Did you know that 1/5 Canadians is functionally illiterate? I suspect that figure has increased since 2009, when I learned it at the Glendon campus of York University. Functional illiteracy doesn’t mean you can’t read, it means you can’t perform what is expected of you with regards to literacy. Trouble filling forms is a good indication of it; however, as with everything there’s a continuum of performance.
It disheartens me to hear that kids who need to be held back are not being held back any longer. It makes me sad for a few reasons, but mostly it’s because we need to embrace our failures in life to come out the other side, stronger, more competent.
I failed a course at Selkirk College the first time I took it. Biology 101. Should have been easy enough to pass the first time around, except exams weren’t worth that much and a group project was worth about 40% of the grade if I remember correctly. I went it alone, but didn’t have enough diligence with the scientific method to pass.
In 2003, I retook the class. I had to take that class and business math to get my associate arts degree. A degree that would permit me to enter any university Canada wide. Don’t know if that still exists. Point is, I saddled up to a girl rather quickly advocating the need to have a good lab partner to get a solid grade in that course. i don’t remember her name, but she was cool AF, the type of gal who’d wear her sports bra on the outside of her T-shirt. Together, we got 94% on that term group project. Sometimes, you won’t know what you’re capable of until the second time around.
For me, everything has become harder with technology. I’ve always been platform agnostic, because in my jobs I’ve always had technical support. I’ve also always been able to rely on Bing or Google fairly consistently. Information is available if you look for it. I don’t believe we do ourselves many favours by believing that there are employed people who don’t know how to use this same skill set. We are all half-cyborg at this point whether we want to be or not.
Yesterday started with some panicked calls. My reschedule of another PET hasn’t happened. I figure they’re not worried enough about me because the patient load is obscene and I’m otherwise “young and healthy”. I get bruises though, like bruise really easily and I don’t know how I got them. That’s been long-standing. It might not be related to my diagnosis.
After realizing I sounded nuts in a few voicemails I left, I started to read Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception. I’m not the type to experiment with mind-altering drugs like Peyote. My brain is so sensitive to even caffeine sometimes, I just can’t.
Doors of Perception was published in 1954. A significant year for a couple reasons to me, that I won’t elaborate on. In my estimation, the following rings true today:
The urge to do something for the young is strong only in parents, and in them only for the few years during which their children go to school. Equally unsurprising is the current attitude towards drink and smoke. In spite of the growing army of hopeless alcoholics, in spite of the hundreds of thousands of persons annually maimed or killed by drunken drivers, popular comedians still crack jokes about alcohol and its addicts.”
Huxley, p.52.
Huxley goes on to say something that’s no longer true about cigarettes, and I think in certain circles that attitude toward alcohol is changing. It’s really the only substance I can use without losing myself entirely. Once the cancer is dealt with and I’m not on psyche meds anymore, I’ll be happy to have a bottle of wine in my basket of goods again. I’m not advocating for prohibition.
Another passage of Doors of Perception that resonated with me was:
“In a world where education is predominantly verbal, highly educated people find it all but impossible to pay serious attention to anything but words and notions. There is always money for, there are always doctorates in, the learned foolery of research into what, for scholars, is the all important problem: Who influenced whom to say what when?”
Huxley, p.62
I will hang on to this copy until someone I know wants to borrow it. It’s lightly marked up. It kind of just astounds me that the same problems have been plaguing western civilization for 70 years. How sick is that?
Yesterday, an aunt of mine reminded me that cancer is not what it was 40 years ago. Not the same death sentence. I’d prefer to err on the side of caution until I hear that from the oncologist, but yes, we have made many advances.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve advanced on social hierarchies. I do think my life is worth a lot less to the world than a 28 year old fertile woman who is on the precipice of contributing 2-3 future tax payers into the system. Sometimes, it’s healthy to be brutally honest about the value of a life.
I’m not anyone’s anything. I’m no more worthy than the lowest of the low because of that. Still, if I have to be my own advocate – i’m going to fight. Everyone deserves a shot at happiness, no?
Imbued Experiences 
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