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Once it settles into the pit of your stomach, it’s hard to rid yourself of anxiety. Why am I anxious? Well, once you start counting the reasons to be anxious, they seem to multiply. Counting the reasons increases the sum total of anxiety!
I am very glad that my girlfriend finally got into her apartment and successfully moved. But it took four days and three police interventions. I could hear the tension and stress in her voice when we spoke on Sunday. It was hard to take. I wished I could be back in Edmonton with her and do something, anything, to make her feel better. A disembodied voice cannot offer solace, no matter how hard that voice tries.
So I’m still anxious for her sake. I know how hard this experience has been on her and that it also impacts on her university work.
I am also anxious because a third doctor has seen me and now questions the original diagnosis of pleurisy and is sending me back for more testing. She wants to see if I have lupus, among other things.
I am anxious because my own school work continues apace and I feel sometimes like the laggard who runs after the school bus but remains always several steps behind. I try, at least. I really do try!
I am anxious because I’ve got a big, big day on Friday. The outcome of this day determines a considerable amount of my future…
I won’t jinx it by saying anything more. I will just try and dispell my anxiety over this and everything else as best I can.
What is Nuit Blanche? It’s when the wintry streets of Montreal play host to a giant party, from west to east, from downtown to the Old Port, from the sidewalks of Sainte Catherine to the gathering place of Place des Arts . It’s when a slide made of ice is erected in the Places Jacques Cartier, it’s when art enthusiasts young and old saunter in and out of galleries, some of them walking with beer, drinking openly, with no fear of the law. It’s when everyone is young again, jumping over snow drifts. It’s when crowds line up for hours to see strange new exhibits. It’s when you turn up at the Canadian Centre for Architecture at 10pm and are served free drinks for the next two hours, and you get to watch people stroll around looking cool and swaying to the music.
I ended my own Nuit Blanche at one o’clock in the morning. But next year… Next year, when hopefully time is more plentiful, I will stay longer and get drunker. I will stay up the whole night.
Interviewed a woman in Nicolet, Quebec today. She was so helpful and open and kind. I do not think that I want to be a journalist or write articles with any kind of frequency, but I nevertheless find these exercises very helpful. Freelance articles are, after all, still stories. I like telling stories!
The Guardian has interviewed James Lovelock, a renowned British scientist, who recently concluded that ”global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.” Despite his dire predictions, James Lovelock remains cheerful, optimistic and jovial.
Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, he explains, when “we all knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn’t know what to do about it.” But once the second world war was under way, “everyone got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long holiday … so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose – that’s what people want.”
I find these words rather consoling. I have actually been discussing the end of the world with increasing frequency. Sometimes I get so worried about it that I start to feel guilty about doing things like (for example) trying to publish a book. I say to myself, “I should drop everything to help combat climate change!”
But what if that battle has already been lost and, instead, another fresh chapter in human history is about to begin? What if we are about to lose 80% of the world’s population? What if vast cities like London and New York are soon to vanish underwater — not to mention countless dwellings in developing nations? Then what?
After all that, maybe there IS reason for optimism. A new way of life would be forced upon us, and that way of life might be preferable to the one we have now.
The biggest tragedy in my mind is not that we’re bringing the world to environmental collapse (an event which is precipitated in part by very attributes that make our species so great: generosity manifested in gift-giving, invention, the desire to make life more comfortable for our children) but instead, the awful comportment of human beings towards one another. And to animals. Greed, selfishness and covetousness. It isn’t greed, per se, that makes millions of people get up every morning, drive to work, and pollute the planet. More likely than not, it’s just a desire to put food on that table. But it is greed that makes an entrepeneur hire immigrant labour, treat them like dirt and pay them less than the minimum wage.
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Before I read about James Lovelock, I was going to write a post called, “Things have been better since I came out of hiding.” It was to talk about the fact that I started openly admitting to being a writer a few years ago, and slowly but surely, my fortunes have improved ever since. Especially so in Montreal, where I basically introduced myself to the whole city as a writer.
I did not do this earlier because I was ashamed. I get ashamed easily. There seemed to be something furtive, sneaky and anti-social about writing. To talk about it would be like talking about masturbation. It would just be rather embarrassing and inappropriate. And indeed, when I first talked about it, that’s how I felt. It took a while to be at ease with it.
Let’s not even mention my profound misgivings about even saying “writer” when one has published so little.
Neverthless, whatever the misgivings, past or present… I do think of myself as a writer. And that has made all the difference. It hasn’t made anything easier. In fact, it has made many things a lot harder. A writer’s temperament can be detrimental to his or her own personal development. There are still days I wake up or go to bed, shaking with disgust with who I am. Because I live in perennial judgement of my own actions, still unsure whether I am the hero or villian of my own life. But these moments are fewer and further between.
Even if everything went to hell — for me, just as it will for the world — there is nothing inherently better about success than failure. Not when looked at in the very broadest light possible. If you aren’t afraid to lose absolutely everything, including your reputation, maybe you’ve achieved the ultimate freedom.
