Dance With Dependencies

This is the title of a book written by Calvin Helin.  I heard an interview with him was I drove home today.  As usual I had the radio on CBC and just happened to catch this interview.  I will definately be buying his book or getting on a waiting list at the library for it.  He was quoting someone else when he said "The fastest way to destroy a person is to pay them to do nothing".  I havn't researched the quote yet, but you can be sure that I will and when I get a name I will put it in the next blog.

I understood the quote completely when I heard it.  I knew exactly what this person meant.  When a single person, or a group of people are given welfare by a government agency something is taken away from them; their self respect, self esteem and anything that makes them feel good about themselves.  If they ever had any incentive to work that is taken too.  They are never given enough to live healthily, just enough to exist.  In my previous life, when I chose to work with people who had mental issues that prevented their working, I observed what a disablility pension did to these people.  At first there was the relief that they would have income, then as time went by they realized that there would be enough to get ahead, to better themselves in anyway.  Knowing this does something, something bad, to the human spirit and you slowly but surely give up.
You learn to live without hope that things will ever get any better.  You learn to live with ill fitting dentures and taped up glasses.  Eventually when your dentures break, or just wear out, you have no choice but to learn to live with no dentures at all.  You learn not to smile or to put your hand over your mouth.  You learn a lot of things that human beings should never have to learn, because disability pensions don't cover dentures.  They don't even like to cover dental work on existing teeth and you sure as hell can't afford to pay a dentist.

I believe that Mr Helin is writing about our aboriginal peoples as that is what he is, where he was born and what he grew up with.  I think that that "dependencies" in the title of his book means alcohol and drug dependencies as well.  As I said, I havn't read the book yet.  But I will and I will comment more on it when I do.

Evening thoughts

Monday, August 29th, 2011...........10:41p.m.