I meet in the common area Steve from Cafe Beano, apparently he's one of my bunkmates, I didn't recognize him without his beany on, but something about him seemed familiar - from my old hood in Calgary, we chat about Calgary, he's here to promote his chapter book, he's serialized it, selling it on chapter by chapter, self-published, he's escaping his old life to live about here on the breath of the wind. He sold 24 copies today in 4 hours, on the streets of Gastown. And there's the Yogi, the guy I'd noted was perpetually on his computer, He's lived and hitch-hiked everywhere in the world, India, New Zealand, the US, Europe, the world, quite literally - almost every continent less Antarctica, He's on a quest for enlightenment, he's the chosen student of this Yogi (? don't know who, not so much into Yogi's) now discussing with Steve the drug addiction problem - and 'Krishna' announces (his name from the Upanishads, Red hair and freckles make me suspect it was chosen, not given) - that he has no interest in helping these people. Any people for that matter. He's got his own problems.
And I'm thinking ... the essence of enlightenment is compassion ... and - for someone so concerned - the solution is in front of his nose - and yet - he's turning away from it, a distaste for the work, he has all the understanding of a computer programmer trying to explain love, ghosts, anything outside of the directly quantifiable, measurable universe.
I ask about what he's doing on the computer all the time - apparently mixing music. He's a musician.
Other conversations fade in and out...there's a fat girl on the sofa, going on about how hot Justin Trudeau is, she's stayed in Hostels all throughout the US, she's got recommendations, talking about all the countries she won't visit because she's afraid of being raped, discussing her favorite porn, what she likes, getting drunker and drunker, sloppier and sloppier, she has opinions, for sure, and she's only too willing to share...
It's insufferable.