Deus ex machina

Another hot, muggy night that clearly wishes to offer me no sleep. Well, technically, I slept from 11-3, so, those are four good hours, right? No matter. I guess I'll type a few thoughts up that I had been toying around with in my head today.

For the first time in ages, I find myself actually optimistic about my future. Yeah, yeah, pharmacy, profession, stable job, I know the mantras, but I mean, I've become authentically positive about the future beyond that tired, old jargon.

When it comes down to it, what it really boils down to is perspective. I've been in this city my entire life: in the suburbs for the first 17 years and then mostly downtown for the next 7 years. I only happen to venture out of the city limits on rare occasions. Hell, I was going north on 16th the other day and was legitimately surprised to see a vast field containing nothing but... corn. Seriously, what's up with that?

So, clearly, the city is ultra familiar and close to my heart. It's an obvious option for where I'd like to work later on. Therein is where lay much of my previous consternation. Within my field, from what I hear anyway, the chance of working in my particular urban centre of choice is quite slim, especially for a greeney such as myself. So you can imagine my underwhelment (I'm not sure if this noun form of "underwhelm" officially exists) when I'm forced to consider job opportunities in areas that are ~5 hours away from any friends and family (not to mention Chinese food). But, I realize now that that's just fine.

This sudden change was most probably precipitated by the books I had been reading lately on Aboriginal and Hong Kong history/culture (though the trend itself has been a process ongoing for years). On the one hand, you have the overt institutional racism and assimilationist processes that Canada forced upon the Aboriginal peoples. Of course, nowadays, there have been major improvements in terms of supports for Aboriginals as well as attempts to make reparations (though whether one could say these constitute as "equivalent trade" is another topic entirely). Still, I take pause when I consider that residential schools had been open all the way up until the 1960's, merely one generation ago.

On the other hand, we take Hong Kong as it was in the early 1900s, a time when housing consisted of fire-prone wooden shacks and when the rate of tuberculosis infection was >90% in people above the age of 14. Despite these conditions that would be considered deplorable by today's standards, we have a population willingly placing themselves in this setting, which only illustrates that conditions were even less desirable in the places they had initially come from.

Just from those two examples, I can't help but be thankful that I'm alive in this day and age. When institutional racism is largely a thing of the past and when it is so easy to live a safe, comfortable life. Hell, there's even Internet now. How ridiculous is that shit, right? And, so, working a few hours from where I consider is "home" suddenly seems much more to be this extremely midget potato. Suddenly, all those worries I had been carrying around with me for the past half-year or so seem much less burdening.

Quite pleasant, wouldn't you agree?