Life As Performance Art 149

Today, Gentle Reader, is Nothing Day. So I am going to write about...Nothing. I really can't think of much more to add to the many comments, insights, complaints, and outrageous remarks I usually have to contribute to these august pages. The end of August always feels transitional. Even with warm weather, it no longer seems exactly like summer, but neither are we in autumn. Perhaps today, I can write a little bit about what I was doing in past years at this date in time. Two particularly significant years come to mind right now. 1991, when I was thirty-five and recently returned from Europe. And 1971, when at the tender age of fifteen. Both were times of reinstating order in my life. In 1991 I had cut short my time in Europe to help clean up the mess and chaos that Dippy had made of our Christian community. Of course that is not her real name. It isn't that I fear a defamation suit, I just don't want to be that mean as to name and publicly shame her. Even if she did happen to be one of the most absolute idiots I have ever known, who single-handedly almost completely destroyed the work of ministry and community we had so painstakingly built over the previous three years. She was the one who had brought in a young drug addicted schizophrenic to live with her in our ministry house. He trashed the place, screwed her brains out then trashed her as well. This wasn't rape by the way. She was thoroughly in consent of their relations. and he beat the crap out of her. Twice. Of course I had to intervene! It wasn't easy. Even after he was gone, he returned a couple times to trash the place even more, while we were out. I was intentionally staying with her then, to keep an eye on things and give her support. She didn't seem to appreciate my help, but we managed, somehow, and I did have to close the house because her idiot Romeo kept coming back to trash it even more, so we all ended up living together, without her pathetic white trash Romeo, in the retreat house in Richmond. She was not a teenager, by the way, but in her late forties. Seriously! In 1971, August 30, when I was fifteen, the Children of God, a highly dangerous cult, had moved up from California to absorb the Jesus People, who had been over the past eight months or so, my Christian community. They wanted me to move in with them, change my name to a biblical name (didn't do that till 1995, without pressure, by the way), and hate absolutely everything and everyone in order to truly follow Christ. For three days I argued, cajoled and begged people whom I had once admired for their common sense and spirituality, to not swallow the Kool Aid, and finally, with support from another outraged visitor, distanced myself from them and I think in many ways saved my life. What I went through at fifteen matured me very fast, and helped transform me into a young man, mature and wise well beyond my fifteen years. Today it is overcast and raining and eighteen degrees. I like the way my life has evolved and I am most grateful for those difficult past lessons that did much to make me grow into the person I am today. Happy Saturday, Gentle Reader!

Life As Performance Art 148

A lot of people seem to conflate the word love with approval, or being nice. I suppose kindness would come a bit closer, but kindness is still somewhere in the hinterland of niceness. I suppose it comes closer when there is real care and real respect going on. But the boundaries are still fuzzy. I have been called a hypocrite for every reason except what that word means. A hypocrite simply is someone who says one thing and does something else, whose actions do not match up with their words. Which actually makes us all hypocrites. For example, I was recently called a hypocrite, not because I was being a hypocrite, but because I was calling out someone on their addictions and their refusal to get treatment. I was called a hypocrite for not subscribing to someone's narrow view of gender fluidity, and deciding not to refer to that person's daughter as they or them, instead of her or she. But I am not being nice, since I am choosing to disagree, so, even though my actions are matching my stated beliefs, clearly my actions are not matching someone else's stated beliefs, so this must make me a hypocrite. But I have already mentioned on these pages and elsewhere that I do not do political correctness (which is really a form of intellectual tyranny) and that outside of transpersons I'm not going to disgrace the English language by applying they and them in ways that are simply neither proper or Christian, or Jewish or Muslim (but maybe Buddhist). I have been accused, by politically correct womyn (pardon the, er, spelling "error!") of slut shaming when I anonymously called out those two Mexican girls for talking loudly and openly in Spanish about some guy's penis. Especially given that it would not be acceptable for two men in any language talking so openly and graphically about some woman's vagina. So, who was really being shamed here? I simply replied that when a woman, or a man, behaves like a slut (or pig), then that is already something shameful and it should be called out. However, the politically correct thought police cannot seem to fathom that for women to sink to the same level as men is not empowerment. It is debasement, and no, men should neither be allowed to get away with being pigs. It looks awful on any gender, this business of sexually objectifying others, and should never be allowed or condoned. It could also be that because I would not be overly friendly with an individual with addictions who really scandalously abused my hospitality 21 years ago, (whom I have not seen in almost twenty years) that now that he is a broken down wreck getting around on a walker and was trying to wheedle money out of me when we ran into each other on the street recently, that because I didn't give him any money, or my contact information, and because I have decided not to further interact with this individual, that that makes me a callous, unChristian and unfeeling hypocrite. Even after explaining that that person had already harmed me in the past, that I was not going to be swayed or manipulated by pity, and that, really, I need to protect myself in my own neighbourhood given that I work ´professionally with people who have his kind of issues... I could go on. But, no, that makes me a hypocrite. Excuse me, but I am also a trauma survivor, and I know that if I start indiscriminately parcelling myself out to people in need when I am not at work and really ought to be resting and restoring my energy, this is not going to be the loving thing to do. It is suicidal. It was indiscriminately giving all my time and energy to such people, that helped me wind up with PTSD in the first place, and yes I have a legitimate need to protect myself. If that makes me a hypocrite, then too bad. I still do the best I can with my limited resources. Pity that that isn't good enough for some, especially the armchair observers of other people's virtue, who would rather judge than themselves lift a finger to do anything. It isn't that I don't wish that I could do more. Of course I would like to do more, but I am doing this in small steps, because I am bound and determined not to again destroy myself on a poorly thought out version of compassion and runaway empathy. I still try to help where I can. But now I know and respect my limits. I am also doing everything I can to extend my boundries, but that is going to take time, one small step at a time, Gentle Reader.

Life As Performance Art 147

I'm thinking, these days, a lot about hierarchy, Gentle Reader. I am, among other things, an anarchist. Not by political persuasion (I actually do vote, for progressive candidates, but I never vote Liberal), nor because my life is full of chaos (I am actually, very disciplined and try to keep a fairly tight and effective routine and schedule). Quite simply, I do not believe in human authority. Hoo Boy, trouble here, sports fans. I live in a country that is a parliamentary, representative democracy, a constitutional monarchy, and I do not believe in human authority. I live in a country where the rule of law is upheld, and I do not believe in human authority. I live in a country with strong military and police institutions, and I do not believe in human authority. I work for our public health authority, where authority and decision making are very top-down, and I don't believe in human authority. I also am a tenant paying monthly rent to a landlord. And I attend an Anglican church, which, by definition, is very hierarchical. I remember when I was again flirting with the Quakers (or, the Flakers, as I have come to know them). As a Christian, or perhaps as a religious but spiritual (which I am not) the Quakers would be ideal. They have no leaders and they are completely horizontal, completely inclusive. Uh-huh. News flash: the Quakers are hierarchical, every bit as hierarchical as any other religious institution. Only they won't admit it. And some of them can be quite rude, so I no longer bother with them. It doesn't seem to matter where we go. There are always going to be pecking orders. There are always going to be those with seniority, experience, popularity and sex appeal that makes them natural leaders, even in situations where leadership is eschewed. And if you are a newcomer, then you had better mind your manners if you want to get anywhere or you will soon find yourself back on the street. Of course, capitalism is very compatible with this dynamic of hierarchy, since it thrives on competition, and almost everyone, it seems, is going to vy, if not for dominance and supremacy, at least for their own bare survival among frenzied competitors stronger, more gifted and more cunning than they. Even when I was part of a small intentional Christian community there was a hierarchy, even after everyone insisted that all decision making must be done by consensus. Except for one little sticking point. I, the founder of the community, was the only one with experience. And the other three refused to listen to me. So, rather than stick to my guns and make rules that they must comply to or hit the road, I decided to let them have their own way. I gave them exactly what they wanted. Not because I had caved (though who needs the conflict?), and not because I was trying to be nice. I did it to teach them some hard and bitter lessons. Oh, they learned alright. And they never forgave me. I had given up on remonstrating with them about the importance of common sense and good self care. Okay, I said, you want street people and addicts to swarm your living space twenty-four/seven, then go right ahead, and trust me when I say this, there will be consequences. Fortunately, around that time, I was able to use my mother's death benefits to take off for an extended trip to Europe. I would have stayed much longer than two months, but the reports coming back to me from the only other member of our community with a few shreds of common sense were so troubling that I knew I would have to return to help set things in order. One of the really difficult members had already resigned in disgrace (let's just say that he had trouble with his zipper). The other one had already been sleeping with a drug addicted schizophrenic living with her alone in the ministry house who had twice beaten her up. I came back and restored order. I closed the ministry house where all the trouble was taking place and the three of us all stayed in the retreat house in the country where I made and enforced rules. It was onerous and she was constantly ornery, and we were the nasty dictators now, not letting little Dippy do whatever she wanted), nagging, arguing and sometimes crying about it all. Within a couple of years we broke up as a community. It was too little too late. But there has been a huge take away from all this, especially the importance of leadership, and the indisputable existence of hierarchy as a fact of life. We can mitigate it and soften its edges, Gentle Reader, but we ignore it at our peril. Hierarchy is part of our human genome. It is with us forever and we had might as well make our peace and live with it.

Life As Performance Art 146

I think where I really get worn out about activism is the black and white thinking that it can easily impose upon us, the activists. Only those who fit our narrow definitions of what is good, right and appropriate are allowed into the club. Everyone else is at best suspect, at worst, less than human. If you vote Conservative then you are not considered human. If you vote Liberal, then you are almost human, but you still have to cravenly apologize for voting for the gutless corporate swine if we are going to let you in for at least a token visit. If you are a meat eater then you are not even considered worthy of our attention. If you are a vegetarian who likes cheese omelettes, (I happen to be a vegetarian who loves cheese omelettes. In fact, I just had a cheese omelette for breakfast!) some of us, me likely, will sort of welcome you (though you will still be treated like you're the weird uncle or aunt at Christmas dinner), but the hardcore born-again vegans will all revile, condemn and sentence you to the flames, like an apostate or heretic, and if they were Spanish priests during the fifteenth century, during the Inquisition, then they would be the first to light the fire underneath the stake that they had tied you to. Especially if you are a vegetarian who enjoys cheese omelettes (like me!). Vegans tend to hate ordinary vegetarians even worse than they hate meat-eaters, or anyone else, but vegans tend to hate almost every living thing that walks on two legs. If you support NDP or Green Party then you can consider yourself safely in the club of our accepted definition of humanity. I think this is the real reason why I have come to limit my participation and involvement in promoting causes that are, or should be, dear to me. I am exhausted from the self-righteous bigotry and hate disguised as virtue that I have come to notice in many in the activist communities I have participated in. And, I have quite simply come to love the enemy. Or at least to see the enemy, not as a cartoon construct with horns, fangs and a forked tongue, but as a human being, every bit as complex and fragile as I am, as anyone. Having a different opinion does not make you less human. Promoting hate is one thing, but simply choosing to disagree about politically correct definitions of gender? For that you are going to exile those who don't agree with you? Then, tell me, please, who is the real bigot here!) My own parents, for example, were what would now be considered as absolutely horrible, deplorable individuals not even worthy to be called human beings. They were both racists. They were also homophobic with some very backward opinions (my father anyway), about women, and like many working class people of their generation, they were both exasperatingly conservative. They both had limited education, had grown up during times of deprivation and want during the Depression, and great fear and anxiety during the Second World War. They lived in thrived in cultural backwaters. they were not educated, they were not cultured. But they were still decent human beings and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this drivel! Their views, even when I was a kid, I found repugnant. I responded to their racism by taking on as a childhood best friend the Japanese boy living up the street, who was also socially isolated because his parents both carried the trauma of the internment camps where they were exiled as children with their families during the Second World War. I knew none of this, being only five years old at the time. It was 1961. I was not interested in making any statements to my family, neither was I yet able to understand just what it was that I hated about them. But there was this other little boy, same age as me, riding his tricycle in the family driveway, just five houses down from where we lived. I already had a very strong compassion radar, and my heart went out to him and we became very tight friends till I had to move five years later. To this day I will not excuse or justify my parents horrible opinions. But I will honour their memory and the positive aspects of their legacy, especially my mother, who raised me to be honest, straightforward, fair, tough, and compassionate.

Life As Performance Art 145

I am going to write down some thoughts about activism. Or, rather, about activists. Yesterday I mentioned a very high profile social activist and heroin addict who shall remain anonymous, for now, but to me this person represents some of the worst stereotypes of the social and political activist. These are, what I call, the limelight hogs, the rock stars, if you will. People whose identity has to include and be propped up by public notice, attention and adulation. They should almost have groupies. Or, maybe not, but maybe some of them do have groupies (please, let's unvisualize this little freak show, Gentle Reader!) This kind of activist is generally very charismatic, intelligent, sometimes but not always good-looking, and extremely savvy at manipulating others and the media. They are most often narcissists. I have no doubt at all about their sincerity, and I don't think they would give up the fight if something else came their way. They are genuine, they are not in it for money or fame or anything like that, and I don't think they are shallow, and often they can be very noble, generous and self-sacrificing. But there appears to be at their very core a certain hunger, a neediness for praise and adulation, when at their most innocent, or, worse, unresolved issues of self-hatred, or at their very worst, a Lucifer Satanic hunger for power, glory, immortality, and an undying sense of entitlement that they be publicly adored and worshipped. This, of course, is a danger that a lot of people can find themselves running when they get into the public forum, especially under the most altruistic auspices. I don't buy any of the cynical conservative hogswallop that activists are in it for themselves, that they are deluded, they are being paid to protest, they don't have jobs, or any of the other slanderous garbage that serves as a smokescreen that blurs and obscures the real issues from being contemplated. I myself have been involved in various forms of social activism throughout my adult life. But I am not really an activist, or at least not a professional activist. Some people are, and they do it rather well, and not from bad motives except perhaps from an adolescent sense of heroism, but for the most part, they are in it because they believe in what they are doing. And indeed, I have often found the whole process of political and social activism to be rather discouraging, as the people I am supposed to be working with often come out as being every bit as venal, wanting and as disappointing as the idiot politicians whose attention we are trying to get (since they otherwise tend to ignore us) I would also have to say that, on the whole, activism has not been a waste of time, and I have seen some of my own efforts born out in results, but not because of anything that I have said or done, but because of what we have said and done and expressed as concerned and compassionate collectives of persons. The media does seem to píck out its own stars and routinely and repeatedly select the same people over and over to be publicly interviewed, either because of their star power, or because they are particularly dedicated and hard workers or, in some cases, they are just loose cannons and narcissistic idiots who serve up rather nicely as entertainment value and an easy discredit to their cause. I have never been singled out for such attention, primarily because I have never been present enough and have always been careful to keep a low profile. I have also never been terribly good at sucking up to people just because they have seniority, and to do well in any activist community or collective, no matter how anarchist, one must always pay homage to the hierarchy de jour. I am also often not entirely comfortable with the people I am protesting with. For example, last year, I protested with a coalition of folks against the twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, especially the Trudeau Junior government's decision to sell us out at almost 5 billion of our dollars of our money to buy the damn thing. But there was also such a strong bias against the prime minister himself (I never voted for him or his party, by the way, and never would), that hatred of Junior and the Liberal Party seemed to be eclipsing the real issue. Last May I ran into other headwaters at a protest against keeping cetaceans in the Vancouver Public Aquarium. The activists were dominated by militant self-righteous born-again vegans, and those people are simply so nasty that it is absolutely pointless to do anything with them, unless your virtue signalling is completely compatible with theirs. Then there was the conversation I had with a Mexican-Canadian. I told him about a protest I attended in Mexico City in 2009 in front of the president's home in sprawling Chapultepec Park, and commented on how odd and cowardly to send out all those riot-clad police in order to fight off a protest group made up primarily of young mothers with children and old men. The Mexican fellow tried to persuade me that the protesters had all been paid to be there, which is another popular conservative lie about people who protest. It was pretty clear to me that they were there of their own volition, and he didn't seem to like what I said. This Texican Canadian chap was also an engineer working for a mining corporation that does nasty things to the environment and indigenous people in Latin American countries, so, I am not at all surprised that he didn't appear to want to hear from me again.

Life As Performance Art 144

We have an organization in my city made up of drug addicts (oops, I mean to say, drug users. Silly me!) and they have absolutely nothing to do with self-help or support towards recovery. In fact none of them seem even remotely interested in recovery from their addictions because they don't want to recover from their drug dependency. They only want to be left alone, treated with kindness and respect and to be given an eternal never-ending and forever flowing supply of all the free drugs they want, funded of course by you and me, Gentle Reader, and other taxpayers. Oh yes, I know I must sound so dreadfully right wing, reactionary and conservative. Or maybe I am just fed up and emotionally burnt out after hearing about death after overdose death, the growing and exponential misery in our own Downtown Eastside, and the fact that only one of the Four Pillars approach, harm-reduction, is being practiced or pursued here, while completely ignoring the other three pillars: Prevention. Enforcement. And especially Treatment. To make things worse, one of the most deplorable local excuses for public social activism has also become the most vocal spokesperson for harm reduction and of course for this network of drug users. I will not mention his name here, (let's just say that he has a rather light complexion) but he is a self-disclosed heroin addict with absolutely no interest in recovery. This man is also highly educated, highly articulate, very intelligent and charismatic. He is likely also a narcissist, hence his love for publicity and his talent for getting in the news at least once a week. He has a huge public profile and many look up to him as hero and mentor. Kind of a tragic Nietzscheian anti-hero, forever lifting his noble middle finger to the establishment while protesting for his right to publicly destroy himself and drag as many down with him as would want to go flowing with him down this guy's personal toilet bowl. And what does this individual offer as role modelling? Like a spoilt, entitled teeanger of rich parents, whining and demanding for drugs, free drugs, screw recovery, screw any move towards actually taking responsibility for his life and moving forward as a role model for recovery and empowerment, just give him and his friends all the heroin they want. That is harm reduction, Vancouver style. This is worse than disgraceful. This is not harm reduction. This is harm production. Yes, I agree that heroin should be at least decriminalized if not legalized. I agree that it has to be taken out of the control and purview of the criminals and narcotraficantes, local and international. But by giving free candy without strings attached we are not doing a thing to tackle the very heart and soul of the problem. Addiction is a disease and it has to be tackled as a disease, and this means making treatment widely available and obligatory. No treatment, no candy should be the rule. If they're not ready yet, then that's okay, but as a condition for their free heroin they should still have to be forced, if necessary, to attend group and education sessions about their addictions and the necessity for treatment and no one should be allowed to skip out. No, don't criminalize or stigmatize drug users. But make treatment every bit as available as it should be obligatory. Nothing is going to change as long as they are just given enough drugs to kill themselves, even in a safe injection site. There will, of course, be many cases where treatment is going to be impossible. Does this sound harsh? Probably. But I have worked in various support capacities for years with people with addictions, and you know something, Gentle Reader? By simply enabling and coddling them like broken little children is not doing anyone a favour. Yes, they are broken, yes addictions often have their roots in child abuse, systemic and structural poverty, racism, you name it. But no one is going to recover if they are not treated like adults and encouraged to take responsibility for their lives and for their own recovery. And all stops have to be pulled out in order to facilitate recovery. Incarceration and criminalization, by the way, are not a solution. The community supports have to be created and consolidated until with a combination, of housing, treatment, counselling, financial support and programs towards education and employment, there will simply be no cracks left in the system that anyone can fall through. This is going to be a huge undertaking- We need an informed, educated and compassionate public, electing informed, educated and compassionate politicians, and this is still sadly and tragically lacking in our country. In the meantime, please do not nauseate me about our booming and robust economy. So long as one person remains homeless and or stranded on the street with addictions, then it is too painfully clear that our lovely economy is nothing but a fantasy, beautiful fiction for garnering more votes in the next election, no more and no less, darlings.

Life As Performance Art 143

We are all hypocrites. Only those who are not making a real and concerted effort to improve their life situations are immune to this charge. By not making the effort you get off scot-free, but we are hypocrites. Your life might be a sordid and tangled and filthy mess. But at least you are not a hypocrite. If you are an alcoholic, you can go on drinking yourself to death while hiding behind the bottle from your inner fears, demons and shadows, while lashing out at anyone who challenges you to get better and recover (because we don't want to see you destroy or kill yourself), because to you we are all hypocrites. Unlike you we do not always faithfully live up to our ideals, values and aspirations, because unlike us, you don't have any ideals, values or aspirations. You are content to remain in your sewer of choice from where you can pontificate and judge the rest of us who bust our asses trying to befriend and help ungrateful losers like you. Because we are hypocrites. And you are not. Uh-huh. And what are you doing to help make this world a better place? At least there are a lot of us hypocrites out there working side by side to support the poor, the vulnerable and the sick, but you are too busy getting drunk. Oh, you're getting drunk again. Case closed. I have wasted so many valuable hours as a friend with people who are not Christians, who do not share my values, in the hope that they can see in me at least something authentic. Big mistake. First of all, I am not always going to get it right. I am not always going to live up to the high demands of my Christian faith, not because I don't want to, and not for not making some huge efforts, but for my own very human weakness and imperfection. This is how we grow. By making the effort, by getting up after we have fallen and by moving forward some more, till we fall again, and then we get up again and keep moving forward, because we know that we have to and to stay lying in our gutter is going to be death to us. But people who do not have faith, and would really prefer to despise the Christian faith and its adherents from behind the safety of the bottle or whatever their vice de jour are not even remotely interested in changing their lives to begin with. They do not want the challenge of the Cross. They do not want to be challenged to give up their self-destructive ways and actually embrace real life and hope. They are content to wallow in their filth and then judge as impostors anyone who befriends them or helps them, because those same people really hate God. And they hate themselves. Which is why they drink, which is why they have addictions in the first place. They have somehow, often after years of being treated like garbage, themselves, come to believe that they are garbage, and so they go on living as though they are disposable. But they are not garbage. They are not disposable. But no one is going to convince or persuade them. They have to do that for themselves. I still refuse to reject them, because I do not end friendships unless they become actually dangerous to me. I will call for a time out. Sometimes a lengthy time out, even if it has to last a few years, because there is no point in damaging ourselves while trying to help and support damaged people who do not want to heal. As a Christian, I know better than anyone watching me that I often don't get it right. I try, yes. We all try. Yes. And even in our failures God can make himself present, but only to those who already have the eyes to see, and who already have the ears to hear. This has nothing to do with making ourselves better or worse than others. It has everything to do with whether or not we want to make the effort. It is always going to be much easier to judge than to practice.

Life As Performance Art 142

Good morning, Gentle Reader, and Happy Saturday! Today is Nothing Day. Day off. I am going to walk in lovely places full of trees and gardens, sit in a coffee shop with my sketchbook, maybe buy a few food items on the way home, after which I expect to tuck myself into my easy chair with the Weekend Globe and Mail and fall into a prolonged nap when it gets too boring. What an exciting life! But excitement comes in surprise packages, and sometimes I get excitement fatigue. Especially with all the strident and ear-splitting firetruck, police car and ambulance sirens that serenade us who live downtown day after day and night after night. For example, on this otherwise serene Saturday morning, there were three sirens in a row, and no one should have to close their window in the summertime. I suppose I should be glad that help is coming to the poor bastard who just got run over or is having an overdose or whatever but I think that the nerves and wellbeing of those who have to hear this and bear this decibel overload every day could also be taken into consideration. When you already live downtown, you get plenty of excitement already, and just hope that it doesn't make you develop high blood pressure or a cardiac condition. And I had plenty of excitement yesterday when I had to call out a crew of young (male, and allegedly heterosexual, of course!) construction workers doing renos on an ostentatious house in Kerrisdale. From a block away I could hear the kind of language they were using, and ,soon after, the way they were shaming a young woman in some of the most ungentlemanly terms. (She was not there to defend herself, and straight men have nothing on women when it comes to gossip, by the way. They are just as bad as women, and sometimes worse!) And I had thought that in this age of post-feminism and Me Too that young men should know better. But they are every bit as obtuse, misogynistic and obnoxious and sewer-mouthed as their dads were. Well, I happen to be an equal opportunity shamer, so just as I will call out a couple of young Mexican women for sexually shaming a young man about the size of his penis, so I will take on a whole group of young white males doing something similar to a woman. You see, Gentle Reader, I don't suffer from the kneejerk hatred of white males that is epidemic among the politically correct nazis. I hate everyone equally. Which is also to say that I love everyone equally (well, I aspire to, anyway!) Neither do I believe that there is any merit or justice in straight white men becoming marginalized, or going underemployed, unemployed and homeless just to score a politically correct point about giving up privilege. No one should have to go without adequate food, shelter or employment. What the politically correct nazis are, in my view, is really a particularly noxious class of bigots hiding behind their own smoke or vape screen of human rights protection, only they aim their hatred at straight white males. Well, straight white males are not my favourite category, either, but no one should have to be mistreated or treated with contempt just to score an ideological point. Back to my little story. I called out those young construction idiots, saying "Too much information". Then I proceeded to tell them they badly needed to grow up and work on their crappy attitudes. They were clearly embarrassed, but tried to have fun with it. They did shut up, and made funny little bird noises instead. Their white asses need badly to be kicked, and I have no compunctions about sicking my inner dad on those idiots. And by the way, had those little misogynists been idiots of colour I would write that their brown asses need to be kicked, and if they were women I would be every bit as harsh, no more and no less, as I am to their favourite bete noire, the straight white male. There is no excuse for objectifying others, and this goes way beyond gender and race, Gentle Reader. I think we really all have to try a bit harder. And we really need to learn how to think.

Life As Performance Art 141

Yesterday morning I was enjoying a walk towards Stanley Park when at the stoplight I heard two young Mexican men (I am very familiar with the accent) talking in Spanish, in graphic detail about the details of some girl's genitalia. They were of course talking in Spanish, a language in which I am very fluent, and likely they wouldn't imagine that someone with white skin and blue eyes would understand their beautiful language (it never seems to occur to those people that a lot of Argentinians and some Spanish people also look remarkably like me and their Spanish is sometimes even better!). So as the light was changing I said to them: "Cuídense. Escucho a escondidas. Que tengan un buen día." Or, Be careful, I can hear what you're saying. Have a nice day. Their faces were quite horrified, they said nothing and just tried to get away from me as fast as they could. My accent in Spanish, by the way, is almost perfect, so they were probably trying to figure out what country I was from. Later that day, a Mexican friend of mine confirmed to me that Mexican guys can be absolute pigs when it comes to their way of talking about women. He also thought it was quite hilarious, as did my Peruvian friend whom I saw later. Now, there are many different ways of looking at that scenario and I am going to hit it with my best shot. First of all, I am quite sure I was not misunderstanding them. Always, when I say something in Spanish to people who are speaking the language around me, they are if not friendly, then at least cordial and polite. Not those too cerdos (pigs in Spanish). Now, they might have thought I was just being an opportunistic creep. Don't think so. I think it was pretty clear to both those cochinos (another Spanish word for pigs) that I was frankly embarrassed and offended. Of course, they didn't expect that I would know what they were saying because in their experience, only people with mestizo features can speak Spanish, which simply says something about their ignorance and intelligence. You know, when travelling abroad in Latin America I have become so sick and tired of local people trying to speak to me in English even after I have addressed them in perfectly fluent Spanish, that now I just confront them to their face. I tell them, in impeccable Castellano (a fancy-schmancy Spanish word for very correct Spanish, and it's pronounced cah-stay-YAH-no, or if you live in Argentina or Uruguay, it would sound more like cah-stay-ZHAH-no), "Perdóneme, pero ni el color de mi piel, tampoco mis ojos azules, son indicadores de mi idioma, y para tomar tal assumpción es algo racista", or Excuse me, but my skin colour and my blue eyes have nothing to do with what language I speak, and your making that kind of assumption is rather racist. That's right, Gentle Reader, I pull no punches and I take no prisoners. I think both those chanchos (same word) knew they were being presumptuous little idiots and couldn't deal with the embarrassment of being called on their appalling bad manners, especially by someone who was so obviously the other. And I have no doubt at all that I was also really messing with their heads as they were trying to figure out if I might be from Spain, or Uruguay or maybe Colombia.... okay, Gentle Reader, I will put things on pause, here. First of all, this is a repeat of a blog post I wrote last year, July 22, 2018. Have a look at it. It wasn't two young Mexican men, but two young Mexican women and they were talking about a guy's penis. Everything else is basically the same, except instead of referring to the gals as ´pigs, I was calling them Fulanas, Putas and Rameras, all words for whore. Now, I'm pretty sure that none of you were offended by the rewrite. Men should be called out for being pigs and objectifying women. You don't have to be a politically correct nazi in order to get it. But it was also the politically correct nazis that screamed and aquealed oh so shrilly at the original. How dare I slut-shame those poor girls! one said to me. Well, how dare those two Mexican girls shame that poor guy they were talking so loudly and openly about. I am an equal opportunity sort of person. And I will not tolerate this double standard that says men can be despised and hated for doing the same things that women should be allowed to get away with. It is simply in poor taste, no matter what sex or gender is involved. By the way, had they been two Mexican men and not women shame slagging a woman instead of a man, I would have been every bit as brutal with them. Just as when, some years ago, I stood up to and chewed out a four wheel drive full of randy young South Asian males for sexually harassing a young woman, even though I might have been risking my safety and possibly even my life at the time. To add insult to injury, one regular reader of this blog, while ending our friendship because I will not shut up about her need to get treatment for her alcoholism, had the absolute and colossal nerve to call me a hypocrite for writing this. You know, that word no longer hurts because I know what a useless catch-all it is. First of all, we are all hypocrites. Not one single person alive ever successfully lives according to their stated beliefs or ideals. It is a feature of our weakness as human beings that we are always going to stumble and fall, which by the way does not let us off the hook for not trying. However, I have also noticed, that someone is only going to use that word with me if they are angry and enraged at me for some unrelated reason, or because instead of being a hypocrite I have called them out once too often on their own hypocrisy, as I did with my ex-friend and others. Instead of thinking it through, they simply scream, because I am a Christian and I have pissed them off once too often, the word "HYPOCRITE". Well, honey, if you want to see a hypocrite, just look in the bathroom mirror, and if you do not want to associate with hypocrites then that will also mean that you are going to have to stop associating with yourself. A few weeks ago, on the sign board in front of a church, I saw the words, "Our church isn't full of hypocrites. We always have room for more." You know, Gentle Reader, you don't have to agree with me. but before your knee starts to jerk and you begin to foam at the mouth, please think before you write or say anything. Or at the very least, please THINK! Here is the rest of last year's post, for your edification. "Another thing is, I get really sick and tired of hearing men being demonized by women, especially now in this age of "Me Too." This is not to excuse Harvey Wine Stain and other such pigs for their incredibly atrocious and reprehensible sexual exploitation of women. But, hey you guys, this has absolutely nothing to do with gender, okay? Now, Gentle Reader, I will give you a minute or two to stop choking on your Shreddies before I continue...better now? This kind of piggish behaviour is all about power, and it just happens that men, for all kinds of historical and cultural reasons, have way more than their share of power. Not their gender, neither testosterone makes them behave badly towards women. It has been found over and over again that when women have power they are every bit as apt at abusing it and oppressing and yes, sexually exploiting those underneath them as men are. It is an equal opportunity problem. I also happen to know, being a male myself (even if I don't subscribe to or fit in the gender binary) that men are every bit as squeamish and modest as women are, and what President Dump, the Great Deplorable in the Outhouse (whoops, I mean White House) tries to dismiss as locker room talk is actually not typical of how men usually talk among themselves. It happens, yes, but not every day, and quite frankly, most of us would prefer to talk about something else. Gender binaries are a kind of prison and we need badly to break out of this. Long ago, for myself anyway, I rejected any concept of gender, because I found all the definitions and roles of masculinity and femininity to be equally wanting and equally bankrupt. I also found myself rejecting power, refusing both to wield power, and to not let anyone oppress me. It's been a very interesting dance but essential for living as a free person. Neither male nor female, but fully and completely human. Neither master nor servant, but master over myself, and servant to God and humankind. Still choking on your Shreddies, darling?"

Life As Performance Art 140

Here is my latest Google review, Gentle Reader: "Today I went into a cafe, the Paper Crane, for the first time. The place was empty, but I wanted to sit and chill over a coffee on this rainy day. The barista, a rather smug and arrogant looking young hipster (is there any other kind?), was cheerfully whistling while preparing my Americano. I mentioned to him, politely and a bit shyly, that whistling really bothers me and it severely gets on my nerves. He smugly replied that I would just have to put up with it. I demanded a refund, even though the Americano was already made, and walked out of the joint with my money, telling him that when he starts treating patrons with more respect then he will likely get more business. I will never go back there." I really tried to handle the situation as respectfully as I could at the moment, given how disrespectfully I was being treated by this person. It was a rainy day, and, following a session with a client living in a long term care facility, I was wanting a quiet place to sit over a cuppa while working on a drawing in my sketchbook. The last thing I wanted to hear was whistling. Some people aren't bothered by it. I wish I was such a person, but the way I process sound and ambient noise can make even relatively innocuous situations a bit challenging at times. I don't believe I was actually rude to this young man. When he said I would just have to put up with his whistling, I simply replied that I would like a refund, please, and I left, telling him on my way out that treating customers with respect would likely bring in more business. But I'm not going back there, at least not for a long time. I am also seeing a friendship unravel with someone whom I have known for many years. Sad, this, but this individual seems unwilling to deal with her self-destructive behaviours and has responded abusively to my concern so I don't expect we will be in contact again, or not for a while anyway. This is sad, because I really care about this person, but I have been so pained by disrespectful people in my life who seem to think they are entitled to mistreating me, that I really cannot take any more. And I am not taking it anymore. This individual just sent me an abusive email, and that kills it. I will not be a recipient of abuse, and alcoholics (she refuses to get treatment) can be particularly nasty that way and it is going to be very difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with someone who refuses to get help for themselves. So, I am saying goodbye. I find it interesting that anyone who knew me before or just after I had been in psychotherapy 2002-2006, has tended to treat me with real disdain and disrespect. Those whom I have known since, say, two years after my therapy ended, are really good and respectful friends. There is one exception, and he has actually been willing to grow and adapt to the very different person I have become, just as I have had to grow and adapt to the very different person that he now is (and he is, in his new incarnation, quite loveable) My take on this? I was so affected by trauma and abuse when I was younger that no one seemed capable of treating me with respect because I didn't believe that I deserved respect. I just longed to be accepted and loved, and of course, a lot of people are going to be really put off with this sort of neediness, or will be attracted like flies to a corpse by this golden opportunity to practice and hone their bullying skills. This has changed, but people who have known me before I went through these changes are still going to relate to me as if I am still the person they once knew, and not the person I have since become. If they are alcoholics, then they are not going to see anything because the beloved bottle is all that they really love. Since this individual reads my blog, this is my message to you. You have been presuming since we resumed contact, that I would be the same passive, self-hating little weakling that you knew twenty years ago. Now that you are finding out that I am strong now, you cannot take it. This threatens you. Well, too bad. Get help, and if you disrespect my boundaries then be prepared for the consequences. This is my message to all of you, Gentle Reader. ta-ta!

Life As Performance Art 139

We have been having quite a long run on this series, Life As Performance Art, Gentle Reader. This may yet turn into our longest series ever on Content Under Pressure. Perhaps because, the dividing lines between life, performance and art, are indeed very fine and blurry, as they should be. Yesterday, for example, things just happened. Unexpected little surprises, some pleasant, some not so pleasant, but everything packing in it some kind of lesson or small revelation. It is now but 3 am. I slept just under two hours last night, then lay awake for another two hours. I will soon be returning back to bed, where I really should be right now. But this is yet one of many unexpected surprises, small sucker punches that we must learn to roll with. following a few hours at home in the morning, yesterday, spent writing my blog post de jour, having breakfast, doing some art, and then doing some research for future art classes where I work, I went for a long walk to Stanley Park, as kind of a long and pleasant detour before visiting my first client, who is currently in the psychiatric ward of the local public hospital. While walking, I made a point of saying hi to complete random strangers. Most were warm and responsive, only two ignored me, and one looked a little bit surprised and perhaps borderline hostile that an older stranger would give him the time of day (oh, but he should be so lucky!), I smiled at his lack of response and called after him "Have a nice day... Whether you want to or not!" as I was approaching the park I walked passed the humongous and obscenely lavish condo of a very wealthy individual who used to be a close friend. He was puttering on one of his balconies, his back turned to me, as though perhaps by not seeing me he could negate my presence. I thought, then decided, not to say hi to him. He after all ended our friendship, two and a half years ago, and as one who allegedly claims to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, had accused me of triggering him, without really explaining what he meant by that. So, instead of ruining his day and perhaps triggering him by actually greeting him while he was enjoying the safety of his ridiculously opulent home, I decided to leave him alone. I know that I do not miss him, even though we did have some wonderful visits together. He couldn't seem to resist taking nasty potshots at me sometimes, and even though I repeatedly forgave his lack of respect, some things did fester. He is the sort of bully who can dish it out but not take it, like most bullies. When he was ending our friendship, for "triggering" him, I stood up to him and told him that he just couldn't stand the fact that I am the only one of his friends with the cojones to stand up to his nonsense. That was the end. It is also the truth. I am reminded again of the valuable lesson I learned from my ex-friend. seeing how much he abused his privilege and the power that comes with wealth, especially by using his mental health diagnosis as a pass, or a get out of jail free card, I decided then and there that I myself was no longer going to do this. As a survivor of PTSD, I know what it is like being waylaid by triggers and sucker punches, and my life at times in the past was turning into an unhinged psychodrama because of this. So, I made a vow, to God, to myself, and to the universe, that I was no longer going to do this, I would no longer use having PTSD as a pass or an excuse for bad or selfish or irresponsible behaviour. I determined that I would take charge of every single trigger and sucker punch that came my way, and I would refuse to let it control my life, or affect or harm my relationships with others. Unlike my wealthy ex-friend, who relies on paid private counsellors and therapists who will soothe him with whatever horse shit and psychobabble that he wants to hear simply because he is paying them to say things that will make him feel good about himself, without challenging him to strive to be a better human being. So, I have taken charge of my triggers. It hasn't been easy, and I haven't always done well, but on the whole, taking three steps forward ,two backward and five sideways, I have been doing better, and I can honestly say that my life now is in a better place than I have ever been. I simply have to make careful and responsible choices every time a trigger hits me, and employ positive and responsible counter-behaviours in order to correct things. This has made me stronger. And yesterday, I did encounter a few more minor surprises and sucker punches. While visiting my client in the psychiatric ward a very officious and self-important nurse commanded me to check my knapsack at the front desk. Since I was about to leave, anyway, I respectfully declined, and simply left three minutes sooner than I intended. It did bother me for a while afterward, but knowing that I responded in a way that was reasonable and courteous helped me overcome the reverberations. Later, when I arrived home, everything was in a mess and state of chaos because my door was open and there was the building manager in my kitchen, replacing my faucet and tap. He had not warned me he would be coming, and this unexpected surprise could have been for me a trigger. Instead of reacting negatively, I welcomed him, thanked him, mentioned that advance warning would be helpful, but just got on with my work at home while intermittently chatting and becoming better acquainted. I have discovered that he is genuinely nice and kind, and that he has a wicked sense of humour. He also helped me figure out that the second hand CD player I had just brought home from the Sally Anne, was indeed a lemon, so I will have to return it this week, and instead of a cash refund, they will let me buy a shirt or something else I need of equal value. He left, my sink is in much better condition now, but I still felt impacted by this unexpected lack of safety and refuge that I have come to take for granted in my home. But I simply got on with things as usual. I also slept badly, perhaps from vetting the stress and the sucker punches, but after writing this piece, I will have some breakfast then return to bed for a few hours. Easy-Peasy, Gentle Reader.

Life As Performance Art 138

I have just about finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers." It is an interesting read. He argues, convincingly, that success is owed to more than simple talent and hard work, though they do play a significant role, but also in all kinds of circumstances beyond our control. For this reason you will have a Mensa IQ that is also a gifted artist standing in a food line, and rather a mediocre nonentity sitting on a board of directors. One spends his time foraging through dumpsters for food and items to resell, the other on the golf course, or booking his next luxury vacation on his smartphone, business class, of course. I am in the former category. Though I do not stand in food lines, or go through garbage bins, still, I have never been able to make significant connections that would help improve my opportunities and lifestyle. I am a case of wasted talent and potential. It was always hard for me to find employment, and I could not understand why. Later, when I was working with employment counsellors, they all told me I was doing and saying all the right things, and they couldn't understand either why it was always such a hard sell for me to get someone to hire me. For me, it was a matter of finding work, any kind of work, and the only employers who would accept me didn't pay much of a wage. There were for me no alternatives, since I still had to pay the rent at the end of the month and Mom and Dad were simply not available to bail me out. Except, I have never found the alternative attractive. So, I wasn't able to finish post-secondary. I couldn't pay off the student loan afterward because there was never any money leftover at the end of the month. By that time, I was so persuaded that I was almost unemployable and felt so paralyzed by constant employer rejection that I simply imploded, accepted that I was an outcast and that I would always be subsisting on a very tiny income. The job market is cruel and vicious and there is absolutely no accountability taken for how they end up destroying people's souls. I could think only of survival. Successful people cannot understand this, and it is useless trying to explain this to people who are only going to judge you. Did I really want to work? Well, I did want to survive. The only work that I liked was where I felt most useful, and in this case as a care provider during the many years that I worked in home support. Unfortunately, a series of right wing governments did everything they could to claw back funding and keep our pay and hours limited, making it impossible to live decently while doing such vital and important work. Why didn't I look for other work? I didn't have time. Finding a job is full time work and if I had to already work for a living, then where would I find the time to seek other work, given that even when I was looking full time for as full time job, it was so hard to find anything? Why didn't I go to school at night to upgrade? I tried that. It was too exhausting and I needed my energy for my job. Care-giving is very tiring work and at the end of a long day of bed pans, bathing stroke survivors and fielding verbal abuse one is not going to have a lot of energy leftover at the end of the day. On the other hand, I do still feel rather short on envy for those who did make it up the career ladder and ended up doing quite nicely for themselves. There always appears in this process to be an ongoing bartering off of one's soul in order to succeed and achieve. And this is where I part company with Malcolm Gladwell, who seems to believe that social and career success are still some kind of desired apogee by which we ought to measure our lives. I flatly disagree and reject this concept. The meek shall inherit the earth, and even though we are poor we have been able to conserve our souls intact. it is worth the suffering. Success diminishes our most human integrity and if we can avoid the crushing wheel of the machine we can also come through it all as much stronger people, though others are also going to surely fear us.

Life As Performance Art 137

You gotta serve somebody. I have two friends who hate (or, simply strongly distrust and dislike) Christians and Christianity, though for reasons I cannot fathom they want me to be their friend. Both these individuals totally shrink at the idea of serving God, or serving anyone, outside of their own precious selves. Both these friends of mine are slaves to addictions. Alcohol, food, sex, cigarettes, marijuana and the internet. And fear. One has a diagnosed mental illness, the other is just neurotic. But they are free. They serve only themselves. No one else. They must be the happiest people on earth. If only! I am only a servant to God, and I serve no one and nothing else. Except in the sense of extended servanthood, where by serving the Creator, I am also by extension serving his creation. Which also includes you, Gentle Reader. Yes, that's right, even if you don't believe, we are all his creation, and yes, we all likely evolved, but evolution is part of God's plan, or so I believe, but really, don't ask me. I wasn't there. Neither were you. I have no addictions, no compulsive behaviours, and in my service of the one who is the very source and cause of our being and all being, I have freedom. Complete freedom. Because my service is coming from a relationship of love, not compulsion or force or obligation. We are all, by our very human nature, slaves. Service, or it's evil twin, slavery, is encoded in our DNA, right there with rebellion and individualism. You gotta serve somebody, as famously sang Bob Dylan. Slaves in ancient, and even more recent eras, had to serve their masters by compulsion, force, and a sense of ownership. But their masters were even more slaves to their slaves, than the slaves were to their masters, since they were completely unable to cope or even live their lives of entitlement and privilege without the constant and perpetual ministrations of their slaves. We no longer have slavery, at least officially we don't, even if there is a thriving underground slave trade occurring in Africa, the Middle East, and in some Asian countries. And this toxic dynamic has shifted into our consumerist culture and market economy. For all our vaunted freedom and independence, we have become slaves to market forces. I will mention here the subject of women's cosmetics, which is a 445 billion dollar global industry. I mentioned previously on these pages of one of my colleagues who spoke of when she was hospitalized with a mental illness. One of the nurses recorded that, because my colleague refused to wear makeup, she must be getting worse. That's right, Gentle Reader. My colleague's mental health was being indexed by a mental health professional to her refusal to enslave herself to the beauty myth. She says she has never worn makeup in her life, and was understandably outraged by the insult. But so many women have been duped and brainwashed into believing that they are ugly or incomplete because they're not smearing garbage on their faces. In one mental health ward where I was working for a while I overheard a couple of nurses talking about what they were paying for a tube of lipstick (a lot!), and I quipped that I wouldn't pay that much for a tube of paint. One of them snapped at me that I had no right to be listening, much less contribute to the conversation (and those are custodians of the mental health of vulnerable people!). Then there are the very stupid young women putting on makeup on the bus, already beautiful, and somehow they have to still do it because they have been taught to believe that they are ugly. They have become slaves to the fashion industry. "The urge to buy terrorizes you", as screamed out one of my favourite bits of graffiti that adorned for many years a brick wall on Broadway and Fraser (in Vancouver's "gritty" east side!) My take is that we are all slaves, and we all choose our masters, and that we all live the lie that we are free. No one is free. But when we are serving the good, and love, then that is the service that truly sets us free.

Life As Performance Art 136

It is interesting being one of the few humans who doesn't carry with him a smartphone (pardon the old-fashioned gendering of pronoun, Gentle Reader. I simply will not use they unless it pertains to more than one, persons or objects). I just heard on a science radio program, Spectrum, from Germany, that the science is in: screen time, or excessive screen time, is bad for you. For small children it stalls their development, and larger children and adults are less skilled as full human beings, more prone to depression and anxiety, and more at risk of suicide. Who knew? I still find myself apologizing for not having a phone. It can be inconvenient, at work for example (and my employers are simply too stingy and mean-spirited to provide me with a phone, and they do not pay me a living wage making getting my own smartphone rather financially unrealistic), as well as for securing social contacts and arrangements. But really, Gentle Reader, didn't we cope well enough before we were so thoroughly spoiled by this technology? We still all got to our work and assignments and meetings on time, and we still got to see one another after work in the pub or the coffee shop, or even (¡qué horrores!) in our own homes. But now we are all so spoiled and with the attention span of puppies, we re not likely to cope well unless we have that little tile shaped piece of high tech in our hand every waking minute (and perhaps every sleeping minute) of our anxiety and fear-ridden lives. That convenience of being able to check and confirm our appointments down to the last nano-second has done a lot to compromise our patience and our ability to develop real character as mature and responsible adults, transforming us all into spoiled and neurotic control freaks. I remember just recently when a colleague at work was nearly shitting in his knickers because I didn't have a phone to help confirm and track and coordinate our movements while we were arranging to meet with a rather challenged client. When he wanted to know how I was going to manage, I simply smiled and replied, "the old-fashioned way." We did not succeed in meeting with the client, by the way, not because I didn't have a phone, but because the client simply was not in the mood for going out with us that day. Please note that I am not dissing technology. Of course it is useful, and naturally it can smooth things, make connections easier and more convenient, and do a lot to enhance and enrich our experience of learning and communication. If we're willing and prepared to use it that way, and that is one big F-ing IF! But I do not need to be constantly hooked up to these technologies in order to get through my day. In fact, they would only get in the way. We have been evolutionarily wired to see and hear things from where we are, where we are. We are biologically designed to interact with one another in person. Because that is how our species has evolved over millions of years, none of that is going to change in even one or two centuries, and the purveyors of technology and our various other masters are simply going to have to reckon with this if the technology is not going to end up destroying us. I somehow think there is going to be too much pushback, eventually anyway. We are experiential beings, Gentle Reader, and we have to have at our fingertips, not our little smart toys, but real tactile human experience and contact, with one another and with the rest of nature. I am content to go on living without a smartphone. My life is actually all the richer and more meaningful without that little tech nuisance. I can see and hear and smell and interact with everything and everyone around me, and sometimes it is almost intoxicating, but I am not going to permit AI or anything else to deprive me of this very human and very divine right. Part of our problem, as humans, is we all have the nature of slaves, even the most stubbornly independent and individualistic among us, and we will gladly submit ourselves to any convenience just to avoid getting on with the daily work and drudgery that comes with being really and truly human. We are that pathetic, I'm afraid. This isn't to say that there are no benefits to computer and phone technology. Tonnes! You can phone for help if there is someone in distress (which is to say, if you are able to care enough to get your face out of your dear little screen long enough in order to notice and care that there are other people besides your exalted self!). You can quickly check and confirm facts and schedules. I am still willing to forgo the convenience as a small price to pay for real and direct human experience. At home is where I leave my laptop. On top of my desk, right next to my landline phone (remember those, darlings?) What do I use my computer for? Well, you can get your minds out of the gutter, first of all, because I do not look at porn. Never have, never will, and I am not lying. And I am not on Facebook, which is the next-worse thing, nor Instagram, Snapchat, and I haven't even bothered to look at or contribute anything to Quora in months. So, in this order, this is what I do on my computer: I check, read, answer and write emails to friends and associates. I search Google images for ideas for making art (an incredibly rich source!). I write this blog. I Skype with my friend in Colombia, twice a week and we help each other with our second languages, Spanish and English (and he has become a very dear friend). I Skype with others who are interested in language exchange. I also read articles on Wikipedia and other pages to enlarge my information and enrich my learning experience. I watch videos on YouTube, especially documentaries in Spanish to both enrich my language experience, while learning new things. I sometimes take online university courses. That's about all, Gentle Reader. And I sometimes read books (though I still prefer old.fashioned paper and ink.) Happy Sunday, darlings!

Life As Performance Art 135

Nothing is free. I was just reminded of that this morning when I tried to go onto Google maps only to find that the words "For development purposes only" are still printed all over the image. So I did the right clicks (left, actually), got Java Scripts installed, or reinstalled, as I was instructed, and went back onto the map and it is still for development purposes only. Then I made some more appropriate clicks only to find out that among other things, they wanted billing installed, which is to say that participating in the nations Online maps is no longer a free service and that Uncle Google and his associate greedy swine simply want more money. Those douchebags are already richer than Croesus, I am struggling on a low income and those bastards are getting nothing from me. I don't need to depend on their dumb interactive maps, anyway. I have something called an imagination, and it does serve me rather well, methinks. Sometimes too well! Even neo-Luddite little old me is becoming a little bit too dependent on this technology. But I still have my limits. I used to have an employment counsellor, a German egghead, but still a very nice and helpful lady, who during the infancy of the internet in around 2001 or 2002, or so, was trying to get me interested in digital art. She couldn't seem to quite fathom the concept that art is something that I would want to do with my hands, all by myself, without any electronic help or interference. It is for the same reason I still do all my math calculations in my head instead of going to the computer to do the adding, subtracting and dividing for me. It is the mental exercise, yes, but it is also because we are evolutionarily wired to be physical and tactile with the way that we interact with the world. Millions of years of this kind of wiring is not going to be changed overnight by artificial intelligence. Our human need to work with our hands as well as our minds is too deeply ingrained a need, and we are already beginning to see some real pushback against this huge dependence on artificial intelligence that threatens to engulf our species and transform us into completely useless and totally dependent borgs. I still believe in using AI, up to a point. For example, when I was doing my series of drawings of fire opals. it was Uncle Google that provided me the images. I simply did a wee little serch,scrolled a bit, and found exactly what i was looking for. Then I got out my pencil crayons and sketchbook and did the rest. And that is how I am drawing my limits with Google. We have to really start distancing ourselves from all these clever technologies before they swallow us alive and completely rob us of our humanity. It is sad, seeing how many people easily become slaves to technologies that should only exist to serve us and for no other reason. But humans have n innate tendency towards enslaving themselves. This also is a very deep aspect of our brief, but bitter history on this earth. I think it's also why we are so susceptible to addiction.

Life As Performance Art 134

Housing, and income are both a real mess in Vancouver. I am one of the lucky ones. I live in BC Housing, which is to say that my rent is subsidized by the government and the part that I contribute is scaled according to my income of any given year. It is not an ideal arrangement, but it is certainly better than a lot of the alternatives. To live in my city as a low or middle income renter has never been worse. A lot of people have had to leave, others are couch surfing or homeless. Some are sharing accommodations with others. What makes it particularly messy is the lack of options. There was a time when you could simply move if you didn't like where you were living, and it would be easy to find a new place, perhaps in a better neighbourhood, and you could be earning minimum wage or less and still move if and when you wanted to. Now, we are all hostages to where we live. In my case, I couldn't think of moving without putting myself in serious danger. There are simply no low-end rentals that will accommodate my income, which is just a little more than minimum wage, and at my age, living with a roommate is out of the question. I have never approved of living arrangements based on economic necessity alone. There has to be some sense of friendship, kinship, and compatibility that goes beyond a mere living arrangement of convenience. But the economic system that we live under is focussed on one principal, and one principal alone. Greed. If you are even on a medium income and you leave your apartment, chances are that whatever you find will have you paying almost double or more for rent and before you know it, you will for the first time in your life be standing in line at the food bank. I have so far never had to rely on the food bank. I would love to leave this neighbourhood where I have been for seventeen years, since it is unsafe, but the wait lists for other affordable low-income housing are very long, in this city, and since I am already considered safely housed (our housing providers are simply too stupid to factor in the words "unsafe neighbourhood"), I will appear well at the bottom of any wait lists and by the time my turn comes I will either be dead or in a long term care facility. But this is all worst case. True, I do not like my apartment building. Never have. Bad management in the early years (we had some very incompetent and unprofessional live in caretakers, and one early manager who was a fundamentalist Christian, not terribly bright, rather paranoid, ultra-conservative, and simply unable to separate church from state), combined with feeling surrounded by mental illness while coping with living in an unsafe part of town, along with all the noise has never endeared me to this place. I have lived in better places. But this is affordable. And there are trade-offs. Unjust and unfair as this may be, I no longer have housing options in the city where I was born and raised. However, I still live on the quiet side of the building, and the central location makes getting around phenomenally easy for me. And there is the rent. Cheap. Even now that they are jacking it up considerably, I can still afford to get by, and I can still travel. I do have to forgo other luxuries, such as most of you would take for entitlements, but we can never have everything in life. I can afford to travel because I do not have a car, have no bad habits, don't eat in restaurants, nor go to shows, plays, movies or concerts. I effectively do not have a life. But I am able to travel, and meet new people and enjoy my friends and my good health. Nok, it isn't everything, but having everything is not necessarily the best thing in the world, Gentle Reader.

Life As Performance Art 133

I had an interesting insight yesterday. It turns out that I enjoy being triggered. And I don't think that I'm the only one. I remember a scene from the Lucy Show, starring Lucille Ball, back in the sixties. A rather nasty society matron (built rather like an elegant brick shit-house with an Italian marble interior and gold plated fixtures) had just been gravely offended by something that Lucy said, and she was storming out of the room sputtering, "I've never been so insulted in all my life!" And as she was leaving, Lucy dryly quipped, "Oh yes you have." I think I was ten or eleven years old when I saw this, and even at that tender age, I got it, and enjoyed a very hearty laugh about it, then I saw the same episode just a couple of years ago on YouTube, during one of my repeating phases of childhood TV Nostalgia. My mother was like that too, I remember. She seemed to enjoy getting mad, or getting triggered, and seemed to almost sit up and beg for the slightest provocation. My brother? A chip off the old block. Pushing his buttons became so easy that I eventually got bored with it. His beatings (he was older, bigger, with a very vile temper) didn't seem to help much either. Even if I have a milder and gentler temperament than others in my family, I also enjoy being triggered, or so it seems. It still happens, from time to time, but I no longer worry about it. My supervisor mentioned yesterday that it's really the endorphin release that I enjoy. I suppose he's right. I am also remembering an ex-friend, a PTSD suffer, like myself, a couple of years ago. He ended the friendship because he said I triggered him. Which was really his way of saying he simply didn't like me, I suppose. I don't think he enjoyed being triggered, but being rich and influential, was bound and determined to fester in his opulent fortress in the West End instead of facing, embracing and enjoying life in all its unpredictable complexity. But I happen to enjoy drama. I enjoy life. I love being alive. I love the feeling of being alive. That's right, Gentle Reader. I am a drama queen! I thrive on outrage. In a way this has actually made my recovery from PTSD all the easier. I had to make up my mind that trauma and triggers, throughout this comedy-tragedy-melodrama we call life, are always going to be inevitable. I think the real damage has been done by the psychiatric profession, the way they rush in like vultures to a zebra carcass at the slightest hint of psychopathology. is there such a condition as post traumatic stress disorder? I would say so. However, it is not an isolated psychological impairment that afflicts a growing minority of trauma survivors. It is the general condition of our society, and it is the general condition of our humanity. Different people cope with it, or fail to cope, in different ways, and it is those who do not cope in ways that are considered socially acceptable that get labelled as sick. I used to thrive on coasting and riding on my triggers. It would take something as simple as being threatened by an off leash aggressive dog, then I would carry that trigger to work, to my building managers, to church, to my friends, providing quite the dramatic domino effect where I was suddenly alienated from everyone and ready to blow up the world. The only thing that has really changed is this: when the first trigger happens, I slow down a bit, but I don't stop. I simply decide that it is not going to go any further. I take extreme care in my interactions with others over the following day or two, to make sure this does not repeat. My success is often mixed, but at least things don't snowball the way they used to. Otherwise, nothing has really changed. But I also enjoy the experience, and now that I know this, this is going to be a lot of fun to play with, Gentle Reader! Like a child playing with matches?

Life As Performance Art 132

"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. " I remember that a lot of the fundamentalist Christians I was connected to during my career as a teenage Jesus freak used to get their knickers in a knot about this opening line in the stanza. Someone even wrote over a copy of the Desiderata that someone had put up on the wall, instead, that you are a child of God through the blood of Jesus Christ, and to be at peace with God who is your father and the creator of all, or something like that. The corrections did make sense theologically, though I also thought that perhaps my friend was protesting just a little bit too much. Of course, new agey folk have really gone to town on the Universe. They don't want to mention or acknowledge a personal God who created the universe. Instead, for a lot of them, the universe becomes another name for God, an amorphous, beneficent, but ultimately impersonally positive force, I would imagine. Now that I'm older, a lot of it seems like a bunch of useless quibbling. Nose-picking fights, I like to call them. I would also tend to think, now anyway, that we, like the trees and the stars, are children of the universe, not as children to a parent, but children within a place. I am a child of this home where I was raised, for example, and God is my, or our, father, mother, divine parent, or whatever. Quite simply, God has made us, has given us life. We belong. This is so important to remember, especially when you think of how many people feel alienated from the world, from, other people, from the universe, as if they never really belonged. But that is a bunch of post-enlightenment, romantic nonsense. We all belong. We are all made of the same kind of stardust, and we are all living souls infused to life by the breath of the same God whom, no matter how we perceive him or conceive him (and we are each going to do this a little bit differently) There is also, despite all the ugliness around us, much beauty in the world, and I used to think of the ugly as what is real and the beauty as an illusion. I now see this more in reverse. It is the ugliness that is the sham, the illusion. There is beauty everywhere, and it must begin within our own souls if we are to learn to recognize it anywhere else. What this comes down to, for me anyway, is how I have come to see life as a gift, and that God, the source and fount of all life itself, is the giver of life, is the very heart and essence of life. How can we not be happy if we really see this, believe it, know it? It is a matter of letting God enter the heart of our being, where he really is to begin with. Perhaps what we need to do is go in there ourselves, to the very essence of our souls, where we can meet Christ afresh.

Life As Performance Art 131

More on the Desiderata, Gentle Reader. This next stanza: "Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself." Being myself. Well, who else can I be? Yes, throughout life we are going to be under tons of pressure to fake it, to be someone we are not just to please others, to get on with our lives and careers, and to not have to face or even think of those scary shadows inside our dark little souls and who knows what kinds of monsters might be lurking within. Here's a Google image for you. A middle finger, or half a peace sign, as I like to call it, but this is definitely someone flipping the bird, middle finger proudly raised high. And there is a banner that says "I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not." I have always tried to live those words, but usually while keeping my finger down and in my pocket with all my other fingers. I definitely have never feigned affection with anyone, even if I have to lie a bit to myself and my clients if I am getting particularly short on patience with some of them and their behaviour. I have never been cynical about love, but I see love as something that is higher and more eternal than a romantic transaction between two people who are simply into each other. Or, Steve Winwood's famous song "Bring me a higher love." My guess is that unless our love is stronger than a simple romantic fixation, it is not going to outlast the hormones, and of course we are going to get cynical. Love can only work if it is unconditional, and love is only unconditional when it comes from a higher place, which is to say, from God. And if it's really love, then it's going to extend beyond our families and our own little circles to include the outsider, the stranger. Taking the counsel of the years to me is code for ageing gracefully. It's not entertaining illusions about myself. I look my age. I must, given how many young people offer me their seats on the bus. And, no, I am not going to bother with botox, and I am not interested in visiting any clinics in Yaletown, even if I could afford a facelift or a tuck or whatever. I like the way I look. I have slowed down quite a bit, even if I do enjoy good health, and I like this different, slower pace of life, this taking time to rest without feeling guilty about it. I have known my share of sudden misfortune. Even when I have nurtured strength of spirit it has not shielded me from the trauma. But trauma is a natural and normal response to being constantly overwhelmed. Amd this too I have had to come to accept. I have had to learn to stop catastrophizing, which is to say, to stop expecting the worst possible outcome. The fact is, one never knows what is waiting around the corner, and it might also be something very good and kind.

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Today, Gentle Reader, I am going to continue with my study and meditation on the Desiderata. Here is the next stanza: "Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism." I do not tend to think of myself as one who has achieved much in life. As I mentioned to some people at church during coffee after the service yesterday, I have really had to be very creative with my life, abandoning such entitlements as most people tend to take for granted in order to be creative with whatever resources I have had available, however small and scant. What have I achieved? I don't own my home. I live in a tiny subsidized apartment. I have not successfully published any of my writing, nor has my art found its way to a good gallery. I work in a field that is poorly paid, and when I retire in a year and a half, I will have little in the way of savings as I rely only on a modest government pension that will, hopefully, keep me alive for the rest of my life. I am also the only survivor of my family, with most of them dead and the others all disappeared. Hardly a recipe, this, for a successful old age. On the other hand, as far as my writing is concerned, I have written a novel (the Thirteen Crucifixions, serialized on this blog in 2014 and 2015, should anyone care to look for it), and a number of short stories and poems. I had a faithful following in the nineties for my public poetry readings. I also have this blog that I write daily, with also a small but faithful following of international readers. As far as drawing and painting is concerned, I have grown and developed as an artist, and I have sold more than one hundred original works of my art. Even though my friends have changed over the years, I do have a few long and cherished and stable friends in my life. I have also become fluent in Spanish, a language I am still learning, and I have the help and support of a particularly new and valued friend who lives in Colombia, as well as my friends in Monteverde, Costa Rica. On my small resources I have been able to travel in those countries and Mexico every year over the past decade. You know, Gentle Reader, I really haven't done so badly. I am also free from all addictions, and enjoy, especially for someone in their sixties, good and robust health. I eat well, and I am successfully losing weight, if rather slowly. As far as my career is concerned, it is humble and poorly paid, but in subsidized housing it is enough and I have the privilege of walking with people suffering from mental health challenges towards recovery and an improved quality of life. I have lasted in this career for the last fifteen years. I have also worked in care and support work in other areas, and I also helped start and coordinate a dynamic Christian community that ministered to people on the streets, survivor sex workers, people living with AIDS and people in the LGBT etc., community. I have not made money from any of this, but that is not how I measure success. I do feel like a richer, wiser and more loving person from my life experiences and work, and that for me is the real measure of success. Despite some very awful and self-interested people I have encountered, I am still often blessed and surprised by the good I see and experience in others, including those who have been available to help me in my own times of need. For example, when I was homeless. When I became sick in Mexico. When I was assaulted near my apartment a few years ago. people have always been there, and with my small resources, I still seek to be present for others. This, for me, is success.

Life As Performance Art 129

Gentle Reader, this is my second installment of what I have learned from the Desiderata. This isn't to say that I learned FROM it, rather, my life just seemed to evolve in the same direction that this inspired and inspiring prose poem seems to go in. It would seem that the author of the poem, and myself, were tapping into the same source, the same energy. Or simply put, we were both trying in our small and humble way to hear clearly and accurately the voice of God. so here it is folks, the next stanza: "Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." I have had to deal in life with loud and aggressive persons. My older brother, when I was a child, and some of his horrible friends. I had to learn that if I was not going to get beaten and verbally abused by him, or verbally abused by certain of my brother's friends (he was three years older than me), then I should best avoid him altogether. I had to learn this in school as well, because as a gentle child I was easily targeted by bullies and abusive persones. I would have to learn the hard way that their friendship, or their illusion of friendship, was not worth the bad treatment, so I quickly began to isolate from others in my neighbourhood, even at the age of ten, and would instead wander alone outside. This was rather easy where we lived, because it was a safe area in an outer suburb, with lots of fields and pastures. This was also the sixties, before every parent became neurotic with fear that lurking on every street corner is a monster waiting to abduct and murder their child. So, I would take long solitary walks, even at night, along the curving and serpentine streets of our neighbourhood, and in the daytime in the fields that lay near our home. I learned to be comfortable alone, and to enjoy the process of thinking and reflection. I became a keen observer of nature and wildlife. I was not popular with other kids, and had no friends. This vexed me, but at lest alone I felt safe. It was also during this time that I began to read more, including the newspapers, and to think about the world. I came to see that I was connected to others, not just my family, and not simply in my neighbourhood, but to people all over the world. I became desirous to meet and to know other people, people different from me, because I knew that they would teach me what my very limited parents could not. I became a seeker, I became an explorer, and I still am, to this day. When I was seventeen I did have to live with one very loud and very aggressive person, being my mother's boyfriend, after my father kicked me out of his house (not himself loud or aggressive, but a very angry and self-loathing alcoholic who had always treated me with abuse and shame). I could not avoid him, though for the first three months he was away every week Monday to Friday, serving time in a minimum security prison up-Island. When he was released in January, it was hell. He was often drunk, belligerent, unpleasant, sometimes threatening violence. Twice I had to call the cops to keep him from hitting my mother (I had just turned eighteen) I had to get away from the situation, and on my mother's advice, I left after finishing high school, moved to Vancouver, where I tried to establish a life of my own. It was not an easy time, but even throughout my years of work and ministry with vulnerable people, i have taken great care to maintain a safe distance from loud and aggressive persons. They are not worth the trouble, being too full of themselves to care about others. I also had to eat my share of humble pie in the art world, when, during the nineties and early 2000's I was honing my craft as a painter and trying to get into a good gallery. I could never compete. It isn't that my work wasn't good enough. it was, but I locked confidence, connections and support, so i could never find anyone to really help me move forward. This was a time of grappling with some very toxic envy, especially towards one particular famous artist, a former friend of mine, who did very well, and also refused to offer me even a morsel of support, as she had acquired a very bitter grudge against me. Now, my paintings adorn primarily my apartment, as well as two of the offices where I work, but that is enough. I carry my sketchbook and coloured pencils everywhere with me and draw in coffee shops as well as at home. That is enough for now, I can keep making art so my head doesn't explode. I sometimes connect with lovely people through my art. Occasionally someone buys my art, but that is no longer important to me. I am happy. I can create, connect with others, and generally go on enjoying life.

Life As Performance Art 128

Today, Gentle Reader, and in the following posts, I would like to explore a bit the impact the words of the Disaderata has had on my life these past five decades or so. I will begin with the opening lines: "Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story." Amid the noise and haste. Like the rest of you, I have lived surrounded by, and totally immersed in noise and haste. At times this has carried me to and fro like a whirlwind, or a cyclone, but unlike Dorothy, I never landed in Oz, never opened my door to see the legs of a dead old woman wearing ruby slippers sticking out from under my house, nor to be greeted by a mob of singing and dancing short people. I have had to learn to cultivate silence, interior silence, in order to cope with life, or with this ugly and garish parody that most people call life. Even when I was fifteen, and had first read the Desiderata, I knew that walking in quiet places would be key to my general wellbeing, and this is what I began to do, every morning, if I could. I used those times to try to focus on God through prayer, and also to appreciate my surroundings, while getting a reading of what was going on in my mind and thoughts. Yes, I did just write that I was only fifteen at the time. How did I know to do this? I suppose that God taught me this. I really can't think of a better answer, so if there are any non believers reading today, please don't take offence, though really I don't give a damn if you take offence or not! I was twenty-four when I actually learned the practice of silent prayer, where literally my head would sink down into my heart and I would be experiencing and living out of the depths of this profound interior silence that had come over me. This has proved to be an invaluable boon to me and to my wellbeing in life. I have generally sought, with mixed degrees of success, to be on good terms with others. It hasn't always been possible, sometimes because of my own lack of patience or charity, sometimes because the others have simply been too stubborn, self-centred and intractable to want to see that there exist others in the universe besides their own exalted selves. I have to admit that I am not always good and kind to others. If any driver looks like he's in a hurry to run me over, I am not shy about shouting at him, "Keep it in your pants, Charlie!" But otherwise I try to employ kindness and humour. To cyclists on the sidewalk, I will simply say, "Oh, silly me! I'm walking on the bike path again. To groups blocking the sidewalk I well announce that sharing the sidewalk is good for the soul. For the most part, they respond good naturedly and with humour and sometimes they even apologize, like all good Canadians. Speaking my truth quietly and clearly has been a learning curve to me, especially with my involvement in various social and political activist communities. People in demonstrations generally like to shout and yell and, where possible, humiliate the enemy. This is why, with rare exception, I no longer participate in these kinds of actions, they tend to summon forth aspects of me that I really should not be proud to exhibit. In my communications with politicians and journalists I have also had to learn the importance of respect, good manners and courtesy while speaking my truth as openly and eloquently as possible. I am still learning to listen to others, and to appreciate and learn from people I disagree with. This is another learning curve, but especially in my peer support practice I have been pleasantly surprised to learn much from my clients as from coworkers with whom I am not always likely to agree.

Life As Performance Art 127

I have been up since just before three this morning, on a little better than four hours sleep. This happens often enough, so I just try to go with it and make good use of the time before I fall back to sleep. Right now I am doing my laundry. Now that the clothes are in the dryer, I will have breakfast, bring the clothes upstairs, fold and put them away, and likely be back down for another sleep of a couple of hours, so it is all good. I decided some time ago that the only way I was going to get through life okay was by learning how to roll with the punches. Which is to say, living the Serenity Prayer 101. I remember first seeing this prayer on a poster in a Christian bookshop when I was just fifteen years old. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." It acquired, along with the Desiderata the dimensions of a cliche. But meaningful cliche. The Desiderata itself was set to music and rated high on the pop music charts in the early seventies. Everybody seemed to have their copy of the poem taped up on their living room or bedroom wall. And I thought, why not? The words are incredibly beautiful and positive, and even my mother seemed to like it. The zealous fundamentalist Christians I was involved with in the day were generally suspicious of the Desiderata, calling it a spiritual counterfeit and a document that was suspiciously New Age. Even though I kind of agreed in order to not get into any arguments, I really thought they were protesting too much. It was, and is, a beautiful poem. Well, I am going to repeat it here and on this page, Gentle Reader, just to give us a refresher: Max Ehrmann Desiderata "Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. " Reading this afresh, I am reminded of how much I have tried to live my life over the last forty-eight years according to these ideas, since I first read this, and how important this legacy is to me. There is a little article about the author, Max Ehrmann, in Wikipedia. The Desiderata (Latin word for things desired) brought him posthumous fame, because it only came into the public realm following his death in 1945. Even now, I can neither add to nor subtract from the wisdom and beauty of those words in the Desiderata or in the Serenity Prayer. They have taken on such a sense of public banality, unfortunately, that I don't think they really impact a lot of us the way they should, but I am renewing my own interest, because these words need to become fresh again, and in these really troubled times, I think for all of us.