A middle-aged man with a full head of thick greying hair has just walked into Starbucks. He is carrying a large brown bag with clothes in it. A white shirt sleeve has escaped and is hanging out of the top of the bag. He walks past the counter without looking at anyone and enters the washroom behind me.
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The sun was up and bright and shining at a low angle into the faces of drivers as they made their way east on 104 Ave. Eyes were shaded behind visors but faces were lit up and I wasn’t quite prepared this morning to see how beautiful people are. I mean people-this amazing "race" that we all belong to-are beautiful. All beautiful in their way.
And now, I am wondering how it’s possible we do the things we do to each other, or don’t do the things we should do for each other.
I have a picture in my mind of the human bones that were scattered on the hill beneath Jasper and 82 St. How is it that for some, their primary experiences have only been grotesque?
"Grotesque society making grotesque demands,"…do the "losers" at Commercialism think this? Do people who haven’t been able to catch on to the rules of Techno-capitalism see only futility in life? Has the ever increasing demands of Enterprise driven them to resent every vestige of the "mechanism".
What is it like to find that it is impossible to fit into the "enterprise mechanism"? The "Enterprise" always guarantees winners and losers: "We" want people to desire the things "we" desire while at the same time wanting them to not quite achieve or acquire the things "we" have achieved and acquired.
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The man with the bag of clothes has just emerged wearing a wrinkled dark-blue pin-stripe suit. He’s walking slowly with his left hand massaging his lower back and his right hand carrying the bag full of slept-in clothes. He slept in his car. He is groomed now and except for the suit, which will hopefully be ironed by gravity, looks as if he could walk into any office in the Bell Tower.
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Two discoveries on my walk to work this morning: A pirate’s shopping cart and some homeless shoes.
Technorati Tags: Pirates, Homelessness, Beauty, Poverty
