I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Wirth through a mutual friend. Some people strike you deeply, if such a thing is possible, not with their prestige or accolades but with their unassuming nature. You know beforehand of their significant accomplishments, but upon finally meeting are most impressed by the their warmth and humanity. Where their CV isn't the crowning definition of their identity so much as, quite simply, their kindness. Their humanness. People like to hide behind accomplishments. I'm more impressed when someone prioritizes not their resume but goodness, putting people first. It's so easy to get caught up in what we do; but what about who we are? This blurb of his accomplishments–

"Dr. Wirth, PhD, is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at Seattle University. He was the Theiline Pigott McCone Chair in Humanities from 2014 to 2016, and his books include Commiserating with Devastated Things: Milan Kundera and the Entitlements of Thinking, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, and, most recently, Nietzsche and Other Buddhas: Philosophy After Comparative Philosophy."

–like many blurbs (including my own), reveals very little about the person in question. Yes, those are indeed excellent works he's written. But my desire to share his words on my film stem from a deeper appreciation for his personhood. Where the books are merely an extension of his being. I aspire toward something like that. The film is an amalgamation of things I've reflected upon while in the presence of giants. Here are further musings on those reflections, by one I'm lucky to have met.

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Reflections on Men I Trust

I have long thought that in the face of death, especially the death of another, we all become, at least for a few minutes, philosophers. Given that philosophy opens the possibility that we might speak to death and face it directly, we typically turn away, revealing our philosophy to be merely the kinds of self-deceptions that had already governed our living.

This deeply moving film, free of all sentimentality and, for that reason, all the more moving, derives its power by standing in the white heat of this moment as death exposes human living as without “why” and cancels for the dying all of the scientific “hows.” Just as life does not need to be filled with the extraordinary and the spectacular to be precious and intrinsically good, so this film concentrates on the supposedly ordinary, which, cast against the background of its loss, reappears as sufficient in themselves and boundlessly precious.

Without retreating into the abstract, this is also a film about time—yes, death proves time. As such, however, it is allows the power of the moment to appear: not how something is, or why it is (as if explaining death either justifies it or renders it more palatable), but rather the infinite preciousness—and fragility and impermanence—that it is. Mahayana Buddhists call this suchness, things just as they are—fleeting, impermanent, and yes, enough. It is enough that they are simply what they are. They did not have to be more to be worthy of cherishment.

Technically, the editing is also a marvel as it layers and juxtaposes moments of time, each moment suddenly appearing precious: drinking water at the bar, dancing with your sister, speaking French, discussing whether to have children (and the problem of legacy as if we can cheat death by leaving something behind). Even walking in the forest to scatter ashes. Despite our ecological rapacity, there are still sword ferns and western red cedars and western hemlocks and Douglas firs, and their power remains in this moment irrefutable: that they are there.

I loved this film. It is beautiful and honest and it moved me to my core.

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Read other reviews of my film here. Learn more about the film at its official page, or check out the trailer below.
Contact me via the About page if you'd like a secure link to see the film!

I. Repulsion

They slobber past you with their bodies, at once aimless and committed, a sort of slow-motion resolve in that stumbling post-COVID gait we now know so well. Never before have they existed in such casual profusion. There were more closed doors back then, places to hide, institutions to rely on. Now things are different. As long as drugs are more accessible than solutions, people will medicate their problems with the former.

You can kill yourself at Third and Pike now for eighty-eight cents.

It is easy for we the sober-minded to laugh, to marvel at the stupidity of strangers. Look at them, sagging their pants below the knees, fishing through litter, pawing at the cement not for scraps of food but for the smallest, most unlikely hint of a fix. Here is one sitting in a pool of his own excrement, another huffing down stolen ice cream to rebalance his blood sugar, snot glazing across his mustache and lips, feeding into blood from open sores. “They pay money to look like that,” a scruffy but drug-free passenger on my bus chuckled as he watched them outside, incredulously. “They actually pay money to fall asleep! Idiots. Dumbasses!”

Look at their muscles collapsing from the hips up, a new generation that stands with head and knees at equal height, legs bent and bending lower, keeling over from a high finally, reaching for the earth’s opposite horizon. The comical walk and Dickensian squalor of their clothes and skin, almost a dress code by this point; we call them lost, these haphazard solipsists, slinking ever onward in their knock-kneed gait.

They are so easy to ridicule. 

II. However

There is always a however, and never moreso than here. We the Sober can involve the future in our decision-making. We can consider others. The addicted brain does not. Its comprehension of the future only extends as far as acquiring its next fix: an hour maybe, or less than that. Life is measured in blinkered minutes. Only in such a tunnel can the decisions we see out here begin to make sense.

Do you know what an accomplishment it is, to resist a pill? To flush your supply down the toilet, say no, ask for help?  These are actions harder and more worthy of our praise than winning the Nobel Prize. The trepidatious tender courage needed moves me more than those who win elections, run companies, more than lofty resumes and mantles stuffed with trophies. Is an achievement somehow less, because it goes unrecorded? Particularly with what I know about addiction’s effect on brain chemistry, I bow to the person who finds it in themselves to refuse a drink, pill, straw, needle, powder, patch. 

These are the silent accomplishments. Imagine regarding your strung-out self in a bathroom mirror (at a gas station, at a mansion), and seeing those gaunt eyes staring back, as you remember who you thought you could one day be. Not this. You remember you can still start over, and then you do so. You act.

That is the battle these people are trying to win. It is a shameful and humiliating battle but they fight it in public, ignominiously, while the rest of us shake our heads and judge. These people deserve pity, not ridicule.

“They” were all you and me once, children with prospects and dreams, things that made them excited and sad and hopeful. They did not know they would one day start fights over nothing, soil themselves in public, walk into the road not caring if they live or die. 

They did not know the halfway point of their lives when it whizzed right past them.

III. Personally

I attended elementary and junior high school with a girl named Alana. Being the same age we shared many classes, sitting next to each other in Math and Language Arts, and again in Social Studies. She was pretty and kind and smart enough. Many years later she'd board my 3/4 with her Shih Tzu in tow, surprised when I remembered her full name. She recalled mine as well. We trundled down Third Avenue in good spirits. She was searching her cluttered bags for her phone, thrilled when it began ringing. “Bye, Nathan Vass!” she called out as she left. 

Everything seemed fine.

Then I would see her intermittently, across several years. A decline was underway. I began seeing her in the unforgiving back alleys of the city, too much makeup now, a puffy jacket and flip-flops in cold weather; with different men each time. Shame crept into her gaze, and then the rest. The only constant was her smile to me and the dog, always her faithful Shih Tzu accompanying her. 
“I'm glad he's always at your side,” I'd say.
“We've been through a lot together,” she'd reply.
Alana would die before either of us reached twenty-five. Alana McCrawley from Math class and Language Arts, who remembered my full name. Her dog would end up outliving her.

What was her final thought?

I stop for the people at 12th and Jackson. I don't pass them up, and they know that. I want them to know that. Somebody there will always wave if they want me, almost frantically, because they’re so used to being passed by. I respond with my own wave. Some of my favorite passengers out here. “Aw, it's Nathan,” one said recently, with happy relief. “He's not gonna fuck with us!” I want them to know my bus is a little different. This is the guy who cares, who doesn't look down on us. That's what I'm trying for.

Some of them will make it out and live to tell me about it. Some already have. Others of us don't know that we'll unravel, a paycheck or a bottle of pain medication away from Western society's most slippery slope. Maybe it'll be us one day, stumbling against glass and concrete dirt, another slipshod pants-sagging drifter in search of joy, meaning, conscience, belonging… wondering where it all went, baffled by how elusive those things are now. Who among them used to have it easy? Who among them once snickered, looking outside, really believing themselves as they laughed, that'll never be me.

Do not be too quick to sneer. The story is not over yet.

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More on this whole situation here: State of the (Seattle) Union

We are still in the era of virtual events. Here's another, now passed but recorded for your pleasure– wherein I discuss all things transit, COVID, writing, kindness, and the condition of the street. Like all Zoom videos it's not up to snuff in terms of the cinematography and image quality that we might prefer, but hopefully the content is enough to maintain interest. Huge, huge  gratitude to Brock Howell and everyone at SnoTrac for putting this together and hosting me. It was an honor and a treat to meet you all!

For more speeches and talks of mine click here.

Enjoy!

I get as many, if not more comments about my book now than I did when it was a bestseller four years ago, back during those long-lost pre-COVID days. We see differently now, and know to value certain things which we previously took for granted. With the advent of certain social justice movements there are obvious ways in which the book has become more topical, but there are also other things the book celebrates, which feel rarer now and thusly more precious, more worth cherishing. It isn't just institutional competence which has faded from view. There are actions we can take as individuals, ways of choosing to see, which feel deeply valuable in this new time. It is lonelier to realize them, and sometimes feels more hopeless, but it is worth it. It is worth it for the occasional burst of joyful light. It is worth it because like attracts like. We find each other by being our best selves.

And it is worth it because you don't change the world by trying to change the world. You do it by changing the person next to you. And how do you do that? Not by trying to change them (you can't), but by being your best self. Leading by example. Motivating the people around you to observe, reflect on, consider how you choose to live life. You can be the light. I know that's harder to do now, but it's in exactly these sorts of times when it's most needed, valuable, and inspiring. Thank you to the people around me who glow, who inspire me every day and night, from my closest friends to my colleagues down to the faces on the street which beam out gratitude and present verve.

Please enjoy the video above, which is two stories from my book, along with an introduction situating how the book plays in today's landscape. Many thanks to the fine folks at Chin Music and AWP at large for hosting me.

I post new material here at the beginning of every month. Check back every 1st!

“Researchers detected methamphetamine in 98% of surface samples and 100% of air samples, while fentanyl was detected in 46% of surface and 25% of air samples. One air sample exceeded federal recommendations for airborne fentanyl exposure at work established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

These facts, and a host of others included in UW’s excellent new study, will surprise only those who don’t use transit. For the rest of us they confirm, finally, in concrete terms for all to see, a sense of what it is to work with the public on street level in post-COVID Seattle. I encourage reviewing the report itself, not just the press release or even the executive summary. There's a lot in there, and it can't be summed up in a word, other than to say that Marissa Baker, PhD, and team’s study is the first of its kind. No entity has studied the presence of airborne drug fumes in public spaces before, and Seattle is the ideal metropolis to start with: a city where non-users are forced to inhale fumes of the deadliest street drugs in existence, day after day. Some of the findings are comforting; some of them aren't.

We will continue to hear compelling pieces of political rhetoric, well-crafted speeches and declarations. We even have a brand new law allowing prosecution of public drug use (though no plan for how an overburdened judicial system would accommodate those arrests). It can all sound so promising on paper. 

But then you walk outside. 

What defines an activity as legal, or illegal? While a piece of legislation may declare a given activity unlawful, what matters is what the real-world consequences are. Needles, fumes, torches, foil, straw, brain damage, overdose– it is all 'legal,' practically speaking, because it is tolerated in broad daylight without consequences. My first experience with fentanyl was returning to the E Line after ten years away from driving Aurora Avenue. A young mother came forward to apologize for her toddler son, who'd vomited on the bus floor due to fumes coming from the teens smoking right next to them. Neither she nor I knew what fentanyl was back then. The mom escorted her sick child off the bus in bewildered confusion. An off-duty security guard riding homeward had to explain to me what just happened. This was the new status quo.

Third Avenue is populated primarily by commuters; the unhoused; street people; first responders; police; cleaning crews; and bus operators. These are the individuals most qualified to have an opinion on the state of the street. They extend over all political backgrounds, but there’s one thing they all agree on: Downtown Seattle is in terrible shape, and has seen no meaningful improvement in over three years.* If anyone’s telling you Third is now safe enough to take your kids or your grandmother, they’re not spending enough time outside. I’m waiting for change I can discern outside of a newspaper.

Studies like UW's are at their most valuable when they reveal ongoing institutional incompetence. There is more research to be conducted, and we should keep asking questions. But we know enough to know things need to change. What action besides words will we see? After the dutifully fervent press releases and concerned memos have aired, what then? Will my colleagues still have to call off sick on the road because of the resultant lightheadedness fentanyl causes? Will they, many of them new parents, see their long-term health impacted? Some have failed drug tests as a result of the work environment (which, now that we have the above data, should no longer be shocking). Will they have to face consequences they don't deserve? And all the while, my friends on the street. Will they still tell me of their companions overdosing? Will I continue to have conversations with parents where there is more silence than words, where what is communicated is too devastating to speak out loud? 

We were the city of the future. What no one in our past could have anticipated was a world wherein a public crisis is met by leaders not with outrage, not sophistication, not solutions… 

but indifference. 

Hand-wringing, squabbling, and lip service– that is, the appearance of action– has taken the place of action. When the only entities with the power to exert widespread change are structured like corporate bureaucracies, you know you’re in trouble because no organizational structure is better suited for abdicating responsibility.** Top-heavy managerial hierarchies seem designed for such abdication. It’s always the fault of some other department. They’re looking into it. We’re so sorry. 

Let me redirect your call. 

Pardon my scathing tone. I do not wish to offend, but to awaken, like a parent who knows she must use a firm voice, who does so because she wishes to impress upon her child the gravity of what’s at stake. By now it should be obvious that the powers that be (I’m not pointing fingers at Metro but at a far larger and more directly responsible municipal government power structure) do not care about their constituents. In this approach they benefit themselves in the short term… but not in the long term. Street people vote. People who are afraid to go out also vote. People concerned for the welfare of their fellow citizens, for the health and safety of themselves and their children… all vote. If a politician’s primary goal is to get reelected, they would do well to remember this. You need people to believe that you care. One way to start is by effecting discernible change.

Metro made its name on addressing a public health issue. James R. Ellis and others tackled a problem in 1960– wastewater treatment– and handled it so well the newly-formed group was given 100 days to put together a transit system. They succeeded mightily, starting a tradition of “failing forward” with innovative, concrete action and demonstrable results. 

Metro is now faced with another public health crisis. I believe if it had the autonomy to solve the situation itself, as it once did, it would by now have done so. But it no longer has that freedom. Metro is more or less run by the King County Council, who is itself beholden to abide by state laws governing what can and can’t be done, and for how much money.

As ever, the ultimate decisions will be made by people who don’t ride buses. By politicians who never set foot on Third Avenue. They don’t know the state of things out here. They don’t know our faces, lives, troubles. They haven’t lived the risk, felt the exposure, the wounds of mental and physical pain. If they did, things would've been fixed long ago. Most humans empathize with only the people they see in real life.*** And these powerful, well-meaning, and probably genuinely concerned folks aren’t coming out to see us in real life. If only they had the requisite courage and brass nerve to come down here and see. How will Downtown Seattle look and feel one, five, ten years from now? Time will tell. Since my long term health– that is, my life– quite literally hangs in the balance, I'm as curious as the rest of us.

Meanwhile. 

What are we individuals to do, besides vote? What am I doing, out here in the maelstrom? What I can. My arms reach a few feet on either side of me. That is where I can effect change. I greet the passengers at 12th and Jackson as the fellow humans they are. (Remember, fentanyl users aren’t dangerous. They’re generally catatonic. People with schizophrenic disorders, on the other hand….) I treat the people around me as if they’re already my friends, and it works wonders like you wouldn’t believe. I do it because it makes me feel good. Interacting with strangers has been scientifically shown to improve one’s well-being, sense of belonging, and overall happiness. I give, and give, and give respect, love, acknowledgment, and on a long enough timeline it comes back around in spades. It rejuvenates me.

This beautiful cycle does not require a functioning government, nor a city with its municipal affairs in order.

Thank goodness!!!

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*Further reflections (and nuance) in my deep dive on all things drugs and Seattle, here.

**Anna Patrick at The Seattle Times reveals which promises made on homelessness were broken, and how, in these two excellent breakdowns from 2022 and 2023.

***If you’ve been wondering why empathy’s been on the decline, this may be a factor. People spend less time with others in real life (or IRL, as the kids say) than they ever have. This is also why depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation are higher among young people than they’ve ever been. More here and here. Lecture by me on this subject, with works cited and further reflections, here.