My Heroes

Today I forgot where my bike was, so walked in a direction I didn't need to and ended up taking the long way round the state library.

As I was passing into QV I heard some yelling turned around and recognised an old friend from PSP. I am not certain but he has muscular distrophy or something and couldn't be sure if he was yelling at somebody or whatever. I walked up to say high and he said he remembered me and then he finished tying up his laces and we did the walk and talk.

I'm not really comfortable writing this, and words really fail me in the most literal sense. His walking is awkward and not confidence inspiring, his speech is unmoderated and ungraceful all because of the condition he lives with. I don't know how he feels about it or what his experience is, but I just imagine the brutality of the condition living in the society I see around us. The words 'retard' and 'spastic' written on peoples faces if not being uttered from the sphincter mouths of arseholes.

Knowing him personally from our days in PSP I know he's intelligent, university educated and normal in every sense aside from his direct control over his own muscular system. Which makes me imagine the indignity of the condition to be sharp as a steel trap and treated like a moron simply because you don't have the control over the muscles in your mouth that others take for granted.

But dignity this guy has, and I know, plainly that I know shit. I don't know if his condition is degenerative or stable but I assume he's been living it for a fairly long time.

Really his news is all good, he's got a full time job, he's finished uni, he's a project manager. He's living up to his capabilities and probably overreaching the expectations of others. I imagine in days gone by he wouldn't have even been given a chance and kept out of uni, out of work and shut off from society.

I mean that's just it. I'm some arsehole who thinks he's heroic just for showing up each day to do his job. He's always inspired me with his dignity and it's this wonderful calm collected attitude that makes it almost too much to bare.

After shaking hands and parting from our walk and talk I just wanted to go somewhere and have a cry in shame, I can't really explain it. I feel ashamed that I feel I couldn't bare his condition and that he does it so easily and that I'm so afraid of disability that he inspires me by just living a dignified life...

There's a conflict within me that says I'm a coward that just wants to live in a world where I don't have to see the senselessness of genetics. But at the same time I know the world is richer and more wonderful for the people that push the boundaries of what we the narrow minded and able bodied think is possible. He destroys my fear by living his life, and I don't even have the balls to say that he's a hero to me.

I don't want to be a condescending mofo though. I just want to be a human being, it breaks my heart because it's so senseless. I feel he and all people afflicted deserve better. Indeed nobody deserves to suffer, there is nothing to be gained by suffering.

I don't know what the fuck I'm saying, I want to break down, and it's REALLY FUCKING CONFUSING because it was GREAT TO SEE HIM AGAIN.

Okay so...

first, I'm not a fucking man I just pretend to be. I'm terrified of being disabled even though rationally I know I would deal with it if it happened to me. I'm still too scared though to take inspiration from somebody that shows just how well people can 'deal' with it.

second, you can help me out by treating every person you ever meet ever like a fucking human being. No matter what the circumstances, no matter what the relationship. If your an adult you can control your behaviour, and if you treat people with dignity (and animals) then you will go a long way to removing the cruelty from the world that scares me.

third, assume somebody is intelligent until they prove you wrong. My first attempt to learn AUSLAN I was struck by reading that deafness has extra burdens than being blind, namely if you are blind people don't assume you are a moron. But when you are deaf people do. I often forget my english as a second language friends are as intelligent on the whole as my other friends. There's more ways to articulate intelligence than articulating a well formed sentence.

four, I don't really understand emotions, but I know that feelings of despair and shame and shit can show up in really strange places. I imagine that what I felt was a massive distimulation at the relief that I found somebody that inspires in me visions of mans inhumanity to man doing quite well and none of what I fear has actually come to pass. And I feel ashamed, how can I call this man a friend when I can't even have a conversation without wanting to go run and have a cry?

fifth, you know and I know that I don't believe in god and if there is a god then he is a cruel cunt that metes out genetic disorders to people who never had a chance to be innocent or guilty and have turned out to be really quite beautiful. But nevertheless when I had time to compose myself I remembered this 5 page sequence from Real.

Real in particular makes me feel better. I guess the body can be broken beyond repair, but the mind can heal. I'm going to go man up now.