I have just ducked into the library after participating in the huge process (I mean PROTEST, but I will accept this as a meaningful Freudian slip) march that is taking place in time for the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics. I arrived late for the march but one of my bosses (thanks again, George!) was good enough to let me leave
work early for the march. I never know what I am going to encounter in a demonstration and I have participated in a few over the years. With the awful things I have heard about police brutality, tear gas and agents provocateurs I did not want to take chances, especially with nearly a billion bucks worth of security to contend with so I brought my Keffayeh, to shield my face in case of tear gas and earplugs in case the police were going to try out their new sonic toys on us. After a lengthy search that took me from the art gallery along Robson to B.C. Place and a huge phalanx of police (I have never in my life seen so many cops in one place), I finally found the march on Georgia. One of the police asked me why I was walking against the crowd. I said that I was looking for the demonstration, which I hope is the closest I will ever have to come to having to ask a cop for directions to a protest march! No he didn't tell me where they might be.
I might have replied that it is because I enjoy seeing people's faces, and admittedly this is one of my reasons for walking against crowds. They are made up of individual human beings and humans, regardless of how boring they can be, are fascinating! I find that it helps me to see and appreciate the humanity in others, including in police whose humanity must be under perpetual assault just having to do what they do for a living. I was lucky to run into a good friend in the march right away and we talked about how calm this march is as well as enormous. There are thousands out there (the Globe and Mail's estimate is of course conservative, but so is the Globe and Mail, as they claim just over 1,000, but it must be somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000) right now to protest the Olympics reminding the world through the lens they have on our city right now that housing for the homeless and respect for human rights and the environment trumps extravagant sporting events every time in priority. Five choirs joined together to sing in this march and their voices and music are inspiring and they also help lighten the mood, given how pompous and serious us protesters can be sometimes. One song they were singing: "I'll send my love over the mountains; I'll send my love over the sea; I'll send my love into the heavens; and it will return to me." Well, remember the old saying? "Love is the only treasure that grows as you give it away!"
I am going to step back outside to see how the protest is going and I will write more tomorrow.
When I stepped back outside the crowd had diminished to the thousand or so that the Globe and Mail suggests attended. We were right up against the police barricades, drumming and chanting "Homes, not Games; 2010 homes, not 2010 Games; Our streets, our streets, our streets...."; and my favourite, as there were several police on horseback, "Get those animals off those horses." Well, I really do think it is cruel to horses to use them in this manner as well as potentially harmful to the protestors. Throughout, the crowd remained respectful of the barricade. I wish I could say the same about the police, who without the slightest provocation from protestors began to advance forward into the crowd. Fortunately no one was hurt and no arrests were made. The crowd also was considerably more disciplined and self-controlled than in other demonstrations I have been in, with protestors retreating on command by those coordinating the event for moments of quiet. The weather was awful by the way, with rain and huge gusts of wind, but it was wonderful how many, despite the weather turned out for the event. Ironically we were doing this next door to a sports bar with big windows and screens featuring Olympic sports, and crowds of patrons evidently oblivious to the protest and likely to the reasons behind the protest.
This is something I have been noticing throughout the build up towards the Olympics. There appears to be a huge disconnect between your so-called average Canadians and people who care enough about the issues of homelessness, poverty, aboriginal issues and environmental concerns being exacerbated by the Olympic Games. We need somehow to work at bridging these solitudes and this is not going to be easy. I don't think it's so much that a lot of people don't care, they are simply unaware and very vulnerable to the media manipulation, hype and spin that comes with the Games. The torch relay, an invention of Adolf Hitler for the Berlin Games in 1936 is particularly powerful here, and problematic. It seems that the metaphor of fire, especially as a flame being passed from one hand to another on a global run so stirs us in its archetypal power that it has on many people a strong, spiritual or quasi-religious impact, and so much the more given how little real spirituality there seems to be in the lives of many Canadians. Here we have the instinctive archetypal power of fascism at work in an event that is supposed to be secular, apolitical and socially inoccuous.
I am also concerned about the kind of kneejerk, unreflective kind of nationalism and patriotism being inspired by the Olympic Games in Vancouver. It isn't that there is anything particularly wrong with this country (though we have our problems, but yes there are also many good things to be said about Canada.) but this mindless adulation of country is to me symptomatic of the kind of creeping fascism that is in danger of slowly strangling the many progressive social institutions that have marked Canada as a global icon of human rights, peace and social progress.) The flag-waving and cheering patriotism that I have been noticing to me really brings this into emphasis.
I am also concerned that so much importance and symbolic significance is invested in our athletes, as representing us so that many of us unthinkingly transfer onto them our own personal aspirations for excellence. However, and sadly, the performance of the athletes, no matter how wonderful and superhuman, will not be enough to get most of us off the couch and outside where we can work on improving on our own levels of health and fitness. As long as our adopted gods and icons can do it in our proxy I suppose that gets us off the hook for working at our own self-improvement and growth.
I have mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating, how much the Olympics, by fiat of corporate sponsorship have become such a flagship for global capitalism. It is this constant metaphor of competition, relentless unceasing competition such as guarantees the survival of the fittest, and the destruction and dying off of whomsoever cannot successfully compete. This sadly brings to mind that it should be no wonder that the homeless, the most powerless in our society are not only being further threatened by this humongously costly spectacle but that we are likely to be forgotten by most of the "average Canadians" who want only to turn on their TV, watch the athletes perform, cheer for Canada and knock back another beer and another bowl of Doritos.
Global capitalism is like a psychotic tiger and this beast needs badly to be declawed, defanged, muzzled, leashed and caged. The Olympics has mutated from a symbol of social progess and international peace into a catalyst for the Psychotic Tiger of Capitalism. This has to change.
Please pass this on.
from the ground
Aaron
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Friday, 7 February 2014
Olympics Remembered (And Hopefully Soon Forgotten)
Four years ago when Vancouver, where I live, was host city to the Winter Olympics I wrote an e journal about it and frankly I said everything I will ever want to say about it. So on this opening day of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia here is my record of the huge protest on opening day of which I was a participant.
Thursday, 6 February 2014
We Call It Justice
Justice is an interesting word. People often confuse it with revenge or vengeance. They are not the same thing. About ten years ago I was sitting in a café patio with a friend. We had a view of the parking lot which was largely empty. On this Sunday afternoon I noticed standing in the middle of the parking lot a young man with a Dalmatian dog. The dog squatted down to do what doggies are so very good at doing. His human did absolutely nothing to pick up the mess and continued to walk with his dog as though nothing had happened. Only, he stepped in the dog shit. He was wearing sandals, no socks of course. My friend missed the little spectacle but she was not one to look at or to admit to looking at things disagreeable. When I told her she chuckled and said, "Justice." As in stepping in his dog's shit that he refused to clean up it served the little twit right.
For another year or two I continued to patronize the establishment on a weekly basis, meeting one of my clients there for coffee. As many of my readers know I work with adults who have special needs. This client of mine did not, as they say, present very well. His grooming and personal hygiene were something dreadful and not at all representative of the kind of well-heeled, good-looking and fit yuppie that the local chamber of commerce in Kitsilano cares to cultivate. On some days even I have found him gross and disgusting. Still, I have even less stomach for classism and discrimination than for bad grooming and poor hygiene so I was then as I still am ready willing and able to be seen anywhere in public with someone who dresses and smells as though they are not having a very good day.
Eventually we stopped meeting in this café. The owner, a very scary and unpleasant chap accused me one day of using their washroom without buying anything which in Vancouver is considered almost a capital crime. He refused to believe me when I tried to convince him I had just spent half an hour there sipping orange juice, bought on the premises, with my client. I asked the young barista who had served me if he would tell his boss that I\ was a customer in good faith. The young little wanker became suddenly very nervous and uncomfortable and wouldn't say anything on my behalf. Needless to say that would have been my final visit to this café.
It didn't take long to figure out what was really happening. It was clear that this man did not want the likes of my client on the premises but he could only get rid of him by targeting me. I posted a complaint online on Yelp and even got a reply from someone vowing to never return to this café. Recently I went by there and noticed that it was under new ownership with a different name. In a moment of schadenfreud I imagined he had lost his business or something bad had happened to him and he was finally gone from the neighbourhood. I thought, justice is served.
Now after a little reflection I am thinking a bit differently. For all I know this guy might have won the Lottery and bought a condo in Costa Rica. Or maybe he's dead and pushing up daisies. None of my business whether he is doing well or not but who am I to believe that God would be as vindictive and petty as me. Justice is not vengeance.
The friend with whom I first had coffee in this café and I were both attending an evangelical church that had what it called a "Mercy Ministry." This had to do with acts of kindness, charity and help towards vulnerable people, notably the poor and harmless. The people running this church were basically politically right wing and rather harsh towards vulnerable people, at least if they happened to be single low income males. There appeared to be an unspoken judgement that these people ought to be working for a living and that they were getting everything they deserved. Any kindness rendered to them was not really justice but mercy since it was implied that they likely deserved much worse treatment than what we in our mercy ministries had to offer them. They regard as mercy what we in kinder and more liberal houses of worship refer to as justice.
It is my understanding that when God shows us kindness then we can call it mercy. From his hand we actually deserve much worse but instead of looking at what we deserve he sees the love and compassion that we need. God is pure, holy and righteous. And without sin. We humans are none of the above and this is why it is my belief that when God who is righteous is kind to us it is mercy, because whether we deserve it or not he is love and loves us but when we who are unrighteous are kind to one another it is justice. From God we all receive mercy, and when we channel his mercy to one another we call it justice.
For another year or two I continued to patronize the establishment on a weekly basis, meeting one of my clients there for coffee. As many of my readers know I work with adults who have special needs. This client of mine did not, as they say, present very well. His grooming and personal hygiene were something dreadful and not at all representative of the kind of well-heeled, good-looking and fit yuppie that the local chamber of commerce in Kitsilano cares to cultivate. On some days even I have found him gross and disgusting. Still, I have even less stomach for classism and discrimination than for bad grooming and poor hygiene so I was then as I still am ready willing and able to be seen anywhere in public with someone who dresses and smells as though they are not having a very good day.
Eventually we stopped meeting in this café. The owner, a very scary and unpleasant chap accused me one day of using their washroom without buying anything which in Vancouver is considered almost a capital crime. He refused to believe me when I tried to convince him I had just spent half an hour there sipping orange juice, bought on the premises, with my client. I asked the young barista who had served me if he would tell his boss that I\ was a customer in good faith. The young little wanker became suddenly very nervous and uncomfortable and wouldn't say anything on my behalf. Needless to say that would have been my final visit to this café.
It didn't take long to figure out what was really happening. It was clear that this man did not want the likes of my client on the premises but he could only get rid of him by targeting me. I posted a complaint online on Yelp and even got a reply from someone vowing to never return to this café. Recently I went by there and noticed that it was under new ownership with a different name. In a moment of schadenfreud I imagined he had lost his business or something bad had happened to him and he was finally gone from the neighbourhood. I thought, justice is served.
Now after a little reflection I am thinking a bit differently. For all I know this guy might have won the Lottery and bought a condo in Costa Rica. Or maybe he's dead and pushing up daisies. None of my business whether he is doing well or not but who am I to believe that God would be as vindictive and petty as me. Justice is not vengeance.
The friend with whom I first had coffee in this café and I were both attending an evangelical church that had what it called a "Mercy Ministry." This had to do with acts of kindness, charity and help towards vulnerable people, notably the poor and harmless. The people running this church were basically politically right wing and rather harsh towards vulnerable people, at least if they happened to be single low income males. There appeared to be an unspoken judgement that these people ought to be working for a living and that they were getting everything they deserved. Any kindness rendered to them was not really justice but mercy since it was implied that they likely deserved much worse treatment than what we in our mercy ministries had to offer them. They regard as mercy what we in kinder and more liberal houses of worship refer to as justice.
It is my understanding that when God shows us kindness then we can call it mercy. From his hand we actually deserve much worse but instead of looking at what we deserve he sees the love and compassion that we need. God is pure, holy and righteous. And without sin. We humans are none of the above and this is why it is my belief that when God who is righteous is kind to us it is mercy, because whether we deserve it or not he is love and loves us but when we who are unrighteous are kind to one another it is justice. From God we all receive mercy, and when we channel his mercy to one another we call it justice.
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
Books
I just splurged almost forty bucks on two new books, both of them Spanish translations of novels written respectively in Swedish and English. They are "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest", the last and thickest volume of the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson and "House Rules" by Jodi Picoult. The titles in Spanish are, respectively, "La reina en el palacio de las corrientes de aire", or translated literally, "The Queen of the Draughty Palace." "House Rules" translates directly as "Las normas de la casa." I know I can afford the books and as I mentioned to the staff person who waited on me at Chapters I have been building my library for the past fourteen years. They are both very thick books, averaging around eight hundred pages each. I have a particular reason for favouring big books in Spanish. They last longer while reading them thus sparing me the need of having to look too soon for new books. The availability of Spanish books here in Vancouver is quite limited. Almost all the second hand book stores where I used to buy them have closed down as well as the only Spanish book store in town. Apart from a modest selection at Chapters and just two or three in the Book Warehouse I have to wait for my annual trip to Mexico City if I expect to buy more books in Spanish. While Mexico City is full of many wonderful book stores--and a lot of them have good restaurants or fine cafes in them--, books are heavy to carry back with me to Canada so I have to limit my selection.
For this reason I prefer big books. This is becoming a bit of a good thing. I must have now almost one hundred books in Spanish cramming my little apartment that I haven't read yet. I am sure that I should be good till my retirement in seven years and longer. Along with my English books, which I also read by the way, I have probably around five hundred twenty books altogether minus the twenty or so that I have just given away to my Spanish conversation group.
Building a library has been a quiet and nonstop passion to me for the past one and a half decades. When I was homeless in 1998 I gave up most of my books, but for my bird books and a few cherished tomes I could still carry with me. In 2000 I, living in a tiny room in a shared house, found by the roadside a small book shelf which I brought home with me, determined to fill it with books. I was still very poor then. I found books everywhere. Sometimes left in a box for free on the sidewalk or in the many second hand bookstores that still flourished here. Every volume I purchased or found had a new home with me and I cherished it like a lost kitten.
In 2002 I found my current apartment, where I still live twelve years later. For five years there was a lovely second hand book store across the street from me, with a huge selection of very reasonably (cheaply) priced books and even an impressive selection of books in Spanish in the basement. One of their features I loved was a wooden barrel on the sidewalk in front overflowing with cheap paperbacks going for twenty-five cents a pop. In 2007 they moved across the bridge to Broadway and Granville. I still shopped there but not as often. They closed over a year ago and a dollar store stands in their place, much as a sweatshop factory outlet has replaced the Book Warehouse on Davie Street, which is for lease again and who knows what is going to open there next. A book store? Oh, what a dreamer I am.
Four tall book cases here in my little bachelor unit lean and groan beneath the weight of books. in the space above my upper kitchen cupboard I have a full set of World Book Encyclopaedias with annual supplements, vintage 1971. In 2004 I bought them in a second hand store downstairs from my building for thirty-five dollars. My reason? Not really for the information since they were obviously dated and the material biased, but from a sense of nostalgia for my lost childhood when my family had a 1966 set of World Book. I sometimes look at them and read some of the articles with a mixture of nostalgia, curiosity and ironic good humour for these books are a window into the time I lived as a young teenager. I am also holding out in hope that eventually well-preserved encyclopaedia sets are going to have a vintage value and will one day be valued as collectors' items. I might have to wait till I'm ninety before I can get a decent price for them but till then I am holding on to my encyclopaedias.
I love having my own library. I intentionally buy books far faster than I can read them. I want them to be here at hand for me to browse at random as though I am visiting the library or a book store. It is lovely and special being able to reach for any one of hundreds of books I either haven't read or haven't finished reading or would love to look at again as a way to pass the time on a quiet evening or Sunday afternoon. Especially in this age of Kindle and E Books I hope to live out my senior years surrounded by real paper and ink books. You see, I don't like looking too long at terminal screens. Perhaps I'm old fashioned but somehow it doesn't seem healthy or good for the eyes to be looking for long periods at a lit screen and recent research indicates that this is true. The books, visible from their shelves are like friends and somehow seeing them there and being able to read them is like being among friends. I also have twenty beautifully illustrated bird books which have been invaluable for informing my art.
I know that accruing so many books in a small living space is a bit impractical and that when I move it is going to a royal pain in the heiny packing and moving them, but I will look at this as a noble sacrifice. If I don't buy or pick up any new books for another twenty years there will likely still be books on my shelves that I have not read. I am still going to continue buying them, but not as many as before.
I will close with this lovely anecdote. When I became homeless I lost some pieces very precious to me. One is a book of North American birds that my mother bought for me when I was eleven. The other is a book of the writings of English Christian Medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich, "Revelations of Divine Love." A friend of mine found Julian of Norwich in a second hand store, bought it and returned it to me. The bird book I re-encountered in an antiquarian bookstore. The owner said he had somehow obtained it from the owner of the bookstore where I had dropped off the biggest pile from my previous library. I bought the book and when I brought it home I positively wept in a sense of relief, shame, grief, joy and ecstasy.
For this reason I prefer big books. This is becoming a bit of a good thing. I must have now almost one hundred books in Spanish cramming my little apartment that I haven't read yet. I am sure that I should be good till my retirement in seven years and longer. Along with my English books, which I also read by the way, I have probably around five hundred twenty books altogether minus the twenty or so that I have just given away to my Spanish conversation group.
Building a library has been a quiet and nonstop passion to me for the past one and a half decades. When I was homeless in 1998 I gave up most of my books, but for my bird books and a few cherished tomes I could still carry with me. In 2000 I, living in a tiny room in a shared house, found by the roadside a small book shelf which I brought home with me, determined to fill it with books. I was still very poor then. I found books everywhere. Sometimes left in a box for free on the sidewalk or in the many second hand bookstores that still flourished here. Every volume I purchased or found had a new home with me and I cherished it like a lost kitten.
In 2002 I found my current apartment, where I still live twelve years later. For five years there was a lovely second hand book store across the street from me, with a huge selection of very reasonably (cheaply) priced books and even an impressive selection of books in Spanish in the basement. One of their features I loved was a wooden barrel on the sidewalk in front overflowing with cheap paperbacks going for twenty-five cents a pop. In 2007 they moved across the bridge to Broadway and Granville. I still shopped there but not as often. They closed over a year ago and a dollar store stands in their place, much as a sweatshop factory outlet has replaced the Book Warehouse on Davie Street, which is for lease again and who knows what is going to open there next. A book store? Oh, what a dreamer I am.
Four tall book cases here in my little bachelor unit lean and groan beneath the weight of books. in the space above my upper kitchen cupboard I have a full set of World Book Encyclopaedias with annual supplements, vintage 1971. In 2004 I bought them in a second hand store downstairs from my building for thirty-five dollars. My reason? Not really for the information since they were obviously dated and the material biased, but from a sense of nostalgia for my lost childhood when my family had a 1966 set of World Book. I sometimes look at them and read some of the articles with a mixture of nostalgia, curiosity and ironic good humour for these books are a window into the time I lived as a young teenager. I am also holding out in hope that eventually well-preserved encyclopaedia sets are going to have a vintage value and will one day be valued as collectors' items. I might have to wait till I'm ninety before I can get a decent price for them but till then I am holding on to my encyclopaedias.
I love having my own library. I intentionally buy books far faster than I can read them. I want them to be here at hand for me to browse at random as though I am visiting the library or a book store. It is lovely and special being able to reach for any one of hundreds of books I either haven't read or haven't finished reading or would love to look at again as a way to pass the time on a quiet evening or Sunday afternoon. Especially in this age of Kindle and E Books I hope to live out my senior years surrounded by real paper and ink books. You see, I don't like looking too long at terminal screens. Perhaps I'm old fashioned but somehow it doesn't seem healthy or good for the eyes to be looking for long periods at a lit screen and recent research indicates that this is true. The books, visible from their shelves are like friends and somehow seeing them there and being able to read them is like being among friends. I also have twenty beautifully illustrated bird books which have been invaluable for informing my art.
I know that accruing so many books in a small living space is a bit impractical and that when I move it is going to a royal pain in the heiny packing and moving them, but I will look at this as a noble sacrifice. If I don't buy or pick up any new books for another twenty years there will likely still be books on my shelves that I have not read. I am still going to continue buying them, but not as many as before.
I will close with this lovely anecdote. When I became homeless I lost some pieces very precious to me. One is a book of North American birds that my mother bought for me when I was eleven. The other is a book of the writings of English Christian Medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich, "Revelations of Divine Love." A friend of mine found Julian of Norwich in a second hand store, bought it and returned it to me. The bird book I re-encountered in an antiquarian bookstore. The owner said he had somehow obtained it from the owner of the bookstore where I had dropped off the biggest pile from my previous library. I bought the book and when I brought it home I positively wept in a sense of relief, shame, grief, joy and ecstasy.
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
The DSM Tells Me So
What's with this tendency nowadays to pathologize everything? I understand that the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual, or, the Psychiatrist's Bible) this year is now bigger than ever with a whole plethora of new and invented mental health diagnoses. What is going on here? Yesterday and Sunday I had to do battle with a potential episode of depression while pondering how easily as a child I could have been falsely diagnosed with any number of mental health maladies, especially Asperger's Syndrome.
It is actually a counsellor I am currently seeing who suggested that as a child I might have had borderline Asperger's and I think she may have a point. I was exceptionally bright, talked like an encyclopedia, sucked at sports and was too awkward and uncoordinated to learn to ride a bike. On the other hand, I had very good social and communication skills, had tremendous empathy and was very sensitive and aware of other people and what was happening to them. Probably the jury is still out but I think I might have been vulnerable to that diagnosis.
Does this means that I have or once had Asperger's. Does this suggest that I may be, if not mentally ill, then maybe..."abnormal?" Or is it more that there may be something terribly wrong with this vogue of using clinical terminology that we toss around in order to define and codify any kind of behaviour that could be just even a little bit unusual? I am not going quite so far (but maybe almost) as suggest there is no such thing as mental illness. And as a mental health worker myself I am very cognizant of the need for psychotropic medications, at least under certain circumstances. Often diagnosis can be necessary, if a necessary evil, to help us make sense of and contextualize certain behaviours, patterns of behaviour and the corresponding brain chemistry that can be clearly understood as paranoid schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder. But when even mildly unusual or eccentric behaviour gets targeted as something negative and is named any number of pathologies from the psychobabble grab bag then it is time to sit up and take notice.
I find it interesting that in this age of cultural diversity and cosmopolitanism that more than ever a certain social conformity seems to have become de rigueur. We live now, here in Canada, anyway, or should I say in Vancouver, in well-integrated societies where people of all nationalities, races, and sexual orientations can feel comfortable and at home. I wonder if, as a way of digesting and counter-balancing this wonderful and sometimes crazy diversity we have come to insist, albeit passively and unconsciously that everyone has to be otherwise more or less the same in our values and in the way we talk, dress, live, consume and work and play. If we do not fit within these narrow unspoken grids then we are unusual, but not just unusual but strange, and not simply strange but perhaps just a little bit ill.
People have to earn a certain minimum income while working within a narrow range of occupations thanks to a certain level of schooling (usually but not always university), patronize reasonably fashionable restaurants, drink in a certain range of bars (or anywhere else, but they're all expected to not be non-imbibers), have no interest in religion (but spirituality, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, is okay), visit the gym or at least participate in yoga, tai-chi, or run every day, which is to say make a god out of physical fitness and physical beauty and youth...In other words, if you are not the same flavour of bland as everyone else then you are at the very least suspect, if not considered worthy of a mental health diagnosis.
This isn't to say that within this tepid so-called "Creative Class" (which is neither) that there isn't going to be your fair share of seething eccentricity and individuals who are simply jonesing to be, well, individuals. We are everywhere. But anyone who has the cojones or at least the lack of self-restraint to actually be and openly express who we are? Oh no, off to the Mental Health Team, get a diagnosis and don't forget your prescription dear.
We are all casualties of capitalism: not small business entrepreneurship and mom and pop shop type capitalism but that big nasty fiscal cancer that is metastasizing everywhere. To do global capitalism well we have to make ourselves competitive and bland conformity is safer than eccentric individualism which simply does not sell because it is not market friendly. Those who do not adapt and conform are inherently weak, or ill or both and for this reason we have such a growing rate of mental health diagnoses that the medical health system is unable to cope or keep up. All the giftedness, creativity, real authentic spirituality, intelligence and integrity that makes us truly human and that can really redeem us out of this bland useless porridge of conformism and mediocrity has to be battened down, repressed, imprisoned and medicated out of existence because it makes us uncompetitive. If it isn't all based on greed, self-interest and being competitive it is thrown to the side of the road like road kill and by giving our consent to this we are rapidly undermining our humanity and gradually destroying any chance we have for developing authentic community in a tragically inauthentic world.
Fight this. Reclaim yourselves. Resist this madness by going beautifully and authentically crazy. As long as you develop sufficient social skills and emotional intelligence to get along well with others you will otherwise do fine.
It is actually a counsellor I am currently seeing who suggested that as a child I might have had borderline Asperger's and I think she may have a point. I was exceptionally bright, talked like an encyclopedia, sucked at sports and was too awkward and uncoordinated to learn to ride a bike. On the other hand, I had very good social and communication skills, had tremendous empathy and was very sensitive and aware of other people and what was happening to them. Probably the jury is still out but I think I might have been vulnerable to that diagnosis.
Does this means that I have or once had Asperger's. Does this suggest that I may be, if not mentally ill, then maybe..."abnormal?" Or is it more that there may be something terribly wrong with this vogue of using clinical terminology that we toss around in order to define and codify any kind of behaviour that could be just even a little bit unusual? I am not going quite so far (but maybe almost) as suggest there is no such thing as mental illness. And as a mental health worker myself I am very cognizant of the need for psychotropic medications, at least under certain circumstances. Often diagnosis can be necessary, if a necessary evil, to help us make sense of and contextualize certain behaviours, patterns of behaviour and the corresponding brain chemistry that can be clearly understood as paranoid schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder. But when even mildly unusual or eccentric behaviour gets targeted as something negative and is named any number of pathologies from the psychobabble grab bag then it is time to sit up and take notice.
People have to earn a certain minimum income while working within a narrow range of occupations thanks to a certain level of schooling (usually but not always university), patronize reasonably fashionable restaurants, drink in a certain range of bars (or anywhere else, but they're all expected to not be non-imbibers), have no interest in religion (but spirituality, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, is okay), visit the gym or at least participate in yoga, tai-chi, or run every day, which is to say make a god out of physical fitness and physical beauty and youth...In other words, if you are not the same flavour of bland as everyone else then you are at the very least suspect, if not considered worthy of a mental health diagnosis.
This isn't to say that within this tepid so-called "Creative Class" (which is neither) that there isn't going to be your fair share of seething eccentricity and individuals who are simply jonesing to be, well, individuals. We are everywhere. But anyone who has the cojones or at least the lack of self-restraint to actually be and openly express who we are? Oh no, off to the Mental Health Team, get a diagnosis and don't forget your prescription dear.
We are all casualties of capitalism: not small business entrepreneurship and mom and pop shop type capitalism but that big nasty fiscal cancer that is metastasizing everywhere. To do global capitalism well we have to make ourselves competitive and bland conformity is safer than eccentric individualism which simply does not sell because it is not market friendly. Those who do not adapt and conform are inherently weak, or ill or both and for this reason we have such a growing rate of mental health diagnoses that the medical health system is unable to cope or keep up. All the giftedness, creativity, real authentic spirituality, intelligence and integrity that makes us truly human and that can really redeem us out of this bland useless porridge of conformism and mediocrity has to be battened down, repressed, imprisoned and medicated out of existence because it makes us uncompetitive. If it isn't all based on greed, self-interest and being competitive it is thrown to the side of the road like road kill and by giving our consent to this we are rapidly undermining our humanity and gradually destroying any chance we have for developing authentic community in a tragically inauthentic world.
Fight this. Reclaim yourselves. Resist this madness by going beautifully and authentically crazy. As long as you develop sufficient social skills and emotional intelligence to get along well with others you will otherwise do fine.
Monday, 3 February 2014
I'm Sorry
Ah...the apology. That most convenient and irreplaceable of social lubricants. How many of us feel suddenly and miraculously better when the klutz who just stepped on your foot on the bus turns around and says, "I'm sorry." How many conversations are redeemed from degenerating into pointless quarrels and worse by a simple admission and apology for mishearing or misunderstanding each other? How many marriages and deep friendships have been rescued from train wreck when both partners are ready willing and able to own up and say "I'm sorry."?
My mother hated apologies. Her two least favourite words appeared to be "I'm sorry." I never once recall her either saying those words or graciously accepting any apology no matter how sincerely rendered, by anyone.. For Mom the word sorry was a verb. There had to be credible evidence of repentance or she would have none of it. Is it any wonder that she eventually divorced my father's sorry ass?
Do you know the joke, "How do you know when you're just stepped on a Canadian's foot?" The answer? "He apologizes." Yes, I am a Canadian. And I apologize all the time. Constantly. Without knowing it. And I am proud of this. I apologize if I get in someone's way on the sidewalk, or if I unintentionally touch a stranger on the bus, or if something I said was misunderstood or misinterpreted, or if I am the one who misunderstood or misinterpreted. If someone gets upset with me I apologize. If I offend I apologize. I know it's excessive. But you know something? This is part of the beauty of being Canadian. We care enough to tell others that their comfort and dignity matters to us.
At least this is the way I interpret it. Some, perhaps many, may approach this more cynically, that saying sorry is a way of buying time, of escaping consequences, of saving your heiny. And it is all of these things and more. Even though the chronic apology is one of many things that mark me as Canadian there is the possibility that I use the apology for not precisely the same reason as others. I actually care about other people. Perhaps this is because I'm a Christian, and that I take my faith very seriously? Who can say? When I leave my place every morning I remind myself that I will be encountering Christ everywhere, in the form and face of every single person I encounter. This is no guarantee that I am going to treat everyone well whom I meet. On some days when I leave the apartment I might be very angry at God. I am also aware that not everyone thinks this way, perhaps only a few, maybe one or two. Or perhaps I'm the only one? That is a very scary thought, that I would be the only person in Vancouver who would actually attempt to see and respond to the presence of God in every stranger I encounter in my daily comings and goings. But I actually believe that there are others.
I don't always remember to do this. I often forget, especially if someone has been particularly offensive towards me. Perhaps I could at least appreciate their very legitimate need to be loved? I will, I will, God being my help. And I'm sure I won't be sorry.
My mother hated apologies. Her two least favourite words appeared to be "I'm sorry." I never once recall her either saying those words or graciously accepting any apology no matter how sincerely rendered, by anyone.. For Mom the word sorry was a verb. There had to be credible evidence of repentance or she would have none of it. Is it any wonder that she eventually divorced my father's sorry ass?
Do you know the joke, "How do you know when you're just stepped on a Canadian's foot?" The answer? "He apologizes." Yes, I am a Canadian. And I apologize all the time. Constantly. Without knowing it. And I am proud of this. I apologize if I get in someone's way on the sidewalk, or if I unintentionally touch a stranger on the bus, or if something I said was misunderstood or misinterpreted, or if I am the one who misunderstood or misinterpreted. If someone gets upset with me I apologize. If I offend I apologize. I know it's excessive. But you know something? This is part of the beauty of being Canadian. We care enough to tell others that their comfort and dignity matters to us.
At least this is the way I interpret it. Some, perhaps many, may approach this more cynically, that saying sorry is a way of buying time, of escaping consequences, of saving your heiny. And it is all of these things and more. Even though the chronic apology is one of many things that mark me as Canadian there is the possibility that I use the apology for not precisely the same reason as others. I actually care about other people. Perhaps this is because I'm a Christian, and that I take my faith very seriously? Who can say? When I leave my place every morning I remind myself that I will be encountering Christ everywhere, in the form and face of every single person I encounter. This is no guarantee that I am going to treat everyone well whom I meet. On some days when I leave the apartment I might be very angry at God. I am also aware that not everyone thinks this way, perhaps only a few, maybe one or two. Or perhaps I'm the only one? That is a very scary thought, that I would be the only person in Vancouver who would actually attempt to see and respond to the presence of God in every stranger I encounter in my daily comings and goings. But I actually believe that there are others.
I don't always remember to do this. I often forget, especially if someone has been particularly offensive towards me. Perhaps I could at least appreciate their very legitimate need to be loved? I will, I will, God being my help. And I'm sure I won't be sorry.
Sunday, 2 February 2014
Parent Advisory: Contains Christian Content
I was mentioning to our new priest recently about how I would like to help facilitate a better sense of community in our little Anglican parish in Vancouver's famous West End. I am still hobbling around now on crutches looking for some kind Samaritan to lend me a shoe horn to pry my foot out of my mouth. I have, since expressing this offer, been coming up against just how little tolerance I have for some kinds of behaviour. I am not intolerant, I really try to hate everyone equally. I am not necessarily irritable but I can at times be easily irritated. During the Eucharist this morning an elderly lady, as I predicted, was seated in my usual place. I have recently become possessive, or should I say, a bit territorial about a certain spot on the pew third to the back on the left hand side of the church, on the end of the pew near the window side where it is shortened to accommodate a pillar. I like to sit right next to this pillar. This woman only sits there once a month, the first Sunday, when we have our combined service. She is during the balance of the month at the early service. I am not terribly fond of this lady. She is very elderly, in her eighties, British working class, really a very sweet friendly kind person, but a dreadful busybody with poor boundaries and I do not like busybodies with poor boundaries. I suppose I am still wary of her. She is the kind of person whom, even if you're feeling perfectly fine and having a great day, she will sidle up to you and ask you what is troubling you and to please tell her all about it, and then if you swallow the bait, she doesn't really listen to you then goes on about something that has nothing to do with what you just told her. So, I try to stay away from her. She was seated in my usual place and I tried to coach myself to not be bothered about it, since she is an old lady, and it is good for me to not be territorial. Besides, despite her great age she has an advantage in that she lives next door to the church and can get there a lot faster than me.
Feeling actually surprisingly unbothered, I chose a pew two in front of her where I positioned myself near the aisle. Then arrived a couple who are veteran members of the parish who sat right behind me. He has a very loud voice and almost shouts the responses during the liturgy. Eventually my head began to hurt so I gathered up all my stuff and moved to the back pew.
Downstairs we were gathering together for our monthly book club meeting. The lesbian couple still isn't speaking to me but of course they wanted to attend the meeting so we at least got to practice sitting in the same room at the same time. A newcomer also arrived with his wife. This man is a published author who appears to have a high opinion of his intelligence as well as his mystical experiences. We have already got off to a bad start, in case you're wondering. A few weeks ago as we were chatting over coffee following the Eucharist he expressed surprise that I am still working. He thought that I had retired years ago and expressed shock that I am not yet fifty-eight. He also suggested that my field of work, mental health, has probably aged me! The conversation did not end well and he took care to avoid me for a few weeks. Today, having a conversation with the meeting facilitator, seated at my right, he got up and walked closer, standing just at my right, apparently oblivious that with his loud voice that I might be having to listen to them in stereo. I asked him nicely if he wouldn't mind moving to the other side. He wanted to know why. I replied that I was hearing them both in stereo. He said, "So?" I replied, "Well, I don't like it." The bozo immediately got the message and returned to his seat where he sank down in a sulk. Now this is a man who must be at least in his late sixties if not older.
During much of the meeting, while we were figuring out which books we would be reading and studying together, he waxed on about a book he has written that we must read together and brought a copy to pass around. I found him to be quite a blow-hard as he went into detail about his theology and sense of Christ's immediate presence etcetera and I could only keep my mouth shut and think about the importance of living out our faith and that no matter how much knowledge or clever insight we might accrue that the bottom line is that we live and walk in love.
This is to say that throughout my time in church today I have been challenged to stop judging, to shut up, listen, pay attention to the pain that other people are experiencing (two people in the book club have lost their mothers in recent weeks and another's mother may be gravely ill), to cut people slack, to consider and embrace the many good qualities that the old guy has, and he has many, and one other thing...
That I consider that the way others are seeing me is not necessarily going to line up with the way that I see myself, or how I necessarily want to be seen.
Feeling actually surprisingly unbothered, I chose a pew two in front of her where I positioned myself near the aisle. Then arrived a couple who are veteran members of the parish who sat right behind me. He has a very loud voice and almost shouts the responses during the liturgy. Eventually my head began to hurt so I gathered up all my stuff and moved to the back pew.
Downstairs we were gathering together for our monthly book club meeting. The lesbian couple still isn't speaking to me but of course they wanted to attend the meeting so we at least got to practice sitting in the same room at the same time. A newcomer also arrived with his wife. This man is a published author who appears to have a high opinion of his intelligence as well as his mystical experiences. We have already got off to a bad start, in case you're wondering. A few weeks ago as we were chatting over coffee following the Eucharist he expressed surprise that I am still working. He thought that I had retired years ago and expressed shock that I am not yet fifty-eight. He also suggested that my field of work, mental health, has probably aged me! The conversation did not end well and he took care to avoid me for a few weeks. Today, having a conversation with the meeting facilitator, seated at my right, he got up and walked closer, standing just at my right, apparently oblivious that with his loud voice that I might be having to listen to them in stereo. I asked him nicely if he wouldn't mind moving to the other side. He wanted to know why. I replied that I was hearing them both in stereo. He said, "So?" I replied, "Well, I don't like it." The bozo immediately got the message and returned to his seat where he sank down in a sulk. Now this is a man who must be at least in his late sixties if not older.
During much of the meeting, while we were figuring out which books we would be reading and studying together, he waxed on about a book he has written that we must read together and brought a copy to pass around. I found him to be quite a blow-hard as he went into detail about his theology and sense of Christ's immediate presence etcetera and I could only keep my mouth shut and think about the importance of living out our faith and that no matter how much knowledge or clever insight we might accrue that the bottom line is that we live and walk in love.
This is to say that throughout my time in church today I have been challenged to stop judging, to shut up, listen, pay attention to the pain that other people are experiencing (two people in the book club have lost their mothers in recent weeks and another's mother may be gravely ill), to cut people slack, to consider and embrace the many good qualities that the old guy has, and he has many, and one other thing...
That I consider that the way others are seeing me is not necessarily going to line up with the way that I see myself, or how I necessarily want to be seen.
Saturday, 1 February 2014
Walking Across The Universe
I have never learned how to drive. I have never learned how to swim. I have never learned how to ride a bike. Wow. Anyone reading this must be thinking, What is wrong with the poor bugger? What kind of life has he had? He hasn't had a life. I know that at first glance this admission seems quite pathetic. It has always been a cause of embarrassment that these things, these fundamental rights of passage through childhood into adolescence and adulthood have never occurred to me. Yet, when people meet me, not knowing any of these three little details about me, they all seem to assume that I have led a rich, full and interesting life. And, you know, I have, barring those three little details.
I remember when my mom enrolled me in swimming lessons. I somehow could never convince my body to float and naturally I feared drowning so whenever I let go of the edge of the pool or the supportive instructor I would fly into a panic, thrash around like a hooked carp and grab for the first solid object of support, usually the upper body of the poor instructor. I think I was eleven then or twelve. It didn't really feel like a great loss at the time because I was not crazy about the public pool and swimming only seemed like a good idea because Mom was so intent on selling me on it. She was never on hand to watch, coach, support or teach me however. She didn't know herself how to swim, though she would never admit it, simply mumbling and fumbling that she could maybe swim a little, and didn't seem interested in learning. Likewise my father. I think maybe he could swim a bit but obviously did not care whether I did or not, and besides, he was absent all summer on his fishing boat.
I felt the same pressure from Mom to learn how to ride a bike. This was in the sixties, when only kids went around on bicycles. If you were sixteen or older you were expected to drive. Bicycles as a popular form of transportation only began to come into vogue in the early Seventies. I always had trouble balancing on a bike and somehow could not comfortably go fast enough in order to keep it upright. In my few lame attempts I kept falling down and didn't feel I'd ever get anywhere. I was, and still am, naturally slow, and even though my reflexes are normal I still don't do speed at all well. Where were my parents and my big brother at the time? Well, your guess is as good as mine.
When I was seventeen and living for four upsetting months with my dad, who worked in an auto body shop as well as being a commercial fisherman, had a used car, a Ford Falcon to get rid of and offered it to me if I would learn how to drive. I can't remember if he offered to teach me or not but for all sorts of reasons then, some of them unknown to me at the time, my old man creeped the bejesus out of me (I was at that time in complete total denial about the sexual abuse). There is another reason I turned down his offer. I didn't want to be like him. I wanted nothing to do with cars which in my view guzzled fossil fuels and polluted the air, and yes, even at the tender age of seventeen in 1973 I was part of the vanguard of the environmental movement.
I learned none of the approved modes of transportation. I was a walker, a pedestrian, a hiker. I walked everywhere. I loved it. Sole of foot touching the ground. Of course a more grounding experience than any, and yes, I loved the grounding experience of walking. In the summers when I was seventeen and eighteen I often went barefoot, despite the discomfort, especially walking on gravel and beach rocks, but the need to touch the earth with the skin of the bottom of my feet was something very important to me. I still don't understand why and perhaps here there is no why that needs to be understood.
Walking everywhere, as well as providing me with splendid exercise, has taken me places that I would not have seen from a car. It has enabled me to pause, to watch, see, observe, listen and hear. All the details surrounding me have become emblazoned in my long-term memory: old houses, their colour, details of stain and prism glass, verandas, windows, the colour of the paint that covers them,
special trees, gardens, flowers (whether a special patch of purple crocuses in February
or delphiniums and poppies in June)
, certain birds, people, friendly cats and dogs, tiny but painfully lovely neighbourhood parks. This Anna's Hummingbird I have seen twice this week in different neighbourhoods and likely different birds because I happen to walk everywhere.
I still feel often like a tourist in this city I have always called home because my proclivity for walking often takes me into places I have never seen or places that I still learn to see anew each time I visit. I have become much more aware of birds and of the plethora of lovely beautifully coloured birds this city harbours that almost no one seems to know about.
I travel internationally, and if I were to sequester myself in an all-inclusive resort, or a tour bus, or a rented or hired car, I would have had absolutely none of the quotidian pleasures of walking quietly and prayerfully in the streets and parks of London, Salisbury, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Brussells, Cologne, Mexico City, San Cristobal de las Casas, Monteverde, Costa Rica and other places. To immerse myself in the environment and savour and absorb the life of the host city, country and people. Perhaps unsafe at times and a little too vulnerable, but life is at times unsafe and if we do not allow ourselves to become vulnerable then we are never truly alive!
I am a natural contemplative. I have to go slow, at a human pace, if I am to feel fully myself, fully human. I am a natural listener, to nature, to God, the Spirit, to others, to my own breathing and heartbeat and the birds and voices that surround me. Moving too fast breaks my focus and then for a while I have lost that most important part of me, what Doris Lessing referred to as an interior soft receptive darkness. For those of you who can run, swim, drive and bike without suffering this loss I say more power to you. But please do not judge me as your inferior just because I have left aside your opportunities of fastness and speed to take a slow and beautiful walk across the Universe.
I remember when my mom enrolled me in swimming lessons. I somehow could never convince my body to float and naturally I feared drowning so whenever I let go of the edge of the pool or the supportive instructor I would fly into a panic, thrash around like a hooked carp and grab for the first solid object of support, usually the upper body of the poor instructor. I think I was eleven then or twelve. It didn't really feel like a great loss at the time because I was not crazy about the public pool and swimming only seemed like a good idea because Mom was so intent on selling me on it. She was never on hand to watch, coach, support or teach me however. She didn't know herself how to swim, though she would never admit it, simply mumbling and fumbling that she could maybe swim a little, and didn't seem interested in learning. Likewise my father. I think maybe he could swim a bit but obviously did not care whether I did or not, and besides, he was absent all summer on his fishing boat.
I felt the same pressure from Mom to learn how to ride a bike. This was in the sixties, when only kids went around on bicycles. If you were sixteen or older you were expected to drive. Bicycles as a popular form of transportation only began to come into vogue in the early Seventies. I always had trouble balancing on a bike and somehow could not comfortably go fast enough in order to keep it upright. In my few lame attempts I kept falling down and didn't feel I'd ever get anywhere. I was, and still am, naturally slow, and even though my reflexes are normal I still don't do speed at all well. Where were my parents and my big brother at the time? Well, your guess is as good as mine.
When I was seventeen and living for four upsetting months with my dad, who worked in an auto body shop as well as being a commercial fisherman, had a used car, a Ford Falcon to get rid of and offered it to me if I would learn how to drive. I can't remember if he offered to teach me or not but for all sorts of reasons then, some of them unknown to me at the time, my old man creeped the bejesus out of me (I was at that time in complete total denial about the sexual abuse). There is another reason I turned down his offer. I didn't want to be like him. I wanted nothing to do with cars which in my view guzzled fossil fuels and polluted the air, and yes, even at the tender age of seventeen in 1973 I was part of the vanguard of the environmental movement.
I learned none of the approved modes of transportation. I was a walker, a pedestrian, a hiker. I walked everywhere. I loved it. Sole of foot touching the ground. Of course a more grounding experience than any, and yes, I loved the grounding experience of walking. In the summers when I was seventeen and eighteen I often went barefoot, despite the discomfort, especially walking on gravel and beach rocks, but the need to touch the earth with the skin of the bottom of my feet was something very important to me. I still don't understand why and perhaps here there is no why that needs to be understood.
Walking everywhere, as well as providing me with splendid exercise, has taken me places that I would not have seen from a car. It has enabled me to pause, to watch, see, observe, listen and hear. All the details surrounding me have become emblazoned in my long-term memory: old houses, their colour, details of stain and prism glass, verandas, windows, the colour of the paint that covers them,
special trees, gardens, flowers (whether a special patch of purple crocuses in February.jpg&ei=gsvtUv-gAs7eoAT5roEo&bvm=bv.60444564,d.cGU&psig=AFQjCNGhWmu6EuzEHjD_k6adLZWOWFmtlw&ust=1391402233446447)
I travel internationally, and if I were to sequester myself in an all-inclusive resort, or a tour bus, or a rented or hired car, I would have had absolutely none of the quotidian pleasures of walking quietly and prayerfully in the streets and parks of London, Salisbury, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Brussells, Cologne, Mexico City, San Cristobal de las Casas, Monteverde, Costa Rica and other places. To immerse myself in the environment and savour and absorb the life of the host city, country and people. Perhaps unsafe at times and a little too vulnerable, but life is at times unsafe and if we do not allow ourselves to become vulnerable then we are never truly alive!
I am a natural contemplative. I have to go slow, at a human pace, if I am to feel fully myself, fully human. I am a natural listener, to nature, to God, the Spirit, to others, to my own breathing and heartbeat and the birds and voices that surround me. Moving too fast breaks my focus and then for a while I have lost that most important part of me, what Doris Lessing referred to as an interior soft receptive darkness. For those of you who can run, swim, drive and bike without suffering this loss I say more power to you. But please do not judge me as your inferior just because I have left aside your opportunities of fastness and speed to take a slow and beautiful walk across the Universe.
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