Moment of Inertia of Diversity

Obey me

I do not have two passports. I feel left out. I live in Toronto, and getting out of town for the bad weather between October and April is a big thing.  You do not live in Toronto.  You do not know what I am talking about.  You exist in a mix of cultures, divided one from the other.  There is no movement over time for the divided to come together.  Oil and water.  So face it, the stem of diversity is division.  And with the miserable weather, the divided separate smoothly into those with two loyalties, and those with only one.

I have fewer neighbors after the fair weather is gone.  The traffic is still the same on the bigger streets, but there is the tranquility that comes with the turning of the leaves, when the refugees head home for vacation.

My culture, they disapprove of dole, food banks, bastards, and, ignorance.  They are divided from other cultures in this.  I only have one passport.  So when I am in line for the food bank, I feel the sting of disapproval.  And my listening to my self-talk in my head would distract me from the evidence of my senses in real time.  But not today. 

The pair in front of me are talking.  They are not being quiet and self shamed.  No, they are griping about the wait in line, alternating with speculation about the start of skiing at some place called Tremblant.  They did get a good deal on lift tickets, and they were going to stay in their recently winterized cottage.  No problem with getting heating oil in Quebec, apparently, and there is no problem with them being in a food bank line, gaming the system.  Their culture is divided from mine: there is diversity!

Anyway, gaming the food bank is a grey area.  Everybody is doing it, and their cultures, which are divided from mine, thinks it is ok.  

If you up your game and start to go to more than one food bank (which would be against the rules in my culture), you will be shocked to see people doing the same thing.  I know there are staff who work at more than one place.  That is OK.  But double dipping, taking from the place, nope.  

Eggplant must be important to the other cultures that are divided from mine.  There were eggplants in the food from the food bank (normally, it is some potatoes, carrots, onions), so here I saw, and counted, people from the other food bank.  My culture thinks being able to count up to five is a good thing; and being a parasite who too lazy to shift for themselves, is bad.  So you can see my dilemma.  Waiting in the food bank is a time to pause and reflect.  Search for solutions to the personal failings that lead to dependency.  Resolve to make this the last time you have to do this.  Scrape the bits of self esteem you have left from the frying pan of life.  

There really are not enough people of my culture hanging around the food bank line for me to feel comfortable embracing my own culture.  I was divided from the others.  I was divided from myself.  I was immersed in diversity, to be divided endlessly down to the individual, to be alone always, in public, in the home, at work, and now, in the mind.  Now, having my nose rubbed in the fact that I am a hundred and eighty degrees off course, not for being a chump who goes to the food bank, but for not gaming the system more.  If I want to be accepted, I should change my culture, to fit in.  

I like eggplant.  I can accept the fact that I am wrong.  I can evolve.  I am challenged to unpack the fanny pack of white privilege.  There is nobody of my culture in the food bank line, so I will be a shape shifter and just change my spots, like a leopard.  I can start today.  I will help my food bank friend out by making his pick ups when he goes on vacation.  By grifting, I will get enough money to be a double passport Canadian.  I can eat my eggplant, and have it, too!

I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this.  I care.