294 – Staypuft™ from Etobicoke, Depression, Fascism and a Settling Turn of Events
You’ve heard of an unsettling turn of events? Well, yesterday we had the opposite, which I hereby dub a settling turn of events.
A little ways back I penned, well typed I suppose, some thoughts on the effects of Castro’s broken condom and Staypuft™ from Etobicoke, turning Canada in general, and Ontario in specific, into East Germany with maple syrup.
An Unsettling Turn of Events
It was an unsettling turn of events, to say the least. The thought that this nation, a nation that once upon a time I expected to send me to die in the Fulda Gap, to keep Communist totalitarianism on the other side of the iron curtain, would voluntarily bring it down upon itself was…depressing.
Over the course of the weeks since, I have awoken almost every day feeling the effects. It has
- Depressed my mood
- Screwed with my sleep
- Upset my stomach
- Messed with my work
- Etc.
As I said, unsettling. Until yesterday.
A Settling Turn of Events
Yesterday my wife told me that Staypuft™ announced that the Fascist vaxports are set to expire on the 17th of January.
This morning I woke up and went out to breakfast with a friend, and for the first time in weeks, my stomach wasn’t bothering me. It had…settled.
Then, just before I switched from the radio to my phone music, I heard an ad. An attack ad. A campaign style attack ad. Aha, thinks I, Staypuft™ must be in election mode, and sure enough, next June, we go to the polls.
All the news channels put out there is how much support there is for the vaxports and how very much Canadians love totalitarianism, and absolutely can’t wait to live under it. This has been extraordinarily disturbing to me, as I am a freeborn Englishmen, heir to eight centuries of law and tradition backing the natural born rights of the Englishman.
Nowhere in those rights is an exception granting the government the authority to force us to violate doctor patient confidentiality to go out for breakfast. That we, as a people, were supposedly good with this was depression triggering.
Well, if Staypuft™ is suddenly, on the eve of an election campaign, announcing the expiry of fascism, then I conclude that a whole lot of people have been screaming in his ear that this shit ain’t right.
Maybe Ontarians aren’t such a bunch of fucking sheep after all. Whether they are or not, this difficult time has acted as a stress test of my newly developed resilience, and recovery strategies for my depression.
I have taken these last few weeks, and months, to dive into my own head and meet the monster face to face. I fought him to a draw, took his energy, and used it to drive myself forward.
Castro’s broken condom will someday supplant his late, unlamented and never to be sufficiently cursed (suppose) father as the worst Prime Minister in Canadian history. What am I saying? It’s not that he will someday do it, he already has done it.
But he has also provided me a crucible in which to test myself, and so far, I find I’m passing that test.
