happened was the screen went sideways, and I had to take it back to the computer store for the owner to fix it for me. He is a kind person and very helpful, and for this I am grateful. It's appalling how much of our emotional and mental integrity we have bartered off to this technology. On the other hand, look at all the cool stuff we can do with it. I can have a conversation with a friend in another country, as though we were enjoying a cup coffee together. Twenty-five years ago that would have been science fiction. Basically, I wish I didn't have to rely on this technology. On the other hand, my mind, and my life, have opened up in some pretty nifty ways. What is really harmful is in the way that technology really does nothing to address social isolation and so much to help facilitte it. I remember a time when we used to phone or even drop in to visit each other in our homes. This doesn't happen anymore. I wonder if I would be more included in other people's lives during Christmas if we were less internet and social media dependent. A lot has changed and now we are acknowledging an epidemic of loneliness. Vancouver, where I live, has become a popular global destination for tourism and for resettlement, but this is really a visually lovely city without a soul. People all walk around as though they are the only ones here, each their own centre of their own little universe, too obsessed with their little phones to really notice that thery are not alone. Then, when they go home to their apartments or condos they are too often reminded of how few friends they have and they whine and cry about it as though this is just something that was done to them overnight, and they have not somehow played a role in it. I see this disconnect every day, and it is getting painful to have to witness and experience. But we are also pawns of forces over which we have no control, as globalism marches onward, relentlessly, unrelenting, and absolutely indifferent to the small fragile beings being crushed under its impact. I have no glib solutions to offer, except for this: no one is going to be let off the hook for not trying. This is why I still make an effort to talk to strangers, to say hi to people I see in passing. It may not be much, but if I can do just that one little bit of friendliness to help make things even a little more tolerable for myself and for someone else, then surely that is something, surely that is better than nothing? It's like the parable of the talents, where one man was given five, another two and another, but one talent to work with. The first two made hay of what they were given, doubled it, and were blessed forever after. The one who was given only one talent, hid it and buried it in the ground, and his outcome was eternal misery and anguish and torment. We cannot necessarily choose to be happy, but we can choose to care and to take care of one another, and now is the time to get moving on this. Who knows, you might even help start a revolution.

Happy Face 13

Joy is the golden thread that runs through and beautifies the darker, more somber colours of the fabric. "Laughter runs against my pain, slips away then comes again", as the Christian song goes. It is more than wearing a happy face. It is that the joy is there underneath and through it all. This is decidedly different from the jangling and irritating laughter of the self-centred happy idiot, whose narcissism seems to know no bounds. It is a quality and depth of joy that develops through experience, through a long life of getting one's ass almost constantly kicked, then accepting the lesson and moving on and forward and hopefully upward. A friend and I were once having a conversation about prayer versus mindfulness. It was stated by my friend that prayer is useless because he doesn't believe that God exists, and that mindful meditation is the way to get better, to heal and bind up our wounds and to make us feel good about ourselves. My friend appears to know very little about prayer, nor the vast range of spiritual experience that comes through prayer. I have over the years been practicing, without so much as knowing it, a kind of centring or mindful prayer. This has nothing to do with emulating a Buddhist practice and every bit to do with going deep into God, usually when I am walking in quiet places. This first began for me when i was twenty-three or so. I would find myself walking in quiet places with the developing awareness that the deity I called God, was and is actually present, constantly present, perpetually present, all around us, inside us and that his presence is the very energy and dynamic that holds in their orbit all the subatomic particles that make up matter and all existence. I cannot say what brought me to that awareness, though I believe that it was the Holy Spirit. I soon found myself going into the silence, finding great reserves of peace and renewal. This seemed more a natural and organic process, than something externally directed. I was basically longing with love for closer contact with the Divine and the Divine was answering my petition. I do feel that there were certain conditions in place in my life at that time to facilitate this dynamic. i was poor, financially, but also felt a certain poverty of spirit. I felt empty, alone and in great need. I had at that time been enacting a kind of dynamic of repentance. This was not about hating or loathing myself, nor being full of regret over sins real or imagined. This was more an act of joyously abandoning myself to God, turning to him with my entire being, wanting to keep nothing for myself but to gladly and willingly surrender everything to him, who is the source and fount of all being and existence. I was simply offering back to God that which already is God's by right. this act of love and humility put in motion a living dynamic, a kind of dynamo effect that goes on to this very day. I think this is also for me the departure point between mindfulness and prayer. Not simply feeling centred, not merely feeling good about myself, not merely enjoying myself, there has been also an interior thrust propelling me towards caring more for others, for the world, a greater desire to share myself and what I have with others, a greater move towards seeing all people as my friends and family, and not simply a chosen few. This also creates some real awkwardness, given that we are living in a world that does not acknowledge God, that is without love, full of selfishness, conflict and loneliness, and populated with billions of needy losers who all think they are the centre of the universe. And this is the hardest thing to reckon with. I'm not sure if we are ever fully cured of that nonsense that seems to cling to us from the terrible twos till when we are old and weak and drawing our last sputtering breath. love is when we leave the centre of the universe, and this love brings us joy. This doesn't free us from sadness or suffering, for that is also part of life, but the golden thread of joy underneath can redeem and beautify the sorrow and ugliness, transforming our lives into something beautiful for God.

Happy Face 12

There is joy in the midst of it all and even hidden somewhere underneath all the sadness, the depression, the anger, the bitterness that life often leaves us as its legacy, there is still a grain, however tiny, an ember, however near to dying, that can be summoned forth to life. There is something about the sad, bad and bitter experiences of life that actually shelter and protect the seed, that hold and keep warm the glowing ember. They, whoever they is, say that life is a struggle. But even more, life is a gift. We generally don't know this, or if we do, we so often forget, as we go through the day treating each other like obstacles in the way, or providers of services, goods or pleasure. There is something in choosing to love others that opens our eyes to the gift. Even today, with the emotional hangover from the holidays that is slowly dissipating, I am looking forward to getting outside and embracing the day. I will be alone, this being my quiet day, but I am much alone these days anyway, which isn't always a bad thing, and tomorrow there will be people at church and a friend on Skype who lives in a distant land. Then there are the scary, cold and hard realities that are facing us every day. This is more than simply putting food on the table, paying the mortgage or rent and saving for that bucket list vacation. However, to listen to the angry idiots in Alberta who want their oil pipeline, one would think that this is all that is important in life. I had to nag and hector, for two days, by phone, the hosts of the afternoon CBC radio program On the Coast because of the way they were celebrating car culture. They were playing music that people like to drive their cars to. That was their theme for the week. Wednesday and Thursday I gave them both barrels of my wrath and indignation. Friday, they were no longer playing that theme. Coincidence? Or maybe mine was but one of many other phone calls from similarly irate listeners who don't like it when our own public broadcaster shirks its public and moral responsibility. For those of you, Gentle Reader, who aren't quite getting my point, cars emit carbon and other noxious substances into the atmosphere, that help increase global warming and the risks of catastrophic climate change. Why isn't our public broadcaster, the CBC, doing more, much much more to guilt, encourage and harangue their listeners to get out of their damn cars, take transit, bike, walk, skateboard or whatever, instead of clinging to those noxious death machines, if only to facilitate their lazy and privileged arrogance? I am glad that there are more people waking up to this reality, but the response is still very slow and with plenty of backlash from the deplorables who elect toxic idiots into high public office. It is hard to find cause for joy, knowing that the likes of President Dump and others of his ilk are so eager to drag us and the whole planet down into hell and oblivion, and we have to keep resisting Giving up is not an option. There is joy in resistance, and it also makes us stronger. But the joy begins here, with where we are and in how we treat one another, and in how we treat the other beings with whom we share space on this planet earth. There isn't much that any of us can do individually. Quite a bit more that we can accomplish together. But even alone there are small acts of kindness and joy, even if they are but kind and encouraging words to strangers as well as to those whom we know and love, that can help prepare the way for the much bigger changes that are facing all of us. We are not isolated units. We are all connected, even if we do not know it, and even if we don't like it. And often we don't like it, this nuisance of other people, until something happens, we've had an accident, we need help, first aid, an ambulance, and then suddenly how could we possibly cope without others, without the kindness of strangers? Just as I am sure that the idiots in Alberta are also, for the most part, kind and decent people, if shortsighted, ignorant and greedy. They probably make great neighbours, but they don't want to give up any luxuries for the long-term future of the planet. I suppose that we can, and ought, to go on enjoying life and one another, but if this becomes a simple escape from the darkness looming ahead of us, then we really have to start waking up. This doesn't mean that we have to make ourselves and one another miserable about it. I really doubt that any of us should have to dwell on these horrible things 24-7, otherwise we would break under the strain. We are almost hopelessly fragile, it seems and I don't think that most of us are going to be ready to face the imminent challenges that lie ahead. Don't forget to smile. And don't forget to laugh. Ha-ha.

Happy Face 11

I am up and awake way too early, again Gentle Reader, having logged four solid hours of sleep followed by another hour and a half of light napping. Now it is just past 4 am and soon I will be putting my clothes in the dryer. I did make coffee (not decaf), but I haven't had any yet, will probably sip only a little bit, then after breakfast and putting my clothes away, go back to sleep for a couple of hours. In the small hours of the morning, as today, I am listening to the wealth of documentary programs that the CBC generally spares from enlightening the daytime working folk, who usually get a bland and diluted pap of political, social and community programming. The best stuff is saved for when most of us are sleeping and trying not to dream. There was one documentary from BBC, I believe, about the current refugee crisis in Venezuela, and the three million who have fled the country because of the disastrous government of Victor Maduro, who of course blames the economic crisis on the big bad and evil United States of America. No one is buying it, which isn't to say that they haven't played a role in disrupting things. When it comes to the Americas, Uncle Sam is a very nasty landlord, even over properties that are not under his purview. Even if they do play a role in undermining governments that are not friendly towards global capitalism, it would seem that Maduro has taken things to such an extreme where no one is going to pay much attention to his name and blame game. I am thinking of how I live in the first world paradise named Canada, where there is also poverty, but not widespread poverty, or at least not yet. We have homeless people living on the street, something that just wasn't occurring here thirty years ago, and we have hunger and food banks. No one is fleeing this country, and there is still a social infrastructure, however compromised, that enables us to cope. I am one of the lucky ones. Statistically, I likely would be homeless and living in shelters, but for eleventh hour interventions that I owe to the hand of God protecting me. There have been way too many coincidences in my trajectory to be easily written off as mere happenstance or luck, especially the doors that opened for me to get into decent and affordable housing. Despite my bitter complaining in recent posts, my life is pretty good. I am not wealthy, statistically I am actually considered very poor, but my rent is subsidized and indexed accord Even if I am relatively socially isolated, I have at least two close friends who try to stay in touch, persons I have known since our salad days many years ago. ing to my changes of income, with extra consideration and lower rent now that I am a senior getting early CPP. I have a full fridge. What's in it, you might ask? Unhealthy processed food that I bought on sale? Think again. There is a big cooking pot half full of a green lentil, tomato, mushroom, cheese and pasta dish. I will be freezing the rest of it tomorrow and for the next couple of weeks will likely be thawing and living on leftovers, since my freezer is already getting very full. There is a lot of fresh broccoli and green cabbage, some tomatoes. There is a small bag of onions, a couple of potatoes and yams. I have milk, orange juice and lovely aged cheddar cheese. There are eggs and there is butter. I have oranges,, clementine mandarins and apples. There is also whole wheat flour and brown rice in my fridge and home made bread. There is sunflower oil and soon there will be fresh garlic. I am eating very well. I didn't mention the lovely bananas in my fruit bowl. In my cupboards there is good natural peanut butter, honey, dried lentils and beans, whole wheat pasta, cocoa and brown sugar. I have another cupboard full of spices. I have marmalade in my fridge. And I forgot to mention the yogurt or my chocolate stash. I can live on what I earn and save money for a trip and to buy a new laptop, which I will be needing sooner than later. Materially, I have nothing to complain about, even if I can't buy the most fashionable or beautiful or expensive things, even if I can't afford a cell phone or TV on top of my other luxuries. Even if I don't live in a nice neighbourhood. Even if i can't expect the quality of retirement that many of my peers have accepted as their entitlement. When I think of the refugees fleeing from Venezuela and the people sleeping on the sidewalk outside of my building, when i think of those who actually do end up killing themselves because they are hopelessly lonely and have run out of hope. My life isn't perfect. But I am healthy. Even if my family has horribly damaged, traumatized me and robbed me of a better quality of life, there is healing and there arre people in life who care, and I actually do see this even if the pain of the past still blinds me to the new light that is shining my way.

Happy Face 10

There is an indelible connection between joy and unselfishness. This isn't to say that depressed people can't be unselfish. Often they are. And what adds to their depression is often the lack of gratitude or appreciation from others. And I have known some very selfish happy idiots in my time. One is a friend from whom I am trying to distance myself a bit because I find his kind of selfishness particularly vexing, but since I have not quite decided to dump him as a friend, I will refrain from further identifying him. I might even be lying about her gender. Anything to cover my butt. This selfish happiness manifests as a kind of happy-go-lucky extroversion that is entirely self-centred, completely narcissistic and is basically saying, look, I'm happy and if you're not then isn't that you're problem? These people are often loud and chronic whistlers, they are incredibly insensitive, make poor listeners, and will simply express boredom, impatience or non-comprehension if you should mention to them any of your troubles or problems, or simply any small details of your dull and mundane life. I am also finding this out as I have been navigating my way through the fallout of one of the worst holiday depressions I have had in a few years. I am not prepared to talk very openly about this because a lot of people, especially men, end up giving all kinds of unwanted and unneeded advice, likely meaning well, but as their way of protecting themselves emotionally from someone else's pain. It isn't about letting go of expectation, since I haven't got any. Rather, this is a legitimate need to be part of a community, something that just doesn't seem to be available for a lot of people who have no family. I found that last Christmas, I did rather well. What was different was, I was able to visit with two different friends of many years. One I cooked breakfast for, the other I delivered cookies to and we visited in the afternoon over a cup of tea. No fancy dinner, no gift exchange (apart from the cookies), but I was able to be there for others and to do something for them and this was fulfilling. This year was a bit different. I thought that by spending Christmas Eve services and dinner with people at church, followed by similar on Christmas morning would be enough, but it wasn't and the following day I was alone and dangerously miserable. It seemed that everyone else had a place to go to and people, almost all family members, to see, and I was left alone and with nothing. My friend from last year did invite me for Christmas dinner, but it would have been this tie too far and too late, she also had a cold, so we decided to cancel, though we had a nice chat on the phone later that day. I still think that I was sucker-punched by depression, and for some reason, was particularly vulnerable this year. This could also be because, more openly than in the past, I have been addressing and challenging the roots of trauma from abusive treatment from my father over Christmas twenty years ago, already written about on these pages, and I also have to consider the fallout of openly confronting this much pain. It's not going to be easy. There are other complications. My mother's birthday is December 22. She died January 9. So, we have here quite a list of sad and traumatizing occurrences. My one bit of bitterness is the lack of available friends to offer me emotional support during this time, and I have decided that I am going to make this a requirement of friendship. This goes out to everyone who thinks they are my friend, Well, duckies, here is your chance to prove it. Next Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when I am most emotionally vulnerable, you are going to be available. If you cannot see me, you are going to phone me. Or i am going to phone you and you are going to spend time chatting with me. I don-t care what else you are going to be doing, nor with whom, nor if you want to stay alone and feel sorry for yourself. As my friend, you are going to be there and you are going to be available. If phoning isn't an option, then we can email, Skype or text each other. Yes, you are going to do this for me, just as I am going to be there for you. If your answer is no, then the solution is simple. We are no longer friends. I will no longer call you, there will be no more coffee dates or walks together or interesting and meaningful chats. I am sick and tired of going back after every Christmas to people who clearly care not a shit for me, to go on seeing and visiting them through the year, only to be treated like I don't exist again, come next Christmas. Them's my conditions. Agree to them, or goodbye.

Happy Face 9

Somebody once called me "convenient." He wouldn't explain further and we haven't been friends now for well over ten years. He was a friend struggling with mental illness and found me very supportive, which I suppose was what he meant by convenient. Everybody's pet doggie. But it has always been strongly in my nature to be there for others, because I am not a selfish person and as a Christian i am even less selfish, but no one is going to consider you as a candidate for friendship if you are there to help and support but don't descend to their level of bottom-feeding. My psychiatrist, and others, have told me that I do not tolerate mediocrity. And this is largely true. I have been told that my values and standards are just too high for a lot of people, and that my gifts as an artist, writer, my verbal gifts and wit, my spiritual gifts, and my sharp tongue and ability to see through other people's bullshit actually puts me at a social disadvantage. People get scared of me, they feel intimidated and they close ranks to keep me out, which is also cruel because even gifted people who can't shut up for five seconds need friends and community, but for me anyway there never appears to be anything or anyone there. Unless they need me for something. But otherwise, I get sidelined. I am relegated as someone who is interesting, but not worthy of friendship. People can only bear so much stimulation before they get tired and bored or irritable and vicious. So, I never get invited anywhere, and being poor and socially marginalized, as well as queer and asexual simply makes me even more of a freak, so they don't want me spoiling their lovely family Christmas celebrations, where no outsiders are allowed. Hardly the spirit of Christmas, methinks, but people for the most part are just that, they are puerile bottom-feeders and maybe I should question my need to be wanted and accepted by such mediocre idiots as your average person. Okay, I'm also elitist, but poor and socially marginalized, so demographically, I cannot afford to be an elitist. Go figure. Neither can I shut up about global warming, climate change, and our entrenched lethal habits and addictions to convenience and comfort that simply are bringing us that much closer to the precipice: driving cars, eating meat, and wanton consumerism. Neither am I going to shut up about homelessness, the growing divide between rich and poor and social and economic inequality. People hate being reminded of their sins, and if this hectoring is coming from a low income Jeremiah or a white trash Cassandra such as myself, then so much the worse. No wonder I haven't got any friends. I am also poor and old and single and male, all categories that make me less than attractive social bait. Okay, I get it. But I still need support. I still need community. And I need people who can tolerate me, who will love and accept me, and who will allow me room to integrate among them, preferably Christians, since non-Christians find me and my brand of righteous nagging to be particularly odious. And, no, I am not going to shut up about these important matters and issues, much as the rest of you probably wish that I would and for the simple reason that I have to obey the urgings of the divine that is within me, which is to say, the Holy Spirit, because our time on this planet could very well be cut short if we don't all seriously smarten up, and I do not want to face God's judgment when I die for not playing my part and sounding the alarm as I have been able, much less for not pulling my weight and endeavouring to the best of my ability to live out my Christian faith in a world full of people who only wish that my kind would go away and die somewhere in the wilderness. and I am going to go on doing this in a spirit of joy, even if my heart seems always to be breaking in the midst of this fetid darkness we have collectively brought on ourselves on the planet, and I can still smile because I do this for love. I nag and hector your ass off because I love you. Just as I offer you my support and friendship. Because I love you. And because I love you I also have joy, because joy is the fruit of love and all love comes directly from God, whether you choose to believe in him or not, Gentle Reader. Hello? Anyone out there?

Happy Face 8

I find it interesting, this dynamic that some Christians and others who tend to love too much often find ourselves trapped in, and often by total default. This is where we are naturally trying to make real the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi in our lives without preparing for the huge emotional blowback. Let me write it out for you here, Gentle Reader, in case you have forgotten it, do not know it, have never heard of St. Francis, or have never heard of prayer: "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon, where there is doubt, faith, where there is despair, hope, where there is darkness, light, where there is sadness, joy. O divine master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love For it is in giving that we receive- and it's in pardoning that we are pardoned. And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen." Beautiful words to live by. Glorious words. And very difficult and costly words. Of course, any serious Christian who wants to practice their faith will accept this as a emplate for living. Discipleship 101. And I agree. But with such noble aspirations there is always the fine print and we seldom even know that it's there. This can also, if the fine print is ignored or disregarded, a blueprint for abusive relationships. The theme of this prayer is, of course, unconditional love, or to basically become everybody's pet doggie. Or does it have to be this way? I have already mentioned in recent posts about how I have so come to question a lot of my friendships that I am prepared to end them. This isn't to say that I am going to end these friendships, but they could well be going in that direction. Most of my friends, it seems, are completely useless at supporting me in times of trauma, even if I am going to be there for them. But our positions are unequal. They are all grounded in secure family and social networks. I have nothing. They are already nurtured. I have no one. They have no idea how good they have it, ignore me when I am going through trauma, and judge me for getting upset with them as being needy and dependant. They have no right to make this judgment because none of those losers have ever walked in my shoes. it rather makes me think that the Prayer of St. Francis is not really directed to people like me, but to my comfortable and already well-loved friends. When you consider the life and social class and background of Francis, this will make total sense. He was well connected and loved by his family, being also the son of a wealthy burgher. His family never abandoned him, but Francis abandoned his family. They still loved him and welcomed him, but he wanted to obey the call that God had on his life, so he joyously abandoned all for the Pearl of Greatest Price. Well and good. I didn't abandon my family. My family abandoned me. As have many of my friends. Leaving me particularly vulnerable and unsupported in life. The Prayer of St. Francis is not an instruction model for people who have already been kicked around and left bleeding on the pavement. It is for those who do the kicking. Knowing this takes a certain burden off my shoulders. I do not accept this as license to turn into a callous douchebag. For me this is salutary for helping me discern and define my role in life as a Christian who has suffered abuse and trauma. This also persuades me that I also have rights: a right to be loved and accepted, a right for connection, a right to belong. Such things of course can never be enforced, and are going to be completely at the behest and goodwill of others and this is frightening because it makes persons like me particularly and egregiously vulnerable. I do not believe that I will ever enjoy with any of those people something resembling an equal relationship. Being unmoored makes on perpetually needy, and vulnerable to the cruel judgment of those who have never had and never will have a clue. And chances are, if any of my dear "friends" were afflicted with the losses and deprivations that I have had to live with, that they wouldn't be able to cope. As much as these things have harmed me, they have not broken me, but have also given me a strength that I don't think a lot of my privileged friends can lay claim to. But now I accept that I owe them nothing. I think I can make new friends, but the ground rules are changing. I no longer need smug idiots in my life, and even if I have a few years of suicidal depression for Christmases to come, I will somehow get through this, and I will find people who are really worthy of my friendship. This isn't going to be easy.