Writing is Hard Work

A few weeks ago one or two friends were talking about reading this blog. I am always embarrassed when people tell me that they have read what I have written. While I am secretly delighted to know that people read my writing - I become uncomfortable when I am told that they have. While my proofreading skills are frequently somewhat questionable I, thanks to spell check, am reasonable sure that my spelling is all right; my grammar is slightly better than adequate; my thoughts are usually well informed and I have a reasonable vocabulary. But I am never sure that what I have to say is really worthy of anyone’s time.  

I write because I like the process of shaping the thoughts that are dancing around inside my head into some coherent message. I like the struggle to find the right words, the right phrase, that right descriptor that paints the picture inside my head. I write because of all of those thoughts and words and pictures will continue to bounce around inside my head until I get them out on paper. The fact that someone else might read those words is not always important to me. Like so much of what I do - writing is for me an immensely selfish act. I do it because it gives me pleasure. If however, it gives other people pleasure or challenges their thoughts, I am truly delighted and yes a bit embarrassed. 

For the past couple of years, I have taken a month or two away from my playing with wool to work on a book. I want to assemble some of the stories from my hitchhiking trips back and forth across this country. I think it might be interesting to at least a few people to read about those who have offered me rides and the things that we have seen and talked about together. Most of the stories are already written; they are either scattered throughout this blog or in the four 80-90 page journals written before the blog was started. It should have been easy to create a coherent narrative from the thousands of words I had already written.  Writing the book has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. 

I take a few pages from my writing, find a place where those thoughts and conversations will fit, write some connecting sentences and move onto the the next driver’s stories. The next day I read the same paragraphs over again, realize how poorly they are written and do it all over again. I rewrite a few paragraphs, massage the words into some sort of readable English and think that I am well satisfied. I come back to the same paragraphs and pages a few months later and as I re-read those words that seemed so brilliant, now shine with all of the light of a moonless night. So I edit and edit and edit again.

It seems to be an never ending process, one that perhaps I need some help with.  

There are times however, when I re-read a paragraph and I am pleased with myself. This is one of them: 

“The final reason to hitchhike is to see the country. I have been fortunate to live in four provinces, sleep in ten (plus one territory) and to see bits and pieces of Canada at various times of the year. I have travelled across the country, both in the summer and in the winter a number of times by train and by car. I have seen the Prairies in the depths of a drought with the carcass of a dead pronghorn deer laying on the shoulders of a dried-up slough in Alberta and seen the Fraser River at near full spring flood tearing its way to the Pacific Ocean. I have seen countless springs gushing from the sides of mountains and fields of wheat and barley ready to harvest. I have seen the magical fall colours on hills surrounding Ontario’s highway 11 and watched the cherry blossoms bloom in February on View Street in Victoria. I have watched the mighty tidal bore in Moncton, fished off the shores of Newfoundland and the Gaspe and camped on the beaches of Vancouver Island. I have crossed the Mackenzie River, that iconic Canadian river that flows all the way to the Arctic Ocean, I have used all three southern passes to get through the Rockies, I have hitchhiked in daylight at 11:00 PM and tried to hitchhike with a flashlight.  And every one of those hundreds of hours used to travel the 100,000 plus kilometres has been well spent.”  

If only every paragraph could come out like this……..

The Power of Allegations

I find myself somewhat conflicted when reading the multitude of reports of women who have told their stories of sexual abuse/manipulations suffered at the hands of celebrities (and near celebrities). To be clear - I have no confusion or ambiguousness in terms of the absolute inappropriateness of the abuse. It is always wrong when one person uses their size, their hierarchical position, their power or their status to manipulate or to force someone to do something that they do not want to do. There are no exemptions this rule. One might be able to argue that forty or more years ago the rules were less clearly articulated - but since the mid 1970s, one would have had to live in a cave a hundred feet below the surface, with no access to any media to be able to convincingly argue that  they did not know that forcing a person to be involved in any sexual activity was wrong. But I am conflicted by the harsh condemnation of the men who have been accused and in many cases, the life changing consequences of those allegations.

I realize that it is at times inconvenient to have to wait until people are tried and convicted before they have to face the consequences of their activities. I appreciate the fact, that for the victim it is so much more cathartic to be able to scream out J’accuse! and then have the world immediately respond in a punitive fashion. But that is not the way our world is supposed to work. I have no doubt that 99.9% (there are relatively few false allegations CBC, CBC) of those who report abuse have in fact experienced at the very least, highly inappropriate advances and touching but that fact in itself, is not sufficient to condemn all men who have been accused of being abusers.

The list of men who have been accused of abuse is perhaps surprisingly short considering how often one hears about the “casting couch”.  I have no doubt that an overwhelming number of them are quilty. What causes me some concern is how quickly those men have lost their professional positions. Employers have gone from an attitude of seeing how easily they can cover up/hide the “incident” to immediate dismissal with no appeal in what seems like a period of weeks. For example just over a year ago, the person who was to be elected president of the USA got elected in spite of a number of allegations of sexual touching and famous stars such as Bill Cosby appear to have be able to avoid most of the consequences of their alleged abuses. Now if two or more people alleged that something happens, the alleged perpetrator, if they are of high enough status or position, immediately lose their job and in many cases any likelihood of getting another job in the near future.

In the early 1950s, in the USA, there was the House Un-American Activities Committee chaired by Senator McCarthy. During that time some people were accused of being Communists or at least being sympathetic to that ideology and as a consequence they were blacklisted - made unemployable. That blacklist had no legal weight, the individuals were not found guilty by a court of law, but were held guilty by the guardians of public morals and political correctness. There seemed to be some sort of political hysteria that allowed people to comfortably accuse and find guilt - it was a time when it was impossible for the accused to explain or defend themselves.

The current spate of accusations do not seem to differentiate between degrees of sexual inappropriateness. While it is clearly completely wrong for a person to force themselves on someone either through physical strength or by manipulations based on power or status, I am not convinced that posing for a picture of pretending (but not) touching the breasts of a fully clothed, sleeping woman warrants the same sort of consequence. The former act should end in a criminal conviction and the serving of time, the latter act perhaps only warrants a strong slap on the wrist and the public humiliation of being shown for a fool.

The present public outrage (or people getting on a bandwagon for political reasons) is not a constructive way of dealing with the problem. By lumping together all perpetrators into the same pot, we are not distinguishing between those who are perpetual predators of vulnerable people from those who in a moment of stupidity did something that they should not have done. No amount of education or redress would change the former group of perpetrators, the latter group can (and in many cases have) changed their ways.

We, as a society, decided some time ago that public lynching, whether the individual is guilty or not - is not the way to achieve a just society. It feels as if, in our legitimate rage against those who sexually prey upon others, we are - via the social media - agreeing to and participating in a new form of public lynching.