Ambition (1147 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.83 on 30 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by K.M (View user info) at 2004-03-14 19:39:56 EST
Every morning I would walk back the store after my daily trip to the newspaper dispensary. The day had already begun, for most people. The city had already been stirred into a hurricane of rat races. The streets were already sweltering with the heat of mid-morning, and the all pervading scent of commerce and capitalism. In a word, the scent of society.
I inhale deeply, savoring it.
I live in Toronto. I take pride in my city. I love the way it has blossomed from its humble beginnings into the colossal metropolis it now represents, in year 2008.
It is everything a city should be. It's healthy, robust, and clean. In every person you sense the make-up of a person willing to succeed at any cost.
Of course, this will differs vastly in the deeds they represent, depending on your surroundings. For example, downtown is myriad of social circles. A confluent, working chain of extraordinarily different people. A melting pot of the masses.
You have the Yuppies, their cell phones eternally only an extension of their hand. Some twisted, industrial appendage that evolved as its species fought, hair, tooth and nail, for any advantage over its competitors. The suits represent a constant sea of contrast. Each man and woman is appraised for their fashion sense, a small check or x in some mental rolodex. Good taste, Bad Taste. Good Taste, Bad Taste. These people work together, and they work against each other. Solid alliances, high profile business maneuvering, lightning fast thinking, deceit, cunning, power, Adapting To The Circumstances; these are the things that the yuppies pride themselves on.
Every day is a day of intrigue, gossip, influence. It holds more weight as good mockery of some ancient and forgotten royal court, where the regal and prodigious engage one another in a climatic struggle for success, than a facet of a modern, pedestrian society. Every person is some small part of a magnificent, horrid monster. A fang, a claw, a forked tongue.
I admire that.
But I am in no way an elitist, I assure you. I have the same amount of respect and adulation for the other side of the spectrum, as well. In fact, downtown Toronto at midnight, my mind can argue, yields some of the most genuinely ambitious people in the city.
The pimps, the dealers, the gangs, the thugs. The hookers, murder for hire, the drugs, the guns. They accomplish exactly what the yuppies accomplish during the day, only they cloak themselves in darkness rather then designer clothing. The strong survive, and the whores sell themselves. They all want a piece of the pie.
And I admire that.
I would place myself somewhere near the middle of the spectrum, just incase you had fallen under the misconception that Toronto is as polarized I am making it out to be. However, I must admit, satisfaction is only found on the extremes of this spectrum, as if god had only permitted you true significance if you took your place on the edge.
I own a small business. I sell knives, out of a small building on Younge Street. I don't particularly care who my knives go to. I don't have any sentimental attachment to the blades, as if I were interested in parting with them only if they were fall into the hands of some distinguished gentlemen, or some collector and connoisseur. They go to anybody that wants one. Rich, poor, thug, yuppie, man, woman, or child.
And every morning I would walk to the newspaper stand. The caffeine from the morning coffee would still be racing through my system, the hope of a new day still lingered in the air, that plateau of optimism that struggled with the eventual monotony that hung just on the horizon. I would breathe deeply, and admire my fellow civilians and consumers, both illicit and legitimate. The walk became an inspiring journey, a period of time where I could feel close with the hum of the city air. Until, He ruined it all.
He had arrived on the block a week ago. He was an elderly man, though he held the countenance of a small child, as he were oblivious to his own surroundings. A short grey beard worked itself around his face. Apparently, he was homeless. He would sit on the corner and beg for food, or pocket change.
As if it were his right.
"Hello good sir... good you spare me some change?"
He would always ask me. It was like clockwork. Every single day, on my most coveted walk, he would shatter my reverie with this phrase. This question, this phrase, it bit through my soul like a blade would carve through flesh. Long after it were uttered, long after I had went home from a days work, this phrase would be the tiny shard of glass in my mind that sent me into fits of complete rage at my apartment.
"Hello, good sir... could you spare some change?"
I would look at my meager belongings. I would glance at my couch, the sofa seat torn, with no money to repair it. I would look at the seedy wallpaper. I would look at the dead shamrock plant. I would look at the pile of newspapers underneath the uneven kitchen table.
The feelings would well up in me, as uncontrollable as the tide. Hatred and disgust, perfectly intertwined emotions, flowing into and out of one another with all the volatility of two powerful rivers meeting at one juncture. As if two streams of sensation had been driven from some inexhaustible force, some dark well of rage, pouring out of me into that miserable cube.
"Hello good sir... could you spare some change?"
That worthless, stagnant bastard.
I walked around the corner, crossed the street, and started back up to my humble shop. Thoughts of the old man fell away, as I once again fell into my habit of infatuated observation with the Yuppies. Hustle and bustle.
I admired that.
But lo-and behold, there he was! That useless, disgusting eye sore, was sitting with his back against an abandoned old shop. What fucking _vermin_.
I cast my eyes downward, as if the sight of him alone were enough to drive me into irreparable madness. I picked up my pace, praying to the lord above that this man would spare me his torture for one more minute until I was safely out of sight. I had all but passed him unnoticed, when the words rang out, like some ultra-nauseating testament to everything wrong with this world.
"Hello my good sir, do you have any change?"
I stopped.
That horrible question. Instead of ignoring him, I paused, and stood there, staring at him. I waited until the street had emptied a bit, and there was nobody in the immediate vicinity.
I stepped towards him, slowly, and knelt down, drawing closer. I beckoned to him. My face was inches away from his, completely blank and emotionless.
"Where is your fucking ambition?!" I spit the words into his face.
But he had no response. His initial surprise gave way to immediate indifference. I grabbed him by the neck of his shirt, and violently shook him, just once.
"Where is your success, you fucking beggar?" It was as if someone else was speaking for me.
"Where is your FUCKING dignity? What makes you different? You don't have to earn your keep? You don't have to succeed?"
For every time he didn't answer me I shook him again. More violently, each time held more force than the previous. Soon, I was no longer simply shaking him, but I was slamming his head into the concrete wall behind him. Words came to me, their origin unknown. Slam. Slam. "Who do you think you are?" Slam. Slam. Slam.
But he did not protest. Not even when he began to bleed, and especially not after he lost consciousness. You see, he understood me. He understood that this was natural. Only the strong survive, and the whores sell themselves.
And I admire that.
User Reviews
Submitted by Gnome (user info) at 2004-07-15 11:18:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good read. thought provoking.
Submitted by negative2man (user info) at 2004-07-15 11:06:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No. It's a copycat.
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2004-07-15 11:03:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Looks like negative2man created another account.
Submitted by negative2man. (user info) at 2004-07-15 10:56:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by jcricket (user info) at 2004-07-03 22:39:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
great post.
Submitted by Korrineine (user info) at 2004-05-19 16:25:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This reminded me a little bit of American Psycho... Fabulous sir
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2004-04-25 01:06:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Thought I rated this before.
Submitted by Scott_James (user info) at 2004-04-06 19:34:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by zi (user info) at 2004-04-02 12:25:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
FOLLOW ME TO FREEDOM!
Submitted by kilgore_trout (user info) at 2004-04-02 12:18:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by spirochete (user info) at 2004-03-19 09:28:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Heimdallsman (user info) at 2004-03-18 00:09:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. The portrait really sold it.
This was harsh, and sad.
Very cool.
--HeimdallsMan
Submitted by jcricket (user info) at 2004-03-15 13:27:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very good imagery.
I thought that you were pretty accurate on the different classes.
I admire that.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-03-15 10:44:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Razor (user info) at 2004-03-15 10:19:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Deisangua (user info) at 2004-03-15 07:27:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Nator (user info) at 2004-03-15 06:49:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Woha. I thought 'boring' untill I got to the end. That's heavy, man.
Submitted by Kaelic (user info) at 2004-03-15 02:15:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very good. Sometimes your imagery comes on a little too strong, and seems a little cliched and substanceless, but I enjoyed reading it. Some of the parts were really good ... I liked the part about God only favoring those who lived on the edge. Certainly not any Christian god, huh? Cool.
Submitted by iddqd at 2004-03-15 01:41:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
very nice. ill be posting a "Things I Hate" on beggars very soon, i just want to let you know that im not trying to steal your idea, ive been thinking it over for the past couple of days - so its a bit of a coinicidence.
Submitted by Kristen (user info) at 2004-03-15 00:28:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This gave me a headache and yet, I like you for it.
Submitted by MrCoffee (user info) at 2004-03-14 23:08:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That was fantastic, writing like that exposes all the other whinging crap out there for what it really is
Submitted by pandora (user info) at 2004-03-14 22:11:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I loved this. Sometimes I feel like doing that to my own "inner bum". Works on many levels.
Submitted by K.M (user info) at 2004-03-14 21:56:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I don't live in T.O, Fionavar. I live in Sudbury. I don't even know why I wrote this, actually. But I think that many of the homeless are in self inflicted predicaments, but I mean, know one truly deserves to live like that, I don't think. I remember when I was in Toronto once, I gave a street artist some cash to sketch me, because I knew he was on rough times.
He was really, truly talented. I got my whole family to swing by and get him to sketch them, too.
Just down the block, there was a man on an acoustic guitar. He had the cliché case in front of him, and people were dropping off their change. But he had an accomplice, a quadriplegic man that was on a scooter. He had an electric keyboard, set on auto beat. Every once in a while, he would chime in and hammer the keys with his stumps.
It really affected me.
And thank you creep_firebombing.
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2004-03-14 21:40:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is why I come to Ubersite. This is what makes sloughing through miles of putrid, self important drivel worth it. Thank you.
Submitted by fionavar (user info) at 2004-03-14 21:37:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I live in Toronto as well. Or, close enough, 905-er.
In high school, I worked part-time at Union Station, home of all of the vagrants Toronto has to offer. Eventually, they would all pass through, Union Station being a required stop-over of the homeless.
Some had dignity; they would profer all the money they had, a grand total of $0.42, in order to purchase their coffee.
Some would steal the beer from the cases.
More would bathe in the public bathrooms, in an effort to cleanse themselves.
I would often watch them pass through, and wonder: How did they find themselves here, homeless? Was it their lack of ambition, or a lifetime of abuse impossible to overcome?
Eventually, I guess I just felt grateful for whatever I had: A tiny, shitty apartment at Bathurst & St. Clair, and scholarships to York U. to educate myself to escape poverty. What separates us from them? Why was I lucky enough to escape? I might be the one on that corner...
Submitted by dakingisdead (user info) at 2004-03-14 20:24:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
nice
Submitted by ohlookasquirrel (user info) at 2004-03-14 20:23:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Strong, shocking, disagreeable, but I loved it.
Submitted by T.chow (user info) at 2004-03-14 19:46:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by K.M (user info) at 2004-03-14 19:45:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
It's a Picasso, it was a portrait during the cubist phase. Ambroise Vollard, I think.
Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2004-03-14 19:44:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool image. Name?