To me, the best writing is bone-scraping real. Gritty, perhaps, ugly sometimes, but even when nice and Disneyesque good writing always hits the visceral core of truth. ‘Keeping it real’ as they say. And I wonder if I am doing that…………

You see, I am basically writing about our daily lives and our lives are more than ‘basically’ good. We are totally fortunate and, in religious terms, blessed. I often tell people, “I live in heaven with an angel!” So, with all that sunshine and happiness, is it real?

I have to think about this stuff………..

Frankly, I don’t think it is entirely real. I think we managed to ‘opt out’ of what passes for real nowadays and have temporarily landed in paradise. We, in effect, ‘left the civic building’.

I don’t apologize for that in the least. It was a good move. But we didn’t really plan it and it is a bit of a surprise. We find ourselves in a different mindset as well as a different place, actually.

And why shouldn’t we? We don’t get riots up here. We don’t care about the stock market. I rarely even listen to the news (it’s all lies, anyway). We don’t ‘do’ rush-hour. We don’t commute but once or twice a month and we rarely have to deal with the ubiquitous petty bureaucrat that seems to breed like Pine beetles in modern everyday life.

Most surprisingly, the people out here being low income to poor don’t even complain about prices. I don’t think I have heard a single gripe about gas prices or even ferry fares. Or even HST! It’s not that we like the way the world is going or the overwhelming presence of greed and more greed, it is just that we can distance ourselves from it mostly. When we can’t (going to town), we just close our eyes and ‘get through it’ and get back home as soon as possible. Kind of a denial-by-distance thing.

Unreal. But it works.

We don’t even seem to recognize the existence of the federal and provincial governments except where we have to be law-abiding (read: fearing). Honestly, we don’t respect our government, we just fear it. Which, when you are off-the-radar, is not too often, thank God!

We are not exempt from BIG Brother nor are we immune from bureaucrats. But at least we have fewer ‘watchers’. Less rules to obey. Fewer potential conflicts. We don’t have CCTV here. We don’t even have police! Hell, I think we have only one government issue sign in ten square miles!

But really? It is not that the government has let our people go. Instead, we have stepped out. It is like a quiet, passive revolution has gently taken place and the weapon is disengagement. Ghandi may not be proud but it is better than desperation and suffering at the hands of ‘the man’.

“Feds? We don’t need no stinking Feds?”

OK, I am exaggerating a smidge to make the point. If I am ‘keeping it real’, I just have to confess: we ran away from the madding crowd and hope they never find us. We are living in a state of denial for as long as we can and we really don’t want to know about general crap anymore at all. My previous obsession with keeping up with the news has been cured and replaced by dark glasses, ear plugs and a gag under a baseball cap.

Call me crazy!