I'll tell you a little story. This is in my book
So I had this landlord in Montreal. He lived next door to me, and he was an ex-Hell's Angel's biker.
he'd spend a lot of time in prison and his wife had borderline personality disorder and she committed suicide when I lived there and
He was a rough guy, and he was at québécois, and he spoke *french dialect". Which I could hardly understand and
He didn't really know what to make of me, and I didn't really know what to make of him
But we got along
You know, I was very careful talking to him as you might imagine
but
But, I was, it was very... and we went over, my wife and I went over there, and we had the spaghetti dinner one
night, and we sort of communicated
And I bought a poster from him because he made these wooden posters that had neon on them
And that's how he made a living he'd kind of trained himself to be a bit of an electronics guy
So he made these things and he was trying to quit drinking and we talked about that. He was a lot older than me
He was like 20 years older than me. I was about 25 at this point and
we got along pretty well, but
Every now and then he'd go out and get - and drink and he could really drink
You know like he was one of these guys who could drink like
60 beer and you think well no one can drink that much and you're wrong. I studied alcohol for like ten years. Some of my
subjects' fathers drank 40 ounces of vodka a day and had been doing it for 20 years
So you can drink a lot and he could drink a lot and - what would happen
he was trying to not drink, but he'd go out and go on a binge
And then he'd be going for like three days, and he'd drink up all his money, and then we'd hear him out in the backyard
howling at the moon with this little little ugly dog he had you know and
He'd howling the dog would howl and he'd howl and the dog would howl and and it was rather unsettling and made my wife nervous
and *laughter*
and
But worse, you know now, and then he'd come to the door at like, 3:00 in the morning,
eh, he'd knock on the door, and he'd be standing there and
I
don't know how much experience you've had with rough guys who are alcoholic and who were drunk, but it's
they can be
Upright and
Unconscious at the same time, and so that was the state that he was in, you know, he'd be just swaying.
He'd asked me if I would like to buy his toaster or his microwave
because he needed some money to keep drinking, and, you know, I didn't really want to buy his toaster or his microwave, but when
the Ex-Hell's Angel *French-dialect*-speaking
sixty beer drunk,
biker shows up at your door at 3:00 in the morning and offers you to sell -offers to sell you his microwave
Hah, the easiest thing is to say, "I really need a microwave!"
so
So, you know, I bought the microwave and the toaster and some other things, but then... *laughter*
But then my wife talked to me and she liked
My landlord, you know?
Even though she was afraid of him. She liked him, and and she said, "You can't buy anymore...
Anymore appliances, because it's not good for him," and I thought, huh,
That's an interesting problem. You know? So what the hell am I going to do about this? Because
"No, I don't want to buy your microwave," just doesn't seem to be the right answer at 3:00 in the morning
so
So, one time he took me out on his 750 Honda, and he put me on the back of it.
He wanted to show me his lair,
I guess, his hangouts, and I got his wife's helmet on, but it didn't fit it
just set on the top of my head, and he said - I got on the bike - and he said "If the cops
chase us we're not stopping." *laughter*
Then away we went! And we went to these, like, these bars
downtown on Saint Laurent - they were very rough places.
He got into like four fights that night because - he was a rough guy, you know, and these kind of punk
guys would come up to him, and sort of challenge him, and act stupidly around him, and he was very skeptical and if you were
acting stupidly around him for any length of time, he'd just hit you because he felt that that's what you deserved and perhaps
he was right, you know, so, so, I had
First-Hand opportunity to observe him
So, anyways, he - sure enough - about a week or two after we had this conversation
he showed up at the door "knock knock knock." You know, open the door, and he's standing there
you know, with his eyes kind of half closed, and he was swaying,
and he had - I don't remember what the appliance was this time, but he wanted to sell it to me and
I said
"I'm not... Paul, I can't buy this
I'm not going to buy this. Because, I know you're trying to quit drinking and
if I give you this money, then you're going to go and drink it up and
it's not going to be good for you," and
What else did I tell him? I think I told him as well that
This whole thing of him coming to my house at like 2:00 in the morning
Was scaring my wife, who he liked, and that it had to stop. And believe me man, I was thinking about what I was saying
Because he was watching me
Like a rough guy watches you, and a rough guy watches you like this. He thinks, "if you say one thing that
indicates
contempt.
You're going to bloody well pay for it." and so I was finding my words, like, you know,
I was crossing a swamp and trying to look for the - for the rocks underneath the surface and
I said what I had to say very, very carefully. And he looked at me for about 15 seconds and
That's a long time to be looked at, at 3:00 in the morning. *laughter*
ha, and he left and
He never came back to sell me anything again, and we got along fine.
But that's a good illustration of this
issue with regards to
truth and success in the strange land. Because I was in the strange land when I was talking to my
neighbor - my landlord - and, and I managed to say what was true carefully enough
so, despite the fact that he was a very violent person and
that he was a very intoxicated person and that he had every reason to be suspicious of me
And we couldn't communicate very well, and I didn't do what he wanted. That
he took it and
he left, and there was no problem and life went on just fine after that. And
so,
we don't want to underestimate the utility of
establishing this bounded relationship with the ideal and
attempting to live
with some nobility in truth while aiming at the highest ideal. There's nothing about that, that's anything but
strengthening and positive and
It's exactly what you need to set against the catastrophe and uncertainty of life.