06-Oct-2006: Why Aren't You Dead?
The title of this entry is a question a social worker once asked me in reference to my
family-less adolescence. The assumption behind the question was that not many kids
who take to the streets at the age of fourteen wind up going to university, having a
successful professional career, staying married for more than a quarter century and raising three
great kids. There is also a more sinister subtext that I understood: many—perhaps most—
of my peers in similar situations wound up in prison, dead, or permanently on welfare, damaged by
drugs, alcohol, or severe personality disorders. I'm not making that claim as an idle boast of
my survival skills. For about 18 months I stayed in a group home on Queen Street East in Toronto and have
kept in touch with the couple who ran it since. They tell me that they had over one hundred boys
"go through" the home and I am the only one that they would call a "success." All of the boys who were
at the home when I stayed there have been dead for years: one shot to death by police, the rest from drug overdoses
or problems related to drug use.
Does that mean I was a goody-goody? Far from it. I lived the same kind of life the other boys did,
though I saved experimenting with drugs until my university days. So, what set me apart that led to a
very different life? This is where things can get dangerous.
If I think that the reason I survived is because I had some sort of mission in this life, whether guided by
God or not, then the danger is that I could easily fall into an illusion of grandeur, with an unusually large
ego that needs constant stroking, potentially leading to paranoia and other serious mental conditions. We've
seen plenty of that in the world. Just look at Charles Manson, Clifford Olsen, or dictators of countries devoted to
the leader's self-aggrandizement. It doesn't have to be that spectacular. There are plenty of petty, self-deluded,
public officials, pastors, teachers, business owners who fit the profile. They are not all Lord Conrad
Black, but like everything else human, they suffer from various degrees of the illusion that they have been
pre-ordained to fulfill a mission. Some think that they are so special that the law and other social
constraints don't apply to them.
I know many would like me to be an advertisement for their particular view of the world. Christians especially
would like to use me as an example of God's grace in action. (Though many of them would be horrified by
my views and attitudes.) Some might like to say that my story is one of perseverance and hard work in order to
back up their view that life is a constant struggle and that the best rise to the top. I think my story,
in itself, lays waste to those antique outdated views.
A group of teachers once asked me if I would speak to their classes about drug
use, seeing as I had had a few years' experience. However, they quickly dropped that idea when they asked,
"Why did you stop using drugs?" and I answered, "Because I got bored with it." (One of them blurted out,
"But you can't say that in a classroom." Don't worry, I'll get to teachers in a future piece.) I know they wanted me to say that
I had found religion, the love of a good woman, or that I bottomed out and went through rehab. You know the
drill. But the simple and direct truth of the matter did not fit in with their preconceived notions of what
a drug-user's experiences should be.
And that, briefly, sums up my survival techniques: I don't fit anyone's preconceived notions of who I am and
what I should have experienced (according to their book of life). I have always refused to be a character
in some sort of black and white comic book world. I, like most other people I know, live in a world of
constantly evolving colours, balanced between shifting realities. Sort of like jumping from ice floe to ice
floe as the sea melts. (I doubt any hard right wingers or fundamentalists of any religion
would share that metaphor.)
I've disappointed so many when they asked: What is the secret of your success? and I answer:
The laws of probability. I don't think many understand what I am saying. As you read through these
entries you'll find I have a lot to say about probability. For now, given enough kids in the situation I
was in, it is inevitable that some would escape from a dreary life devoid of hope.
Why me? I'm a spot on a graph that does not fit the preponderance of data points.
False modesty? Not at all. I recognize that I have certain skills and abilities that set me
apart from most people in this world. But, I am certainly not the only one. When you do the math you find
there are millions who have brains that are quick at finding patterns and solving certain kinds of problems.
But that alone is not enough for some to be able to solve their own life problems.
One day I'll write something about IQ and what it means. Meanwhile, I survived because that's who I am.