Flying High

I was just walking along Bloor--just east of Ossington. There's a few bars where some real down-and-outers, booozers and addicts are always walking around, congregated in clumps on the sidewalks, talking, laughing, yelling. You know the type, drunk or high, dishevelled, downtrodden. At first, I thought, "Look at all these sad and unhappy people...all together in one crowd."

But then I looked to the other side of the road at the tired and worn out people coming out of the subway, briefcases in hand, eyes sullen and baggy, going home to their screaming and kicking kids, bills, mortgages, schlock on the set and a quick night's sleep before the cycle is repeated.

But the dregs, the drunks, the addicts--the perpetually stoned---live their lives in a state of beautiful blindness. Apart from a few hangovers, they lead a life of bliss, in a way. Maybe they know something we don't? Wouldn't it be nice to live our lives in a false happiness, an altered state of reality, instead of real and fatigued sadness?

Food for thought. So, readers: Go have a drink, or two, or three, a snort, a hit--and we can all find out? Meet you on Bloor...I'll be the one talking to myself.