I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person who ever notices our tendency in Canada of electing governments that have nothing but contempt for us. This seems like the most logical conclusion, when we think of how far we have allowed homelessness and housing unaffordability spiral downward to this point of almost no return. Only recently have our governments really begun to address this crisis, and it's for now all patchwork and bandaids. They still need to declare this as a humanitarian catastrophe (what else could this be?) so that sufficient funds and boots on the ground can be released, but hey, you're innocent when you dream.
It is of course our governments that created the crisis in the nineties when housing and social programs were scrapped, gutted or eliminated by all levels of government and the poor became the sole remaining default option for public scapegoating. When the BC Liberals first came to power in 2001, no one seemed to pay much attention when less than a year later homelessness soared by nearly four hundred percent. The barmy idiots that elected them simply went, oh tut-tut, they all come from other parts of the country so they can sleep outside in our fabulous mild climate. The fact is that eighty-one percent of the homeless surveyed in Greater Vancouver, all had housing here in Greater Vancouver for at least one year before they became homeless. And a sizeable portion of those people were actually born and raised here.
But people will live in denial so long as it serves their purposes and their need to stay oblivious to the destruction they leave in their wake. And they keep electing governments that have nothing but scorn for us. In other developed, and even in at least one developing country, Colombia, at least some dental care is covered by public funds. Here in Canada our politicians seem to agree with dentists that teeth are not part of the human body, therefore should not be part of our public health coverage.
Our social services safety net is a travesty. On basic welfare you can't even cover your rent and will almost always end up homeless if you live in an expensive city like Vancouver. You don't do that much better if you are drawing a disability pension or if, like me next year, you are a low income pensioner. Unless, like me, you have the good fortune of living in social housing. And don't get me started about the lack of funding for post secondary education.
Empowerment is great and wonderful and hugely necessary for the disempowered. Power with the already privileged, often becomes something ugly, a hideous force that only becomes a truncheon for hurting or disempowering anyone that gets in your way. I would suggest that our highest elected officials, while even wearing a smiley face mask to show everyone how nice they are (sunny ways, prime minister Junior?), are already so entitled and corrupted by power and privilege that they are really beyond redemption.
My question here is why do Canadians elect such odious leaders and why do we really hate each other and ourselves, because underneath all that niceness for which we have become global boy scouts, that is what we really are: little welterings of self-loathing.
Tuesday, 31 December 2019
Monday, 30 December 2019
It's All performance Art 64
Today, Gentle Reader, we are going to bash the sleep experts. That's right, and they are even more odious than dieticians, who don't seem to understand some of the obstacles that many of us face in sourcing decent nutritious food. I'm sure you know where I am going with this, Ducks, They have their own particular dogma of how things ought to be, and if you are not conforming to every last one of their doctrines and formulas then you are simply a wellness heretic and you are going to be condemned to the bonfire of insomnia and likely an early death. Which is to say you will not live past one hundred.
I am a person who has trouble sleeping, and especially lately, with the stress of the holidays, it is very difficult for me to log a full night's sleep. Yet, according to the sleep experts, I must be doing something wrong, or there must simply be something wrong with me, because their dogma is sacrosanct. And if you cannot fit it, then you are the problem, not their theology. First of all, they make some rather dumb assertions and assumptions about how everyone lives, which is to say that we all live in big detached houses, no apartments or condos, so no noise from the stereo next door, and no flamenco practice on your ceiling from upstairs. We are also instructed to not have electronic devices, such as computers, tablets (not the sleeping variety), iphones, smartphones, cellphones, laptops, or TV's (remember those?) in our bedrooms, which must be only thoroughly dedicated and consecrated to sacred sleep.
What they don't seem to know is that a lot of us don't have a bedroom. With even a substandard one bedroom apartment being out of the reach of many low and even middle income earners, most of us have to resort to bachelors or studios, or even a single room in a house or in a rundown building. But sleep experts are all members of the privileged classes, and they really know nothing about people like you and me, darlings. They don't even know we exist.
And then there are the many homeless in our city, those who not only have to sleep in parks or on the sidewalk or in low barrier shelters, but also the hidden homeless who live in their cars or have to couchsurf and rely on the good will of friends and relatives. I wonder what kind of advice the sleep experts would have for the homeless, just to help them get that proper eight hours of shuteye every night, despite, you know, having to toss and turn on hard concrete, often lacking proper warmth, and having to cope with traffic, idiot pedestrians, idot cyclists who won't stay off the sidewalk, dogs that pee randomly, sirens, thieves and other assorted creeps. I just wonder how she would tailor and fit her advice for the homeless?
And how about those of us who live downtown, where just by setting foot in that neighbourhood is enough to spike ones's blood pressure? Where day and night we are serenaded by sirens, garbage trucks, delivery trucks, and noisy neighbours. I live downtown in a small studio apartment, and I would love to challenge that barmy sleep expert to switch places with me for one week, then she can tell me everything she wants about the importance of good sleep hygiene.
Of course there are other stresses. Our lovely day (or night) jobs, for example. The absolute disempowerment and the many accumulated small humiliations that workers have to endure, especially living in a country whose governments seem to chronically hold the people who elect them in passive contempt and do nothing to legislate decent working conditions or affordable (actually affordable) housing. Long hours, low pay, families to support, not to mention the whole state of global angst that being connected day and night has brought us. And don't get me started about global warming and the way that CBC flauntlessly serenades us on their newscasts with the voice of President Dump.
My take on sleep experts? They cater to a niche market, and to them, only those who live in large lovely homes in quiet leafy neighbourhoods and enjoy well paid and undemanding jobs and whose families never have problems seem to exist, and no one else counts. So it is with the wellness industry and their incredible obsession with perfection.
I am a person who has trouble sleeping, and especially lately, with the stress of the holidays, it is very difficult for me to log a full night's sleep. Yet, according to the sleep experts, I must be doing something wrong, or there must simply be something wrong with me, because their dogma is sacrosanct. And if you cannot fit it, then you are the problem, not their theology. First of all, they make some rather dumb assertions and assumptions about how everyone lives, which is to say that we all live in big detached houses, no apartments or condos, so no noise from the stereo next door, and no flamenco practice on your ceiling from upstairs. We are also instructed to not have electronic devices, such as computers, tablets (not the sleeping variety), iphones, smartphones, cellphones, laptops, or TV's (remember those?) in our bedrooms, which must be only thoroughly dedicated and consecrated to sacred sleep.
What they don't seem to know is that a lot of us don't have a bedroom. With even a substandard one bedroom apartment being out of the reach of many low and even middle income earners, most of us have to resort to bachelors or studios, or even a single room in a house or in a rundown building. But sleep experts are all members of the privileged classes, and they really know nothing about people like you and me, darlings. They don't even know we exist.
And then there are the many homeless in our city, those who not only have to sleep in parks or on the sidewalk or in low barrier shelters, but also the hidden homeless who live in their cars or have to couchsurf and rely on the good will of friends and relatives. I wonder what kind of advice the sleep experts would have for the homeless, just to help them get that proper eight hours of shuteye every night, despite, you know, having to toss and turn on hard concrete, often lacking proper warmth, and having to cope with traffic, idiot pedestrians, idot cyclists who won't stay off the sidewalk, dogs that pee randomly, sirens, thieves and other assorted creeps. I just wonder how she would tailor and fit her advice for the homeless?
And how about those of us who live downtown, where just by setting foot in that neighbourhood is enough to spike ones's blood pressure? Where day and night we are serenaded by sirens, garbage trucks, delivery trucks, and noisy neighbours. I live downtown in a small studio apartment, and I would love to challenge that barmy sleep expert to switch places with me for one week, then she can tell me everything she wants about the importance of good sleep hygiene.
Of course there are other stresses. Our lovely day (or night) jobs, for example. The absolute disempowerment and the many accumulated small humiliations that workers have to endure, especially living in a country whose governments seem to chronically hold the people who elect them in passive contempt and do nothing to legislate decent working conditions or affordable (actually affordable) housing. Long hours, low pay, families to support, not to mention the whole state of global angst that being connected day and night has brought us. And don't get me started about global warming and the way that CBC flauntlessly serenades us on their newscasts with the voice of President Dump.
My take on sleep experts? They cater to a niche market, and to them, only those who live in large lovely homes in quiet leafy neighbourhoods and enjoy well paid and undemanding jobs and whose families never have problems seem to exist, and no one else counts. So it is with the wellness industry and their incredible obsession with perfection.
Sunday, 29 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 63
Here are some images of some of the birds I am drawing these days, Gentle Reader. I am rather tired of writing about matters that anguish me, as I am sure you are weary of reading them, so I will try to keep it a bit lighter today. The idea has been to combine the images of certain birds with a background of a hugely enlarged cut precious stone. I will begin here with the first. It is called a yellow tailed oriole from Central America and Colombia (and I think maybe Venezuela)
This bird I placed on a multi-dimensional background of varying shades of mostly darker blue, to represent a giant cut sapphire
The bird is smaller and fits into the background of the giant stone.
I tried something similar with a golden tailed sapphire hummingbird from Colombia, speaking of sapphires,
Then I tried a fiery topaz hummingbird from Colombia, I think
This was represented on the background of a giant cut emerald
Then I thought I would try a topaz for a background, speaking of topazes
So, I stuck on top of it a lovely cotinga from Central America
Now, I am drawing a great sapphirewing hummingbird, also on a yellow topaz
I am going to continue this series to include amethysts, zircons, aquamarines and zircones, perhaps, with appropriately coloured birds to complement them.
It is interesting doing this sort of art in public places. One never knows what kind of reaction one is going to generate in others. For the most part people leave me alone, some try to ignore me, others look and admire or criticized my work from a respectful difference, then there are those who simply come over to say they like what I am doing and we chat for a while.
It is difficult being an artist among people who are primarily consumers, and only in few cases seem to have really troubled to explore their creativity and perhaps even to discover that they have gifts and I think this is why artists are so often so lonely. Regular folk find us hard to relate to, because we are not mere consumers and our act of being creative persons is also an act of resistance against a culture that is more an anti-culture of reptilian brain consumerism.
We aren't a separate species, and others would do well to befriend us.
This bird I placed on a multi-dimensional background of varying shades of mostly darker blue, to represent a giant cut sapphire
The bird is smaller and fits into the background of the giant stone.I tried something similar with a golden tailed sapphire hummingbird from Colombia, speaking of sapphires,
Then I tried a fiery topaz hummingbird from Colombia, I think
This was represented on the background of a giant cut emerald
Then I thought I would try a topaz for a background, speaking of topazes
So, I stuck on top of it a lovely cotinga from Central America
Now, I am drawing a great sapphirewing hummingbird, also on a yellow topaz
I am going to continue this series to include amethysts, zircons, aquamarines and zircones, perhaps, with appropriately coloured birds to complement them.
It is interesting doing this sort of art in public places. One never knows what kind of reaction one is going to generate in others. For the most part people leave me alone, some try to ignore me, others look and admire or criticized my work from a respectful difference, then there are those who simply come over to say they like what I am doing and we chat for a while.
It is difficult being an artist among people who are primarily consumers, and only in few cases seem to have really troubled to explore their creativity and perhaps even to discover that they have gifts and I think this is why artists are so often so lonely. Regular folk find us hard to relate to, because we are not mere consumers and our act of being creative persons is also an act of resistance against a culture that is more an anti-culture of reptilian brain consumerism.
We aren't a separate species, and others would do well to befriend us.
Saturday, 28 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 62
One thing I have to stop doing while I'm at St. Faith's is singing. Or at least to sing in such a way that no one hears me except God. It isn't that my voice is that awful, and really, I should be the last one to judge that, though I have heard it recorded and have never really liked it. But others tell me my voice is very good and they enjoy hearing me sing. I don't believe them. And even if that were the case, then what's the big deal? Perhaps this is their way of being kind, but I find it rather annoying, especially because for the most part they don't seem to want me as as friend. I sometimes just want to tell them that I do not attend church for their entertainment. I do enjoy singing, but enough's enough. If they are not interested in my friendship, (and by the way I was treated this Christmas by them, then clearly they are not interested), then I just wish they would shut up and leave me alone.
My voice is loud enough, I suppose, and it does attract attention. But it doesn't help me make friends. Gifted people are often very lonely and isolated people. Being gifted often sets us apart from others, who don't really see us as merely human and vulnerable as they are, but as something special, and therefore apart from the rest of the herd. And being gifted, or designated as gifted, often indicates that we are lacking in other ways. For example, even if I (to some people anyway) sing rather well, I completely suck at sports. In fact, I hate sports, and I especially loath our Canadian national religion, ice hockey. This alone completely undermines a lot of potential friendships, since hating hockey is considered equally unCanadian as remaining seated while the national anthem is being performed (I tend to remain seated, if you must know, and I don't even hum the words or the tune) I also am not really good at working with my hands, especially carpentry or construction work. I am not really a guy. In fact, I don't even consider myself binary, and this also places me in the weirdo camp. Neither do I deal well with computers or other technologies. I write well, I draw and paint, and I sing. And I am also apparently rather intelligent.
I am not bragging, by the way. I am merely stating the obvious, confirmed by tests in school, observations from therapists and IQ tests. This is actually, for me, a social handicap. It designates me as different, and most people don't really like a lot of novelty in their lives. Being gifted is really a social liability. A handicap, if you will. Perhaps even a disability. I sometimes wonder if this is what a certain ex-friend who turned particularly nasty on me might have meant when he said that I drive people away. They cannot relate to me, and my loneliness and need for human contact can get at times overwhelming for others, so I eventually just end up having to shut down and isolate myself in order to cope.
The other little complication is that I still carry the erroneous notion that when others see how gifted and able I am, that that will also make them want to be my friends. But I can't even attract people with kindness, because then they feel like my moral inferiors. No, people want people who are like them, whom they can relate to. Who they can drink beer with (I don't drink beer, and for the most part am an abstainer) That is why dumbass America loves President Dump. Because he is every bit as venal, loathsome and in your face obnoxious as they are, and he is also richer than Croesus.
So, here I am, gifted, bright, poor, queer, gender nonconforming and not really a good Canadian. Why would others want to know me? But I, like everyone else, need friends and social contact. So then, why not? By the same token, Gentle Reader, why would I ever want people like that for friends? Maybe because social isolation is not only painful, but also destructive to one's health and longevity. So then, do I only want friends because that will help me stay well? No, I want friends because I love people and enjoy being around them. If only the feeling were mutual.
My voice is loud enough, I suppose, and it does attract attention. But it doesn't help me make friends. Gifted people are often very lonely and isolated people. Being gifted often sets us apart from others, who don't really see us as merely human and vulnerable as they are, but as something special, and therefore apart from the rest of the herd. And being gifted, or designated as gifted, often indicates that we are lacking in other ways. For example, even if I (to some people anyway) sing rather well, I completely suck at sports. In fact, I hate sports, and I especially loath our Canadian national religion, ice hockey. This alone completely undermines a lot of potential friendships, since hating hockey is considered equally unCanadian as remaining seated while the national anthem is being performed (I tend to remain seated, if you must know, and I don't even hum the words or the tune) I also am not really good at working with my hands, especially carpentry or construction work. I am not really a guy. In fact, I don't even consider myself binary, and this also places me in the weirdo camp. Neither do I deal well with computers or other technologies. I write well, I draw and paint, and I sing. And I am also apparently rather intelligent.
I am not bragging, by the way. I am merely stating the obvious, confirmed by tests in school, observations from therapists and IQ tests. This is actually, for me, a social handicap. It designates me as different, and most people don't really like a lot of novelty in their lives. Being gifted is really a social liability. A handicap, if you will. Perhaps even a disability. I sometimes wonder if this is what a certain ex-friend who turned particularly nasty on me might have meant when he said that I drive people away. They cannot relate to me, and my loneliness and need for human contact can get at times overwhelming for others, so I eventually just end up having to shut down and isolate myself in order to cope.
The other little complication is that I still carry the erroneous notion that when others see how gifted and able I am, that that will also make them want to be my friends. But I can't even attract people with kindness, because then they feel like my moral inferiors. No, people want people who are like them, whom they can relate to. Who they can drink beer with (I don't drink beer, and for the most part am an abstainer) That is why dumbass America loves President Dump. Because he is every bit as venal, loathsome and in your face obnoxious as they are, and he is also richer than Croesus.
So, here I am, gifted, bright, poor, queer, gender nonconforming and not really a good Canadian. Why would others want to know me? But I, like everyone else, need friends and social contact. So then, why not? By the same token, Gentle Reader, why would I ever want people like that for friends? Maybe because social isolation is not only painful, but also destructive to one's health and longevity. So then, do I only want friends because that will help me stay well? No, I want friends because I love people and enjoy being around them. If only the feeling were mutual.
Friday, 27 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 61
It often helps to keep things in perspective. Despite my complaints about not feeling welcome anywhere for Christmas, I do have a home. I was also invited to a Christmas brunch in the common room of my building Christmas day, but had already made plans to be at church and not eat the brunch afterward, though I was present. I had mistakenly picked the salmon quiche (I am vegetarian) because someone had misguided me, and after choking up the small mouthful I had taken in the bathroom, decided that I wasn't really hungry after all (and I wasn't hungry) and simply didn't eat anything.
It was rather difficult getting through the church service since I felt really hostile towards everyone, and no one had thought of including me in their plans for this Christmas, so I went downstairs for a drink of water so I wouldn't have to exchange the peace with people I was angry at. I still got on well with people afterward, despite my feelings of sadness and hostility, had to field a rather unpleasant visitor who remembered me from the Flakers (my lovely pet name for the Quakers), and she really acted like she didn't know me, but to cut her slack, she had aged so much and so badly, that I didn't even know her. But she is simply not a pleasant person. I remember getting so sick and tired of her unrelenting rants against Christians (the Flakers are not exactly Christian) that I had to end the friendship almost eighteen years ago because she was so negative and abusive, so maybe she was too embarrassed or, like most narcissists, simply blames everything on others.
I'm not sure that she is aware really of the first time I really came in contact with her. That was back in the nineties, before we met at the Flakers. I was on the Broadway bus, westbound, near its conclusion at Alma Street. She and I were the only remaining passengers, and she was relentlessly nagging, and lecturing, hectoring and chewing out the driver about something that really didn't matter. I also wondered if she was picking him out because he was South Asian and wearing a turban. Finally, I spoke up and said to her that life must be very hard for people like her when they are so busy being the centre of the universe. She actually had the gall to reply that there was nothing wrong with being the centre of the universe. When the driver asked me for my phone number in case he needed a witness, given that he was going to file a complaint against her, I happily complied. Since she doesn't seem to have changed much, I only hope and pray that she was only visiting St. Faith's for Christmas Day and we are not likely to see her darken our doorway again.
I did end up sitting with two young Japanese women who are here to learn English. They were nice, humorous and didn't seem to mind visiting a church full of old people. The Christmas brunch was not really comfortable. Those things rarely are. It was downstairs in the church basement. There is no comfortable place to sit and just hang out and visit, and it all seems so perfunctory, so that no one can really relax and just be themselves, everything gets packed and cleaned up as quickly as possible so that everyone can go home to their Christmas celebrations with the people that really matter to them. Except, I as always had nothing to go home to, except for a couple of friends in Colombia with whom I could Skype, and one of them had to postpone till later because he was at work that day.
The Christmas brunch is better than nothing. But at St. Faith's, we really have to do a lot more for people to feel more included, and this is also going to mean redefining what we mean by family, since if people are going to continue to exclude folks like me and leave us to welter in our loneliness just because we are not related to them, well, that does not really reflect the Gospels or the teachings of Jesus, now, does it? But wish me luck getting any of this across to all those selfish and rather stupid and stubborn Anglicans.
Still, when I see that someone has to sleep out on the sidewalk in this weather, especially at Christmas, I know that I also have blessings to count. I could do a lot worse for Christmas. I could also do quite a bit better.
It was rather difficult getting through the church service since I felt really hostile towards everyone, and no one had thought of including me in their plans for this Christmas, so I went downstairs for a drink of water so I wouldn't have to exchange the peace with people I was angry at. I still got on well with people afterward, despite my feelings of sadness and hostility, had to field a rather unpleasant visitor who remembered me from the Flakers (my lovely pet name for the Quakers), and she really acted like she didn't know me, but to cut her slack, she had aged so much and so badly, that I didn't even know her. But she is simply not a pleasant person. I remember getting so sick and tired of her unrelenting rants against Christians (the Flakers are not exactly Christian) that I had to end the friendship almost eighteen years ago because she was so negative and abusive, so maybe she was too embarrassed or, like most narcissists, simply blames everything on others.
I'm not sure that she is aware really of the first time I really came in contact with her. That was back in the nineties, before we met at the Flakers. I was on the Broadway bus, westbound, near its conclusion at Alma Street. She and I were the only remaining passengers, and she was relentlessly nagging, and lecturing, hectoring and chewing out the driver about something that really didn't matter. I also wondered if she was picking him out because he was South Asian and wearing a turban. Finally, I spoke up and said to her that life must be very hard for people like her when they are so busy being the centre of the universe. She actually had the gall to reply that there was nothing wrong with being the centre of the universe. When the driver asked me for my phone number in case he needed a witness, given that he was going to file a complaint against her, I happily complied. Since she doesn't seem to have changed much, I only hope and pray that she was only visiting St. Faith's for Christmas Day and we are not likely to see her darken our doorway again.
I did end up sitting with two young Japanese women who are here to learn English. They were nice, humorous and didn't seem to mind visiting a church full of old people. The Christmas brunch was not really comfortable. Those things rarely are. It was downstairs in the church basement. There is no comfortable place to sit and just hang out and visit, and it all seems so perfunctory, so that no one can really relax and just be themselves, everything gets packed and cleaned up as quickly as possible so that everyone can go home to their Christmas celebrations with the people that really matter to them. Except, I as always had nothing to go home to, except for a couple of friends in Colombia with whom I could Skype, and one of them had to postpone till later because he was at work that day.
The Christmas brunch is better than nothing. But at St. Faith's, we really have to do a lot more for people to feel more included, and this is also going to mean redefining what we mean by family, since if people are going to continue to exclude folks like me and leave us to welter in our loneliness just because we are not related to them, well, that does not really reflect the Gospels or the teachings of Jesus, now, does it? But wish me luck getting any of this across to all those selfish and rather stupid and stubborn Anglicans.
Still, when I see that someone has to sleep out on the sidewalk in this weather, especially at Christmas, I know that I also have blessings to count. I could do a lot worse for Christmas. I could also do quite a bit better.
Thursday, 26 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 60
Today is Boxing Day, the day after Christmas for sleeping or eating or drinking or working off your hangover while stuffing yet more ridiculously rich and fattening food into our fat little faces. Well, some people anyway. I was already quite sick of food a few days ago, though I did have French toast with real maple syrup for breakfast this morning, along with a cheese omelette. Not having a social life, I am not going to have anywhere to go today, and lots of people have little gatherings, parties and outings on this day of the year. I was for a while attending the Boxing Day party every year at a friend's but some of her friends didn't like me, there was alcohol present (I was not imbibing), so I wrote some rather nasty but true things about those people on my blog, and even though no one was publicly identified the nasty bitch still ended our friendship. And she also calls herself a Christian by the way. But there are also plenty of less Christian words I could use to describe her than "nasty bitch". That was, what, four years ago? Not a peep from her about reconciling. Some Christian she is. And some friend.
I simply told her that she had always treated me like her social inferior and I deserve better than that so I am happy to not see that horrible woman ever again, unless her attitude changes towards me. I don't expect this to happen. We are both Anglicans, by the way, and should we land in the same worship situation together (stranger things have happened), then things could get rather awkward during the exchanging of the peace, when everyone is expected to shake hands with as many others as possible, strangers especially, and wish them peace, or God's peace.
So, while everyone else seem to have people to see and enjoy and things to do today, once again I am alone. Another ex-friend accused me of driving people away from me. Which is a nasty and cruel thing to say to someone, just because you don't like them, and only want to further hurt them. Perhaps there is a grain of truth in that bit of slander, but really, don't we all have different ways of driving others away from us? I suppose my acid tongue sarcasm can scare some people away, for which reason I always try to use it carefully and judiciously. But I think it's more simple than that. Basically, if you're a marginalized or disadvantaged person as I am, then others are going to regard and treat you differently. It never fails to happen and it is one of the sadder and uglier truths about our human existence. When we are already vulnerable, we want to reach to others for support, help and protection. But this makes us "needy" and that is going to push people away. Not because I am driving people away from me, but because they are simply not willing to see their own hypocrisy and venality in the way they treat those whom they tend to other.
It is really hard to find people who won't do this to me. This is what makes friendship for someone who is already down sometimes a supreme and frightening challenge. Of course I deserve better, but when I communicate this to others, they get hostile because I am refusing to know my place, by presuming to be their equal. What really messes with their heads is that usually I am more intelligent and gifted than they are and that can really skew our relationships. A lot of people tend to have rather small mids and an even smaller imagination, so any kind of paradox is going to appear as threatening to them. And I mustn't dare tell them any of this because they will think I am merely being arrogant, and really I should just shut up and know my place and be grateful that any of their exalted selves would give me so much as the time of day.
So, this Boxing Day, I will be alone. even if I get upset and depressed, as I usually do this time of year, I will also get through it. I will continue to celebrate the few people who are willing to be my friends, even if they don't seem interested in reaching out to me today. I will take a couple of long walks, maybe go for coffee somewhere and find a quiet table to draw in my sketchbook. I will probably buy a couple of things, maybe a book. And I will quietly give thanks for the many blessings that I actually do have in my life.
I simply told her that she had always treated me like her social inferior and I deserve better than that so I am happy to not see that horrible woman ever again, unless her attitude changes towards me. I don't expect this to happen. We are both Anglicans, by the way, and should we land in the same worship situation together (stranger things have happened), then things could get rather awkward during the exchanging of the peace, when everyone is expected to shake hands with as many others as possible, strangers especially, and wish them peace, or God's peace.
So, while everyone else seem to have people to see and enjoy and things to do today, once again I am alone. Another ex-friend accused me of driving people away from me. Which is a nasty and cruel thing to say to someone, just because you don't like them, and only want to further hurt them. Perhaps there is a grain of truth in that bit of slander, but really, don't we all have different ways of driving others away from us? I suppose my acid tongue sarcasm can scare some people away, for which reason I always try to use it carefully and judiciously. But I think it's more simple than that. Basically, if you're a marginalized or disadvantaged person as I am, then others are going to regard and treat you differently. It never fails to happen and it is one of the sadder and uglier truths about our human existence. When we are already vulnerable, we want to reach to others for support, help and protection. But this makes us "needy" and that is going to push people away. Not because I am driving people away from me, but because they are simply not willing to see their own hypocrisy and venality in the way they treat those whom they tend to other.
It is really hard to find people who won't do this to me. This is what makes friendship for someone who is already down sometimes a supreme and frightening challenge. Of course I deserve better, but when I communicate this to others, they get hostile because I am refusing to know my place, by presuming to be their equal. What really messes with their heads is that usually I am more intelligent and gifted than they are and that can really skew our relationships. A lot of people tend to have rather small mids and an even smaller imagination, so any kind of paradox is going to appear as threatening to them. And I mustn't dare tell them any of this because they will think I am merely being arrogant, and really I should just shut up and know my place and be grateful that any of their exalted selves would give me so much as the time of day.
So, this Boxing Day, I will be alone. even if I get upset and depressed, as I usually do this time of year, I will also get through it. I will continue to celebrate the few people who are willing to be my friends, even if they don't seem interested in reaching out to me today. I will take a couple of long walks, maybe go for coffee somewhere and find a quiet table to draw in my sketchbook. I will probably buy a couple of things, maybe a book. And I will quietly give thanks for the many blessings that I actually do have in my life.
Wednesday, 25 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 59
Good morning, Gentle Reader, and Merry Christmas. Some of you might recall on this chilly Christmas morning the interview with Santa Clause that I ran last year. Here is the link if you care to refresh your memory. https://aaronbenjaminzacharias.blogspot.com/2018/12/waking-dead-10.html That one was on Skype and it was pretty hard on my old laptop which badly overheated, especially when old Saint Nick got a little bit, shall we say, excited? But now I have a new machine and, yes, I was going to write about the follow up I tried to do with the Jolly Old Elf.
He is still in Costa Rica, but apparently the old guy is ailing and has been moved to a seniors' care facility. One of his former assistants at the wellness spa he was operating there was on hand to fill in the blanks for us. "Oh, dear Kris, as he likes to be called", wrote his assistant in a text. "He took a turn for the worse last year, just around New Year's. I wasn't there, but I heard all about it from other staff. This very young woman, a girl actually, came to visit with a baby in her arms. She couldn't have been more than fifteen. And she was dressed rather strangely, wearing a kind of long blue robe that also covered her head. I actually thought she was Muslim at first. Kris had this look of absolute shock and horror on his face as she came over to him. Then, the strangest thing happen. She held out the kid and he kind of reluctantly took him in his arms, and just held him on his lap while the baby stared at him very intently. Kris said not a word. After a couple of minutes, the girl picked the kid up and left. Kris has never been the same. Just from time to time he utters the word, "Bless-ed" with a strange, kind of rapt smile on his face, and then he says nothing more. They say he has a rare form of dementia. I only wish we could do more for him, but he is well taken care of where he is. They give him everything he needs, and he just sits there in the garden in the shade of a mango tree, with this same dumb smile on his face, and only every couple of hours will he mutter just one single word. "Bless-ed."
He is still in Costa Rica, but apparently the old guy is ailing and has been moved to a seniors' care facility. One of his former assistants at the wellness spa he was operating there was on hand to fill in the blanks for us. "Oh, dear Kris, as he likes to be called", wrote his assistant in a text. "He took a turn for the worse last year, just around New Year's. I wasn't there, but I heard all about it from other staff. This very young woman, a girl actually, came to visit with a baby in her arms. She couldn't have been more than fifteen. And she was dressed rather strangely, wearing a kind of long blue robe that also covered her head. I actually thought she was Muslim at first. Kris had this look of absolute shock and horror on his face as she came over to him. Then, the strangest thing happen. She held out the kid and he kind of reluctantly took him in his arms, and just held him on his lap while the baby stared at him very intently. Kris said not a word. After a couple of minutes, the girl picked the kid up and left. Kris has never been the same. Just from time to time he utters the word, "Bless-ed" with a strange, kind of rapt smile on his face, and then he says nothing more. They say he has a rare form of dementia. I only wish we could do more for him, but he is well taken care of where he is. They give him everything he needs, and he just sits there in the garden in the shade of a mango tree, with this same dumb smile on his face, and only every couple of hours will he mutter just one single word. "Bless-ed."
Tuesday, 24 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 58
Gentle Reader, I am going to turn things on their head a bit today. I am going to write about two of the great villains or antiheroes of Christmas tradition. That's right, Ducks, I am going to write about Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch, and I am going to make a case for both of them.
Both Scrooge and the Grinch are both victims. They are victims of unfair press. And while the writers who invented them did so with the loveliest of intentions, I believe that in so doing that all the Scrooges and Grinches of the world and other Christmas haters are merely the victims of an egregious lack of compassion or insight into society and human nature.
I'll begin with Scrooge. He is of course a miserable old miser with no close friends, all alone in the world and would far prefer to keep his profit margins wide than participate in the lives of other humans. He is really a deeply wounded and broken-hearted man, as we see in the narrative, who has locked himself away from others. He doesn't want to endure further heartache, so he shuts himself off and away, and Christmas or anything else that suggests warm human connection he completely writes off as pure humbug.
As Charles Dickens conceived and wrote it in A Christmas Carol, old Scrooge still had people who would welcome him. In this case his nephew, a young man with a very active social life. He even came by the old guy's office to wish him a Merry Christmas and invite him to Christmas dinner at his home with his large circle of friends. But Ebenezer would have none of it.
Similarly, the Grinch could always feel welcome to celebrate Christmas with the community of Whoville, if he wanted to. If he wasn't such a mean-spirited misery. But Dr. Suess does absolutely nothing to tell us why the little green horror would shut himself away from the community high up in his own dank and fetid little cave. Nor do we know just why his heart happened to be two sizes too small. Was he born that way? Was he the sad outcome of childhood neglect or abuse? Did he have Aspergers or Autism? His sensitivity to noise would suggest that, yes, he was somewhere on that spectrum.
Or perhaps he also had a broken heart, perhaps had been the butt of childhood teasing, then as an adult, a convenient and ongoing target for social exclusion and derision. He might have good reason to live in a cave and keep himself safe from the lovely Who's of Whoville.
Here I am going to posit that we need to reverse the roles a little bit. I could very easily morph into a Scrooge or a Grinch and I have so far succeeded in avoiding this. And for one simple reason. The real Grinch isn't me. The community is the Grinch. The real Scrooge isn't me. The community is the Scrooge. My family was the Grinch. My family was the Scrooge. I have gone through more than twenty years of not feeling welcome anywhere at Christmas. People become invisible and unavailable at Christmas. And when I ask if they would like to spend time, have a visit, a meal or coffee together Christmas Day, they almost always turn me down. They either want to be with their own precious family, and outsiders are not welcome (or, how's that for the Spirit of Christmas?), or they are out of town and would prefer to spend the holiday with whoever they are having sex with, or they are themselves so consumed with depression and self pity for having nowhere to go at Christmas that they feel too proud and ashamed to let others see them so vulnerable.
Well, I am sick of this. I would like to rehabilitate the Grinch, and Mr. Scrooge, but I would also like to see the community rehabilitation as well. Especially the church, where they really ought to be setting an example as role models on what it is to invite and include the stranger, and more often than not they simply couldn't be bothered. Unless others are watching and then they can really go full out on public virtue signalling.
As for myself, I have always made an effort to include others at Christmas. One will forgive me for feeling outraged and insulted that now that I am the one who is alone, no one seems interested in reciprocating.
Merry F**cking Christmas, Gentle Reader!
And remember, the asterisks are snowflakes, darlings, lovely little snowflakes!
Both Scrooge and the Grinch are both victims. They are victims of unfair press. And while the writers who invented them did so with the loveliest of intentions, I believe that in so doing that all the Scrooges and Grinches of the world and other Christmas haters are merely the victims of an egregious lack of compassion or insight into society and human nature.
I'll begin with Scrooge. He is of course a miserable old miser with no close friends, all alone in the world and would far prefer to keep his profit margins wide than participate in the lives of other humans. He is really a deeply wounded and broken-hearted man, as we see in the narrative, who has locked himself away from others. He doesn't want to endure further heartache, so he shuts himself off and away, and Christmas or anything else that suggests warm human connection he completely writes off as pure humbug.
As Charles Dickens conceived and wrote it in A Christmas Carol, old Scrooge still had people who would welcome him. In this case his nephew, a young man with a very active social life. He even came by the old guy's office to wish him a Merry Christmas and invite him to Christmas dinner at his home with his large circle of friends. But Ebenezer would have none of it.
Similarly, the Grinch could always feel welcome to celebrate Christmas with the community of Whoville, if he wanted to. If he wasn't such a mean-spirited misery. But Dr. Suess does absolutely nothing to tell us why the little green horror would shut himself away from the community high up in his own dank and fetid little cave. Nor do we know just why his heart happened to be two sizes too small. Was he born that way? Was he the sad outcome of childhood neglect or abuse? Did he have Aspergers or Autism? His sensitivity to noise would suggest that, yes, he was somewhere on that spectrum.
Or perhaps he also had a broken heart, perhaps had been the butt of childhood teasing, then as an adult, a convenient and ongoing target for social exclusion and derision. He might have good reason to live in a cave and keep himself safe from the lovely Who's of Whoville.
Here I am going to posit that we need to reverse the roles a little bit. I could very easily morph into a Scrooge or a Grinch and I have so far succeeded in avoiding this. And for one simple reason. The real Grinch isn't me. The community is the Grinch. The real Scrooge isn't me. The community is the Scrooge. My family was the Grinch. My family was the Scrooge. I have gone through more than twenty years of not feeling welcome anywhere at Christmas. People become invisible and unavailable at Christmas. And when I ask if they would like to spend time, have a visit, a meal or coffee together Christmas Day, they almost always turn me down. They either want to be with their own precious family, and outsiders are not welcome (or, how's that for the Spirit of Christmas?), or they are out of town and would prefer to spend the holiday with whoever they are having sex with, or they are themselves so consumed with depression and self pity for having nowhere to go at Christmas that they feel too proud and ashamed to let others see them so vulnerable.
Well, I am sick of this. I would like to rehabilitate the Grinch, and Mr. Scrooge, but I would also like to see the community rehabilitation as well. Especially the church, where they really ought to be setting an example as role models on what it is to invite and include the stranger, and more often than not they simply couldn't be bothered. Unless others are watching and then they can really go full out on public virtue signalling.
As for myself, I have always made an effort to include others at Christmas. One will forgive me for feeling outraged and insulted that now that I am the one who is alone, no one seems interested in reciprocating.
Merry F**cking Christmas, Gentle Reader!
And remember, the asterisks are snowflakes, darlings, lovely little snowflakes!
Monday, 23 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 57
Well, Gentle Reader, I am dreadfully sorry about having to bore you yet again with another page of bashing the Anglican Church, but that is exactly what I am about to do today, so brace yourselves. This is not going to be pretty.
I have already mentioned that I attend a parish church, St. Faith's, that is full of upper middle-class Anglicans in Kerrisdale, a very upscale and bourgeois neighbourhood. I think that some of them are okay, and I am even assured that if they weren't out of town this Christmas that they would have at least invited me into their lovely homes for a token glass of eggnog and still get out of there in time for them to get dinner ready for the people who are really welcome. But I am still struggling to believe that some would actually be sincerely welcoming. There is still time to prove it.
As tempted as I am to demonize everyone for being well off, I am going to try to avoid that pitfall. On the other hand, with the others who will be here for Christmas but simply couldn't be bothered with reaching out to the stranger in their midst, well, I am not pulling any punches. These are the same class of people who, especially at Christmas, pull out all the stops to go relentlessly twee for their loved ones, which is to say their families and only such friends as will not leave an odour of poverty or neediness in their sumptuous homes.
To cut the clergy slack, I know that inquiries were made to see if anyone would be willing to accomodate me, if only for a token cup at the local Starbucks in the afternoon, or even a phone call should I get really desperate as I did last year and had to persuade myself to not practice my skydiving off the Granville Street Bridge (without parachute, natch.) No one is biting.
It is of course safe to assume that only those who have families and social status and nice incomes are going to be embraced as full members in a lot of Anglican parish churches. This is one of the many unwritten rules and polices of Anglicanism. Which naturally rules out yours truly. I have found this out yet again. When it became clear in my rather intense conversation yesterday with the parish manager and the priest, following the service, that it wasn't a psychiatrist or mental health services I was needing, it was suggested that I get a spiritual director. But spiritual direction is a corrupt and profit driven racket in the Anglican Church.. That's right, you have to pay for it. They know I am on a low income. So, I was informed there could be a sliding scale, but my reply is why should I participate in a process so corrupt and still expect spiritual benefit. They were not happy when I told them that this is a corrupt and ugly practice, this demanding money for spiritual services, and the Anglican Church has to find a place of repentance about this. And it is also a prime example of how much this Anglican Church still skews themselves in favour of those who have money, excluding by default anyone who is poor.
They repeated that no one can even offer me so much as an invitation to Starbucks on Christmas Day, or even a phone call, given that I am alone and isolated and vulnerable to trauma at this season. The proffered solution? That I go to emergency services so they can put me on pills and numb my emotions enough so I can get through it okay. But that I please do not bother them further with my problems (well, they didn't say that, but didn't really need to?) Never mind that it is the lack of caring human contact that makes us vulnerable to trauma in the first place. Nice people only, you know. And please don't upset us. We are delicate.
In other words, to stop reminding them that people like me exist and that they are never going to be interested in accommodating us, except in their token Christmas lunch in the parish church basement, so that everyone feels safe, and no one has to ever see the likes of me in their home. It's that odour of poverty you know. Support Anglican style: whimpering sympathetic noises and a little evident hand wringing. And nothing else.
Fortunately, I will likely have a couple of people to visit on Skype, both friends who live in Colombia, where people tend to treat each other more decently, when they're not killing each other in the jungle, that is. One of them, like me, is going to be alone this Christmas, so at least I can also offer him support. Of course, if I could, I would move there to Colombia to be closer to my real friends. I don't seem to have any real friends here in Canada. Certainly not in the Anglican Church.
And I am quite sure they would only be too happy to be rid of me. Except for one little detail. I'm not going away. I am not going to give them the satisfaction, and even if my presence of poverty and marginalization can do just a little bit to help kick their privileged ass forward, that makes sticking around worthwhile It also gives me something to forgive. The gift that goes on giving.
I think I'll be okay this year. I am working hard on some of the roots to my trauma around Christmas and I think I have found where some of the dots connect. I will still have people to be with, though on Skype, and I suppose I can get through the morning eucharist and lunch at St. Faith's without getting too unpleasant. We might even genuinely enjoy each other. Stranger things have happened, after all.
However, to offer as a solution emergency services when all I am needing is friends on Christmas Day is unconscionable. I can forgive the priest but I will not forgive what was said. And should I be faced with having to choose between jumping off the bridge or emergency services, I will probably pick the bridge. But I don't think it'll get that far this time. I have people expecting me in Colombia and in Costa Rica this February and March. Real friends. And I don't want to disappoint them. And the priest has invited me to lunch after church next Sunday. Don't want to disappoint her either.
And I really do want to stick around if only to keep being a pain in the ass to the people at St. Faith's. At least until they get their collective head out of their own collective ass.
Merry F**king Christmas.
(the asterisks are snowflakes, darlings, lovely little snowflakes!)
I have already mentioned that I attend a parish church, St. Faith's, that is full of upper middle-class Anglicans in Kerrisdale, a very upscale and bourgeois neighbourhood. I think that some of them are okay, and I am even assured that if they weren't out of town this Christmas that they would have at least invited me into their lovely homes for a token glass of eggnog and still get out of there in time for them to get dinner ready for the people who are really welcome. But I am still struggling to believe that some would actually be sincerely welcoming. There is still time to prove it.
As tempted as I am to demonize everyone for being well off, I am going to try to avoid that pitfall. On the other hand, with the others who will be here for Christmas but simply couldn't be bothered with reaching out to the stranger in their midst, well, I am not pulling any punches. These are the same class of people who, especially at Christmas, pull out all the stops to go relentlessly twee for their loved ones, which is to say their families and only such friends as will not leave an odour of poverty or neediness in their sumptuous homes.
To cut the clergy slack, I know that inquiries were made to see if anyone would be willing to accomodate me, if only for a token cup at the local Starbucks in the afternoon, or even a phone call should I get really desperate as I did last year and had to persuade myself to not practice my skydiving off the Granville Street Bridge (without parachute, natch.) No one is biting.
It is of course safe to assume that only those who have families and social status and nice incomes are going to be embraced as full members in a lot of Anglican parish churches. This is one of the many unwritten rules and polices of Anglicanism. Which naturally rules out yours truly. I have found this out yet again. When it became clear in my rather intense conversation yesterday with the parish manager and the priest, following the service, that it wasn't a psychiatrist or mental health services I was needing, it was suggested that I get a spiritual director. But spiritual direction is a corrupt and profit driven racket in the Anglican Church.. That's right, you have to pay for it. They know I am on a low income. So, I was informed there could be a sliding scale, but my reply is why should I participate in a process so corrupt and still expect spiritual benefit. They were not happy when I told them that this is a corrupt and ugly practice, this demanding money for spiritual services, and the Anglican Church has to find a place of repentance about this. And it is also a prime example of how much this Anglican Church still skews themselves in favour of those who have money, excluding by default anyone who is poor.
They repeated that no one can even offer me so much as an invitation to Starbucks on Christmas Day, or even a phone call, given that I am alone and isolated and vulnerable to trauma at this season. The proffered solution? That I go to emergency services so they can put me on pills and numb my emotions enough so I can get through it okay. But that I please do not bother them further with my problems (well, they didn't say that, but didn't really need to?) Never mind that it is the lack of caring human contact that makes us vulnerable to trauma in the first place. Nice people only, you know. And please don't upset us. We are delicate.
In other words, to stop reminding them that people like me exist and that they are never going to be interested in accommodating us, except in their token Christmas lunch in the parish church basement, so that everyone feels safe, and no one has to ever see the likes of me in their home. It's that odour of poverty you know. Support Anglican style: whimpering sympathetic noises and a little evident hand wringing. And nothing else.
Fortunately, I will likely have a couple of people to visit on Skype, both friends who live in Colombia, where people tend to treat each other more decently, when they're not killing each other in the jungle, that is. One of them, like me, is going to be alone this Christmas, so at least I can also offer him support. Of course, if I could, I would move there to Colombia to be closer to my real friends. I don't seem to have any real friends here in Canada. Certainly not in the Anglican Church.
And I am quite sure they would only be too happy to be rid of me. Except for one little detail. I'm not going away. I am not going to give them the satisfaction, and even if my presence of poverty and marginalization can do just a little bit to help kick their privileged ass forward, that makes sticking around worthwhile It also gives me something to forgive. The gift that goes on giving.
I think I'll be okay this year. I am working hard on some of the roots to my trauma around Christmas and I think I have found where some of the dots connect. I will still have people to be with, though on Skype, and I suppose I can get through the morning eucharist and lunch at St. Faith's without getting too unpleasant. We might even genuinely enjoy each other. Stranger things have happened, after all.
However, to offer as a solution emergency services when all I am needing is friends on Christmas Day is unconscionable. I can forgive the priest but I will not forgive what was said. And should I be faced with having to choose between jumping off the bridge or emergency services, I will probably pick the bridge. But I don't think it'll get that far this time. I have people expecting me in Colombia and in Costa Rica this February and March. Real friends. And I don't want to disappoint them. And the priest has invited me to lunch after church next Sunday. Don't want to disappoint her either.
And I really do want to stick around if only to keep being a pain in the ass to the people at St. Faith's. At least until they get their collective head out of their own collective ass.
Merry F**king Christmas.
(the asterisks are snowflakes, darlings, lovely little snowflakes!)
Sunday, 22 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 56
We really have become fragmented as we all cope in this culture of me-first selfishness that seems to have engulfed us. It's hard to pinpoint at exactly which point that we started really going sideways. Dumping Christianity in the wastebin certainly hasn't helped. This isn't to say that we were once a perfect, loving and virtuous Christian culture either, but there is something about throwing out the baby with the bathwater and that is something that most of us always seem to excel at.
I do remember a time when we seemed less afraid of each other. Kinder and more trusting. During the summer of 1970, I was fourteen and exploring Vancouver on my own, taking the bus in from Richmond every day, and focussing primarily on the downtown area, the West End, Gastown and Stanley Park. I was an adventurous, curious and rather bold sort of kid. I was not shy about engaging with strangers. I wasn't yet getting around hitchhiking, and Mom made sure I had bus fare every day. While in the West End, someone called out to me from an apartment window and invited me to visit him and his friend in their first floor apartment. They were both in their thirties, drinking beer and there was a poster of a butterfly on the wall. They were friendly, curious about who I was, and I must have spent almost an hour just chatting randomly with these two strangers. Then, I thought I should get on with my day, as I was on my way to Stanley Park. It was all good. I never saw those guys again, but it still feels as though I made two new friends.
During the seventies, it seems that we all got around by hitchhiking. It was easy. Not really that dangerous, even if some guys behind steering wheels could get rather creepy at times. I do remember unwelcome hands trying to wander along my thigh, and one loser who decided to fully masturbate while driving me home to Richmond. He did pull over to the side of the road somewhere on Steveston Highway in order to finish the act. He was kind of good looking, actually, I was seventeen, but still I felt totally freaked and creeped out and thought that if that was the fare exacted for the ride, then surely there must be better ways for getting around. But it was late at night, and I had about fifteen miles to travel and no bus fare. I was staying with my father at the time, who was better off and less generous than Mom. Anyway, that is something I never told either of my parents about. I even feel somewhat creepy writing here about it some forty-six years later.
But that was the very worst thing that happened to me while hitchhiking. Then around 1980 or so, that monster Clifford Robert Olsen was caught and convicted and thrown into permanent protective custody after leaving a trail of broken juvenile bodies behind, most of them kids he had picked up hitchhiking. Suddenly everyone was taking the bus. Or Mommy and Daddy were chauffeuring them all over the place.
But other things were also at play. Our governments were being controlled by corporations and particularly odious noxious politicians were running and getting elected. The economy ruled, greed became god, and still rules, and social spending, affordable housing and poverty reduction plans were all clawed back or eliminated, and suddenly it was people living on the street and everyone for themselves. Through the eighties it was all about shopping, acquisition, greed, selfishness. And all psychotherapies became centered round the precious and sacred self. I had such a psychiatrist for four years, and even he couldn't convince me to turn into the kind of selfish narcissistic monster that has become the norm today.
If we are simply going to stay focussed on ourselves and our own sensory gratification, if we want to exist as a seething welter of pleasure seeking reptiles virtually unconscious of everything except our own pleasure, then we are sure to fail as a viable species, because humans are by nature social and connected with each other. What has been happening in our world these past fifty years is completely anti-human, and in our struggles against environmental damage and human caused climate change we are also going to have to consider becoming less selfish and more empathic or we are all screwed. We will be no better than that idiot masturbating and jerking off while driving me home late one summer night in 1973!
Kumbaya, anyone? Great song, and it's time for us to learn to sing it without irony.
I do remember a time when we seemed less afraid of each other. Kinder and more trusting. During the summer of 1970, I was fourteen and exploring Vancouver on my own, taking the bus in from Richmond every day, and focussing primarily on the downtown area, the West End, Gastown and Stanley Park. I was an adventurous, curious and rather bold sort of kid. I was not shy about engaging with strangers. I wasn't yet getting around hitchhiking, and Mom made sure I had bus fare every day. While in the West End, someone called out to me from an apartment window and invited me to visit him and his friend in their first floor apartment. They were both in their thirties, drinking beer and there was a poster of a butterfly on the wall. They were friendly, curious about who I was, and I must have spent almost an hour just chatting randomly with these two strangers. Then, I thought I should get on with my day, as I was on my way to Stanley Park. It was all good. I never saw those guys again, but it still feels as though I made two new friends.
During the seventies, it seems that we all got around by hitchhiking. It was easy. Not really that dangerous, even if some guys behind steering wheels could get rather creepy at times. I do remember unwelcome hands trying to wander along my thigh, and one loser who decided to fully masturbate while driving me home to Richmond. He did pull over to the side of the road somewhere on Steveston Highway in order to finish the act. He was kind of good looking, actually, I was seventeen, but still I felt totally freaked and creeped out and thought that if that was the fare exacted for the ride, then surely there must be better ways for getting around. But it was late at night, and I had about fifteen miles to travel and no bus fare. I was staying with my father at the time, who was better off and less generous than Mom. Anyway, that is something I never told either of my parents about. I even feel somewhat creepy writing here about it some forty-six years later.
But that was the very worst thing that happened to me while hitchhiking. Then around 1980 or so, that monster Clifford Robert Olsen was caught and convicted and thrown into permanent protective custody after leaving a trail of broken juvenile bodies behind, most of them kids he had picked up hitchhiking. Suddenly everyone was taking the bus. Or Mommy and Daddy were chauffeuring them all over the place.
But other things were also at play. Our governments were being controlled by corporations and particularly odious noxious politicians were running and getting elected. The economy ruled, greed became god, and still rules, and social spending, affordable housing and poverty reduction plans were all clawed back or eliminated, and suddenly it was people living on the street and everyone for themselves. Through the eighties it was all about shopping, acquisition, greed, selfishness. And all psychotherapies became centered round the precious and sacred self. I had such a psychiatrist for four years, and even he couldn't convince me to turn into the kind of selfish narcissistic monster that has become the norm today.
If we are simply going to stay focussed on ourselves and our own sensory gratification, if we want to exist as a seething welter of pleasure seeking reptiles virtually unconscious of everything except our own pleasure, then we are sure to fail as a viable species, because humans are by nature social and connected with each other. What has been happening in our world these past fifty years is completely anti-human, and in our struggles against environmental damage and human caused climate change we are also going to have to consider becoming less selfish and more empathic or we are all screwed. We will be no better than that idiot masturbating and jerking off while driving me home late one summer night in 1973!
Kumbaya, anyone? Great song, and it's time for us to learn to sing it without irony.
Saturday, 21 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 55
I think for a lot of people, they never grow or develop beyond seeing themselves, or should I say, their selves, as being principally their will. Or we could call it self-will, or auto determination. Beyond that, most of us don't really evolve much beyond being life supports for our cravings, whims and appetites, hence the power and control that consumerism has over billions of people on this planet. Even the way we think of our goals and aspirations as bucket lists, or everything we want to do in our lives before we kick the bucket because this life is all there is, or as atheists tend to believe, this is it, there are no dress rehearsals.
It's rather a scary, frenzied kind of dynamic. So our development as moral, spiritual and ethical beings gets shunted aside so that we can do our utmost to fulfill and satisfy our multitudinous cravings and whims. Which is to assume that our treatment of others and of our mother earth really don't need to factor in.
The self is more, so much more than the will which simply directs our focus and our gaze. But not a lot of people really like thinking in terms of God or faith or religion, because this threatens or puts at jeopardy their precious self-determination, and no one can really begin to live life as a Christian, or as a Jew or Muslim for that matter, without somehow submitting their will to a higher power. Just like they do in the Twelve Steps programs.
The beauty of it is that we never actually lose our will in the religious process. We are simply employing our will to accept the supremacy of the Higher Will, and even then, as we move into God's service, we are doing so of our volition, This is an interesting irony, and many resist and avoid contact with the Divine for that very terror of having their free will violated, not realizing or caring that quite simply, no one gives consent to God without employing their free will, and only by our freedom to choose are we able to follow Christ.
As selves, as human souls, this is how we really begin to grow and flourish, by joyfully abandoning ourselves to all that is God, with the assurance that even if we make ourselves God's slaves, he will not lead us without our consent, and that we can trust him to lead us, direct and protect us. Not necessarily an easy walk, this, because even as he gives us back our will, we still must surrender ourselves over and over again to God, for this is the surrender of love to love and this is what truly gives us life.
God is love, and it is love that nourishes and strengthens the soul.
It's rather a scary, frenzied kind of dynamic. So our development as moral, spiritual and ethical beings gets shunted aside so that we can do our utmost to fulfill and satisfy our multitudinous cravings and whims. Which is to assume that our treatment of others and of our mother earth really don't need to factor in.
The self is more, so much more than the will which simply directs our focus and our gaze. But not a lot of people really like thinking in terms of God or faith or religion, because this threatens or puts at jeopardy their precious self-determination, and no one can really begin to live life as a Christian, or as a Jew or Muslim for that matter, without somehow submitting their will to a higher power. Just like they do in the Twelve Steps programs.
The beauty of it is that we never actually lose our will in the religious process. We are simply employing our will to accept the supremacy of the Higher Will, and even then, as we move into God's service, we are doing so of our volition, This is an interesting irony, and many resist and avoid contact with the Divine for that very terror of having their free will violated, not realizing or caring that quite simply, no one gives consent to God without employing their free will, and only by our freedom to choose are we able to follow Christ.
As selves, as human souls, this is how we really begin to grow and flourish, by joyfully abandoning ourselves to all that is God, with the assurance that even if we make ourselves God's slaves, he will not lead us without our consent, and that we can trust him to lead us, direct and protect us. Not necessarily an easy walk, this, because even as he gives us back our will, we still must surrender ourselves over and over again to God, for this is the surrender of love to love and this is what truly gives us life.
God is love, and it is love that nourishes and strengthens the soul.
Friday, 20 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 54
My psychiatrist used to ask if I felt good about myself. Or if I felt bad about myself. Not if I simply felt good or if I simply felt bad. My reply was more or less formulated towards persuading him how absurdly worded the question was. He really tried hard to dig out from me some sort of confession or admission of self-hatred while extolling the secular virtues of self-love. He never succeeded, but rather complimented me eventually as being one of the least neurotic people he had ever dealt with. I still basically ended up telling him how full of shit he was. Which is to say the treatment was very successful.
I have a friend who insists that he must be himself. I haven't yet, but on our next visit, I just might ask him, who is your self. Or what is it? I have really wanted to tell him, and others who spout the same kind of narcissism that really, it doesn't matter what you say or do. You are always going to be yourself. There is no other person or thing that you are able or going to be. Might as well accept it. By the way, being ourselves is not a get out of jail free card for not working on ourselves or for not acquiring moral values and ethics and good and healthy life habits and social skills.
I think that a lot of people mistake themselves for some fictionalized or idealized version of themselves that they have crafted, copped, concocted, or simply tried to cobble together. Something that will show them to be better, stronger, brighter, sexier or more successful or badass than the person they were raised to be. And as far as raising children to be what or whoever, I don't think there is a parent in the world that ever gets it right.
We have this tendency of living outside of ourselves, or presuming to live outside of ourselves, in such a way as to make us permanently schizoid, chronically divided against ourselves But even this is an illusion. We are ourselves, and no one else. Our perception of having a self is misguided. We don't have a self. We are a self. We are not a collection of preferred adjectives or modifiers. We simply are. Period.
Right now I am listening on the radio to a segment about a terminal Star Wars fan who has sunk her identity into one of the fictional characters. As though she isn't enough. She has to adopt a fantasy self. And yet, this happens a lot, it is a widespread practice, and it is not pathologized. Like children pretending, I suppose, but taking it a step further. Like Halloween. Or drag.
Yes, I do get it. If we are going to physically survive in a consumerist, capitalist culture, where we have to work in very limited and limiting roles for our paycheque, we are not going to really grow as integrated selves. So, we concoct a formula of who we are, and we do our due diligence to act out that part, as kind of an infra self. This is how we sustain ourselves. Yes, I do get it.
But then there is this trend towards saying that by being ourselves that we are going to do whatever the hell we want, and too bad how others are affected or impacted. When we act and live as our own little gods at the centre of our own little universe. This is how fragmented we have become and it is ugly. And this is how we completely negate that we are also part of a collective self, called humanity, which is part of a greater collective self called the earth or the biosphere, which now is gravely imperiled because of our many selfish preferences and actions.
Anyway, please stop boring us with this nonsense about being yourself. Of course you are yourself. Maybe start to figure out that you are also part of a collective self, and perhaps that your real fulfilment as a self will be in letting go of your precious little self god for the common good. With so many people self absorbed with heads firmly impacted up their asses, I shudder to think of how we would cope in this notoriously lonely city if we were hit by a major earthquake, when we would have little option but to abandon our narcissistic little fantasies in order to pull together for the common good and our collective survival. My guess is most of the young or chronically immature smart phone addicts (most of them male) wouldn't cope, and would simply sit and text on their little phones on top of or underneath the rubble while waiting for some special someone to come and rescue them.
Jesus said that unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies it will yield much fruit. Not a popular notion in this age of self, but one we would really do well to consider and welcome into our lives, and into our own precious little selves.
I have a friend who insists that he must be himself. I haven't yet, but on our next visit, I just might ask him, who is your self. Or what is it? I have really wanted to tell him, and others who spout the same kind of narcissism that really, it doesn't matter what you say or do. You are always going to be yourself. There is no other person or thing that you are able or going to be. Might as well accept it. By the way, being ourselves is not a get out of jail free card for not working on ourselves or for not acquiring moral values and ethics and good and healthy life habits and social skills.
I think that a lot of people mistake themselves for some fictionalized or idealized version of themselves that they have crafted, copped, concocted, or simply tried to cobble together. Something that will show them to be better, stronger, brighter, sexier or more successful or badass than the person they were raised to be. And as far as raising children to be what or whoever, I don't think there is a parent in the world that ever gets it right.
We have this tendency of living outside of ourselves, or presuming to live outside of ourselves, in such a way as to make us permanently schizoid, chronically divided against ourselves But even this is an illusion. We are ourselves, and no one else. Our perception of having a self is misguided. We don't have a self. We are a self. We are not a collection of preferred adjectives or modifiers. We simply are. Period.
Right now I am listening on the radio to a segment about a terminal Star Wars fan who has sunk her identity into one of the fictional characters. As though she isn't enough. She has to adopt a fantasy self. And yet, this happens a lot, it is a widespread practice, and it is not pathologized. Like children pretending, I suppose, but taking it a step further. Like Halloween. Or drag.
Yes, I do get it. If we are going to physically survive in a consumerist, capitalist culture, where we have to work in very limited and limiting roles for our paycheque, we are not going to really grow as integrated selves. So, we concoct a formula of who we are, and we do our due diligence to act out that part, as kind of an infra self. This is how we sustain ourselves. Yes, I do get it.
But then there is this trend towards saying that by being ourselves that we are going to do whatever the hell we want, and too bad how others are affected or impacted. When we act and live as our own little gods at the centre of our own little universe. This is how fragmented we have become and it is ugly. And this is how we completely negate that we are also part of a collective self, called humanity, which is part of a greater collective self called the earth or the biosphere, which now is gravely imperiled because of our many selfish preferences and actions.
Anyway, please stop boring us with this nonsense about being yourself. Of course you are yourself. Maybe start to figure out that you are also part of a collective self, and perhaps that your real fulfilment as a self will be in letting go of your precious little self god for the common good. With so many people self absorbed with heads firmly impacted up their asses, I shudder to think of how we would cope in this notoriously lonely city if we were hit by a major earthquake, when we would have little option but to abandon our narcissistic little fantasies in order to pull together for the common good and our collective survival. My guess is most of the young or chronically immature smart phone addicts (most of them male) wouldn't cope, and would simply sit and text on their little phones on top of or underneath the rubble while waiting for some special someone to come and rescue them.
Jesus said that unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies it will yield much fruit. Not a popular notion in this age of self, but one we would really do well to consider and welcome into our lives, and into our own precious little selves.
Thursday, 19 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 53
Where the term cultural appropriation loses its cachet is that it's primarily angry, emotional and reactive. It is the angry and bitter fruit of collective and intergenerational trauma from decades, from centuries of mistreatment, discrimination, abuse, forced assimilation. Notice that I am not using the word genocide. I still don't know if it is an appropriate word to use in this context and it isn't my job to argue for or against the application of the word genocide to the sad, tragic and completely horrific treatment that our own First Nations peoples have suffered at the hands of those who came over here centuries ago, as well as the equally or even more horrific treatment of indigenous peoples everywhere in the world that has been colonized. Well, if that isn't genocide, then it still comes pretty darn close to being genocide.
It can be very difficult having a rational dialogue with trauma survivors. I know something about this, being myself a survivor of trauma. The indigenous peoples are also struggling to preserve and revitalize their cultures, in many cases all but destroyed by the colonizers. The anger is unarguably justified, but when anger and rage are clouding the conversation, then all that can be done is to find ways of reducing and ameliorating the pain. Basic harm-reduction. I can't really contribute or comment on the conversation, because it isn't my conversation, being neither First Nations, nor a privileged white person. I am racially caucasian, but I have been poor and marginalized all my life, so all I can do is listen, observe and learn.
Which also means expecting that my own assumptions are going to be questioned and challenged and perhaps or hopefully changed. I do cringe when I see the way aboriginal art is often appropriated by non aboriginals, and I especially get annoyed when certain progressive Anglican priests wear local coastal First Nations symbols on their liturgical garments. It still seems at best patronizing, at worse insulting to the essential meaning and purpose of these symbols.
By the same token, I remember back in the late eighties remarking to a young individual involved in rather nefarious spiritual practices who had a little cross dangling from his earring, "What is a neopagan like you doing with such a nice symbol hanging from his ear?" I playfully asked him one day. He just about shat himself as he was saying "How did you know, how did you even guess?" But I did discern that that's what he was doing in his spare time. How I discerned it would be open to opinion and interpretation, but given that I was spending time in the cafe where he worked under the auspices of the Christian street ministry I was then involved with, then perhaps God might have revealed to me something about this young lad's spiritual vocation. An occupational necessity, methinks.
Of course, appropriation happens all the time, is unavoidable, and really we had might as well live with it. Perhaps try to minimize the offence where we can, but people are always going to find something to be offended about. For some of us, well, we seem to thrive on it, though I don't think it's particularly good for my skin.
It can be very difficult having a rational dialogue with trauma survivors. I know something about this, being myself a survivor of trauma. The indigenous peoples are also struggling to preserve and revitalize their cultures, in many cases all but destroyed by the colonizers. The anger is unarguably justified, but when anger and rage are clouding the conversation, then all that can be done is to find ways of reducing and ameliorating the pain. Basic harm-reduction. I can't really contribute or comment on the conversation, because it isn't my conversation, being neither First Nations, nor a privileged white person. I am racially caucasian, but I have been poor and marginalized all my life, so all I can do is listen, observe and learn.
Which also means expecting that my own assumptions are going to be questioned and challenged and perhaps or hopefully changed. I do cringe when I see the way aboriginal art is often appropriated by non aboriginals, and I especially get annoyed when certain progressive Anglican priests wear local coastal First Nations symbols on their liturgical garments. It still seems at best patronizing, at worse insulting to the essential meaning and purpose of these symbols.
By the same token, I remember back in the late eighties remarking to a young individual involved in rather nefarious spiritual practices who had a little cross dangling from his earring, "What is a neopagan like you doing with such a nice symbol hanging from his ear?" I playfully asked him one day. He just about shat himself as he was saying "How did you know, how did you even guess?" But I did discern that that's what he was doing in his spare time. How I discerned it would be open to opinion and interpretation, but given that I was spending time in the cafe where he worked under the auspices of the Christian street ministry I was then involved with, then perhaps God might have revealed to me something about this young lad's spiritual vocation. An occupational necessity, methinks.
Of course, appropriation happens all the time, is unavoidable, and really we had might as well live with it. Perhaps try to minimize the offence where we can, but people are always going to find something to be offended about. For some of us, well, we seem to thrive on it, though I don't think it's particularly good for my skin.
Wednesday, 18 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 52
One cannot talk about this nonsense of cultural appropriation without mentioning dreadlocks on white people. One of the ugliest and most ridiculous symbols of fashion badass I have ever seen. The fact of the matter is dreadlocks, like their predecessor afro hairdos, look good only on people of African heritage. They alone have the right to wear their hair that way, and in the case of dreadlocks, they are symbolic of the Rastafarian religion, so that white guys are treading here on some rather sacred territory.
African people finally putting behind them the baggage and legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, racism, and oppression in the sixties took to boldly and proudly proclaiming their racial heritage as black people through their liberated curly big hair as they let it grow bigger and bigger and bigger. And tonnes of dumb white people decided that they also wanted the same look so they copped it, never mind that they had neither the natural hair texture nor the horrific legacy of oppression and slavery to go with it. It was pretty ridiculous.
There was in the late sixties and early seventies an American Christian black r and b band called the Jeremiah People. Think of the Fifth Dimension on steroids and preaching the Gospel, and you will get an idea of what they were like. Yep, they were that good! They played a couple of gigs in the notorious charismatic church I was attending during my teenage years. During one of their concerts a woman in the band, (like her bandmates, she sported a huge bushy afro) was telling us mostly white people in the audience that white guys wearing afros, with their white skin and blue eyes, look like a chunk of blue cheese stuck in a brillo pad. A bit shocking, yes. But funny, and true, so very very true! Years later, in a random comment in a community newspaper, someone wrote that white guys with dreadlocks look like something that the cat horked up. I still laugh when I think of both those less than flattering references.
I think I can understand some people of African heritage taking offense at their hairstyles being co opted by privileged white fashion badasses (well, they like to think they are being badass anyway. I just think they look stupid. Legends in their own mind) It's kind of like going blackface. It is offensive. And it is a way for privileged white kids from cushy middle class homes to publicly declare "I hate myself". Dreads, as they are commonly called, are still rather common on white people. They used to be everywhere on Commercial Drive, as though springing out from white people's heads like mushrooms after a spring rain. There was even a guy in the coffee shop yesterday, very handsome, very blond, with his very blond hair cascading like overcooked linguini down his strong athletic back. I might have named him Goldilocks! Fortunately he was so plugged into his earbuds and whatever important matters he was seeing on his laptop that I'm sure he couldn't quite hear me making fun of his dreadlock ilk with a friend who also happens to be one of my clients.
Is this to say that white people, and also Asians (who look even more ridiculous with dreads when one thinks of the degrees here of cultural appropriation) should not be allowed to have dreadlocks? Personally, I don't care. I think people are going to and should be allowed to wear their hair however they want, even if they appear dumb, insensitive and downright ignorant. That is part of the beauty of our lives as Canadians. We are free to be as dumb, or as brilliant, or as absurd, or as wonderful as our little hearts would desire.
Naysayers like me are equally free to naysay and sound like pompous virtue-signalling morons, if we want. It's all good. Or, simply, it all just is. We also have the right to insult, and to be insulted, and to give each other supreme shit about it if we want to. Fortunately, for when things get really ugly, we also have hate speech laws. Eventually, one will hope that some of us will become adults, learn to laugh it all off and actually start treating one another with a little more kindness, tact, humility and patience. And respect. We're never going to get it right. That doesn't let us off the hook for not trying, and really by not trying we are simply all going to go down that rabbit hole all the quicker and, Gentle Reader, if we let ourselves get sucked down that particular vortex, it ain't gonna be pretty!
African people finally putting behind them the baggage and legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, racism, and oppression in the sixties took to boldly and proudly proclaiming their racial heritage as black people through their liberated curly big hair as they let it grow bigger and bigger and bigger. And tonnes of dumb white people decided that they also wanted the same look so they copped it, never mind that they had neither the natural hair texture nor the horrific legacy of oppression and slavery to go with it. It was pretty ridiculous.
There was in the late sixties and early seventies an American Christian black r and b band called the Jeremiah People. Think of the Fifth Dimension on steroids and preaching the Gospel, and you will get an idea of what they were like. Yep, they were that good! They played a couple of gigs in the notorious charismatic church I was attending during my teenage years. During one of their concerts a woman in the band, (like her bandmates, she sported a huge bushy afro) was telling us mostly white people in the audience that white guys wearing afros, with their white skin and blue eyes, look like a chunk of blue cheese stuck in a brillo pad. A bit shocking, yes. But funny, and true, so very very true! Years later, in a random comment in a community newspaper, someone wrote that white guys with dreadlocks look like something that the cat horked up. I still laugh when I think of both those less than flattering references.
I think I can understand some people of African heritage taking offense at their hairstyles being co opted by privileged white fashion badasses (well, they like to think they are being badass anyway. I just think they look stupid. Legends in their own mind) It's kind of like going blackface. It is offensive. And it is a way for privileged white kids from cushy middle class homes to publicly declare "I hate myself". Dreads, as they are commonly called, are still rather common on white people. They used to be everywhere on Commercial Drive, as though springing out from white people's heads like mushrooms after a spring rain. There was even a guy in the coffee shop yesterday, very handsome, very blond, with his very blond hair cascading like overcooked linguini down his strong athletic back. I might have named him Goldilocks! Fortunately he was so plugged into his earbuds and whatever important matters he was seeing on his laptop that I'm sure he couldn't quite hear me making fun of his dreadlock ilk with a friend who also happens to be one of my clients.
Is this to say that white people, and also Asians (who look even more ridiculous with dreads when one thinks of the degrees here of cultural appropriation) should not be allowed to have dreadlocks? Personally, I don't care. I think people are going to and should be allowed to wear their hair however they want, even if they appear dumb, insensitive and downright ignorant. That is part of the beauty of our lives as Canadians. We are free to be as dumb, or as brilliant, or as absurd, or as wonderful as our little hearts would desire.
Naysayers like me are equally free to naysay and sound like pompous virtue-signalling morons, if we want. It's all good. Or, simply, it all just is. We also have the right to insult, and to be insulted, and to give each other supreme shit about it if we want to. Fortunately, for when things get really ugly, we also have hate speech laws. Eventually, one will hope that some of us will become adults, learn to laugh it all off and actually start treating one another with a little more kindness, tact, humility and patience. And respect. We're never going to get it right. That doesn't let us off the hook for not trying, and really by not trying we are simply all going to go down that rabbit hole all the quicker and, Gentle Reader, if we let ourselves get sucked down that particular vortex, it ain't gonna be pretty!
Tuesday, 17 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 51
I'm going to begin with cappuccino. I am not drinking cappuccino right now, and usual I don't. I find it pricey, and like most fancy coffee drinks, rather pretentious. And I am not Italian, so for me there is no real cultural reference to uninspiring beverages made of bitter espresso and milk foam. I have had cappuccino before, and at times have even enjoyed it frequently, but always with attendant excuses. I suppose that it could be even said that cappuccino was my beverage of choice in 1990 and 91, but not so fast. In 1990 I was drinking it whenever I visited Taf's Cafe on Granville Street (still open, haven't been there in years). Quite simply, it was a very convenient place to sit at times, given my activity in local street ministry and my healthy disdain for food courts and places like McDonalds and Burger King. They also had a minimum charge policy, so the cappuccino was usually my ticket for an extra half an hour or so.
In London, in 1991, almost all the coffee was horrible. This was post-Thatcher London, and it was bleak. So, one more time, it was cappuccinos. I didn't know yet about cafe Americanos. It was just 1991. Cappuccinos had taken hold in the late seventies, in Vancouver, and to me it was just pretentious. Just give me coffee. Regular, black and bitter coffee. No fancy names. That was still before Starbucks, of course. I remember one young woman just gushing about how much she loved cappuccinos, a tall, pretty, middle class young thing from a privileged home and she was just like a little girl being fed gelato. That was during the rise of yuppies, such as her rather annoying boyfriend.
Just yesterday, I was in a Blenz with one of my clients. They were featuring a special deal on cappuccinos, all creamy white and beguiling in a colourful paper cup. And I thought, what a disgrace! It was the presentation of course. Regardless of what I think of the beverage, if they are going to honour and respect its Italian origins, then the least they can do is present it properly, which is to say in a ceramic cup, preferably with a saucer underneath. Yes, I also know all about the importance of reducing paper and plastic waste because of the environment, and I never order beverages in disposable containers, and for both reasons.
Neither will I go into detail about the ridiculous variety they have pushed some of these beverages derived from Italian coffee drinks. Lavender latte, anyone? How precious. How very twee. All served to you in disposable plastic or paper beverage containers, and no guarantee that the disposed cup will be recycled at the end of the day.
Now there is nothing at all wrong about Italian coffee drinks, and some of them are rather nice. But it seems that anything novel or beautiful that comes our way from distant lands is going to be somehow bastardized by capitalist consumerism. A drink meant to be enjoyed in a lovely ceramic cup at a table, while sitting down, is just one more item to be dumped in a paper cup and carried off to one's work or school, or in the car or on the bus and so anything beautiful about it has been completely lost and destroyed by our rampant consumerism.
I am not going to go so far as to call this cultural appropriation, which to me is rather a useless term whose sole purpose is to get people angry, hostile and defensive. It does make me wonder about why white middle class Canadians are so pathetically bland and characterless that we are constantly grasping at the beverages, foods, clothing and music and art from other countries and cultures. (Just don't get me started about dreadlocks on white people.) And we are not doing this just to honour their cultures, nor to broaden our experience. We rather are showing ourselves to be empty, formless, without purpose, absolutely bland and flavourless, and that we are not going to feel complete as human beings unless we are always gorging on whatever fare comes our way from seemingly more authentic cultures, and even that is not going to make us feel complete.
In London, in 1991, almost all the coffee was horrible. This was post-Thatcher London, and it was bleak. So, one more time, it was cappuccinos. I didn't know yet about cafe Americanos. It was just 1991. Cappuccinos had taken hold in the late seventies, in Vancouver, and to me it was just pretentious. Just give me coffee. Regular, black and bitter coffee. No fancy names. That was still before Starbucks, of course. I remember one young woman just gushing about how much she loved cappuccinos, a tall, pretty, middle class young thing from a privileged home and she was just like a little girl being fed gelato. That was during the rise of yuppies, such as her rather annoying boyfriend.
Just yesterday, I was in a Blenz with one of my clients. They were featuring a special deal on cappuccinos, all creamy white and beguiling in a colourful paper cup. And I thought, what a disgrace! It was the presentation of course. Regardless of what I think of the beverage, if they are going to honour and respect its Italian origins, then the least they can do is present it properly, which is to say in a ceramic cup, preferably with a saucer underneath. Yes, I also know all about the importance of reducing paper and plastic waste because of the environment, and I never order beverages in disposable containers, and for both reasons.
Neither will I go into detail about the ridiculous variety they have pushed some of these beverages derived from Italian coffee drinks. Lavender latte, anyone? How precious. How very twee. All served to you in disposable plastic or paper beverage containers, and no guarantee that the disposed cup will be recycled at the end of the day.
Now there is nothing at all wrong about Italian coffee drinks, and some of them are rather nice. But it seems that anything novel or beautiful that comes our way from distant lands is going to be somehow bastardized by capitalist consumerism. A drink meant to be enjoyed in a lovely ceramic cup at a table, while sitting down, is just one more item to be dumped in a paper cup and carried off to one's work or school, or in the car or on the bus and so anything beautiful about it has been completely lost and destroyed by our rampant consumerism.
I am not going to go so far as to call this cultural appropriation, which to me is rather a useless term whose sole purpose is to get people angry, hostile and defensive. It does make me wonder about why white middle class Canadians are so pathetically bland and characterless that we are constantly grasping at the beverages, foods, clothing and music and art from other countries and cultures. (Just don't get me started about dreadlocks on white people.) And we are not doing this just to honour their cultures, nor to broaden our experience. We rather are showing ourselves to be empty, formless, without purpose, absolutely bland and flavourless, and that we are not going to feel complete as human beings unless we are always gorging on whatever fare comes our way from seemingly more authentic cultures, and even that is not going to make us feel complete.
Monday, 16 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 50
Gentle Reader, the kneejerk theme of cultural appropriation is an annoyance
that simply is not going to go away, not any time soon. And annoying as
this can be, given some of the anguished extremes
the guilt-laden of the privileged classes might want to take as they
give themselves chronic motion sickness on this most energetic
hobby horse, it is still a matter that must be treated with care. Especially
as we are going through the process of reconciliation with
as we are going through the process of reconciliation with
the First Nations of our country, and their concerns have got
to be considered and respected. I am particularly thinking here of young idiots
who wear ceremonial feather headdresses at rock concerts, or rather brainless
prime ministers that once went brownface and blackface, before they found
religion about their dumb privileged behaviour.
Saturday, I heard the guest host on a popular early morning
radio program (he is a young university educated male, not yet
thirty, by the way), wax proundly and solemnly to his guest
(also university educated, male, not yet thirty, or so I would guess), that
the music of Debussy shows profound examples of cultural appropriation, given
the music of Debussy shows profound examples of cultural appropriation, given
the influence of Indonesian gamelan music in some of his piano
compositions. And his guest solemnly
agreed (it might have been the other way around), that yes
compositions. And his guest solemnly
agreed (it might have been the other way around), that yes
it is cultural appropriation. And so another dead white male
composer bites the politically correct dust. I have heard the same being
said about the influence of African ritual art and masks
on the art of Picasso and other painters of his era. But
Picasso never intended to appropriate African art in his painting,
and what is really seen are some African influences in his painting,
every bit as American Jazz and blues owe much to the music
and songs of the black slaves that were brought over from Africa over
two or three centuries.
What I mean to suggest here is, if we are going to go to such literalist
extremes about cultural appropriation, then maybe we
simply ought to abolish every single innovation in western culture over
the last two hundred years or so, and that, of course,
just ain't gonna happen.
There is of course yet another bee in their postmodernist bonnet,
that says that by being a straight white male, nothing good can come from you,
only if you happen to be a woman, queer, trans, a person
of colour, or perhaps from a different species, but here I digress. And
I also fully agree that many worthy composers, artists,
writers, scientists and thinkers have been sidelined throughout
history, simply for not being cis binary caucasians that
pee while standing. I do get it. But could we please have
done with this lame-ass reductive kind of thinking that assumes
that therefore anything that doesn't come from a person
representing a marginalized minority couldn't possibly be
any good? JS Bach, anybody? I mean, as well as Clara Schumann
and Fanny Mendelssohn, both women, and composers every
bit as fine and perhaps even better as their
better known male contemporaries?
I think it's partly because of globalization and the interconnecting of people
from all over the world that is making people in more vulnerable
cultural situations anxious and nervous. Especially people from
aboriginal or indigenous cultures. But we also have to accept that cultural
purity is a myth. That whether or not it is being appropriated by a dominant
colonizing culture or not, cultures are going to seep into
one another. This is always going to be inevitable, because culture is not
static. And it never has been static. It is a living, collective being that changes
and evolves and morphs and mutates over time, and this is also going to involve
such an intermingling that it is going to be incredibly
difficult to not confuse it at times with appropriation.
.
said about the influence of African ritual art and masks
on the art of Picasso and other painters of his era. But
Picasso never intended to appropriate African art in his painting,
and what is really seen are some African influences in his painting,
every bit as American Jazz and blues owe much to the music
and songs of the black slaves that were brought over from Africa over
two or three centuries.
What I mean to suggest here is, if we are going to go to such literalist
extremes about cultural appropriation, then maybe we
simply ought to abolish every single innovation in western culture over
the last two hundred years or so, and that, of course,
just ain't gonna happen.
There is of course yet another bee in their postmodernist bonnet,
that says that by being a straight white male, nothing good can come from you,
only if you happen to be a woman, queer, trans, a person
of colour, or perhaps from a different species, but here I digress. And
I also fully agree that many worthy composers, artists,
writers, scientists and thinkers have been sidelined throughout
history, simply for not being cis binary caucasians that
pee while standing. I do get it. But could we please have
done with this lame-ass reductive kind of thinking that assumes
that therefore anything that doesn't come from a person
representing a marginalized minority couldn't possibly be
any good? JS Bach, anybody? I mean, as well as Clara Schumann
and Fanny Mendelssohn, both women, and composers every
bit as fine and perhaps even better as their
better known male contemporaries?
I think it's partly because of globalization and the interconnecting of people
from all over the world that is making people in more vulnerable
cultural situations anxious and nervous. Especially people from
aboriginal or indigenous cultures. But we also have to accept that cultural
purity is a myth. That whether or not it is being appropriated by a dominant
colonizing culture or not, cultures are going to seep into
one another. This is always going to be inevitable, because culture is not
static. And it never has been static. It is a living, collective being that changes
and evolves and morphs and mutates over time, and this is also going to involve
such an intermingling that it is going to be incredibly
difficult to not confuse it at times with appropriation.
.
I'm thinking of one example of where cultural appropriation can take
on comic effects (and this discussion could use all the humour it can get!).
There was the rector of a church I used to be involved with.
He is German. And loves all things Scottish. So, he took to wearing a kilt.
Now being German, one would imagine that for him
on comic effects (and this discussion could use all the humour it can get!).
There was the rector of a church I used to be involved with.
He is German. And loves all things Scottish. So, he took to wearing a kilt.
Now being German, one would imagine that for him
lederhosen should be the appropriate garb, but one day, following the service,
Marcus appeared in the hall downstairs decked out in his finest Scottish kilt.
I just burst out laughing and shouted, "Nice drag, Marcus!"
You see, I happen to be half Scots and half German, so even though it seemed
really silly, it was also for me a bit confusing
I just burst out laughing and shouted, "Nice drag, Marcus!"
You see, I happen to be half Scots and half German, so even though it seemed
really silly, it was also for me a bit confusing
and weird seeing this German guy parading in a kilt,
and so I decided that it was simply something
worth making a joke about, but not really worth taking very seriously.
But it still did creep me out a bit.
worth making a joke about, but not really worth taking very seriously.
But it still did creep me out a bit.
Now, I understand that in a lot of situations, cultural appropriation is no laughing
matter, and that especially indigenous cultures have every right to expect to
be treated with respect, particularly regarding their symbols and sacred objects.
The question here is, where do we draw the line, and especially, when do we stop
taking ourselves and everything so seriously
matter, and that especially indigenous cultures have every right to expect to
be treated with respect, particularly regarding their symbols and sacred objects.
The question here is, where do we draw the line, and especially, when do we stop
taking ourselves and everything so seriously
that we end up pushing things to rather risible extremes?
For me, to dress in a way that is culturally appropriate, as a Scots-German Canadian,
perhaps I would want to wear lederhosen underneath my kilt, along with a toque and
a lumberjack shirt. Since I am not really gender conforming, perhaps also I could
wear some lovely open toed high heels. And pearls.
I would also have to redecorate my apartment, since it is just full of various symbols
of cultural appropriation. This would mean
wear some lovely open toed high heels. And pearls.
I would also have to redecorate my apartment, since it is just full of various symbols
of cultural appropriation. This would mean
getting rid of my bedspread (Indian cotton print, beautiful and, on my
tight budget, affordable). I would also have to throw out the beautiful sarape
that I bought in Puebla, as well as the shawl from Chiapas, since they are
both Mexican, as well as the beautiful cocoa pot
tight budget, affordable). I would also have to throw out the beautiful sarape
that I bought in Puebla, as well as the shawl from Chiapas, since they are
both Mexican, as well as the beautiful cocoa pot
I bought in Mexico City. Gone would also be my three peacock feathers
(national bird of India, with a lot of cultural symbolic value) as well as the
white eagle feather I found in Stanley park in 2000.
It is after all as pure an indigenous symbol as there is, and really
what is some random white guy doing displaying in his apartment
a nice sacred symbol like that?
(national bird of India, with a lot of cultural symbolic value) as well as the
white eagle feather I found in Stanley park in 2000.
It is after all as pure an indigenous symbol as there is, and really
what is some random white guy doing displaying in his apartment
a nice sacred symbol like that?
Let's just hope in this ongoing discussion about cultural appropriation,
postmodernism and identity politics that cool heads and sound minds
will ultimately prevail,
postmodernism and identity politics that cool heads and sound minds
will ultimately prevail,
with a lot of humour and laughter, and patience, kindness and goodwill as well.
Sunday, 15 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 49
Yesterday, in my church, there was a huge funeral for one of the big shots of the parish. I never new this person, neither did I attend the funeral. I was across the street, occupying my favourite corner in the coffee shop with my sketchbook. I wasn't being intentionally disrespectful. But I didn't know this person, and by all appearances, he was quite wealthy. or I am assuming this by the clothes the many people were wearing whom I could view coming into the church. The reception was held at the Arbutus Club, an exclusive establishment full of old money. The kind of place where I would be neither comfortable nor welcome. I am mentioning this by way of understanding better the parishioners at St Faith's.
I did run into two different parishioners later on, who seemed to be on their way home from the funeral. It turns out the dead man was the same age as my father: 91. A good age, though my father met his maker ten years ago at the now robust young age of 81. It is clear to me that this guy was wealthy, enjoyed privilege and social status and had I known him it is very unlikely that we would be friends. Just as it is unlikely that I could ever be friends with the surviving wealthy parishioners of St. Faith's. There is too much that gets in the way.
Even though it would be nice, and in many ways very helpful, for any of those selfish rich people to reach out to me this Christmas, I don't expect it. I would be very surprised if I was even invited for coffee by any of them because I am still a stranger and an outsider at St. Faith's. Even after a year and a half there, even after making a real effort to know and befriend people. They want people who reflect the neighbourhood, which is to say, not just white people, but some of the local Chinese as well. But not people like me. Not poor people. we will never be made to feel more than superficially welcome.
For me, I will have to struggle again with this Christmas against depression, and possible suicidal ideation, which could so easily be alleviated if anyone were to reach out to me. But wealthy people tend to be also very selfish people. Even at church.
This is Anglican hypocrisy 101
I did run into two different parishioners later on, who seemed to be on their way home from the funeral. It turns out the dead man was the same age as my father: 91. A good age, though my father met his maker ten years ago at the now robust young age of 81. It is clear to me that this guy was wealthy, enjoyed privilege and social status and had I known him it is very unlikely that we would be friends. Just as it is unlikely that I could ever be friends with the surviving wealthy parishioners of St. Faith's. There is too much that gets in the way.
Even though it would be nice, and in many ways very helpful, for any of those selfish rich people to reach out to me this Christmas, I don't expect it. I would be very surprised if I was even invited for coffee by any of them because I am still a stranger and an outsider at St. Faith's. Even after a year and a half there, even after making a real effort to know and befriend people. They want people who reflect the neighbourhood, which is to say, not just white people, but some of the local Chinese as well. But not people like me. Not poor people. we will never be made to feel more than superficially welcome.
For me, I will have to struggle again with this Christmas against depression, and possible suicidal ideation, which could so easily be alleviated if anyone were to reach out to me. But wealthy people tend to be also very selfish people. Even at church.
This is Anglican hypocrisy 101
Saturday, 14 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 48
Good morning, Gentle Reader, and happy Saturday. I'm not sure what kind of nerve my communications
with my parish church about my not being wanted anywhere this Christmas, outside of sanctioned church activities.
Here is an email from the parish manager yesterday (which is to say I got the email yesterday, and I do believe that
she is also the parish manager today.
"Thank you for sharing your feelings about Christmas.
It can often be a difficult time for many people –
even for some who appear to see it as a happy time.
It can often be a difficult time for many people –
even for some who appear to see it as a happy time.
It is important to the church that we provide support to and for each other,
particularly around this time of year. That is why we are intentionally hosting
a post service brunch on Christmas day at St. Faith’s
to ensure all have a meal and companionship.
particularly around this time of year. That is why we are intentionally hosting
a post service brunch on Christmas day at St. Faith’s
to ensure all have a meal and companionship.
We look forward to sharing this time with you."
Thanks, Christine. Will there be anyone available to extend the visit afterward.
I need something that is also away from church. it didn't work out for me last year,
by the way, and I am hoping there will be someone around who will be a bit more available.
This is really a difficult time and unlike the rest of you i have no one. I will be completely alone.
Can we do a bit better, please?
thanks
By way of explanation, Gentle Reader, I did attend the post service brunch last year, then, having nowhere to go, I
felt abandoned and stranded and for the next three days I was struggling with a suicidal intensity of
depression. I do not want to go through that again. But my plea, with the parish manager, anyway, appears
to be falling on deaf ears. She just doesn't seem to be getting it.
Nor does she appear to remember what happened last year, when I told her most clearly and succinctly t
hat the post service brunch did not prevent me from having to struggle in order not to throw myself off the Granville
Bridge.
Here are the rest of my
replies:
To put it another way, I need genuine human connection at Christmas, and if it's just confined to church,
it just feels like people are doing their job and nothing else. Why can't someone just have coffee with me afterward
or something. Why is that too much to ask. Why are you people so selfish?
it just feels like people are doing their job and nothing else. Why can't someone just have coffee with me afterward
or something. Why is that too much to ask. Why are you people so selfish?
And finally, if no one at St. Faith's reaches out to support me this Christmas, and I once again overcome
the temptation to kill myself (came very close last year), then chances are I will consider leaving the parish.
the temptation to kill myself (came very close last year), then chances are I will consider leaving the parish.
And finally, if no one at St. Faith's reaches out to support me this Christmas, and I once again overcome the temptation
to kill myself (came very close last year), then chances are I will consider leaving the parish.
I guess you don't know that I am a PTSD survivor. I was triggered by your email today, and left feeling disoriented.
I got through it okay. Explaining everything to you has helped, but please understand that I need support at Christmas
and I do hope that it will be there for me. It was not last year. I need help. And no one seems interested in offering
help. i hope this year that will change a little. I also would like to talk with you more about this, maybe Sunday.
thanks
to kill myself (came very close last year), then chances are I will consider leaving the parish.
I guess you don't know that I am a PTSD survivor. I was triggered by your email today, and left feeling disoriented.
I got through it okay. Explaining everything to you has helped, but please understand that I need support at Christmas
and I do hope that it will be there for me. It was not last year. I need help. And no one seems interested in offering
help. i hope this year that will change a little. I also would like to talk with you more about this, maybe Sunday.
thanks
aa
In conclusion, I have no family. And I never get invited anywhere for Christmas. Now, are there any questions
as to why I am upset about this? And, yes, if no one treats me like I am wanted around St. Faith's, then there are
going to be consequences. Stay tuned....
In conclusion, I have no family. And I never get invited anywhere for Christmas. Now, are there any questions
as to why I am upset about this? And, yes, if no one treats me like I am wanted around St. Faith's, then there are
going to be consequences. Stay tuned....
Friday, 13 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 47
One more time, Gentle Reader, I am seated in front of this laptop not having a clue what I am going to write. But that's okay. Life goes on, with or without me, with or without you, life is still going to keep going on. Not exactly a comforting notion, this. It kind of reminds us of how inessential we are. We're just here, DNA products of the combined DNA of our parents, who are the products of the combined DNA of their own parents, and so the beat goes on. And on.
We are all so dreadfully mortal. But so wonderfully eternal, as well. I had a dream last night that suggested where I will be living and working after I die. In heaven, I would imagine. But I was talking with a friend who has been dead the last ten years or so, and, in this dream, she is in a wooden house that contains a coffee shop, and apparently I will be living and working there with her. I had an interview with the owner of the place, and we did the whole interview in fluent Spanish. One of my Colombian friends was also visiting and when I was inside, I found a cousin of mine (she died around eight years ago), so we were chatting and I introduced her to my Colombian friend.
Now is this really how things are going to look for me after I die? Who only knows, but the concept is intriguing. In the meantime, we all still have this life to get through. It helps knowing that the really unpleasant parts for me, such as Christmas, are temporary, and that I will get through them, if I just concentrate on being happy for each moment, as a gift, or kind of. But I am a Christian and naturally this should be a particularly joyful time of year for me. Should be. Uh-huh. But it isn't. I can focus on Christ and I can know that he will get me through it, but it never is really joyful for me, knowing that I am not really wanted anywhere (this is not self-pity, by the way, darlings, but the reality of what I experience every year. Suck it up if you don't like reading it!). But neither was Jesus at his birth wanted anywhere, except by his parents, and I don't even have parents, but I'm sure that first Christmas was anything but easy for either Mary or Joseph.
I expect that someone will invite me, at least for a coffee at the neighbourhood Starbucks or Blenz, this Christmas Day. I am simply keeping people at church on alert. Nothing fancy. Dinner isn't essential, just human presence. Could it be more simple, less complicated? Years and years of not being welcome anywhere at Christmas has put a lot of strain on my friendships, and I am concerned that if this also becomes the annual pattern at St. Faith's, even if I survive there as a member, my relationships with the people are going to be always limited, compromised, uncomfortable and even somewhat bitter.
Hello? Anyone out there?
If any of the Anglicans in my parish church, after reading yesterday's blog, will deign to reach out to me on Christmas Day, that will be both a surprise and a blessing. I am not holding my breath. Everyone has their excuses, after all, and the presence of someone who is alone and unwanted can be a major spoiler at any festive occasion. I understand. I do, really.
We are all so dreadfully mortal. But so wonderfully eternal, as well. I had a dream last night that suggested where I will be living and working after I die. In heaven, I would imagine. But I was talking with a friend who has been dead the last ten years or so, and, in this dream, she is in a wooden house that contains a coffee shop, and apparently I will be living and working there with her. I had an interview with the owner of the place, and we did the whole interview in fluent Spanish. One of my Colombian friends was also visiting and when I was inside, I found a cousin of mine (she died around eight years ago), so we were chatting and I introduced her to my Colombian friend.
Now is this really how things are going to look for me after I die? Who only knows, but the concept is intriguing. In the meantime, we all still have this life to get through. It helps knowing that the really unpleasant parts for me, such as Christmas, are temporary, and that I will get through them, if I just concentrate on being happy for each moment, as a gift, or kind of. But I am a Christian and naturally this should be a particularly joyful time of year for me. Should be. Uh-huh. But it isn't. I can focus on Christ and I can know that he will get me through it, but it never is really joyful for me, knowing that I am not really wanted anywhere (this is not self-pity, by the way, darlings, but the reality of what I experience every year. Suck it up if you don't like reading it!). But neither was Jesus at his birth wanted anywhere, except by his parents, and I don't even have parents, but I'm sure that first Christmas was anything but easy for either Mary or Joseph.
I expect that someone will invite me, at least for a coffee at the neighbourhood Starbucks or Blenz, this Christmas Day. I am simply keeping people at church on alert. Nothing fancy. Dinner isn't essential, just human presence. Could it be more simple, less complicated? Years and years of not being welcome anywhere at Christmas has put a lot of strain on my friendships, and I am concerned that if this also becomes the annual pattern at St. Faith's, even if I survive there as a member, my relationships with the people are going to be always limited, compromised, uncomfortable and even somewhat bitter.
Hello? Anyone out there?
If any of the Anglicans in my parish church, after reading yesterday's blog, will deign to reach out to me on Christmas Day, that will be both a surprise and a blessing. I am not holding my breath. Everyone has their excuses, after all, and the presence of someone who is alone and unwanted can be a major spoiler at any festive occasion. I understand. I do, really.
Thursday, 12 December 2019
It's All Performance Art 46
Christmas arrives in thirteen days and I still don't care. Except, that, as always, it looks like I'm going to be at loose ends again and will have to rely on the good will of others to help me get through this. People aren't usually very generous this time of year, unless you are a family member or a friend whom they really value. Well, I don't seem to be really valued by my friends, who always seem to have more important people to see, so they don't mind leaving me stranded. Somehow, I usually find something to do, or one or two people to see, but it's still a struggle. I suppose that I could volunteer somewhere, but it really doesn't feel like an option, as, I am not really connected anywhere. And really I want to be around people who want me there. By the way, I used to make and host Christmas dinners, but then my life went sideways, and now I live in a tiny subsidized bachelor apartment. So, that's no longer an option.
Yesterday I sent my church an email about this. Here is what I wrote them:
It is going to be interesting to see what kind of response I get. And I will also be sending them this blogpost in another email. Usually, my experience with people at church around Christmastime has been very disappointing, and my only expectation has been to be with anyone who wants to hang out and visit. Dinner is not necessary. People or even one person to have coffee with would still be fine. But it seems that no one wants to do even that much with me.
So, if everyone at church leaves me hanging, like they did last year, then it is going to be very awkward for me there for the next few Sundays. I might even quit attending. Permanently. Anyway, people at St. Faith's, you have been put on notice. And I expect to be invited somewhere by someone there on Christmas Day. Prove that you practice what you preach. Practice with me for a couple of hours. After church activities, On Christmas Day. I will buy coffee if you want to just go to Starbucks. You don't have to feed me. I will even bring cookies. Homemade. By me. No excuses. I know you won't want me to blame on some of you yet another near suicidal depression, like the one that almost hobbled me last Christmas. Because no one was there for me. Thanks for understanding. And I will be reporting again on this blog.
Yesterday I sent my church an email about this. Here is what I wrote them:
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mié., 11 dic. 08:44 (hace 19 horas)
|  | ||
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Hi there
Just to remind all of you, Christmas is for me often a nightmare. I have no family and what friends I have are usually missing in action, and during a time when I need support it usually isn't' there. I don't need to be invited for dinner, but it would be nice to have people I can hang out with in the afternoon of Christmas Day, outside of church. In other words, Help, please. Thank you.
So, if everyone at church leaves me hanging, like they did last year, then it is going to be very awkward for me there for the next few Sundays. I might even quit attending. Permanently. Anyway, people at St. Faith's, you have been put on notice. And I expect to be invited somewhere by someone there on Christmas Day. Prove that you practice what you preach. Practice with me for a couple of hours. After church activities, On Christmas Day. I will buy coffee if you want to just go to Starbucks. You don't have to feed me. I will even bring cookies. Homemade. By me. No excuses. I know you won't want me to blame on some of you yet another near suicidal depression, like the one that almost hobbled me last Christmas. Because no one was there for me. Thanks for understanding. And I will be reporting again on this blog.
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