Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
I frequently find myself coming across a variety of blogs, Facebook posts, and tweets claiming that it is Mental Health Awareness week, followed by a plaintive plea to repost, and the skeptical starting line “I know most of you won’t…” which all seem to be posted at different times of the year. Doing some research will turn up the proper dates, but the exponentially increasing appearancfe of these messages strikes a resounding chord for me and, I hope, more of the public than ever.
Following Scott Hastie’s recent editorial regarding his choice to take some time off from the pressures of university life to tend to his mental health, and Amanda Watkin’s candid account of her own struggles with anxiety and depression, I offer you this piece as a source of inspiration and unification. There is a too-often over looked and highly stigmatized aspect to our capacity for a healthy and happy life; our mental health; and it is time that all of us rally behind the alleviation of this, mostly silent, suffering.
I will resort to the action word embedded in this column’s title and make my own confession. Some time ago, I was in something of a reverie wandering down Lakeshore Boulevard by Spencer Smith Park in search of someone. I remember the streetlights having an eerie glow about them and everything moving in wishy-washy sand animation style. I felt an intense weight on my chest and found it difficult to breathe, almost hyperventilating. Tears were falling down my face. Those tears were icy cold in October.
Thankfully, some chemical in my brain, or some memory of my little boys, overtook the emotional meteor shower I was battling through and I snapped out of this fantasy world and back into cognitive reality. I wasn’t just searching for anyone, I was searching for my girlfriend who had gone out with her friends for some drinks. I had been walking around the streets of Burlington in the cold for hours full of morbid jealousy and a fear that my world was going to end.
I was filled with dread, a feeling like tomorrow wouldn’t come. I hated myself and didn’t know what kind of mischief I would be capable of, so, thinking of my little boys, my mother and father, my girlfriend and her daughter, I yanked my phone from my pocket and Googled “I want to kill myself help Burlington.”
COAST was the first number I found. I called them. A kind lady on the other end of the line talked me down, and convinced me there was no shame in visiting the ER at Joe Brant hospital, as they are fully equipped with a crisis intervention team trained for just these kinds of circumstances and, in fact, have a Mental Health Urgent Care Center attached. I made my way into the ER. I was given the help I needed.
I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, a highly misunderstood disorder that hangs on the borderline of most psychiatric diagnoses, somewhere between psychosis and neurosis, displaying symptoms of both. It is identified by the individual displaying at least five of the following nine symptoms: an intense fear of abandonment and frantic efforts to avoid it; a disturbed or fragmented sense of self; a pervasive instability in relationships; a deep, inexplicable, and chronic feeling of emptiness; emotional instability and dysregulation; recurrant suicidal or self-harming behavior; impulsivity (spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, etc.); inappropriate, intense anger; and transient, stress-related paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms. I qualified on all 9 of the symptoms.
The psychiatrist, a kind and quirky fellow by the name of Alfred Amaladous (I feel the need to precede his name with a respectful ‘sir’), asked me a series of questions while taking notes quite attentively. After 30 minutes, a look of sincere certainty washed across his face and he laid down the symptoms in a gentle and friendly manner. He introduced the idea by asking me what my favorite sports car was, to which I replied “a Maserati”.
“Well, Richard,” he continued, “you have the emotional engine of a Maserati,” smiling in a very comforting and accepting manner. “Everything you feel is at 220mph, no matter how far you are pushing down the pedal. It must be very difficult. You’ve been going through this for so long.” He concluded by looking directly into my eyes with a genuine empathy and understanding, the likes of which I had not experienced in all of my 37 years, at least not from someone who was not directly tied to me biologically.
So I began a path to freedom. A path of healing, restructuring, and rebirth.
The team at Joseph Brant’s Mental Health Outpatient facility has been nothing short of a miracle (this coming from an atheist). Each step of the way I have been provided a framework, and tools to pick up the millions of pieces and put them into place to begin making some kind of sense of where I have come from, where I am going, who I was, and who I can be. There are many professionals capable of making a massively positive change in the world, and I have been fortunate enough to have been one of their patients. There are those of you attending this school that will have the fortune of playing their role. I intend to be one of them. There are also those of you who have experienced a mental health crisis. This is a missive to both. Both sides of that coin must hold their heads high, as there would not be one without the other. Those who are suffering are not limited but, perhaps, better positioned to provide a deeper and more substantial offering to others. Here I reach my hand out to you. Humbly. As others have done for me, and as I know I will need again.
Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
The holidays have slowly receded into memory, and another term of school is upon us. It was a welcome break, but perhaps not quite the same refuge from the hectic schedule at McMaster as it is for many other students. I had a great deal of free time, and wonderful festivities with my family, although there was a void that required resolve to overlook.
My mother passed away in February of last year, and this was the first Christmas that any of us experienced without her. That made it difficult, while at the same time, empowering, because overcoming that challenge with grace, fortitude, and the diligence to make Christmas memorable for everyone else was daunting.
An enjoyable holiday, but I am glad to be back to the academic life. I missed it.
With that being said, as I prepared to get back to writing for the Sil, I glanced over their website in search of ideas and to absorb the opinions shared through the social media platforms that are injected there. While browsing through, particularly the student feedback, I couldn’t help but notice an overwhelming response from many students with a recurring theme that disturbed me. Namely, that “university is overrated.”
In this issue, I intend to vehemently attack that distorted ideology. It reeks of self-entitlement, the salience of Western egocentrism, and a destructive naiveté that seems rampant in this age, a naiveté that is not only unbecoming of high caliber students such as us, but one that needs to be quashed where it stands.
Listen here; we are among the top 4-10% of the world in socioeconomic standing. We are privileged to lead the lives that we lead. We are those given the opportunity to make positive change in the world, to help the less fortunate, to create a better, brighter future for the generations to follow. Holding an attitude that you are “too cool for school,” that you aren’t learning anything, that the faculty of the Institution aren’t providing you with the tools and knowledge to create a better world, that is a reflection of your own inability to progress and grow, the onus of which belongs on nobody’s conscience but your own.
Sure, the curriculum can be outdated, distorted, repetitive, and confusing. The professors may be offensive, obtuse, unapproachable, or maladapted. The faculty itself could well be self-righteous, hierarchical, and disturbing. This depends entirely on how you choose to experience it. Nothing is perfect, nor will it ever be. However, it can be better. This is our duty, a duty we undertake armed with the knowledge, theories, and practical tools we are provided by, not just the immediate academics divulging to the very best of their ability, but to the brilliant minds that precede them, the minds that divulged unto them, and the minds before that.
We owe it to each other, and ourselves, to not paint this experience in a negative light, to not be intellectual hipsters partying in the caboose of the “too cool for school” train, to not be so short-sighted as to believe that the raw material provided here is less than the ultimate tool with which to shape our own destiny, and create the change we want to see in the world. Open your eyes, take a deep breath, and experience some gratitude for the decades of hard work, accomplishment, sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears that went into each piece of brick and mortar sheltering your body from the freezing cold whilst sheltering your mind from ignorance, dejection, and horror. Taking this experience for granted is what is really overrated. It doesn’t make you look cool, it doesn’t make you any better than anyone else, and it most certainly doesn’t make you any friends. At least, not the right ones.
Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
The title of this column, "confessions of a tightrope walker," is an homage to the attention to minutiae required of us all – not just while in school, but as an ongoing philosophy of life.
While I once may have hesitated to share my age, out of some ridiculous sense of self-criticism or shame while among such young, bright students, I have no qualms about doing so now. A sheet to the wind, I am 37 years old, have three children, and what I believe is a unique perspective on this blink-of-an-eye experience we call life.
Dissecting the silly emotional reaction to sharing my age with others, I have come to a realisation; we live in a culture over-saturated with a celebration of youth, a perspective vehemently imposed upon us by consumerist and individualist driven ideologies. While I write this, I pray that none of my fellow students take offense, as youth is definitely a time to be celebrated. However, I believe that this ‘spirit of celebration’ has reached a point of critical mass that has become an intensive and, to be frank, dangerous commodification.
By commodification I am referring to the proprietary nature of personal and shared values, which seem to be dictated, albeit subconsciously, by the ‘machine-gun-messages’ of modern multi-media. We are shown how to live, what we desire in order to live, and who, what, where, when, and why we will do what we do. And always, how. This subconscious cultural code is ever more concerned with the transient ‘how’. Perhaps this is the secret weapon.
There have been many great minds that have provided in-depth critiques of the explosion of media and information technology, providing scholarly insight and social buffering, but there really is no denying that mankind has reached an age of globalization. In this era, we must remain diligent as the power elite aim to shape our attitudes, world-view, self-image, and interpersonal dynamic in congruence with their hierarchy. We must remain diligent as not to allow our every-day interactions to be reduced to signified results with little to no significance.
I implore you instead to consider your roles as signifiers, catalysts and sources of questions. I am not attempting to provoke a revolution, but perhaps a reform of thought congruent with the fluid, postmodern climate of our country. Allow your conscience to be collective, to be a vessel for a communal sense of pride embracing people of all types. Question authority, question the rules, question the messages and even the medium through which you receive them. Question your professors, question the material, question technology and the need for it. Keep asking. You are unique, particularly in your capacity for critical thought and analytical process.
As westernized styles of living are funneled through the pipeline, don’t just be a hungry mouth on the other end. Plug the hole, look up the pipe, and take a good look at the other end. If you can’t see the whites of their eyes, can’t determine the human qualities that motivate the delivery of the fodder to which we are exposed, perhaps it is time to begin shortening the pipe. Or reversing it.
Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
The excitement was palpable as the 777 from Cathay Pacific touched down on the runway in Singapore.
All the sights through the jet's window were new and exciting, it was literally a jungle out there− even at an industrial site like the airport. As I made my way off of the plane, I was possessed with a feeling of grandeur, similar to the awe inspired in a child at Christmas. I just couldn't wait to get out of the confines of the airport and soak in this wonderful and exotic foreign land.
I successfully made my way through customs to find my father and three of his business associates waiting for me with a luggage cart. Each of them could sense my new luminescence, and made jovial remarks about it. My father and I needed to catch an airbus to Kuala Lumpur in a few hours so we all decided to grab a quick coffee, sat around a quaint cafe table and discussed culture, currency, and travel. I polished up my latte, we said our goodbyes, and my father and I made our way to the gate for our airbus.
Once we landed in Kuala Lumpur, we made our way onto the tarmac into the overwhelming humidity. As the Canadian I am, I was dressed for our late fall weather, which I realized was clearly counter productive as the blast of heat washed over me.
We followed the queue past various baggage handling vehicles and equipment, eventually finding ourselves in the airport to make our way through a security check and retrieve our baggage.
One of my father's three associates, a lovely woman by the name of Angeline, had already made arrangements for a driver to pick us up from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and bring us to our hotel, which was located in KL's embassy district. Thank goodness I took as many shots as I could through the cab's windows because the drive was a reverie, a quilt of exotic multicultural buildings and landscapes mixing Indian, Thai, Chinese, and Malay influences.
The hotel was quite a nice place with a peculiar architectural design. There were fountains throughout the main floor, with a row of rubber plants growing against a greenhouse style overhang. Much of it was open concept, with various apertures to the outdoors. But, this is not meant to be a memoir of architecture or travel. I write this particular article to address the overwhelming gratitude I feel to be a McMaster student, and a Canadian Citizen.
This was a business trip, but I was also committed to keeping up on my lectures and schoolwork. Thus my days began early and ended very late. A lot of my time was spent presenting training modules to Great Eastern Life's team of trainers, and in the hotel room, smoking, typing, reading and postulating.
Amidst this hectic schedule, we did find time to visit the city, which is quite an incredible place, mixing influences from so many different cultures that it was a sensory overload. The sights were wonderful, the food sumptuous, and the people thought-provoking. This brings me to my reasons for feeling such immense gratitude.
One evening, while Skyping my girlfriend, Kristin, the housekeeper had come in to tend to my room. While he was making my bed I made my way to my father's room to pick up a few things and Kristin, who had had a few drinks with her friends prior to the call, decided to strike up a conversation with him. When I returned, an entire story unfolded that obviated any right to ever question how fortunate I am.
As it turns out, the housekeeper, who's name is Ken, had come to Kuala Lumpur on a work Visa from Bangladesh, leaving his wife and five-year-old son, whom he had never seen. He was contracted by an agency to work for the hotel, who had rented him a room at a hostel and paid him the sum of 900 Ringettes per month, which totals roughly 330 Canadian Dollars, all of which he sends back to his wife and family.
Ken works 12-hour days, six days a week. He shared a few stories of his life experiences in Bangladesh that would make your teeth rattle. Needless to say, Kristin immediately attached herself to Ken, requested his phone number and address, promised him she would look into immigration laws and a job opportunity. She was almost panic-stricken and I was aghast.
You hear stories, through the grapevine, through modern media outlets, in your textbooks, but that doesn't compare to shaking the man's hand. I promised him that I would look into the possibilities, and his gratitude was overwhelming. He returned to my room the day I was checking out, insisting we are brothers, that I must help him and his family come to Canada, speaking of our country like it was a mythical place.
I could discuss the differences between the two sides of the planet, but I would rather emphasize the similarities.
We all seek freedom, the peace of mind to be able to strive for more, and the dignity in being self-sufficient. This is NOT available everywhere to the same degree that we experience it here, particularly as students at such a fine university providing us with the cultural capital that millions across the world will never have the opportunity to earn. The years you spend here, learning, growing, living, are invaluable.
They are a social and cultural capital worth far more than any mundane printed-paper, manufactured good, or presupposed precious material.
Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
Pumpkins that turn into carriages. Little mice role-playing valiant white steeds. Glass slippers and royal balls. It always begins in this dream state where every meal tastes better; every sunny day is a little brighter, and each romantic evening longer and more memorable. Then comes the white-knuckled ranting. A discourse of expletives and stomping away to a ‘happy place’. Guerilla warfare and subversive subterfuge of the highest caliber. The course of relationships can be a white-water raft ride or a roller coaster that could compete with the Behemoth.
Whether or not our love lives can be measured by chemical reactions in the brain, reduced to a purely biological phenomenon, we each still feel the grip of love as real as anything else, maybe even more so.
For me, falling in love tends to make everything surreal. Days blend into nights, obligations and expectations seem far less haughty, and everything sacred lies within my grasp.
I’ve heard that the brain will actually focus major resources on particular moments, making them feel longer. This could be true of a first kiss and every other memorable moment during the gracious period of entwining the deepest part of myself with another person. Every last one of us is granted the opportunity to experience this wonderful time- perhaps even many times over.
The remaining question is not whether or not you will fall in love, rather the question becomes how do you make that strong connection last?
First of all, you are lucky to make these deep connections with someone. Someone who can both laugh with and at you. Someone who stands by your side when you are up against horrible odds. Someone for whom you feel obligated to do the same. Someone, perhaps, for whom you would “take a bullet”. These are not circumstances one should take lightly. These emotional ties are strengthened through daily ritual and practice, a practice of gratitude.
I am thankful that I have someone who will fight for me by fighting with me. Someone who will call me out on my crap and tell me what I could and should be doing better than I currently am. Someone who also expects me to do the same. I am grateful to have someone to judge me, with positive outcomes in mind. She keeps me grounded. Sends me skyrocketing through the atmosphere. Keeps me sane. Makes me crazy. This may sound, and is, extreme at times. So extreme I must question whether or not it is too much to manage, too much to return to a place of peace. Yet, peace does come. In abundance.
Perhaps this is the balancing act. Balancing such extremes as to test the boundaries of another person’s sanity and morality, to test their personal values and their devotion to those values. Through these tests, while seemingly chaotic and intolerable, we may find a truer definition of self than before and a clearer and more fulfilling concept of love and life than we had ever thought possible. It is through trials that we grow stronger and prevail.
Upon realizing this, I am no longer clouded with such grief over the dissolution of my ‘biological’ family. I’ve shed the dross of the ‘Nuclear’ family, shellacked upon me by a system of teachings that had not yet adapted; multi-media, an incubating school curriculum, all developed by a generation that had yet to pass the mantle. The modern family is clearly undefinable. Politicking families and the individual’s personal concept of a ‘significant other’ is no longer accomplishing anything and, so, Canadian policy in this regard has been in consistent reform to better suit the increasingly heterogenic concept. This is true of relationships too. Politically, Canada has come to define family as anyone you consider family. I couldn’t agree more. My Thanksgiving weekend was spent with all of my neighbours collectively making a massive feast. My fiancée and I with our 3 kids, the divorced single dad, the older couple whose patriarch adopted his wife’s daughter, the lesbian couple sharing 3 teenage to twenty-something kids between them, and extended family as diverse as the rest. These are the people with whom I choose to celebrate. This is the truth of love and relationships. Whomever will stand by you and support you, emotionally, financially, physically, holistically, and whom you will stand by too. That is the only defining factor in this postmodern age.
You’re asking ‘ok, Rick, I hear you, but how do you keep it together? How do you make it last?’
I have no magic answer. I keep it at this brief checklist:
“Am I in love?”
Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
Two years ago, shortly after moving into my current home, I was having drinks in my neighbor’s backyard getting to know everyone else in the neighborhood.
We were all exchanging jokes and stories - as everyone does while getting used to a new environment - learning about each other’s characters and our various idiosyncrasies. As I shared a story, I was approached by the gruff, grey-haired, older man who lives a few houses down. He removed his belt, wrapped the leather around his hand and presented the buckle to me. It was a silver relief of eagles surrounding a slot for a Zippo-style lighter.
“You like this?” He asked.
“Shit, yeah,” I replied.
“Here,” he wrapped the leather around the buckle and handed it to me.
“You can have it”.
My 68-year-old neighbour, Gerry, is a stalwart and stoic Scottish man renowned for his off the cuff remarks and his clear and concise evaluations of others. He’s rough around the edges, rides a Harley-Davidson, and takes regular vacations to remote campsites in his RV with his wife Gene. Gerry is an everyman, as far as the literary definition is concerned. Yet he is also incredibly unique and vibrant in his own right. His presence in our enclave-style backyard has always been strong and welcomed. His unique attitude and personality around which the neighbourhood would consistently rally for barbecues and parties. Two months ago, Gerry had a stroke.
The cycle of life. The inevitability of our birth and death. Our vulnerability to disaster or disease. These events, to the initiated, are synchronous with each other, once chosen to witness in tandem.
Witnessing the interdependence of my family on one another as we grasp to understand Gerry’s situation, is profoundly moving and articulates, on seemingly unseen levels, how much we all need each other. It’s truly undeniable once experienced, but usually not a topic of casual conversation.
Gerry has been fighting this thing tooth and nail, determined to have the full use of his left arm and leg as soon as humanly possible (the latter is returning at a painfully slow rate and he is currently confined to a wheel chair). He might harass a few nurses in the meanwhile, but I’m sure they won’t complain.
See, Gerry has a massive bankroll. A massive spiritual bankroll, that is. With an overwhelmingly positive balance - apparent in light of his recent misfortune - the response of his family, friends, and neighbors has been nothing short of beautiful. Not discounting his personal capacities, all of these people are his strength and resolve. His is an example of character over reputation, of the beauty of life’s abundance being available to those who seek its’ truths.
As Carl Jung said, “He who looks outside, dreams. He who looks inside, awakens”.
I suppose, with these words, I am mining for an ore of balance. An ore that, once refined to a precious metal, I believe can help to discern a unique and personal definition of abundance (I would use the term ‘wealth’, but that word is antiquated in my humble opinion).
You see, Gerry is not financially “well-to-do” but makes a good living and provides for his family. As far as I can see, they don’t really want for anything. Gerry and I have a lot in common. He is rich in ways I hope to be and impoverished in ways neither of us could give a shit about. In many ways, I am in the same boat as Gerry; my sons and stepdaughter don’t go without and occasionally receive a little something extra to remind them that they are loved and special. These are spiritually fulfilling examples of life’s potential abundance.
Philosophical rambling aside, I’m trying to say something simple. Open a spiritual account. Make deposits. Make good deposits for good reason. Make good deposits for good reason with a good attitude. Trust me, the interest rates will be through the roof.
Rick Kanary
The Silhouette
Phone rings. I answer.
“Guess what, Dad?” Seriph asks.
“What?” I answer.
“Guess!” He implores.
I bite; “You got a Billy Goat named Ben who has a Pet Monkey named Bibo. With wings and horns.” Seriph laughs and says “Nope.“
My regular access schedule is weekends, so I haven’t seen him since Sunday. It’s Friday and his mother is taking him to a ‘Crash-o-rama’ event in the States this weekend so I won’t get to see him for another week, which is nearly unprecedented. Our cute and awkward conversation goes on for another 5 minutes until he finally confesses that he and his mother got a “real leopard kitten” in Fergus.
“I miss you, little man,” I tell him.
Seriph is 9. He needs me. Two other children, Jack, my six-year-old son, and Lily, my six-year-old stepdaughter, need me too. As does my fiancée. They need me here at McMaster where I stepped off of the bus for my first visit into what seemed like a Monet painting - the lines transient, the construct fluid, and the subject vibrantly presented in soft focus, just out of reach.
In fact, the memories of the initial days of visitation blend into what seem like an hour or two, at least according to the film reel projecting them against the back of my eyes. Yet, there are many still-framed Polaroids that have subscribed themselves to eventually becoming stable reflections during my Golden Years (which aren’t that far away, dear Reader).
What a magnificent experience being an undergraduate at McMaster University. The prestige, the unending opportunities, the beauty of the campus, the kindness of my fellow students, and most of all, the generosity of the institution. This is the pristine and tightly wound braid of steel wires upon which we all walk as students here, forged and woven by our fine predecessors. Pushing the soapbox aside, damn it’s difficult to cross this chasm and keep your balance.
Family, work, friends, academia. These four disciplines constitute a science perhaps more complex and sensitive to change than any of those sciences we study here. It is to the methods of this particular science that I call attention. It is through the mastery of this science that we will all prevail.
Whether we are old or young, student or faculty, undergraduate, graduate or doctorate, this is a challenging time, with unique demands from each of our unknown futures. A time in our lives that can be tumultuous yet beneficial, monumental and experimental, and a fallacy or absolute truth.
What gets you jazzed? What keeps the beat? What feels real? What lights the match?
The answers to these questions tweak the lens and clarify the apparently blurry destination at the end of your tightrope.
You are taking the time to read this, which makes you vulnerable to the words on the page and their possible influence on you and your thought processes. That is why I feel it is important to be equally as vulnerable and allow you into my private world. It is necessary to toss anonymity, personal or professional, in the trash, and make life as raw and pure as possible. This demands a confessional of sorts, that the shadows that play beneath the surface do more than come up for air. They allow you to see their face. Into their eyes.
Live, learn, laugh, and love while you are here. Make connections. Stay connected. But most of all, remember there is no net.
