I am tired of my life.
I have to find, or make, a new life.
I wasted my best opportunities in life.
But no amount of lamenting
Equals finding new opportunities.
I am tired of failing,
Especially failing invisible standards that no-one puts into words.
From things I believe beyond choice I can set my own standards.
I have no defences.
From detachment and my sense of humour
I make my defences.
I have no faith.
From things I believe beyond choice
I can build my own faith.
I have no goal.
Knowing now what I am and what I can do,
I can find or make my own goal.
I have no strategy.
By doing no harm and meeting some people’s needs
I create my strategy.
I have no vocation.
Knowing now what I am and what I can do,
I can find or make my own vocation.
I have no plan for the future.
Knowing now what I am and what I can do,
Perhaps now I can plan a future.
I have no community.
If I get the hell out of the house, meet people,
Treat them like people and not aliens,
and stay in touch with family and friends,
I may build a community.
I have no woman in my life.
If I can simply approach women, treat them like people and not aliens,
I may have a woman in my life.
I have no housecat.
If I keep on sleeping fifteen and sixteen hours when I can,
I’m liable to turn into a bloody housecat.
Join the Royal Swiss Navy!
Dear Guys,
One of the silly things I do to pass time pleasantly is to make up amateur comedy routines, including the Royal Swiss Navy.
Inspired by silly SF club titles, surreal fanzine titles, and the Monty Python lads, the Royal Swiss Navy is not Royal, is not Swiss, and does not float. Ideally I would recruit other people to do surreal things in public, like march in home-made uniforms of camouflage patterns but clashing neon colours, or enter the Nanaimo Bathtub Race, or do public interest research on powerful corporations and political lobbies, and expose their more absurd follies on the Internet, to general public ridicule.
So far I have had no takers. Well, some people are amused by the Royal Swiss Navy Gazette I publish, and the RSN website I started (http://www.vcn.bc.ca/sig/rsn/), but the Royal Swiss Navy is still acquiring a state of existence.
Check out the above-mentioned website and examine the RSN Handbook, if you like.
Garth Spencer
Vancouver, BC
Got a question for everybody: is there any particular thing you expect a man to do, or be, these days, besides hang around and be another consumer unit? Once upon a time, American men (and Canadians, I guess) modeled themselves on movie cowboys. My father seemed to think a man had to produce something to be worthwhile, which left out a lot of white-collar workers and financial sector professionals, come to think of it. For at least a decade now, men in our culture seem to be required to make $50,000 to $100,000 a year, own a mortgaged home and a car half-paid-for and carry a certain amount of credit card debt, all in order to be a fully qualified person. What definition of manhood, or personhood, do you tend to assume?
Garth Spencer
Vancouver, BC
