Off topic | Superior Realities

We are now only a few weeks from the opening of the winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Normally, I’d be abuzz with excitement. I’ve talked before about how much I love the Olympics. The Olympics are about pushing humanity to its fullest potential — physically, yes, but also spiritually.

The Olympics are a time when all peoples of the world can gather together in fellowship. The borders between us cease to matter. In the Olympics, I see the seed of hope for a better future for the human race, a unified future like we see in fictions such as Star Trek or my own World Spectrum novels — the superior realities from which this blog draws its title.

But this time, there’s a damper on the festivities. By now, we’re all familiar with Russia’s draconian new laws against homosexuality and the controversy this has placed on the Sochi games. Some people feel the games should be boycotted over this, while others argue we should press ahead.

I feel incredibly torn.

On the one hand, few things offend me more than ignorant intolerance: racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Sometimes I think it’s strange that I get so uppity about gay rights. Despite my fondness for Glee and complete lack of traditional masculine traits, I’m not gay, and nor are any of my closest friends or family (as far as I know). I have no horse in this race. Oppression of gay people has no significant impact on my life.

But then again, shouldn’t injustice offend us? Doesn’t persecuting people for who they are or who they love diminish humanity as a whole at some level?

Homophobia just seems so wrong-headed to me.

I’ll be honest: In public venues like this blog, I try to put on a friendly demeanor, but the truth is I’m a nasty bastard. I hold most people in contempt, and I have little use for concepts like kindness or compassion. I’m a bitter husk of a person with an icy void where my soul is supposed to be.

But despite this — or perhaps because of it — even I recognize that there isn’t enough love in this world. I can’t for the life of me comprehend why anyone would want to stand in its way.

And honestly, who the Hell cares what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes? What difference does it make?

But then again, I’ve always felt that the Olympics are about bringing people together. Even people you disagree with. Even your enemies. Even those you despise.

And it’s not like this the first time the Olympics have been held in a nation with a spotty human rights record. China’s abuses are well-known. I used to live in the largest community of Tibetans outside of Tibet or Nepal; I remember being stopped outside the local cafe by Free Tibet activists who told me of the dozens of monks who had self-immolated in that year alone to protest the oppression of their people (I signed their petition). I’m quite familiar with the horrors perpetrated by the Chinese government.

But yet I was still eager to support the Beijing Olympics. I did so because I believe the Olympics are about encouraging the best aspects of us rather than punishing our mistakes. I did so because I believe the sense of global community provided by the Olympics is too valuable for us to allow the crimes of one nation to stand in its way. I did so because I know that not everyone in China is as monstrous as their government.

Can not the same logic apply here? I’m sure many people in Russia are not homophobic thugs. Is it right to condemn the entire nation based on its ugliest components? Is it fair to break the Olympic fellowship over the crimes of a few? It seems to me that, in a way, that is bowing your head and admitting that hate is stronger than love.

Perhaps the Olympics might even help to bring some enlightenment to Russia. The government can try to crack down all it wants, but the views of the world will trickle in when so many nations gather together. Perhaps it might open some people’s eyes to the idea that gay people are not a bogeyman to be feared.

Still, this all seems so wrong to me, in a way even China’s abuses don’t. Maybe that’s wrong. It seems cavalier to rate various forms of oppression against each other, but again, nasty bastard, so while I’m being honest, I do find oppression based on someone’s sexual orientation to be slightly more distasteful than political oppression. You can choose not to oppose a tyrannical government. It’s a terrible choice that no one should ever have to make, but it’s an option all the same. No one can choose not to be gay.

It’s more complicated this time, too, because there was a clear alternative. The IOC could have chosen to move the games to Vancouver. They still have all the necessary facilities leftover from last time. They have the resources and the manpower. If memory serves, Vancouver actively volunteered for the job. God knows us Canadians are never going to turn down the opportunity for a big winter sports party.

This would have sent a clear message that Russia’s anti-gay crackdown is unacceptable, while still preserving the Olympic fellowship in a way a boycott could not.

This makes me feel further distressed because it seems to show the Olympic Committee doesn’t care about Russia’s oppressive new law. They had a way to disassociate themselves from these cruel practices, and they ignored it. That makes the Sochi games feel all the more tainted to me.

So I just don’t know how to feel. Should I embrace these games as I have all others, or choose not to support them? Either feels like a betrayal of the Olympic principles and a concession of defeat to the tides of ignorance and hate. Supporting the games is ignoring all the Russian government has done, but spurning them is allowing intolerance to steal the games from us.

Granted, I realize it doesn’t matter much in the greater scheme of things. It’s not like the IOC is sitting there thinking, “Damn, we lost the faith of some anonymous Canadian kid with a blog! We gotta straighten up and fly right!”

But it’s important to me personally.

If you’re looking for me to come to some conclusion or offer a clear point, I’m afraid you’re destined for disappointment. I don’t have any answers. I’m just… sad, and confused.

I’m moving.

This blog isn’t about my personal life, and I don’t wish to discuss the circumstances leading up to this move, but suffice it to say it’s a sideways upgrade at best, and I’m not entirely happy with the situation.

This isn’t just a changing of apartments, either. I’m leaving Toronto entirely and heading for a small hamlet in the country.

The move itself is still a week or two away, but in the meantime, I thought I’d take this moment to reflect on what I’m leaving behind: the neighbourhood I’ve called home for the last seven years.

Tall trees and public enemies:

The part of Toronto I’ve lived in is called Parkdale. Now, it’s not a nice place by any stretch of the imagination. It’s colourfully referred to as “the armpit of Toronto.” It’s still not the worst part of the city; there are other places that have earned the title of Toronto’s… “sphincter.”

We don’t have a huge amount of gang activity or violent crime, but we are hotbed of drugs, prostitution, and general greasiness.

Another name for Parkdale is “the mental asylum with no roof.” This comes surprisingly close to the truth; there’s a mental institution not far from where I live, and most of the halfway houses and support centers for released patients are in this area. So a lot of people in Parkdale are quite literally mental patients.

What kind of place is Parkdale? Once, a few months ago, there was a used mattress lying in the front yard of a local home. Not only that, but it had been graffiti tagged with the phrase, “drunk as fuck.”

However, it was so poorly written that it looked more like, “drunk as pork.”

That’s what Parkdale is like.

Once, a black fellow in a fluffy purple cowboy hat stepped in front of a streetcar outside my building, hurled a box full of shredded newspaper onto the track, and held up traffic by standing in front of the streetcar and screaming at it.

Months later, that same fellow started scrawling political slogans on the sidewalk in chalk, got up on a post box, and began screaming insults about Mayor Rob Ford — a political viewpoint I can only sympathize with.

Another time, a woman in a red dress — most likely a prostitute — spent at least an hour lying on the sidewalk across the street, weeping uncontrollably, and begging for help from invisible people.

Those are the more noteworthy oddballs. Then there are the normal, everyday ones: the people who talk to themselves in languages no one else knows, the hookers, the Sun-Fa drunks, the blind Buddhists, and the screamers.

But not everything in Parkdale is surreal, greasy, or disturbing. It has its positive side as well.

Parkdale is a very old neighbourhood. The parts of it that aren’t filthy and covered in graffiti feature beautiful architecture dating back to the turn of the last century and lots of lovely side-streets canopied by massive trees from the same time period.

It’s a little known fact that Toronto has so many trees that the city technically qualifies as a forest.

Parkdale is in an odd state of transition. It’s become somewhat trendy in recent times. So in amongst the crack whores and used condoms are chic antique stores, yuppies walking their greyhounds, and fancy restaurants serving local produce.

I’m in a bizarre spot because I literally live directly on the border of a very nice area and a very bad one. Walk north, and it’s nothing but well-tended gardens and affluent young couples taking their kids to the park. Walk south, and it’s nothing cigarette butts and piles of stuff that I’d really rather not think about what it is.

Parkdale is also an interesting cultural melting pot — though that’s really true of all of Toronto. Where I am, I live at the border of Poland, Portugal, and Tibet.

Another interesting fact: Toronto boasts the largest population of Tibetan people outside of Tibet or Nepal. And most of those live in Parkdale.

Fascinating people, the Tibetans. One of my regrets is that I never really took the time to get to know any of them, but the ones I’ve met are nothing but pleasant and polite. Quite a humble and decent sort.

Their food is also the most delicious thing in the universe. If there is one thing about Toronto I will miss, it is the Tibetan food.

Into the worst, out of the best:

So Parkdale is a strange place, full of contradictions. The air is a heady melange of curry, cigarette smoke, and human misery.

It’s a place of contradictions for me personally, too. I came here during the worst period of my life, with virtually nothing left following a family cataclysm.

It was a terrible time for me, and I lived in misery for many months. But alongside this was a strange sense of freedom. With everything I’d known gone, it was a chance to start anew. I began to think for myself for the first time in my life, and Parkdale — and Toronto as a whole — represented an exciting new frontier for me.

I grew up in the country, and the bright lights and bustle of the city dazzled me. I saw Toronto as a place of limitless potential, and it encouraged me to grow as a person.

Looking back, I didn’t really grow that much. The truth is I’ve barely scratched the surface of the opportunities this city has to offer, and I have no one to blame for that but myself.

I don’t feel the same sense of renewal or potential about this coming move. I feel only a contraction, a narrowing of my future.

I hope to return to Toronto some day. Maybe even to Parkdale. This may be a place ripe with devils, but they’re the devils I know.

But for now, my path is set, and I must leave Parkdale behind.

Parkdale isn’t a nice place, but it’s been my home for seven years. It’s become a part of who I am. And I will miss it.

And the best thing about Parkdale? My favourite band named a song after it.

Finally, it almost seemed authentic

As we headed farther west

Into the worst, out of the best

Superior Realities

Tag Archives: Off topic

Off Topic: Sorrow of Sochi

Off topic: Open Up and Spend the Night in Parkdale

Share this:

Share this: