I found myself pondering the possible existence of a universal law of Weirdness or The Weird, along the lines of the law of gravity. If in the 
same way that a planet has mass and attracts passing asteroids to itself, does Weirdness have a pseudo-mass such that at a certain level of Weirdness it begins to attract any nearby Weirdness, thereby increasing the Weirdness in a given area or in a person’s life?
These days I will admit that my headspace has always contained a certain amount of Wyrd, that my world view could/can be considered from slightly to a great deal skewed.
For many years my mental illness together with the effect of being an adult child of alcoholism caused me to hide and suppress my idiosyncratic thought processes and off-beat way of seeing or thinking about the universe around me. With all the negative connotations, the stigma, associated with the words mental illness I certainly did not want mental illness linked in any manner to me. Growing up with an alcoholic parent is all about keeping secrets and you are as sick as your secrets.
You become fixated on appearing, being normal. You stuff any problems or issues until their mass reaches the point that it collapses in on itself becoming a black hole that devours your life. Perchance black hole, while colourful, is not quite accurate in that there is no escape from a black hole, while there is escape into recovery from mental illness and the ‘isms of being an adult child of alcoholism.
Escape is not easy requiring years of effort and a willingness to face your true self, to do the work needed to change the way you think about yourself and the universe around you.
As part of the recovery process I became comfortable in my own skin and instead of denying the writer, the words inside of me, my Chi, I set them free. In setting them free I set free a part of me I had locked up, setting ME free. With that freedom came not only acceptance of the fact my head can be a Weird place to dwell, but I came to treasure that Weirdness and the little spark of madness that is an essential part of ME.
No, no metaphor; I mean full of crap literally – as in someone had used it as toilet paper.
You are correct this scenario was just a little Weird. Hence my contemplating whether Weirdness has some bizarre sort of pseudo-mass that could attract more Weirdness into my vicinity and life. I began to wonder if in accepting, even treasuring, the Weird in my head and sharing my thoughts through writing had resulted in a pseudo-mass of sufficient magnitude that it had begun to pull this kind of Weirdness into my life.
The whole chain of fate(?) began innocently enough over a cup of coffee at a coffee house. Hmmmm, I suppose it would be more accurate to say that this chain of events began as a result of events I had observed and that had set my mind to wondering and my fingers to typing about the conduct of the Abbotsford Police Department (APD) in terms of Orwellian Big Brother-ism and a police state. I emailed this article off to Something Cool News, leading to an exchange of email that led to a phone conversation that resulted in the conversation over coffee.
The conversation began about some of the unacceptable behaviours the APD has been increasingly engaging in with respect to the homeless and this behaviour’s expansion even into negative treatment of youth members of a local church for daring to “encourage” the homeless by giving out sandwiches. As interesting conversations tend to do this conversation ranged outwards into broader discussion of homelessness and the uncaring treatment of the homeless and others in need in Abbotsford.
At some point in this wide-ranging discussion the correspondent spoke of his chance observation earlier in the day in Abbotsford of paper towelling that had been used as toilet paper by someone forced to use the great outdoors as a washroom. We passed on by this conversation point to talk of other improper APD behaviours and City Hall’s love of paying lip service to the epidemic of homelessness and poverty on the streets of Abbotsford while actually doing nothing to address these grave social problems.
We left the coffee house to shoot the video report on the observations of APD behaviour and the thoughts and concerns that the observed APD behaviour raised in my mind. When we had finished the video report the SCN correspondent returned to his observation of the soiled paper towelling and what it said about Abbotsford. Thus it was I found myself following him to the site of the paper towel sighting to help him make a video record and commentary.
I found myself on video putting context and comment into this pile of crappy paper towelling. Pointing out that in Abbotsford washrooms are for “Customer Use Only”; or that there are “No Public Washrooms” in stores; that the keys to the locked washrooms of gas stations are not handed to the homeless; that while at the Clearbrook Library branch the washrooms are not locked, at the downtown MSA Library branch beside Jubilee Park the washrooms are locked and accessible only with a key.
Thus it is that the homeless are forced to either hold it in indefinitely or urinate and defecate outdoors like animals. Perhaps, even less than animals considering that just the day before I had seen a business truck whose business was cleaning up after people’s dogs.
I touched briefly upon what this says about Abbotsford, particularly in light of the (false) pride so many take in all the churches in Abbotsford and how very “Christian” Abbotsford is. This led to reflecting on the question of just how Christian it is that a community with all the wealth and resources of Abbotsford does not find the homeless situation intolerable and take the necessary steps to end homelessness and address poverty in Abbotsford.
When we had finished taping the commentary on the paper towelling and the treatment of the homeless in Abbotsford, I could not resist taking advantage of having a conversational associate to bounce a somewhat heretical train of thought off of.
It occurred to me that despite their claims to be Christians many, if not most, of those who name themselves as Christians behave in a totally Un-Christian manner. They appear totally willing to sacrifice the homeless and the poor in order that they not be required to put forth effort or even worse – money – in simple Christian charity.
Given that blasphemy is defined as: profane or contemptuous speech, writing or action concerning God. Are not all those who label themselves Christian but behave in the most Un-Christian of ways, committing contemptuous actions concerning God? Are not their actions in showing disrespect and contempt for the golden rule, the parable of the Good Samaritan, the admonition to love your fellow man and so forth, profane?
Do they not then Blaspheme?
Does it not follow that rather than being the most Christian of communities, that through their actions these self-labelled “Christians” in fact cause Abbotsford to be the most Blasphemous of Communities?
So there we were in between the two parts of the video commentary on the implications contained within these soiled paper towels, debating whether, in their inactions and uncaring indifference to the homeless the smugly superior Christian community does blaspheme? After a moment for both of us to reflect on that question we concluded: How could it not be blasphemy?
I then found myself holding a digital video camera, zoomed in on a piece of paper hand towel that was full of crap, zooming out and panning over to the SCN correspondent so he could make a comment on the philosophical, ethical and societal implications inherent in the existence of this crappy piece of paper towel.
As we shook hands and parted company I found myself reflecting on just how much and often the Weird enters into my life. This is only to be expected if there is a universal law of Weirdness along the lines of the law of gravity. The Implication being that I can expect increasing amounts of the Weird in my life as the increasing pseudo-mass of the Weird around me attracts more and more Weirdness.
There is no point in worrying about an immutable law of the universe regarding which I can do nothing. Besides it should fill my life with creativity, interesting challenges, and passion and prove to be downright fun.