dailyprompt – Page 5

I have no idea

Daily writing prompt

What were your parents doing at your age?

My father was 54 in the year 2000.

He had already been retired from the Canadian Armed Forces for seven years at this point after serving in the military for 30 years.

Not too shabby for a guy who joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963 with a grade 8 education and a drinking habit that would make a longshoreman blush.

Me?

Because the baby boomers insisted on hauling up the ladder after they had their climb, I will have to work for at least 12 more years if I want to even think of retiring.

Hopefully I can avail myself to M.A.i.D. in 2027 so that I no longer have to live with the daemons that my father gave to me.

My mother would have also been 54 in the year 2000.

I have absolutely no idea what the fuck she was up to. The last time I had spoken with her at that point in my life was in the spring of 1992, when after moving to Vancouver she told me to “never fucking call her again”. I honoured this command until 2013 when I had to call her to discuss with her some of the answers that my father had given to me for federal court. When I met her in 2013 she was a fucking dead zombie. She already had a bunch of aneurysms. And she was nothing more than the walking dead waiting for her death.

I don’t know if she ever retired from a job that had a pension.

My dream home

Daily writing prompt

Write about your dream home.

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What would my dream home be like?

I don’t know.

I never lived in a place that I would call a “home”.

And I never lived in any place that I would call a “dream home”.

The houses I lived in were all fucking traumatizing nightmares, and I don’t mean that they all had the same fucking paint scheme no matter which base they were located on. Living in an abusive dysfunctional family in military housing on military bases was the traumatizing nightmare.

I grew up living in Private Married Quarters on Canadian Forces Bases.

And with my rage prone alcohol fuelled father, these weren’t homes.

They were houses.

It’s where I kept my shit.

It’s where I slept at night.

It’s where I was absolutely terrified to ask my father for help with school homework as that would launch him into a rage and fury.

From the time my mother left in 1977 until September of 1985, I never had a birthday. In 1985, no doubt due to my father’s rampage in the PMQ during the summer of 1985, I had a “birthday” of sorts. A small cake and a $20 bill. And a promise that he would never forget my birthday again. That was the last birthday of mine that he ever acknowledged. I guess once he realized that the base military police were not going to inform the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto about his massive meltdown in the PMQ in the summer of ’85 he didn’t have to pretend to give a shit about me any longer.

My alcoholic grandmother living in the PMQs and raising my brother and I didn’t make things any easier. If I had to take a wild guess, I think that my father got his mental issues from her. As much as he would claim that she was an alcoholic that was cruel to his children, he was the exact same.

When my father received his final posting in June of 1990 to go back to CFB Edmonton in anticipation of his retirement, he and my stepmother bought a house in Morinville, AB.

I lived in an actual house for the first time in my entire life. Not a military PMQ. Not a rooming house where I rented a room after I moved out of the PMQ on CFB Downsview when I was 16. An actual house, with walls that you could hang pictures on without fear of pissing off the base construction engineers.

Yeah, my stepmother had me booted out within a week of us moving from CFB Griesbach to Morinville.

She apparently did the same with my brother when he finished his sentence at the St. John’s Training School for Boys in Uxbridge, Ontario and moved to AB to stay with our father as Scott was still only 16 when he was released.

So yeah, never really did live in a real home as a kid.

I’m happy with my bachelor apartment.

It’s not too big.

Growing up in my father’s house it was either “go the fuck outside and stay the fuck outside until the lights come on” or ” get the fuck up to your bedroom and stay there” or “get the fuck to school”. There were no weekend nights playing boardgames or watching Disney on TV or any other family style of activities.

And that’s why I like my apartment.

I’m either sleeping all day, or I’m at work, or I’m out and about trying to keep my brain from ruminating over and over about what I could have done differently in life.

My apartment, just like the PMQs, is just a place where I store my shit, and go to sleep.

What do I complain about the most?

What do you complain about the most?

Well, that’s a hard one.

When one suffers from major depression, severe anxiety, and trauma from untreated childhood sexual abuse one tends to have a lot of observations, but I wouldn’t necessarily call this complaining. Okay, maybe some of it is complaining, but fuck it.

It’s just that when one has to work so hard to get to a certain place in life while watching those who have never suffered a single bruise or blemish in their lives cruising through life and reaping all the rewards without the slightest in effort, it gets fucking annoying really quick.

I think one of the things that pisses me off the most is watching those who came from supportive families cruising through life with nary a want or a encountering an unfulfilled desire.

Did my father ever show an interest in school when I was a kid?

Nope.

Did my father ever get his drinking under control?

Nope.

Did my father ever protect my bother and I from his alcoholic mother, who in his own words to social services, was extremely cruel to his children?

Nope.

Did my father stand up to the chain of command in 1980 when the decision was made by the Canadian Armed Forces to minimize the number of charges brought against Captain McRae?

Nope.

Did my father help me with my first car?

Nope.

Did my father help me with my first apartment?

Nope.

Did my father help me when I ended up on the streets after one job prematurely ended and a promised job after relocation fell through?

Nope.

Did my father write me into his will?

Nope.

Did anyone help me with the last minute and completely unexpected travel expenses and cremations expenses to dispose of my younger brother’s body?

Nope.

So here I sit, at age 53, watching all those that came from good families, that never had a single unfulfilled want in life, go through with their happy fantasy lives while I get told to be happy because my life could have been so much worse that what it actually is.

And yes, I’ve known people who have been in the foster care system. A system that I could have been placed into had it not been for the actions of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke. These people seemed to enjoy the support of their foster families. All the while I keep getting told that I should be happy that I lived with my father.

Even though my grandmother went through the Indian residential school system, and her alcoholism that led to my brother and I being sexually molested by our babysitter and Captain McRae could rightfully be blamed on the trauma she endured at residential school, do I get any sort of support for this.

Nope

Let’s face it, my father’s anger, his alcoholism, his cruelty, his complete lack of concern for anybody but himself, and his inability to take responsibility no doubt originated with his mother. The fact that she was an alcoholic during her pregnancy with him probably explains a lot of his behavioural difficulties. Do I get any type of support for this?

Nope.

In fact, when I bring up what I believe to be the root of my family’s dysfunction, I get called a “pretendian”.

I also get told that I should be thankful that I had the opportunity to grow up in a safe environment like Canadian Forces Bases and that I had the opportunity to play with military toys that kids in the civilian world would have enjoyed.

So yeah, I guess I have a lot of gripes.

However, people telling me to get over the past and simply move on with my life are probably my biggest gripe.

Fuck I hate those assholes with every fibre of my being.

What would I do if I won the lottery

What would you do if you won the lottery?

I don’t play the lottery. Never have, never will.

Lotteries are a tax on poverty.

But, let’s say that I did win the lottery, what would I do?

Depending on how much money I won, I would probably hire a PR firm and do my best to destroy the squeaky clean image that the Canadian Armed Forces have been able to build over the years with massive amounts of tax payer money poured into professional PR firms.

I would probably set up a foundation or a trust for military dependents who fell through the cracks while living on the bases pre-1998 and who have suffered with mental illness and trauma.

I would hire the best psychiatrists and psychologists to lobby on my behalf and on the behalf of other military dependents who wish to obtain Medical Assistance in Dying for Mental Illness as the Sole Underlying Medical Condition.

Buy a fancy luxury car? For what? Can’t use the fancy car to drive away from the past.

Buy a house or a condo? That’s not going to erase the past. And 2027 isn’t really that far away.

Go on fancy vacation? My idea of a vacation is just going somewhere and walking around off the beaten path. But besides, I don’t really have the desire to go anywhere. I go places out of necessity.

What is my dream job?

Daily writing prompt

What’s your dream job?

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to have a dream job, I suppose one would have to have dreams.

And dreams are something that I’ve never had, at least not for a long while.

Growing up, especially in the aftermath of Canadian Forces Base Namao, my only dreams were to die. To die and have my father blamed for my death. That was about my only dream.

I always had dreams of Richard going off to prison for a very long time

When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario, my father and my stepmother used to use Canada’s Wonderland as “Richard’s and Sue’s Discount Babysitting Service”, or at least that’s what Scott called it.

Back when Wonderland first opened up, and I think for the first season or two, it had introductory unlimited access and unlimited rides for $29.95. Richard and Sue would drop

I used to dream that I’d get kidnapped from Canada’s Wonderland, that I’d get murdered, and that my body would then be found by a hiker in the woods. And that after identifying my skeleton, the police would go talk to Richard, and Richard would lie, and lie, and lie, and that he’d eventually fess up and that the judge would sentence him to prison with extra time added on for his lies.

But, that never happened.

I’m now 54 years old, and I still dream and ponder about how life would have worked out for Richard if I had been kidnapped and killed.

So far as dream job goes, I’ve never had a dream job.

I wanted to join the Canadian Forces when I was younger, but that never went anywhere due to the recruiting centre “obtaining some information” about me that indicated that I was an unsuitable candidate for service. I think this had to do with Captain Totzke’s paperwork being in my father’s service file, which would have been available for the recruiting service.

I’m probably lucky that I was never enlisted in the Canadian Forces. I don’t really know how well my psyche would have held up in an environment where the truth isn’t based upon reality but is instead based upon the whims and desires of the chain of command.

If I had enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces I’d probably have to have hidden so deeply in the closet that I’d be somewhere in Narnia.

Working in bowling centres was never what I’d call a dream job. But seeing as how I brought skills to bowling centres that most bowling centres wouldn’t be able to afford, I was always afforded a lot of leeway. I don’t know how well me being trans and going on hormones would have been tolerated at some of the centres, but other centres would have been okay.

There was one guy I worked for in Vancouver. He owned an electronics installation company. He started the company with money that he got from his parents. He couldn’t understand why I just didn’t get some money from my parents and start something up that I liked to do.

Two problems with that. There was never going to be any money from my father, or my stepmother, or my real mother. I don’t blame Sue. I didn’t burst forth from her crotch. Richard? Yeah, fuck no. His responsibility to my brother and I ended when he ejaculated. My mother? Richard having the military chuck her out of the military housing on Summerside destroyed her and turned her into a husk of herself, especially with Richard’s bullshit about her just abandoning the family and running of with a guy named Gus from the P.P.C.L.I..

People often ask me why I’m so leery about guys like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump, or the various others I’ve known in my life that often portray themselves as self made and living the lives that they lead after years and years of hard work.

I worked under a general manager once who only got his job because his father knew one of the board members of the company. His business degrees were worth less than used toilet paper. His managerial skills consisted of overt threats and convincing people that other people were out to get their jobs. Yes, this manager ended up getting replaced, but not before numerous people who had been with the company for years up and quit. Of course, as fate would have it for the well connected, he ended up failing into a job with more pay and more prestige.

I had a co-worker that wasn’t all that bright, caused far more harm than good, but as he didn’t have crippling depression and debilitating anxiety he could glad-hand his way into positions that he didn’t belong in.

It’s as they say, if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.

If it wasn’t for Errol Musk and his involvement with emerald mining, especially being compensated with roughage that he could then process and keep the proceeds from, Elon wouldn’t have been able to jet set from South Africa to Canada and then into America. According to Errol, any time that Kimbal or Elon needed money for anything, the safe was wide open. If it wasn’t for Maye Musk being Canadian, there would have been no back door for Musk to entre America through.

Musk didn’t found Paypal.

Musk didn’t found Tesla.

Musk did assemble SpaceX, but without SpaceX being awarded a multi-billion dollar contract from NASA for flights to resupply the International Space Station, SpaceX would never have become anything. What’s even more amazing about SpaceX is that it received its first contract with NASA without even having a rocket ready to go.

Jeff Bezos nearly lost everything in the early ’90s with his early attempt at a being a book reseller on the early Internet. Luckily for Jeff, a near 1/4 million dollar loan that his parents facilitated kept him from insolvency and allowed him to start what became Amazon. And now Amazon both via patents and just the sheer magnitude of his empire, Bezos can prevent any and all competition.

William Henry Gates the 3rd is NOT the plucky little guy that started from nothing. The Gates family is a well established and well monied Seattle family going back generations. Bill Gates and Paul Allen both went to the same exclusive school in Seattle. Their respective families were able to get them access time on mainframe computers where they could hone their programming skills. This was at a time when access to mainframes was about $1,000.00/hr. This was before the advent of home computers.

Bills mother was a socialite who hung out with the wives of board member of IBM. This was at a time when IBM was looking to release a personal computer. IBM had the hardware, but they didn’t have an operating system. However it happened, Bill’s mother found out from a wife of an IBM board member, and Bill’s mother told Bill.

Bill Gates then did what any kid with access to easy money did, he bought a licence from a small company in Seattle called the Seattle Computer Company for their product called “Quick and Dirty DOS”, rebranded the QD-DOS as Microsoft DOS and sold a lot of units of this new “MS-DOS” to IBM, and quickly pissed off the Seattle Computer company.

Did I mention that Bill had one of the most influential Seattle lawyers as a father and the founder of the Seattle First National Bank was his grandfather?

Donald Trump is the ultimate Nepotism Baby. Donald would be nothing if it wasn’t for the real estate empire that his father built in New York city. This empire was built from tax payer dollars that were paid to Fred Trump by the US Govt. to build housing for American troops returning from WWII. The fact that the Trumps are even in America is solely due to the fact that when Friedrich Drumpf immigrated to America, immigration requirements were almost non-existent. Friedrich Drumpf immigrated to America he only to avoid a prison sentence in his home country of Bavaria which he was given for failing to enlist for compulsory military service. Friedrich also had no proper documentation when he came to America as Bavaria had stripped him of his citizenship. If Friedrich Drumpf were to try to immigrate to America today he would be refused entry.

Fred Trump was one of the most reviled slumlords in American history. The many scams of the Trumps are far too numerous to list here, but they are publicly available for review.

Needless to say that Donald wouldn’t have reached where he is today if it wasn’t for his family’s money.

Almost everyone in a position of influence these days got there solely due to family money.

This isn’t to say that I would have had a happy life if I had family money, but having family money opens up a lot of doors for a person.

I’ve had co-workers that fell into good positions in life solely due family money or family connections.

And quite honestly I do get rather sick and tired of people telling me that if I wasn’t such a lazy asshole and such a whiny crybaby that I could have simply applied myself and I could have easily been something.

A lot of what the world is these days is people using their family capital to build their personal wealth and empire. And once they build that wealth, they use every means at their disposal to prevent challengers. Microsoft, Apple, etc. don’t own thousands upon thousands of unused patents for no reason at all.

But having family money early on would have allowed me to go to school, maybe to have travelled when I was younger. Maybe bought a house. And afforded myself the ability to have recovered from the trauma of CFB Namao, of my grandmother, of my father, and of Captain Terry Totzke.

Maybe then I could have discovered what a “dream job” was.

When I was 10 years old I was given an IQ test as part of a psychiatric evaluation by my civilian social workers in an attempt to ascertain what the fuck was going on in my brain.

136 +/- 6 was the result of my test.

At work I’m reviled by everyone there.

Every attempt that I make to bring my section into the modern era is met with heavy resistance. Almost every initiative that I’ve tried to institute to ensure compliance with the Safety Standards Act just meets with more stubborn resistance.

I know that I shouldn’t be here.

But power engineering was the only way that a “poor” like me could get into a union position that would protect me and allow me to move out of the life of poverty that the Canadian Armed Forces and my father had assigned me to.

I thought that power engineering was my ticket to the future, but then I very quickly realized that power engineering is just to ensure that there is a warm body in the plant so that mgmt. can assure Tech Safety BC that they are meeting the requirement to have a warm body in the seat as required.

And that’s it.

Nothing more than glorified plunger jockeys.

Yes, I know that I’m too smart for my position and that my knowledge and my abilities intimidate other people.

Yes, I know that I am a complete asshole for not teaching people how to do what I do because I do it so easy.

Yes, I can troubleshoot computer networking issues. But it’s not because I received special training. I just read the books and read the manuals.

I don’t like computers. I don’t play computer games. I don’t edit videos. I don’t make music.

But I can RTFM ( Read The Fucking Manual).

I am also not afraid to call or email tech support for guidance.

It seems like anything that I do at work unleashes the rage of my co-workers.

Run a fibre optic network between the Generator Control system in Phase II over to the Burrard Building power house to eliminate a long standing communication issue with the 600 volt breakers in the Burrard Building?

“Why the fuck is that asshole sticking his fucking business into this, why doesn’t he fuck off and stay in his own lane?”. “The Fuck is wrong with him, the asshole isn’t a licenced electrician so he shouldn’t be touching any of this fucking shit!”

Troubleshoot a long standing communication issue with the Phase II Delayed Vital MODbus network?

“Is he even fucking certified to work on this? What if he destroys a breaker?”

They may think that I don’t hear them, but I hear them.

Their voices, and their sideway glances, and the conversations behind closed doors are easily overheard.

These are the things that I’ve heard all of my life.

“Bobbie’s just trying to make me look bad”

“Bobbie’s just hiding this knowledge from me. If it was easy for a moron like him to learn then he should be able to teach me. Sure, I don’t like computers, I don’t even own one, but he should be able to teach me how to set-up a MODbus to IP gateway ’cause if Bobbie can do it how fucking hard can it be?

“If he wants to work with networking or electronics, why the fuck isn’t he taking a diploma course?”

People have asked why I’m not going to the new hospital even though I was involved on the design committee for the new site.

There were two individuals in particular that went to every extent possible to make sure that I understood that my presence was not wanted on the committee and that I was to stay in my own lane and that anything that I had to say was limited to my power engineer certificate and that anything that I had to say beyond this was not going to be accepted.

These two persons in particular, well there’s a third, but I don’t have to deal with him, made sure that I understood what my place was and that freaks like me aren’t welcome in their new state-of-the-art playhouse.

Get a diploma?

Get a certificate?

Fuck, I don’t even want to get out of bed, how the fuck am I supposed to have enough strength to overcome my daemons and get a fucking diploma or a certificate?

And besides, I’m not fucking 18 years old, or even 24 years old.

I’m 54 fucking years old.

No savings, no real estate, no fucking nothing.

So no, there is no dream job.

There’s just the fucking eternal hell of knowing that I’ll never have the opportunities that should have been mine. That certain assholes will always dangle these opportunities in front of my eyes to ensure that I know that they know what I’ll never have.

p.s.

There was a study that that looked at the outcomes of children with high IQs. It was started in the 1920s in California by the father of the modern IQ test, Lewis Terman. These children were traced all throughout their lives. What surprised Lewis Terman 30 years into this study was that his hypothesis that IQ levels were hereditary was wrong, the parents of the children with high IQs that went on to have better incomes had higher educations, had better jobs, lower divorce rates, and more books in the household. Almost all of the kids that came from poor families with lower education levels and lower expectations of their children ended up as “failures” of no significance that “wasted” their talents.

Okay…….

Daily writing prompt

Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.

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As a kid I never liked the name “Robert”.

I despised my full name, but that’s for a different post.

While my family lived on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater in Nova Scotia people like Bill Parker or my uncle Al always referred to me as Bob, Bobby, or Robbie.

No matter how much I preferred Bob or Bobby my father and my grandmother were always of the opinion that my birth name was Robert and that’s what I would be called.

It wasn’t until my infamous August 2006 telephone call with my father that I became determined to change my name.

The telephone call was the first time that I had an inkling that my father knew more about the events on Canadian Forces Base Namao than what he had ever admitted to.

In the aftermath of the telephone calls I had decided that I was going to seriously look at changing my name and possibly going through hormone therapy.

So, I decided that I wanted to work on my name first.

I tried different first names, but I always came back to Bobby, or more specifically Bobbie. What I really liked about Bobbie is that it is a unisex name. Bobby is generally a male name. Bobbi is generally a female name. And Bobbie is gender neutral. Tracing the history of Bobbie through the years it has gone back and forth between being a male name and a female name.

Nothing fancy about the name Bobby / Bobbie / Bobbi. They’re all the diminutive spelling of Robert / Roberta.

And the plan was that once I underwent hormone therapy that I would simply drop the “e” and go with Bobbi.

But then I had to do a stupid thing and I went on to pick a fight with the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence.

The fight was going to be inevitable. There’s no way that the shit from 1978 through 1980 was going to stay hidden and buried in the past.

So, 17 years after my name I’m still Bobbie.

At least I’m on Estradiol and I’m sprouting beewbs……….

Nothing

Daily writing prompt

What makes a good leader?

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I’m not a good leader.

I just don’t like following stupid people.

That’s why I would never have any interest in working under a “book smart” manager.

So for better or for worse I’m in a position where I don’t have to work under people that aren’t qualified for their positions.

Power Engineers have “Certificates of Competency” they do not have red seal trade qualifications.

In the field of Power Engineering there are people who can memorize steam tables and codes, but who don’t really understand which end of the screw driver they should be holding or how to rebuild a pressure reducing valve.

And when it comes to building automation, it’s very hit and miss as to their skill levels and their desires to learn.

And for the remainder of my time on this planet I have absolutely no intention of working under a book learner that has absolutely no common sense nor the ability to work with their hands.

Nope

Daily writing prompt

Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

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This one is a very simple question to answer.

Nowhere.

Seriously.

My father was a piss tank alcoholic with a metric shit ton of demons.

My grandmother was a piss tank alcoholic with her own metric shit ton of demons.

There was absolutely no love in my family.

Anything that resembled love was just an attempt at blackmail.

I know that it’s weird to think, but the only time that I think I will ever feel loved is when people stop forcing me to live.

The best way for people to show their love to me is to admit that not everything is fixable and that sometimes the best course of action is to end the suffering, the depression, and the anxiety.

Road Trips…..

Daily writing prompt

Think back on your most memorable road trip.

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I’ve never had anything in the way of what I would call a “road trip” until rather recently in life.

My father wasn’t the type of guy to go camping with his kids.

He did borrow a truck with a camper from one of his air forces buddies when we lived on CFB Griesbach in Edmonton from 1980 to 1983, but this was so that he could take his new wife camping in the mountains.

In 2023 I had what you could call “road trips”.

One was to Ontario. And one was to Iceland.

The trip to Ontario was by Via Rail. This trip was booked so that it would happen right after I made my application for M.A.i.D.. I was intending to use the trip to have some quiet reflection after making my application for my death.

But of course, the Government of Canada capitulated to the imaginary friend brigade.

It was an interesting trip, but as usual depression and self doubt were my constant companions.

Initially I thought that the trip was going to be aborted in Winnipeg as there really wasn’t any space for me to be left alone on the train, but thankfully I discovered the “economy class” at the front of the train.

The “sleeper class” section of the train has access to the diner car and the bar car at the rear of the train. But with the exception of meal time, the diner car is off limits for sitting down in.

And the rear of the train is for socializing.

I don’t socialize.

I hate small talk.

And I hate polite talk.

So as can be imagined the trip started off as a nightmare.

But then I discovered the “economy class” diner.

And yes, I could grab a chair and sit at a table and write out to my heart’s content on my laptop.

My trip to Iceland came as a result of the settlement that I received for a previous childhood matter.

Ever since I received my medical reports from the PEI government in 2011 that indicated that my father had been in Iceland on the day that I had been knocked unconscious in a “bicycle accident” I had a desire to go to Iceland to see what was so special that he’d leave my brother and I alone in the PMQ while he flew off to an entirely different country with the Canadian Armed Forces.

The day of the “accident” was in July of 1978. My grandmother had returned back to Edmonton in the spring of 1978, and we moved to CFB Namao in Edmonton in August of 1978. My mother of course had been kicked out of the PMQ by my father in 1977.

I don’t recognize the names on the hospital records of the person who found me “laying” in the middle of the road and took me to the hospital. And my father’s name is the only name listed as Next of Kin, so it’s obvious that Richard wasn’t going to let his kids stand in the way of his flying to Iceland.

So, as I said, I was curious to see what was so special about Iceland.

I booked the trip so that I would be in Iceland for the summer solstice.

Iceland, or more specifically Reykjavik was interesting.

I didn’t get around too much of the island, I just stayed around Reykjavik, but I did violate one rule and I ended up out at the Black Sand Beach on the south east corner of the island.

So, I never did discover a reason for my father to have buggered off to the island while leaving his kids unattended at home in military housing.

Maybe he thought that the other parents on base would just look after us in the same manner that he just expected everyone else to look after us.

And I can’t see having told his chain of command that he wouldn’t be able to go out on training exercises as he had a responsibility to look after his family.

Iceland is an interesting place. Nice and quiet. Everyone keeps to themselves, but they are very friendly.

If you have depression or anxiety Iceland is actually therapeutic as it gets you away from our toxic and highly dysfunctional culture.

The cycling culture is better than that of Vancouver’s.

Even though the Americans infected Iceland with car culture in the aftermath of WWII due to the presence of an American air force base on the island, bicycling is supported very strongly on the island. As is walking. Reykjavik is a very walkable city.

This counter that was just down the path from the hotel I stayed in shows that 5 bicycles and 16 pedestrians had passed this point by 00:58. Yes, the counter resets at 00:00. And yes, this is midnight on the summer solstice.

And the aforementioned US military presence on the island in the years after WWII is what fuelled the punk rock scene on the island, especially in Reykjavik. The punk rock scene exploded primarily as a force of resistance against the American influence on Icelandic culture.

There’s a wonderful little Punk “museum” in the heart of Reykjavik in an old converted public washroom. These public washrooms weren’t small, they’re pretty large. And hence there’s a museum in one of them. If you’re in Reykjavik you should give it a try.

Walking around in Reykjavik I realized that there weren’t many visible signs of drug use, mental health issues, or homelessness. That’s not because they don’t have these issues. It’s because unlike here in Canada where we are in a never ending race with the Americans to see who can cut their taxes to the absolute minimum while cutting as many social programs to the bone, Iceland heavily invests in social housing, looking after their mentally ill, and looking after their drug addicts.

Yes, their taxes are high when compared to Canada’s taxes, but they don’t have homeless people sleeping in doorways, homeless families living in cars, and homeless people shitting and pissing in the alleys.

And the truth about Canadian taxes is our tax rates, especially our lack of a wealth tax, is that our taxes are laughably so low that they’re criminal.

The tables below are from the World Population Review.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-taxed-countries

Canada’s tax rate is even less than America’s tax rate.

Christ, our tax rate is even lower than Ethiopia’s tax rate.

Yeah, it’s no wonder why we don’t have any investment in social programs and why our governments are trying to cut away as many social programs as possible. Our governments are trying to compete against Indonesia, Pakistan, and Ethiopia to be tax havens for the rich.

Anyways, would I go to Iceland again?

I probably would, given the chance. I’d plan for a couple of weeks stay and I’d try to get up to the northern part of the island to get as close to the Arctic circle as possible for the summer solstice.

The Past

Daily writing prompt

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

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I spend an inordinate amount of time in the past.

This is primarily due to how dysfunctional my past has been and how much the past has affected my life in the current day.

All my life I’ve never had anything to look forward to in the future. The future was always uncertain for me as after CFB Namao I never saw myself having a future.

The one thing that I do have to look forward to is death.

The only certainty that life has to offer is death.

Death, as has been said, is the great equalizer.

When we’re dead we’re no better and no worse than the next person.

Death offers freedom from pain and suffering.

Death frees you from the past.