October is regularly, fairly miserable in Vancouver. It rains for days at a time, cold rain that gets under your skin and sticks to your rib cage, and the sky turns dark in the afternoon. No matter how hard you try you never never seem to get warm.
October is also when all the Whole Foods Shoppers begin their Christmas assault on the city, which not only puts an ordinarily irritable population in even more of a bitter mood but also manages to make the loneliest citizens feel more disconnected than ever.
One October day In 2019. I was standing on the corner of Hastings and Main Street, looking across at the huddle of degenerates crowding the tiny square of stairwell that had a bit of a covering and, quite possibly, toying with the idea of somehow using the cord from my laptop to hang myself.
I was facing the very probable reality of spending a third miserable, Vancouver winter being shuffled among the herd between homeless shelters and catching a few precious hours of REM sleep every month on the concrete stoop at the Georgia Street BMO and, frankly, I couldn’t stomach it.
By this time, I was injecting about a half-gram of crystal meth no-less than three times a day (all of which was paid for with my earnings as a professional shoplifter — a fantastically interesting tale I may choose to recollect for you in another series).
My usual physiological state of anxiety was presenting in short bursts of full-on paranoia. For as long as I can remember, I have harbored an overwhelming phobia of dementia and my state of psychosis was lending my subconscious all sorts of ammunition to keep me terrified at all times.
Needless to say, when I approached the intake officer at the closest detox facility for help, I was ushered in without hesitation. It was wildly evident that I needed assistance.
For most people, time in such facilities is spent on self-improvement. On reflecting upon past mistakes and creating a blue print for a future in which they won’t repeat them. (It should be mentioned that one hundred percent of those people end up relapsing almost immediately after being discharged. It’s not their fault, the system is designed to ensure the most vulnerable are repeatedly victimized so as to maintain it’s own existence.)
I, on the other hand, have an ego that would make Freud reconsider his entire hypothesis paired with a neglect for self-criticism that borders on sociopathy. My time in detox was not occupied with designing my path to self-improvement (much like the Sistine Chapel, the parts of me that remain incomplete only emphasize my divinity!) But rather spent looking outward for the first time in far too long. Being so-far removed from the melee afforded me a long-overdue opportunity to truly observe it.
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I’m about to reveal that I did not particularly enjoy what I was given the chance to witness from my relatively unobstructed balcony. I had a twenty-four/seven, uninterrupted, all-access pass to the most-real-reality show one could possibly imagine and it was actually terrifying. The more I learned about the society I had been actively attempting to become invisible in so as to maintain my ability to stoke the fires of my addiction with the bounty provided by hocking overpriced rib-eye steaks to the overly-eager-to-pay-less-than-retail Whole Foods Shoppers and Restauranteurs of Vancouver, the more I wished I didn’t know.
What the hell had become of the World in my absence? When had Human-kind begun to devolve into hairless primates donning ironic, acid-washed jean jackets and “Man-Buns”?
Sometimes having all the time in the world to think can be incredibly rewarding, other times it can be absolutely destructive. Over the two months that followed, I would reveal to myself some rather harsh realities, about the World, about myself and about my opinion of the future. And, since I have a little bit of time left to spare, I’m going to spend the next little while sharing my thoughts with you.
Essays
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