Justin Kownacki , the talented producer of the excellent series Something to Be Desired has 'tagged' me to spread a blog meme: Five things you may not know about me.
I can't (often) resist these viral prompts, and this one intrigues me
because I've already confessed a lot in these pages and in my About the Author bio. What else can I say, especially something that could surprise anyone that reads these pages regularly? Well, here goes:
- Although
I often write about the importance of being observant/attentive and
self-sufficient, I am neither. I have good instincts about people,
which perhaps suggests that my body processes information about other
people more effectively than my conscious mind does. But for the most
part I don’t pay attention very well, which gets me in lots of trouble,
and I’m so poorly coordinated that body-mechanical tasks (like dancing,
swimming, and drawing) are just beyond me. And neither of these faults
is the result of lack of effort (my own, and that of others) to try to
improve. At these important things, I am just incompetent.
- I’ve
come to the disturbing conclusion that I usually prefer the company of
animals to humans. At first I thought I was just overreacting to the
general indifference of most people to the plight, and intelligence,
and emotional capacity, of animals, but now I think it has more to do
with a preference for silent company and the realization that, as Shaw said, “the biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”
- I’m
a fierce supporter of the right to die. To me this is a ‘natural’
right, like the right to breathe, to live in peace, and to a clean and
healthy environment, so having governments try to take this away
strikes me as outrageous. This right is most important for those
suffering, of course, but I don’t draw lines when it comes to such
matters. I’ve known many who have taken their own lives, and I respect
their decisions. I understand the Noonday Demon and the horrific and
invisible suffering it can cause. People who exercise their right to
die have their own reasons, and while they may not be ‘logical’, who’s
to say that emotional reasons are not just as valid? I also feel deeply
for those who have been left behind by those who have chosen to die,
whether or not they understand, on any level, why that decision was
made, and that no one is to ‘blame’, just as I feel for all those who,
for any reason, have been unable (and may never be able) to reach
closure on something important that’s happened in their lives.
- I’m
more even-tempered than I was when I was young, but some things make me
crazy: cruelty, unfairness, dishonesty, arrogance, backstabbing (and
other indirect and cowardly attacks on people) and taking pleasure from
others’ misery. I find these personality traits, which I think are
psychopathic and horrendously damaging, so distressing I can’t even
bear to watch the portrayal of them in films (I have to change the
channel or leave the theatre). I instinctively dislike people who make
a living by lying (notably many lawyers, marketers and people in the
‘development’ industry). I don’t think you can cure what these people
have and insist on inflicting on others, and it’s that incorrigibility
that probably makes me so irrational.
- As I get older, I cry
more often. Certain music, ‘touching’ scenes in movies (even when
they’re somewhat contrived), pathos, silent suffering – all of these
set me off. I find it cathartic. Yet very few people have seen me cry
-- for reasons I don’t understand, I almost never cry in public, even
at funerals.
Well, that's more than enough. Who I'm tagging in
turn (this is a somewhat mischievous list of extraordinary bloggers who
readers know little about personally -- I don't really expect them to
carry on the meme):
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
