Part Five
Eduardo dos Santos is getting on in years. He's head of Angola, a sizeable African country whose western border hugs a large part of the south west coast of Africa. Angola is yet another African country whose history is full of conflict. Dos Santos's party the MPLA or in English the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola has been in power for many years. It took power in 1975 when the MPLA finally threw out the Portuguese colonizers.
To get in power in Angola,the MPLA had to fight a vicious war against the Portuguese rulers.Then it had to fight off two other mostly black groups. Last it ended up fending off a U.S. backed army that ravaged Angola for at least ten years. Final death count from all of this conflict? About two million people.
"Anatomy is destiny," the famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud once said. Freud's brand of therapy once was called 'The talking therapy and' is no longer so popular. In any case Freud was wrong about anatomy. Anatomy isn't destiny: Geography is.
.
If you're born in Angola you're not going to live a long time. You're probably going to die at about the age of 51. The average Angolan in short has a life span of less than two thirds of the average Canadian. Angola's not alone here. Alongside Angola there are 12 other African countries whose citizens don't live much past 50 years either.
Now Angola shouldn't be poor and if it wasn't, its citizens would live a lot longer. It's a country chockful of oil, diamonds and other valuable minerals. Its government alas is one of he most corrupt governments on earth. And its rulers who were once gun toting Marxists, are very rich and now support free enterprise to the hilt.
In Luanda, Angola's capital city, millions of people just struggle to survive. Meanwhile Angola's small ruling clique are very rich multi-millionaires. The 21 million people of Angola teach us a valuable lesson: Luck often determines whether we live a long life or don't.
"I go to where I'm at, all by myself." one rich man told me at a political meeting. "I worked hard to make my money and no government has the right to take it away from me." Like many other rich and not so rich Canadians, this man ignores how lucky he's been. If he'd have been born a black Angolan, he'd either have been dead by nowor would be eking out a bare existence in some impoverished village or just surviving in an urban slum. Instead he's driving around Vancouver in an expensive Audi. Luck doesn't figure in his calculations. Yet it should.
Saturday, 8 October 2016
Friday, 7 October 2016
Death and How To Avoid It - Part Four by Dave Jaffe
Part Four
Smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol will lop years off your life. And so does using certain types of illegal drugs. Marjorie, which is not her real name, was the mother of a heroin addict. "My son caused me many problems," Marjorie told me one day. "He used to steal doctors' prescription pads, hang out with thieves, and was often getting stopped by the police."
Marjorie lived into her nineties. Her son's still alive too, but he's taking methadone these days and not injecting heroin. Mark, which isn't his real name wasn't as lucky as Marjorie's son. He started injecting heroin in his late teens. He overdosed in his late 20's and died. Another man told me that he became a killer because of heroin. "I needed money for my drug habit," he told me. "I killed a man to get the money."
Illegal drugs are very expensive because they're illegal. Once someone gets addicted to heroin or cocaine, they have to find some big money to feed their habit. Many addicted women become street prostitutes which is a very dangerous profession. Serial killer Robert Pickton boasted of killing 60 women. I'd bet that many of these women were cocaine or heroin addicts and sold their bodies on the street.
Men addicted to heroin or cocaine usually turn to crime too. They steal from stores, try to hold up banks, deal illegal drugs or turn to fraud. All these activities can shorten your life.
Of course, not all people who try heroin or cocaine get addicted to them. These people may shoot up heroin or snort cocaine once in a while. Yet even here casual use of these drugs can shorten your life. In the first nine months of 2016, close to 450 people died in British Columbia after injecting heroin. Both cocaine and heroin are often laced with fentanyl that can kill a drug user right away.
One man told me, "Heroin addicts are human beings too. They should not be demonized." This is true. Still, if you want to keep alive and healthy, it's a good idea to stay away from hard illegal drugs. They're nothing but trouble.
Smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol will lop years off your life. And so does using certain types of illegal drugs. Marjorie, which is not her real name, was the mother of a heroin addict. "My son caused me many problems," Marjorie told me one day. "He used to steal doctors' prescription pads, hang out with thieves, and was often getting stopped by the police."
Marjorie lived into her nineties. Her son's still alive too, but he's taking methadone these days and not injecting heroin. Mark, which isn't his real name wasn't as lucky as Marjorie's son. He started injecting heroin in his late teens. He overdosed in his late 20's and died. Another man told me that he became a killer because of heroin. "I needed money for my drug habit," he told me. "I killed a man to get the money."
Illegal drugs are very expensive because they're illegal. Once someone gets addicted to heroin or cocaine, they have to find some big money to feed their habit. Many addicted women become street prostitutes which is a very dangerous profession. Serial killer Robert Pickton boasted of killing 60 women. I'd bet that many of these women were cocaine or heroin addicts and sold their bodies on the street.
Men addicted to heroin or cocaine usually turn to crime too. They steal from stores, try to hold up banks, deal illegal drugs or turn to fraud. All these activities can shorten your life.
Of course, not all people who try heroin or cocaine get addicted to them. These people may shoot up heroin or snort cocaine once in a while. Yet even here casual use of these drugs can shorten your life. In the first nine months of 2016, close to 450 people died in British Columbia after injecting heroin. Both cocaine and heroin are often laced with fentanyl that can kill a drug user right away.
One man told me, "Heroin addicts are human beings too. They should not be demonized." This is true. Still, if you want to keep alive and healthy, it's a good idea to stay away from hard illegal drugs. They're nothing but trouble.
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Death and How To Avoid It - Part Three by Dave Jaffe
Part Three
He was one of Canada's most famous novelists. And he disliked the man who became one of Quebec's most famous premiers.
The novelist was Mordecai Richler, a Montrealer born and bred. The man whose policies Richler really disliked was the very short Rene Levesque who was born in Quebec's Gaspe area. A famous journalist, Levesque devoted most of his political career to setting up an independent Quebec. Richler never learned to speak French, disliked Levesque's politics and distrusted his nationalism.
"From the beginning," Richler wrote, "French Canadian nationalism has been badly tainted by racism."
A secular Jew, Richler pointed out in his book 'O Canada, O Quebec', that many French Canadians loathed Jews in the past and that some French Canadians still do now. Richler saw a direct link between the anti-Semitic nationalism preached by the early 20th century writer Abbe Lionel Groulx and the sovereigntist nationalism embraced by the Parti Quebecois that Rene Levesque headed up for many years.
Nor did Richler like Levesque personally. "My enduring feeling about Rene Levesque," Richler wrote, "is that if he had chosen to hang me, even as he tightened the rope around my neck, he would have complained how humiliating it was for him to spring the trap door."So Richler didn't like Levesque for pushing Quebec to separate from Canada and Levesque probably didn't like Richler. Yet these two opponents did have two fatal habits in common. They both smoked tobacco and drank alcohol. And because they did this, they both died long before they should have.
Levesque was born in 1922 and died in 1987. He was only 65 when he passed away and was rarely seen in public without a cigarette in his mouth. Richler who was born in 1931 died in 2001. He too smoked continously and drank alcohol nearly every day at one of his favourite watering holes in Montreal. Even after he had been operated on for cancer, Richler kept on smoking and inhaling deadly cigarillos. He never stopped drinking alcohol either.
Both men's lives point out what is now obvious: If you want to live a long life don't smoke or drink. They're both poisonous. Smoking cigarettes lops at least nine years off your life. Every year 19,000 Canadians die from lung cancer and most of these people got this deadly form of cancer from smoking. Also if you smoke cigarettes you're far more likely to get a stroke or be crumpled up by a heart attack.
Drinking alcohol also cuts years off your life. Every year more than 4,000 Canadians die from alcohol abuse. These alcoholics die in car crashes or in drunken brawls. They're also far more likely to be men than women. Or they pass away from cirrhosis of the liver or other illnesses caused by alcohol. Over 3 million Canadians are risking death by drinking. And close to four and one half million expose themselves to risk when they down alcohol . Drinking can shorten anyone's life. It's deadly. Then there's other dangerous drugs out there that I'll talk about next time.
He was one of Canada's most famous novelists. And he disliked the man who became one of Quebec's most famous premiers.
The novelist was Mordecai Richler, a Montrealer born and bred. The man whose policies Richler really disliked was the very short Rene Levesque who was born in Quebec's Gaspe area. A famous journalist, Levesque devoted most of his political career to setting up an independent Quebec. Richler never learned to speak French, disliked Levesque's politics and distrusted his nationalism.
"From the beginning," Richler wrote, "French Canadian nationalism has been badly tainted by racism."
A secular Jew, Richler pointed out in his book 'O Canada, O Quebec', that many French Canadians loathed Jews in the past and that some French Canadians still do now. Richler saw a direct link between the anti-Semitic nationalism preached by the early 20th century writer Abbe Lionel Groulx and the sovereigntist nationalism embraced by the Parti Quebecois that Rene Levesque headed up for many years.
Nor did Richler like Levesque personally. "My enduring feeling about Rene Levesque," Richler wrote, "is that if he had chosen to hang me, even as he tightened the rope around my neck, he would have complained how humiliating it was for him to spring the trap door."So Richler didn't like Levesque for pushing Quebec to separate from Canada and Levesque probably didn't like Richler. Yet these two opponents did have two fatal habits in common. They both smoked tobacco and drank alcohol. And because they did this, they both died long before they should have.
Levesque was born in 1922 and died in 1987. He was only 65 when he passed away and was rarely seen in public without a cigarette in his mouth. Richler who was born in 1931 died in 2001. He too smoked continously and drank alcohol nearly every day at one of his favourite watering holes in Montreal. Even after he had been operated on for cancer, Richler kept on smoking and inhaling deadly cigarillos. He never stopped drinking alcohol either.
Both men's lives point out what is now obvious: If you want to live a long life don't smoke or drink. They're both poisonous. Smoking cigarettes lops at least nine years off your life. Every year 19,000 Canadians die from lung cancer and most of these people got this deadly form of cancer from smoking. Also if you smoke cigarettes you're far more likely to get a stroke or be crumpled up by a heart attack.
Drinking alcohol also cuts years off your life. Every year more than 4,000 Canadians die from alcohol abuse. These alcoholics die in car crashes or in drunken brawls. They're also far more likely to be men than women. Or they pass away from cirrhosis of the liver or other illnesses caused by alcohol. Over 3 million Canadians are risking death by drinking. And close to four and one half million expose themselves to risk when they down alcohol . Drinking can shorten anyone's life. It's deadly. Then there's other dangerous drugs out there that I'll talk about next time.
Wednesday, 5 October 2016
Death and How To Avoid It - Part Two by Dave Jaffe
Part Two
Why do women usually outlive men? I can't say for sure. But biology tells us that the female of any species outlives the male.
In the world of us humans, women in the western world do take better care of themselves than men. They exercise more as any visit to a local aerobics class shows. These classes are jam packed with women. Yet fewer men show up to jump, sweat and strain. Women also watch their weight more than men.
That doesn't mean that all women are hauling anorectic looking bodies around. Women pile up the kilograms as they age just like men. Yet overall women do try to control their weight more than men do. "My wife's keeping me well fed," a chunky 40's something male told me as he slapped his big stomach. Yet this man's wife was quite thin. She was following a far healthier path than her spouse. For keeping thin does extend your life.
Women also lead less reckless lives than men. They don't endanger themselves as many men do. "Women don't climb Mount Everest," a male mountain climber told me way back in the 1970's.
This isn't true to-day. The second wave of feminism came along in the late 1960's and allowed women to do many things like mountain climbing that only men used to do.
Still even to-day women take less risks than men.A drunken car driver is far more likely to be a man, and usually a young man than a woman. And therefore that male is far more likely to die. Every year more than 2,000 Canadians die in car crashes and here far more men than women end up dead, especially if alcohol's involved.
Women are also far more likely to end up as criminals especially if the crime is violent. Over 600 Canadians are killed every year by someone else. And the person who's stabbing, shooting or strangling someone else to death is eight times more likely to be a man than a woman."If only women committed crime," one female prison guard told me, "we could close nine out of ten prisons."
Men far more often than women rob banks, fight in streets or playgrounds, become illegal drug addicts, steal from stores and commit fraud. Surprisingly men are also more likely to become prostitutes than women. Crime by the way is a young man's game and a very dangerous one too. If you want to die young, become a criminal.
Another plus for women is that when illness strikes them, they're much more likely to go to a doctor than men."I'm not going to run off to see a doctor every time I get a little pain,"my father used to say. He tried to stay away from medical offices. Yet woman aren't like this. They go doctors when they're in pain or feel their body temperatures rise. So here's another reason why women outlive us males.
Then there's the choices that men and women make as they go through life. We'll look at this in the next part/.
Why do women usually outlive men? I can't say for sure. But biology tells us that the female of any species outlives the male.
In the world of us humans, women in the western world do take better care of themselves than men. They exercise more as any visit to a local aerobics class shows. These classes are jam packed with women. Yet fewer men show up to jump, sweat and strain. Women also watch their weight more than men.
That doesn't mean that all women are hauling anorectic looking bodies around. Women pile up the kilograms as they age just like men. Yet overall women do try to control their weight more than men do. "My wife's keeping me well fed," a chunky 40's something male told me as he slapped his big stomach. Yet this man's wife was quite thin. She was following a far healthier path than her spouse. For keeping thin does extend your life.
Women also lead less reckless lives than men. They don't endanger themselves as many men do. "Women don't climb Mount Everest," a male mountain climber told me way back in the 1970's.
This isn't true to-day. The second wave of feminism came along in the late 1960's and allowed women to do many things like mountain climbing that only men used to do.
Still even to-day women take less risks than men.A drunken car driver is far more likely to be a man, and usually a young man than a woman. And therefore that male is far more likely to die. Every year more than 2,000 Canadians die in car crashes and here far more men than women end up dead, especially if alcohol's involved.
Women are also far more likely to end up as criminals especially if the crime is violent. Over 600 Canadians are killed every year by someone else. And the person who's stabbing, shooting or strangling someone else to death is eight times more likely to be a man than a woman."If only women committed crime," one female prison guard told me, "we could close nine out of ten prisons."
Men far more often than women rob banks, fight in streets or playgrounds, become illegal drug addicts, steal from stores and commit fraud. Surprisingly men are also more likely to become prostitutes than women. Crime by the way is a young man's game and a very dangerous one too. If you want to die young, become a criminal.
Another plus for women is that when illness strikes them, they're much more likely to go to a doctor than men."I'm not going to run off to see a doctor every time I get a little pain,"my father used to say. He tried to stay away from medical offices. Yet woman aren't like this. They go doctors when they're in pain or feel their body temperatures rise. So here's another reason why women outlive us males.
Then there's the choices that men and women make as they go through life. We'll look at this in the next part/.
Tuesday, 4 October 2016
Death and How To Avoid It - by Dave Jaffe -Part One
Part One
Canadians don't like to discuss death even though about 250,000 Canadians die every year.
People laugh when I tell them what I sometimes do. I go into cinema complexes and restaurants. ""Hi my name's Dave," I tell the cashier or food server. "I'm an old man. Do you have any discounts for seniors.?"
Yet sometimes I foretell my future. "Hi," I say again to someone I just met. "My name's Dave. I'm an old man. I'll be dead in less than ten years and maybe long before that." I don't get many laughs if any from people who hear this.
Death is after all a serious business. You pass away, you vanish and you become extinct when you die. 50 million people die worldwide every year. Some people want to die. Every year close to 4,000 Canadians kill themselves and some of them are quite young. Yet that number is less than 2 per cent who die annually. Most of us want to stay alive.
People jog or do other forms of exercise every day to stay alive or live longer. Of course few people roll out of bed every day to exercise and tell themselves, "I'm going to do my daily exercise
to live longer." Yet that in part is what exercise is all about. And if you exercise regularly chances are you will live longer than someone who doesn't.
Of course there's other ways to live a long life.
First off, be born a woman and not a man. Women everywhere in the western world live longer than men. In Canada in the year 2000 men had a life expectancy of 77 years. Yet women's life expectancy stood at 82 years or five years longer than a man's. Some women now live into their early 90's. Most men are not so lucky.
A friend of mine was walking in a park in Victoria in the early 1970's. The second wave of feminism was just getting underway at this time. My friend met a young woman on his stroll through the park. This woman was a strong feminist. "Women are second class citizens in this world," the woman said in effect after she'd started to chat with my friend. "We are paid less than men, face more discrimination, and are treated more violently than men."
"All these things are wrong," my friend replied. "They should be changed. But I'll tell you one thing: You woman will bury all us men." My friend's reply was spot on. Go to a long term place anywhere in Canada. These places for the aged are chock full of old women. And usually there's no more than half a dozen aging men around. The male husbands of most of these woman died off long ago.
In the next part of this story we'll look at some of the reasons why women outlive men.
Canadians don't like to discuss death even though about 250,000 Canadians die every year.
People laugh when I tell them what I sometimes do. I go into cinema complexes and restaurants. ""Hi my name's Dave," I tell the cashier or food server. "I'm an old man. Do you have any discounts for seniors.?"
Yet sometimes I foretell my future. "Hi," I say again to someone I just met. "My name's Dave. I'm an old man. I'll be dead in less than ten years and maybe long before that." I don't get many laughs if any from people who hear this.
Death is after all a serious business. You pass away, you vanish and you become extinct when you die. 50 million people die worldwide every year. Some people want to die. Every year close to 4,000 Canadians kill themselves and some of them are quite young. Yet that number is less than 2 per cent who die annually. Most of us want to stay alive.
People jog or do other forms of exercise every day to stay alive or live longer. Of course few people roll out of bed every day to exercise and tell themselves, "I'm going to do my daily exercise
to live longer." Yet that in part is what exercise is all about. And if you exercise regularly chances are you will live longer than someone who doesn't.
Of course there's other ways to live a long life.
First off, be born a woman and not a man. Women everywhere in the western world live longer than men. In Canada in the year 2000 men had a life expectancy of 77 years. Yet women's life expectancy stood at 82 years or five years longer than a man's. Some women now live into their early 90's. Most men are not so lucky.
A friend of mine was walking in a park in Victoria in the early 1970's. The second wave of feminism was just getting underway at this time. My friend met a young woman on his stroll through the park. This woman was a strong feminist. "Women are second class citizens in this world," the woman said in effect after she'd started to chat with my friend. "We are paid less than men, face more discrimination, and are treated more violently than men."
"All these things are wrong," my friend replied. "They should be changed. But I'll tell you one thing: You woman will bury all us men." My friend's reply was spot on. Go to a long term place anywhere in Canada. These places for the aged are chock full of old women. And usually there's no more than half a dozen aging men around. The male husbands of most of these woman died off long ago.
In the next part of this story we'll look at some of the reasons why women outlive men.
Monday, 26 September 2016
Exits and Entrance - A Journey Through Many Landcapes by Dave Jaffe: Chapter 12 - Part Two.
Chapter 12 - Part Two.
"Stuff happens," Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. Secretary of State said after he and other members of President George W. Bush's government had launched the disastrous invasion of Iraq. You can say the same thing about the human body as it ages: Stuff happens.
As you move into your late 60's, diseases stalk you. A short painful heart attack can end your days on earth really quickly. A massive stroke can shut off blood to your brain and you die. Ever active cancer cells eat away at your bones, your glands like your prostate or your breasts or your colon. At last weakened by the struggle to fend off cancer, your body gives up and you're gone.
Often long before life's end, diseases of old age ravage your body. Have you ever heard of shingles or 'herpes zoster' as biologists call it? This viral disease often attacks aging people who've had chicken pox when they were young. One man who was hit by this disease said after he got it, "I can only sleep for an hour-and-a-half at a time. My chest and back are inflamed and the pain is something else." He died a few years later.
Another man who's in his 70's, can barely speak. He's got Parkinson's disease,a disease that causes his muscles to freeze up and gives off tremours that shake his body from time to time. He can't speak too well and often slurs his speech when he talks. Linda Ronstadt has given up singing," someone told me recently. "She's got Parkinson's." Then there's other diseases like Alzheimers etcetra etcetra. The list of diseases in old age is endless.In a few years I will be gone, but probably not after passing through a painful exit to death.
As my father used to say quoting from the Bible, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." You can see death as the final injustice because you can't avoid it. Or you can see it as the great equalizer because everyone, rich middle class and the poor will all die.
Yet as I reflect on my coming death I look back and realize I've been incredibly lucky. I now believe that luck above all is the key to good fortune. Conside the following. If the British Air Force hadn't repelled the Nazi Air Force in the summer of 1940, my parents would both have died as German troops would have landed in Britain and conquered it. I would never have been born. "Never in the field of human history," intoned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, "have so many owed so much to so few." The Allies won World War Two. If they'd have lost it, I would have been gassed in a German concentration camp.
Though my parents overspent foolishly from their marriage in 1938 to 1950, my early relatively affluent childhood gave me a head start and even a lead on many of my contemporaries. My mother and father were in many ways responsible parents. Donald Winnicott the British psychiatrist said that the good mother was the greatest gift that civilization had. And my mother was a good mother. She sacrificed herself to her family. Also I spent my youth before the rise of heroin, cocaine and amphetemines. My youth was lived free of drugs.
At the same time so-called 'miracle drugs' like streptomycin, the polio vaccine and penicillin, that came onstream in my childhood and youth, spared from the scourges of many diseases like polio and tubercolosis.
Meanwhile during the 1950's to the 1990's, governments all across Canada created many social programs that saved my life. Private companies invested heavily and the Gross National Product often grew massively at a rate of 3 to 4 per cent a year. Jobs were plentiful. To-day the Canadian G.N.P. limps along at barely one per cent annually.
I now realize that adjusted for inflation I have probably cost the Canadian taxpayers over $900,000. "Anatomy is destiny," Sigmund Freud said. Yet this isn't true. "Geography is destiny. If I'd have been born and lived in any of the poor countries around the world, I'd have passed away years ago.
My life will soon end. The first part of my life was dogged by poverty, deaths and disability. The second half of my life, that is the last 37 years, have on the whole been very good. So ends the story of my life.
"Stuff happens," Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. Secretary of State said after he and other members of President George W. Bush's government had launched the disastrous invasion of Iraq. You can say the same thing about the human body as it ages: Stuff happens.
As you move into your late 60's, diseases stalk you. A short painful heart attack can end your days on earth really quickly. A massive stroke can shut off blood to your brain and you die. Ever active cancer cells eat away at your bones, your glands like your prostate or your breasts or your colon. At last weakened by the struggle to fend off cancer, your body gives up and you're gone.
Often long before life's end, diseases of old age ravage your body. Have you ever heard of shingles or 'herpes zoster' as biologists call it? This viral disease often attacks aging people who've had chicken pox when they were young. One man who was hit by this disease said after he got it, "I can only sleep for an hour-and-a-half at a time. My chest and back are inflamed and the pain is something else." He died a few years later.
Another man who's in his 70's, can barely speak. He's got Parkinson's disease,a disease that causes his muscles to freeze up and gives off tremours that shake his body from time to time. He can't speak too well and often slurs his speech when he talks. Linda Ronstadt has given up singing," someone told me recently. "She's got Parkinson's." Then there's other diseases like Alzheimers etcetra etcetra. The list of diseases in old age is endless.In a few years I will be gone, but probably not after passing through a painful exit to death.
As my father used to say quoting from the Bible, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." You can see death as the final injustice because you can't avoid it. Or you can see it as the great equalizer because everyone, rich middle class and the poor will all die.
Yet as I reflect on my coming death I look back and realize I've been incredibly lucky. I now believe that luck above all is the key to good fortune. Conside the following. If the British Air Force hadn't repelled the Nazi Air Force in the summer of 1940, my parents would both have died as German troops would have landed in Britain and conquered it. I would never have been born. "Never in the field of human history," intoned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, "have so many owed so much to so few." The Allies won World War Two. If they'd have lost it, I would have been gassed in a German concentration camp.
Though my parents overspent foolishly from their marriage in 1938 to 1950, my early relatively affluent childhood gave me a head start and even a lead on many of my contemporaries. My mother and father were in many ways responsible parents. Donald Winnicott the British psychiatrist said that the good mother was the greatest gift that civilization had. And my mother was a good mother. She sacrificed herself to her family. Also I spent my youth before the rise of heroin, cocaine and amphetemines. My youth was lived free of drugs.
At the same time so-called 'miracle drugs' like streptomycin, the polio vaccine and penicillin, that came onstream in my childhood and youth, spared from the scourges of many diseases like polio and tubercolosis.
Meanwhile during the 1950's to the 1990's, governments all across Canada created many social programs that saved my life. Private companies invested heavily and the Gross National Product often grew massively at a rate of 3 to 4 per cent a year. Jobs were plentiful. To-day the Canadian G.N.P. limps along at barely one per cent annually.
I now realize that adjusted for inflation I have probably cost the Canadian taxpayers over $900,000. "Anatomy is destiny," Sigmund Freud said. Yet this isn't true. "Geography is destiny. If I'd have been born and lived in any of the poor countries around the world, I'd have passed away years ago.
My life will soon end. The first part of my life was dogged by poverty, deaths and disability. The second half of my life, that is the last 37 years, have on the whole been very good. So ends the story of my life.
Friday, 23 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - Chapter 12 - Part One by Dave Jaffe
Chapter 12 - Part One
After I'd had a semi-mystical experience on the Gorge road in Victoria, I felt that I'd been given a lift I sorely needed. For I was now an old man. I w-as after all, 66 years old in 2008.
"You're a spring chicken," Galia Chud a woman in her 80's told me when I said I was old. Still I felt worn out at times. My long time friend Dick Prinsep died in 2008 from stomach cancer. An allergy racked my body. and caused me to sweat and cough. I was now completely bald. Creases and lined dug themselves into my face.
A mole on my right forehead turned into a basal cell carcinoma. And tiredness stalked my body and ended my day in the late afternoon. "The cracks of old age," writes biographer Hilary Spurling, "are infirmities, ailments, setbacks, loneliness, despondency and fear." I felt all these emotions in the spring of 2008.
Yet I'd also found ways to escape from old age's downsides. When I painted landscapes, the pains of old age vanished. Watching movies that I enjoyed enabled me to forget my declining health. I travelled long and short distances to many of Vancouver's lovely parks and felt incredibly happy in these green oases. I continued to read art histories, popular biographies and sometimes novels. This lifelong pursuit lifted me out of the depression that sometimes hit me.
Still, the death of Dick Prinsep and my exit from the Unitarian Church still hovered over me. An hour or so of sitting on the Gorge Road and looking at the waters shift to and fro,seemed to wipe out for a while all the problems of the past and present. "Now I can go on," I told myself. Or as I told some of my friends, "I've had a born again experience."
I travelled back to the motel nearby that I was staying in. I fell asleep and as I drifted into never never land I felt truly happy. When I awoke the next morning a new day dawned that felt to me like a new age.
Yet this feeling unfortunately didn't last forever.
After I'd had a semi-mystical experience on the Gorge road in Victoria, I felt that I'd been given a lift I sorely needed. For I was now an old man. I w-as after all, 66 years old in 2008.
"You're a spring chicken," Galia Chud a woman in her 80's told me when I said I was old. Still I felt worn out at times. My long time friend Dick Prinsep died in 2008 from stomach cancer. An allergy racked my body. and caused me to sweat and cough. I was now completely bald. Creases and lined dug themselves into my face.
A mole on my right forehead turned into a basal cell carcinoma. And tiredness stalked my body and ended my day in the late afternoon. "The cracks of old age," writes biographer Hilary Spurling, "are infirmities, ailments, setbacks, loneliness, despondency and fear." I felt all these emotions in the spring of 2008.
Yet I'd also found ways to escape from old age's downsides. When I painted landscapes, the pains of old age vanished. Watching movies that I enjoyed enabled me to forget my declining health. I travelled long and short distances to many of Vancouver's lovely parks and felt incredibly happy in these green oases. I continued to read art histories, popular biographies and sometimes novels. This lifelong pursuit lifted me out of the depression that sometimes hit me.
Still, the death of Dick Prinsep and my exit from the Unitarian Church still hovered over me. An hour or so of sitting on the Gorge Road and looking at the waters shift to and fro,seemed to wipe out for a while all the problems of the past and present. "Now I can go on," I told myself. Or as I told some of my friends, "I've had a born again experience."
I travelled back to the motel nearby that I was staying in. I fell asleep and as I drifted into never never land I felt truly happy. When I awoke the next morning a new day dawned that felt to me like a new age.
Yet this feeling unfortunately didn't last forever.
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